* United Nations General Assembly. Resolution A/RES/38/161, Process of Preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond, UN, New York, NY, December 19, 1983, para. 8.
** As in the Sylvicultura Oeconomica (1713) from Hans Carl von Carlowitz, a treatise on the cultivation of native wild trees, famous for its first printed mention of the term sustainability (Nachhaltigkeit). On the topic, see Grober, Ulrich, Sustainability: A Cultural History, Green Books, Totnes, UK, 2012.
*** Gallie, Walter Bryce, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (1956), p. 167.
**** See Roberts, John, and Piet Vollaard, ‘Yes, We Can... Up to a Point’, Volume 18. After Zero, 2008, p. 74.
***** See for instance Hawken, Paul, Natural Capitalism: Creating the next Industrial Revolution, Earthscan, London, 1999.
****** See Eurostat, ‘Electricity Production, Consumption and Market Overview – Statistics Explained’, 2012. www.epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu
******* Thousands of years of architectural evidence suggest that the human response to increased efficiency in heating or lighting systems is to build bigger spaces and thus offset any savings that technology might produce. For an early analysis on this matter, see Jevons, William Stanley, The Coal Question: an Enquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines. 2d ed., rev. Macmillan, London, 1866.
******** We argue elsewhere that implementing sustainability most implies the creation of ‘pockets of sustainability’, well-delineated conceptual spaces that artificially detach themselves of their unsustainable context. See index: pockets, and Gielen, Maarten and Lionel Devlieger. ‘Pockets of Sustainability’.