Field Of Sustainability Science Research Articles

Progress in modeling dynamic systems for sustainable development

This Perspective evaluates recent progress in modeling nature–society systems to inform sustainable development. We argue that recent work has begun to address longstanding and often-cited challenges in bringing modeling to bear on problems of sustainable development. For each of four stages of modeling practice—defining purpose, selecting components, analyzing interactions, and assessing interventions—we highlight examples of dynamical modeling methods and advances in their application that have improved understanding and begun to inform action. Because many of these methods and associated advances have focused on particular sectors and places, their potential to inform key open questions in the field of sustainability science is often underappreciated. We discuss how application of such methods helps researchers interested in harnessing insights into specific sectors and locations to address human well-being, focus on sustainability-relevant timescales, and attend to power differentials among actors. In parallel, application of these modeling methods is helping to advance theory of nature–society systems by enhancing the uptake and utility of frameworks, clarifying key concepts through more rigorous definitions, and informing development of archetypes that can assist hypothesis development and testing. We conclude by suggesting ways to further leverage emerging modeling methods in the context of sustainability science.

Sustainable Performance Assessment towards Sustainable Consumption and Production: Evidence from the Indian Dairy Industry

The current global economic status quo is widely seen as unsustainable in the food sector. The field of sustainability science is still rather fragmented, covering a wide range of techniques and issues, despite the large number of publications in this area. Due to population growth, the food supply chain (FSC) and farmers have to produce more food. The UN estimates that one-third of edible food is wasted, producing greenhouse gases. A balance must be struck between company operations and social, environmental, and economic activities for sustainable development of the FSC. To assist FSC organizations in managing sustainable advancement, this study created a methodology for the assessment of sustainable performance. We provide a sustainable assessment system using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy VIKOR, and fuzzy TOPSIS. Our research framework evaluated the sustainability of three cooperative-society-run Indian dairy firms. Our study gives environmental criteria the highest weight (0.33) and social criteria the lowest (0.16), with economic reasons (0.306) and business operations (0.204) falling in the middle. Supply chain costs, on average, are given the highest weight, and capacity utilization, the lowest weight. Three dairy industries are ranked (DPI3, DPI1, and DPI2) based on sustainable performance. By modifying the maximum set utility value and validating VIKOR results with TOPSIS, we have checked the robustness of this performance assessment tool. This research aids dairy businesses in achieving several Sustainable Development Goals, including sustainable production and consumption, through the regular assessment of their sustainable performance.

How can research on past urban adaptations be made useful for sustainability science?

Non-technical summaryCities in the distant past – as documented by archaeologists and historians – provide an extensive record of urban successes and failures, yet this information has had little impact on the field of sustainability science. I explore two reasons for this situation. First, these scholars have often failed to synthesize their data scientifically, and, second, they have not approached the transfer of past knowledge to present research in a rigorous manner. I organize discussion of these issues around three arguments for the present value of past cities: the urban trajectory argument, the sample size argument, and the laboratory argument.Technical summaryI explore the different ways historical and archaeological data can be deployed to contribute to research on urban sustainability science, emphasizing issues of argumentation and epistemology. I organize the discussion around three types of argument. The urban trajectory argument exploits the long time series of early cities and urban regions to examine change at a long time scale. The sample size argument views the role of early cities as adding to the known sample of settlements to increase understanding of urban similarities and differences. The laboratory argument uses data from past cities to explicitly test models derived from contemporary cities. Each argument is examined for three contrasting epistemological approaches: heuristic analogs, case studies, and quantitative studies. These approaches form a continuum leading from lesser to greater scientific rigor and from qualitative to quantitative frameworks. Much past-to-present argumentation requires inductive logic, also called reasoning by analogy. Sustainability scientists have confused this general form of argument with its weakest version, known as heuristic analogs. I stress ways to improve methods of argumentation, particularly by moving research along the continuum from weaker to stronger arguments.Social media summaryBetter methods of argument allow the past record of urban success and failure to contribute to urban sustainability science.

SEEKING COMMON GROUND BETWEEN THEOLOGY AND SUSTAINABILITY SCIENCE FOR JUST TRANSITIONS

AbstractThe new field of sustainability science that has arisen over the past three decades, largely oriented toward cities, under closer examination may prove to be wholly inadequate to deal with the issues it was initially designed to address. Built largely upon modernist value assumptions, its entire range of outlooks has failed to account for the character virtues needed to realize sustainable approaches for the future, which are better found working within different religious traditions’ theologies and ethical outlooks. In light of this, the present article takes up a replicable agenda for analyzing how these particular character virtues—with special focus on parsimony and futuremindedness—work with regard to visions of sustainability that promise to bring about a more just transition in cities.

The human–technical–environmental systems framework for sustainability analysis

The field of sustainability science has grown significantly over the past two decades in terms of both conceptual development and empirical research. Systems-focused analysis is critical to building generalizable knowledge in the field, yet much relevant research does not take a systems view. Systems-oriented analytical frameworks can help researchers conceptualize and analyze sustainability-relevant systems, but existing frameworks may lack access or utility outside a particular research tradition. In this article, we outline the human–technical–environmental (HTE) framework, which provides analysts from different disciplinary backgrounds and fields of study a common way to advance systems-focused research on sustainability issues. We detail a step-by-step guide for the application of the HTE framework through a matrix-based approach for identifying system components, studying interactions among system components, and examining interventions targeting components and/or their interactions for the purpose of advancing sustainability. We demonstrate the applicability of the HTE framework and the matrix-based approach through an analysis of an empirical case of coal-fired power plants and mercury pollution, which is relevant to large-scale sustainability transitions. Based on this analysis, we identify specific insights related to the applicability of upstream and downstream leverage points, connections between energy markets and the use of pollution control technologies, and the importance of institutions fitting both biophysical dynamics and socioeconomic and political dynamics. Further application of the HTE framework and the identification of insights can help develop systems-oriented analysis, and inform societal efforts to advance sustainability, as well as contribute to the formulation of empirically grounded middle-range theories related to sustainability systems and sustainability transitions. We conclude with a discussion of areas for further development and application of the HTE framework.

Sociology for sustainability science

Sociological insights are often underutilized in sustainability science. To further strengthen its commitment to interdisciplinary problem-driven, solutions-oriented research, sustainability science can better incorporate fundamental sociological conceptions into its core. We highlight four aspects of sociological thought that we consider crucial for advancing sustainability science research: (1) social construction and critical realism, (2) structure and agency, (3) historical specificity, and (4) collective action. We draw on examples from sociology to support a dynamic understanding of how social relations interact with the bio-geo-physical world. This necessary integration of sociological insights, we argue, is critical to generate comprehensive assessments of the causes and consequences of human-induced environmental change, and tend to be overlooked or oversimplified within the field of sustainability science. Beyond that, it can stimulate the development and implementation of viable solutions to sustainability challenges.

The Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development: Advancing Decent Work, Inclusivity, and Positive Strength-Based Primary Preventive Interventions for Vulnerable Workers.

This study discusses the contribution of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development to the wellbeing of vulnerable workers. The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development is a current area of the research study in the field of sustainability science. It deals with sustainability as a framework to recognize and integrate the value of the psychological approach in the construction of processes linked to sustainable development. Accordingly, the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development could provide sustainable development processes for the employment of vulnerable workers. The contribution starts with the definition of the coordinates of a sustainable development process for vulnerable workers, anchoring it to the principles of decent work and inclusivity. Subsequently, positive variables involved in the sustainable development processes and their relationship with decent work and inclusivity are discussed. Moreover, positive healthy organizations are introduced as work environments capable to take care of the wellbeing, also, of vulnerable workers. Lastly, the applications of positive strength-based primary preventive interventions for vulnerable workers are analyzed. Perspectives for further research studies and interventions are also examined.

Research effort devoted to regulating and supporting ecosystem services by environmental scientists and economists.

The economic valuation of ecosystem services in part reflects the desire to use conventional economic tools (markets and economic instruments) to conserve ecosystem services. However, for regulating and supporting ecosystem services that depend on ecosystem structure and function, estimation of economic value requires estimates of the current level of underlying ecological functions first. This primary step is in principle, the job of environmental scientists, not economists. Here, we provide a coarse-level quantitative assessment of the relationship between the research effort expended by environmental scientists (on the biophysical values) and economists (on the monetary values) on 15 different regulating and supporting services in 32 ecosystem types using peer-reviewed article hits retrieved from bibliographic databases as a measure of research effort. We find a positive, moderately strong (r = 0.69) correlation between research efforts in the two domains, a result that, while encouraging, is likely to reflect serendipity rather than the deliberate design of integrated environmental science-economics research programs. Our results suggest that compared to environmental science research effort economic valuation is devoted to a smaller, less diverse set of ecosystem services but a broader, more diverse, set of ecosystem types. The two domains differed more with respect to the ecosystem services that are the major focus of research effort than they did with respect to the ecosystem types of principal research interest. For example, carbon sequestration, erosion regulation, and nutrient cycling receive more relative research effort in the environmental sciences; air quality regulation in economic valuations. For both domains, cultivated areas, wetlands, and urban/semi-urban ecosystem types received relatively large research effort, while arctic and mountain tundra, cave and subterranean, cryosphere, intertidal/littoral zone, and kelp forest ecosystem types received negligible research effort. We suggest ways and means by which the field of sustainability science may be improved by the design and implementation of a searchable database of environmental science and economic valuation literature as well as a global ecosystem service research network and repository that explicitly links research on the estimation and prediction of biophysical ecosystem functions with that of the social sciences and other knowledge systems. These suggestions would, at least in principle, facilitate a more efficient research agenda between economists and environmental scientists and aid management, regulatory and judicial decision-makers.

Introducing and testing an advanced quantitative methodological approach for the evaluation of research centers: a case study on sustainability science

AbstractWith the growing complexity of societal and scientific problems, research centers have emerged to facilitate the conduct of research beyond disciplinary and institutional boundaries. While they have become firmly established in the global university landscape, research centers raise some critical questions for research evaluation. Existing evaluation approaches designed to assess universities, departments, projects, or individual researchers fail to capture some of the core characteristics of research centers and their participants, including the diversity of the involved researchers, at what point in time they join and leave the research center, or the intensity of their participation. In addressing these aspects, this article introduces an advanced approach for the ex post evaluation of research centers. It builds on a quasi-experimental within-group design, bibliometric analyses, and multilevel statistics to assess average and individual causal effects of research center affiliation on participants along three dimensions of research performance. The evaluation approach is tested with archival data from a center in the field of sustainability science. Against a widely held belief, we find that participation in research centers entails no disadvantages for researchers as far as their research performance is concerned. However, individual trajectories varied strongly.

Sustainability assessment of the water-energy-food nexus in Jiangsu Province, China

The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus has become a hotspot in the field of sustainability science, and researchers and policymakers are now considering the theoretical underpinnings of the concept and its implications for policy practice. This requires an integrated method for assessing the sustainability of a region's WEF nexus. Here we evaluate the sustainability trends of an important regional WEF nexus using Jiangsu Province, China, as a case study. Using statistical data from 2000 to 2016, we propose a step-by-step methodological approach to evaluate sustainability and carry out empirical research to examine it. The methodology constructs a composite index, combining single WEF sector indicators and WEF linkage indicators that reflect the characteristics of the nexus. This enables exploration of differences in assessment results based on the concept of strong and weak sustainability. Such differences are obvious in the evaluation results based on sustainability surplus compensation (SSC) and sine sustainability surplus compensation (SSSC) methods. The analysis confirms that Jiangsu Province is following a path of unsustainable development of the WEF nexus. This is mainly due to substandard indicators of the water and energy systems, some of which are declining. The general approach provides a timely and useful means for the sustainability assessment of the WEF nexus. It can be easily applied in practice and provides policy intervention signals to stakeholders and policymakers in resource and sustainable development management.

How sustainable are sustainability conferences? – Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of an international conference series in Europe

Abstract Scientific conferences are a widely established and a highly important and an indispensable component for knowledge sharing, networking activities, scientific debate etc. What is usually ignored is the resource demand of such an event, putting an enormous burden on the environment. For almost two decades now, there has been an increasing demand for mitigation of environmental impacts of scientific conferences. However, in the field of sustainability science hardly any measures have been taken as only one out of ten sustainability conferences promoted action to reduce environmental impacts. A comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has not been carried out for all phases of a conference. This study therefore strives to conduct a comprehensive LCA of a scientific conference held on sustainability topics. The assessment includes three main parts: 1) preparation of the conference, 2) conference execution, and 3) further pre-/post-conference activities (participants’ travel associated with the conference). The functional unit is defined as: Holding one 3-day international academic conference on sustainability topics. The results display that travel activities of participants dominantly contribute to the overall environmental impact. Further relevant phases are catering, hotel overnight stays as well as environmental burdens associated with the conference venue. It was found that the conference under consideration leaves a carbon footprint of 455 tonnes of CO2 eq., equivalent to an average of 0.57 tonnes of CO2 eq. per participant. A scenario analysis displayed that changes towards train travelling, vegetarian meals and reduction of conference materials can significantly better the environmental profile of a conference. Further measures of environmental optimization could be identified, e.g. digital meetings. It is however unlikely that those will totally replace physical meetings. The social benefits of direct personal and globally-oriented exchange can probably not be outweighed by environmental savings. Future conference planning should thus relate the sustainability benefits with the detrimental impacts.

Review and structural analysis of system dynamics models in sustainability science

Abstract As the complexity of sustainability-related problems increases, it is more and more difficult to understand the related models. Although tremendous models are published recently, their automated structural analysis is still absent. This study provides a methodology to structure and visualise the information content of these models. The novelty of the present approach is the development of a network analysis-based tool for modellers to measure the importance of variables, identify structural modules in the models and measure the complexity of the created model, and thus enabling the comparison of different models. The overview of 130 system dynamics models from the past five years is provided. The typical topics and complexity of these models highlight the need for tools that support the automated structural analysis of sustainability problems. For practising engineers and analysts, nine models from the field of sustainability science, including the World3 model, are studied in details. The results highlight that with the help of the developed method the experts can highlight the most critical variables of sustainability problems (like arable land in the Word 3 model) and can determine how these variables are clustered and interconnected (e.g. the population and fertility are key drivers of global processes). The developed software tools and the resulted networks are all available online.

People Make the Difference: An Explorative Study on the Relationship between Organizational Practices, Employees’ Resources, and Organizational Behavior Enhancing the Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development

The most recent developments in the field of sustainability science and the emergence of a psychology of sustainability and sustainable development have contributed to collect evidences about the fact that modern organizations need healthy and motivated employees to survive and to prosper within this fast-moving scenario. In this vein, a confirmation to these evidences came from the abundant research on HEalthy and Resilient Organizations (HERO), showing that when organizations make systematic, planned, and proactive efforts to improve employees’ subjective resources then organizational processes and outcomes benefit in turn. Moving forward from these premises, the present study aimed to explore these assumptions within the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), investigating the relationships among the organizational practices, employees’ subjective resources, and organizational behaviors. Two hundred and thirty-six participants working in SMEs located in the south of Italy took part. They were invited to fill in a questionnaire investigating their perception of organizational resources and practices (autonomy, leadership, communication, organizational mindfulness, and commitment to resilience), of their individual resources (work engagement and psychological capital), and finally, of some organizational outcomes (extra-role behavior). Results showed that psychological capital was a significant mediator of the relationship between employees’ perception of the organizational resources and practices and extra-role behaviors. Concrete implications of these conclusions in terms of human resource management (HRM) are discussed together with limitations of the study and future developments.

Pathways to urban sustainability: How science can contribute to sustainable development in cities

Pressing sustainability challenges reinvigorate calls for scientific actors to strengthen their profile as change agents. Focusing on the urban context, we point to four forms of science-policy-society interactions as key pathways to advance the sustainability transformation in cities.Recent years have seen a considerable broadening of the ambitions in urban sustainability policy-making. With its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)11 Making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, the 2030 Agenda stresses the critical role of cities in achieving sustainable development. In the context of SDG17 on partnerships, emphasis is also placed on the role of researchers and other scientific actors as change agents in the sustainability transformation. Against this backdrop, this article sheds light on different pathways through which science can contribute to urban sustainability. In particular, we discern four forms of science-policy-society interactions as key vectors: 1. sharing knowledge and providing scientific input to urban sustainability policy-making; 2. implementing transformative research projects; 3. contributing to local capacity building; and 4. self-governing towards sustainability. The pathways of influence are illustrated with empirical examples, and their interlinkages and limitations are discussed. We contend that there are numerous opportunities for actors from the field of sustainability science to engage with political and societal actors to enhance sustainable development at the local level.

Opening the Black Box of Psychological Processes in the Science of Sustainable Development: A New Frontier

The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development represents a new research area in the field of Sustainability Science. It introduces a psychological perspective and enhances the trans-disciplinary framework that forms the foundation of Sustainability Science. Firmly establishing the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development as a research area means recognizing and integrating the value of psychology and the psychological approach in the construction of processes linked to sustainable development. Enriching sustainable development through opening the black box of psychological processes in support of sustainable development is a new and exciting frontier, that will likely lead to major developments and concrete advances for making development more sustainable in the 21st century and beyond.

Environmental Stewardship and Ecological Solidarity: Rethinking Social-Ecological Interdependency and Responsibility

This paper explores and discusses the various meanings of the stewardship concept in the field of sustainability science. We highlight the increasing differences between alternative approaches to stewardship and propose a typology to enable scientists and practitioners to more precisely identify the basis and objectives of the concept of stewardship. We first present the two dimensions we used to map the diversity of stances concerning stewardship. Second, we analyse these positions in relation to the limits of the systemic approach, ideological manipulation, responsibility, and solidarity. In the final section we explain how the concept of ecological solidarity, a core principal in recent French law on biodiversity conservation and national park governance can contribute to the underpinning of a specific form of social-ecological stewardship.

Development of the Supporting Tool for Constructing Causal Logics between Pieces of Domain Knowledge in the Field of Sustainability Science and Environmental Studies

Development of the Supporting Tool for Constructing Causal Logics between Pieces of Domain Knowledge in the Field of Sustainability Science and Environmental Studies

Stepping stone or stumbling block? Mode 2 knowledge production in sustainability science

The concept of Mode 2 has often been seen as especially applicable to fields addressing grand challenges, such as climate change. Being a relatively new field—interdisciplinary in its approach, and focused on addressing such issues—sustainability science would appear to be a case in point. The aim of this paper is twofold: 1) to explore the perceived relation between Mode 2 and sustainability science, and 2) to advance the discussion of Mode 2 from a philosophical perspective. To address these questions we focus on three characteristic features of Mode 2: the notion of a distinct, but evolving framework; boundary crossing; and a problem solving capacity “on the move”. We report the results of a survey carried out amongst leading sustainability scientists. The survey gives insight into the scientists' perception of Mode 2, their perception of their own field of sustainability science and the relation between the two. The free text answers reveal a tension within the field of sustainability science: with developments both towards Mode 1 and Mode 2 science. We conclude that the implementation of inter- and trans-disciplinarity is challenged by institutional and conceptual factors alike.

Thaddeus Miller: Reconstructing Sustainability Science: Knowledge and Action for a Sustainable Future

Sustainability science is a dynamic and growing field of research and practice. Emerging from a sense of frustration with the shortcomings of traditional disciplinary approaches to the complex challenges of sustainable development, and armed with new understandings about the nature of complexity in social and ecological systems, sustainability science has taken hold as a recognised academic domain (Clark 2007). Yet from its earliest inception, it has not only been formulated in academic terms, but also as a strategic effort to connect science with practical decision-making and implementation (Board on Sustainable Development, National Academy of Sciences 1999). The implications of these re-orientations towards inter(or trans-) disciplinary practice and embedded use or user needs are substantial as foundational epistemic structures of science such as disciplinary framings and boundaries, and independence and objectivity have been downplayed or cast aside—to be replaced by ... what? There are few straightforward answers to this question, with many different views and efforts jostling for credibility and experimenting with new approaches. At least one of the replacements has been a solid dose of reflexivity. Looking inwards as well as outwards, sustainability scientists have maintained an ability to ask questions of their own practice as they strive to formulate a rigorous and robust field, without reproducing the constraints and barriers that drove sustainability science in the first place. In doing so, researchers have developed a plethora of frameworks, constructs, approaches and principles that are diverse and often appear impenetrable. In this book, Thad Miller takes an overarching view of the field of sustainability science and casts a reflective light back to that research community. Drawing on 28 interviews with leading sustainability science researchers, as well as written material, he explores this contested and challenging terrain. In doing so, over the first three chapters he successfully synthesises the complexity and diversity of the field of sustainability science in practical and insightful ways. In examining the ways in which researchers view the relations between science and society, he categorises the responses into a bifurcated field, where universalist, Bknowledge-first^ approaches to coupled systems sit alongside procedural, process-oriented research geared towards social change. These categories point to key differences in the ways researchers understand and argue for science to have a place at the table in decision-making for sustainability. Chapter 4 expands on these differences as representing key tensions in sustainability science: the tension between science and the normative nature of sustainability, where science can both enable or constrain social discourse about sustainability challenges; and the tensions between knowledge and action, where science is only one contributor to complex sociopolitical decisions and actions. In the second part of the book, Miller proposes these tensions stem from insufficient appreciation of, and engagement with, Bthe social, moral and political dimensions of sustainability^ (p.67). He describes epistemic and normative limitations in the scientific framing, where the very nature of scientific knowledge and limited recognition of the values it brings * Lorrae van Kerkhoff lorrae.vankerkhoff@anu.edu.au

Ecological Functions and Functionings: Towards a Senian Analysis of Ecosystem Services

ABSTRACTEcosystem services are part of a growing trend within environment and development to analyse environmental change within the context of socially valued outcomes. Yet, ecosystem services‐based policies and analyses are increasingly criticized for failing to connect with, or even for restricting, development outcomes. This article seeks to connect environmental analysis with development outcomes better by applying the capability approach of Amartya Sen and others. It demonstrates how scientific analysis of ecosystem services sometimes conflates pathways of ecosystem management with development outcomes, but that it can be reconfigured to include more diverse values and objectives. The article argues that ecosystem services should be identified more as ‘functionings’ (in the Senian sense of valued development outcomes) rather than ‘functions’ (in the sense of biophysical, apolitical ecosystem properties) in order to indicate that ‘services’ always reflect social values, and that values and scientific explanations of underlying biophysical properties evolve together. Environmental science for socially valued outcomes such as ecosystem services is therefore an important site of political inclusion and exclusion. The article illustrates this analysis with examples of ecosystem‐based adaptation to climate change from the World Bank and government of Bangladesh, and in contrast to differing approaches from the field of sustainability science.