Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) and Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP) · International · Green Business Certification Inc., with the International Society of Sustainability Professionals as education partner
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersWhat 'sustainable' means and how the idea developed: from Malthus and Silent Spring to Brundtland, the SDGs, planetary boundaries and doughnut economics; weak and strong sustainability; the three pillars and their critics. It sets up the frameworks that later reporting, carbon and EIA subjects apply.
In the exams: GATE ES Section 9 (sustainable development, SDGs, hurdles); UGC NET Environmental Sciences Unit 10; UPSC CSE environment; SEA (GBCI) core concepts
How our questions for Sustainability Excellence Associate and Sustainability Excellence Professional spread across the units of Sustainability Science: Concepts, History & Ethics. Difficulty: 5 easy, 18 medium, 16 hard.
| Weak versus strong sustainability and natural capital | 8 | |
| Triple bottom line and its critiques | 7 | |
| Doughnut economics and safe-and-just space | 7 | |
| Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals | 4 | |
| Hurdles to sustainability: rebound effects, lock-in, trade-offs | 4 | |
| Environmental justice and intergenerational equity | 3 | |
| History of environmental thought: Malthus, Leopold, Carson, Limits to Growth | 2 | |
| Sustainability indicators and composite indices | 2 | |
| Brundtland definition and the Stockholm, Rio and Johannesburg conferences | 1 | |
| Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge | 1 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
What did Garrett Hardin's 'The Tragedy of the Commons' (1968) argue?
B. Open-access resources are overused by self-interested users
Hardin argued each user gains the full benefit of extra use while sharing the costs, leading to overuse. Ostrom later showed communities often manage commons well.
Further reading: Hardin 1968
According to the UN SDG Report 2024, roughly what share of SDG targets with data were on track?
A. About 17 %
The 2024 report found only about 17 % on track, with many stalled or reversed.
Further reading: UN SDG Report 2024
Which pair of SDGs most often shows a trade-off in agricultural landscapes?
A. SDG 2 and SDG 15
Expanding food production can convert habitats, creating tension between zero hunger and life on land; synergies are also possible through sustainable intensification and restoration.
Further reading: SDG interaction literature
Gross savings are 20 % of national income, depreciation 10 %, education spending 4 %, resource depletion 6 % and pollution damage 2 %. What are adjusted net savings?
C. 6 %
ANS = 20 − 10 + 4 − 6 − 2 = 6 %. 14 % omits education and pollution; 18 % omits depletion and depreciation's sign; 42 % adds everything.
Further reading: World Bank ANS
Which form of capital includes skills, knowledge and health?
D. Human capital
Human capital comprises skills, education and health; natural capital is ecosystems and resources; produced capital is machines and infrastructure.
Further reading: Capital approach
Who coined the term 'triple bottom line' in 1994?
A. John Elkington
Elkington coined it and developed it in Cannibals with Forks (1997).
Further reading: Elkington 1997
Which is a key criticism of the triple bottom line?
B. The three dimensions lack a common unit, inviting selective reporting
Incommensurability makes 'balance' hard to verify and allows cherry-picking; the TBL includes profit and people and was aimed at business.
Further reading: TBL critiques
What are the 'three pillars' of sustainable development?
C. Economic, social and environmental
The three pillars mirror the triple bottom line at policy level.
Further reading: Sustainability literature
How many dimensions make up the doughnut's social foundation?
D. Twelve
Twelve: food, health, education, income and work, peace and justice, political voice, social equity, gender equality, housing, networks, energy and water.
Further reading: Raworth 2017
What did O'Neill and colleagues (2018) find when assessing countries against the doughnut?
C. No country met basic needs within planetary boundaries
Countries meeting many social thresholds exceeded several boundaries, and those within boundaries fell short socially.
Further reading: O'Neill et al. 2018
Ten here, 39 in the app. The Laisha app has every practice question we have written to Sustainability Excellence Associate and Sustainability Excellence Professional in this subject, marked as you go, with timed papers, a jump-to-unanswered list and a certificate when you pass at 70 per cent.
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