Ecology, Resilience & Sustainable Systems

Introduction

The participants:
• describe key ecological principles and explain their importance for sustainable development and social transformation.
• analyze ecological interactions and material cycles and assess their influence on sustainable systems and resource use.
• examine planetary boundaries and sustainability indicators and derive viable strategies for sustainable transformation from them.
• interpret biodiversity and ecosystem services and link them to social and economic aspects of sustainability.

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- Ecological fundamentals, including ecosystem structure, energy flows, material cycles and the basic principles of ecological stability
- Sustainable development, including guiding principles of global responsibility, resource conservation and socio-ecological objective systems
- Biodiversity and ecosystem services and their importance for ecological functionality and sustainable social benefit
- Planetary boundaries and sustainability indicators, including ecological limits and sustainable scope for action
- Sustainable material and energy flows, including the ecological fundamentals of cycles and the sustainable use of resources
- Resilience in ecological and sustainable systems, including robustness, adaptability and basic transformation approaches

- Kandpal, V., Jaswal, A., Santibanez Gonzalez, E. D. R., & Agarwal, N. (2024). Sustainable Energy Transition: Circular Economy and Sustainable Financing for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Practices. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52943-6
- Petrovic, S. (Ed.). (2023). World Energy Handbook. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31625-8
- Ramjeawon, T. (2020). Introduction to sustainability for engineers. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429287855
- Ribeiro Hoffmann, A., Sandrin, P., & Doukas, Y. E. (Eds). (2024). Climate Change in Regional Perspective: European Union and Latin American Initiatives, Challenges, and Solutions (Vol. 27). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49329-4
- Versolmann, I. (2025). The development of energy policy in the European Union: Continuity, critical junctures and change. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003298403

Portfolio assessment

English

5

Lectures, discussions, exercises, case studies, group work

1