Abstract
With the passing of the 30th anniversary of the famous mile stone in the establishment of a sustainable future for our planet—the Brundtland Report—and its appeal to meet “the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 41), it is time to recapitulate on the efforts taken. The latest Living Planet Index visualises again how fragile the state of the planet still is, and which continuing losses to the natural environment this world is still facing (WWF 2016). This impact of humanity is dramatically interfering with the environment and will lead to an even higher degradation of global ecosystems in the near future. The current trend of misuse and misallocation of resources makes it clear that an urgent shift to greener management of environmental and economic activities is needed. However, while there is obviously a need for the establishment of a green economy and a transition to global sustainable development, a clear, universal path to a successful green economy has yet to be defined (Allen and Clouth 2012).
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- 1.
For an overview over the debates and achievements in the sustainable development discussion please consider: Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Agenda 21, Forest Principles, Convention on Biological Diversity, Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, The Future We Want, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Please refer to Chap. 4 in this volume for an in-depth review of the evolution and incorporation of sustainability in international law from the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.
- 2.
The green economy strategy in Tunisia aims at enhancing the sustainable management of natural resources, promoting sustainable consumption and production, balancing regional development, capacity building for adaptation to climate change, promoting renewable energy, improving life quality, achieving social equity and enhancing knowledge (UNECA 2016).
- 3.
For a list of best-practice criteria for defining the policy assessment approaches please refer to Sect. 2.2.2 “Model creation and customization” of the UNEP report “Using Models for Green Economy Policymaking” (UNEP 2014b, pp. 10–11).
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- 5.
Model generators that help representing the evolution of an energy system over a long period of time up to 100 years, while taking into consideration the environmental and economic situation.
- 6.
The long-range energy alternative planning (LEAP) is mainly used for assessing and analysing climate change impacts. It helps planning for GHG emissions.
- 7.
The data has been provided by the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment.
- 8.
The elements of the model were selected based on a literature review about solid waste management and the green economy in Tunisia (policy regulation, existing management techniques and the macroeconomic context), and with the help of selected international experiences on developing SD models for the solid waste sector, e.g. Cai and Liu (2013).
- 9.
An open source software used for simulating the System dynamics models.
- 10.
The model helps to visualise the feedback structure of a given system. Furthermore, it helps to simulate the value of any given element of the system for a specific period.
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Halioui, S., Heese, M., Schmidt, M. (2019). Evaluating the Potential of a Green Economy in Tunisia: A System Dynamics Modelling Approach for the Solid Waste Management Sector. In: Schmidt, M., Giovannucci, D., Palekhov, D., Hansmann, B. (eds) Sustainable Global Value Chains. Natural Resource Management in Transition, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14877-9_20
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