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Abstract The sustainable use of forest resources is an intensively debated topic, raising environmental, socio-cultural and economic concerns. The debate culminates around forest bioenergy. The bioenergy debate has been characterized by a strong polarisation between different perspectives on environmental impacts. In particular, the claims about carbon sequestration have been contrasted with other ecological impacts. This article focuses on the debate over the use of tree stumps as a relatively novel source of forest bioenergy. To shed light on the constellation of the different arguments and actors in the debate on the sustainability of forest bioenergy, we conducted an empirical qualitative analysis of Finnish argumentation on tree stump removal, using media and interview data and relating the emerging sustainability arguments to the dimensions debated in the EU biofuel sustainability policy. The analysis shows the variation of views across Finnish expert stakeholders and the fora where the arguments are made. Climate impacts dominate the media discussion, while other sustainability dimensions are covered in expert discussion. Our findings have implications for the interpretation and use of scientific arguments in energy debates, in particular regarding environmental sustainability. Highlights • Bioenergy is an important part of renewable energy portfolio. • Sustainability of forest-based bioenergy is debated. • The arguments in the media and among experts adhere to different framings. • Climate impacts stand out in the media discussion of stump energy use. • The results show that science contributes to public discussion and concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing complex global ecological and societal transitions pose challenges of including actors with different knowledge. We focus on approaches to gaining shared understanding and acting on it in the converging fields of environment, health care and environmental health. Starting from similarities between these fields with regard to knowledge and actor inclusion, we rethink ‘knowledge’, ‘brokering’ and ‘science–policy interfaces’. Using conceptual models, we structure and characterize the multi-dimensional and interactive co-production and application of types of knowledge (scientific and other) in governance contexts shaped by institutions, political agency and policies (sectorial and integrative). We investigate cases of knowledge brokering, representing different types from formal to informal, international to national, and research-centered to action-oriented. We find both shared and isolated problems and solutions in the studied sectors and settings regarding knowledge brokering, for instance with respect to precaution, reflecting the dynamics in environmental and health care and their contexts. Methodologically, our analyses show the importance of heuristic and participatory approaches to explicating interpretations and dealing with disagreements about knowledge, values and premises for actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of an impact assessment (IA) can mean both instrumental success of applying IA results directly in decision-making, and conceptual success linked to learning about policy problems more generally. Both instrumental and conceptual success can be claimed to be reliant on the knowledge exchange context of the IA, shaped by factors such as the complexity of the policy problem, type of policy area, organisational norms, actor constellations and continuance and openness of information sharing. Even though such context factors may be pre-set, they are nevertheless contested and reformulated during each IA process. This paper ties together lessons from six different IA processes that were performed between 2011 and 2013. The cases include agricultural policy at the EU and regional level in Greece, national-level climate change and energy policy in Finland and Estonia, resource efficiency policy at the German national level, and sustainable land use policy in Inner Mongolia, China. The paper introduces and applies a typology of knowledge brokerage context factors. The paper asks how knowledge brokerage is shaped by different contexts and what determines the consequent application (or non-application) of IA tools and the use of IA results. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of identification and acknowledgement of different knowledge exchange contexts in IA. [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]