Assessing sustainability in nature-inspired design

In the field of sustainable product development, a new perspective for approaching sustainability has been advocated, challenging designers and engineers to aim beyond ‘reducing unsustainability’. Several design strategies – including Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle – have been suggested for developing truly sustainable, or ‘beneficial’, products. But do these strategies help in developing such products, and how to assess their ‘sustainability’? Based on a review of the objectives in nature-inspired design, we argue that assessing environmental sustainability is not straightforward. Whereas both Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle build on the perspective of ‘achieving sustainability’, current life-cycle assessment-based tools are geared towards reducing current impacts. As a consequence, existing tools are insufficiently equipped for the purpose of the assessment: they do not cover some of the main results that nature-inspired design is set out to accomplish. To be able to include these results, we propose two new constituents to current life-cycle-based product assessment: assessing against conditions of sustainability and assessing ‘achievement’, the extent to which these conditions of sustainability have been achieved. Furthermore, the product context needs to be included for assessing beneficial impacts. This article discusses how these constituents can contribute to an assessment tool that enables designers and engineers to assess the development of environmentally sustainable solutions.     

From cleaner production and value management to sustainable value

Being part of an institution, where the main objective is research and its application to support enterprises in their challenges to improve competitiveness, innovation and sustainable development, leads to the dialogue between different research teams about the tools used and the results obtained. When the results of applications of cleaner production (CP) and value analysis (VA) were confronted, the possible synergies between them, the benefits of a joint approach and the complementarities seemed apparent and worth a research work, where these aspects could be developed. Bringing together the different experiences in the application of CP and VA and the state of the art of those methodologies, a new approach – sustainable value (SV) – was developed, materialised in a manual and tested in several companies. The results show the great potentiality of using this approach within companies namely in what concerns the reduction of useless and unnecessary efforts (and resources), and encourage the orientation of limited resources towards areas, where they can lead to SV increase and to attain sustainability.     

Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector

The activities developed within an eco-efficiency project in mineral industries located in the largest area for marble extraction in Portugal, in Alentejo region, in the Estremoz – Borba and Vila Viçosa anticline are presented in this paper. The project was designed to apply the sustainability concept in seven companies of marble extraction and transformation. The adopted strategy used new cleaner production models together with sustainable value (SV) improvement, leading to the rationalization of the industrial process, the involvement of economic agents and the orientation of the management of production processes towards eco-efficiency. The challenge was to have the mineral industry managing efficiently the resources on which the business depends, according to sustainability principles. Different opportunities for improvement, related to the minimization of materials, water and energy use, were identified in the companies. Some proposals mainly related to social improvement and small and medium-sized enterprise competitiveness benefits were also selected and discussed. This approach allows the integration of sustainability at company's and region's levels by combining in the entrepreneurial activity the creation of wealth together with the environment protection and the achieving of social benefits. Highlights: The involvement of different stakeholders in the project (Eco-efficiency in Portuguese companies of marble sector) was positive in the discussion and search of solutions for companies. It is possible to involve marble extraction and processing companies in eco-efficiency improvement towards sustainability. Companies from the marble sector improved environmental and social performance and reduced the costs of their production processes by applying SV methodology.     

通过可持续认证推动农林牧渔领域自然资源保护

1992年里约环境发展大会后可持续发展成为各国和各界的共识,但经历了二十年的发展,自然资源保护与可持续发展之间的矛盾仍然存在,特别是农林牧渔等领域自然资源的合理开发利用仍待进一步发展。我国作为国际农林牧渔产品的重要消费国和贸易国,在积极推动国内资源的可持续利用同时,也可以通过国际贸易在全球自然资源可持续利用中发挥积极作用。可持续认证作为应对资源保护与经济发展这一矛盾的较为有效的市场手段,经过近二十年的发展已经涵盖了农林牧渔领域的多个产品,在国际上的发展势头强劲,对于自然资源的保护和可持续利用发挥了对政府政策的补充作用。但可持续性认证在我国国内的企业和消费者中还没有得到广泛认识,其通过市场机制引导企业实践可持续经营、落实企业社会责任的作用在国内还没有得到有效的发挥。因此,本研究的目的是通过对可持续认证的分析,为在我国农林牧渔领域更好地发挥其市场推动力提出政策建议。本研究首先综述了可持续认证在国际上的发展历程、产生的影响,详细论述了森林、棕榈油、野生海产品等可持续认证已经在全球贸易中占有一席之地,并在欧美等较发达国家和地区获得了消费者的支持;其次,本研究对可持续认证在农林牧渔领域的进一步发展所面临的挑战进行了剖析,肯定了可持续认证在调动企业和消费者的积极性、推动农林牧渔领域资源保护方面的正面作用,也指出认证对资源保护的预期效果没有完全达到、同一产业内认证体系可靠性参差不齐,着重强调了可持续认证在发展中国家的发展面临的困难,使其对自然资源保护的应有效果受到影响。在此基础上,本研究分析了我国农林牧渔领域在资源利用方面面临的国际和国内压力,尤其是我国在国际贸易中举足轻重的地位和进口大宗产品产地的生态脆弱性使中国在全球资源的可持续利用和保护中可以发挥重要作用,论证了可持续认证在我国的推广有利于提升中国企业的国际形象、促进贸易杠杆发挥资源保护的撬动作用、保障企业在海外开发中的长期效益,同时也有利于我国国内自然资源的可持续利用,明确得出在我国农林牧渔领域推动可持续认证的必要性。本研究建议我国政府部门应关注农林牧渔领域可持续认证在国际和国内的发展,收集相关的信息和案例可用于相关的国际谈判和对企业的指导。同时政府应鼓励国内外认证体系在中国开展认证工作,并为同一产业中的不同体系创造公平的竞争环境。另外,政府应积极支持国内农林牧渔产业的企业、专家、协会等参与到国际认证体系的建立过程中,将中国可持续发展的良好操作范例或规范国际化。政府自身的消费行为对全社会有明确的引导作用,所以在政府采购中应优选可持续认证产品,引导企业加入可持续经营的实践。     

Making the user more efficient: design for sustainable behaviour

User behaviour is a significant determinant of a product's environmental impact; while engineering advances permit increased efficiency of product operation, the user's decisions and habits ultimately have a major effect on the energy or other resources used by the product. There is thus a need to change users' behaviour. A range of design techniques developed in diverse contexts suggest opportunities for engineers, designers and other stakeholders working in the field of sustainable innovation to affect users' behaviour at the point of interaction with the product or system, in effect ‘making the user more efficient’. Approaches to changing users' behaviour from a number of fields are reviewed and discussed, including: strategic design of affordances and behaviour‐shaping constraints to control or affect energy‐ or other resource‐using interactions; the use of different kinds of feedback and persuasive technology techniques to encourage or guide users to reduce their environmental impact; and context‐based systems which use feedback to adjust their behaviour to run at optimum efficiency and reduce the opportunity for user‐affected inefficiency. Example implementations in the sustainable engineering and ecodesign field are suggested and discussed.     

A comparison of four sustainable manufacturing strategies

Effective use of materials is one possible component of a sustainable manufacturing strategy. There are many such strategies proposed in the literature and used in practice, with confusion over what they are, what the differences among them may be and how they can be used by practitioners in design and manufacture to improve the sustainability of their product and processes. This paper reviews the literature on sustainable manufacturing strategies that deliver improved material performance. Four primary strategies were found: waste minimisation; material efficiency; resource efficiency; and eco‐efficiency. The literature was analysed to determine the key characteristics of these sustainable manufacturing strategies and 17 characteristics were found. The four strategies were then compared and contrasted against all the characteristics. While current literature often uses these strategy titles in a confusing, occasionally inter‐changeable manner, this study attempts to create clear separation between them. Definition, scope and practicality of measurement are shown to be key characteristics that impact upon the ability of manufacturing companies to make effective use of the proposed strategy. It is observed that the most actionable strategies may not include all of the dimensions of interest to a manufacturer wishing to become more sustainable, creating a dilemma between ease of implementation and breadth of impact.     

Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food,energy, water and the environment

Delivering access to sufficient food, energy and water resources to ensure human wellbeing is a major concern for governments worldwide. However, it is crucial to account for the ‘nexus’ of interactions between these natural resources and the consequent implications for human wellbeing. The private sector has a critical role in driving positive change towards more sustainable nexus management and could reap considerable benefits from collaboration with researchers to devise solutions to some of the foremost sustainability challenges of today. Yet opportunities are missed because the private sector is rarely involved in the formulation of deliverable research priorities. We convened senior research scientists and influential business leaders to collaboratively identify the top forty questions that, if answered, would best help companies understand and manage their food-energy-water-environment nexus dependencies and impacts. Codification of the top order nexus themes highlighted research priorities around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate nexus interactions into their decision-making; demonstration of the business case for more sustainable nexus management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance. Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation.     

Logic of Citizen Participation in Sustainable Development

Abstract

Sustainable development, a concept which has been built with the sustainability of economic progression as a main thrust, has been a widely preferred model to traditional developmental models. However, the real meaning of what sustainable development is and should include has been an object of debate. On the one hand, differing from traditional economic developmental models, economic progress does not necessitate the practice of ‘sustainable development’. On the other hand, current levels of science and technology are still unable to solve several problems that arise with economic development. Sustainable development has transferred the responsibility of environmental destruction to that of developing countries. Lastly, instead of utilizing the best technology and leadership into formulating excellent environmental- protection policies, it is more important to create widespread awareness to the public on the need to protect the environment and thereby engage their participation in decision-making to actually realize what is truly ‘sustainable development’.     

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.’     

Learning for change: an educational contribution to sustainability science

Transition to sustainability is a search for ways to improve the social capacity to guide interactions between nature and society toward a more sustainable future and, thus, a process of social learning in its broadest sense. Accordingly, it is not only learning that is at issue but education and educational science, of which the latter is about exploring the preconditions of and opportunities for learning and education—whether individual or social, in formal or informal settings. Analyzing how educational science deals with the challenge of sustainability leads to two complementary approaches: the ‘outside-in’ approach sees the idea of sustainability influencing educational practice and the way the relationship of learning and teaching is reviewed, theoretically as well as within the social context. In an ‘inside-out’ approach, an overview is given of how educational science can contribute to the field of sustainability science. An examination of the literature on education and sustainability shows that, while sustainability features prominently in one form or another across all sectors, only little work can be found dealing with the contributions of educational science within sustainability science. However, as sustainability is a concept that not only influences educational practices but also invites disciplinary contributions to foster inter- and transdisciplinary research within the sustainability discourse, the question remains as to how and to what extent educational science in particular can contribute to sustainability science in terms of an ‘inside-out’ approach. In this paper, we reconstruct the emergence of education for sustainable development as a distinctive field of educational science and introduce and discuss three areas of sustainability research and throw into relief the unique contribution that educational science can make to individual action and behavior change, to organizational change and social learning, and, finally, to inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.     

Sustainability risk identification in product development

Sustainability-related issues present significant financial, strategic, compliance and operational risks to manufacturers. Many of these risks directly or indirectly result from the way a product is designed and managed across its life cycle. Assessing sustainability risk (S _R) at the product design stage is crucial for the development of products that both minimise sustainability risk exposure and are environmentally sustainable. Managing the costs associated with these risks requires risk management intervention at the design stage before these costs are committed throughout the life cycle (production, use, end-of-life). The goal of the sustainability risk assessment (SRA) methodology is to provide an approach to comparing the financial cost of a ‘sustainable product’ vs. an ‘unsustainable product’, by factoring in the effects of S _R on life-cycle cost. The SRA methodology demonstrates that, in some cases, sustainable products cost less than unsustainable products when sustainability risk is considered in the costing analysis. This paper outlines the first step of the SRA methodology, which is a process for identifying S _R inherent in the product life cycle. Once key risks are identified, the subsequent steps of the SRA assess and prioritise these risks for treatment through changes to product design and materials composition.     

“Organic is More of an American Term … We Are Traditional Farmers”: Discourses of Place-based Organic Farming,Community, Heritage,and Sustainability

The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered economic model to construct a communication-based framework through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers (and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature relationships through community, family, heritage, and education. Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded in phenomenological experience of the natural world.     

Screening of process alternatives based on sustainability metrics: comparison of two decision-making approaches

Importance of sustainability concerns demands consideration of sustainability design criteria in early stages of process design. Most often there are several alternatives for a particular process which must be compared in terms of sustainability metrics to select the most sustainable design. There are several tools available for evaluation of process alternatives in terms of sustainability concerns. However, there is a need for a screening method which enables engineers to compare and select several alternatives in terms of a multitude of metrics and also incorporate their preferences if required. This study utilizes a recently developed sustainability evaluator for process evaluation and compares overall impact factor method for process screening with a novel fuzzy-based approach. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated though application of the methodology on ibuprofen case study to select the most sustainable design.     

A discourse-analytical perspective on sustainability assessment: interpreting sustainable development in practice

Sustainable development is a ubiquitously used concept in public decision-making: it refers to an ideal vision of global society where human development and environmental quality go hand in hand. Logically, any decision-supporting process aiming at facilitating and steering society toward a sustainable future then seems desirable. Assessing the sustainability of policy decisions is, however, influenced by what sustainable development is believed to entail, as different discourses coexist under the umbrella of the sustainable development meta-discourse. This paper proposes a typology of sustainable development discourses, and, subsequently, applies a discourse-analytical lens on two practical cases of sustainability assessment in different institutional and geographical contexts (in Belgium and in Benin). The results indicate that sustainability assessments tend to be influenced mainly by the consensual ‘sustainable development as integration’ discourse, while also providing a forum for dialogue between different discourses. The results shed light on context-specific discursive and institutional dynamics for the development and application of sustainability assessment. Acknowledging these dynamics as well as sustainable development’s inherent interpretational limits can lead to an improved use of sustainable development as a decision-guiding strategy.     

E-participation for environmental sustainability in transitional urban China

Using information and communication technologies (ICTs), e-participation is a tool that promotes the inclusion of the public in participative and deliberative decision-making processes, thus contributing to a transformation of the interaction between government and citizens in environmental governance and sustainable development. In a number of Chinese cities, citizens increasingly draw on ICTs to promote environmental sustainability and to encourage community-based actions aimed to address various environmental concerns. The potential success of e-participation and the role of ICTs in China has, however, not been well explored. The objective of this study is to understand the role that ICTs can play in promoting public participation about environmental sustainability issues in urban China. Based on an online survey with 630 respondents, the study aims to: (1) analyze what public motivations, perception/attitudes and actions drive environmental e-participation; (2) identify barriers to e-participation, and (3) assess the different applications and functions of ICT for citizen participation in environmental sustainability. The analysis illustrates how ICTs have helped the public to obtain sensitive information about sustainability issues, to mobilize people and to gain media coverage for their actions. The central finding is that new technologies have taken citizen engagement to new heights online. More specifically, the age of ICTs has unleashed a stronger public voice on environmental governance and sustainability issues in urban China, which does not go unnoticed by the Chinese state authorities.     

Reconnecting with nature for sustainability

Calls for humanity to ‘reconnect to nature’ have grown increasingly louder from both scholars and civil society. Yet, there is relatively little coherence about what reconnecting to nature means, why it should happen and how it can be achieved. We present a conceptual framework to organise existing literature and direct future research on human–nature connections. Five types of connections to nature are identified: material, experiential, cognitive, emotional, and philosophical. These various types have been presented as causes, consequences, or treatments of social and environmental problems. From this conceptual base, we discuss how reconnecting people with nature can function as a treatment for the global environmental crisis. Adopting a social–ecological systems perspective, we draw upon the emerging concept of ‘leverage points’—places in complex systems to intervene to generate change—and explore examples of how actions to reconnect people with nature can help transform society towards sustainability.     

Conceptualising Reuse in African Households: Perspectives from Chembe,Malawi

African households are often models of sustainability, practicing daily behaviours, which, if even not directly associated by the individual with Western conceptualisations of ‘recycling’ or ‘reuse’, have dramatically positive impacts on the amounts of household waste generated. However, rarely has the African household been given the same consideration, and there is a poor understanding within the discipline how poor individuals, and Africans in particular, understand and conceptualise ‘waste’ as both a problem and a resource. Drawing on Kennedy and Appadurai’s theoretical perspectives, the purpose of this article is to critically examine and contextualise household solid waste reuse practices in Chembe, Malawi, a rapidly densifying village and a constituent part of one of the nation’s premier resort destinations. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork with residents and stakeholders, findings suggest that, within Chembe, reuse practices, and the motivations that drive them, are both widespread and diverse, with a multitude of ‘waste’ items living multiple ‘lives’ before being ultimately discarded as ‘trash’. These behaviours are facilitated by the fact that many desirable waste items are widely available locally within Chembe, and although some of these reuse practices may be widespread within Malawi, others have been uniquely fostered by Chembe’s position as an affluent tourism destination with abundant and easily accessible waste streams. This investigation is particularly important within the context of rural Africa, and the Global South more broadly. Moreover, it should critically inform circular economy, zero waste, and broader waste management studies discourse, where African households have been habitually treated as problems needing solutions, rather than potential sources of innovation and learning.

     

A Graph Theory approach to measure the performance of sustainability enablers in a manufacturing organization

In a manufacturing organization, the term sustainability deals with the impact of production process and products on the environment and society, laying emphasis on preservation of scarce resources. In this article, the study concentrates on developing a Graph Theory model to measure the performance and inter-relationship between the sustainability enablers in an organization, thereby to quantitatively measure the extent to which ‘sustainable manufacturing’ practices are being followed in the organization. The objective of this study was to identify a set of sustainability enablers and attributes that impact a manufacturing organization. Digraphs were developed for the whole system and sub-systems depicting the inter-relationships and dependencies between various enablers and attributes to interpret the performance of the sustainability enablers in the case organization. Using the best case and worst case values, the level of sustainable manufacturing practices of the organization was found by Comprehensive Assessment Index. Based on the best case values, the relative significance of individual sustainability enablers are found and compared with worst case situations. The impacts of individual enablers on the overall sustainability level of the organization were also studied.     

Voice as Entry to Agriculturalists’ Conservationist Identity: A Cultural Inventory of the Yellowstone River

We explored the communicative construction of a conservationist identity among primary producers by excavating voices of agriculturalists operating along the Yellowstone River (Montana, USA). We used a cultural inventory approach to discover and then listen to informants’ voices as they constructed their conservation identity. Those who self-identified as conservationists talked about their ecological and social responsibilities, and described challenges they faced in protecting individual resources and system processes of the watershed. For these agriculturalists, conservation and production are inextricably linked, and enable them to provide a sustainable resource base for future generations. Insight from these voices enhances understanding of what sustainability could mean to those who self-identify as both conservationists and primary producers.