Analysis of a rural water supply project in three communities in Mali: Participation and sustainability

This paper presents a qualitative assessment of the participatory water management strategies implemented at the community level in rural Mali through a water supply project — The West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI) — coordinated by World Vision International, a non‐governmental and humanitarian organization. Data for the study were generated through a combination of primary and secondary sources in three villages. Results of the study indicate that while community‐based rural water supply is a positive step in responding to the needs of rural Malians, the installation of boreholes with hand pumps informed merely by consultative participatory approaches and limited extension involvement will not necessarily proffer sustainable rural water supply in the region. A “platform” approach to rural water supply management that can mobilize the assets and insights of different social actors to influence decision making at all stages, including the design and choice‐of‐technology stages, in water supply interventions is instead advocated.     

Operationalising just sustainability: towards a model for place-based governance

As the concept of sustainability broadens to include social aspects, sustainability organisations must embrace strategies that allow them to more effectively address community issues and procedural concerns. Biosphere reserves (BRs) and model forests (MFs) advocate strongly for community engagement to achieve place-based sustainability; in practice, however, these organisations have had variable success in effectively engaging community residents and addressing their needs and interests. In this paper, we offer a framework for place-based governance for sustainability that is used to compare strategies used in BRs and MFs operating in the Maritime Provinces of Canada with the operations of Vibrant Communities, an anti-poverty organisation that operates locally in Saint John, New Brunswick. We draw attention to three imperatives: comprehensive understanding, community empowerment, and community-based outcomes, and five procedural drivers: local leadership, strong networks, diverse community engagement, learning together, and information sharing. Based on our results, we provide greater clarity on processes that address the imperatives and mobilise the drivers of effective place-based governance for sustainability. Our results suggest that there is a need for theory and practice to advance beyond current understandings of sustainability governance to enhance the capacity of organisations seeking to implement community-based sustainability strategies.     

Tracing the unintended consequences of food safety regulations for community food security and sustainability: small-scale meat processing in British Columbia

In 2004, as a response to the discovery of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in Canadian cattle and other food scares, the Province of British Columbia (BC) developed a comprehensive set of meat inspection regulations, increasing the requirements for food safety infrastructure. Through a series of interviews with farmers and stakeholders, we highlight some of the unintended consequences for community food security and sustainability that resulted from these stringent safety regulations in rural and remote communities in BC. These include the loss of meat production and processing capacities as well as the erosion of local food practices and traditions through the criminalisation of farm-gate sales. We suggest that food safety regulations intended to protect consumer health may result in negative effects for community food security and rural sustainability and that these consequences should be accounted for when developing food policy.     

Green tenants: practicing a sustainability ethics for the rental housing sector

The shift towards social, government and corporate ethics which value environmental sustainability has also embraced householders in a plethora of educational guides, policies, regulations and consumer information about green home improvements, purchasing choices and household practices. In this paper, we make the claim that the rental housing sector, and in particular the private rental sector, has yet to participate, structurally, culturally and materially, in this shift to an ethics of sustainability. We argue, however, that even on such otherwise arid ground, an alternative ethic is developing, a sustainability ethic practiced by green tenants whose activities inside and outside their homes go beyond the considerable material constraints of their dwellings and incomes, and beyond the purely transactional utility of the rental contract. These activities, relational, interconnected and resilient, offer both glimpses of a greening rental housing sector, and a clearer picture of the areas where work remains to be done. Based on a research study, we conducted of the rental sector in regional Australia, and in particular of the everyday sustainability practices of tenants, we suggest that these activities are a practice-based form of care for the world, in many ways similar to Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's practice-based, human-decentred ethics which she suggests is exemplified in the permaculture movement. The stories of the tenants we interviewed for our study also point the way to other changes which are needed to enable a practice-based sustainability ethic to flourish across the rental housing sector as a whole.     

From issues to indicators: developing robust community sustainability measures

Recent debate on sustainability indicator development has centred upon top-down and bottom-up methods. In practice, a key difficulty is the establishment of defensible issues and indicators to use. Here, we present a structured approach for transitioning from initial community consultation designed to elicit issues to the downstream definition, composition and measurement of those issues via indicators. The approach incorporates two quantitative techniques from the literature, analytic hierarchy process and Qualitative Sustainability System Index. The application of these techniques is designed to foster a better understanding of the priority of and relationships between issues, prior to the construction of measurement instruments and indicators of sustainability. We develop a prototype implementation of the approach, and elicit feedback from an expert panel on its suitability in a community sustainability context.     

How to facilitate (or discourage) community-based research: recommendations based on a Canadian survey

The impact of the extreme heat wave that affected Melbourne, Australia, in two distinct phases in January and February 2009 was severe, with 374 (heat) and 173 (bushfire) excess deaths. Whilst the human health issues have been covered in detail in policy and academic arenas, much less attention has been paid to the adverse impacts on urban infrastructure. Analysis of this event, underpinned by participatory actor-based research, has shown that the impacts were experienced disproportionately across different infrastructure types. For water, telecommunications and airports, the impacts were relatively minor and the impact on rail transport and roads (and to a lesser extent, seaports) was of moderate significance, whereas research findings indicate that the electricity sector was found to be the most vulnerable. This paper focuses on the sectors that were worst impacted: electricity, rail and road transport. Commentary identifies the direct and indirect impacts of the heat event, including associated cascading effects, as well as considering actual and potential adaptation responses both before and after the event. Concluding, the authors reflect on the implications of the heat wave for urban resilience, emphasising the crucial importance of understanding the urban environment as a complex and interconnected system.     

From subsistence farming towards a multifunctional agriculture: sustainability in the Chinese rural reality

The rural economic situation in China-with a living standard mostly at subsistence level-lags far behind the prosperous development in the cities and coastal areas. To balance this disequilibrium, comprehensive concepts and endeavors are necessary keeping in view all-not just economic-interests and needs that contribute to lively rural identities. In this context the role of agriculture, where still 50% of the Chinese population are working, will be newly defined, and sustainability concepts can help to find a readjusted position within the Chinese economy focusing on environmental health and food safety as main targets of political and other supporting measures. Within the SUCCESS project, a Concept of Sustainable Agriculture was developed and it drafts one conceivable relation between the exposure to natural resources and economy and tries to find new answers to the broad range of rural challenges in China. It is a qualitative model and, therefore, not always fully applicable, but in the concrete situation of villages, it shows possible directions of sustainability-oriented development by considering the typical local potentials. In the Chinese context that means identifying the different functions of agriculture-the well-known and the hidden-to make them explicit for the Chinese public and therewith to give them new significance. The article is based on a 3-years study within the EU-China Project SUCCESS with field research in four Chinese rural communities. It analyzes the agricultural sustainability potential of these selected villages against the background of massive structural changes within the next 20 years in rural China. Starting from the current agricultural reality, based on a qualitative analysis of the actual situation, local potentials and needs towards sustainable production and marketing are identified, and possible functions of the Chinese agriculture are formulated for the future.     

Village pubs as a social propellant in rural areas: an econometric study

There is no place like England to witness the role of pubs as a social networking hotspot. Social networks lie at the foundations of most of the social and economic interactions of individuals. The aim of this paper is to assess the importance of pubs as natural locations for the development of social networks and how their presence affects the socio-economic activity of a given area or region. The econometric analysis conducted on rural parishes in Cumbria, a peripheral county in Northern England, reveals that village pubs have a positive influence on the socio-economic activity of local communities.     

Embracing sustainability: the incorporation of sustainability principles in municipal planning and policy in four mid-sized municipalities in Ontario,Canada

The issue of planning for sustainability is becoming more established within Canadian municipal planning. As municipalities begin to align their planning policy to reflect a more sustainable approach, there is an increased interest in how sustainability is being operationalised within municipal documents. This research aims to better understand how principles of sustainability are imbedded within Ontario municipal documents, with a specific focus on the Integrated Sustainability Community Planning approach that has emerged in Canada. Drawing on a nested comparative case study of four mid-sized municipalities, we uncover the language and strategies employed by the municipalities as they relate to the principles of sustainability developed by Gibson [2006a. Sustainability assessment: basic components of a practical approach. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 24 (3), 170–182]. The findings suggest that current policy-based approaches to sustainability are considering more socially oriented strategies focused on promoting community involvement, inclusive decision-making, equity, socio-ecological civility, long-term integrative planning, and responsibility through stewardship. However, there are potential limitations that will require future research to examine policy outcomes associated with sustainability uptake. The ICSP approach must still overcome the issues relating to lack of regulatory authority and the incorporation of policies based on popular trends rather than empirical evidence.     

The local nonprofit sector and the pursuit of sustainability in American cities: a preliminary exploration

This paper reports on the results of a study of the relationship between the nonprofit sector and the pursuit of sustainability in 13 moderate sized US cities with populations between 400,000 and 600,000. Dividing the cities into two groups – those that have been more serious and less serious about adopting and implementing sustainability policies, analysis of a survey of local public officials examines differences in the nonprofit landscape. Analysis shows that the cities that are more serious about sustainability have local public officials who interact more with nonprofit organisations, and are more likely to report the presence of at least one nonprofit group that supports city sustainability policies. Additionally, these reported groups are more likely to be “local”, or homegrown, and to be explicitly dedicated to the environment or sustainability. While far from definitive, the results provide evidence that the nonprofit sector is different in cities with sustainability policies, and suggest that the role of these nonprofit groups in the governance decisions of city leaders warrants more in-depth study.     

The road towards sustainable rural development: issues of theory,policy and research practice

Developing a more widespread diffusion of sustainable agricultural practices as part of progressing rural sustainable development is being hampered by different modes of environmental social thought. This introduction to this special issue on ‘Reconstituting of nature through rural development practices’ argues for a realignment of social theory and empirical practice in considering the real potentiality of alternative and emergent rural development cases. The social science of agro-ecology is introduced as an initial framework within which to assess such alternatives and emerging tendencies. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The forgotten pillar: a definition for the measurement of social sustainability in American cities

This article provides a timely review of the interdisciplinary and disjointed literature on social sustainability and identifies some readily available measures of this concept for American cities. Based upon a comprehensive review of the literature, four broad dimensions are identified as being reflective of social sustainability: equal access and opportunity, environmental justice, community and the value of place, and basic human needs. Breaking these four dimensions into measurable indicators, this research provides a method for researchers and for American cities to begin to evaluate and to assess social sustainability efforts within their jurisdictions.     

Governing sustainability: a dialogue between Local Agenda 21 and transition management

Since the 1990s, the local level of governance has become increasingly important in addressing the challenge of sustainable development. In this article, we compare two approaches that seek to address sustainability locally, namely Local Agenda 21 and transition management. Discussing both approaches along six dimensions (history, aim, kind of change, governance understanding, process methodologies, and actors), we formulate general insights into the governance of sustainability in cities, towns, and neighbourhoods. This dialogue illustrates two related modes of thinking about sustainability governance. We touch upon the importance of an integrated perspective on sustainability transitions through which sustainability is made meaningful locally in collaborative processes. We suggest that the explicit orientation towards radical change is a precondition for governing sustainability in a way that addresses the root causes of societal challenges. Governing sustainability should address the tensions between aiming for radical change and working with status quo-oriented actors and governing settings. We conclude that governing sustainability should be about finding creative ways for opening spaces for participation, change, and experimentation, that is, for creating alternative ideas, practices, and social relations. These spaces for innovation encourage a reflexive stance on ways of working and one's own roles and attitudes, thereby preparing a fertile terrain for actors to engage in change from different perspectives.     

Governing sustainability: examining audits and compliance in a third-party-certified organic shrimp farming project in rural Indonesia

Drawing on a case study of an organic shrimp project in Indonesia, this paper provides a preliminary assessment of the use of third-party certification (TPC) to make shrimp aquaculture more environmentally sustainable in a rural setting in Indonesia. Specifically, I examine three processes of TPC: (1) the development of standards, (2) the communication of standards, and (3) the enforcement of standards. My research indicates that TPC is based on technoscientific norms and values and Western ideas of rationality. Thus, implementing TPC in rural settings in the global South may pose additional difficulties, resulting from cultural and structural differences. Consequently, TPC may not be able to be successfully implemented everywhere in the world, especially in the rural South, in its current form.     

Transparency,accountability and empowerment in sustainability governance: a conceptual review

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a conceptual examination of the power-effects of transparency, as information disclosure, on those making accountability claims against actors deemed to be causing significant environmental harm. Informed by Lukes’s ([2005]. Power: A radical view (second edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.) multi-dimensional theory of power, I review recent scholarship to interrogate four hypotheses positing empowerment for accountability claimants arising from the disclosure of sustainability information. Across public and private governance forms, academic research suggests that information disclosure promotes the communication of the sustainability interests of affected parties, and in some cases enhances the capacity of these parties to evaluate justifications provided by relevant power-wielders. However, evidence is weaker that disclosure of sustainability information empowers accountability claimants to sanction or otherwise steer those responsible; and there is little support that transparency fosters wider political interrogation of the configurations of authority producing environmental harm. Differentiating between behavioural and non-behavioural understandings of power allows an evaluation of these research findings on the power-related effects of information disclosure.     

Integrating waste,manufacturing and industrial symbiosis: an analysis of recycling,remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas

The continually increasing volume of the waste stream has led to numerous calls for strategies to close the loop on material use through industrial symbiosis strategies which direct used material and products (wastes) back to production processes. By use of a survey of recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms in Texas, this paper asks if these firms can operate as a bridge between production and consumption/waste to efficiently increase the flow of used materials and products back to production processes at the local level. The results suggest that while most materials and used products are collected locally, only some can be re(consumed) locally. Moreover, the firms face negative perceptions about their activities from industry and the public at large that likely slow both the rate of entry of new firms into these markets and the expansion possibilities of existing firms. In addition, the types of conventions that characterize the interactions of more successful firms are not well developed in this sector(s). It is unlikely that recycling, remanufacturing and waste treatment firms can become central players in the production, consumption and waste cycle loop until society develops production design, marketing and consumption philosophies that include recycling and remanufacturing at a fundamental level.     

The role of rural communities in the transition to a low-carbon Scotland: a review

The Scottish Government is committed to carbon reduction targets which are the most ambitious across the devolved administrations of the UK. Whilst Scotland operates within broader international and UK policy contexts, it has developed particular programmes and approaches to engage communities in the transition towards low-carbon futures. Rural areas have a role in the transition to a low-carbon Scotland; however, beyond land use and agriculture contributions, little research has explored the “rural” dimension of “low-carbon” transitions. The paper presents a policy and literature review relating to the low-carbon agenda in Scotland. It reflects on Scottish low-carbon policy and governance, the positioning of “rural communities” within this, and the opportunities and challenges this might present. Based on this, we develop an understanding of how rural communities may contribute to a low-carbon Scotland and identify a future research agenda to explore in more detail the nature and relative effectiveness of diverse governance structures to support this.