Search

Recent literature on social innovation highlights its conceptual ambiguity and fragmentation. According to this context, this paper explores how social innovation can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Using a case study approach, we apply a mixed research methodology comprising a content analysis followed by multiple correspondence analysis. We examine 209 social innovation projects financed by the Portugal Social Innovation program in three dimensions: empowerment, content, and process. The social innovation projects addressed showed that social innovation projects can have varied objectives, be developed in different intervention areas, and empower different vulnerable groups of beneficiaries. The findings put in evidence the interaction between social innovation and SDGs, therefore social innovation supports the three sustainability dimensions: economy, society, and environment. In this sense, it is possible to conclude that SDGs constitute a framework that positions social innovation, bringing clarity and structure to the field. This identification and classification can promote the creation of a market of supply and demand of social innovations, strengthening the social innovation ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to detect the determinants of ecological footprint (EF) in Turkey within the scope of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis over the period 1970–2016. For this purpose, the paper sets up an empirical model including GDP, the square of GDP, foreign direct investments, renewable energy consumption, and industrialization. Hence, the paper also searches for the validity of the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) for Turkey. The findings of the paper indicate that the EKC hypothesis prevails, whereas the PHH does not dominate in Turkey. The findings also imply EF is negatively related to renewable energy consumption while industrialization does not affect EF. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017 the paper 'The Sustainable Development Oxymoron: Quantifying and Modelling the Incompatibility of Sustainable Development Goals' was published, showing that there is a conflict between socio-economic development goals and ecological sustainability goals using cross-country time-series data. The authors looked at production-based CO2 emissions to measure and model the 13th SDG goal addressing climate change. Their models showed that production-based CO2 emissions were stalling or even decreasing in rich countries, which suggests that other countries are also likely to see stalling and decrease in their CO2 emissions once they become rich. However, this conclusion can be challenged when accounting for consumption-based CO2 emissions rather than production-based CO2 emissions. In this follow-up paper, we re-run some of the analyses performed in the original paper making use of consumption-based CO2 emissions. The analysis confirms the inherent SDG conflict between socio-economic and ecological SDGs. But, this new analysis demonstrates that from a consumption perspective the trend of stalling or decreasing CO2 emissions is reversed, with natural depletion costs being exported to poorer countries. Despite this new perspective on CO2 emissions, the conflict between SDG goals can still be avoided by making investments in public health, education and renewable energy, as suggested in the original paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interprets aspects of the implementation of environmental education in a Higher Education Institution, situated in a developing country, to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The paper will allow educators to categorise the multiplicity of ESD programmes and projects in higher education institutions, determine their limitations and acceptability, and benefit from the theoretical framework of affective learning in designing new ESD interventions. The paper will also provide an overview of the processes required to establish ESD in developing and developed countries. This paper will further help universities to develop a better understanding of how integration of the three components of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection – can be incorporated in higher education. The paper explores the challenges for planning the implementation of ESD in an education faculty, outlining the potential lessons learned that could assist in improving ESD efforts in Faculties of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the study of ecolinguistics has made great progress in the integration of other disciplines and in discourse analysis. Ecological discourse analysis effectively illustrates the ecological potentials in discourse from a micro-level perspective, but the macro process of these ecological potentials is not clear. In this paper, the macro process of language intervening society is presented by illustrating the landsense cr eation of language, based on landsenses ecology and taking harmonious discourse as an example. And McNemar test is used to demonstrate the interventional function of anti-fur language in subjects' psychology and behavior, following the discussion of the hierarchical relationship among fur advertisements, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and ecosystem services. Landsenses ecology and ecolinguistics are disciplines with the vision of realizing the sustainable development of ecosystem and human society, and the macro-intervention process of language can be effectively clarified by the concept of landsense creation in landsenses ecology, which can fully demonstrate the role of language in the sustainable relationship between human beings and other living beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of sustainability has evolved considerably since the report "Our Common Future" was published in 1987. Whereas matters related to sustainable development used to be of marginal interest in the 1980s, it has substantially evolved since, and have become mainstream. As a result, there is a plethora of research on different aspects, whose focus has also been influenced by societal developments. This line of thinking also applies to sustainability research in higher education, a special and central field. Unfortunately, the variety of research on matters of sustainable development in universities makes it difficult to obtain an insight into its current status, and to ascertain how it has evolved since 1987. Based on the perceived need to fill this gap, a study focusing on the evolution of university-based sustainability research literature has been undertaken. The study entailed approximately 1700 papers published between 1987 and 2019, being one of the most comprehensive studies on this field ever undertaken. Apart from performing a bibliometric analysis using science mapping software tools, the research clustered the research into some key areas. The results suggest that, whereas impressive, the evolution of university-based sustainability research has been uneven, and calls for a more balanced emphasis to as to cover some research areas which have so far been neglected. The implications of this work are twofold: it will support the further development of the university-based sustainability research literature, and will help to address some thematic gaps, which are seen today, and to which greater attention is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations General Assembly agreed and approved in September 2015 the document '2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development', which contains a set of measures aiming to balance economic progress and protection of the environment, whilst at the same time remain aware of the need to address the many disparities still seen between industrialised and developing countries. The Agenda document consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which among many other tasks, intend to eradicate poverty and create better health conditions in both developed and developing countries. But despite the need for and the relevance of the SDGs, it is unclear how they may help to address present and future sustainability challenges. Based on the need to shed some light on such a relationship, this paper describes each of the SDGs, and offers an analysis of the extent to which their implementation may offer support to ongoing attempts to handle some of the pressing problems seen in pursuing sustainable development. Three case studies are presented to show in practice how best the SDGs can be handled. The paper concludes that the process of implementing the SDGs offers unrivalled opportunities to advance equal opportunity and foster economic empowerment, helping countries to promote the cause of sustainable development in their territories, hence benefiting their populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tackles the process of energy transition from a transactional perspective. It addresses the governance of energy transition by studying its local actualizations, moving beyond purely technical and normative readings. The paper shows that through the local socio-technological energy systems, sustainability governance filters down to the level of individual, everyday behavior, thus questioning the link between public and private spaces, especially regarding the issue of housing. Going beyond the results commonly yielded by transition studies, which favor large-scale analysis, it details how the discourse of citizen involvement, which often boils down to a mere call to control one's individual energy consumption, conceals environmental inequalities, confirming the socioeconomic divide materialized in deprived areas such as public housing estates or remote rural areas. From a methodological standpoint, the analysis is based on four case studies in Northeast France, in more or less privileged areas, and in both urban and rural environments: the renovation of a heating network in the public housing estate of Cité de l'Ill, north of Strasbourg; the solar energy systems designed for property owners in Plobsheim, a residential suburb of Strasbourg; the energy-efficient equipment set up in a public housing estate in the city of Saint-Dié, in the Vosges; and citizen participation in a cooperative program to finance wind turbines in the small Alsacian city of Saâles, in a mountain rural area. The paper draws on the results of these sociological investigations, carried out using field observations, questionnaires and interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on solving the 'nexus' challenge: how can positive interactions between SDGs be optimised, and negative interactions minimised, in order to create co-benefits and reduce trade-offs? Due to their varying impacts on the SDGs, the economic activities undertaken by organisations present a key lever for operationalising this SDG-nexus. Yet the interactions between individual economic activities and the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development have not been systematically assessed, thus creating a vital operational bottleneck to achieving the SDGs. This paper conducts a systematic review of 876 articles published between 2005 and 2019 to study the nexus between individual economic activities, sustainable development in general, and the SDGs in specific. It finds that studies on agricultural, industrial, and manufacturing activities predominantly report negative impacts on environmental development, while literature on services activities highlight economic and social contributions. Overall, most economic activities are expected to positively impact industrialization, infrastructure, and innovation [SDG 9] and economic productivity [SDG 8], while many help meet basic needs [SDGs 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 11]. However, negative impacts are widespread, afflicting ecosystems [SDGs 14 and 15], climate change [SDG 13] and human health [SDG 3]. We synthesise positive and negative interactions between individual economic activities and SDG targets and discuss implications for: integrated (nexus) governance approaches to the SDGs; the role of the private sector in promoting sustainable development; and for improving statistical classifications to monitor economic activities' SDG impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the United Nations approved the eight Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and, 15 years later, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the highest political institutions in the world have not stopped worrying about achieving the sustainability of the planet. Also in 2015, the European Commission prepared the European Union Action Plan for the Circular Economy, seeking a transition towards a less linear economy, in which products, materials, and resources are kept in the system for as long as possible and in which the generation of waste is minimized. Since then, the European Union has continued issuing reports and communications to accelerate this process in search of a circular economy, making continuous references to the fact that, through circular economy initiatives, the SDGs would be fulfilled. In this context, the objectives of this paper are 1) to determine, through exploratory factor analysis and correlation analysis, whether there is a statistically significant relationship between circular economy initiatives undertaken in the EU and compliance with the SDGs; 2) to check, through a cluster analysis, if there are homogeneous groups of countries worldwide in terms of compliance with the SDGs; and 3) using this same technique, to check whether the countries that make up the EU achieve similar results in terms of compliance with the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing interest of stakeholders regarding the contribution of organizations to Sustainable Development is influencing organizational behavior and strategic planning. The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the perception of the importance of organizational sustainability dimensions in a relevant economic sector: the metal industry. Survey data was collected from a sample of 211 Portuguese industries, and non-parametric statistical tests were used to validate five research hypotheses regarding the importance of the economic, environmental, social and cultural dimensions of sustainability. The results obtained demonstrate awareness of the sampled industries regarding all sustainability dimensions, recognizing that their importance has been increasing over the years, and prospecting that this importance will continue to increase in the future. The industries in this sample revealed different degrees of perceived importance for the different sustainability dimensions: the highest importance was given to the economic dimension, and culture was considered the least important sustainability dimension. However, the perception of the respondents is that these differences will be less relevant in the future. The results also show that companies with certified management systems reveal a higher perceived importance regarding sustainability dimensions. Also, industries with higher values of annual turnover, number of employees and export sales tend to give higher degrees of importance to sustainability dimensions. Considering the economic, environmental and social impacts of metal industries at an international level, the awareness of this industrial sector regarding the importance of sustainability is a relevant step to the commitment towards Sustainable Development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From an international view, several papers have analysed how sustainability themes are integrated into the university curricula. In Spain, few studies to date have examined the extent to which universities are incorporating sustainability themes into their curricula. In view of such considerations, this article examines the extent to which sustainability themes are being incorporated into the curricula of a Spanish public university strongly committed to signing sustainability policies and declarations. In addition, this study analyses the main barriers to the incorporation of sustainability themes into the curricula of this university. To accomplish this task, this article uses different methodological instruments over three phases through a case study approach. The findings of this study suggest how the university examined has many difficulties in incorporating, holistically or separately, sustainability themes in its formal courses despite having so many policies, regulations and a commitment to sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, sustainability issues are gaining greater prominence among organizations and their stakeholders around the world. This paper aims to verify the sustainability performance of Brazilian organizations in performance measures and to propose sustainable guidelines with the intention of directing future efforts to the transition to sustainable development. The research utilized a triangulated approach by collecting qualitative and quantitative data acquired through multiple collection methods of a theoretical literature review, documentary analysis of corporate reports, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews with industry professionals and academic researchers. The results show that internal organizational factors are the main inductors of the sustainable environment in organizations, and sustainability must be tied to strategic planning, starting from upper management to lower levels. It is essential to use sustainable performance measurement systems in order to respond to external and internal levers and serve as benchmarking for future corporate operations and strategies. In addition, it is the responsibility of organizations to focus their efforts on environmental protection, reduction of energy, corporate reputation, quality management, customer satisfaction and investor relations, as they are considered to be more important and have a relationship of dependence on organizational sustainability. The findings will be of value to professionals and academics who want to start measuring and for continuously improving the sustainability performance of their organizations according to the technical, economic, environmental, social and governance dimensions. This research work also helps to understand the perceptions and expectations of stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) contain a set of 17 measures to foster sustainable development across many areas. It offers a good opportunity to reinvigorate sustainable development research for two main reasons. First, it comprises many areas of SD research, which have become mainstream thanks to the UN SDGs. Second, the fact that the UN and its member countries have committed to attaining SDGs by 2030 has added a sense of urgency to the need to perform quality research on SD on the one hand, and reiterates the need to use the results of this research on the other. Even though the basic concept of sustainability goes back many centuries, it has only recently appeared on the international political agenda. This is partly due to an awakening of the fact that the human ecological pressure on the planet is still much larger than what nature can renew or compensate for. Based on this state of affairs, this paper presents an outline of the process leading to the agreement on the UN SDGs, and looks at some of the ecological aspects as a result of continued pressure of human activities on natural resources. Furthermore, a set of research needs is proposed – also based holistically on updated research trends – discussing the degree of urgency of some measures and explaining why the UN SDGs need to be accorded greater priority in international sustainable development research efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Knowledge and understanding about how the ecological systems of the Earth support life form the foundation for ecological literacy, which, in turn, is of critical importance for sustainability. There is widespread concern that levels of ecological literacy within many contemporary human societies are too low to enable effective decision-making about how to live sustainably. This paper presents and discusses the findings of an ecological literacy assessment of South Australian adults. The assessment tested for knowledge and understanding of ecological systems and interconnections with human society. Analyses revealed significant relationships between assessment scores and a range of value-based and behavioural characteristics. Such characteristics included the value placed on nature, time spent outdoors and in nature, involvement in nature-based activities, and perceived sources of ecological knowledge and understanding. Higher average scores were correlated with higher values accorded to involvement in outdoor activities, importance of the outdoors to enjoyment of life, importance of nature in the household, volunteer environmental activity and growing food. Higher scores were also correlated with higher education, research activities, outdoor lifestyles, place-based experiences, volunteer activities, mentors and colleagues, and books and magazines. Lower scores were achieved by those who considered media, natural disasters and environmental marketing to be major contributors to their ecological knowledge. These findings contribute to a broader study of the relationships between ecological literacy and a range of both socio-demographic and psychographic characteristics. They invite serious consideration from any society that values the participation of an informed population with the capacity to make sustainable environmental decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a novel approach to measuring the progress of small island developing states (SIDS) towards sustainable development (SD) as set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Currently, these goals do not provide adequate guidance on how countries might measure their progress towards sustainability. We use these goals and a subset of their targets to develop an index with concrete targets, through the use of pertinent sustainability indicators, that SIDS should aim to achieve a sustainable society. In addition to the three categorical pillars of SD (social, economic and environmental), we included the category Climate Change and Disaster Management (incorporating Disaster Risk Reduction). The basis of our decision is that the UN and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have both recognized the vulnerability of SIDS to both environmental hazards. Our index scores a total 70 individual indicators for the four categories to track the progress of a SIDS towards a sustainable society. Using the Caribbean nation, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, as our SIDS case study, we report the average of the scores for each category to illustrate its progress towards sustainability. Overall Trinidad and Tobago is slowly progressing towards a more sustainably developed society. Our results show that the nation is only moderately successful regarding progress in three traditional pillars of SD, social, economic and environmental. However, Trinidad and Tobago scores poorly in the Climate Change and Disaster Management category and needs to improve in this area especially due to its vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While some previous research has critiqued accounting behaviour towards society and the environment, this paper points in a slightly different direction. With the aid of a chronological chart, it uses sustainability initiatives from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) to demonstrate the accounting profession's positive response to societal sustainability culture. Applying the cultural theories of Gray and Hofstede, it argues that society is responsible for alleged negative behaviour in accounting and that society hampers progress in sustainability accounting through political and corporate manoeuvrings. It asserts that, at least within the Canadian context, the more society embraces deeper green culture, the more accounting will transform towards sustainability values. It provides a future research agenda towards extenuating accounting criticisms. The paper suggests some policy implications for government and highlights that the power to condition and moderate accounting behaviour resides within society, governments and the laws of nations; it follows therefore that attaining any goals in sustainable development depends on the choice and commitment of governments and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sustainable development, as a multi-dimensional concept, is difficult to measure. Some efforts using indicators and indices have appeared in recent years, but most were developed on a national scale. Use of sustainability indicators has proven valuable for attaining better management of the environment by minimizing information gaps and maximizing community capabilities in terms of economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability dimensions. However, at least in the case of developing countries, the potential exists that national sustainability measures, based on national-level indicators, may mask problems in sub-national zones with highly unsustainable conditions. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate sustainable development at a local level, the use of which could be helpful in comparing different regions within a country or even among different countries. National sustainability indicators should result from a combination (whether additive or proportional) of regional sustainability indicators, as developed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exact application of sustainable development in the mining and minerals industry has precipitated considerable debate in recent years. Since the publication of the Brundtland Commission's Report, Our Common Future, numerous explanations have been put forth in an attempt to define sustainable development in the mining and minerals context. Specially, the inability of the Brundtland Report to outline an effective sustainability framework, combined with its contention that no single bluprint for sustainability framework, combined with its contention that no single blueprint for sustainable development exists, has prompted a number of academics and practitioners to provide personal viewpoints on the application of sustainable development in the mining and minerals industry. This paper focuses on one aspect of the mining and minerals-sustainable development debate: the corporate perspective. It first uses the burgeoning body of literature to define sustainable development in the corporate mining context. Second, it addresses, against the background of this interpretation, many of the salient issues associated with developing a series of plausible. Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) for use in the mining and minerals extraction industry. The paper clearly illustrates the difficulty in both arriving at a suitable working definition of sustainable development for an industry, and developing an acceptable set of universal standards for measuring environmental and socioeconomic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conception, design, and implementation of sustainable development strategies in an organization aims at meeting and balancing economic, social, and environmental needs of internal and external stakeholders. While the principles and fundamentals of sustainability assist during the conception and design phases, the implementation process of management strategies – impacted directly or indirectly by internal and external factors – may identify areas of competitive advantages or challenges that would impede the projects and organizations’ performance targets. An organization is not an isolated entity and its performance is often compared against others in the market arena; therefore, assessment tools, benchmarking processes, and reporting strategies become essential for the understanding of the efforts made towards the implementation of plan, policies, and programs at the organization and project levels. A framework for a hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology is proposed in this paper. The framework integrates the Rank Xerox benchmarking process and the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system assessment methodology. The proposed hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology encourages the diversification in the development and implementation of sustainable and environmental rating systems in industry contexts (e.g., oil and gas, mining, heavy industrial, and energy) and aims for the improvement of existing sustainability performance assessment and reporting practices. It also assists the quantitative assessment process of advances and/or setbacks in sustainability performance and the implementation of continuous performance improvement programs. [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]

The aim of this paper is to verify the influence of marketing actions in order to obtain sustainable products, as well as better compliance with environmental regulation in typical industrial companies. The research presents two stages: (1) an exploratory stage characterized by a theoretical review for the definition of scales to measure constructs, as well as a review about compliance with environmental regulation, pro-environmental marketing and sustainable products; and (2) descriptive stage that involves data collection and analysis in the target study population (manufacturing companies of non-durable, semi-durable and durable consumer goods). The sample consisted of 110 valid cases, which were analysed through descriptive statistics and graphic representations of the distribution of cases in the context of research variables. Two control cases were used to verify the correspondence of their positions in the graphs when compared with the communications strategy about their pro-environment actions. Sample results showed that a more effective pro-environmental marketing exerts more influence on the compliance with environmental regulation than on achieving sustainable products. Both cases of control fall in the quadrant of more sustainability, which corresponds to public disclosures about actions to protect the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource-based cities (RBC) have made momentous contributions to urbanization in China. However, as natural resources are exhausted, RBC are facing an enormous challenge. In this paper we put forward a resource-based city sustainability index (RCSI) and a resource-based city coordination index (RCCI), including environmental, social, and economic dimensions, adopted three weight scenarios, and selected 13 cities for study. The results: (a) help locate the problems by analyzing both dimensions and indicators; (b) simulate the trends of how RBC emerged, grew, declined, and regenerated; (c) categorize RBC into four types by integrating RCSI and RCCI; (d) give policy makers a holistic and comprehensive perspective in the future urban regulation and management; and (e) highlight a road to sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of academic and popular literature associates localized systems of production and consumption with improved sustainability. However, there is a need for research that systematically addresses whether and how re-localization of an economy makes it sustainable, and under what conditions such regional self-sufficiency is possible. In the state of Hawai’i, there is growing momentum to create greater energy and food self-reliance throughout the islands as a means to achieve greater sustainability. Nowhere is this sentiment stronger than on the island of Molokai, frequently called the ‘last Hawaiian Island.’ On Molokai, the discourse of sustainability is interpreted through the lens ofaloha aina, or love for the land, and an associated desire for stewardship of resources so that island residents can be as self-reliant as possible. This paper presents two recent examples from Molokai to illustrate some of the complexities associated with regional self-sufficiency on an island unavoidably buffeted by state, national and global socio-political and economic forces. Self-reliance in food on Molokai in fact requires greater collaboration with, as opposed to isolationism from, the central state. Conflicts arise when efforts to promote island sustainability are at odds with initiatives for sustainability at a broader organizational level – in this case, at the state level. The Hawai’i case raises broader questions about the viability of regional-focused sustainability initiatives that underestimate the degree to which their resource management systems are deeply interconnected to larger-scale state, national or global systems and that overlook the potential negative externalities of their efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding solutions for complex environmental, economic and social issues in organisations relies on coordinated actions among several social actors that are involved in the sustainable development web and demands that they learn new business methods. In this scenario, which involves multiple social actors, relationships, contexts and interests, social learning has emerged as a hybrid approach to resolving complex environmental and social problems. Such an approach marks a different situation for organisations whose focus is not only on supporting such problem resolution but also on transforming such crises into opportunities to generate sustainable products and services. Thus, this study discusses how one of the largest companies in Latin America’s chemical segment formed a network with 23 social actors and is socially learning to deal with the dialectic between return on investments for its shareholders and benefits for its stakeholders. Research was conducted based on Boje’s narrative analysis. The data was built through interviews, informal conversations, textual and audio-visual documents and non-participant observation. This paper discusses the concept and describes the social learning process for sustainability (in this case, for sustainable agriculture) from the viewpoint of a for-profit organisation. In this manner, this study contributes to strengthening the connection between social learning and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extrapolatesfuturepaths of genuine savings (GS) by using our integrated assessment model. The results with the base case (BC) indicate that both GSwithoutpopulation change (GS) and GSwithpopulation change (GSn) are almost positive in OECD countries in the twenty-first century (satisfying the necessary but insufficient condition for sustainability); those numbers are projected to be negative in 2100. Asia (ASIA), the Middle East and Africa (MEAF), the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (FSEE), and the world show upward trends for both values, showing negative signs in 2010 and positive signs after 2050 (in ASIA, MEAF, and the world) and in 2100 (in FSEE). The values in Latin America (LAMR) remain negative throughout. We examine additional following three cases: demand reduction (DR), carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction (CR), and population reduction (PR). The GSn results compared to the BC indicate that (1) GSn in DR is similar to that of BC, (2) GSn in PR is slightly higher than that of BC, and (3) GSn in CR is unexpectedly lower than that of BC. This GSn reduction in the CR case derives from the fact that the term for calculating resource depletion (especially resource rent, which equals the difference between price and cost) in GS and GSn increased, leading to a greater term being subtracted from gross savings. The resource price increases with the marginal price of natural gas, given the energy-source shift in reducing CO2emissions, from cheap coal to expensive natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The modern discourse on corporate social responsibility is framed by ideas many of which have important parallels in the literature on the general and social systems theory. Particularly the conceptions of the interdependence between business and society, and of the societal embeddedness of business, revolve around the theme of system–environment interaction that is potentially unsustainable. The paper draws upon the systems-theoretic arguments of Luhmann and Boulding in order to explain how sustainability is enhanced by corporate social responsibility practices. Systems are shown to risk becoming unsustainable if they develop their complexity to the point of overstraining the carrying capacity of the environment. To forestall this scenario, systems can improve their sensitivity to the environment and constrain their own complexity. These sustainability strategies reveal the systems-theoretic meaning of corporate social responsibility. Explained in this way, corporate social responsibility turns out to be a functional equivalent of vertical integration seen from the perspective of Williamson's transaction cost economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transit-oriented development (TOD) and green urbanism have gained attention as development models for charting a more sustainable urban future. These two built forms, however, are often dealt with separately, as distinct topics. This paper explores synergies that are created when neighbourhoods are designed as both green and transit-oriented and how 'Green TOD' can reduce a project's environmental footprint more than each strategy can achieve individually. Experiences with Green TODs are reviewed for urban regeneration projects in Sweden, Germany and Australia. These projects optimally combine sustainable building, energy and waste practices with high-quality transit access. 'Green' transit-based urbanism can substantially shrink the environmental footprint associated with car-oriented suburban development. We estimate that carbon emissions and energy consumption of Green TOD can be nearly 30% less than that of conventional development. Synergies that are created by combining TOD and green urbanism include increased densities, which promote transit usage, conserve heating/cooling expense and enable waste reuse techniques contingent on high volumes; mixed land uses, which promote non-motorised transportation and match the differing heat and energy needs of commercial and residential uses to enable maximum reuse of waste heat; reduced impervious parking surfaces replaced by increased open space and community gardens; opportunities for generating solar power for use in buildings from photovoltaics (PVs) atop rail-stop canopies and remote parking structures; and using renewable energy/fuels produced from the built environment to power transit vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heritage conservation and sustainable development share common ground that is not being fully explored by design and planning professionals. This paper examines how innovators in both fields are seeking that common ground by challenging divided approaches to natural and cultural conservation, environmental and economic processes and the treatment of tangible and intangible resources. These divisions are reinforced by traditional institutional and educational structures, as well as polarised worldviews. Creative practitioners in heritage conservation and sustainable development are exploring the potential of new partnerships, comprehensive policies and broader perspectives. These innovations potentially include everything from minor regulatory modifications to much less likely systemic structural shifts in governance and education. If successful, it could result in broader and more effective strategies, providing a shared frontier for both heritage conservation and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental conservation strategies in most developing countries do not often consider local conditions. If local people's needs are incorporated in conservation efforts it would play an important role in sustainable management of protected areas. This paper reports a study of local people's preferences for biodiversity conservation management institutions that might motivate them to support conservation efforts in the Okwangwo Division of the Cross River National Park, Nigeria. The empirical data were generated from personal interviews and determinants of the respondents' preferences were analysed with a multinomial logit model. The results showed that most of the respondents preferred the institution that combines biodiversity conservation with development. Their preferences were influenced by income from farming activities, income from non-timber forest products and income from non-traditional employment. This study could contribute to knowledge of how to design biodiversity conservation strategies to increase support of more local people who reside in the vicinity of protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of critical importance to develop appropriate assessment tools with which to comprehensively measure the sustainability status of a region in order to guide its transformation to sustainable development. This paper proposes a novel method of sustainability assessment based on urban eco-efficiency, which calculates the ratios of welfare and ecological impact. This method can demonstrate the relative sustainability status of targeted regions for different time periods, and it implicitly considers comprehensive urban information including ecology, economy and society. By using the human development index (HDI) and ecological footprint (EF) as measures of urban welfare and ecological burden, we carried out a case study of Xiamen City during 2000-2006 using the proposed method. The results indicated that there is a fluctuation of eco-efficiency, which shows a steady increase then a sharp decline, with a marginal increase towards the end of the studied period. Overall, eco-efficiency, resource efficiency and environmental efficiency declined 0.155-, 0.157- and 0.153-times, respectively, during this period. This means that the increase of ecological consumption is faster than improvement of social welfare. As a result, urban sustainability declines, and its future increase depend on improvements of both resource and environment efficiency. Our method proved effective in analysing the relative sustainability status among targeted regions for different time periods, paving the way for practical applications, such as policy analysis, in pursuit of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contextual nature of sustainability makes it extremely difficult to measure. Across the world each region has a specific environment and history that has shaped values and perceptions of the local community. In response, a wide range of tools has been developed that employ differing techniques to measure sustainability. These have a range of applications from global to site-specific scales. However, it is yet to be resolved whether assessments made using these tools reflect a technical focus with no close links to the knowledge and perceptions of stakeholders, community and management decisions, or whether the assessments reflect the knowledge and perceptions of local stakeholders and the community. In the southwest region of Victoria, Australia, a sustainability index called AIRS (An Index of Regional Sustainability) has recently been developed. This tool is based on indicators selected by stakeholders and considers relationships between the indicators. The aim of this paper is to report an ex-post evaluation of the AIRS sustainability assessment conducted at a subcatchment scale. The evaluation assesses AIRS's ability to assess regional sustainability and compares and contrasts the subcatchment assessments with the knowledge and perceptions of stakeholders and the community. A participatory approach that acknowledges key stakeholders was used for the evaluation process. Representatives from four stakeholder groups were interviewed to elicit their views of the AIRS assessment, its relevance, quality, applicability and priorities for future development. Strengths and weaknesses of AIRS are revealed and its contribution to social learning is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious resource depletion has made sustainable agriculture an important and pressing issue for scientists, policy makers, and stakeholders worldwide, particularly in developing countries. Researchers have focused on methods to assess agriculture correctly, and to introduce sound solutions for sustainability, but have reached no agreement. In this paper, we introduce the theoretical framework of the agro-ecosystem health model, a new holistic approach, and apply it at a regional scale using four aspects (4S): sound structure, stable function, safe service, and sustainable development. We examine how 12 indicators of an agro-ecosystem health assessment (AHA) were selected using three dimensions based on this theoretical framework. In an AHA, we used an amoeba approach to examine a high-yield agro-ecosystem in Huantai County, Shandong Province, China. The results indicate that this model of ecosystem health can reflect the complex ecological, economic, and human conditions of an agro-ecosystem and evaluate these conditions using perspectives pertinent to system structure, function, and responses (services). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistemological approaches in classical science were grounded on the explanatory needs of the phenomena of their historical time. Nevertheless, our contemporary world shows challenging situations in which the explanatory models of normal sciences have not proved effective. One of these fields is the area of health, in which the complexity of pathological phenomena continuously overwhelms the capacity of the classical models of biomedical research to provide effective answers regarding their comprehension, prevention and control. In the last decade a new science of sustainability has emerged, grounded in general systems theory and the conceptual basis of sustainable development. This area has become a scientific possibility for transcending reductionist analyses of classical sciences, by means of systemic comprehension of contemporary phenomena within the economic, social, environmental, political and ecological domains. However, the literature shows few specific references to an epistemological approach that may establish the boundaries for a metatheoretical structure on which knowledge can be generated in the framework of this emerging scientific discipline. This paper proposes an epistemological model for analysis of the health-disease phenomenon from the point of view of sustainability science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The newly developed urban environment often shows extensive neglect of local values and a lack of design promoting environmental quality in our cities and towns within the 'economic' concept of a city. Most housing environments, particularly those produced on the basis of mass production systems, are missing vital aspects of sustainability and lack environmental and humane qualities, both at urban and architectural levels. It is essential to focus on the requirements of sustainable development, both as a philosophy of planning and design and during the process of making and managing our environments. Current urban and architectural development practices in Cyprus cannot be considered sustainable. However, traditional settlements on Cyprus, such as the vernacular patterns, are excellent examples to learn from as they represent a long-established culture and good use of local values and resources, matched with local skills meeting people's needs. This paper first focuses on what sustainability means in terms of housing environments by highlighting the qualities of traditional housing patterns in Cypriot settlements. Second, it provides a critical evaluation of newly developed housing patterns on the island in terms of the environment and traditions. Finally, it proposes principles of sustainable planning and design whose main aim is to create buildings that are sensitive to people and the environment and are culturally specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, India, economic and urban growth, and diversification have increased pressure on forests and forest-based social-ecological systems. As in many Himalayan regions, livelihood sustainability is linked to forest resources, products and Services. Recent development in the region, to which these systems may be vulnerable, brings into question environmental and livelihood sustainability. This paper examines the resilience of integrated systems of people and nature, of social-ecological systems, in the face of development pressures by evaluating a number of local and state-level institutional responses. Resilience, which describes the ability of the social-ecological systems to adapt to change by buffering shocks, improving self-organization and increasing capacity for learning, is an essential quality for sustainable development. Institutional responses which positively contribute to resilience and sustainability include the work of mahila mandals in forest management, adoption of Joint Forest Management (JFM) policies and practices, upholding rules, strengthening local institutions, establishing firewood depots and adopting alternative energy sources. Institutional failures brought about by the lack of rule enforcement and corruption erode resilience. The analysis of institutional responses helps to identify areas where capacity exists and areas in which capacity building is needed to produce resilient social-ecological systems and therefore, sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a method for estimating the biologically productive area necessary to support current consumption patterns, given prevailing technical and economic processes. By comparing human impact with the planet's limited bioproductive area, this methodtests a basic ecological condition for sustainability. The ecological footprint has gained popularity for its pedagogical strength as it expresses the results of its analysis in spatial units that can easily be communicated. Many EF estimates have been performed on a global,national and sub-national level. In this paper, we review the methodand critically assess it from a sustainability perspective based on first order principles. We examine: -- Which aspects of sustainability are already covered by existing EF assessments; -- Which further aspects of sustainability could be made accountable through the EF (such as areas needed to assimilate waste streams that are not yet accounted for in present assessments); and -- Those aspects of sustainability that cannot be accountable through the EF, thereby needing complimentary auditing tools. Since the EF is a measure of renewable biocapacity, we argue that some dimensions of ecological sustainability should not be included in the EF. These include human activities that should be phased out to obtain sustainability, such as emissions of persistent compounds foreign to nature and qualitative aspects that represent secondary uses of ecological areas and do not, therefore, occupya clearly identifiable additional ecological space. We also concludethat the EF is useful for documenting the overall human use or abuseof the potentially renewable functions and services of nature. Particularly, by aggregating in a consistent way a variety of human impacts, it can effectively identify the scale of the human economy by comparison with the size of the biosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents integrated scenarios of the Baltic Sea region tothe year 2030. It summarises research conducted for Baltic 21, a region-wide process to identify strategies for sustainable development. The aim is to illuminate the requirements for a transition to sustainability. This includes a view of where the region is now, where it seems to be heading if conventional development patterns persist, and where alternatively it could aim -- a sustainability vision. In the sustainability vision, a high degree of economic equity and full employment are attained, greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced, the acidification of soils and waters are kept within safe tolerance levels and the Baltic Sea is restored to ecological health. Preconditionsfor realising this future include the diffusion of clean and efficient technologies, reorientation of consumer demand towards less resource-intensive products, public support for strong sustainability policies, and a cooperative climate between nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]