Glossary
Planetary boundaries and their role in assessing the environmental sustainability of organisations

Assignation (principle of); assignation (principle)

Method for assigning a carrying capacity based on planetary limits to a sub-global system. This is a set of ratios enabling the scaling of the planetary limits framework to the system under study, which is generally carried out in two stages: reduction to the individual scale and then aggregation to the system scale. This method is based more on an ethical than a scientific choice.

Capacité de charge; carrying capacity

Refers to the "remainder to emit" (or pollute) that can be assigned to an individual, a country or a company. This "remainder to emit" corresponds to the maximum quantity of emissions (or pollutants) that can be generated by human activities to respect the various planetary limits.

Downscaling

A generic term for all the methods used to move from the global framework of planetary limits to its local...