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Abstract As a matter of policy, minimizing human health and environmental risks associated with pesticide use is a major challenge but necessary for improving agricultural sustainability. Efficient and effective policies that encourage the use of less risky pesticides, such as pesticide taxes, necessitate a precise and realistic quantification of potential adverse effects. Various indicators are currently utilized in policies and they focus mainly on a purely quantitative dimension of the pesticides used, which can lead potentially to unfavorable outcomes of pesticide policies. A unique dataset applied to pesticide use by Swiss farmers in winter wheat and potato production, demonstrates that on average the two most important quantitative indicators show a significant correlation with pesticide risks as expressed by the Danish Load Indicator. However, they have almost no explanatory power for extreme risks (e.g. most intensive use patterns for pesticides with unfavorable toxicity profiles). Results remain stable over a range of aggregation levels, from application- to farm-level indicators of pesticide use. These findings render the commonly used, quantitative indicators ineffective to reduce potential environmental and human health risks of pesticides and, in the worst case, lead to misinformed market-based pesticide policies consequential to National Action Plans. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • Current pesticide policies are mainly based on quantitative indicators. • We compare consistency of quantitative indicators with pesticide risks. • Highly detailed panel data on pesticide use of Swiss crop farmers is used. • We find a good average consistency but no explanatory power for extreme risks. • The use of purely quantitative indicators might lead to adverse policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While environmental composite indexes are useful tools in ranking the relative performance of countries on characteristics of interest, critiques are being made about their lack of relevance and responsiveness pertaining to changes in the environment; this negatively affects their usefulness and relevance. In this paper, an alternative to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is proposed by constructing a proof-of-concept index based on component variables whose changes reflect the actual state of the environment and the environmental sustainability on the particular dimensions measured. The proposed Environmental State and Sustainability Index (ESSI) also takes into account the relationships between variables in constructing the composite index by checking the relevance of the theoretical environmental dimensions against factor components, which explains the complex relationships between environmental variables and aims at achieving a relevant weighting of the component variables. Results indicate that ESSI scores are comparable with EPI and reflect better the actual situation of some countries with high-rank differences. Thus, ESSI can be used as a basis for constructing or revising environmental indicators that are closer to the objective of achieving a truly overarching measure of the state of the environment that is relevant in informing policy and reflect actual changes in the component dimensions as relevant data becomes available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining sustainable cities is not straightforward. The main issues involved in urban sustainability are buildings, energy, food, green areas and landscape, mobility, urban planning, water and waste; and their improvement is promoted through different strategies. However, a quantitative method, such as life cycle thinking (LCT), is essential to evaluating these strategies. This paper reviews LCT studies related to urban issues to identify the main research gaps in the evaluation of these improvement strategies. The review identifies the main sustainability strategies associated with each urban issue and compiles articles that deal with these strategies through LCT, including environmental life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), social LCA (S-LCA) and life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA), as well as integrated analyses with combined tools. Water, waste and buildings are the urban issues that accounted for a larger amount of studies. In contrast, a limited number of papers assessed urban planning and energy (excluding energy in buildings). Strong interrelations among urban issues were identified, most of them including water. In terms of methods, 79% of the studies exclusively applied life cycle tools (i.e., LCA, LCC, S-LCA or LCSA). Within this group, the environmental dimension was the focus of 84% of the papers. Single environmental indicators (e.g., global warming) were common in 20% of the analyses, highlighting the need to integrate more impact categories to prevent trade-offs. In the field of social and sustainability assessment, there is a need for methodological advances that foster their application in urban areas. Further research should cover the thematic and methodological gaps identified in this paper, such as developing models that assess complex urban issues, generating comprehensive LCT studies and promoting multi-indicators. Life cycle tools might benefit from revising the methodology with stakeholders to optimize the understanding and communication of life cycle results for policy- and decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying and mapping ecosystem services is increasingly employed to guide policies in their search for environmental sustainability. In this study, we present a method for mapping aesthetic values as an ecosystem service, combining insights from landscape research and ecosystem service mapping practices. We review or method through a comparison to existing aesthetic value mapping approaches and verify the results through a comparison to a revealed landscape preferences indicator. Disagreement between the methods arises from many factors, including the type of ecological/landscape features that are assumed to contribute to the provision of aesthetic values, the use of context-specific or generic aesthetic value estimates, the scale of landscape evaluation and the level of integration of the landscape preference analysis. We argue that the approach presented here is a suitable generically applicable methodology for context-sensitive mapping of aesthetic landscape values for a number of reasons: (i) a careful and transparent selection process of landscape attributes, (ii) the use of primary preference data, (iii) an integrated evaluation of landscape attributes introducing trade-offs between specific features in the agricultural landscape and (iv) application of visual landscape scale manipulated photographs for the elicitation of preferences as a surrogate for a real landscape experience. [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]

Abstract: Since the Rio Declaration in 1992, international institutions, governments and NGOs have promoted sustainability indicators as a tool for providing policy mechanisms that dictate development decision-making. The expert approach, also known as reductionist, has been the most used in the processes of sustainability evaluation; this approach has been criticized for its lack of holistic vision to evaluate a system. A participatory approach has been promoted in order to counteract this type of limitation. This paper presents a case study of a participatory assessment of sustainability in a local community inside a natural protected area; its objective is to attempt to answer if, from local knowledge, is it possible to generate a sustainability local assessment system. The process included the active participation of the inhabitants of Agua Blanca community, located within the Nevado de Toluca National Park (NTNP) in Mexico''s central highlands. A framework was used to identify and select sustainability indicators, which was divided into four phases: the description of the system, the identification of the sustainability objectives, the selection of indicators, and the measurement of the progress toward the sustainability objectives. As a result, 64 indicators were identified, which were classified into three pillars of sustainability and its interactions. The participatory approach aided in the evaluation of diverse elements within the system, without limiting itself to one element or dimension of sustainability in particular. Most of the indicators corresponded to the environmental dimension of sustainability, which reflects the level of interaction the community has with its environment. The indicators proposed by villagers, as a whole, were not considered technically appropriate; therefore the need for a selection indicator process was reaffirmed. The process described here is an opportunity to strengthen the self-organization of the communities, reinforce local management, and contribute to the generation of mechanisms of cooperation and processes of co-management of the natural protected areas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Evidence on the role of information and knowledge for policy making shows that policy actors seldom use information as a direct input to their decisions. Similar patterns of (non)use have been identified in the case of indicators in the environmental and sustainable development policy domains. The objective of the paper is to elucidate the patterns of environmental indicator use and to argue for the introduction of a ‘politics of policy indicators’. With a limited set of characteristics (e.g. legitimacy, credibility and salience) of indicators, which help to apprehend the usability of indicators, we argue that the usability profile of indicators can be analysed as a matter of construction and deliberation by indicator creators and policy actors. The performance of indicators as policy tools – as rendered with their usability profile – is co-dependent of the institutional embeddedness of the indicators. Our conclusion makes the case that if environmental improvements towards more sustainability are partly relying on the quality and uptake of information into policy processes in order to steer decisions, then the ‘usability profile’ of indicators itself should be subject to collective and conscious steering. This call to ‘steer the steering’ is supported by the wider calls to initiate patterns of ‘reflexive governance’ within the sustainability policy domain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The development of systemic environmental monitoring and indicators for sustainability requires one to tackle the complexity of human–environmental systems. To this end the ecosystem approach is proposed here as a framework and the ecological network analysis as a tool for investigation while an urban system, represented as a water flow network, is discussed as a case study. Flow distribution is used to calculate total system throughput, development capacity, average mutual information, ascendency and overhead. These indices condense the complexity of the flow structure (representing system''s metabolism) into a few measures that provide information on how systems grow and develop; because of this they are consistent with the sustainability context. Two alternative scenarios are presented to discuss the effects of management actions (policies) on sustainability as they change the flow structure and system level indices. While it is shown that increasing system activity (intensity of processes) augments potential for development but not realized development, actions that improve the organization of flows, thus increasing average mutual information, may reduce total system throughput and drive the system toward more sustainable conditions. System level indices are holistic measures that unveil the relation between internal processes and whole system performance. Understanding this relation is crucial because the former are the target of environmental policies but sustainability, the objective of such policies, is an overall system trait. Because of these features system level indices can be examples of a new quality of indicators for sustainability assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The environmental dimension of sustainability implies the role of cities, considering their institutional vocation to territorial management and their proximity to the needs expressed by the community. This paper aims to investigate the implementation of a sustainable approach by cities in the realization of environmental policies. The methodology followed is regression (GLS method) that relates the expenses for the environmental policy of a sample of Italian cities (116) to some environmental indicators for the same municipalities (considering 2003–2011). Furthermore, t -test methodology is applied to compare the sample average values to the Italian average values of the selected environmental indicators. The paper takes into account not only a specific phase of sustainability, but it also considers the whole sustainability approach. In fact, the research connects the financial starting point of environmental policy (city's environmental financial commitment) to its environmental impacts (environmental indicators). The results obtained show that the investigated cities, on the one hand, direct environmental expenses to critical factors affecting environmental sustainability but, on the other hand, their environmental policies are not very effective. The research output gives useful information to city managers and politicians in order to focus their environmental policy on a sustainability approach that is effectiveness oriented. • The environmental dimension of sustainability implies the role of cities. • This paper aims to investigate the cities' sustainable approach in the realization of environmental policies. • Sustainability approach is the relation between financial input, output andimpact on environmental problems (outcome). • The methodologies followed are regression (GLS method) and t-test, on a sample of Italian cities (116) for 9 years. • The results show thatcitiesdirect expenses to sustainability issues buttheir environmental policies are ineffective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]