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Purpose: This research aims to investigate the role of project-based-learning within graduate sustainability curricula through the lens of key competence development. Project-based learning has become a widely recommended pedagogy for sustainability education. It is hypothesized that through collaboration, student autonomy and real-world application, students develop key competencies for sustainability. This paper also aims to examine the connection between project-based learning and competence development on a program level from the student perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This two-year comparative case study follows the project-based-learning journeys of nine graduate sustainability students from three programs: the Master's of Sustainability at Arizona State University, the Master's of Sustainability Science at Leuphana University of Lüneburg and the Global Sustainability Science Master's, an ASU and Leuphana collaboration. Over four semesters, the students each took part in four competence-oriented self-assessments and interviews to map their perceived learning throughout their programs. Additional contextual information was gathered from program and course materials and descriptions, instructor interviews and in vivo observations. Findings: The defining aspects of project-based learning including collaboration, student autonomy and real-world connection do contribute to students' self-perceived competence development. Student-driven and program-driven project-based learning experiences equally foster this result, as long as the pedagogical challenges of balancing support and student independence associated with each are mitigated through instructor actions, program design or individual student coping skills. Originality/value: The results of this research can support higher education institutions in designing sustainability programs aimed at competence development through project-based learning. The focus on the curricular and program level combined with repeated overtime student-reported attribution to specific courses and activities bridges the gap between individual course case studies and theoretical recommendations for curriculum design. In addition to length and depth, this study also forefronts student experience of curricula as delivered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability challenges the world faces today call for concerted and immediate action. Complementing problem-oriented, descriptive-analytical research with solution-oriented research could strengthen sustainability science's contribution to address these challenges. We introduce different types of solution-oriented sustainability research to structure the discourse, outline opportunities to advance this research trajectory, and close with recommendations on how to support particularly students and early career researchers in getting involved with solution-oriented sustainability research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: For professional sustainability work, graduates need to be able to work in teams and collaborate with stakeholders; in other words, they need to have developed interpersonal competence. There is growing evidence that project-based sustainability courses facilitate interpersonal competence development. However, research so far has focused on single case studies and on assessing learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of how graduate students learn interpersonal competence in project-based sustainability courses. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a multi-case study approach triangulating observations, semi-structured interviews and focus groups supported by Photovoice method. A comparison of three project-based sustainability courses in graduate programs at universities in the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Spain is conducted to gain generalizable insights on how interpersonal competence can be developed through project-based sustainability courses. Findings: Receiving inputs, experiencing, reflecting and experimenting are four learning processes supportive of interpersonal competence development. Interpersonal attitudes seem to be mostly learned through a combination of experiencing and reflecting, followed by experimenting; not surprisingly, interpersonal knowledge is mostly developed through a combination of receiving inputs, experiencing and (collective) reflection; and interpersonal skills seem to be mostly learned through a combination of receiving inputs and experimenting, or, more directly, experiencing and experimenting. Practical implications: These findings support the unique learning opportunities offered through project-based sustainability courses and can help instructors to better facilitate students' development of interpersonal competence. Originality/value: The value of this study is three-fold: (i) it provides a comprehensive picture of interpersonal competence, including attitudes, knowledge, and skills; (ii) it spells out specific teaching and learning processes; and (iii) it links these to specific interpersonal competence facets and components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Advanced skills in communication, teamwork and stakeholder engagement are widely recognized as important success factors for advancing sustainability. While project-based learning formats claim to advance such skills, there is little empirical evidence that demonstrates how interpersonal competence is being developed. This study aims to describe and explains teaching and learning processes of project-based sustainability courses that contribute to the development of interpersonal competence as one of the key competencies in sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: This study on an international project-based learning course adopted a multi-method case study approach, triangulating observations, semi-structured interviews and focus groups supported by Photovoice method through which students tracked their learning processes. Data collection and analysis followed a grounded theory approach. Findings: Learning through and from conflicts within a learning community can foster competence development in teamwork, communication and stakeholder engagement. This study identified inner and outer conflicts (within individuals versus between individuals or groups) as potential drivers of learning processes, depending on strategies applied to address these conflicts. Originality value: The value of this study is fourfold: it demonstrates how conflicts can be leveraged for students' competence development; it provides in-depth empirical data from multiple perspectives, it discusses the findings in the context of teaching and learning theories, and it demonstrates an application of the Photovoice method to track and improve teaching and learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation in general, and nanotechnology development in particular, happens often disconnected from people and places where these technologies eventually play out . Over the last decade, a diversity of approaches have been proposed and developed to engage people in the innovation process of nanotechnology much earlier than in their conventional role as consumers. Such 'upstream' engagements are conducted at stages when nanotechnology products and services are still amenable to reframing and modification. These engagement efforts have enhanced technological literacy among stakeholders and the general public. Yet, there is still potential for other types of impacts by leveraging links between nanotechnology and people's everyday experiences. The present study explores a novel approach for participatory nanotechnology assessment and design, called Collaborative On-site Technology Exploration (COTE). The approach allows nanoscale scientists and engineers to explore nanotechnologies where they matter to people and places. We conducted a series of COTEs in the Gateway district in Phoenix addressing community challenges of renewable energy supply, water contamination, and public health issues. COTEs are proposed as a step toward bringing together nanoscale scientists and engineers and community stakeholders in need for solutions to urban challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public funding agencies largely support academic research as an effort to stimulate future product commercialization and foster broader societal benefits. Yet, translating research nurtured in academic settings into such outcomes is complex and demands functional interactions between government, academic, and industry, i.e., 'triple helix,' organizations within an innovation ecosystem. This article argues that in the spirit of responsible innovation, research funding should build bridges that extend beyond the triple helix stakeholders to connect to peripheral organizations. To support that argument, evidence from agent network analysis gathered from two case studies reveals strong and weak connections, as well as gaps within innovation ecosystems in Switzerland and metropolitan Phoenix, USA. This article offers insights on how innovation ecosystems are aligned or misaligned with responsible innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local and regional organizations are designing and implementing interventions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through various programs and projects. These efforts have been less effective than anticipated, and emissions have continued to rise. Because awareness, intent, planning, and actions are all present, yet results not being achieved, the processes organizations use to select interventions may be insufficient. We derive criteria to assess intervention selection processes from the literature and use them to evaluate the intervention selection processes of a county-wide climate change mitigation initiative in Sonoma County, California. The initiative in Sonoma County is far short of its 2015 emissions reduction goal. Our analysis suggests the initiative’s process has shortcomings including poor coordination, a focus on end-use emissions instead of systemic solutions, and short-term opportunism. We also find that the governance of the county-wide initiative may also have been a significant factor in failing to achieve the goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite repeated calls for novel forms of innovation and governance, including responsible innovation, anticipatory governance, and sustainability-oriented governance, nanotechnology continues to be mainly innovated following conventional schemes – with persistent shortcomings and negative impacts. Shifting these schemes towards sustainable and responsible innovation and fully utilising the benefits of sustainable nanotechnologies will necessitate difficult changes across all stages of and actors in the innovation process. We outline an agenda for intervention research in support of such changes. The article synthesises insights from four years of research on nanotechnology innovation, anticipatory governance, and sustainability in urban environments, with a focus on Phoenix, Arizona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities in Phoenix are confronted with numerous challenges that adversely affect human health and safety, with disproportionate impacts on low-income communities. While some challenges are being addressed at the city level, new alliances at the neighbourhood level are initiating community development programmes and projects. This article reports on an intervention study carried out in collaboration with community representatives, city staff, and non-profit organisations to mitigate adverse effects of urban sprawl in the Sky Harbour Neighbourhood in Phoenix. Participatory research was conducted to design and test a tree and shade intervention. Challenges associated with navigating community desires and broader principles of sustainable development are discussed. The study offers a replicable and adaptable intervention research design aimed at empowering communities to meet urban challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary We present a comprehensive analysis of water governance in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Methods included interviews, workshops, and participatory processes. The study zooms in on water-related rules and regulations, people’s actions, and the physical water system that people depend on. The results indicate complex governance problems and provide focal points for sustainable governance efforts. Focal points include: respecting scarcity and the limits of groundwater availability; building broad governance capacity; reconciling disenfranchised rural groups; and supporting creative local leadership. The study asserts the need for combining critical governance analysis with transformational and solution-oriented research in support of sustainable water governance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability visioning—creating descriptions of sustainable and desirable future states—has become a prominent tool in urban planning to guide how cities are structured, how they function, and how they are governed. In this article, we present the application of a sustainability visioning approach (SPARC) in support of the City of Phoenix's General Plan Update. The study strove to overcome deficits in current visioning practices, including sufficiently accounting for systems relationships, conflicting values, sustainability principles and stakeholder input; combining public participation with capacity building; and linking creative with analytical activities. We discuss and draw conclusions from this study on how to improve professional and civic capacity for visioning as well as how to bridge the gap between advanced planning practice and research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sustainability research that strives to develop solution options to complex problems and involves non-academic partners has received increasing public attention. Given this trend, funding organizations, universities, and collaborating partners from business and government seek evidence for the effectiveness of such research. The article introduces a framework and methodological scheme for capturing the societal effects of participatory sustainability research. The framework was developed through literature review and a workshop with institutional agents. It accounts for both direct and tangible as well as indirect and less tangible effects. Effects include quality products, knowledge gains, increased decision-making capacity, enhanced networks, and transformational changes. Participatory research features linked to these effects include representativeness of participants, adequate level of interaction, and transparent incorporation of stakeholder inputs. The framework is translated into a methodological scheme, which we discuss based on exploratory testing. The testing revealed a number of challenges, including adequately incentivizing participation and dealing with memory distortion. We propose coping strategies such as collaborative participant recruitment, memory consolidation activities, and real-time study design. The article provides a constructive, yet cautionary aid to researchers, professionals, and funding organizations seeking to capture the societal effects of participatory sustainability research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Visions about the use of nanotechnologies in the city, including in the design and construction of built environments, suggest that these technologies could be critically important for solving urban sustainability problems. We argue that such visions often overlook two critical and interrelated elements. First, conjectures about future nano-enhanced cities tend to rely on flawed concepts of urban sustainability that underestimate the challenges presented by deeply-rooted paradigms of market economics, risk assessment, and the absorption of disruptive technologies. Second, opportunities for stakeholders such as city officials, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to consider the nature and distribution of the potential benefits and adverse effects of nano-enabled urban technologies are rarely triggered sufficiently early. Limitations in early engagement will lead to problems and missed opportunities in the use of nanotechnologies for urban sustainability. In this article, we critically explore ideas about the nano-enhanced city and its promises and limitations related to urban sustainability. On this base, we outline an agenda for engaged research to support anticipatory governance of nanotechnologies in cities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In Phoenix, Arizona and other metropolitan areas, water governance challenges include variable climate conditions, growing demands, and continued groundwater overdraft. Based on an actor-oriented examination of who does what with water and why, along with how people interact with hydro-ecological systems and man-made infrastructure, we present a sustainability appraisal of water governance for the Phoenix region. Broadly applicable to other areas, our systems approach to sustainable water governance overcomes prevailing limitations to research and management by: employing a comprehensive and integrative perspective on water systems; highlighting the activities, intentions, and rules that govern various actors, along with the values and goals driving decisions; and, establishing a holistic set of principles for social–ecological system integrity and interconnectivity, resource efficiency and maintenance, livelihood sufficiency and opportunity, civility and democratic governance, intra- and inter-generational equity, and finally, precaution and adaptive capacity. This study also contributes to reforming and innovating governance regimes by illuminating how these principles are being met, or not, in the study area. What is most needed in metropolitan Phoenix is enhanced attention to ecosystem functions and resource maintenance as well as social equity and public engagement in water governance. Overall, key recommendations entail: addressing interconnections across hydrologic units and sub-systems (e.g., land and water), increasing decentralized initiatives for multiple purposes (e.g., ecological and societal benefits of green infrastructure), incorporating justice goals into decisions (e.g., fair allocations and involvement), and building capacity through collaborations and social learning with diverse interests (e.g., scientists, policymakers, and the broader public). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Nanotechnology is widely associated with the promise of positively contributing to sustainability. However, this view often focuses on end-of-pipe applications, for instance, for water purification or energy efficiency, and relies on a narrow concept of sustainability. Approaching sustainability problems and solution options from a comprehensive and systemic perspective instead may yield quite different conclusions about the contribution of nanotechnology to sustainability. This study conceptualizes sustainability problems as complex constellations with several potential intervention points and amenable to different solution options. The study presents results from interdisciplinary workshops and literature reviews that appraise the contribution of the selected nanotechnologies to mitigate such problems. The study focuses exemplarily on the urban context to make the appraisals tangible and relevant. The solution potential of nanotechnology is explored not only for well-known urban sustainability problems such as water contamination and energy use but also for less obvious ones such as childhood obesity. Results indicate not only potentials but also limitations of nanotechnology's contribution to sustainability and can inform anticipatory governance of nanotechnology in general, and in the urban context in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of urban sustainability governance has developed as an institutional guiding concept to holistically address the vitality of cities under a long-term perspective and is based on the collaborative efforts of government, administration, business, science, and the civil society. Yet, the initiation and implementation of this guiding concept faces a variety of barriers, including deficient conceptualization, unfamiliarity, detrimental organizational structures, and inertia. We examine the initiation of urban sustainability governance in the City of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. On the basis of the reviews of administrative documents and interviews with staff across various administrative levels and units, we reflect on achievements and shortcomings against guidelines of urban sustainability governance spelled out in the literature. Our study indicates accomplishments in the conceptualization of a vision and overall framework to operate from, but also a number of deficits in specifying sustainability targets, applying governance principles, and evaluating impacts. Additionally, we discuss how administrative structures influence how urban sustainability governance is being implemented. We draw conclusions regarding general factors for succeeding in the initiation and implementation of urban sustainability governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario studies have emerged as a powerful approach for synthesizing diverse forms of research and for articulating and evaluating alternative socioecological futures. Unlike predictive modeling, scenarios do not attempt to forecast the precise or probable state of any variable at a given point in the future. Instead, comparisons among a set of contrasting scenarios are used to understand the systemic relationships and dynamics of complex socioecological systems and to define a range of possibilities and uncertainties in quantitative and qualitative terms. We describe five examples of scenario studies affiliated with the US Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network and evaluate them in terms of their ability to advance the LTER Network's capacity for conducting science, promoting social and ecological science synthesis, and increasing the saliency of research through sustained outreach activities. We conclude with an argument that scenario studies should be advanced programmatically within large socioecological research programs to encourage prescient thinking in an era of unprecedented global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User engagement, stakeholder involvement, and public consultation in sustainability research have received increased attention over the last decade. Key driving factors behind this are that social outcomes, policy relevance, and user engagement have all become requirements for securing research funding. Many articles have provided compelling arguments for the need to reconsider why, when and how users are engaged within the research process. We propose a typology of user engagement strategies in research, focusing on the actual research process and emphasizing types of engagement in research. We illustrate these types with a comparative analysis of empirical examples from three interactive sustainability research projects, based in Canada and Switzerland. The article discusses the challenges that require a reconfiguration of institutional and organizational structures to seize the full potential of interactive sustainability research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Readers are invited to imagine students helping to solve real-world sustainability problems brought to them by societal stakeholders and simultaneously learning about and contributing to sustainable changes in society. Effective sustainability research education engages students in just that. Higher education institutions are implementing this vision of education in entire curricula, individual courses, and extracurricular research activities. In this article, we build on the literature to describe a vision of sustainability research education and present an evaluative scheme for measuring its effectiveness. We apply the scheme to two sustainability research-education projects in Switzerland to test its applicability and to identify achievements of the projects and the areas where improvement is needed. Areas for improvement include collaboration between academics and practitioners, joint problem definition, and the guidance of students to participate successfully in collaborative, real-world projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses competence in sustainability research and problem solving. The focus of the article are the results of a series of workshops that were conducted, coordinated, and participated in by the authors, which were meant to increase competency in sustainability research and problem solving among university students, including one at the 8th Ball State University/Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) “Greening of the Campus” Conference and one at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). An overview of the key competencies graduates need to in order to address sustainability issues is presented, including systems-thinking competence, anticipatory competence, and normative competence.

Purpose – Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and extent to which, these key competencies can be acquired in real-world learning opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarizes key competencies in sustainability, identifies criteria for real-world learning opportunities in sustainability programs, and draws on dominant real-world learning models including project- and problem-based learning, service learning, and internships in communities, businesses, and governments. These components are integrated into a framework to design real-world learning opportunities. Findings – A "functional and progressive" model of real-world learning opportunities seems most conducive to introduce students (as well as faculty and community partners) to collaborative research between academic researchers and practitioners. The stepwise process combined with additional principles allows building competencies such as problem solving, linking knowledge to action, and collaborative work, while applying concepts and methods from the field of sustainability. Practical implications – The paper offers examples of real-world learning opportunities at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, discusses general challenges of implementation and organizational learning, and draws attention to critical success factors such as collaborative design, coordination, and integration in general introductory courses for undergraduate students. Originality/value – The paper contributes to sustainability education by clarifying how real-world learning opportunities contribute to the acquisition of key competencies in sustainability. It proposes a functional and progressive model to be integrated into the (undergraduate) curriculum and suggests strategies for its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contingent valuation method is a widely used, yet controversial approach for valuating unpriced public goods in environmental and ecological economics. There is ongoing debate about the validity of the willingness-to-pay statements this method elicits particularly then when ethically or morally 'charged' public goods are assessed. It has been assumed that a considerable portion of the public holds deontological stances toward and applies analytical moral reasoning to such goods, which distort willingness-to-pay statements and subsequent cost-benefit analyses based on stated economic values. Results from studies in developmental and moral psychology, however, indicate that the majority of people base moral choice, and subsequently trade-offs, on social norms, affective reactions, and moral intuition rather than on analytical moral reasoning. This article presents a small focus-group study of people in the UK (n =18), exploring whether their responses supports the idea that a considerable percentage of the public holds deontological stances towards the environment that influence their willingness to pay for environmental goods. The article contributes to the discourse on the validity of willingness-to-pay statements. From a broader perspective, it scrutinizes the importance of analytical moral reasoning and suggests that affective judgments and intuition are relevant to environmental valuation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: According to the targets set for sustainability, integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs is one of the main goals for development projects. A major challenge in the development field is cross-sectoral integrated planning and achieving multi-stakeholder consensus for collaborative joint projects, especially when sustainability is a goal. This increases the complexity of the multi-stakeholder interaction in decision making and requires enhanced mechanisms for stakeholder participation, coordination, and commitment beyond narrow self-interest. A critical aspect in the decision making process is to enable stakeholders to not only interpret and make decisions based on expert judgments, but also to appropriately involve the relevant parties in the research and decision making process. Therefore, scientific analyses in multi-stakeholder contexts have to be more transparent, participatory, and stakeholder-based in order to provide useful information to assist responsible decision making. This paper presents an outline of a stakeholder-based life cycle assessment approach that can be used to support sustainable decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts. The framework is discussed and compared to other common methods used to support environmental decision making in development projects. We argue that the fundamental concept of life cycle thinking can be effectively used to incorporate stakeholders in the research and decision making process, which can lead to more comprehensive, yet achievable assessments in collaboration with stakeholders. Life cycle thinking is not just a way to examine environmental impacts of activities, but also a way to comprehend and visualize a broader set of upstream and downstream consequences of decisions in development planning and implementation. A life cycle framework including the mapping of stakeholder involvement at each activity in upstream and downstream stages would give stakeholders a holistic view that they otherwise may not have. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Sustainable governance of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology is a demanding societal challenge due to the “technological throughput” of today''s and tomorrow''s social life. A prerequisite for sustainable governance is an integrated understanding of the factors, interdependencies and developmental potentials of the technological system under investigation. This paper presents a transdisciplinary qualitative system analysis on nanotechnology in Switzerland, integrating perspectives from science, business, government, and society. It provides basic knowledge about the systemic characteristics of nanotechnology development, considering innovation characteristics (visibility), consumers'' concerns (contact) and the analogy to the GMO regulation (moratorium) as critical issues. The study affirms the method of qualitative system analysis, when applied in a transdisciplinary setting, as a useful, straightforward instrument for the early stage of sustainable governance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Eco-efficiency has been established as a crucial concept for corporate environmental management. Most approaches deal with eco-efficiency on the level of the company or the product. However, given that companies have special budgets earmarked for environmental operations or investments, the question arises as to which operation within which domain is the most eco-efficient. This article presents an approach to supporting these decisions by calculating eco-efficiency on the operational level. The procedure is demonstrated using a case study of the Swiss National Railway Company. Investments and operations in the domains of energy production, landscape and nature conservation, noise protection, and contaminated soil remediation are assessed and compared. Decision-makers seeking an eco-efficient corporate investment policy will find, in this concept, a guideline for prioritizing various domains of operation as well as the operations within a domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, and the unprecedented social and economic costs it has inflicted, provide an important opportunity to scrutinize the interplay between the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the resilience of the communities they are embedded in. In this article, we articulate the specific ways that SMEs play a crucial, and underappreciated role in building resilience to human and natural hazards, and provide new opportunities to accelerate the adoption of sustainability practices through the configuration of 'enabling ecosystems' geared towards promoting sustainability in the private sector. We argue that capacity-building and experimentation are not only required within companies, but also throughout this emerging supportive ecosystem of policies, resources (i.e. finance, materials, skills), governance actors, and intermediaries to adequately focus investment, technical capabilities and innovation. Ultimately, we call for a new transdisciplinary action research agenda that centers on SMEs as pivotal actors and amplifiers of community resilience; while recognizing that these firms are themselves in need of support to secure their own capacity to respond to, and transform in light of, crises. This research program calls for recognizing and applying the lessons that the pandemic presents to the urgent need for accelerated climate action. This will be enabled by developing more targeted approaches to collaborative capacity-building activities in SMEs that feed into experimentation and allow for the accelerated adoption of deliberate and strategic resilient business practices and models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities worldwide are rising to the challenge of sustainable development, calling for large-scale and fast-paced transformations towards sustainability. Urban sustainability challenges are now being reframed as a lack of capacity of individuals and organizations to carry out such socio-technical transformations. This article expands on transformative capacity literature by elucidating the concept of actor-centric transformative capacity. It focuses on the unique role city-university partnerships (CUPs) can play in catalyzing and supporting effective urban sustainability transformations. Two case studies on CUPs in Portland, Oregon and Tempe, Arizona are used to identify determinants of actor-centric transformative capacity, their role in the transformative capacity of urban systems, and how they are built through CUPs. The article concludes with strategies for building effective CUPs capable of building actor-centric transformative capacity among university actors and city administrators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Cities in regions around the world, such as the Colorado River Basin, face severe water challenges and need solutions that deliver significant progress towards sustainable urban water systems. Real-world experiments help stakeholders learn about solutions and select the most promising for scaling and transfer, but the sustainability experiments literature lacks guidance on how solution case studies might be done. An analytical framework for sustainability solutions developed by the authors is applied in a case study of a water-independent house experiment in Tucson, Arizona to provide insight into whether it could be a transformational solution towards a city-scale sustainable water system. Findings indicate technical feasibility, despite the arid climate, with sustainable co-benefits, but city-scale transformational potential is limited by house size, cost, and cultural acceptability, with a risk of negative systemic effect. Further experimentation towards a more effective solution is seen as worthwhile and areas for improvement and exploration are suggested. Highlights • Water independent housing is evaluated as a transformational urban water solution. • Experiments from Tucson, Arizona show technical feasibility in hot arid climates. • City-scale take-up has significant physical, financial, and cultural limitations. • Improvements are possible and offer substantial city water savings. • Cost is competitive with local centralized supply augmentation proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transitions towards sustainability are urgently needed to address the interconnected challenges of economic development, ecological integrity, and social justice, from local to global scales. Around the world, collaborative science-society initiatives are forming to conduct experiments in support of sustainability transitions. Such experiments, if carefully designed, provide significant learning opportunities for making progress on transition efforts. Yet, there is no broadly applicable evaluative scheme available to capture this critical information across a large number of cases, and to guide the design of transition experiments. To address this gap, the article develops such a scheme, in a tentative form, drawing on evaluative research and sustainability transitions scholarship, alongside insights from empirical cases. We critically discuss the scheme's key features of being generic, comprehensive, operational, and formative. Furthermore, we invite scholars and practitioners to apply, reflect and further develop the proposed tentative scheme – making evaluation and experiments objects of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for specific knowledge of what people can do to mitigate harmful water conflicts. This need is evident in the rural dry tropics of Central America where people face climate change impacts, inefficient water management, and social tension. To address this need, we investigated why some local water conflicts escalated to violence and why other potential conflicts were avoided in Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica. We used interviews, focus groups, and a stakeholder workshop to analyse five cases. We found that violent actions only occurred when rural groups opposed government agencies in settings without mediating leadership. With one exception in a circumstance aggravated over many years, water users did not take violent action against competing water users. Distrust, which has been formed by legacies of ineffective rural stakeholder engagement, diminished the credibility of water-related information used in decision processes and thus prolonged conflicts. Active community-based groups respected by both rural constituencies and government agencies helped some people avoid difficult conflicts. Self-organised groups in other areas struggled to address disputes in settings with contested property rights, high socio-economic inequality, and low human capital. Using insights from Guanacaste, we outline practical conflict mitigation strategies fitted to a range of local water governance contexts found in rural Central America. Results suggest the need for incorporating certain types of peace-building processes in water management and development. The study provides a foundation for policy-makers, water managers, and other stakeholders to more effectively manage water disputes and avoid harmful conflicts in challenging regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A letter to the editor is presented discussing public perception towards the risks associated with nanotechnology, in the February 2007 issue.

Cities are hubs of social interaction, trade, and innovation. Yet, they face sustainability challenges of economic decline, social injustices, and environmental degradation. Urban planning is a critical instrument to cope with these challenges. Visioning, the process of constructing desirable future states, can provide direction for sustainability-oriented planning and decision-making and is increasingly used in this capacity. However, there is ample evidence that urban visions are often not designed along a robust set of sustainability principles. We analyze nine explicitly sustainability-related urban visions from Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Canada, USA, and Australia with respect to their sustainability substance, i.e. in how far they, broadly and in detail, adhere to sustainability principles. Using rough set analysis, we identify a number of procedural components that enable or obstruct the inclusion of sustainability substance in urban visions. Results indicate that the sampled urban visions do not substantially and comprehensively include sustainability substance, instead narrowly focus on optimizing the built environment, for example. Furthermore, the sustainability substance of visioning processes benefits from stakeholder engagement that includes capacity building, whereas some other types of participation obstruct the inclusion of sustainability substance. The study concludes with recommendations for visioning processes to yield urban visions with sustainability substance inclusive of a diverse and integrated set of sustainability principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the integration of material flux analysis and agent analysis as the basis for a transition towards improved regional wood management in Appenzell Ausserrhoden (AR), a small Swiss canton located in the Pre-Alps of Switzerland. We present a wood flow analysis for forests, wood processing industries and consumption in AR, accounting for different wood products. We find that the forest is currently significantly underutilized although there are sizeable imports of wood and fuel to this small region. The underutilization of the forest contributes to a skewed age distribution, jeopardizing long-term sustainable development of the forest, as the fulfillment of its protective and production function are likely to be at risk. The wood resources, however, are capable of satisfying current wood demand among the population of AR and wood could even be exported. Underutilization has two main causes: first, wood prices are so low that harvesting trees is a money-losing proposition; second, consumer wood demand and the current supply from forest owners are not aligned. Furthermore, cultural values, lifestyle trends and traditions make an alignment of supply and demand difficult. Consensus and strategy building with the relevant stakeholders on the basis of the results obtained from the wood flow analysis and agent analysis is a reasonable next step to take. We conclude that wood flow analysis combined with agent analysis provide a useful and straightforward tool to be used as the basis of a transition process towards improved regional wood flows, which in turn should contribute to sustainable forest management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Transnational collaborations between universities provide an underutilized opportunity to teach sustainability competencies emphasizing the global and local nature of (un)sustainability. This article asks: what kind of curricula and teaching-learning environments can we use in transnational collaborations so as to prepare future generations to address (un)sustainability across different scales and contexts? The article presents a glocal model for transnational collaboration for sustainability which combines the use of digital technologies for global collaboration with experiences and engagement for local learning and impact. The glocal model was designed and implemented in The Global Classroom , a collaborative project between Arizona State University and Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The model fills two important gaps in higher education for sustainable development. In the theory, it provides new concepts to think about the curriculum and teaching-learning environment of transnational collaborations for sustainability. In the practice, it presents an exemplary implementation that can inform the curriculum as well as the teaching-learning environment of such collaborations. The article concludes that transnational collaborations for sustainability ought to more systematically integrate curriculum reform with approaches to internationalization and digitalization of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments are crucial for sustainability science because they allow researchers to produce evidence about the causes of sustainability problems and about the effectiveness of solutions. Many laboratory and field studies, community-based initiatives, and pilot projects have been defined as experiments in this field. Yet, in sustainability science, it is still unclear what distinguishes scientific experiments from conventional projects or initiatives as well as how different scientific experiments compare to one another. In this article, we define an experiment as a scientific practice that relies primarily on an intervention and that allows for the production of empirical evidence . We show that, in sustainability science, researchers can have different types of control over the intervention (from full to no control) and that evidence can be about different subjects (sustainability problems or sustainability solutions). Relying on this differentiation, we introduce a typology that organizes experiments in sustainability science according to type of control over interventions and subjects of experimentation. The typology provides a synthetic, comprehensive, and comparative overview of the variety of experimental approaches in sustainability science. By providing a definition and a typology for scientific experimentation in this field, the article contributes to the further development of evidence-based approaches in sustainability science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We continue to understand little about how to best design and operate transnational collaborations between universities to advance research and education for sustainability. This article explores general practices in transnational research and teaching that can provide information and inspiration for the sustainability field. The article follows a systematic review protocol and examines 46 articles involving 147 universities engaged in transnational collaborations. First, it presents the main features of these collaborations according to: (a) locations connected; (b) objectives pursued and subjects addressed; (c) implementation. Second, it discusses how reflecting on challenges and strategies encountered in these collaborations can support transnational sustainability research and education. The article concludes highlighting success factors for transnational collaboration, including: combining local and global considerations; making effective use of digital technologies; capitalizing on cultural and national differences; and making the best of available resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to present an experience-based learning framework that provides a bottom-up, student-centered entrance point for the development of systems thinking, normative and collaborative competencies in sustainability.Design/methodology/approach The framework combines mental mapping with exploratory walking. It interweaves mapping and walking activities with methodological and theoretical inputs as well as with reflections and discussions. The framework aligns experiential activities, i.e. mental mapping and walking, with learning objectives, i.e. novice-level sustainability competencies. The authors applied the framework for student activities in Phoenix/Tempe and Hamburg/Lüneburg as part of The Global Classroom, a project between Arizona State University in the USA and Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany.Findings The application of the experience-based learning framework demonstrates how students started developing systems thinking (e.g. understanding urban systems as functional entities and across different domains), normative (e.g. using different sustainability principles) and collaborative (e.g. learning across disciplinary, social and cultural differences) competencies in sustainability.Originality/value The experience-based learning framework contributes to the development of curricular activities for the initial development of sustainability competencies in introductory-level courses. It enables students from different disciplinary, social and cultural backgrounds, e.g. in international education, to collaboratively start developing such competencies. The framework can be adapted to different educational contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disposal of radioactive waste is a striking example with which to trace the changing relationship between technology, society and policy when dealing with societally relevant controversial issues. The change is characterized by a transition from a technocratic approach to an approach with more intense cooperation and public participation. We analyze the societal discourse of a failed disposal project for low- and intermediate-level waste at the Mount Wellenberg site, Canton of Nidwalden (Central Switzerland). Insights are based on a case study in 2006, with focus groups, expert interviews, a media analysis, a representative canton-wide postal survey and targeted in-depth stakeholder interviews. The article focuses on the relationship of safety and process aspects. The data suggest that both are prime issues and people recognize the need for disposal of radioactive waste in a technical system but only if a fair procedure is guaranteed. We conclude that a sound balance between safety and procedural aspects needs to be found and thus a functional-dynamic view of public involvement is necessary, i.e. distinct levels of involvement (ranging from mere information up to empowerment) must fit the corresponding technical and non-technical requirements of a stepwise decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineered nanomaterials pose many new questions on risk assessment that are not yet completely answered. Thus, voluntary industrial risk assessment initiatives can be considered vital to the environmental health and safety issues associated with engineered nanomaterials. We present an overview of the general properties of nanomaterial products in the market, and how industry, in general, approaches issues of nanomaterial risk and safety based on a written survey of 40 companies working with nanomaterials in Germany and Switzerland. It was found that the nanomaterials in this sample exhibited such a diversity of properties that a categorization according to risk and material issues could not be made. Twenty-six companies (65%) indicated that they did not perform any risk assessment of their nanomaterials and 13 companies (32.5%) performed risk assessments sometimes or always. Fate of nanomaterials in the use and disposal stage received little attention by industry and the majority of companies did not foresee unintentional release of nanomaterials throughout the life cycle. The development of risk and safety decision frameworks in industry seems therefore necessary to ensure that the potential risks of engineered nanomaterials are taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Implementing sustainable development (SD) requires operationalizing this rather vague guiding principle in a socio-technological context. This paper refers to a notion of SD that stresses approaching SD from a systemic perspective. We first present the Function-Structure-Context Framework to appraise if and how systemic characteristics are considered in assessments. The latter framework includes a functional, structural, and contextual dimension, as well as the interdependencies of these dimensions. We then analyze four currently applied landfill assessment methods with respect to this framework: i.e., MCEA (Modified Cost Effectiveness Analysis), LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), RA (Risk Assessment), and TVA (Swiss Technical Ordinance Waste). With respect to the analyzed methods, we can reveal that each of them focuses on specific systemic dimensions in its assessment step, whereas none refers to the whole range of dimensions and interdependencies of the framework presented. We then propose the so-called Sustainability Potential Analysis (SPA) as an alternative comprehensive SD assessment approach, which has the potential to integrate the results of the other methods for achieving a systemic SD assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Assessing landfills in terms of sustainable development (SD) is a difficult task. Landfills might, for example, remain reactive for hundreds or even thousands of years, a fact that conflicts with the fundamental SD principle of inter-generative equity. The Sustainability Potential Analysis (SPA) is a comprehensive assessment approach that aims at assessing the potential of a system to hinder or support SD from a systemic perspective. In this paper, we present an initial operationalization of this approach for a pragmatic legal landfill assessment and its application to assess two prototypic Swiss landfills as part of a pilot study. Thereby, the six generic criteria of SPA are specified using 18 Functional Key Variables (FKVs), such as “control of pollutant release” or “resilience to intended human impacts.” The first results from the pilot study indicate that SPA and its generic criteria provide a purposeful guiding framework for achieving a systemic and comprehensive SD assessment that seems (i) to be feasible for practical application, (ii) sensitive for relevant SD issues, and (iii) transparent for the addressees of the assessment results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Nanotechnology is increasingly being employed in the areas of food production and packaging. Public perception will be crucial to the realization of these technological advances. We examined how lay people (N=153) perceive nanotechnology foods and nanotechnology food packaging, and we examined the factors that influence willingness to buy these products. Participants received some general information about nanotechnology, and specific information about four nanotechnology applications. Overall, participants were hesitant to buy nanotechnology foods or food with nanotechnology packaging. Results suggest, however, that nanotechnology packaging is perceived as being more beneficial than nanotechnology foods. Results further suggest that social trust in the food industry is an important factor directly influencing the affect evoked by these new products. As suggested by the affect heuristic, affect had an impact on perceived benefits and perceived risks. Perceived benefit seems to be the most important predictor for willingness to buy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]