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1.
As the societal benefits associated with transitioning to more sustainable, less fossil fuel-reliant energy systems are increasingly recognized by communities throughout the world, the potential of creating ‘green jobs’ within a ‘green economy’ is attracting much attention. Green energy clusters are increasingly promoted throughout the world as a strategy to simultaneously promote economic vitality and stimulate a sustainable energy transition. In spite of their emerging role in regional-scale sustainability planning efforts, such initiatives have not been considered within the sustainability transitions literature. This paper explores the development of one such regional sustainable energy cluster initiative in Central Massachusetts in Northeastern USA to consider the potential for such cluster initiatives to contribute to socio-technical transition in the energy system. Since 2008, a diverse set of stakeholders in Central Massachusetts, including politicians, universities, businesses, local citizens, and activists, have been working toward facilitating the emergence of an integrated cluster of activity focused on sustainable energy. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document review, this research assesses the potential of this cluster initiative to contribute to a regional socio-technical transition. The empirical details of this case demonstrate that sustainable energy cluster initiatives can potentially accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by promoting institutional thickness, generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, and building trust between multiple and diverse stakeholders in the region. This research also contributes to emerging efforts to better ground socio-technical transitions in geographic space. 相似文献
2.
The science of sustainability has inevitably emerged as a vibrant field of research and education that transcends disciplinary
boundaries and focuses increasingly on understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems (SES). Yet, sustainability
remains an elusive concept, and its nature seems unclear for the most part. In order to truly mobilize people and nations
towards sustainability, we place emphasis on the necessity of understanding the nature, cost and principles of ‘visioneering’—the
engineering of a clear vision. In SES, purpose is the most important pillar, which gives birth to vision—the key to fulfilling
the systems’ mission. Such a systems perspective leads us to redefine resilience as jumping back to the original purpose,
for which SES do not necessarily retain the same structures and functioning after disturbances. A sustainable future will
require purpose-driven transformation of society at all scales, guided by the best foresight, with insight based on hindsight
that science can provide. Visioneering with resilience-based systems thinking will provide communities with a logical framework
for understanding their interconnections and purposes, envisioning a sustainable web of life, and eventually dancing with
the systems. 相似文献
3.
The need for environmental and urban planning reached a critical point in the year 2007, when one-half of the world's population
could be defined as living in cities. Urbanisation in India is also increasing at a fast rate. Urban chaos in India, emanating
from the continuous ignorance of fragile ecosystems, calls for the reshaping of existing cities as ‘eco-cities’. The ‘eco-city’—a
well-known concept in the western world—is new to the Indian context. While western connotations of eco-cities should not
be discarded outright in the context of India, core concerns vary significantly for obvious reasons. Recognising two facts—firstly,
eco-city development is altogether a fresh approach to human settlement development in India, and, secondly, the manifold
increase in the vulnerability of cities—this paper discusses documented good practice, reinforcing evolution towards the eco-city
vision. Lessons drawn from the examples cited are further deconstructed in the light of their contribution to urban risk reduction,
which provides direction to appreciating the ‘disaster-resilient eco-community’ concept in Puri, a coastal city in India.
Further, this paper attempts to unravel existing community-based practices in Puri, which are boon to the local environment
and invariably reduce disaster risk. These seemingly modest neighbourhood initiatives symbolise immense societal wealth, which
can be calibrated appropriately for reducing urban environmental risk as well. This paper also illustrates how a ‘disaster
resilient eco-community’ approach is inevitable in the present and future contexts not only to preserve sustainable development
gains but also to secure human well-being. 相似文献
4.
Jayanath Ananda George Domazetis John Hill 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2009,11(5):1051-1071
A ‘roadmap’ has been devised for a progressive greening of the Australian chemical industry over the next two decades. The
roadmap is based on a set of interactive principles broadly termed ‘economic’, ‘social’, ‘technological’, ‘environmental’
and ‘political’, which collectively form the ‘drivers of change’ in chemical industry strategy/business/policy planning—leading
to greater efficiency and economic sustainability of this industry. The proposed roadmap pre-supposes that real economic,
societal and environmental benefits can be obtained through greater use of existing and emerging green chemical technology.
It can play an important role in developing a sustainable chemical industry in Australia. Primarily, the proposed roadmap
involves a paradigm shift of the business operating plan and a significant mindset change of management. 相似文献
5.
A stakeholder dialogue on European vulnerability 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Anne C. de la Vega-Leinert Dagmar Schröter Rik Leemans Uta Fritsch Jacomijn Pluimers 《Regional Environmental Change》2008,8(3):109-124
A stakeholder dialogue was embedded in the ATEAM project to facilitate the development and dissemination of its European-wide
vulnerability assessment of global change impacts. Participating stakeholders were primarily ecosystem managers and policy
advisers interested in potential impacts on ‘Agriculture’, ‘Forestry’, ‘Water’, ‘Carbon storage’, ‘Biodiversity’ and ‘Mountain
environments’ sectors. First, stakeholder dialogue approaches to integrated assessment are introduced. Methodological considerations
on stakeholder selection and dialogue implementation and evaluation follow. The dialogue content and process are evaluated
from the perspectives of stakeholders and scientists. Its usefulness in the research process and the relevance of outcomes
for stakeholders are particularly considered. The challenging compromises required to perform innovative research, which seeks
to achieve both peer scientific credibility and societal relevance, are emphasized. Effective stakeholder dialogues play a
substantial role in raising the visibility and meaningfulness of vulnerability assessments as critical means to improve awareness
on global change and its potential worrying impacts on society. They further provide scientists with critical information
on ecosystem management and sectoral adaptive capacity. These processes of mutual learning and knowledge exchange moreover
foster a better understanding of the potential and limits of global change modelling and vulnerability assessment for policy
and ecosystem management.
相似文献
Anne C. de la Vega-LeinertEmail: |
6.
Sustainable development (SD) is generally recognised as having three dimensions, ecological, economic and social. Yet, its
implementation is burdened with resistance and conflict rooted in the short-term ‘business as usual’ development model, opposed
to the long-term sustainable benefit of local communities. Hence, the development of strategies to implement SD projects may
require further differentiation of these dimensions in relation to the contextual situation in which the project resides.
In two studies of SD projects on the Croatian islands, we identify five interlocking spheres of importance, Spiritual, Political,
Economic, Educational and Health, in addition to Ecological. Each of these spheres is accessible through gate-keepers, individuals
or a group of people who have the authority over the sector and as such, significantly influence public opinion. We suggest
that in this particular island context the sustainability of these projects may lie with those gate-keepers. Hence, initiating
and maintaining SD projects in these contexts requires a structured and targeted lobbying of these gate-keepers. 相似文献
7.
Exporting natural capital: the foreign eco-footprint on Costa Rica and implications for sustainability 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
As the world economy ‘globalizes’, trade has become a major mechanism by which much of the human population supports its needs.
While trade in resource commodities (natural income) can increase the well-being of people in both exporting and importing
countries, it can also lead to depletion of natural capital and the loss of ecosystems integrity. In recent years, various
researchers have attempted to address this problem using a consumption-based perspective on ecological change. Their work
shows that the loss of ecosystem integrity in almost any region of the world can be attributed to both local and international
consumer demand. This paper illustrates the utility of modified eco-footprint analysis in assessing export-related ecological
change in Costa Rica. We quantify ecological footprint of consumers around the world on the productive ecosystems of Costa
Rica, document the changing character of this footprint and highlight some of the linkages between production for export in
Costa Rica and ecological degradation. We then discuss the implications of the increasing trade-based entanglement of nations
for ecosystems and global sustainability. 相似文献
8.
Religion in its most ideal form is seen as a powerful force to create ecological transformations to succeeding generations
that share similar religious beliefs. This provides an interesting argument for enhancing their role in sustainability transitions.
Malaysia is a relevant geographical context in this regard since almost all of its citizens formally embrace some kind of
religious belief. However, such ideas are discussed mostly at the theoretical level with little systematic empirical investigation.
This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting theoretically informed empirical insights on how a number of religious communities
are currently creating successful experiments in recycling within the context of an urban community in Malaysia. The paper
argues that such evidence may demonstrate the ‘potential’ role of religious communities to provide localised resources for
recycling experiments that can be advantageous for the transition towards a more sustainable municipal solid waste management
in Malaysia. The empirical basis of this paper is based on an exploratory multiple case study of successful recycling programmes
conducted by selected religious communities from four key religions in Malaysia—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam.
The theoretical framework for this research is based on the sustainability transitions literature, particularly the ‘transition
experiment’ framework. 相似文献
9.
Yosef Jabareen 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2008,10(2):179-192
A critical review of the multidisciplinary literature on sustainable development reveals a lack of a comprehensive theoretical
framework for understanding sustainable development and its complexities. A critical review shows that the definitions of
sustainable development are vague; there is a lack of operative definitions and disagreement over what should be sustained;
the concept is unclear in terms of emotional commitment; and it “remains a confused topic”, “fraught with contradictions”.
This article aims to theoretically synthesize the interdisciplinary literature on sustainable development, and then identify
the results by broad categories. Therefore, this article uses conceptual analysis, which reviews multidisciplinary literature
on sustainable development, which recognizes patterns and similarities within the literature, then it synthesizes the patterns
to different categories and independent concepts, where each concept has distinctive meanings and represents close ideas on
sustainability. The analytical process elaborates seven concepts that together assemble the theoretical framework of ‘sustainable
development’ and each concept represents distinctive meanings of the theoretical framework. 相似文献
10.
Ecology matters: sustainable development in Southeast Asia 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Victor R. Savage 《Sustainability Science》2006,1(1):37-63
11.
Sustainability science: an ecohealth perspective 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
David J. Rapport 《Sustainability Science》2007,2(1):77-84
Sustainability science is emerging as a transdisciplinary effort to come to grips with the much-needed symbiosis between human
activity and the environment. While there is recognition that conventional economic growth must yield to policies that foster
sustainable development, this has not yet occurred on any broad scale. Rather, there is clear evidence that the Earth’s ecosystems
and landscapes continue to degrade as a consequence of the cumulative impact of human activities. Taking an ecohealth approach
to sustainability science provides a unique perspective on both the goals and the means to achieve sustainability. The goals
should be the restoration of full functionality to the Earth’s ecosystems and landscapes, as measured by the key indicators
of health: resilience, organization, vitality (productivity), and the absence of ecosystem distress syndrome. The means should
be the coordinated (spatially and temporally) efforts to modify human behaviors to reduce cumulative stress impacts. Achieving
ecosystem health should become the cornerstone of sustainability policy—for healthy ecosystems are the essential precondition
for achieving sustainable livelihoods, human health, and many other societal objectives, as reflected in the Millennium Development
Goals. 相似文献
12.
Stefan Hellstrand 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2006,8(3):351-373
The concept of sustainable development is forcing standard economic analysis to acknowledge and address the existence of dimensions
of performance, which are not reducible to monetary accounting. In particular, the implementation of this concept in practice
requires: (a) the simultaneous handling of indicators developed in different disciplinary fields; and (b) an approach more
related to the procedures adopted by consultants (Participatory Integrated Analysis), rather than theoretical academic analysis
looking for ‘the’ optimal solution. The case study considered in this paper is a multi-criteria analysis of changes, which
occurred in the Swedish milk production sector for the period 1989–1999. Multi-criteria impact matrices and multi-criteria
representations are used to provide a transparent method of integrated analysis. Changes are characterized and quantified
in a way that makes it possible to relate the impact of existing trends in relation to different sub-objectives (variation
in performance in relation to social, economic and ecological indicators). The results of this analysis confirm a few well
known predicaments of sustainability associated with agriculture. The growth of Sweden economy is driving a major increase
in material throughputs within its agricultural sector. The need of increasing agricultural throughput (especially labour
productivity) has moved the Swedish dairy sector in a clear situation of decreasing marginal return ( = large increases in
inputs are not reflected in a proportional increase in output). Therefore, sound policies of development of this sector aimed
at increasing the goal of sustainability have to be developed by considering several indicators of performance, and not only
economic variables. 相似文献
13.
Conceptualising climate change in rural Australia: community perceptions, attitudes and (in)actions 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
Public engagement and support is essential for ensuring adaptation to climate change. The first step in achieving engagement
is documenting how the general public currently perceive and understand climate change issues, specifically the importance
they place on this global problem and identifying any unique challenges for individual communities. For rural communities,
which rely heavily on local agriculture industries, climate change brings both potential impacts and opportunities. Yet, to
date, our knowledge about how rural residents conceptualise climate change is limited. Thus, this research explores how the
broader rural community—not only farmers—conceptualises climate change and responsive activities, focussing on documenting
the understandings and risk perceptions of local residents from two small Australian rural communities. Twenty-three semi-structured
interviews were conducted in communities in the Eden/Gippsland region on the border of New South Wales and Victoria and the
north-east of Tasmania. There are conflicting views on how climate change is conceptualised, the degree of concern and need
for action, the role of local industry, who will ‘win’ and ‘lose’, and the willingness of rural communities to adapt. In particular,
residents who believed in anthropogenic or human-induced factors described the changing climate as evidence of ‘climate change’,
whereas those who were more sceptical termed it ‘weather variability’, suggesting that there is a divide in rural Australia
that, unless urgently addressed, will hinder local and national policy responses to this global issue. Engaging these communities
in the twenty-first-century climate change debate will require a significant change in terminology and communication strategies. 相似文献
14.
M. S. Suneetha 《Sustainability Science》2010,5(1):79-87
Biodiversity is acknowledged as one of the most important resources that helps to sustain life’s processes. Additionally,
it is also one of the most important sources of livelihood for different kinds of stakeholders at various levels of resource
markets—local, domestic, or international. With globalization and increasing sophistication in the methods of commercial trade
in biological resources, various issues arise related to the sustenance of resources, of ecological balances, and equity in
transactions. All of these are concerns to be addressed to achieve a state of ‘sustainability.’ This paper prescribes to the
definition of ‘sustainability’ as the capacity to maintain a certain process or state for “improving the quality of human
life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems” (IUCN/UNEP/WWF, in Caring for the Earth: a strategy
for sustainable living. Gland, Switzerland, 1991). This goes beyond ensuring inter- and intragenerational equity in access
to resources and includes several other parameters, including equity among stakeholders to returns from biological resources,
related knowledge, trade-offs, and ethical business practices related to these resources. Through the prism of an examination
of a simplistic supply route(s) and value addition chain of biodiversity resources for commercial use, this paper reviews
and highlights issues related to ‘sustainability’ at each stage. Evidence points to shortcomings in the sustainable use of
biological resources at each stage of value addition, calling for focused and specific measures to address them. 相似文献
15.
Ashley A. Webb 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2012,14(2):233-252
In the south-east of New South Wales, Australia, forested catchments are largely relied upon to provide high-quality surface
water at low cost to small regional communities. The forests in question are used for multiple purposes including timber production,
which can result in conflicts and debate regarding the sustainability of timber and water resources being co-developed. A
case study is examined where a logging operation will occur on 3.5% of the Myrtle Creek catchment that is used to supply water
to the small township of Wyndham. Modelling based on the water yield response of eucalypt forests to disturbance predicts
that during the first four years post-harvest, total streamflows will be increased under the ‘2010 logging’ scenario, with
a maximum increase of 2.6% within the first two years. Streamflows will then likely decrease compared to the ‘no logging’
scenario and will continue to do so until regrowth reaches 28 years of age with a maximum 1.4% decrease predicted. Streamflows
under both scenarios will continue to increase over time as water yield has been suppressed by forest regeneration following
extensive wildfires and logging that occurred from the 1960s to 1980s. It is concluded that timber harvesting, if limited
spatially and temporally, can occur without compromising catchment values and may contribute to improved forest heterogeneity
and resilience. However, in the face of a changing climate and an increased likelihood of catastrophic high intensity wildfires,
the future sustainability of undercapitalised small town water supplies reliant on a single water source is questionable. 相似文献
16.
Vinish Kathuria 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2009,11(5):955-970
The failure of formal regulation and market-based approaches to control pollution has highlighted the significance of informal
regulation in the form of ‘public disclosure’ and ‘rating’ for achieving environmental goals in the nineties. In developing
countries where pollution information is often scarce, disclosure can make a firm’s emissions more costly. This is because
it increases penalties from regulators, local communities, consumer organizations and factor markets. Public or information
disclosure combines conventional environmental monitoring, self-regulation and public pressure using environmental ratings
to promote better environmental management. Thus, it forms an effective tool to control pollution in developing countries
like India, China or Kenya and countries-in-transition like Poland, Russia, etc. The different examples given in the paper
indicate that effective public disclosure requires a credible scheme with scrutiny at different checkpoints similar to the
one used for PROPER in Indonesia or GRP in India. 相似文献
17.
Rakesh Tiwari Indu K. Murthy N. H. Ravindranath 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2012,14(2):253-271
Indian village ecosystems are diverse with respect to population pressures, agricultural activities and production, livestock
composition, energy sources, economics and infrastructural capabilities. Natural resource degradation is a major global concern
and the factors and processes leading to degradation are regional and scale up from the micro levels such as village ecosystems.
There is need for integrated multidisciplinary approaches for monitoring the resource status and environmental issues at the
decentralized level. This paper presents an approach to assess village ecosystems using a set of key indicators developed
and tested across fourteen diverse village ecosystems of the Southern India. The concept of ecosystem services associated
with village ecosystems of India has been described and adopted to identify indicators and assess issues and trends. Comparison
across villages has been demonstrated and the indicators successfully reflected the key environmental issues at each village
level as well as differences across villages. We also report unique cases of stabilized land use and ‘desakota-like’ trends
from village ecosystem studied. 相似文献
18.
Ian Calder Ashvin Gosain M. S. Rama Mohan Rao Charles Batchelor James Garratt Emma Bishop 《Environment, Development and Sustainability》2008,10(4):427-440
This paper recognises the need for a revision of watershed development policy in India in relation to the planning of development
interventions involving agricultural intensification and rainwater harvesting and the need for new approaches to assist the
planning process. Building on, and using as an example, the results of biophysical and societal impact studies carried out
on two watershed development projects in Karnataka three new management/dissemination tools, are suggested. These are (1)
the web-based geographical information systems exploratory, climate land assessment and impact management tool dissemination
tool for disseminating to policymakers and non-specialist stakeholders the downstream impacts of watershed interventions,
(2) the ‘quadrant’ approach for ensuring that sustainability criteria are met and (3) Bayesian networks to investigate the
biophysical and societal impacts of interventions.
Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue 相似文献
19.
Modern urban life is characterized by the consumption of materials and energy, which are imported from all over the world
and discharge waste that in many cases has a negative impact on ecosystems far from the cities in which they consumed. Indeed,
cities cannot survive without worldwide hinterlands for resources and emissions sequestration. The ecological footprint (EF)
concept provides valuable insights into the human appropriation of resources relative to earth’s carrying capacity, and therefore
it enables us to compare human demands with nature’s supply and provides an indicator of human ecological sustainability.
An attempt was made to calculate the EF of Ra’anana, Israel as a case study, to compare the EF-value with the expected for
ecological sustainability and to emphasize the dependence on overseas ecosystems. Ra’anana, a town of 67,300 inhabitants in
the year 2002, is considered a ‘dormitory town’ with a high quality of life. The EF was calculated using mainly the component
method. The calculated EF for Ra’anana is 4.0 ha/resident which means that the required hinterland, located all over the world,
is nearly 180 times the size of the town. The town’s EF is twice the value expected for sustainability on a global scale.
We draw several scenarios in order to reduce the EF. On a national basis as well as with the town case study, electric energy,
food and waste can be reduced and in turn would have a dramatic impact on the EF.
相似文献
Meidad KissingerEmail: |
20.
The current trend in foreign aid is toward small-scale sustainable development projects in partnership with defined communities.
However, these projects are subject to the influences of self-interested human behavior, poorly defined community structures
and resources and organizational constraints that can prevent full realization of development models. Under these constraints,
attempting participatory community development models to the exclusion of other techniques may not be the most effective way
to achieve positive change. Instead, development agencies should consider adopting other proven elements of development in
combination with the spirit of community development to achieve a positive impact within the community and organizational
structures and ensure accountability for success. A small-scale attempted, sustainable development case study in Rwanda is
reviewed, as well as a new concept for larger scale development integrating ‘carbon credits’. Additionally, a development
accreditation organization is proposed to ensure additional accountability in this field. 相似文献