Design considerations for environmental sustainability in high density development: a case study of Hong Kong

This study has indicated that there is close relationship between development density and environmental quality; therefore, it is necessary to decide the form of development carefully beforehand. The form of development is shaped either by new development or urban renewal which is a major tactic nowadays adopted by the Hong Kong Government to improve the living condition of the citizens and the quality of the built environment. This study is limited to urban renewal and aims to find out the major urban design considerations for sustaining the environment. Through a questionnaire survey carried out in Hong Kong, the opinions of architects, planners, property development managers, and local citizens were sought and evaluated, and critical design factors for enhancing environmental sustainability of urban renewal projects are highlighted. The results derived from factor analysis indicated that certain design considerations should be incorporated for sustaining the urban environment. “Land Use Planning”, “Quality of Life”, “Conservation & Preservation”, “Integrated Design”, “Provision of Welfare Facilities”, and “Conservation of Existing Properties” were believed to be the significant underlying factors for achieving environmental sustainability of local urban renewal projects. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

From global sustainability research matrix to typology: a tool to analyze coastal and marine social-ecological systems

An attempt is made to develop a coastal and marine social-ecological typology. An explicitly regional focus is taken to explore how a regionally grounded, multi-scale analysis may support multi-level local to global sustainability efforts. A case study from Indonesia exemplifies this approach. Social-ecological sustainability problems, caused by drivers at different earth system levels, lead the way into the proposed typology. A social-ecological system consists of a biogeophysical territory, an identified issue and the associated social agents. It can extend across disciplines as well as across spatial and institutional levels and scales. A global sustainability research matrix, which is based on ecozones and problem types, can thus be constructed and serves as a research-driven multi-level typology. The regional application links directly to stakeholder agendas at the problem level. It is argued that some of the central functions of coastal and marine social-ecological systems are resource provision, livelihood access, and storm and erosion protection, which need special attention in a coastal and marine social-ecological typology, as exemplified in the Indonesian case study used. This contribution is an exploratory research to propose steps toward such a typology. It is extended to the social-ecological subsystems—natural, social, governance—and applied to additional cases. A two-dimensional, hierarchical typology is proposed as a tool to analyze, compare and classify coastal and marine systems. A policy typology is added to assess changes. A governance baseline is assumed to foster normative sustainability goals. A subsystems appraisal typology is meant to evaluate action results. Finally, unresolved methodological questions are discussed.     

Multiscale system dynamics of humans and nature in The Bahamas: perturbation, knowledge, panarchy and resilience

The analysis of the dynamic interactions between social systems, integrated by governance and communication, and biophysical systems, connected by material and energy flows, remains a challenge. In this paper, we draw on the heuristic models of the “adaptive renewal cycle” and “panarchy” [Gunderson and Holling (eds) Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington, 2002], which are embedded in the theory of complex adaptive systems. Taking island development research in The Bahamas as a case study, we investigate environmental stressors, knowledge and social response in the context of three distinct social–ecological subsystems: (1) the interaction between tropical storms/hurricanes and the social system of disaster preparedness/management; (2) coastal ecosystem degradation coupled with land development; and (3) the fishery, in which we also consider the impact of a recent biological invasion, the Indo-Pacific red lionfish. The findings demonstrate the complexity of panarchical relations and the crucial role of diverse and uncertain knowledge systems and underlying mental models of risk and environment for resilience and sustainability. These are acquired at different scales and form key variables of change. This also applies to processes of communication. Bringing together the various constantly evolving multi-level knowledge systems for effective communication and decision-making remains a major challenge.     

Coevolving Ostrom’s social–ecological systems (SES) framework and sustainability science: four key co-benefits

Research on social–ecological systems (SES) is scattered across many disciplines and perspectives. As a result, much of the knowledge generated between different communities is not comparable, mutually aggregate or easily communicated to nonspecialists despite common goals to use academic knowledge for advancing sustainability. This article proposes a conceptual pathway to address this challenge through outlining how the SES research contributions of sustainability science and researchers using Elinor Ostrom’s diagnostic SES framework (SESF) can integrate and co-benefit from explicitly interlinking their development. From a review of the literature, I outline four key co-benefits from their potential to interlink in the following themes: (1) coevolving SES knowledge types, (2) guiding primary research and assessing sustainability, (3) building a boundary object for transdisciplinary sustainability science, and (4) facilitating comparative analysis. The origins of the SESF include seminal empirical work on common property theory, self-organization, and coupled SES interactions. The SESF now serves as a template for diagnosing sustainability challenges and theorizing explanatory relationships on SES components, interactions, and outcomes within and across case studies. Simultaneously, sustainability science has proposed transdisciplinary research agendas, sustainability knowledge types, knowledge coproduction, and sustainability assessment tools to advance transformative change processes. Key challenges for achieving co-beneficial developments in both communities are discussed in relation to each of the four themes. Evident pathways for advancing SES research are also presented along with a guideline for designing SES research within this co-aligned vision.     

Crop–livestock interactions along agro-ecological gradients: a meso-level analysis in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, India

Although conceptually simple and often idealized, disentangling crop–livestock interactions typically proves more complex in practice. Part of the complexity arises from their changing nature along agricultural intensification gradients. Such interactions increase in scope when extensive systems intensify, but decline in importance as already intermediate systems intensify further. This changing nature of crop–livestock interactions in relation to the system’s developmental stage implies that these exchanges can both contribute but also undermine system sustainability. We examine crop–livestock interactions in the Indo-Gangetic Plains as an empirical case, drawing from village surveys to explore and illustrate these relations and implications along the agro-ecological gradient of this vast and important eco-region. Such an understanding is increasingly needed as adapting crop residue management practices is recognized as the key to address sustainability concerns in the prevailing rice–wheat systems and as a stepping stone towards conservation agriculture. The agricultural R&D community needs to incorporate this understanding more proactively into its R&D agenda if it is to succeed in sustaining productivity gains, improving rural livelihoods equitably, and securing environmental sustainability.     

Risk communication and sustainability science: lessons from the field

Sustainability science aims to help societies across the globe address the increased environmental and health crises and risks that range from poverty to climate change to health pandemics. With the increased magnitude and frequency of these large-scale risks to different societies, scientists and institutions have increasingly recognized the need for improved communication and collaboration among researchers, governments, businesses, and communities. This article argues that risk communication has fundamentally important contributions to make to sustainability science’s mission to create use-inspired, “actionable science” that can lead to solutions. Risk communication research can advance the mission of sustainability science to engage a wide range of stakeholders. This kind of engagement is especially important in the context of addressing sustainability problems that are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and complexity. We introduce three core tenets of risk communication research that are fundamental to advancing sustainability science. Risk communication specifically offers an increased understanding of how system feedbacks, human perceptions, and levels of uncertainty influence the study and design of solutions within social ecological systems.     

Decision support for sustainable manufacturing using decision guidance query language

Sustainability has become a very significant research topic as it impacts many different manufacturing industries. Therefore, the technologies for monitoring, analysing, evaluating and optimising the sustainability performance of manufacturing processes and systems are very critical for decision makers on the shop floor. This paper introduces a decision guidance management system that provides actionable recommendations through quantitative analysis of the sustainability measures of manufacturing processes and systems based on life cycle assessment. The system determines decision preferences through dynamically collected data and decision makers' responses, taking into account the prevailing constraints. Optimal decisions can be derived using mathematical and constraint programming. By using decision guidance query language, this methodology allows users to make optimal decisions without an extensive mathematical or operations research background. Knowledge of relational databases is sufficient for a user to formulate the optimisation problem and obtain optimal solutions. The methodology is demonstrated with a machining operation case study, in which a list of sustainability metrics are identified and sustainability modelling methods are proposed. Important sustainable machining performance measures are optimised, resulting in actionable recommendations.     

Developing a sustainability assessment framework for integrated management of water resources systems using distributed zoning and system dynamics approaches

The management of large-scale water resources systems requires including of different stakeholders and users from municipal, agricultural, industrial and environmental sectors. This has baffled the process of decision making for integrated water resource systems. In such systems, the interactions between various stakeholders must be carefully taken into account with the goal of aggregating interests around the sustainability concept. In this study, first, the integrated water resources systems of Big Karun Watershed, Iran, have been modeled using the system dynamics approach. The system dynamics model represents the interactions between different components of the system, including water transfer projects, dams, urban, industry, agriculture and fish farming, and environmental demands. Vensim software has been used for the system dynamics modeling. Vensim simulates the dynamics behavior of the sub-systems and overall performance of the system by comparing the current operation policies with the future management scenarios. A wide range of performance indices, such as quantitative and qualitative water stress, income, cost, and productivity, have been used here to represent different aspects of sustainability goals. Finally, the performance of the systems has been evaluated by developing a sustainability index using distributed zoning model in order to identify proper management policies for this watershed. The results indicate that downstream users demand cannot be fully met by solely considering inter-basin water transfer and agricultural development projects. The sustainable and integrated management of the whole system ties into enhancement in both infrastructure systems and the operation of the whole system. It is expected that the sustainability of the basin improves if a water market schema exists and the gained money would be used to enhance the efficiency of existing irrigation networks.

     

Towards an umbrella science of sustainability

Sustainability research has gained scholarly attention since the 1980s as the new science investigating the changes in social, environmental and economic systems and their impacts on the future of planetary life support systems. Whilst broad literature on sustainability has expanded significantly over the past decades, academic literature developing sustainability as a distinct science has received little attention. After more than two decades of sustainability research, the time has come for us to begin asking reflective questions about what sort of science we call sustainability science. How has the broader research on sustainability contributed to developing sustainability science as a unique discipline within the past two decades? How has the label science promoted or hindered the interdisciplinary project of integrating the natural and social sciences as well as arts and humanities in addressing human nature problems? I argue in this review paper that special efforts need to be made towards the building and positioning of sustainability as an umbrella science for global sustainability research. The benefits of the new sustainability science advocated for in this paper are that; a) it offers a universal definition of sustainability that accounts for both the needs of life and the capacity of planetary life support systems to provide for those needs and b) proposes ways of bridging gaps among different research traditions, facilitating cross disciplinary communication and addressing the challenge of multiple meanings and definitions of concepts facing sustainability research today.     

Sustainability assessment of urban communities through rating systems

This paper focuses on the sustainability assessment of urban communities through multi-criterion rating systems. Recent interpretations of the concepts of sustainability, assessment and community are discussed before reviewing existing assessment systems. In particular, the systems BREEAM for Communities, LEED for Neighbourhood Development and CASBEE for Urban Development are presented and compared. Each one of these systems bases the assessment on the summation of rates for different criteria often similar to those considered in sustainability assessments of buildings. The comparison shows that existing systems often accept a weak sustainability where natural resources may be subsidized by other priorities. Missing assessment criteria are proposed mainly within the social and economic dimensions of sustainability. This paper also shows that the dynamicity of a community suggests considering the sustainability assessment systems as tools to monitor the evolution of communities. Finally, it shows that an increase in citizen engagement in the selection of assessment criteria is necessary to share priorities and customize sustainability goals for each community.     

Sustainability: definition and five core principles,a systems perspective

A systems perspective is used to discuss the concept of sustainability. From this perspective, it is argued, sustainability can be regarded as a system state that is mediated by specific structures. This is fundamentally different from regarding sustainability merely as a normative goal, as it is presently regarded by most. Insight into the kinds of structures which mediate a system’s state open the door to proactive design of new structures and mechanisms, which are necessary for yielding effective change: in this case, promoting the sustainability agenda. The kind of change required to transform the prevailing trajectory of human affairs is presented as a second order change: a change that requires a major shift, and a complete transformation of the system itself, not only in a few aspects of its behavior. A new definition of sustainability is offered, anchored in the interaction of a population and the carrying capacity of its environment. From this definition, five core sustainability principles are derived, along with their respective policy and operational implications. Together, these principles prescribe the conditions that must be met to attain sustainability as an enduring state. The principles themselves form an integrated, systemic set, which requires them to be acted on simultaneously. A piecemeal approach—focusing on one aspect while neglecting others—is not likely to yield effective results for the whole.     

State-of-the-art sustainability analysis methodologies for efficient decision support in green production operations

Over the last three decades, new concepts, strategies, frameworks and systems have been developed to tackle the sustainable development issue. This paper reviews the challenges, perspectives and recent advances in support of sustainable production operations decision-making. The aim of this review is to provide a holistic understanding of advanced scientific analysis methodologies for the evaluation of sustainability, to provide efficient decision support. Over 100 publications have been analysed, and a characterisation of state-of-the-art sustainability analysis methodologies has been produced, which includes life cycle assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), along with their applications to three key areas of production operations: sustainable design, sustainable manufacture and sustainable supply chain management. Distribution of existing work is discussed and future research directions are elicited from the literature. The paper finds three trends in supporting sustainable production operations decisions: (a) sustainability analysis has moved to whole life cycle assessment from single-stage assessment, (b) sustainability analysis has shifted away from single criterion to MCDA and (c) sustainability analysis has evolved from stand-alone approaches to integrated systematic methodologies. The paper concludes that integrated sustainability analysis can provide more efficient and effective support to complex decision-making in sustainable production operations.     

区域水资源可持续利用评价的FAHP-PP模型

正确评价区域水资源可持续利用，对区域社会、经济的可持续发展以及生态环境的良性循环都具有重要意义，而区域水资源可持续利用指标体系及评价方法研究是水资源可持续利用研究的基础。借鉴现有评价指标体系的优点，并充分考虑现有评价指标体系所忽略的某些环境因素对水资源可持续利用的影响，针对区域社会-经济-环境复合系统的特点，提出了由区域水资源条件、水资源开发利用程度、区域水资源与社会协调程度、区域水资源与环境协调程度4个子系统及评价指标组成的区域水资源可持续利用评价指标体系。根据水资源系统的随机性、模糊性等特性以及系统评价的公正、客观要求，为规避评价方法的主观性与客观性影响，分别应用主观性较强的模糊层次分析法（FAHP）与客观性较强的投影寻踪模型（PP）对区域水资源可持续利用水平进行评价，并将两种方法的评价结果进行加权求和以实现优势互补，以此建立了区域水资源评价的一种新模型（FAHP PP），然后通过以上海市1998～2007年水资源可持续利用情况为例对该评价指标体系的合理性及方法的有效性进行了说明.     

Exploring the need for more radical sustainable innovation: what does it look like and why?

It has been argued in recent years that Western economies need to increase their resource productivity by 90% over the next 50 years. This is a radical aim. This paper draws on design for sustainability (DfS) thinking to scope interventions that encourage greater levels of resource productivity through reconfiguring concepts of growth and well‐being within organisational strategies, structures, systems, processes and outputs. Based on research from a UK EPSRC funded project Design Dialogues (2005–2008), this paper links together sustainable design and innovation literatures and dialogue‐based primary research that together inform the development of an approach to innovation for sustainability. The emphasis on sustainable innovation is to understand what is designed (the outputs of business) and why (the inputs: the values, beliefs, visions and objectives) within a context of ecological limits. The foundations of this approach are introduced here in order to demonstrate the potential to provoke a new way of thinking about longer‐term organisational innovation through making explicit the intrinsic connections between natural and human capitals. This paper explores the need to think differently in order to create sustainability and presents the outcome of this research: a methodology for innovation for sustainability.     

Sustainability: new strategic thinking for business

Some researchers insist that sustainability should be represented as a continuous quest, doubting that there is the ‘right’ way to be sustainable. Acknowledging the immensity of sustainability challenges, this article takes a different perspective, arguing that without understanding of concrete barriers and seeking solutions, the challenge of addressing unsustainable practices becomes unsurmountable. This article will summarize research in sustainability literature that indicates that sustainability requires a constant human population, as well as ecologically benign method of production. This article will survey a number of helpful frameworks that address the key obstacles to sustainability, namely population growth, and unsustainable production and consumption. These frameworks are discussed in the context of business-level solutions and production systems. As illustrated by examples of best practices as well as potential pitfalls associated with each system, these systems have the potential to move the quest for sustainability beyond ‘business as usual.’     

The idea of weak sustainability is illegitimate

Since the introduction of the sustainability challenge, scientists disagree over the interpretation of the term “sustainability.” Weak and strong sustainability are the two main interpretations of sustainability, which are opposing each other. Some researchers stated that the interpretation of the term depends on the context; others disagree pointing out that it always implies the meaning of continuation. The term “sustainability” can be used as attribute, which adds a certain characteristic to the noun. If something can be attributed as being sustainable, it can also be unsustainable. The sustainability challenge consists of shifting from the current unsustainable towards a sustainable system. This paper outlines that the weak sustainability term is illegitimate, as it leads to a contradiction with the acknowledged assumption that the current state is unsustainable. This contradiction is revealed through an analysis of the occurrence of decoupling in agriculture: Agricultural land use could be decoupled from agricultural production, but only with the trade-off of massive increases in fertilizer, pesticide, energy and water usage. This paper outlines an inherent inconsistency within the ongoing discussion about the interpretation of sustainability. Through identifying the invalidity of the weak sustainability interpretation the focus can be shifted form the discourse to the sustainability challenge itself.     

A “measurable” definition of sustainable development based on closed cycles of resources and its application to energy systems

Human society consumes resources that it is not able to reproduce. Human activities are still based on “open cycles,” starting from a condition of natural environmental balance and reaching an environmental imbalance. The challenging scope of scientific and technological research towards sustainability appears clear if it is based on this analysis: to find development systems based on “closed cycles” of resources. The challenging objective of realizing closed cycles leads to a definition of sustainability that indicates the path to sustainable development, as well as stating the general principle. It also provides a key to the qualitative measurement of sustainability. This means that the sustainability level of a system can be measured by measuring its capacity to avoid the consumption of resources. Zero consumption is a necessary condition for sustainability, and brings about as a side effect the highly desired “zero-waste” result. Materials entering the proposed endless scheme pass through the process of usefulness without losing their capacity to feed the system again after being used. Thus, the concept of “consumption” itself is replaced by one of “use” when resources are inserted into closed loops capable of feeding human development. The application of the closed cycle sustainability criterion particularly displays its feasibility, and a theoretical guiding role, in the energy sector. Energy vectors such as hydrogen and electricity enable the closure of the energy resources loop by effectively approaching the objective of “zero consumption” (and the side result of “zero waste”) through already demonstrated technological solutions.     

When experts disagree: the need to rethink indicator selection for assessing sustainability of agriculture

Sustainability indicators are well recognized for their potential to assess and monitor sustainable development of agricultural systems. A large number of indicators are proposed in various sustainability assessment frameworks, which raises concerns regarding the validity of approaches, usefulness and trust in such frameworks. Selecting indicators requires transparent and well-defined procedures to ensure the relevance and validity of sustainability assessments. The objective of this study, therefore, was to determine whether experts agree on which criteria are most important in the selection of indicators and indicator sets for robust sustainability assessments. Two groups of experts (Temperate Agriculture Research Network and New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard) were asked to rank the relative importance of eleven criteria for selecting individual indicators and of nine criteria for balancing a collective set of indicators. Both ranking surveys reveal a startling lack of consensus amongst experts about how best to measure agricultural sustainability and call for a radical rethink about how complementary approaches to sustainability assessments are used alongside each other to ensure a plurality of views and maximum collaboration and trust amongst stakeholders. To improve the transparency, relevance and robustness of sustainable assessments, the context of the sustainability assessment, including prioritizations of selection criteria for indicator selection, must be accounted for. A collaborative design process will enhance the acceptance of diverse values and prioritizations embedded in sustainability assessments. The process by which indicators and sustainability frameworks are established may be a much more important determinant of their success than the final shape of the assessment tools. Such an emphasis on process would make assessments more transparent, transformative and enduring.     

土地资源、环境与经济发展的协调性评价

评价系统发展协调性的“协调判别法”是这样一种方法：先为系统的各子系统选择一些有代表性又可用一定指标度量的要素，按一定标准将要素分作满意与不满意两类，统计加总各类要素的数量，以之作为度量用的综合指标，并经归一化处理得各子系统的“状态数”；再将这些子系统与一定的“状态空间”对应，在此空间中利用“状态数”确定子系统所属系统的“状态点”及“完全协调线”；然后分别计算状态点与协调线的距离（偏离度）、状态点与原点的距离（优化度），借助它们便可评价各子系统发展的同步性及相应系统的协调性。以此方法对通州市由土地利用、自然环境和社会经济3个子系统组成的系统进行的协调性评价表明，“协调判别法”具有含义明确、简单、较客观、易操作、可比性强的特点，适用于评价复杂系统的协调发展问题。