Core 3 • Section 3.3
Resource Stewardship
Divergent futures, circular systems, decision-making power and progress towards sustainable consumption.
Possibilities for managing resources sustainably and power over the decision-making process
One planet, different futures
Neo-Malthusian, Boserupian and balanced stewardship perspectives.
Malthusian thinking stresses limits and the risk that population growth outpaces resources. Boserup argues that pressure can stimulate innovation and intensification. Stewardship accepts ecological limits while examining consumption, inequality, technology and governance.
Three-perspectives evidence table
For each perspective, record its central claim, two pieces of evidence, one assumption, a likely policy response and one criticism. Conclude which best explains resource consumption today.
Stewardship and decision-making
Households, firms, governments and international organisations have unequal power over resources.
Scale, power and time matter. People who profit from extraction or consumption are not always those who bear scarcity, pollution and waste. Stewardship weighs immediate livelihoods against long-term security and intergenerational equity.
Power map
Choose food, water, energy or e-waste. Map decision-makers at household, local, national, corporate and international scales. Show who controls finance, regulation, information and access; identify the weakest voice.
From linear to circular to doughnut
Three lenses for materials, ecological limits and human wellbeing.
A linear economy extracts, makes and discards. A circular economy designs out waste, keeps materials in use and regenerates living systems. Doughnut Economics adds a social foundation and ecological ceiling.
Model comparison and redesign
Choose a phone, garment, bicycle, food product or furniture item. Map its linear chain, redesign it using circular principles, then test it against the doughnut’s social foundation and ecological ceiling.
Circular-economy case studies
Compare business, national, city and local action.
IKEA illustrates take-back, resale and design across a global supply chain. China and Japan show national coordination and industrial symbiosis. Thailand’s Wongpanit network shows waste recovery as a local business.
IB comparison
Choose two cases at different scales. Identify the material loop and decision-maker; compare environmental, economic and social benefits; then judge which scale is more effective and the limits of that judgement.
The Sustainable Development Goals
The role of the SDGs and progress towards meeting them.
Goal 12 is central to resource stewardship, but links also run through Goals 2, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14 and 15. Shared targets and indicators support coordination, yet implementation is voluntary and progress remains uneven.
Goal 12 progress audit
Select three targets and their indicators. For each, record evidence of progress and evidence the world remains off track. Identify the actors with power to accelerate change.
Stewardship decision lab
Who should act, at what scale, and with which combination of strategies?
Resource summit and exam practice
- Choose fast fashion, smartphones, food waste, freshwater scarcity or fossil-fuel dependence.
- Assign producer, consumer, community, government, NGO and future-generation roles.
- Rank proposals for impact, equity, feasibility, speed and scale.
- Answer: Evaluate the likely effectiveness of resource-stewardship strategies at differing scales [10].