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The most cited definition of sustainable development was created more than three decades ago, by the Brundtland Commission. The problem that was defined then is equally present today. There are various definitions of 'sustainable development', and thus, in the past, different countries have made different frameworks. However, the current framework has been presented by the 2030 Agenda and specifically divided into 17 goals, defined by the United Nations. It is not the same starting point for countries with developed and underdeveloped economies. This paper highlights the economic and educational structure of the population as a potential for economic and social development, but also for the Gross Value Added. These are the main parameters that were analysed to extract the most sensitive areas. The analysed data refer to the 25 administrative areas (NSTJ 3) in Serbia. The most endangered areas that should be emphasized in further research and action plans are distinguished. The results of the paper should serve as a starting point for further and more in-depth research, as well as for creating projects for the more balanced regional development of Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a macroeconomic framework for creating a competitive and sustainable Saudi Arabian economy, taking into account the interrelationships among social, environmental, and economic factors. The objective of the research is to build a model that will allow for evaluating the effects of a wide range of emissions abatement policies on economic growth and development. The research methodology is grounded in econometric modeling of the Saudi economy over the period 1980–2010. The estimated parameters of the model were used to project long-term gross domestic product (GDP) growth paths based on three environmental degradation abatement scenarios. The results suggest that the sustainability of economic growth in Saudi Arabia critically depends on aggressive emissions-reduction policies since policy scenarios corresponding to higher pollution cuts yielded higher, sustained long-term GDP. The results also broadly reject the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, implying that a turning point in the relationship between CO2emissions and per capita GDP is yet to be attained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper integrates tourism, economic growth, and environmental issues in a multivariate format. Unlike recent research on this topic, a panel data of selected sample nations of sub-Saharan Africa is adopted by using cointegration and panel regression models. The current research discovers both long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamics between economic growth, tourism, energy use, and carbon emissions in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, tourism and energy use show a highly significant direct impact on economic growth. In addition, tourism, energy use, and economic growth yield a highly significant positive effect on carbon emissions. Dissecting the region into oil producers and non-oil producers further suggests that the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa has been accomplished by strong growth in tourism and energy use. However, there is highly significant evidence that in oil producing countries, CO2emissions are directly affected by energy use and economic growth and not by tourism. For non-oil producing countries, tourism and energy use but not economic growth incur a highly significant positive impact on carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Technological innovation is considered as being one of the major driving forces in fostering economic growth. However, in the current economic situation, where matters related to environmental protection and conservation play a key role, technological innovation can also be used as a driver of new production alternatives to reduce the harmful impacts of industrial development on society and nature. Within this context, this paper aims to analyze, through econometric tools, the relationship between investments in technological innovation and the sustainable development of G7 and BRICS countries. The results demonstrate that for the BRICS group, technological innovation has been significant for the three pillars of sustainable development. However, for the G7 group, technological innovation was considered significant only for social development, showing no statistical significance for economic and environmental development. The results indicate that technological innovation can cause different types of impacts, depending on the development stage of the analyzed country or region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Shangri-La County is one of the three counties in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (DTAP), Yunnan Province, China, where rich natural resources intersect with tremendous ethnic, cultural, religious, and lingual diversities. Its sustainable development depends on the sustainability of the entire DTAP. Therefore, it is important to analyze the factors that influence DTAP’s sustainable development. In this paper, we evaluated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in the sustainable development of DTAP. The results show that economic development of Shangri-La County is determined mainly with comprehensive development of tourism, and beautiful natural scenery and rich ethnic cultures are the critical drivers of tourism development in the county. Vigorously, development that integrates tourism and combines with concerns over sustainability and conservation of ethnic cultures is the best approach to sustainable development of Shangri-La County. To assure the success of this approach, we proposed a number of strategic measures, such as promoting the development of ecotourism and protection of ethnic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The role of infrastructures in boosting the economic growth of the regions is widely recognized. In many cases, an infrastructure is selected by subjective reasons. Selection of the optimal infrastructure for sustainable economic development of a region should be based on objective and founded reasons, not only economical, but also environmental and social. In this paper is developed such selection through a hybrid method based on Delphi, analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and VIKOR (from Serbian, VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje). To do this, a panel of experts assesses both the infrastructures and the drivers for their selection. The method lets us to verify the consistency of answers from experts. In our case, AHP obtains preference values for each infrastructure using the eigenvector method. Meanwhile, the VIKOR method evaluates whether the proposed is the one that best fits the prevailing view, minimizing the regret to the most separate opinions. Thus, for La Costera (Spain), the region under study, this research work concludes that the thematic route is the optimal infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability Window (SuWi) analysis is a novel tool to analyze the minimum economic development to fulfill the requirements for social sustainability and the maximum economic development not to surpass the environmental limits. The method provides quantitative measures to define whether the real development of GDP is within the sustainability limits using different indicators for measuring social welfare and environmental stress. The SuWi results can be used to form a visualization of the sustainability doughnut to illustrate the critical areas of development where policy intervention may be needed to reach sustainability. The doughnut economy visualization is constructed for Cuban development for the analysis of both strong and weak sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islands face similar challenges for sustainability as continental areas, but their geographic situation conditions their options for development. However, thanks to their clear geographic boundaries, they are an opportunity to think about sustainability in an integrated way. The objective of the study was to explore from a local (island) and regional (archipelago) perspective strategies for sustainability. ‘Participative foresight scenario mapping’ (PFSM) methodology was used to explore the sustainable future of a small island (Flores Island, Azores, Portugal). The need to acknowledge the limit to growth is a key finding of this article. But the research also allowed us to analyse in depth specific strategies that can be applied to different sectors of activity, the most important being to: improve the quality of local products, diversify the economy and increase self-sufficiency. PFSM succeeded in identifying key themes and facilitating debate around these subjects. These findings can inform sustainable development in other islands or territories sharing similar geographic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion that corporations are expected to have social and environmental performance standards and practices while meeting their financial and legal obligations is commonly referred to as corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate sustainability (CS). Previous studies have discussed whether the two terms are converging or should be used as stand-alone concepts. After reviewing the trends in development of CSR and CS, and the various viewpoints on the relationships between the two, we propose a relationship model to better understand how CSR can be integrated into CS as either a transitional stage or ultimate goal for a corporation. This study aims to provide researchers and practitioners with further insights on the adoption of CSR and CS. The model is intended to provide a plausible view of the relationships between CSR and CS to help to lessen the confusion and ease the communication both between and within these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable development agenda 2030 calls for achievement of certain targets to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. Multi-stakeholder partnerships and the use of data and modelling tools are conditioning elements for their achievement. In this article, we demonstrate that participatory modelling supports informed and participatory decision making in complex river basins. An adapted companion modelling approach is presented to support collective action by reducing disputes and enhancing collaboration among stakeholders. The co-development and use of empirical models for understanding the complexity of the physical system is combined with the use of role-playing games to ensure the active involvement of stakeholders. The approach is implemented in a top-down water quality planning process in Turkey. Results show its suitability for managing water quality in complex river basins in an inclusive manner and its substantial benefits in developing stakeholders’ capacities and creating a cooperative environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetland socio-ecological systems provide livelihood benefits for many poor people throughout the developing world, yet their sustainable development requires local utilisation strategies that balance both environmental and development outcomes. Community-based local institutional arrangements that mediate peoples’ relationships with their environment and facilitate adaptive co-management offer one means of achieving this, and increasingly many NGOs and development practitioners have sought to integrate local institutional capacity building into development projects. In the context of wider academic debates surrounding the long-term sustainability of externally facilitated local institutions, this article draws on the experiences of the three-year Striking a Balance (SAB) project in Malawi which sought to embed sustainable wetland management practices within community-based local institutional arrangements. Drawing on field data collected through participatory methods at three project sites some 5 years after the cessation of project activities, we examine the extent to which SAB’s local institutional capacity building has been successful, and from this draw some lessons for externally driven project interventions which seek win-win outcomes for people and the environment. With reference to Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for long-enduring common property resource institutions, we suggest that the observed declining effectiveness of SAB’s local institutions can be attributed to issues of stakeholder inclusiveness and representations; their sustainability was arguably compromised from their inception on account of them being nested within pre-existing, externally driven village ‘clubs’ whose membership and decision-making was not congruent with all the wetland stakeholders within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past few decades, the tourism sector has emerged as a significant economic activity in island nations, particularly in tropical regions. However, most of the tropical islands face similar constraints, viz., threat to natural resources, chances of biopiracy, impact of climate change, population pressure and unsystematic tourist management. Ecotourism, as a concept, envisages promoting tourism with due regard to natural environment and ecological sanctity of the destination. Archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands is one of picturesque geographical creation in the Bay of Bengal, India, in tropical region and is an emerging tourist destination. It was observed that around 2.2 lakhs national and international tourists visit the A&N Islands annually. With tourism sector as an integral component, the service sector with share of 56% in gross state domestic product dominates the island economy. An analysis based on primary survey from various stakeholders associated with the sector revealed that factors such as economy in travel and boarding, availability of tourist facilities and comfort, safety, etc. were major factors that determined the choice of the tourists that visited the islands. The weights given by the tourists to the natural sites in A&N Islands revealed that the landscape topped list with 91.6% score by the visitors followed by beaches (91.3%), scenery (86.5%), reserved forests (84.6%), limestone caves (66.3%) and coral sights (65.8%). Coral sites were given weight of 65.8% of tourists, cultural and historical tourism products 85.4% for the natural history. Similarly, historical sites (83.7%), museums (78.6%) and heritage sites (72.8%) were also among top cites attraction. Recent initiatives by the Andaman administration gives due to care to sustainably develop the tourism infrastructure of the islands to harness the potential of eco-friendly tourism in this picturesque tourist haven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]