Principles of sustainable management
Big idea: Sustainable resource management balances economic use with environmental protection and social equity.
The three pillars of sustainability
- Environmental: Maintain ecosystem health, biodiversity, and natural capital
- Economic: Ensure long-term economic viability and efficiency
- Social: Promote equity, community wellbeing, and fair distribution of benefits
Key principles
- Precautionary principle: Act to prevent harm even without complete scientific certainty
- Polluter pays principle: Those who cause pollution should bear the costs
- Intergenerational equity: Leave resources for future generations
- Maximum sustainable yield: Harvest at the rate of natural regeneration
- Substitution: Replace non-renewables with renewables where possible
- Efficiency: Get more output from less input
Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is the largest harvest that can be taken indefinitely without depleting the resource. Exceeding MSY leads to resource decline.
Exam tip: When explaining sustainable management, always link strategies to the three pillars — environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
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Management strategies
Big idea: Sustainable resource management uses a combination of regulatory controls, economic instruments, and technological solutions to balance use and conservation.
Regulatory approaches
- Quotas: Limits on extraction (e.g., fishing quotas, logging permits)
- Protected areas: National parks, marine reserves, no-extraction zones
- Legislation: Environmental impact assessments, pollution standards
- Moratoriums: Temporary bans to allow recovery (e.g., whaling moratorium)
- Certification schemes: FSC for timber, MSC for fish
Economic instruments
- Taxes and levies: Extraction taxes, pollution charges
- Subsidies: Support for sustainable alternatives
- Tradeable permits: Cap-and-trade systems for emissions or catch
- Payment for ecosystem services: Paying landowners to conserve
- Green procurement: Government purchasing of sustainable products
Technological and behavioural solutions
- Recycling: Recover materials from waste stream
- Substitution: Replace scarce materials with abundant alternatives
- Efficiency improvements: Better technology uses less resource per output
- Circular economy: Design products for reuse, repair, and recycling
- Demand reduction: Lifestyle changes, sufficiency, sharing economy
Exam tip: For evaluation questions, consider the effectiveness, cost, feasibility, and equity of each management strategy.
See how examiners mark answers
Access past paper questions with model answers. Learn exactly what earns marks and what doesn't.
IB-style question — Sustainable resource management [4]
A timber company wants to manage its forest sustainably. Outline how sustainable resource management could allow the forest to keep supplying timber indefinitely. [4]
How to answer it, step by step
- Stay within natural income
• Harvest no more wood per year than the forest regrows
• Replant felled areas to keep the standing stock constant - Protect the wider system
• Selective felling preserves habitat and soil
• Monitoring and certification check that limits are respected
Final answer
Examiner tip: 'sustainable' = use rate does not exceed replacement rate; tie each point back to keeping the natural capital intact.
IB-style question — Renewable share of energy supply [1]
A town's energy supply is 4 200 GWh per year, of which 1 470 GWh comes from renewable sources. Calculate the percentage of the town's energy that is renewable. [1]
How to answer it, step by step
- Set up the percentage
• % renewable = renewable ÷ total × 100
• = 1 470 ÷ 4 200 × 100 - Calculate
• 1 470 ÷ 4 200 = 0.35
• × 100 = 35%
Final answer
Examiner tip: show the division before the answer — a bare '35%' with no working can lose the method mark.