The sustainable development oxymoron: quantifying and modelling the incompatibility of sustainable development goals

ABSTRACT

In 2015, the UN adopted a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate poverty, establish socioeconomic inclusion and protect the environment. Critical voices such as the International Council for Science (ICSU), however, have expressed concerns about the potential incompatibility of the SDGs, specifically the incompatibility of socio-economic development and environmental sustainability. In this paper, we test, quantify and model the alleged inconsistency of SDGs. Our analyses show which SDGs are consistent and which are conflicting. We measure the extent of inconsistency and conclude that the SDG agenda will fail as a whole if we continue with business as usual. We further explore the nature of the inconsistencies using dynamical systems models, which reveal that the focus on economic growth and consumption as a means for development underlies the inconsistency. Our models also show that there are factors which can contribute to development (health programmes, government investment) on the one hand and ecological sustainability (renewable energy) on the other, without triggering the conflict between incompatible SDGs.     

Analysis of the relations between circular economy and sustainable development goals

ABSTRACT

Since the United Nations approved the eight Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and, 15 years later, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the highest political institutions in the world have not stopped worrying about achieving the sustainability of the planet. Also in 2015, the European Commission prepared the European Union Action Plan for the Circular Economy, seeking a transition towards a less linear economy, in which products, materials, and resources are kept in the system for as long as possible and in which the generation of waste is minimized.

Since then, the European Union has continued issuing reports and communications to accelerate this process in search of a circular economy, making continuous references to the fact that, through circular economy initiatives, the SDGs would be fulfilled. In this context, the objectives of this paper are 1) to determine, through exploratory factor analysis and correlation analysis, whether there is a statistically significant relationship between circular economy initiatives undertaken in the EU and compliance with the SDGs; 2) to check, through a cluster analysis, if there are homogeneous groups of countries worldwide in terms of compliance with the SDGs; and 3) using this same technique, to check whether the countries that make up the EU achieve similar results in terms of compliance with the SDGs.     

Conceptualizing and incorporating social sustainability in the business world

One of the most important challenges faced by business managers today is the integration of sustainability into their core functions. The contemporary enterprise is forced to leap forward from the mere adoption of green practices toward rethinking, redesigning, and redeveloping business practices in a more sustainable way. Most of the initiatives in this attempt have so far emphasized primarily the economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development and overlooked the social dimension of sustainability. As more organizations commit to sustainability, there is an increasing concern to incorporate social sustainability throughout their business operations. To conceptualize and integrate the notion, some organizations use preexisting indicators to demonstrate the value and impact of sustainability, while others look beyond the measurement of impacts by constructing their own system of indicators. This paper draws on a comprehensive literature review to determine a broadly acceptable framework of social sustainability indicators to be conceptualized and integrated into the business world. Findings suggest that economic and environmental sustainability can be driven together with core social factors including fairness and equality, poverty, health, education, delinquencies, demography, culture, and employee engagement within an organization. These results offer insight into the emerging phenomenon of formulating sustainable business strategies for organizations based on social indicators to attain the ultimate sustainable outcomes. This study is among the first to identify social sustainability indicators from societal and corporate perspectives. It offers a comprehensive social sustainability framework that may be adopted by organizations in the business world.     

Sustainability measurement of product-service systems: Brazilian case studies about electric car-sharing

Modifying the traditional production system and the culture of consumption is necessary to achieve a sustainable society. The product-service system (PSS) business model allows companies to progressively add services to physical products, thus promoting more pro-sustainable business outcomes. The purpose of this work is to verify how a PSS model can contribute to sustainability by analyzing two electric car-sharing projects using a set of five factors. As a methodological strategy, a Systematic Literature Review and a case study of the two projects (VAMO and EMOTIVE) were performed. Findings show benefits generated by both projects as to environmental aspects, mainly related to gases emission. It was also possible to observe social benefits due to income development and environmental awareness. This paper thus contributes to the discussion of the potential of the PSS models and how they can leverage business models toward a more sustainable society. Although the results are applicable only in this case, this article can motivate new projects and contribute to enriching the debate about sustainable solutions, as the literature in this field still provides few case studies showing these types of applications.     

Influence of eco-innovation on Indian manufacturing sector sustainable performance

Manufacturing firms are striving to improve their sustainable performance in order to satisfy multiple stakeholders. Eco-innovation is a promising approach that decreases environmental impact and helps firms to increase their business value. There are several antecedents which help the firms to innovate and improve their triple bottom line performance. Among the antecedents, management and innovative practices are directly related to eco-innovation. It is not well known what practices and innovations help the firms to eco-innovate as well as to improve sustainable performance. Hence, the research objective of this paper is to identify the suitable combination of management and innovative practices that help firms to eco-innovate as well as to achieve overall sustainable performance. The paper develops an eco-innovation conceptual model which relates the management and innovative practices (antecedents) and overall sustainable performance (consequences) of eco-innovation using institutional theory. Using Indian manufacturing sector’s empirical data and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach, this paper determines the effect of eco-innovation’s antecedents and consequences. In the Indian context, this study suggests that the role of management practice is more significant towards eco-innovation than innovative practices. The results reflect practitioners’ view on how to increase innovation rate and to focus more on social aspects. The finding suggests that training on environmental related practices could tackle innovation and social aspects in the Indian manufacturing sector context.     

Reinvigorating the sustainable development research agenda: the role of the sustainable development goals (SDG)

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) contain a set of 17 measures to foster sustainable development across many areas. It offers a good opportunity to reinvigorate sustainable development research for two main reasons. First, it comprises many areas of SD research, which have become mainstream thanks to the UN SDGs. Second, the fact that the UN and its member countries have committed to attaining SDGs by 2030 has added a sense of urgency to the need to perform quality research on SD on the one hand, and reiterates the need to use the results of this research on the other. Even though the basic concept of sustainability goes back many centuries, it has only recently appeared on the international political agenda. This is partly due to an awakening of the fact that the human ecological pressure on the planet is still much larger than what nature can renew or compensate for. Based on this state of affairs, this paper presents an outline of the process leading to the agreement on the UN SDGs, and looks at some of the ecological aspects as a result of continued pressure of human activities on natural resources. Furthermore, a set of research needs is proposed – also based holistically on updated research trends – discussing the degree of urgency of some measures and explaining why the UN SDGs need to be accorded greater priority in international sustainable development research efforts.     

Using the sustainable development goals towards a better understanding of sustainability challenges

The United Nations General Assembly agreed and approved in September 2015 the document ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which contains a set of measures aiming to balance economic progress and protection of the environment, whilst at the same time remain aware of the need to address the many disparities still seen between industrialised and developing countries. The Agenda document consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which among many other tasks, intend to eradicate poverty and create better health conditions in both developed and developing countries. But despite the need for and the relevance of the SDGs, it is unclear how they may help to address present and future sustainability challenges. Based on the need to shed some light on such a relationship, this paper describes each of the SDGs, and offers an analysis of the extent to which their implementation may offer support to ongoing attempts to handle some of the pressing problems seen in pursuing sustainable development. Three case studies are presented to show in practice how best the SDGs can be handled. The paper concludes that the process of implementing the SDGs offers unrivalled opportunities to advance equal opportunity and foster economic empowerment, helping countries to promote the cause of sustainable development in their territories, hence benefiting their populations.     

Social learning for sustainability: supporting sustainable business in Brazil regarding multiple social actors,relationships and interests

Finding solutions for complex environmental, economic and social issues in organisations relies on coordinated actions among several social actors that are involved in the sustainable development web and demands that they learn new business methods. In this scenario, which involves multiple social actors, relationships, contexts and interests, social learning has emerged as a hybrid approach to resolving complex environmental and social problems. Such an approach marks a different situation for organisations whose focus is not only on supporting such problem resolution but also on transforming such crises into opportunities to generate sustainable products and services. Thus, this study discusses how one of the largest companies in Latin America’s chemical segment formed a network with 23 social actors and is socially learning to deal with the dialectic between return on investments for its shareholders and benefits for its stakeholders. Research was conducted based on Boje’s narrative analysis. The data was built through interviews, informal conversations, textual and audio-visual documents and non-participant observation. This paper discusses the concept and describes the social learning process for sustainability (in this case, for sustainable agriculture) from the viewpoint of a for-profit organisation. In this manner, this study contributes to strengthening the connection between social learning and sustainability.     

企业会计制度带来的思考

企业会计制度是企业会计核算工作的具体规范.通过对企业会计制度引发问题的思考,以进一步为企业会计制度设计的实效性奠定基础,也为企业会计制度改革提供了新的思维方式.     

Using geospatial business intelligence paradigm to design a multidimensional conceptual model for efficient coastal erosion risk assessment

One of the main challenges in Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment (CERA) is integrating and analysis of conflicting data in various time periods and spatial scales through dissimilar environmental, social, and economic criteria. Currently, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are widely used in risk assessment despite their drawbacks and limitations as transactional systems for multi-scales, multi-epochs, and multi-themes analysis. Hence, an analytical conceptual framework is proposed in this paper based on geospatial business intelligence paradigm to develop a Spatial Multidimensional Conceptual Model (SMCM) to assess coastal erosion risk. The model is designed based on Spatial On-Line Analytical Processing (SOLAP) platform, on the top of both analytical and transactional paradigms, to allow fast synthesis of cross-tabulated data and easy comparisons over space, scales, epochs, and themes. This objective is achieved through a comprehensive integration of multiple environmental, social, and economic criteria as well as their interactions at various scales. It also takes into account multiple elements at risk such as people, infrastructure, and built environment as different dimensions of analysis. Using this solution allows decision makers to benefit from on-demand, interactive, and comprehensive information in a way that is not possible using GIS alone. The developed model can easily be adapted for any other coastal region through the proposed framework to perform risk assessment. The advantages and drawbacks of the proposed framework are also discussed and new research perspectives are presented.     

分子电性距离矢量用于多氯代二苯并呋喃光解半衰期的QSPR研究（Molecular Electronegativity Distance Vector（MEDV）Applied to Quantitative Structure-Property Relationship Study on Photolysis Half-Lives of PCDFs）

多氯代二苯并呋喃(PCDFs)是一种典型的持久性有机污染物(POPs),光解是其在环境中转化的主要途径.以分子电性距离矢量(Molecular Electronegativity Distance Vector,MEDV)为参数,应用多元线性回归(Multiple Linear Regression,MLR)和偏最小二乘回归(PLSR)对48种PCDFs在云杉针叶和飞灰表面的光解半衰期(t1/2)进行模拟分析,均获得由2个变量所建的定量结构-性质相关(QSPR)模型.多元线性回归结果:建模相关系数(R)分别为0.860和0.836,标准偏差(SD)分别为0.052和0.053,交互检验复相关系数(Rcv)分别为0.839和0.807,外部检验相关系数(Qex)t分别为0.939和0.853;偏最小二乘回归结果:建模相关系数(R)分别为0.857和0.829,交互检验复相关系数(Rcv)分别为0.849和0.807.结果表明,MEDV能较好地表征该类分子的结构信息,所建QSPR模型具有良好的稳定性和预测能力.     

ToSIA—A tool for sustainability impact assessment of forest-wood-chains

Within the forest sector, the sustainability concept has evolved from a narrow focus on sustainable wood production to a much broader evaluation of environmental, social, and economic sustainability for whole value chains. A new software tool - ToSIA - has been developed for assessing sustainability impacts of Forest-Wood-Chains (FWCs). In the approach, FWCs are defined as chains of production processes (e.g. harvesting-transport-industrial processing), which are linked with products (e.g. a timber frame house). Sustainability is determined by analysing environmental, economic, and social sustainability indicators for all the production processes along the FWC. The tool calculates sustainability values as products of the relative indicator values (i.e. indicator value expressed per unit of material flow) multiplied with the material flow entering the process. Calculated sustainability values are then aggregated for the segments of the FWC or for the complete chain. The sustainability impact assessment requires carefully specified system boundaries. ToSIA uses a data-oriented approach that is very flexible in the focus of the analysis and the selection of indicators of sustainability. An example of alternative Norway spruce management systems in Southern Germany and their effects on six sustainability indicators is presented. The less intensive management system with natural regeneration and motor-manual harvesting shows higher carbon storage and slightly less energy use. It creates more employment and higher labour costs, but the average rate of accidents is also higher. ToSIA offers a transparent and consistent methodological framework to assess sustainability impacts in the forest-based sector as affected, e.g. by changes in policies, market conditions, or technology. The paper discusses strengths and limitations of the approach and provides an outlook on further development perspectives of the methodology.     

Social development benefits of hydroelectricity CDM projects in Brazil

In recent years, the concept of sustainable development (SD) has become increasingly recognized and important. Within organizations, SD is often portrayed as a balancing act and requires a combination of three elements to be considered: economy, environment, and society. Traditionally, organizational management research has been focused on economical and environmental fronts. However, social aspects are also important for organizations, especially those in emerging and developing countries. The goal of this article is to investigate the potential of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to deliver social benefits in Brazil’s hydroelectricity sector. The investigation involved the assessment of 46 registered hydro CDM projects under the Kyoto Protocol in terms of their potential impact on the envisaged social development goals. Two case studies were also examined. Results indicate that organizations managing hydroelectric initiatives in Brazil can provide the pathway toward achieving a number of important social benefits. Successful projects were found to have good community involvement and were managed by both cooperative ventures and money-making corporations. The research also identified several challenges that are hindering hydro CDM projects from delivering more social benefits and enabled a number of recommendations to be extracted for the organizations facing these challenges.     

NGOs come and go but business continues: lessons from co-management institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve in Kenya

The objective of this paper is to examine the current institutional arrangements for governance of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve (ASFR) and show their major contribution in the ASFR co-management business of conserving the forest and providing livelihoods to the poor forest-dependent communities. Despite the fact that funding from non-governmental organizations ended, the ASFR co-management business did not stall. The institutional arrangements for co-management were deemed to be the major component that contributed to the continuation of the ASFR co-management business. To demonstrate this hypothesis, the paper explores four main areas that shape the institutional arrangement of the ASFR co-management regime, informed by common property theories: (1) how governance arrangement structures for the ASFR are organized; (2) villagers’ perceptions and awareness of the co-management structure; (3) co-management arrangement for access, ownership and use of the various forest resources; and (4) importance of the forest resources to the households. The co-management piloting and non-piloting communities adjacent to the forest and who have been depending on the forest as a source of their livelihoods are compared in order to understand the role of the ASFR co-management institutional arrangements in the sustainability of its business.     

Climate change perspectives and adaptation strategies of business enterprises: a case study from Italy

The purpose of the paper is to present empirical evidence on how to develop climate-resilient business enterprises under the auspices of an industrial park management. This was facilitated through the collective mapping of climate adaptation strategies corresponding to the identified business risks exacerbated by climate events directly experienced in the shared territory. The cluster approach attempted to overcome the typical challenges of single business enterprises, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, with respect to their lack of human and financial resources and scientific and technical knowledge to understand climate change risks. The prospects of facilitating knowledge-sharing and information exchange within a cluster of business enterprises give impetus to the replicability and transferability of the approach in other industrial areas and organizational contexts.     

Impact of generated solar radiation on simulated crop growth and yield

The availability of observed daily solar radiation (OSR) is restricted to recent years. Its estimation through different methods is necessary to develop long-term data sets for agricultural and environmental applications. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of using generated daily solar radiation (GSR) on simulated growth and yield of cotton, maize, and peanut. Nine locations representing Georgia's major crop belt were selected. Daily weather data from the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network (AEMN), including solar radiation, maximum and minimum temperature, and precipitation, were duplicated. The OSR was removed from one set and then generated using a stochastic procedure. The Cropping System Models (CSM)-CROPGRO-Cotton, CERES-Maize, and CROPGRO-Peanut of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) v4 were used to simulate crop growth and yield at each location with both OSR and GSR and for rainfed and irrigated conditions. The statistical analysis included summary statistics, Pearson's coefficient of correlation, mean squared deviation (MSD) and its components, namely: squared bias (SB), squared difference between standard deviations (SDSD), lack of correlation weighted by the standard deviations (LCS), and regressions. Within locations, for the three crops under rainfed and irrigated conditions, GSR did not significantly affect simulated total evapotranspiration and aboveground biomass and yields. For the three crops, deviations of simulated water use and yields from GSR with respect to simulated water use and yields from OSR were lower for the rainfed than for the irrigated conditions. Yields from the CSM-CROPGRO-Cotton and -Peanut models had lower deviations than yields from the CSM-CERES-Maize model. LCS was the major component of the MSD suggesting that the extent of the difference between standard deviations of GSR and OSRG could affect the outputs of the crop models. Nevertheless, for most locations none of the MSD components of the GSR showed significant correlation with simulated yields and the overall performance of the models was not affected. It can be concluded based on the results of this study that GSR can be used as an input for crop model simulation models when OSR is not available.     

An analysis of beach management framework in Spain. Study case: the Catalonian coast

In the present paper, the current beach management framework in the North-Western Mediterranean coast (Catalonia, Spain) was revised. Beach management was analyzed using the concepts of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The history of beach management in the second half of the 20 century and the new developments in the academic field and in the practical beach management sector during the last decade were studied. The revision of legal texts and strategies in the Catalan coast allowed synthesizing all scattered information affecting beach management. A SWOT analysis was performed. The main strengths of the beach management framework in Catalonia are the public ownership of beaches, which allows the government to carry out a comprehensive management and the recent data and analysis provided by the adopted National and Autonomous ICZM strategies. The weaknesses found were related to the functioning of traditional existing institutions. New opportunities are related to the possibility of establishing new institutions that conduct a more inclusive and proactive management. The main threat is that although the possibility for a fundamental change in beach management organization exists, resources available are not fully exploited.     

Socio-economic differentiation in the trade of wildlife species for traditional medicines in the Lowveld,South Africa: Implications for resource management initiatives

Surveys of trade in wildlife products utilised in traditional medicine were conducted between 1997 and 1999 on the western boundary of the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Although the extent of trade and numbers of people operating in this sector were lower than other regions of South Africa, this study again highlighted the value of indigenous wildlife products to subsistence economies. Apart from cultural diversity, socioeconomic differentiation occurred at a number of levels. (i) There were socio-economic differences between the traders and vendors. (ii) Gender differences were apparent, with women earning significantly less than men and having to undergo more social challenges in their operation in the market place. (iii) Operational differences were noted between the vendors and traders, as well as between the street and pension day vendors. (iv) Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) highlighted the socio-economic differentiation at the household level, emphasizing in particular one of the most vulnerable groups, the elderly. The potential influence of this socio-economic differentiation needs to be considered during the development of Community-Based Conservation programmes, if the dual aims of conserving biodiversity and improving the lives and livelihoods of those who traditionally rely on medicinal plants are to be met.     

Integrated assessment of agricultural policies with dynamic land use change modelling

With about half of its territory being farmed, agriculture is the main land use in the European Union (EU). As over 10% of the total EU manufacturing output comes from the agri-food sector, it also is an economic factor of great importance. Moreover, EU policy in this sector has far-reaching consequences ranging from the EU's status as a global trade partner to landscape preservation and development. The LUMOCAP Policy Support System is targeted towards policy makers in the European Commission (EC) and its Member States (MS) and aims to provide support in the field of sustainable agricultural and rural development. To this end it incorporates an integrated model with socio-economic and bio-physical processes, operating at different spatial scales. For supporting integrated assessment, a large number of policy levers is included as inputs for these models and outputs are transformed into policy-relevant social, economic and environmental indicators. The whole system is framed in a flexible, modular and easy to use software package that is useable for process experts and policy-analysts alike.This paper describes the integrated model, the individual models and a first calibration of the system. It demonstrates the system's behaviour for typical scenario runs and concludes with a reflection on the current status of the system and some recommendations for further development.     

Whooping Crane Recovery: A Case Study in Public and Private Cooperation in the Conservation of Endangered Species

I describe three theoretical approaches to endangered species conservation: public-sector models, private-sector models, and mixed models. Criteria to consider in evaluating these models are scientific, economic, legal, ethical, and administrative. The history of conservation efforts on behalf of the endangered Whooping Crane ( Grus americana ) is used as an example of a mixed-model approach (one that involves both public- and private-sector organizations and individuals) to the conservation of endangered species. Evaluation of Whooping Crane conservation efforts, using the specified criteria, suggests that this mixed model gets relatively high marks in all areas. My recommendations for endangered species conservation activities include (1) ensuring that all potential sources of scientific expertise and "caring" are included, (2) developing a robust national funding mechanism for endangered species conservation efforts, and (3) creating streamlined administrative structures and operating procedures tailored to the unique needs of each endangered species conservation team. Broader implications of the Whooping Crane story for conservation biology as a profession and for conservation biologists as individuals include (1) being inclusive rather than exclusive in conservation planning and implementation, (2) recognizing the power of individual initiative and commitment, (3) collecting basic data over an extended period of time, and (4) emphasizing the importance of communication, cooperation, and coordination.