欧洲铝工业部门可持续指标系统的开发

2001年欧洲铝工业委托乌珀塔尔研究所完成一个项目叫做"朝着可持续性发展的铝工业:利益相关者的期望值和核心指标".该项目的目的是检查可持续性议程和利益相关者的期望值.其后为了用来测定企业的可持续行为建立了一个指标框架.参与的利益相关者能够看到他们的投入正在被采用.本文介绍了开发这个部门的可持续性指标系统的论证经验,并陈述了主要的可持续发展主题.     

在环境影响评价中提出可持续发展

本文在考虑评价项目与计划的可持续能力问题上,确定环境影响评价(EIA)过程的一些缺陷与能力,本文提出了在无需对立法、调整及程序进行主要检查的基础上修正EIA过程缺陷的建议.所建议的分析框架克服了美国现行的EIA指导与基本可持续原则之间的差距.在现行的EIA框架内,对可持续性的评价可以做得很清楚,影响评价的标准可以扩展到包括自然资本的非可持续损失的确定,和/或超越特定的地方、区域或甚至全球范围内的阈值或标准.     

欧洲铝工业部门可持续指标系统的开发

2001年欧洲铝工业委托乌珀塔尔研究所完成一个项目叫做“朝着可持续性发展的铝工业:利益相关者的期望值和核心指标“.该项目的目的是检查可持续性议程和利益相关者的期望值.其后为了用来测定企业的可持续行为建立了一个指标框架.参与的利益相关者能够看到他们的投入正在被采用.本文介绍了开发这个部门的可持续性指标系统的论证经验,并陈述了主要的可持续发展主题.     

欧洲铝工业部门可持续指标系统的开发

2001年欧洲铝工业委托乌珀塔尔研究所完成一个项目叫做“朝着可持续性发展的铝工业:利益相关者的期望值和核心指标.该项目的目的是检查可持续性议程和利益相关者的期望值.其后为了用来测定企业的可持续行为建立了一个指标框架.参与的利益相关者能够看到他们的投入正在被采用.本文介绍了开发这个部门的可持续性指标系统的论证经验,并陈述了主要的可持续发展主题.     

书讯

我院左家哺教授和中国科学院植物研究所傅德志研究员合作编著的《可持续发展思想导论》一书近期由湖南科学技术出版社出版 ,该书主要介绍了可持续发展思想的形成、发展阶段、基本观点及其基本特性 ,根据可持续发展思想中生态可持续性、环境可持续性、资源可持续性、经济可持续性和社会可持续性概念 ,我们从人类、社会、经济、自然、资源、环境等问题角度出发 ,提出了以生态可持续为基础、以环境可持续为准则、以资源可持续为核心、以经济可持续为条件、以社会可持续为目标的比较完善的可持续发展思想 ,以此作为主线分别进行了讨论和介绍 ;最…     

在环境影响评价中提出可持续发展

本文在考虑评价项目与计划的可持续能力问题上,确定环境影响评价（EIA）过程的一些缺陷与能力,本文提出了在无需对立法、调整及程序进行主要检查的基础上修正EIA过程缺陷的建议,所建议的分析框克服了美国现行的EIA指导与基本可持续原则之间的差距,在现行的EIA框架内,对可持续性的评价可以做得很清楚,影响评价的标准可以扩展到包括自然资本的非可持续损失的确定,和／或超越特定的地方、区域或全球范围内的阈值或标准。     

欧洲铝工业部门可持续指标系统的开发

2001年欧洲铝工业委托乌珀塔尔研究所完成一个项目叫做“朝着可持续性发展的铝工业；利益相关者的期望值和核心指标”。该项目的目的是检查可持续性议程和利益相关者的期望值，其后为了用来测定企业的可持续行为建立了一个指标框架，参与的利益相关者能够看到他们的投入正在被采用。本文介绍了开发这个部门的可持续性指标系统的论证经验，并陈述了主要的可持续发展主题。     

农作物保护产品安全与有效使用的管理

通过研究与开发 ,农作物保护工业开发了当在一体化农作物管理 (ICM)框架内使用时会对可持续农业目标作出很大贡献的技术和方法 .各成员公司采取措施 ,以确保开发与生产方法符合最高环境标准 ,并遵守所有层次的法规 .农作物保护工业的管理项目力求确保农作物保护产品安全而有效地流通和使用 ,从而有利于农业生产 ,并对发达和发展中世界的环境保护作出贡献 .     

农作物保护产品安全与有效使用的管理

通过研究与开发,农作物保护工业开发了当在一体化农作物管理(ICM)框架内使用时会对可持续农业目标作出很大贡献的技术和方法.各成员公司采取措施,以确保开发与生产方法符合最高环境标准,并遵守所有层次的法规.农作物保护工业的管理项目力求确保农作物保护产品安全而有效地流通和使用,从而有利于农业生产,并对发达和发展中世界的环境保护作出贡献.     

农作物保护产品安全与有效使用的管理

通过研究与开发,农作物保护工业开发了当在一体化农作物管理(ICM)框架内使用时会对可持续农业目标作出很大贡献的技术和方法.各成员公司采取措施,以确保开发与生产方法符合最高环境标准,并遵守所有层次的法规.农作物保护工业的管理项目力求确保农作物保护产品安全而有效地流通和使用,从而有利于农业生产,并对发达和发展中世界的环境保护作出贡献.     

Monitoring sustainable agriculture in Southeast Asia

Monitoring agricultural sustainability requires careful summarising of indicators collected over time into indices representing facets of sustainability. When the number of variables exceeds the number of observations, interpretation of components from ordinary principal component analysis is usually difficult because of minimal or absence of sparsity among the loadings. This is also true for time series indicators that exhibit non-stationarity. A framework for the assessment of agricultural sustainability in a regional context is proposed. Sparse principal component analysis is used in constructing indices of agricultural sustainability that are then used to characterise the state of agricultural development and the dynamics of agricultural growth in Southeast Asia.     

Hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology framework to support sustainability performance assessment and reporting

The conception, design, and implementation of sustainable development strategies in an organization aims at meeting and balancing economic, social, and environmental needs of internal and external stakeholders. While the principles and fundamentals of sustainability assist during the conception and design phases, the implementation process of management strategies – impacted directly or indirectly by internal and external factors – may identify areas of competitive advantages or challenges that would impede the projects and organizations’ performance targets. An organization is not an isolated entity and its performance is often compared against others in the market arena; therefore, assessment tools, benchmarking processes, and reporting strategies become essential for the understanding of the efforts made towards the implementation of plan, policies, and programs at the organization and project levels. A framework for a hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology is proposed in this paper. The framework integrates the Rank Xerox benchmarking process and the Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system assessment methodology. The proposed hybrid process-criterion benchmarking methodology encourages the diversification in the development and implementation of sustainable and environmental rating systems in industry contexts (e.g., oil and gas, mining, heavy industrial, and energy) and aims for the improvement of existing sustainability performance assessment and reporting practices. It also assists the quantitative assessment process of advances and/or setbacks in sustainability performance and the implementation of continuous performance improvement programs.     

Community sustainability: a holistic approach to measuring the sustainability of rural communities in Scotland

ABSTRACT

Although sustainable development was defined in the Brundtland Report almost 30 years ago, the current usage of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development remain highly equivocal. In the context of rural communities, multiple interpretations and weak definitions lead to confusion in understanding what comprises a sustainable rural community. Building on existing definitions (e.g. Baker’s, 2006, ‘Ladder of Sustainable Development’), models (principally, The Egan Review’s, 2004, ‘Components of Sustainable Communities’) and findings of this study, a sustainable community is defined and a holistic model of a sustainable place-based rural community is presented. This model, the sustainable community design (SCD) is used as the basis for analysing community sustainability, which is measured using mixed methods and scorecard assessment. Sensitivity of the method is demonstrated with inter- and intra-community variations in sustainability across three diverse Scottish rural communities. Intra-community variations illustrate heterogeneity in community sustainability, explain ambiguity in characterisations of an individual community’s sustainability, and highlight the importance of an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to community development. The SCD framework is presented as a useful tool for meso-level sustainability assessment and to facilitate the sustainable development of rural communities.     

生态承载力的概念及其研究方法

生态承载力研究是可持续发展科学领域关注的热点问题,是判定可持续发展的重要分析手段,对生态承载力的概念和评价方法的研究有利于可持续发展科学的发展与完善。对国内外相关研究中的生态承载力概念进行了总结,并深入探讨了不同学者对于生态承载力概念达成的共识及存在的分歧,在此基础上提出了生态承载力概念的内涵。依据生态承载力评价的思路,将国内外生态承载力评价方法分为3类,第1类是指标体系评价法,第2类是以能量、物质流为基础的产品周期评价,第3类是综合性评价。上述评价方法在处理复杂系统问题上都有各自的优缺点,需要评价者根据评价目的采用互补的方式对方法进行集成,加强综合集成的方法在生态承载力评价中的应用。最后,结合生态承载力研究的发展趋势,分析了目前生态承载力研究的不足,提出了生态承载力中主动因子与被动因子、生态承载力预测及其与区域规划的结合、经济发展和科技进步对生态承载力的影响、生态承载力方法改进等亟待开展的研究内容。     

Book reviews and notices

The aim of sustainable development is to balance social, economic, and environmental needs. In order to justify the decisions they make, stakeholders must quantify the different impacts found in the operations and developments of companies and/or projects throughout their life cycle. However, as some areas are subjective in nature, the quantification process of the different impacts and the assessment of sustainable development performance become arduous tasks of development, validation, and application of scientific and empirical methods with the intrinsic objective of finding an agreement among the involved parties (i.e., stakeholders). Several environmental and sustainability assessment tools, instruments, processes, and methodologies have been developed; rating systems stand out and have gained attention and credibility, as demonstrated by the vast number of certified projects around the world and the widely-known usefulness and advantages of their application. The Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system presents an integrated approach to sustainability assessment by integrating three distinctive areas of knowledge: (1) sustainable development theory and fundamentals supports the ultimate goal of the rating system, which is to contribute to sustainability, with the aim of finding a path to balance social, economic, and environmental needs; (2) continual performance improvement becomes essential due to the duration of the projects, as it is critical to allow organizations or projects to improve performance over time; and (3) multi-criteria decision analysis assists with the assessment process through stakeholder engagement and participation, and the design and implementation of a criteria weighting system.     

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.     

Criteria and indicators for a bioenergy production industry identified via stakeholder participation

As bioenergy production expands and new bioenergy-based technologies emerge, there is a growing concern regarding the sustainability of their ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Comprehensive sustainability assessments are needed to address this concern and to assure that the development of the bioenergy industry meets sustainability goals. Most sustainability assessments for bioenergy are expert-driven, broad, and largely motivated by an interest in optimizing international trade in bioenergy. As a result, social and cultural sustainability targets are vague or underdeveloped. In this study, we developed a sustainability assessment for a regional bioenergy production industry in Upper Michigan, using stakeholder participation. Semi-structured interviews and focus group meetings were used to elicit participants’ concerns and opinion. These concerns were translated into sustainability Criteria and Indicators (C&Is), many of which could be supported with available science. Some of the C&Is identified by participants were unique to the region. Sustainability C&Is were broadly categorized into economic (C = 5; I = 22), environmental (C = 6; I = 12), social (C = 3; I = 9), policy and regulations (C = 3; I = 13), and institutional capacity (C = 4; I = 13). While participants could identify indicators for most of the criteria (many of which are also supported by existing literature), further research and validation will be necessary to identify measurable, practical, and bias-free indicators for all criteria.     

On sustainability and social welfare

This paper proposes to define sustainability in terms of leaving it possible for future generations to sustain certain defined targets. It is shown that variants of genuine savings and the ecological footprint can then serve as indicators of sustainability. The link between sustainability and intergenerational welfare is examined, and it is shown how to incorporate indicators of sustainability into a social welfare measure, including risk in the analysis.     

Analysing the incorporation of sustainability themes into the university curricula: a case study of a Spanish public university

From an international view, several papers have analysed how sustainability themes are integrated into the university curricula. In Spain, few studies to date have examined the extent to which universities are incorporating sustainability themes into their curricula. In view of such considerations, this article examines the extent to which sustainability themes are being incorporated into the curricula of a Spanish public university strongly committed to signing sustainability policies and declarations. In addition, this study analyses the main barriers to the incorporation of sustainability themes into the curricula of this university. To accomplish this task, this article uses different methodological instruments over three phases through a case study approach. The findings of this study suggest how the university examined has many difficulties in incorporating, holistically or separately, sustainability themes in its formal courses despite having so many policies, regulations and a commitment to sustainability.