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An implementation model for a systemic, systematic, and strategic approach to integrate sustainability across sectors has been tested and developed further within a four-years action research project. Valuable insights on how the approach can be best introduced to facilitate broad application can be gained already from test uses of the preliminary model and this study aims to evaluate and learn from one of the regions participating, Åland (an autonomous protectorate of the Republic of Finland). With a comprehensive sustainability initiative for the whole community, including funding and human resources in place, Åland had particularly favourable conditions and came out as best practice in the research project. We examined what had been done and how initiatives have been received through interviews with process leaders and stakeholders from different sectors of society and through desktop reviews. Key success factors and challenges for the work were put in relation to elements of the implementation model. Indeed, the work has come a long way in terms of collaboration platforms and structures, and much can be learnt from at the Åland case. However, parts of the strategic sustainable development (SSD) perspective are seemingly forgotten or in hibernation. Reintroducing and reinforcing concrete SSD informed processes and support could arguably address several of the expressed challenges while making use of key success factors, such as the capacity building centre.

To systematically address the sustainability challenge, local and regional government leaders are key actors to facilitate action-oriented dialogues between practitioners from different sectors and disciplines. However, to address sustainability in collaboration is a complex challenge and leaders as well as practitioners need methodological support. This study is an off shot of an Action Research project that tested and developed an implementation model for cross-sector strategic transitions towards sustainability. While the implementation model as such gained appreciation for the scientifically robust overarching approach, our learnings from four years of action research with ten Swedish municipalities and regions point to needs of additional support regarding application guidelines for the methodology to be autonomously viable after introductions and moderated sessions facilitated by the research team. Example needs include support for capacity building for strategic sustainable development (SSD), advise for how to recruit leaders into the process upfront and support for valuing and aligning previous and on-going work for sustainability. This paper presents such support. It is based on a combination of conceptual SSD analyses and dialogue with initiated people within local or regional governments. In the dialogue, participants were supported to identify gaps in terms of capacity for an SSD approach to improve cross-sector strategies towards the full scope of social and ecological sustainability, and to better align existing methods, processes, and routines into cohesive actions. The procedure was designed, tested, and refined through interaction within one municipality. The feedback was that through applying the support, government leaders can better prepare for and prioritize their strategic actions for sustainability and search for good examples and best practices with enhanced precision. Forthcoming research will test and further refine the support. Open accessThis research was funded by The National Association of Swedish Eco-municipalities and the municipalities of Hudiksvall, Karlskrona, and Lerum.

The transport sector's dependence on fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges in a shift towards a climate-neutral and sustainable society. This roadmap report aims to investigate how electric vehicle systems can contribute to a faster transition to sustainable passenger transport in Southeast Sweden, as well as to present a methodology for guidance of similar work for faster transitions in other regions and sectors. This work has been guided by a scientifically designed and proven Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). Specifically, answers are given to four research questions structured in relation to the four subsystems 'Politics and instruments', 'Users and markets', 'Vehicles and infrastructure' and 'Energy and materials': What could a sustainable vision for passenger transport in Southeast Sweden look like? What could be a milestone goal for 2030? What is the current reality in relation to the 2030 goal and the vision? How could the gap between the present, 2030 and the vision be bridged? The report's results show that today's focus on fossil independence and measures against climate change must be broadened to cover the whole sustainability challengeso that other sustainability issues are addressed and so that solutions to some of the sustainability issues do not create new ones. The report also clarifies that it is necessary, practically possible and economically advantageous for Southeast Sweden to make a faster sustainability transition of passenger transportthan what has been proposed in previous studies and investigations. It is also likely that the same applies to the entire transport system and for the whole of Sweden and the world. Even geopolitical benefits are likely. A global transition to transport and energy systems based on energy from widely available flow resources like sun and wind instead of the limited fossil fuels would likely reduce the conflicts risks in the world.Restricted cobalt, lithium and platinum resources that battery and fuel cell cars depend on, and other metals needed for solar cells and wind turbines can, however, give rise to similar conflict risks. This roadmap report's recommendations on reduced transport needs and car dependency and its focus on resource efficiency counteract these conflict risks by striking against underlying resource-driving mechanisms. Should this roadmap be translated into practical policies, the forthcoming transition would therefore likely be made considerably more 'future-proof'. GreenCharge Southeast

Chapter 4

Since its publication in 2010, ISO 26000 has become the de-facto standard of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). While not a certifiable standard in ISO terms, but rather a guidance document, it has become the document many corporations use as their basis for CSR work. ISO 26000 claims that the objective of social responsibility is to contribute to sustainable development, using the Brundtland definition – development, which meets the needs the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – as the basis for sustainable development. However, the Brundtland definition, while commonly referred to, is not sufficiently concrete to give guidance for strategic planning and action in businesses, municipalities and society at large. Therefore it is helpful to supplement the Brundtland definition with a framework that allows for this concrete and strategic planning, e.g. the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). The FSSD is based on a principled definition of sustainability, defining social and ecological sustainability in more operational terms, and includes guidelines for how to contribute systematically and strategically to fulfillment of this definition. It is a transdisciplinary framework built on insights from systems thinking and has been continuously developed as well as used and improved in organizations all over the world for the last two decades. A particular recent development focus has been the social dimension of sustainability, with new insights based on the application of systems thinking to social systems having been recently presented. In this paper, these new insights are used to analyze and evaluate ISO 26000´s contribution to sustainability, highlighting both benefits and shortcomings of ISO 26000 from a social systems and strategic sustainable development perspective. Main points include that, while ISO 26000 is comprehensive in it´s scope and provides a vast achievement in terms of international consensus building around the essential issues in CSR, it is not based on a scientific understanding of social and ecological systems and is therefore a document highlighting current societal expectations rather than a document allowing organizations to innovate, plan, act and monitor long-term for sustainability. The paper further points out examples of aspects of sustainability that are likely to become issues in the future, but that are currently not covered by the ISO guidance. Finally, the paper points at research needed to explore more in detail in which ways ISO 26000 can support strategic working towards sustainability, and in which areas other tools are necessary. This paper was presented at the 2nd International Symposium “SYSTEMS THINKING FOR A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY. Advancements in Economic and Managerial Theory and Practice” Rome 23-24 January, 2014 - Universitas Mercatorum. Please cite as: Missimer, M., et al., 2014. A systems perspective on ISO 26000. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium “SYSTEMS THINKING FOR A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY. Advancements in Economic and Managerial Theory and Practice. Rome, Italy: January 23-24, 2014

Current patterns of production and consumption need to change and they need to do so radically. For this shift sustainability-oriented product-services are highly potential contributors. Product-services have been described as a market proposition that extends the functionality of a product beyond the traditional view by inclusion of additional services into the product-service system. From a producer perspective this opens up for a differentiation from competitors and thereby for strategic market opportunities. For the customer this means the possibility to be released from responsibilities linked to asset ownership, more differentiated options and increased function availability .For society at large it means the possibility to gain sustainability achievements. However, the market adoption of product-services or functional products brings with it significant challenges. The demand side is still hesitant to ownerless consumption and the supply side faces economical and company culture-related challenges. The challenges also include customer-related challenges and the development of product-services will require joint efforts of a number of actors along the value chain, actors that traditionally have been outside the buyer-seller relationship. Product-services need to be developed on a case-by-case basis and involve the users perspective from initial need phase until end-of-life in a collaborative process that is not practice today. This paper explores the strategic position of a procurer in this development. It aims at providing guidelines for procurement processes on how to successively and systematically utilize its potential as drivers for sustainability-oriented product-service solutions. Three procurement cases are studied for which a movement from a traditional product-oriented process to a functional-oriented process was the selection criteria. These cases were used to gain a deepened understanding of drivers and barriers for function-oriented procurement processes. A template for sustainable product development is used as a base for the development. The result from the cases is used to adapt the guidelines to current procurement processes and to meet the procurers where they are today.

The business case of sustainability has been argued for by many authors (Willard, 2005; McNall et al., 2011). There is a large degree of consensus regarding the potential business impact of sustainability. However, most companies either are not acting or are falling short on execution (MIT Sloan, 2009). Relatively few companies consider innovation for sustainability substantially rewarding. Suggested solution for this includes better access to frameworks for understanding sustainability and value creation and the business cases thereof (MIT Sloan, 2009). Furthermore, it is well-known that support for generation and selection of ideas and for formulating goals and strategies is especially essential to have during the early phases of the innovation process (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995). The usual absence of an operational definition of sustainability is still a major barrier to corporate strategic sustainable development (Holmberg & Robèrt, 2000). A sustainability definition that can guide assessment of the current situation and stimulate generation of ideas for upstream solutions and strategic guidelines that can aid prioritization of early smart actions are among the most promising leverage points. A framework including those features is being developed in an international consensus process since twenty years (see, e.g., Robèrt et al., 2012). Among other things, this framework for strategic sustainable development FSSD, clarifies the self-interest in sustainability work and thus supports more widespread and proactive sustainable innovation. In this study, the FSSD is used as the main basis for a new tool to be used in early phases of the innovation process for self-assessment of an organization’s current maturity and performance from an overall strategic sustainability point of view and for stimulating generation of ideas for business models design. We present a prototype version of such a tool and results from initial tests of this tool performed in four organizations. We study in particular whether the outlined tool is perceived by the organizations to be: (i) easy to comprehend, (ii) relevant, (iii) capable of differentiating the organizations in a comprehensive way, (iv) helpful for discovering insufficiencies that the organizations are not already aware of and (v) helpful for generation and selection of ideas for upstream solutions, business model innovation and for formulation of goals, and strategies.

Increasing market demands for 'sustainable products' has in the development of disposable diapers resulted in a focus on material substitution and weight reduction. In this study we have compared the strategic potential of these two approaches for development of the absorbing core of the product. The study indicates that regardless what strategy a company selects for reducing a products socio-ecological impact, both society and environment would benefit from a stronger focus on the long term goal of a sustainably product, instead of the milestones. http://www.lcm2011.org/papers.html

Most companies do not have a coherent and systematic approach for incorporating sustainability criteria into their decision support systems. Given this, what would such a strategic decision support system (SDSS) look like that that is coherent throughout a development process and systematically incorporates (1) a full sustainability perspective, including (2) a broader approach to meeting needs by product-service systems, and (3) interfaces toward both specific groups of decision makers and specialized in-depth tools? We anticipate such an SDSS being structured by a framework for strategic sustainable development that provides a principle-based definition of sustainability and a systematic method to identify problems and solutions by backcasting from that definition. This should aid identification of potential benefits and challenges of shifting from a product-only focus to a focus on product-service systems. Additionally, the new sustainability and product-service system decision support should be flexible enough to be incorporated into existing decision-making processes. It will likely be formed around a built-in product development process at the companies. Godkänd; 2008; 20080331 (tobias) Fastelaboratoriet – VINNEXC, ProViking THINK - Team för Heterogen Innovationskunskap, Simulering av funktionella produkter på en hållbarhetsdriven marknad

This paper outlines the need for a more structured and simplified Life Cycle Assessment approach – called Strategic LCA. It builds on a previously published and peer-reviewed methodology using backcasting from basic principles of socio-ecological sustainability. The idea is to simplify, not by excluding parts of the traditionally covered dimensions in this field, but by a new way of setting system boundaries. Rather than applying boundaries related to geographic regions, or fields of expertise, or particular impacts, all issues found to be relevant as regards achieving sustainability are taken into account. To that end, we use four previously published generic principles of socio-ecological sustainability for the scrutinizing of materials, products and services.

The Master's programme named "Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability" is offered at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola) in Karlskrona, Sweden. This Master's programme builds on four central themes: (1) four scientific principles for socio-ecological sustainability; (2) a planning methodology of "backcasting" based on those scientific principles for sustainability; (3) a five-level model for planning in complex systems, into which backcasting is incorporated as a strategy; and (4) the understanding that within basic scientific constraints, creativity is allowed and encouraged. This course book focuses mainly on the description of a structured approach to sustainable development and is the primary reference for the Master's programme within this scope. The text revolves around a generic, structured model for planning and decision-making in any complex system, recognizing that the key focus for sustainability, human society within the biosphere, is inherently a complex system. As such, the text describes five essential system levels including: (i) the system; (ii) success; (iii) strategy; (iv) actions and (v) tools. Within this 5-level model, the approach “backcasting from principles of socio-ecological sustainability” provides a solid basis for strategic sustainable development. With respect to the second theme, the textbook emphasises that the basic constraints required by the structured approach (the 5-level model, backcasting, and scientific principles of sustainability) actually serve to promote creativity in ways that are productive and complementary to the goal of sustainability. Chapters 6-13, in particular, explore how this approach spurs innovation toward sustainable development in a number of selected disciplines (e.g. organisational learning, strategic business planning, industrial ecology, product development). Course Book Chapter Layout The introduction chapter presents all the core elements of the planning methodology named "Backcasting from Basic Socio-Ecological Principles of Sustainability". Part 1, of the book, containing the first four chapters, covers the next circle and goes deeper into the core elements without losing the overall structure. Part 2, containing the following nine chapters, takes a third, yet deeper, look at some related disciplines like basic science, social sustainability, organisational learning and change, industrial ecology, etc. (Circle 3). The whole idea of Backcasting from Principles is to create a meaningful structure of the overview, and only then tackle the details on a higher and higher degree of detail. Authors + 10> , Jamie MacDonald