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Language: English
The Sustainability Shift: Refashioning Malaysia's Future discusses the specific ecological threats facing Malaysia and the intellectual as well as practical 'shift' required for a more sustainable future. The book explores themes of environmental degradation, climate change and imminent ecological collapse faced by humanity today. These issues demand an urgent response from individuals, industries and national governments. Yet, in most countries, national policies are still based on fragmentary thinking and unsound science. Malaysia, a resource-rich upper-middle income economy, is no exception. It will certainly make a difference globally if Malaysia – home to an important tropical rainforest with mega-diverse species richness – can make a transition to sustainability. Malaysia faces a spectrum of institutional challenges as it grapples with this transition. Instead of looking at environmental problems through a compartmentalised perspective, it is essential to understand the common root causes of an overarching unsustainability. The Sustainability Shift shows how, by reforming its institutional hardware, software and 'heartware', Malaysia can nurture an inclusive, sustainable society and also benefit economically by greening its growth.
Adnan A Hezri is an independent scholar and an elected Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. He specialises in comparative public policy spanning areas such as environmental policy, green economy, natural resources governance and sustainable development strategy. Until July 2016, he was the Director of Technology, Innovation, Environment and Sustainability at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia, and currently serves as its Visiting Fellow. In 2015, Hezri was appointed as a member of the United Nations’ International Resource Panel (IRP, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme) for a period of three years. The IRP focuses on strategic issues of resource scarcity, efficiency and decoupling. He is Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University – his alma matter where he obtained a PhD in Public Policy in 2006. His other affiliations include Member of the Advisory Council to WWF Malaysia, former Distinguished Visiting Professor with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia’s Sustainability Research Alliance, and The Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectual (API) Fellow. He has consulted for government agencies in Malaysia and international organisations such as the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Asian Development Bank in areas related to his expertise. Hezri’s research has appeared in scholarly journals such as Ecological Eonomics, Institute of Development Studies Bulletin, Natural Resources Forum and the Australian Journal of Public Administration. His co-edited books include Towards Green Economy (2012) and Facets of Sustainability (2013).
"In September 2015, world leaders committed all members of the United Nations to the Sustainable Development Goals for the forthcoming fifteen year period [...] Focussing on environmental sustainability in Malaysia, Hezri Adnan underscores the complex, often political challenges involved in achieving the goals. In doing so, he has done his readers a great service for which we are all grateful."
– Jomo Kwame Sundaram, former UN Assistant Secretary General (2005–2015)
"The Sustainability Shift is an outstanding contribution towards systematically understanding and acting on clearly the most critical issues and challenges of these times – sustainability and survival. This book will inform, inspire and ignite the kind of policies and practices necessary for the future we want."
– Anwar Fazal, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, popularly known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'
"[...] this is a major academic work on this theme of sustainability in Malaysia as well as the first major work on the sustainability theme especially after the UN had adopted the 2030 SDG global agenda. The book draws a balance between environmental protection and economic growth, a much needed public policy agenda today."
– Denison Jayasooria, Secretary General of the Society for the Promotion of Human Rights, Malaysia
"Hezri argues his case in an elegant and subtle language of an uncommon scholarship [...] For him, lessons are to be learnt from the present and the past, the scientist as well as the traditional farmer or inhabitant of the forest."
– Muhammad Haji Salleh, Malaysian National Poet Laureate
