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The urgency of the sustainability transition, as emphasized by science, has not yet been fully translated to large‐scale, inspired and effective societal action. This article focuses on the transformative potential of science‐based information presented through specific sustainability storylines inside larger policy narratives. Sustainability storylines can serve as tools for learning from the past, create representations of the current situation and outline paths toward probable, preferable, or avoidable futures. The focus is on three storylines focusing on bioenergy as a renewable energy solution, green mining providing nonrenewable resources and physically active mobility allowing health and environmental benefits. The empirical focus is on Finland, a forerunner of sustainability policies with a large per capita environmental footprint. The potential of sustainable development goals to simultaneously serve as a globally shared and nationally relevant framework for sustainability storylines is discussed with a rather dismal conclusion but optimistic outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiences can give valuable advice for revising NUA indicator metadata descriptions towards more data-driven, policy-relevant and communication-oriented approaches. The NUA presents the internationally agreed goals for urban development as outlined by the 2016 UN HABITAT III conference in Quito (UN, 2016) and introduces a wide set of indicators to assess urban sustainability. UNFEASIBLE METADATA REQUIREMENTS One serious concern is with the metadata descriptions specifying the contents of NUA indicators (UN HABITAT, 2021b). [Extracted from the article]

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) aim to provide humanity with a global roadmap to sustainability. Official SDG indicators have been intensively developed, and they have a prominent and pronounced role as a key monitoring and policy instrument. Furthermore, various complementary or alternative indicator sets have been introduced at the global, regional and national levels. This article focuses on the risks related to the national indicators. The analysis is based on experiences from the preparation processes of sustainable development indicators in Finland and insights from indicator professionals and stakeholders in Finland and Germany. The risks related to overuse, nonuse and misuse of indicators are analyzed from the perspectives of indicator contents, processes of production and communication and external context factors. Opportunities for avoiding different risks and improving the desired societal impacts and influences of indicator usage are discussed. The concept of risk is helpful in terms of empirical diagnosis and for formulating mitigation recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various expectations are placed on national‐level sustainability indicators. Ideally, they should serve as efficient tools for transformations, leading societies to sustainable paths by creating a comprehensive, reliable, timely, and easy‐to‐understand picture of the key ecological, socio‐cultural, and economic trends. Most, if not all, indicator initiatives so far have been unable to meet such grandiose expectations. This has evoked criticism of and scepticism towards the indicator approach, but has also motivated improvement of indicator sets and knowledge brokerage processes. This article discusses the role of sustainability indicators in societal transition by examining the experiences gained from the preparation and launch of a sustainable development indicator set specifically aimed at supporting national‐level policymaking in Finland. It is concluded that better recognition of the tensions between attempts to improve the quality of indicators and attempts to enhance their use in policy is key to meeting the expectations placed upon sustainability indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Greening the economy has been widely discussed as a new strategy for simultaneously reducing environmental pressures, promoting economic growth and enhancing social well‐being. Indicators are one tool that can be used to describe the development of green growth. This paper presents and evaluates the process of attempting to build a set of policy‐relevant key indicators of green growth for Finland. The challenges of developing a cross‐scale indicator set integrating different sectors and levels of society are identified and discussed. It is argued that both the experts preparing the indicators and the potential users will benefit from a collaborative process that aims not only to build a shared awareness of the key issues of green growth but also to foster a realistic understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the indicator approach. Key challenges include data availability, right balance between different indicator selection criteria, systemic understanding of the relationships between indicators, and the variable usage contexts of the indicators. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Integrated assessment and management of water resources for the supply of potable water is increasingly important in light of projected water scarcity in many parts of the world. This article develops frameworks for regional-level waterborne human health risk assessment of chemical and microbiological contamination to aid water management, incorporating economic aspects of health risks. Managed aquifer recharge with surface water from a river in Southern Finland is used as an illustrative case. With a starting point in watershed governance, stakeholder concerns, and value-at-risk concepts, we merge common methods for integrative health risk analysis of contaminants to describe risks and impacts dynamically and broadly. This involves structuring analyses along the risk chain: sources-releases-environmental transport and fate-exposures-health effects-socio-economic impacts-management responses. Risks attributed to contaminants are embedded in other risks, such as contaminants from other sources, and related to benefits from improved water quality. A set of models along this risk chain in the case is presented. Fundamental issues in the assessment are identified, including 1) framing of risks, scenarios, and choices; 2) interaction of models and empirical information; 3) time dimension; 4) distributions of risks and benefits; and 5) uncertainties about risks and controls. We find that all these combine objective and subjective aspects, and involve value judgments and policy choices. We conclude with proposals for overcoming conceptual and functional divides and lock-ins to improve modeling, assessment, and management of complex water supply schemes, especially by reflective solution-oriented interdisciplinary and multi-actor deliberation. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:160-173. © 2015 SETAC [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Indicators are considered a key tool in assessing whether societies are progressing towards sustainability. In indicator development, the main emphasis has been on the production of new indicators. Various kinds of sustainable development indicators and indicator sets have been developed to describe and assess key trends at local, national and global level. We argue that it is at least equally important to focus on how, when and by whom indicators are actually used. In addition, the focus should be on what kinds of desirable and undesirable effects are related to the use or non-use of indicators. Here, attention is paid to the negative, unintended effects of sustainability indicators in communication processes. Starting from an earlier typology focusing on health communication, various types of negative unintended effects of sustainable development indicators are identified and discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mass media shape the public and policy agenda by giving prominence to certain ecosystem changes and risks, as well as by framing some policy measures as the preferred ones. Based on longitudinal analysis of the leading Finnish newspaper, this study considers the media coverage of eutrophication. The results show an increase of reporting in the late 1990s as a result of intertwined ecological and social factors - i.e. intense algal occurrences and establishment of a national communication system. The news coverage has highlighted the harmful algal blooms and health risks of algal toxins and has framed short-term weather conditions as the key factor regulating algal occurrences. This creates a challenge for environmental management aimed at reduction in the nutrient discharges that influence the state of the environment in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicators are commonly used as tools to identify and highlight socio-economic and ecological trends and to assess progress towards sustainability. Different quality criteria can be considered for indicators. This paper focuses on the timeliness of indicators used in the evaluation of sustainable development strategies. The analysis is based on indicators included in four assessment reports of the sustainable development strategy of the European Union and three assessment reports of the national strategy of Finland. Furthermore, a web-based national level indicator portal is analysed. The results show that the timeliness of indicators has generally not improved during the past decade and that indicators used in strategy evaluations have a time lag of approximately two years. It is suggested that more attention should be given to efforts to improve the timeliness of indicators in order to increase the effectiveness of the evaluations. More generally, it is suggested that greater emphasis should be put on the empirical research on actual use of indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland is one of the forerunners in sustainable development reporting, with abundant long term statistics on environmental, social and economic issues. In this article, we introduce the Finnish experience on producing and disseminating sustainable development indicators. We describe four indicator initiatives prepared and published during the last decade and discuss the role of different conceptual frameworks for preparing and presenting the indicators. The requirements for a good conceptual framework are reviewed and the effectiveness of different frameworks for different purposes is discussed based on the cases presented. We conclude by stressing the importance of paying more attention to indicator set frameworks instead of individual indicators and using specifically tailored frameworks for specific uses. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental indicators were developed mainly to improve information flows from scientists to policy-makers. This article discusses the importance of timely environmental data and investigates the influence of indicator-based reporting on the data timeliness of environmental reports by international organizations. Timeliness of information contributes to the quality and appeal of the reports, and to their role as early warning tools, and increases their usability by decision-makers in short-term decision cycles. The results of an analysis of 11 international reports by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) show a considerable time lag of three years on average, with only minor development towards more timely reporting. The results suggest that the introduction of environmental indicators has not improved the timeliness of reporting. In order to overcome these problems, the article recommends some methods for improving timeliness. These include better choice of indicators in smaller sets, use of preliminary data and outlooks, development of new indicators, publishing on the internet and more effective use of internet databases to avoid intermediate levels in data collection. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]