Working with indicators: description of states of territorial adjustment for protected natural areas

As is the case to date with respect to sustainability indicators, there is an enormous quantity of information available about their basic components (social, economic and environmental), but these are generally dealt with in a sectoral and fragmented manner, and the components have been analysed and approached in a more or less independent fashion. On the other hand, it is difficult to find indicators that encompass all the dimensions of sustainability. The topic chosen for this research is sustainability organised in a systematic fashion, which entails taking the combination of issues that affect each subsystem and investigating the states of territorial adjustment that exist between each of them. In short, it is the possibility of establishing a sustainable territorial development pattern, accepting that the economic and social activities that utilise the natural resources influence sustainability, and that they will do so to a greater or lesser extent depending on the effectiveness of the conservation of the stock of resources. The Territorial Adjustment Indicator System (TAIS) is a good tool that enables the management, assessment and monitoring of development processes in PNAs (protected natural areas), facilitating homogeneity and uniformity to aid comparison between protected areas in the centre-south of Spain, principally those areas designated as natural parks (NPs).     

Economic aspects of natural resource exploitation

Low entropy accumulations of matter and energy are more economic for humans to exploit as natural resources. This accumulation of a resource takes place over time and the most concentrated resources, such as fossil fuels, are created over geological ages. As the most concentrated resources become depleted it may be possible for technology to enable the exploitation of less concentrated resources, such as low-grade metal ores or thinly populated fishing grounds. Analysis of the timescales necessary to create different types of natural resource reveals three distinct groups. Further consideration of economic characteristics of resources, including ownership and access, and rate of consumption relative to rate of supply confirms the grouping of resources into the three distinct groups. Rate of change of entropy as a resource is exploited is an indicator of its impact on the environment. Consideration of this again suggests three distinct groups of resources, and this paper identifies them as: continuous natural resources (CNR), such as solar power and wind power; potentially renewable resources (PRR), such as fish and forests; and non-renewable resources (NRR), such as fossil fuels and metals.     

The ecological footprint from a systems perspective of sustainability

Summary

The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a method for estimating the biologically productive area necessary to support current consumption patterns, given prevailing technical and economic processes. By comparing human impact with the planet's limited bioproductive area. this method tests a basic ecological condition for sustainability. The ecological footprint has gained popularity for its pedagogical strength as it expresses the results of its analysis in spatial units that can easily be communicated. Many EF estimates have been performed on a global, national and sulrnationallevel. In this paper. we review the method and critically assess it from a sustainability perspective based on first order principles. We examine: ? Which aspects of sustainability are already covered by existing EF assessments;

? Which further aspects ofsustainability could be made accountable through the EF (such as areas needed to assimilate waste streams that are not yet accounted for in present assessments); and

? Those aspects ofsustainability that cannot be accountable through the EF. Thereby needing complimentary auditing tools.

Since the EF is a measure of renewable biocapacity, we argue that some dimensions of ecological sustainability should not be included in the EF. These include human activities that should be phased out to obtain sustainability, such as emissions of persistent compounds foreign to nature and qualitative aspects that represent secondary uses of ecological areas and do not, therefore, occupy a clearly identifiable additional ecological space. We also conclude that the EF is useful for documenting the overall human use or abuse of the potentially renewable functions and services of nature. Particularly, by aggregating in a consistentway a varity of human impacts, it can effectively identify the scale of the human economy by companson with the size of the biosphere.     

Values and willingness-to-pay for sustainability-certified mobile phones

ABSTRACT

This study investigated whether endorsement of personal values is associated with willingness to pay more for mobile phones with an environmental or social sustainability label. Participants were students in Sweden, Norway and Germany. A self-report inventory was used to measure willingness to pay and the importance attached to values of Schwartz’s circular model. In Sweden and Norway, participants were willing to pay, on average, 18% extra for a mobile phone with labels for environmental or social sustainability. In Germany, the corresponding share was 12%. To strive for self-enhancement values, that is, social status and prestige, as well as control and dominance over people and resources, was associated with a lower willingness to pay for mobile phones with labels for environmental or social sustainability in all three countries. Furthermore, women were willing to pay more than men for mobile phones with both kinds of sustainability labels. In Sweden and Norway, participants were, on average, willing to pay more for a mobile phone with a label for social sustainability compared to a mobile phone with a label for environmental sustainability.     

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.     

The implementation of environmental education to promote sustainability: an overview of the processes and challenges

ABSTRACT

This paper interprets aspects of the implementation of environmental education in a Higher Education Institution, situated in a developing country, to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The paper will allow educators to categorise the multiplicity of ESD programmes and projects in higher education institutions, determine their limitations and acceptability, and benefit from the theoretical framework of affective learning in designing new ESD interventions. The paper will also provide an overview of the processes required to establish ESD in developing and developed countries. This paper will further help universities to develop a better understanding of how integration of the three components of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection – can be incorporated in higher education. The paper explores the challenges for planning the implementation of ESD in an education faculty, outlining the potential lessons learned that could assist in improving ESD efforts in Faculties of Education.     

Is the economic dimension inducing the other sustainability dimensions,or is it the reverse? Perceptions from the Portuguese metal industry

ABSTRACT

In organizational sustainability, the economic dimension is recognized as having a very important role. However, the discussion regarding whether it is exclusively the economic dimension that has the power to induce the other sustainability dimensions is far from agreement. The purpose of the present paper is to analyze the perceptions regarding the existence of mutual influences between the economic dimension of sustainability and the other sustainability dimensions – environmental, social and cultural – in a relevant Portuguese economic sector: the metal industry. The analysis and statistical tests performed with the 211 collected answers led to the conclusion that the influence exerted by the economic dimension on the other sustainability dimensions is perceived as dominant, both in present and future perspectives. The results also show the perception that the economic dimension is equally influenced by the environmental and social dimensions, and in a less extent, by the cultural dimension, and that all these mutual influences are perceived to increase in the future. The existence of organizational management systems has a positive effect on the perceptions regarding the existence of mutual influences between sustainability dimensions, but only for those companies with more than one certified management system. These results confirm that organizational management systems are connected to higher degrees of awareness regarding sustainability issues. Given that the great majority of the sampled industries are SMEs, the results obtained in this research demonstrate that the existence of mutual influences between sustainability dimensions is recognized even in small-sized industries.     

Hybrid Bottom Line: another perspective on the sustainability of organizations

In recent years, there has been a growing concern and an increasing number of proactive initiatives from various stakeholders on issues related to the environment, social matters, and economic aspects and this has been the main driving force toward sustainability. However, most players that are deeply involved with environmental and social agendas indicate that these actions have been more of a temporary palliative for the current unsustainability problems than real structural solutions, especially in what concerns the relationship between short-term actions and long-term structural planning. Even though the general literature on sustainability is comprehensive, there is a paucity of papers which look at it at the organizational level, and under a cross-sectoral perspective. This paper is an attempt to address this gap. It presents the concept of ‘Hybrid Bottom Line’ as a new perspective in understanding and sustainability at the organizational level.     

Evolutionary governance choice for corporate social responsibility: a forestry campaign case in South Korea

Firms select different governance types (e.g. internalisation, outsourcing or collaboration) for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. This paper examined how the choice of CSR governance type is influenced by social factors and organisational experiences and how changes in these factors affect the governance choice. These questions are especially meaningful in the context of developing countries with weak institutional environments and recent social change. With the unique phenomenon that is not readily explainable in terms of the extant theoretical groundwork on CSR governance choice, a case study of a South Korean forestry campaign by Yuhan-Kimberly was analysed. It was found that social circumstances triggered Yuhan-Kimberly's initiation of forestry projects, but the absence of social infrastructure limited the choice of governance type early on. Lack of experience also constrained the governance choice. Over time, environmental change and the accumulation of organisational knowledge caused the choice of governance to evolve. This study contributes to the CSR governance choice literature by exploring social and organisational determinants other than economic efficiency and by applying a dynamic perspective.     

The archaeology of deforestation in south coastal Turkey

The Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey Project investigates landscape transformation as a component to its regional survey of ancient Rough Cilicia (south coastal Turkey opposite Cyprus). Rough Cilicia was celebrated during antiquity for pristine cedar forests that stood between 1500 and 1800 m in altitude along the slopes of the Taurus Mountains. Today along the front range of the Taurus Mountains this forest is completely denuded or otherwise replanted with recent growth in the past 80 years. We employ paleoenvironmental analysis of relic cedar forests in the Taurus Mountains to construct a timeline of anthropogenic disturbances associated with population growth over time and thereby assess the sustainability of ancient forestry practices. To obtain these data, the team recovers pollen and carbon samples from geomorphologic trenches excavated in the cedar zone, tree ring data from dendrochronological survey of the existing forest, and archaeological data from remains of ancient highland settlements. Preliminary results indicate that current perspectives about the timing of deforestation in this region are flawed and that the initial deforestation coincided with regional site abandonment and population decline at the end of antiquity.