Contemporary Sustainability Challenges Research Articles

Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Tourism Planning: A Hetero-Intelligence Methodology Proposal

This study explores the growing significance of Large Language Models (LLMs) in tourism, for their current and potential applications. It aims to achieve two primary objectives: first, to develop a novel hetero-intelligence framework merging human and artificial intelligence (AI) to address contemporary sustainability challenges in tourism; second, to validate this framework by applying it to sustainable tourism planning, assessing LLMs' capabilities and limitations. The research employs a hetero-intelligence performance test, contrasting human intelligence and AI contributions in sustainable tourism planning with overtourism as a proxy challenge. Results showed that hetero-intelligence could effectively address sustainability issues in tourism, provided human and AI strengths and weaknesses are understood. LLMs proved useful in diagnosing and proposing solutions for sustainability-related issues. However, a rigorous methodological framework is essential to ensure unbiased outcomes. The research offers practical guidelines for applying this approach and significantly contributes to epistemological and empirical dimensions, providing valuable insights for researchers and tourism planners. The study calls for more empirical research to validate the methodology and explore ethical and legal dimensions, extending hetero-intelligence applications to broader sustainability challenges in tourism.

Assurance Practices for Ethical and Sustainable Business Practices

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of assurance practices in promoting ethical and sustainable business conduct within contemporary organizations. Through a qualitative research design and methodology, the study systematically analyzes existing literature to identify key insights and trends in assurance practices related to business ethics and sustainability. Findings indicate that assurance mechanisms, such as external audits and third-party certifications, play a crucial role in bolstering stakeholders' confidence in corporate disclosures concerning ethical conduct and sustainability performance. Additionally, the study highlights the evolving nature of assurance practices, particularly in response to emerging challenges and opportunities in the realm of business ethics and sustainability. Implications of the findings suggest that organizations can leverage assurance practices to enhance transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness, thereby fostering a culture of integrity and responsible conduct. Furthermore, the integration of technology and the expansion of assurance services offer opportunities to strengthen the effectiveness and relevance of assurance practices in addressing contemporary sustainability challenges.

The role of business and management in driving the sustainable development goals (SDGs): Current insights and future directions from a systematic review

AbstractThe pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs) extends beyond governmental responsibility, demanding active engagement from businesses and managers. This study systematically reviews SDG‐related research within the fields of business and management to elucidate their roles in advancing this global agenda. By analyzing a corpus of pertinent studies from Scopus and Web of Science through bibliometric–content analysis, this study not only identifies publication trends, prominent contributors, theories, contexts, and methods but also uncovers the evolving roles of businesses and managers in driving the SDGs. The main themes emerging from this analysis include (1) forging sustainable partnerships, practices, and policies, reflecting businesses' role in stakeholder collaboration and policymaking; (2) addressing contemporary sustainability challenges like artificial intelligence and the dynamics of emerging economies; (3) balancing economic advancement with environmental sustainability, highlighting businesses' impact on ecological footprints and the importance of green finance; (4) integrating financial development considerations with ecological responsibility; (5) promoting equity and well‐being, underscoring the influence of businesses and managers on societal welfare; and (6) shaping governance frameworks for sustainable production and consumption. These themes collectively paint a comprehensive picture of how business and management practices are crucial in achieving the SDGs, offering insights into current contributions, and charting potential pathways for future research and implementation.

Insights from National Conference on Sustainability, Business, and Society

This article is based on a comprehensive report on the National Conference on Sustainability, Business, and Society organized by Jaipuria Institute of Management, Indore in collaboration with MDRF, New Delhi on 30 September 2023. The conference was organized to explore the philosophical and practical underpinnings of sustainability, beginning with Carlowitz's advocacy of forest resource conservation. Nine distinguished speakers and sixty delegates from India, Nepal and Bahrain, participated in the conference. Delegates at the conference looked at the socio-economic implications of the industrial pursuits of the 20th century and the evolution of sustainability as a focal point of global conversations, role and responsibility of business, society and nation in the 21st century, especially in light of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the evolving global consciousness amidst industrial pursuits, climate change, and the rise of the sustainability lexicon during the proceedings of the inaugural and technical sessions of the conference. Key insights from the conference are likely to foster further dialogue and collaboration among academicians, policymakers, administrators, researchers, students, and the public in mitigating the contemporary sustainability challenges through appropriate interventions.

To conform or to transform? A comparative case analysis of the societal embedding of biogas systems

To conform or to transform? A comparative case analysis of the societal embedding of biogas systems

Accommodating coexisting impact rationales in knowledge co-production: The case of the Natuurpact reflexive evaluation

Reflexive and deliberative knowledge co-production processes are increasingly used in dealing with contemporary sustainability challenges. These processes come with the need to develop ways to properly assess and understand their impact. In our case study, a three-year-long knowledge co-production process aimed at evaluating the Dutch nature policy, we observed that the actors involved valued and understood the impact of the process differently. Actors’ understandings of impact were also affected by political developments in the context surrounding the co-production process. Our empirical analysis focused on three dimensions of impact assessment (function of knowledge co-production, perceived pathway to impact, and problem identification) and identified four coexisting ‘rationales’ that actors used in their valuations of impact: accountability, instrumental, network and transformative rationales. Although the rationales appear incompatible, each emphasizing different ideas on how impact is achieved, in practice, individual actors drew on multiple rationales simultaneously in their assessment of the co-production process’ impact. Specific national and provincial political dynamics, related to goal achievement of the nature policy, influenced how actors used the rationales. Actors increased the use of the accountability and transformative rationales as policy deadlines drew near. Our findings have implications for designing knowledge co-production processes. The coexistence of impact rationales complicates a responsive approach to process design that aims to consider the knowledge demands of diverse actors. Nevertheless, we argue that combining impact rationales is desirable, given the nature of and reasons for knowledge co-production, and provide recommendations for dealing with their coexistence in practice.

Green Public Procurement in Mission-Orientated Innovation Systems: Leveraging Voluntary Standards to Improve Sustainability Performance of Municipalities

Mission-oriented approaches such as green public procurement (GPP) are emerging as popular solutions for governments to tackle contemporary sustainability challenges. Voluntary standards are instruments that can be used in GPP to drive innovation toward sustainability goals. However, there exists a lack of understanding of how to theoretically situate and practically execute GPP and voluntary standards within missions-oriented innovation systems (MIS). To address this research gap, this paper investigates how voluntary standards can be used to help formulate and achieve missions for sustainable urban development (SUD) at the municipal level, followed by what role green public procurement can play in this process. To do so, it establishes a first theoretical synthesis of GPP and MIS. Next, focusing on the Municipality of Amsterdam, it conducts an empirical investigation of 95 SUD projects, of which 55 were public tender projects (in which the municipality is the landowner) and 40 were non-public tender projects (in which a private entity is the landowner), supplemented by stakeholder interviews. Based on this, it (1) conceptualizes six sustainability ambitions as missions and examines each for their formulation in terms of targets and associated standards (problem-solution diagnosis), and (2) it maps the various actors engaged in the process of implementing these missions through SUD projects, defining their positions and interrelations within the MIS at the municipal level (structural analysis). Conclusions and reflections are made regarding the relationship between changing standards and regulations over time, the potential for GPP to increase progress toward missions via use of voluntary standards in public tenders. Until programmatic approaches to measuring progress toward missions are fully implemented, the presence of voluntary standards is suggested as a potential metric.

Untangling social-ecological interactions: A methods portfolio approach to tackling contemporary sustainability challenges in fisheries.

Meeting the objectives of sustainable fisheries management requires attention to the complex interactions between humans, institutions and ecosystems that give rise to fishery outcomes. Traditional approaches to studying fisheries often do not fully capture, nor focus on these complex interactions between people and ecosystems. Despite advances in the scope and scale of interactions encompassed by more holistic methods, for example ecosystem‐based fisheries management approaches, no single method can adequately capture the complexity of human–nature interactions. Approaches that combine quantitative and qualitative analytical approaches are necessary to generate a deeper understanding of these interactions and illuminate pathways to address fisheries sustainability challenges. However, combining methods is inherently challenging and requires understanding multiple methods from different, often disciplinarily distinct origins, demanding reflexivity of the researchers involved. Social–ecological systems’ research has a history of utilising combinations of methods across the social and ecological realms to account for spatial and temporal dynamics, uncertainty and feedbacks that are key components of fisheries. We describe several categories of analytical methods (statistical modelling, network analysis, dynamic modelling, qualitative analysis and controlled behavioural experiments) and highlight their applications in fisheries research, strengths and limitations, data needs and overall objectives. We then discuss important considerations of a methods portfolio development process, including reflexivity, epistemological and ontological concerns and illustrate these considerations via three case studies. We show that, by expanding their methods portfolios, researchers will be better equipped to study the complex interactions shaping fisheries and contribute to solutions for sustainable fisheries management.

The changing landscape of deep transitions: Sociotechnical imprinting and chemical warfare

This paper addresses a major gap in sustainability transitions research: the role of shocks in shaping transition dynamics. The papers focuses on shocks with traumatic consequences, in particular World War I and II. The paper revisits discussions on the sociotechnical landscape in the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) and Deep Transition framework, offering refined versions of the concepts of systemic and landscape imprinting. It proceeds with a case-study analysis focusing on niche developments during WWI in relation to chemicals and the emergence of chemical warfare, and the lasting impact this shock had on interwar developments, WWII and the post-WWII context. The collective memories of the use of chemical weapons during war and expectations around future use of chemical weapons formed a new backdrop that influenced developments in the food system. Here, food became more tightly intertwined with military imperatives related to preparations regarding the use of chemical and biological weapons. This paper contributes to emerging understandings of how landscape shocks influence sociotechnical change, in particular how these shocks can lead to long lasting tight couplings between socio-technical systems. Two broader research recommendations follow from it. First, more work is needed on the neglected role of war and the military in sociotechnical transitions. Second, in terms of contemporary sustainability challenges, research could consider how landscape events - including the coronavirus pandemic, events related to dramatic biodiversity losses and the climate crisis as well as the traumatic experience of poverty traps and steep rising inequality - may produce trauma and new forms of shared meaning and expectations that impinge on sociotechnical change.

Comparing sustainability transition labs across process, effects and impacts: Insights from Canada and Sweden

Purposeful transformative change on a level of societal systems, structures and practices is called for in response to contemporary sustainability challenges. Sustainability transition labs and arenas represent a particular set of governance innovations seeking to foster systemic change based on deliberate engagement of multiple actors around complex issues of concern. Most labs aim for long-term contributions in addressing persistent societal challenges and transitioning into sustainability, yet are seldomly evaluated on whether, how and to what extents such contributions become realised in practice. In this paper, we further an analytical framework for comparatively analysing sustainability transition labs and arenas with emphasis on their processes, effects and impacts. The framework is applied on two cases: Energy Futures Lab initiated in Alberta, Canada and the arenas for a Fossil Independent West Sweden - Climate 2030. In particular, the comparison showcases how contextual difference in terms of urgency and turbulence may influence lab activities and how ownership and governance conditions may influence the various directions outputs, effects and wider impacts took. The comparison further illuminates how backcasting and the multi-level perspective may serve as complementary frameworks and tools in lab processes, whose respective role may depend on aspiration and context. We end the paper by providing a series of key considerations in furthering the comparative analytical framework and its application in practice. They orient around the three guiding questions on the why's, what's, and how's of doing comparative research on sustainability transition arenas and labs across their processes, effects and impacts.

Towards Career Sustainability: A Systematic Review to Guide Future Research

Objective: this study analyses how international literature informs the discussion of sustainability within career scope. Method: we conducted a systematic literature review through the Web of Science database and analyzed 152 papers with the sustainable-career-related keywords: resilience, systems, and ecosystem. By exploring the conceptual foundations of these concepts that have evolved in the context of career sustainability over the last three decades, we identified six clusters of different theoretical approaches. Results: these are the interplay of social spaces in the development of sustainable or unsustainable career paths; need for an open-systems perspective for organizational career management; significance of personal attributes and individual behaviors in career sustainability development; addressing satisfaction and well-being in work and life spheres; external and internal career mobility in complex environments; and contemporary sustainability challenges and their implications for careers, cities, and governments. Conclusion: based on the findings, we established six assumptions that may guide future empirical research in this field.

Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research

Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges better than more traditional scientific approaches. But definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. We propose a set of four general principles that underlie high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research. Using these principles, we offer practical guidance on how to engage in meaningful co-productive practices, and how to evaluate their quality and success.

Perceptions of Priority Policy Areas and Interventions for Urban Sustainability in Polish Municipalities: Can Polish Cities Become Smart, Inclusive and Green?

The transition to sustainable urban development requires both appropriate city management and local authorities that are aware of the implications posed by new urban sustainability challenges. The article aims to identify the priority policy/practice areas and interventions to solve sustainability challenges in Polish municipalities, as well as the factors that differentiate these priorities. Through an online questionnaire we surveyed 460 Polish municipalities, and conducted a multidimensional assessment concerning how mayors (and their executive teams) prioritise possible policy/practice areas and interventions related to sustainability. Our analysis implies that the mayors (and their executive teams) assign higher priority to policy/practice areas and interventions related to economic and social domains, and slightly lower priority to environmental ones. However, an important finding is that the priority policy/practice areas and interventions do not correspond well to some of the contemporary sustainability challenges in Polish cities. Effectively tackling urban environmental, economic and social problems would require the implementation of new approaches related to smart cities, the circular economy and/or cultural diversity. However, these less traditional policy/practice areas and interventions are quite low on the priority list of Polish mayors and their executive teams. Interestingly mayors and executive teams that prefer more participatory and solidarity-based management approaches are more likely to prioritise less traditional policy/practice areas and interventions to solve urban sustainability challenges in their municipalities.

Understanding the Impacts of Research Synthesis

Research synthesis is the integration of existing knowledge and research findings pertinent to an issue. The aim of synthesis is to increase the generality and applicability of those findings and to develop new knowledge through the process of integration. Synthesis is promoted as an approach that deals with the challenge of öinformation overload’, delivering products that further our understanding of problems and distil relevant evidence for decision-making. However, despite the increasing prominence of synthesis efforts in the science and policy landscape, we know very little about the impacts these initiatives have on research, policy and practice and the assumptions underpinning how they will lead to change. This paper presents a framework for considering the conceptual, strategic, instrumental and network-based impacts of research synthesis on policy. This framework provides insight into the range of underlying assumptions and impacts on policy and practice from 10 case studies of research synthesis related to contemporary sustainability challenges. Findings suggest that research synthesis is having diverse impacts on research, policy and practice including creating a new understanding of problems, establishing new networks, and contributing to changes in policy and practice. These impacts emerged across a range of contexts, synthesis methods, assumptions and operating models. This suggests that there is no single öcorrect way’ to design research synthesis for impact, but rather a need to tailor the approach for the context of intended use.

A critical realist inquiry in conducting interdisciplinary research: an analysis of LUCID examples

Nastar, M., C. S. Boda, and L. Olsson. 2018. A critical realist inquiry in conducting interdisciplinary research: an analysis of LUCID examples. Ecology and Society 23(3):41. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10218-230341

Charting the Future of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Special Issue

Charting the Future of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: A Special Issue

Redefining community based on place attachment in a connected world

The concept of community is often used in environmental policy to foster environmental stewardship and public participation, crucial prerequisites of effective management. However, prevailing conceptualizations of community based on residential location or resource use are limited with respect to their utility as surrogates for communities of shared environment-related interests, and because of the localist perspective they entail. Thus, addressing contemporary sustainability challenges, which tend to involve transnational social and environmental interactions, urgently requires additional approaches to conceptualizing community that are compatible with current globalization. We propose a framing for redefining community based on place attachment (i.e., the bonds people form with places) in the context of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage Area threatened by drivers requiring management and political action at scales beyond the local. Using data on place attachment from 5,403 respondents residing locally, nationally, and internationally, we identified four communities that each shared a type of attachment to the reef and that spanned conventional location and use communities. We suggest that as human-environment interactions change with increasing mobility (both corporeal and that mediated by communication and information technology), new types of people-place relations that transcend geographic and social boundaries and do not require ongoing direct experience to form are emerging. We propose that adopting a place attachment framing to community provides a means to capture the neglected nonmaterial bonds people form with the environment, and could be leveraged to foster transnational environmental stewardship, critical to advancing global sustainability in our increasingly connected world.

Trade in the Telecoupling Framework

As a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary sustainability challenges, telecoupling emphasises the importance of socioeconomic and environmental interactions over long distances. These long-distance interactions can occur through multiple human activities. Here we focus on international trade, a major channel of telecoupling flows, and in particular on the international trade of metals. We present a conceptual model to show how trade can be viewed through the telecoupling framework. We then use world input-output tables to quantitatively examine how countries contribute to both economic and environmental flows through trade of metals, but also how that contribution varies depending on their position in the global value chain of contemporary international trade. This analysis is built on recently-developed techniques for decomposing gross exports of physical products and embedded environmental assets as well as previous methods for valuing environmental assets. We make comparisons between countries' contributions to flows of economic value vs embedded greenhouse gas emissions, but also examine contributions beyond total volumes of trade and bilateral trade. Specifically, we quantify the economic and environmental ‘spillover’ effects that occur in contemporary international trade due to the global value chain in which flows of intermediate goods form components in other subsequently traded goods. We interpret differences between countries' contributions to the flows of economic value versus embedded environmental assets as being related to the intensity and efficiency of resource use during production. In turn, differences in contributions to direct trade flows versus spillover flows are related to their positions in the global value chain. Subsequently, we discuss other elements of the telecoupling framework in trade – agents, causes and effects. Quantitatively incorporating these telecoupling framework elements alongside spillover flows will enable investigation of dynamics and relationships that traditional trade theories, data and models do not currently account for well.

The Globe Sustained: Shakespeare’s allegory for sustainable development

Sustainability theory shows that the sustainability problem is a value orientation problem. In a recent study, Klaas van Egmond identified an underlying pattern of a crossed circle, representing affirmative and adversative value orientations, whose disintegration engenders unsustainable tendencies. This article explicates how Shakespeare’s allegories invite to quests for ‘values worthy of pursuit’, grounded upon a similar immanent cyclical pattern of value orientations, moving from and to the centre of Shakespeare’s works. Holding up the allegorical mirror to contemporary sustainability challenges, Shakespeare’s works anticipate sustainability narratives for society at large and its individual actors. The results of this research are highly relevant in the contemporary debates on the ‘erosion’ of European values, as it demonstrates how to identify sustained European value patterns and how to build on these patterns in relation with contemporary questions of sustainability.

Agrarian Ideals, Sustainability Ethics, and US Policy: A Critique for Practitioners

If tacit ethical ideals shape policy and practice, even when practitioners are not fully aware of underlying philosophical assumptions, then philosophical frameworks that support diagnostic, evaluative, and adaptive capacity in the sphere of action are critical to sustainability. Thompson’s agrarian-influenced sustainability framework substantially advances beyond the prevailing triple bottom line approach, as experimental evaluation of biofuels sustainability illustrates. By suggesting that governance of complex social-natural systems lies at the core of contemporary sustainability challenges, Thompson illuminates the critical importance of social capacity for deliberation and choice—a powerful and somewhat unexpected theme requiring more development by philosophers and practitioners alike going forward.