ABIOTIC
Non-living; devoid of life

AGENDA 21
A global agenda and plan of action for the 21st century crafted during the Earth Summit—the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a comprehensive set of programmes of action to promote sustainable development. Although non-binding, Agenda 21 represents a consensus of the world's governments.

BEQUEST VALUE
A non-use value, usually measured by willingness-to-pay, attached to an environmental or cultural asset that people want to transmit to their children or to future generations

BIOACCUMULATION
The accumulation of a substance (typically a persistent chemical or heavy metal) in the tissue of a plant or animal, generally through the uptake of water or food, at a rate faster than the plant or animal can excrete it, resulting in a steady increase in contamination over the organism's lifetime.

BIOCATALYST
A substance, such as an enzyme, that initiates or modifies the rate of a biological process and is generally consumed in that process (in contrast with a chemical catalyst, which accelerates a chemical reaction without being consumed).

BIODIVERSITY
Shorthand for biological diversity: the variability among living organisms. It includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

BIOMAGNIFICATION
The accumulation of a substance by an animal that preys on other animals that have themselves accumulated the substance. This process can deliver remarkably high concentrations of persistent chemicals or heavy metals to top predators even if the levels in the surrounding physical environment are quite low. Chemical burdens, built up over a lifetime, can also be passed to young via the egg (in the case of birds) or through the placenta and breast milk (in mammals).

BIOMASS
The total weight of a designated group of organisms in a particular area.

BIOTOPE
A small area with uniform biological conditions (climate, soil, altitude, etc.).

BUILT DESIGN
Planning and design aimed at reducing environmental impacts of the built environment through developing tools, strategies, advisory services and professional skills. It addresses environmental issues ranging from energy efficiency and water conservation through to environmentally preferable materials and waste avoidance during construction.

CAP-AND-TRADE SYSTEM
A regulatory or management system that sets a target level for emissions or natural resource use, and, after distributing shares in that quota, lets trading in those permits determine their price.

CARRYING CAPACITY
The maximum population (of humans and other species) that a particular environment can sustain without irreversible environmental damage.

CATCHMENT AREA
The area from which rainwater drains into a river, lake or other body of water.

CHLOROFLUORO-CARBON
A chemical compound made up of carbon, fluorine, and chlorine. CFCs have been used as propellants in spray cans, coolants in refrigerators and air conditioners, and in foam, plastics, and cleaning solvents. They are very stable in the troposphere, but are broken down by strong ultraviolet light in the stratosphere and release chlorine atoms that then deplete the ozone layer.

CLIMATESMART
An US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program to foster community involvement in designing, constructing or retro-fitting homes to perform more sustainably – to be water-, energy- and waste- efficient, safe and secure and cost-effective to operate. Such homes will meet current and future housing needs with greater comfort and lifestyle opportunities, as well as delivering continuing financial savings for residents.

COMMUNITY-BASED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Resource management at the community level where the community itself becomes responsible for decisions related to the allocation, use, conservation and management of area-based resources.

CONTINGENT VALUATION
A formal survey technique that requires respondents to specify their preferences for different goods or services and how much they would pay to obtain them.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
CSR requires that businesses account for, and measure, actual or potential economic, social and environmental impacts of their decisions. It can involve actions being taken that exceed mere compliance with minimum legal requirements. CSR suggests that commercial corporations have a duty of care to all stakeholders in all aspects of business operations. Stakeholders are those influenced by, or who can influence, a business’s decisions and actions, including employees, customers, suppliers, community organisations, subsidiaries and affiliates, partners, local neighbourhoods, investors, and shareholders.

COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
The appraisal of an investment or a policy change that considers all associated costs and benefits, expressed in monetary terms, accruing to it.

CROSS-SUBSIDY
A monetary transfer to one group of customers (or line of business) financed at the expense of another: e.g. the use of surplus revenue from an urban bus route to support the operation of a rural one.

DECARBONISATION
When applied to an economy, refers to the phasing out of its dependence on (carbon-containing) fossil fuels.

DESERTIFICATION
The transformation of arid and semi-arid land into desert, generally due to overgrazing, deforestation, poor irrigation and tilling practices, climate change, or a combination of these factors.

DIOXINS
A general term that describes a large group of chemicals that are highly persistent in the environment. The most toxic compound is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. Dioxins are generally formed as unintentional by-products of industrial processes involving chlorine (such as waste incineration, chemical and pesticide manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching), but also during the combustion of biomass, such in wood stoves.

DISTORTIONARY SUBSIDY
A subsidy that creates an unintended distortion in the allocative efficiency of the local or global economy (separate from the distortionary effects related to the financing of the subsidy).

ECO-LABEL
Information (typically provided on a label attached to a product) informing a potential consumer of a product's characteristics, or of the production or processing method(s) used in its production.

ECOLOGY
the study of the living community and the non-living environment in a specific area functioning together as an integral whole.

ECOLOGICAL CAPITAL
The ‘assets’ and ‘wealth’ of Nature when viewed as part of the development process. This capital can either be depleted, replenished or enhanced by human activity.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Qualitative improvement of the economic subsystem of society that is concerned with the production, consumption and distribution of goods and services to meet human needs.

ECONOMIC GROWTH
Quantitative measure of the change in size/volume of economic activity, usually calculated in terms of gross national product (GNP).

ECONOMY IN TRANSITION
A country that is moving from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICE
A service provided by group of organisms (including humans in some cases) that is directly or indirectly beneficial to humans. Examples include the conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen by photosynthesising plants, and the detoxification of harmful chemicals by aquatic and soil-based microbes.

ECOSYSTEM
A dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment, interacting as a functional unit.

END-OF-PIPE TECHNOLOGY
A technology designed to control pollution from another technology, generally installed at the point of emission.

ENVIRONMENTAL TAX
A tax that is of major relevance for the environment, regardless of its specific purpose or name.

ENVIRONMENT
The ecosystem in which an organisms or a species lives, including both the physical environment and the other organisms with which it comes in contact.

EUTROPHICATION
The process by which a body of water accumulates nutrients, particularly nitrates and phosphates. This process can be accelerated by nutrient-rich runoff or seepage from agricultural land or from sewage outfalls, leading to rapid and excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants and undesirable changes in water quality.

EXISTENCE VALUE
The value to an individual of knowing that a particular environmental or cultural asset exists. It is independent of any use that the person may make of the asset.

EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY
An obligation placed on one or more producers of a product to take back the product for recycling or safe disposal.

EXTERNALITY
A non-market effect on the utility of an individual, or on the costs of a firm, from variables that are under the control of some other agent.

FOOTPRINT
Also described as a carbon footprint, the greenhouse footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment, in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide.

GENETIC DIVERSITY
The variation in the genetic composition of individuals within or among species; the heritable genetic variation within and among populations.

GENUINE SAVING
A measure of sustainable development that corrects the traditional measure of gross savings for the monetary value of the degradation of natural capital, and of the accumulation of human capital.

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
Literally, the heat of the earth. Where this heat occurs close to the earth's surface, and is able to maintain a temperature in the surrounding rock or water at or above 150 degrees C, it may be tapped to drive steam turbines.

GOVERNANCE
The way that a corporation or government organises and carries out its economic, political and administrative authority.

GRANDFATHERING
Granting an existing firm a legal exemption from a new or changed policy. In the case of tradable permits, it refers to the common practice of allocating permits to existing polluters or users of natural resources at no direct cost to them.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT
The rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere (water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, for example) trap energy from the sun. Because of their warming effect, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases. Without them, more heat would escape back into space and the Earth's average temperature would be about 33ºC colder. Similarly, their rapid accumulation in the atmosphere can lead to rising temperatures.

GREENHOUSE GAS
A gas such as carbon dioxide or methane that reflects infrared radiation emitted by the earth, thereby helping to retain heat in the atmosphere.

HABITAT
The place or type of site where an organism or population occurs naturally.

HEAVY METAL
A high-atomic-weight metal such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, uranium or zinc. Heavy metals can be toxic to plants or animals in relatively low concentrations and tend to accumulate in living tissue.

HUMAN CAPITAL
The collective ‘assets’ and ‘wealth’ in terms of talents and capacities of a group of individual human beings when viewed as part of the development process.

HYDROFLUOROCARBON
A compound consisting of hydrogen, fluorine and carbon. HFCs do not deplete stratospheric ozone, but they have global warming potentials anywhere from 90 to 12 000 that of carbon dioxide.

INDICATOR
A summary measure that provides information on the state of, or change in, a system.

INVASIVE SPECIES
An introduced species that invades natural habitats.

ISO 14000
A series of environmental management standards developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for organizations. The ISO 14000 standards provide a guideline or framework for organizations that need to systematize and improve their environmental management efforts. The ISO 14000 standards are not designed to aid the enforcement of environmental laws and do not regulate the environmental activities of organizations. Adherence to these standards is voluntary.

MAN-MADE CAPITAL
The manufactured means of production, such as machinery, equipment and structures, but also non-production related infrastructure, non-tangible assets, and the financial assets that provide command over current and future output streams. Also referred to as "human-made" or "manufactured" capital.

MARKET FAILURE
A situation wherein market prices do not reflect the social opportunity cost of production or consumption. External effects or externalities are evidence of a market failure.

MARKET PRICE SUPPORT
An indicator of the annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers (where export subsidies are given) to producers (if the difference is positive) or from producers to consumers (if negative) arising from policy measures that create a gap between domestic market prices and the border price of the good or service in question.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINABLE YIELD
The maximum amount of a renewable resource that can be harvested over an indefinite period without causing its stock to be depleted.

NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
The framework for recording the economic transactions of a country in monetary terms.

NATURAL CAPITAL
The renewable and non-renewable resources that enter the production process and satisfy consumption needs, as well as environmental assets that have amenity and productive use, and natural features, such as the ozone layer that are essential for supporting life.

NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES
Republics of the former Soviet Union that have since the early 1990s become sovereign states.

NON-MARKET VALUE
The value of an asset not reflected in market prices. Generally it includes non-use values and those indirect use values (such as certain ecosystem services) and option or quasi-option values for which there is no market.

NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCE
A resource with a more or less finite initial endowment that can be depleted over time.

NON-USE VALUE
The value to humans derived purely from the fact that an environmental or cultural asset exists, even if they never intend to use it or see it in person. It is can be further sub-divided into existence value and bequest value.

OFF-GRID ELECTRICITY
Electricity produced by small generating units that are not connected to high-voltage transmission lines.

OPTION VALUE
The benefits accruing to individuals not from the actual use of an environmental asset, but from the option to use it in the future.

OZONE LAYER
The region of the stratosphere (lying approximately 15-40 km above the Earth's surface) that contains the bulk of the world's atmospheric ozone.

OZONE
A chemically unstable and highly reactive gas (each molecule of which consists of three atoms of oxygen in contrast with the usual two) found mainly at ground level in cities and in the stratosphere. At ground level, ozone can be a lung irritant. In the stratospheric ozone layer, the gas plays an important role in protecting the Earth's surface from high levels of biologically damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which is known to be a significant risk factor for skin cancers, eye cataracts, and the suppression of mammalian immune systems.

PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANT
A complex organic chemical which resists decomposition in the environment and can migrate over great distances, which bioaccumulates and biomagnifies, and which is suspected of being toxic to humans or other organisms exposed to even low concentrations if such exposure occurs over a long period of time. Examples include certain pesticides (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene), industrial chemicals (PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, which is also a pesticide), and unwanted by-products of combustion and industrial processes (dioxins and furans).

PHOTOVOLTAIC (SOLAR) CELL
Generally speaking, a device incorporating a semiconductor that generates electricity when exposed to (sun)light. The technology may be further sub-divided into crystalline, multi-crystalline, thin-film and concentrator variants.

POLLUTER PAYS PRINCIPLE
The principle that polluter should bear the expenses of carrying out pollution prevention and control measures decided by public authorities, to ensure that the environment is in an acceptable state (i.e. costs of these measures should be reflected in the cost of goods and services which cause pollution).

PRECAUTION
Action taken in the face of unresolved uncertainty, especially if the costs of inaction are potentially both high and irreversible.

PRESSURE-STATE-RESPONSE
A framework for the presentation of environmental information in terms of indicators of the pressures that human activities exert on the environment, of the state of the environment, and of society's responses.

PRODUCER SUPPORT ESTIMATE
An indicator of the annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to producers (measured at the producer's property), arising from policy measures, regardless of their nature, objectives or impacts on production or income. The percentage PSE is the ratio of the PSE to the value of total gross farm receipts, measured by the value of total production (at farm gate prices), plus budgetary support.

PUBLIC GOOD
A special kind of externality in consumption where the availability of a good to one individual does not reduce its availability to others (non-rivalry) and the supplier of the good cannot exclude anybody from consuming it (non-excludability).

REGULATORY CAPTURE
The capacity of narrow interest groups to shape regulations to suit their own goals.

REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS
The ex-ante analysis of the effects of a proposed regulation, or the ex-post assessment of an existing one.

RENEWABLE RESOURCE
A resource that is capable of being replenished through natural processes (e.g., the hydrological cycle) or its own reproduction, generally within a time-span that does not exceed a few decades. Technically, metal-bearing ores are not renewable, but metals themselves can be recycled indefinitely.

RESERVE
In geology, a reserve refers to an estimated quantity of a natural material (mineral, mineraloid, rock, gas or liquid) in the ground that has been explored to the extent that the probability of producing the material from it economically (at current market prices and with available technology) is reasonably assured. Reserves are sub-sets of, and not synonymous with, resources.

RESOURCE RENT
The financial surplus, after deducting production costs, associated with the extraction or harvest of a natural resource.

RESOURCE
Generally, a tangible asset. In geology, resources refer to accumulations of natural materials that are known or expected to exist and for which there is a reasonable assurance that a given quantity of the material can be recovered economically at current or expected future market prices using currently available technologies or technologies that can reasonably be expected to become available in the foreseeable future.

SOCIAL CAPITAL
The collective ‘assets’ and ‘wealth’ in terms of community cohesiveness when viewed as part of the development process. Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
The right of all sectors of society to equity, fairness and equality.

STAKEHOLDER
Somebody who has a "stake" or interest in a public policy, programme or, in some uses of the term, a corporation's activities.

STRATOSPHERE
The layer of the earth's atmosphere just above the troposphere, extending from 10 km to about 50 km above the earth.

SUBSIDIARITY
The notion that decision-making should occur at the level at which the people most directly concerned can take responsibility.

SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION
The demand-side strategy for changing the use of environmental resources and economic services so that needs are met and quality of life is improved for all, while regenerating natural capital for future generations. It is ultimately driven by ethical values and activating a sense of extended responsibility for consumption choices.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Sustainable development refers to development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development, (Brundtland Commission), 1987, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom).

Sustainable development requires that public policy account for economic, environmental and social objectives at the earliest possible stages of policy development.

TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT
A process for establishing common views on future technology development strategies. Typically it seeks views from a large number of communities, including civic groups, as well as academic, government and industrial research bodies.

THRESHOLD
When used in reference to a species, an ecosystem, or another natural system, it refers to the level beyond which further deterioration is likely to precipitate a sudden adverse, and possibly irreversible, change.

TRANSITIONAL ECONOMY
See economy in transition.

TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE
Captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success; using economic, environmental and social comparisons.

TROPOSPHERE
The region of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, extending from the surface up to about 10 km in altitude (its exact height varies with latitude). Almost all weather takes place in the troposphere.

USE VALUE
A value obtained through the use of an environmental or cultural asset.

VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUND
A carbon-containing compound, such as gasoline or acetone, that vaporises at a relatively low temperature, generally below 40°C. VOCs can contaminate water, and in the atmosphere can react with other gases in the presence of sunlight to form ozone or other photochemical oxidants.

WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY
The amount an individual is willing to pay to acquire some good or service. This amount can be elicited from the individual's stated or revealed preferences.