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In a context of expansion and development of the tourism sector worldwide, assessing the tourism sustainability performance of regions or countries becomes an important goal of strategic planning as a means to ensure an appropriate balance between present and future opportunities of areas with a tourism-based economy. Due to the multidimensional nature of the sustainability concept and the difficulties encountered in its measurement, composite indicators have increasingly been used as useful tools for the operationalization of sustainability. In this paper the study of tourism sustainability of Spanish regions is addressed by building a composite indicator that uses multicriteria decision techniques for the aggregation and weighting of the simple indicators considered. The developed index allows the representation of both the weak and strong sustainability paradigms, as well as other compromising, midway concepts between those. Moreover, the sustainability performance of the studied regions can be easily compared and a fair ranking of the regions can accordingly be obtained, which can serve as a starting point that stimulates public and private debate and promotes improvement actions to achieve sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs are one prominent strategy to address economic externalities of resource extraction and commodity production, improving both social and ecological outcomes. But do PES and related incentive programs achieve that lofty goal? Along with considerable enthusiasm, PES has faced a wide range of substantial critiques. In this paper, we characterize seven major classes of concerns associated with common PES designs, and use these as inspiration to consider potential avenues for improvements in PES outcomes and uptake. The problems include (1) new externalities, (2) misplacement of rights and responsibilities, (3) crowding out existing motivations, (4) efficiency-equity tradeoffs, (5) monitoring costs, (6) limited applicability, and (7) top-down prescription/alienating agency. As currently practiced, many PES programs are thus of limited benefit and even potentially detrimental to sustainability. From this dire conclusion, we highlight several innovations that might be combined and extended in a novel approach to PES that may address all seven problems. Recognizing that PES necessarily articulate and even normalize values, our proposed approach entails designing these institutions intentionally to articulate rights and responsibilities conducive to sustainability—those we might collectively seek to entrench. Problems remain, and new ones may arise, but the proposed approach may offer a way to reimagine PES as a major social and economic tool for enabling sustainable relationships with nature, conserving and restoring ecosystems and their benefits for people now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancing urban sustainability requires an implementation of various measures such as environmental policy, behavioral change, and technological developments, which have to be taken at various spatial scales. However, choosing the right measures demands considering their potential contribution in reducing the environmental impact and advancing urban sustainability. In recent years, some attempts to assess the contribution of implementing various measures have been advanced by various researchers focusing on different components of urban environmental interactions. While these studies make a significant contribution towards the understanding of the impact of various measures taken for a specific environmental issue, they mostly ignore the diversity and complexity of the urban interface with the environment at different spatial scales, as well as the ecological economics perspective, which approaches the city as a system. This paper uses the UBSI index published recently in this journal, to evaluate the urban biophysical sustainability of the city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa (Israel) in 2014. Based on this data, future scenarios are developed, which examine the potential contribution of various policy measures and different technological processes to the city's sustainability. This examination is conducted while considering population growth and changes of consumption patterns as they are expected to occur until 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are calls for social innovation to help with the effort to halt biodiversity loss. However, research on social innovation and biodiversity is dispersed and covers a multitude of disciplines. A systematic overview of research on social innovation and biodiversity is missing and this paper contributes by focusing on social innovation to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss and unsustainability. The paper reviews research on social innovation in changing land use (agriculture, forestry, aquatic ecosystems and cities), in tackling exploitation of organisms (fishing, hunting, harvesting), and in addressing threats of climate change, pollution and invasive species. Across these drivers, we find a) a strong emphasis on social innovation as civic action for changing practices in addressing unsustainability, b) that social innovation research tends to focus on local experimentation although there are bodies of literature on policy-driven innovations and consumer/producer-driven innovations, and c) that there is very little research taking a critical perspective to explore negative or unintended consequences of social innovation. Drawing on the review, we propose three cross cutting issues that can be a focus for future research, practice and supportive policy: social innovation for nature-based solutions, social innovation for participatory governance, and social innovation for technology that tackles biodiversity loss. • Review covers social innovation tackling main drivers of biodiversity loss. • Social innovation for biodiversity focuses on civic action for changing practices. • Literature focuses on local experimentation with gaps on indigenous solutions. • Cross-cutting themes are nature-based solutions, technology and governance. • Transformation research needs a focus on social innovation and social exnovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of sustainability at the level of the agri-food supply chain is complex.Achieving sustainability in agri-food chains requires coordinated interaction between chain actors. The aspect of coordination is rarely included in the assessment of sustainability and current assessment methodologies do not allow conclusions about the linkage between coordination and sustainability. This paper analyzes the state of the art in the assessment of agri-food supply chain sustainability based on a structured literature review. Following the structured review that includes category analysis and content analysis, we develop a comprehensive sustainability assessment framework for agri-food chains across multiple stages. The novelty of the framework is to incorporate the dimension of coordination across chain stages as a critical sustainability dimension. The study contributes to research on the assessment of agrifood supply chain sustainability by incorporating the role of coordination across chain stages and its relationship with economic, environmental, and social performance. This essential relationship between coordination and sustainability offers several areas of interest for future research. The study also contributes to practice by providing scholars, chain actors, and policymakers with directions for improving sustainable strategies. • The paper is a structured review of sustainability assessment methods and coordination mechanisms. • The role of coordination within the sustainability assessment of agri-food supply chains is still unexplored. • The study develops a comprehensive assessment framework by incorporating coordination across chain stages. • Joint dimensions and multi-stage are critical framework's foundations. • Literature gaps are identified, and future research directions are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2030 Digital Compass aligned with the European Green Deal prioritize transparency through the digital transformation of the European SMEs paving the way to a more sustainable production paradigm. Thus, a twin transition is in motion facilitated by the New Industrial Strategy supporting the adoption of green business strategies across industrial ecosystems. This paper investigates whether the digital transformation and the decision to participate in public procurement as a transparent external funding source support adoption of business actions fostering sustainability transition. Data over more than 20,000 SMEs in the EU-28 over the period 2015–2019 complemented by country-specific attributes towards sustainability and institutional business environment are combined. Econometric results indicate that digital transformation fosters sustainability transition. Although participation in public tenders exerts a positive and systematic effect on the adoption of a sustainability supporting strategy, the two decisions appear independent indicating that SMEs are determined to shift the production paradigm irrespectively. Business operational problems affect but not deter sustainability transition. Business corruption in countries of low levels of sustainability impedes sustainable business actions, yet evidence favors higher transparency. The latter highlights the necessity towards building a coherent although adaptable institutional framework. This study contributes to SDGs 7, 12, 13 and 16. [Display omitted] • Digital transformation fosters business actions supporting sustainability transition. • Public procurement participation & firm decision on sustainable actions appear independent. • Business corruption affects SMEs only in countries of low sustainability performance. • Coherent institutions and technological adaptation incentivize twin transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main goals of modern sustainability science is to generate knowledge that societies can use to move toward more sustainable development pathways; however, there are few quantitative methods available to assess such pathways. This paper proposes a new index (the Sustainable Development Pathway Index, SDPI) that uses the Euclidean norm to measure the distance between the ideal and the actual development pathways of any geopolitical unit in a determined time frame. We test the new index by evaluating the development pathways of the 517 municipalities of the Brazilian Amazon, one of the world's last economic frontiers, from 1991 to 2010, by simultaneously analyzing indicators of ecological and socioeconomic infrastructures. We show that the region can be described as a mosaic of geopolitical units following distinct development pathways in response to the economic activities and extensive land transformations advancing from the region's southern and eastern borders to its center. This general pattern aligns well with the region's recent history. We outline a research agenda for using the SDPI to document the broad patterns of development pathways and the processes that make them sustainable or unsustainable. • The Sustainable Development Pathway Index (SDPI) is proposed. • SDPI measures the sustainability of place-based development pathways. • The Brazilian Amazon is used to test the new index. • SDPI is sensitive to local conditions and can be applied worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how epistemic analyses (Birkin and Polesie, 2011; Foucault, 1970, 1990a, 1990b) may assist with the development of sustainability economics (Bartelmus, 2010; Baumgärtner and Quaas, 2010a, 2010b; and Söderbaum, 2011) and the capability approach (Ballet et al., 2011; Martins, 2011; Rauschmayer and Leßmann, 2011; Scerri, 2012). It was the French social theorist Michel Foucault (1926–1984) who coined the term “episteme” to refer to the “possibility of knowledge” that determines the development of thought and knowledge in a given period. For Foucault epistemes were the “buried” foundations of knowledge that his epistemic “archaeology” could unearth. In 2007, Foucault was identified as the most cited author of books in the humanities by Thomson Reuters' ISI Web of Science. This paper begins with a brief definition and description of epistemic analyses. A summary analysis of the Modern episteme and neoclassical economics is then provided and this is followed by outline evidence for the emerging episteme. Finally the opportunity is considered for the emerging episteme to reinforce and enhance sustainability economics and the capability approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The assessment of total economic value has become a pragmatic and popular approach in nature valuation, yet criticisms have been raised. One major point of critique is that total economic value bases the monetary value of ecosystems purely on the flow of human benefits of services of ecosystems and consequently ignores questions of sustainable use of natural capital per se. This paper explains why total economic value by itself is in principle an inadequate concept to guide sustainable use of ecosystems and gives an overview of essential ecological theory that needs to be taken into account in addition to total economic value to fully include ecosystem sustainability. The paper concludes with a framework for combining ecological theory with economic valuation. The key elements here are theoretical ecological insights about ecosystem resilience and portfolio theory which offers an economic perspective on investment in biodiversity. Portfolio theory puts total economic value in a framework where investment in biodiversity is expanded to cover functional diversity and mobile link species in order to maintain ecosystem resilience and so fosters sustainable use of ecosystems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper puts forward a political economy critique of the perceived solid conceptual foundations of Sustainable Well-Being Indicators (SWBIs) such as ISEW and GPI. A particular version of ‘entropic net psychic income’ has been implanted as the main conceptual basis for these aggregated measures of sustainable economic welfare. However, a well-known limitation of SWBIs is that they do not prudently factor-in measures of investment and depreciation of ‘human-health capital’—yet this is a critical aspect of sustainable well-being. It is argued that under Fisher's psychic income framework, the heart of the indicator is a theory that specifies accounting for some sort of change in the human psyche, i.e. the stock (or fund) of human-health capital. Advocates of SWBIs cannot adequately account for the degree of human health or knowledge, because this is not their reference point—‘personal consumption expenditures’ is their reference point. Political economy seeks to avoid abstracting from the whole reality, recognising that endogenous processes of human-health capital formation are overdetermined. This paper thus argues that there is a significant conceptual shortcoming in ISEW and GPI, which, if left unattended will undermine the measure of theoretical legitimacy and empirical efficacy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper demonstrates how ecosystem services can be viewed and studied as a social practice of value articulation. With this follows that when ecosystem services appear as objects of calculated value in decision-making they are already tainted by the social and cannot be viewed as merely reflecting an objective biophysical reality. Using urban case studies of place-based struggles in Stockholm and Cape Town, we demonstrate how values are relationally constructed through social practice. The same analysis is applied on ecosystem services. Of special interest is the TEEB Manual that uses a consultancy report on the economic evaluation of Cape Town's ‘natural assets’ to describe a step-by-step method to catalog, quantify and price certain aspects of urban nature. The Manual strives to turn the ecosystem services approach into a transportable method, capable of objectively measuring the values of urban nature everywhere, in all cities in the world. With its gesture of being universal and objective, the article suggests that the ecosystem services approach is a technology of globalization that de-historicizes and de-ecologizes debates on urbanized ecologies, effectively silencing other—and often marginalized—ways of knowing and valuing. The paper inscribes ecosystem services as social practice, as part of historical process, and as inherently political. A call is made for critical ethnographies of how ecosystem services and urban sustainability indicators are put into use to change local decision-making while manufacturing global expertise. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

While the number of farm-level sustainability assessment tools is growing rapidly, concerns are raised on whether the assessment results of different tools present similar and valid conclusions about the sustainability performance of farms. In this paper we analysed the thematic scope of sustainability assessment tools, and compared assessment results from sustainability assessment tools. A coverage analysis of four tools (RISE, SAFA, PG and IDEA) demonstrated the diversity in approaches to assess sustainability at farm level. Tool developers select different (sub)themes and indicators, and apply different methods for measurement and aggregation of scores. This variability in approaches results not only in different tools, but can also result in different conclusions on the sustainability performance of farms. Decisions made in the development of a sustainability assessment tool need to be transparent to understand and explain the results of a tool and support farmers in a sustainable development of their farm. To improve the transparency in sustainability assessment tools we presented a framework describing decisions made in the development of a tool. An increased transparency in sustainability assessment tools can reduce the risk on distorted assessment results and actions, and contribute to the trust and relevance of future sustainability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban commons are currently not studied holistically under the rationale used by the ecosystem cascade framework. In this paper, we build on the ecosystem cascade framework to present a conceptual model that provides a comprehensive view of urban common resources and allows decision-makers to develop suitable interventions to meet objectives of sustainability and equity. The model looks at the role of and explains the linkages between urban commons' biophysical structures, user population characteristics, power dynamics, use behavior, benefits generated, and management strategies. The model adds to existing literature by focusing on direct benefits and equity and by elaborating on the role of transaction costs and management strategies in governing urban commons. Considering direct benefits allows for a complete picture of overall benefits while making governance decisions, as opposed to considering benefits received only through human effort. Focusing on power asymmetries between stakeholders highlights the inequities created in accessing benefits from urban commons. Elaborating on management strategies provides greater insight into the complexities of managing urban commons and the impacts that governance decisions can have. Finally, including transaction costs highlights the factors that influence costs of managing resources. We illustrate the use of the model with literature from urban India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging the diversity of preferences, goals and motivations of individuals is key to promote the effectiveness of incentive-based conservation interventions. This paper analyses the heterogeneity of motivations to adopt silvopastoral practices, a social-ecological innovation for soil conservation and carbon emission reduction. We use Q methodology to identify smallholders' views with regard to these practices in a community in the forest frontier in Chiapas (Mexico). The analysis uncovers three main perspectives: self-sufficient pioneers, environmentally-conscious followers and payment-dependent conservatives. We discuss these perspectives around three topics: smallholders' predisposition to adopt silvopastoral practices, their views about needing external payments to sustain their livelihood and the diffusion of innovative sustainable practices. We relate these perspectives with livelihood characteristics and with observed adoption levels under a pilot programme to promote silvopasture. Our findings suggest that incentives other than payments may be more appropriate for those more likely to adopt, and that payments could encourage rent-seeking strategies and not necessarily promote permanent behavioural change. We suggest ways for designing more effective and adaptive environmental conservation programmes to foster adoption and continuation of social-ecological innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scholars promote water governance as a normative concept to improve water resources management globally, while others conceive of it as an analytical term to describe the processes, systems and institutions around the management of water resources and water supply. Critics often highlight how specific water governance scenarios fail to deliver socially desirable outcomes, such as social justice or environmental sustainability. While water governance is often perceived as a technical matter, its conceptual and practical components are in fact based on multiple values that, nonetheless, often remain implicit. The present paper seeks to uncover this value base and discusses existing research on values from multiple perspectives, using material from economics, philosophy, psychology, and other social sciences. In different disciplines, values can be understood as fundamental guiding principles, governance-related values or as values assigned to water resources. Together, they shape complex relationships with water governance, which from an analytical perspective is understood as a combination of policy, politics, and polity. Introducing a new conceptual framework, this study seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for empirical research on water governance processes and conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops a framework combining a model of rational behaviour under dietary constraints, an epidemiological model of diet-related mortality, and a life-cycle-analysis model of environmental impact, which permits the ex-ante assessment of dietary recommendations in multiple sustainability dimensions (i.e., taste cost, welfare effect, deaths avoided, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and acidification). It is applied to compare in a French context the relative effects and efficiency of six popular sustainable diet recommendations. The results confirm the synergies between the health and environmental dimensions: healthy-eating recommendations usually have a positive effect on the environment, although some exceptions exist. Most of the sustainable diet recommendations appear highly cost-effective, but those most commonly promoted on health grounds (e.g., targeting consumption of salt, fruits and vegetables and saturated fat) rank highest in terms of overall efficiency. Moreover, the valuation of benefits indicates that in most cases health benefits are significantly larger than environmental benefits. Overall, the analysis reveals some under-investment in the promotion of sustainable diet recommendations in France. The general lack of enthusiasm in policy circles for informational measures promoting behavioural change may reflect unrealistic expectations about the speed and magnitude of dietary change rather than an objective assessment of the efficiency of those measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statewide referenda for land conservation are likely to entail a disparity between people who vote on the referenda and those who live in proximity to conserved areas, which may lead to a lower probability of passage than a more local referendum. This paper examines trends in voting preferences on statewide land conservation referenda in Rhode Island using precinct-level voting data. We identify two similar referenda in 2004 and 2012 and estimate a first difference spatial regression model that seeks to understand the determinants of changes in support over time. Controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and political ideology, we find that referenda support is growing in densely populated communities relative to sparse ones, and there is a multiplicative effect of rapidly growing dense areas. This implies urban areas are becoming critical supporters for the preservation of farm, forest and open space lands, despite being non-proximate to lands at risk of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One approach to assessing progress towards sustainability makes use of multiple indicators spanning the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of the system being studied. Diverse indicators have different units of measurement, and normalization is the procedure employed to transform differing indicator measures onto similar scales or to unit-free measures. Given the inherent complexity entailed in interpreting information related to multiple indicators, normalization and aggregation of sustainability indicators are common steps after indicator measures are quantified. However, it is often difficult for stakeholders to make clear connections between specific indicator measurements and resulting aggregate scores of sustainability. Motivated by challenges and examples in sustainability assessment, this paper explores various normalization schemes including ratio normalization, target normalization, Z-score normalization, and unit equivalence normalization. Methods for analyzing the impacts of normalization choice on aggregate scores are presented. Techniques are derived for general application in studying composite indicators, and advantages and drawbacks associated with different normalization schemes are discussed within the context of sustainability assessment. Theoretical results are clarified through a case study using data from indicators of progress towards bioenergy sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research into the negative impacts of synthetic pesticides, farmers in Latin America continue to use pesticides at high levels and at a high cost to social and environmental sustainability. In this paper, we present a case study of pest management strategies in small-scale agriculture, focusing on the unsustainable technological lock-in of synthetic pesticides. Of the 196 smallholder farmers we surveyed in the coastal Mala and Omas Valleys of Perú, 22% of respondents experienced pesticide poisoning themselves or by an immediate family member. Additionally, the two most common pesticide categories reported in use are potent neurotoxins. We hypothesized that the farmers in the valleys were locked into synthetic pesticides due to uncertainty, coordination and learning associated with adopting an alternative strategy. Logistic regressions revealed gender (male), consulting an agro-chemical technician, quantity of cultivated land, and apple as a primary crop to be important predictors of synthetic pesticide use. Our findings suggest that these predictors represent the lock-in of synthetic pesticides through network externalities, learning economies and adaptive expectations. We conclude with opportunities to transition to sustainable pest management strategies at the local level in Latin American communities through interventions countering the lock-in of synthetic pesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the governance of social-ecological systems increasingly recognizes a key role of bridging organisations (BOs) in transition processes towards sustainability. BOs can be defined as facilitators who allow for interorganisational collaboration. Our paper provides a more nuanced understanding of specific BO activities and their contributions towards urban sustainability. Our analysis is based on applying three complementary methodological angles (drawing on geolocalised data, interviews and action research) to 20 years of urban renovation investments in the city-region of Brussels. We distinguish between multi-scale, multi-actor and multi-dimensional tensions in urban renovation programmes and link these tensions to bridging challenges for BOs. Results suggest that the corresponding three types of bridging roles form a trilemma rather than a trilogy: the BOs in study have mediated one tension by de facto exacerbating another. Lessons from action research suggest that a wider use of temporality and shared language to communicate about urban renovation projects could attenuate the bridging trilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares alternative wealth estimates reported by the World Bank and in the Inclusive Wealth Reports. Although theoretical limitations and shortcomings are widely acknowledged in the literature, the extent to which the alternative approaches to wealth accounting matter empirically is not well known. Comparing the alternative data in levels, shares, growth rates, and monetary sustainability indices derived from them, major differences emerge between OECD and non-OECD countries. For the former, the alternative wealth estimates seem complementary, but only if a key assumption made in the derivation of inclusive wealth is violated. For the latter, the data seem much less useful. For example, depending on which data source is used, for the group of low income countries the share of natural capital in total wealth is either 36.8% or 60.4%, suggesting that extreme care must be taken if the composition of wealth were to be used to inform policy-making. Neither wealth data set provides a ‘definite guide’ to economic sustainability, but a combination of indices derived from both might be useful in a holistic assessment of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying environmental load displacement from developed countries (the North) to developing countries (the South) is of particular importance for understanding the environmental implications of consumption in the North and global sustainability. Based on a global input–output model, this paper estimates emissions transfers between the North and the South for eight types of air pollutants from a consumption perspective, with a focus on emissions transfers between the North and China. The results show that 14%–30% of air pollutant emissions in the South were caused by consumption in the North in 2007. There is a large ‘pollution deficit’ between the North and South, which significantly increased during the period 1995–2007, that favors the theory of ecologically unequal exchange. Although the emissions per capita of the North from production for most air pollutants decreased over this period, the emissions per capita from consumption increased or decreased more mildly. The decomposition of emissions transfers further shows that South–South trade in intermediates has played an increasingly important role in environmental load displacement from the North to the South. It is important to assess the sustainability of so-called ‘weightless economies’ in the North from a global perspective that takes environmental load displacement into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability certification (SC) is one of the most popular private sector approaches to govern social and environmental outcomes of trade in products from agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Based on a sample of 175 peer-reviewed articles, we use a novel mixed methods meta-analytical approach to study the success of major sustainability certifications in promoting sustainable (primary) production practices. We consider both qualitative and quantitative studies. Our main data source are the discussion and conclusion sections of research papers. We analyze conclusive statements about the success of SCs and categorize them into favorable, mixed, and skeptical evaluations. The picture is dominated by skeptical conclusions. Subsequently, we analyze how specific study characteristics affect this evaluation. The distribution of favorable, mixed, and skeptical evaluations is largely similar across the areas of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Over time, the share of skeptical evaluations has increased. Contextual factors such as primary sub-sector, or country show no significant effects. The evaluations are also largely consistent across different types of SCs. Studies focusing on endpoint sustainability outcomes evaluate the performance of SCs significantly more skeptical than studies that focus on intermediate sustainability outcomes. Furthermore, our study shows that the share of skeptical evaluations significantly increases when a study examines the success of SCs for outcome variables with high implementation costs. Overall, our review points towards a limited success of SCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change, which had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy, infrastructure, the quality of the environment and the well-being of its people. The current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of Russia. The paper employs the UN Sustainable Development framework of indicators and assesses sustainability of Russia using multi-criteria evaluation methods, namely the uncertainty randomization multi-criteria evaluation method “Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters under Information Deficiency” (ASPID). The analysis covers economic, environmental and social trends in Russia's development in 1985–2008 and assesses sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria. The results show the potential of employment of multi-criteria methods for the sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process. Such an analysis reveals the degree of harmoniousness of sustainable development policy. It shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments. This paper is one of the first to apply multi-criteria methods to the macro sustainability analysis in the dynamic setting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The regulating services provided by ecosystems are amongst the most important for the sustainability of resource use, and yet they are also amongst the least understood. This paper considers one set of regulating mechanisms – the buffering functions of wetlands – and considers the information needed to identify both the value of the services offered by wetlands, and their substitutes. Using data from a catchment discharging water and nutrients to the Kenyan segment of Lake Victoria, the Yala catchment, the paper models the interactions between agriculture and fisheries as mediated by wetlands at the lake margin. More particularly, it estimates the value of the forgone nutrient retention function involved in the conversion of the wetland to agriculture, and the scope for providing the same services through land use change elsewhere in the catchment. The total cost of the payments that would compensate farmers for on-farm nutrient buffering services is 3.86M US$year−1, or 35% of the total gains from wetland conversion to crop production. This finding contributes to an understanding of both the value of regulating services and how they might most effectively be delivered in alternative ways. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper argues that GDP growth in both developed and developing countries has associated costs that can outweigh the benefits and thus reduce sustainable well-being. This conclusion is based upon the findings of empirical applications of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) to a range of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The studies conducted on seven Asia-Pacific countries indicate that, in the case of five of the seven nations, more recent GDP growth has reduced the sustainable well-being experienced by the average citizen residing within them. Moreover, the threshold point at which the costs of GDP growth outweigh the benefits appears to be contracting (i.e., occurring at a much lower per capita level of GDP). This paper therefore introduces a new contracting threshold hypothesis: as the economies of the Asia-Pacific region and the world collectively expand in a globalised economic environment, there is a contraction over time in the threshold level of per capita GDP. As a consequence, the threshold point confronting growth late-comers (i.e., developing countries) occurs at a much lower level of sustainable welfare than what wealthy nations currently enjoy. The consequences of this for developing countries are clearly significant and require a new approach to economic development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper seeks to provide a picture of sustainability of the Northern Territory by analysing a number of sustainability indicators across indigenous status and remoteness class. The paper seeks to extend current socio-economic statistics and analysis by including environmental considerations in a ‘triple bottom line’ or ‘sustainability assessment’ approach. Further, a life-cycle approach is employed for a number of indicators so that both direct and indirect impacts are considered where applicable. Whereas urban populations are generally doing better against most quantitative economic and social indicators, environmental indicators show the opposite, reflecting the increasing market-based environmental impacts of urban populations. As we seek to value these environmental impacts appropriately, it would be beneficial to start incorporating these results in policy and planning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper analyses the link between sustainability management and economic performance. Its main research question concerns the association of social responsibility and environmental management with economic performance, determinants of the latter and possible moderation effects. Based on data collected from financial databases and Kinder Lydenberg Domini for the period 1992 to 2003, the paper analyses the link of corporate sustainability performance with economic performance using panel estimation techniques. The analysis shows that advertising intensity moderates the association of corporate sustainability performance and economic performance as measured by Tobin's q. For research and development efforts relative to firm size, no moderating role on the link between corporate sustainability and economic performance is identified. A sensitivity analysis using separate measures for social and environmental performance reveals that the latter only has a direct effect and the former only a fully moderated effect on economic performance. Policy and management implications of these findings are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In a previous paper (Ulanowicz, Goerner, Lietaer, and Gomez, 2009), we combined thermodynamic, network, and information theoretic measures with research on real-life ecosystems to create a generalized, quantitative measure of sustainability for any complex, matter/energy flow system. The current paper explores how this metric and its related concepts can be used to provide a new narrative for long-term economic health and sustainability. Based on a system's ability to maintain a crucial balance between two equally essential, but complementary factors, resilience and efficiency, this generic explanation of the network structure needed to maintain long-term robustness provides the missing theoretical explanation for what constitutes healthy development and the mathematical means to differentiate it quantitatively from mere growth. Matching long-standing observations of sustainable vitality in natural ecosystems and living organisms, the result is a much clearer, more accurate understanding of the conditions needed for free-enterprise networks to produce the kind of sustainable vitality everyone desires, one which enhances and reliably maintains the health and well-being of all levels of global civilization as well as the planet. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climate change and its consequences present one of the most important threats to biodiversity and the functions of ecosystems. The stress on biodiversity is far beyond the levels imposed by the natural global climatic changes occurring in the recent evolutionary past. It includes temperature increases, shifts of climate zones, melting of snow and ice, sea level rise, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events. Natural systems are vulnerable to such changes due to their limited adaptive capacity. Based on an analysis using the DPSIR framework, this paper discusses some of the important socio-economic driving forces of climate change, with a focus on energy use and transportation. The paper also analyses observed and potential changes of climate and the pressures they exert on biodiversity, the changes in biodiversity, the resulting impacts on ecosystem functions, and possible policy responses. The latter can be divided into mitigation and adaptation measures. Both strategies are needed, mitigation in order to stabilise the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and adaptation in order to adjust to changes that have already occurred or cannot be avoided. One mitigation option, increased biofuel production, which is also a response to oil depletion, would change land use patterns and increase human appropriation of net primary production of biomass, thereby threatening biodiversity. By considering the first order and second order impacts of climate change on biodiversity when developing policy measures, it will be possible to integrate ecosystem and biodiversity protection into decision-making processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper reviews definitions and uses of the Driving Forces–Pressures–State–Impacts–Responses (DPSIR) framework and argues that it is a relevant tool for structuring communication between scientists and end-users of environmental information, while it is inappropriate as an analytical tool. An apparently deterministic ‘causal’ description of environmental issues inevitably downplays the uncertainty and multiple dimensions of causality inherent in complex environmental and socio-economic systems. Consequently, the paper complements and reframes ‘DPSIR’ using a complex system methodology based on the distinction between four ‘spheres’ of sustainability (environmental, economic, social and political) and the analysis of their functioning and relationships. The pair-wise interface aspects are characterised through investigation of the ‘demands’ and ‘supply’ of each sphere relative to the others. Within the resulting conceptual framework, each of the five D, P, S, I and R concepts are specified, for application in integrative analysis of relationships between policy, society, economy and biodiversity in one of the world's largest European integrated research projects on biodiversity (ALARM). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper assesses the water footprint (WF) of different primary energy carriers derived from biomass expressed as the amount of water consumed to produce a unit of energy (m3/GJ). The paper observes large differences among the WFs for specific types of primary bio-energy carriers. The WF depends on crop type, agricultural production system and climate. The WF of average bio-energy carriers grown in the Netherlands is 24 m3/GJ, in the US 58 m3/GJ, in Brazil 61 m3/GJ, and in Zimbabwe 143 m3/GJ. The WF of bio-energy is much larger than the WF of fossil energy. For the fossil energy carriers, the WF increases in the following order: uranium (0.1 m3/GJ), natural gas (0.1 m3/GJ), coal (0.2 m3/GJ), and finally crude oil (1.1 m3/GJ). Renewable energy carriers show large differences in their WF. The WF for wind energy is negligible, for solar thermal energy 0.3 m3/GJ, but for hydropower 22 m3/GJ. Based on the average per capita energy use in western societies (100 GJ/capita/year), a mix from coal, crude oil, natural gas and uranium requires about 35 m3/capita/year. If the same amount of energy is generated through the growth of biomass in a high productive agricultural system, as applied in the Netherlands, the WF is 2420 m3. The WF of biomass is 70 to 400 times larger than the WF of the other primary energy carriers (excluding hydropower). The trend towards larger energy use in combination with an increasing contribution of energy from biomass will enlarge the need for fresh water. This causes competition with other claims, such as water for food. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper discusses the connection between environmental awareness and metering data on household consumption (electricity, heating, water), and it is based on recent Danish studies. It is discussed, how families'' understanding of environmental awareness and environmental practices relates to their overall household consumption. The paper indicates that residents'' environmental practices in everyday life are often overshadowed by consumption practices in other areas, and that such practices are often rooted in quite different rationales than environmental awareness. These findings are seen as an example of what Pierre Bourdieu calls the “economy of symbolic goods” (; 92), offering an explanation for why some symbolic actions apparently play a larger role than other, more environmentally serious consumption practices. From this, it is argued that the social structures underlying consumption and green behaviour should be recognised in the formulation of environmental policies, and that instead of using sustainable practices such as “environmental awareness” as a sales argument, more reflexive strategies that take consumers'' preferences into account should be considered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Economic growth has brought prosperity for large parts of the growing world population. But it also expanded the use of nature's resources and absorption capacities to a critical extent. The transition to sustainability that policy making therefore tries to promote may, however, have adverse effects on the growth path. If so, how will consumer welfare be affected? How can policy interventions be legitimized if they cause welfare sacrifices? How will consumers as voters react in the political decision making process if such interventions are proposed? For answering these questions the present paper develops an extended explanation of consumption behavior and welfare related to work in the human sciences on the evolved foundations of human behavior. The approach allows a differentiated view on the driving forces and the welfare effects of consumption growth as well as legitimization and acceptance problems of different sustainability-promoting policy options. • Economic growth has brought prosperity but also expanded the use of nature's resources and absorption capacities to a critical extent • If the transition to sustainability has adverse effects on the growth path, how will consumer be affected in their welfare and how will they react to the expected effects as voters in the political decision making process? • For answering these questions the present paper develops an extended explanation of consumption and welfare related to work in the human sciences on the evolved foundations of human behavior. • The approach allows a differentiated view on the welfare effects of consumption growth (or a lack of it) and on the acceptance of sustainability-enhancing policy measures in the political decision making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes a system dynamics model developed to inform design of a proposed environmental restoration banking system. The purpose of the proposed system is to facilitate restoration of extensive areas of mangrove forests that have been cleared or damaged in large part by expansion of the commercial shrimp farming industry. A case study is developed for mangrove restoration in Thailand; however, the model is seen as applicable to a number of countries which have experienced severe mangrove loss. The scheme is based on environmental mitigation banking principles, in which users of an environmental resource are required to purchase from a mitigation bank credits representing restorations undertaken to compensate for environmental damage, thereby achieving “no net loss” of the environmental asset. The scheme proposed in this paper differs from usual mitigation banking practise in that the objective is to restore large degraded areas over and above present rates of consumption. Model simulations show that the restoration banking system may be effective in restoring coastal mangroves and in rehabilitating the coastal shrimp farming industry that is dependent on environmental services provided by the mangrove stock. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: How do results from the sustainability research world of backcasting relate to the macroeconomic scenarios used for policy evaluation and planning? The answer is that they don''t, mostly — they come from different scientific traditions and are not used in the same contexts. Yet they often deal with the same issues. We believe that much can be gained by bringing the two systems of thinking together. This paper is a first attempt to do so, by making qualitative comparisons between different scenarios and highlighting benefits and limitations to each of them. Why are the pictures we get of the energy future so different if we use a macroeconomic model from when using a backcasting approach based on sustainable energy use? It is evident that the methods for producing those two kinds of scenarios differ a lot, but the main reason behind the different results are found in the starting points rather than in the methods. Baseline assumptions are quite different, as well as the interpretations and importance attached to signals about the future. In this paper, it is discussed how those two types of scenarios differ and how they approach issues such as energy prices and growth. The discussion is based on a comparison between Swedish economic and sustainability scenarios. The economic scenarios aim at being forecasts of the future and are used as decision support for long-term policies. But are the assumptions in the economic scenarios reasonable? The sustainability scenarios are explicitly normative backcasting scenarios. They do not take the issue of growth and consumption fully into account. Could they be developed in this respect? The comparison between the scenarios is also used to look closer at the issue of energy prices in a society with sustainable energy use. One of the questions raised is if a low energy society calls for high energy prices. Moreover, the effects of tradable permits versus energy taxes is analysed in the context of how energy use could be kept low in a growing economy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper argues that possible effects of international migration on the environment have to be analysed with respect to both the three dimensions of sustainability and the migration stakeholders. It has recently been put forward that immigration has to be reduced for environmental reasons. In contrast, this paper embarks from the view that reducing immigration is costly, ineffective and ethically troublesome. It argues that there are strong interrelations between development and migration, suggesting that one has to consider development problems when discussing migration. In this context, the enormous amount of remittances of migrant workers could yield considerable potential for promoting sustainable development. Sustainable governance is needed to manage this potential wisely. In doing so, it is essential to consider the migration stakeholders (sending and receiving countries and the migrants themselves) and balance the three dimensions of sustainability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: At the beginning of the 1990s, a combination of a sharp decline in shellfish populations and mass bird mortality in the Dutch Wadden Sea led to a conflict between conservationists and the shellfishery. The conflict gave rise to the establishment of a shellfish management policy in 1993. Although this policy certainly improved upon the old situation, without clear restrictions on fishing effort, the policy has been unable to manage the complex ecosystem satisfactorily. This paper addresses the question of why the conflict was not resolved. At the heart of the problem lie an improperly functioning co-management arrangement and general disagreement about which changes in the management policy should be adopted. In order to understand the fishing industry, the conservationist and the government positions in the co-management arrangement, we analyse what has been the impact of the current shellfish policy on the satisfaction of the objectives of the various stakeholders. We examine whether the implementation of alternative policy scenarios could lead to the establishment of a sustainable shellfishery. The case of the Dutch shellfishery is an important example of an unsustainable management policy. As such, this paper illuminates many of the problems faced by fisheries management regimes worldwide and suggests how some of them could be avoided. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In order to consider the depletion of natural capital in national income accounting, the World Bank has developed a composite indicator known as ‘genuine savings’ incorporating several environmental indicators. This paper examines the conceptual and empirical characteristics and policy implications of the measure. Analysis shows that the measure is conceptually and empirically imperfect. The policy implications based on this measure are erroneous. The paper suggests that a global approach is needed to appropriately address sustainability issues and to incorporate natural capital in national accounting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper reviews how the concept of sustainable development has played out in industrialized countries since 1987. It examines the theory and practice of sustainable development in the context of three criticisms (it is vague, attracts hypocrites and fosters delusions), and argues for an approach to sustainability that is integrative, is action-oriented, goes beyond technical fixes, incorporates a recognition of the social construction of sustainable development, and engages local communities in new ways. The paper concludes with a description of an approach to sustainability that attempts to incorporate these characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With sustainability issues currently attracting increasing political and policy attention, this paper examines the impact of the rise of ecological economics in the policy world and its potential influence on the decision-making process. This study emphasises that ecological economics development is coevolved with, and modified to fit, specific social, economic, political and cultural contexts. As a policy science, ecological economics is context-sensitive and action-oriented. Explaining why it is so, and what to do about it, has become imperative for ecological economists. This paper attempts to address the questions such as: What are the macroeconomic conditions and political processes that make the formulation and implementation of ecological economic policy possible? How should this alternative social reality engage with the dominant decision-making process? Does ecological economics provide the necessary means for prescribing policy measures to achieve sustainable development? Endeavouring to understand these dimensions of ecological economics has been a dynamic social process, and understanding this complex process might provide an opportunity to bridge the divide between policy rhetoric and reality in practice rather than maintain the status quo. In order to achieve an improved decision-making process on sustainability, it highlights the imperative to explicitly study the institutional setting through which sustainable development policy discourse is mediated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the limitations of conventional economic analysis of intergenerational problems and examines some of the alternatives suggested in the literature. It is argued that proper consideration of future generations has at least three requirements. First, when future costs and benefits are considered, it should be taken into account that they are to be enjoyed by different generations. Second, the sustainability requirement should be adopted. This represents an equity commitment to the future and implies the recognition that future generations have the right to nondeteriorated ecological and economic capacity. The paper studies the ways in which the recognition of these rights might be incorporated into economic evaluation and management. Third, an appropriate institutional network to enforce the recognition of these rights in decision-making processes should be constituted. Its design and necessary functions are also analyzed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

For emerging tourism-dominated cities, there is a contradiction between ecological protection and tourism urbanization. This paper explores the causes and solutions of the potential risks that occur in the process of tourism urbanization by simulating the impact of government incentives on tourism urbanization and tourism related-ecological security (TRES). Tourism urbanization in Zhangjiajie has experienced four stages: start-development-stagnation-restoration. This paper analyzes the main obstacles and government incentives at different stages. In the initial stage, government incentives promoting tourism were an efficient method to improve TRES and tourism urbanization. However, with the increase in environmental pressure, ecological overload caused the stagnation of tourism urbanization. The increase in government incentives protected the environment and eventually restored tourism urbanization. Through surveys of tourists and residents, it was confirmed that Zhangjiajie's environmental and tourism problems have improved in recent years. The results indicated that the time mismatch between rapidly developed tourism and the environmental protection policies implemented later caused serious ecological capacity overload. This paper provides a basis for identifying and avoiding ecological risks in tourism-dominated cities to achieve sustainable tourism urbanization. Environmental protection incentives at the end of a rapid development stage are an effective means to avoid ecological traps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sustainability standards promise better labor and environmental conditions, changes in actual practice occur inconsistently. Existing literature has explained this mainly through focusing on structures and mechanisms that originate from outside producers' organizations. This paper instead examines the intraorganizational process by which rules turn into practices on the ground. It offers an inside-out approach that draws on data from an eight-month participant observation study of certified agricultural commodity producers in Brazil. The key finding of this paper is that rules get turned into practices through discovering and cultivating a practice ecosystem in which certified producers in the Global South learn to implement new practices through a self-guided, two-step discovery process. First, they must discover how to build and integrate the elements of a practice; second, they must discover how to support the internalization of this practice. Further, adjacent practices—those alongside the ones that need to be integrated—are pivotal in determing whether producers succeed in building new practices. This paper contributes to the literature on sustainable commodity governance and to organizational theories of practice adaptation. It shows that sustainable commodity governance depends not only on external structures and mechanisms, but also, equally importantly, on the internal organizational mechanisms for new practices to take hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Except for sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than on any other activity. Many people take for granted the centrality of work in society, conceiving the prevailing 40 h workweeks in high-income countries as a 'natural' configuration of time. However, work and working time have been fiercely contested phenomena and have taken many different forms throughout history as they were reshaped by technological development, social struggle, and changing cultural values. Drawing on insight from history, anthropological research, and time use studies, this paper attempts to broaden the frames harnessing current debates about the future of work. First, we examine evolving conceptions of work in different cultures. Second, we review patterns of working time throughout history, contrasting some widely held assumptions against the background of the long durée. Finally, we present ideas and principles to rethink dominant conceptions about the meaning, purpose, volume, content, distribution, and remuneration of work along ecological economic principles of sustainability and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental issues are becoming more urgent. Biodiversity loss, climate change, extreme events and global pressures on resources place increasing importance on decision making about how natural resources should be managed. Natural capital accounting (NCA) is gaining popularity as a systematic approach to recognise the full value of natural resources such as soil, vegetation, animals, water, and biodiversity. To understand perceptions and opportunities for awareness and behaviour change relating to the use of NCA, we conducted a discourse analysis of 57 interviews with stakeholders across Australia. Our aim is to promote discussion and reflection about perceptions of natural resources as forms of capital, and the role of NCA to underpin management practice change and support sustainability. We identify four key areas of contestation that relate to values, complexity, digital technology, and the desired future vision of NCA in society. Findings include conflicting views around whether NCA should have a diversity of tailored approaches or a consistent approach for all and that digital technology has and will continue to shape the way NCA is conducted. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to take a discourse analysis approach to perceptions of natural capital accounting. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper expands the BOP-constraint growth model and Kaldorian regimes (productivity and demand regimes) in order to include some of the concerns raised by ecological economics in post-Keynesian models for open economies. The demand regime is modified by taking into account Porter's hypothesis, which suggests that environmental innovations, spurred by environmental policies, can foster competitiveness. As a result, the equilibrium BOP-constrained rate of growth increases, leading to a different version of Thirlwall's Law, which opens room for analyzing the impact of environmental innovations on convergence between developing and developed economies. The productivity regime in turn considers the growth and employment implications of innovations in labor productivity (standard innovations) and environmental efficiency (environmental innovations). It is argued that the fiscal policy and composition of public expenditure matter for long run growth, employment and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A trend analysis of Eurobarometer data shows that attitudes towards science and technology are diversifying in the EU, with enthusiasm clearly losing out to more ambivalent stances. In the past any diversion from unquestioned optimism was interpreted as a bad sign and attributed to the public's ignorance. Today it is often welcomed as a sign of an increasingly emancipated public. In the sustainability sciences, including Ecological Economics, attitudes towards technology also cover a wide spectrum, the formalisation and exploration of which are the goals of this paper. Drawing on social and philosophical studies of technology and insights from Ecological Economics and related fields, we develop a framework of attitudes towards technology consisting of four main categories: Enthusiasm, Determinism, Romanticism and Scepticism. We illustrate the empirical relevance of our framework with a qualitative content analysis of Ecological Economics lecture material. The analysis uncovered and mapped a diversity of views, which co-exist without an open debate. It suggests difficulties of scholars to consistently articulate their techno-attitudes, except for enthusiasm. Our framework could help to amplify underlying vocabularies and visions of research and teaching in Ecological Economics and beyond. It could be applied in both deeper qualitative and broader quantitative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, societies are facing a number of interrelated environmental, economic and social crises. This paper is intended to contribute to the development of an ecological macroeconomics that addresses these multiple crises in combination. Insights from different research communities will be included in this effort. Taking an ecological economic understanding of sustainability as the point of departure, and inspired by systems thinking, it is discussed which economic sub-systems should be in focus for sustainability transitions, and whether relevant guides for sustainability can be formulated for these systems. In particular, the focus is on systems that are decisive for resource consumption and pollution although their influence on these is indirect. A simple typology of sub-systems is suggested and applied in relation to an example that highlights the importance of the interplay between macroeconomic, provision and distribution systems. The example concerns investments in sustainability transitions of provision systems and demonstrates the complexities of implementing such transformations during the economic crisis. It also addresses the need for ecological macroeconomics to develop a third position beyond austerity policies and Keynesian approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ecological economics perspective on urban sustainability embraces a biophysical view which emphasizes the dependence of cities on vast quantities of natural capital from various sources and spatial scales, and the generation of urban wastes which impact the local, regional and global systems. In recent years, several sets of urban sustainability indicators and indices have been developed. However, only a few consider the complex multi-scale interactions between the urban activities and the environment. Furthermore, most existing indices use a relative evaluation approach instead of an absolute approach that is needed when dealing with ecological thresholds. The paper introduces a new urban biophysical sustainability index whose framework includes: the city environmental quality, use of natural resources, and GHG emissions. Each contains topics for assessment related to local, regional and global scales and associated indicators. Standard and optimum values were determined for each indicator and a formula is provided for grading each indicator measurement. The integration of those grades allows for generation of a compound score of each topic, category, spatial scale and the entire urban biophysical sustainability performance. It then demonstrates the index in three major Israeli cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]