Planetary Boundaries Research Articles

The Japanese Circular Economy and Sound Material-Cycle Society Policies: Discourse and Policy Analysis

Although the Japanese government is an early adopter of Circular Economy (CE) policies and developed the concept of the Sound Material-Cycle Society in the early 2000s, its CE policies have nonetheless been poorly researched and understood, especially in English academic literature. This article addresses this research gap by answering the following questions: What are the dominant discourses of key stakeholders in Japan regarding CE? And to what extent does the current CE policy in Japan relate to that? Methodologically, this paper conducted a discourse analysis through a mix of policy analysis, media analysis, stakeholder interviews, keyword mining, qualitative content analysis, and analysis of stakeholder presence. Results show that, while CE discourses in Japan are rather diverse, they mostly fall within the Reformist Circular Society discourse type, with some smaller Technocentric Circular Economy and Transformational Circular Society elements. Results also show that businesses and academics were over-represented in policy meetings and the media, compared to NGOs and local government actors, which are more likely to hold transformational circularity discourses. Most circularity discourses in Japan are thus focused on a growth-optimistic narrative that emphasises innovative technologies and lacks a stronger understanding of social justice and planetary boundaries. Based on these findings, this article suggests recommendations, such as revisiting Japanese ecological thinking and Buddhist philosophy, which can inspire degrowth-oriented circularity approaches, as well as encompassing more participation of neglected societal groups in the development and implementation of CE policies and practices. By highlighting the challenges in current CE discourse and implementation in Japan, this study presents implications for a more socially inclusive and ecologically sustainable path towards a circular society.

Evaluating source separation wastewater systems using traditional life cycle assessment and the planetary boundaries approach

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a commonly used method for assessing environmental impacts of systems, but cannot produce absolute values, i.e. a comparison with existing calculated values, which represents limits of what can be emitted into the environment. Therefore, absolute environmental sustainability assessments have been developed to assess impacts against the planetary boundaries (PBs) of the safe operating space for humanity. Since PB-LCAs are novel, it is useful to analyze both results from this method and conventional LCAs, something which has not been done before. This study applied both methods to two full-scale sanitation systems in the city of Helsingborg, Sweden. The current conventional system for handling wastewater with active sludge and food waste to biogas production was compared with the novel project H+ source separation system with three pipes (food waste, grey and black water) with increased resource recovery through anaerobic digestion, ammonia stripping, struvite precipitation and pelletization. The Planetary Boundaries LCA (PB-LCA) results showed that both systems exceeded eight of the assigned shares of PBs, including climate change and biogeochemical flows of nutrients. Traditional LCA (ReCiPe impact assessment) showed net savings for the H+ system in a few categories and considerable reductions in several impacts, e.g., global warming potential (GWP), stratospheric ozone depletion, terrestrial acidification, and water consumption. In PB-LCA the H+ system gave additional impacts in both assessments for a few categories, mostly due to high consumption of chemicals in the ammonium stripping process used for nutrient recovery. In conclusion, the combined assessments highlight hot-spots for process optimization in the H+ system. From a methodological standpoint, PB-LCA still needs improvements to better reflect avoided burdens and results from traditional LCA should be fully transparent and analyzed carefully. The assessment methods complement each other and can be combined to better represent environmental performances of systems.

Streamlining the regionalization of economy-wide material flow accounts (EW-MFA): The case of swiss cantons

Current levels of resource use and pollution emissions are responsible for the trespassing of most planetary boundaries. As such, operational and contextual analysis is needed to provide mitigation strategies and policies. This article aims to streamline Economy-Wide Material Flow Accounts (EW-MFA) at a Swiss cantonal scale, which corresponds to NUTS 3 region according to the European Statistical System. The method was developed originally to be applied at a national level. However, it can be considered as a “black-box” approach, which measures flows rather than enabling the understanding of the internal mechanisms that mobilise them. In order to overcome this challenge, the accounting was regionalized to smaller spatial units. This research developed an EW-MFA database for all 26 Swiss cantons for a time series from 2016 to 2019, including Domestic Extraction, Import, Export, and Domestic Processed Output parts. Results enable an in-depth look into Swiss material flows helping cantons to monitor their environmental pressures and develop more ambitious policies to keep their climate objectives.

Towards a Sustainable Social Law: What Role for Legal Scholars?

This article outlines an initial research agenda for legal researchers who intend to contribute to the shaping of a ‘sustainable social law’. This notion refers to a social law system that continues to meet the challenges of social justice, without transgressing planetary boundaries and endangering ecosystems. The development of the research agenda is based on two observations. First, the transformation of social law into a sustainable discipline will require its emancipation from the productivist ideology according to which human well-being depends on constant increase in production. Second, social law is pluralist and therefore contains, at its margins, mechanisms that deviate from productivism and can help frame a sustainable future. On this basis, the proposed research agenda is centred on the comparison and classification of non-productivist time-spaces that are already protected by social law, or could become so, through the unfolding of creative legal interpretations. Social law is also approached as a category for analysing equality issues in times of ecological transition, according to the distribution of non-productivist time-spaces it institutes between individuals. Finally, legal scholars could investigate, in empirical studies, whether resistance to the productivist imperative could explain the uses, illegal or not, and non-uses of social law measures by individuals. Sustainable Social Law, Productivism, Non-productivist Time-Spaces, Non-Take-Up of Social Rights; Welfare Fraud; Global Warming, Ecological Transition, ; Eco-social Policies

Global food trade alleviates transgressions of planetary boundaries at the national scale

Food systems are among the leading causes for transgression of planetary boundaries globally, which define the safe operating space for humanity. We quantify unsustainable environmental impacts of food systems, indicated by the transgression of national-scale planetary boundaries (i.e., the safe operating space for food production in each country), from both production and consumption perspectives of 189 countries/regions around the world. A multi-regional input-output model is used to map the global transfers of the national-scale transgression of planetary boundaries, including freshwater use, land change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus). Our results show that China is a major global unsustainable water and nitrogen exporter and an unstable land and phosphorus importer. This means that water and nitrogen uses in China are used to support food demands in other countries, and food consumption in China requires unsustainable land and phosphorus uses elsewhere. In contrast, the US is a major exporter of unsustainable water, land, and nitrogen uses but only an importer of unsustainable phosphorus for food consumption. Globally, compared to a counterfactual scenario where there is no food trade among any countries, food trade saves massive transgressions of planetary boundaries (270km3 of water, 18 million tons of nitrogen, 7 million tons of phosphorus, and 5,431 million km2 of land). Alleviation of national-scale planetary boundary transgression has been achieved primarily in the US, China, Saudi Arabia, etc., while aggravation was incurred in Pakistan, Australia, Argentina, and so forth.

Environmental Management Accounting – Developments Over the Last 20 years from a Framework Perspective

AbstractThe most cited framework for environmental management accounting to date was published in the Australian Accounting Review 20 years ago. This framework has until today considerably influenced the development of the environmental management accounting field. Set against new sustainability challenges it is now time to question if the framework remains relevant or if it needs to change, and in what ways, to address the contemporary challenges now facing society. Taking stock of environmental management accounting research and practice over the last two decades, a conceptual discussion is developed which is based on extant literature and the authors’ extensive experience of the topic. Thus, the paper looks back to reflect on the developments from the perspective of the framework and looks towards how environmental management accounting could be further developed in the future. It considers the current and future potential of environmental management accounting and managers to contribute towards sustainable development. This can be through: the development of new areas of application and thematic scopes targeting aspirational sustainability goals such as those represented by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and planetary boundaries; extending spatial scope beyond the organisation into supply chains and circular systems; development of new social and environmental measures of performance to complement economic measures; providing information specific to the needs and roles of new personnel using environmental and sustainability information; and building awareness and implementing new drivers for environmental and sustainability management accounting such as AI and chatbots.

Integrating Absolute Sustainability and Social Sustainability in the Digital Product Passport to Promote Industry 5.0

The establishment of the digital product passport is regarded to be a prominent tool to promote environmental and social sustainability, thus enabling the transition towards Industry 5.0. In this way, it represents a holistic tool for the decision-making process of several actors of a product’s value chain. However, its development is still ongoing and the absolute perspective of environmental sustainability and the social sustainability have been overlooked. The present work aims to fill these gaps and complement the literature currently available on the digital product passport with a threefold purpose. Firstly, by referring to social life cycle assessment methodologies, useful social indicators to include in the digital product passport are discussed and proposed. Secondly, the need for an absolute perspective of environmental sustainability that respects the natural limits of our planet is presented; based on the LCA methodology and the Planetary Boundaries framework, environmental attributes and environmental impact indicators with the corresponding threshold are proposed to be included in the passport and enable the so-called absolute environmental sustainability assessment of products. Finally, a framework based on a cyber-physical system for filling in the digital product passport throughout a product lifecycle is conceived. This work represents an example of how the hallmark technologies of Industry 4.0 can be used towards Industry 5.0.

Towards an eco-welfare state: Enabling factors for transformative eco-social initiatives

In eco-welfare states, welfare provision must operate within planetary boundaries, entailing societal transformations and significant emission reductions. This article contributes to the research on sustainable welfare and eco-social policies by examining transformative and integrative eco-social initiatives that aim to reduce environmental impacts while also ensuring that public actors have the capacities to reach legally binding social outcomes and enhance social inclusion. Theoretically, we combine welfare state transformation research with the concepts of social-ecological systems, provisioning systems and transformative capacity. Our empirical cases in Finland include public actors promoting sustainable public procurement, a network of carbon-neutral municipalities, sustainable lifestyles accelerators at the household level, and carbon footprint calculators as a potential free-to-use technique that supports widespread carbon reductions. We apply a qualitative research design to investigate what kinds of factors are crucial in enhancing the transformative capacity of provisioning systems and how various factors in practice enable the eco-social initiatives to support the transformation towards an eco-welfare state. Our findings identify key enabling factors for transformative capacity: social networks, collaboration and participation; knowledge, learning and monitoring; shared policy frameworks and visions; and financial resources. These factors are interrelated and can be brought to bear in no particular sequence. The results offer valuable insights into how welfare state characteristics with democratically governed public actors may facilitate transformation.

Ecological intensity of social provisioning in mobility systems: A global analysis

Reducing the ecological intensity of provisioning systems (food, mobility, etc.) has been suggested as necessary for achieving a good life for all within the planetary boundaries. Few studies have considered the socio-ecological efficiency of such systems, however. This study therefore developed a sector-specific conceptualization of ground passenger transport as a provisioning system and defined a safe and just space for mobility. Using these frameworks, the socio-ecological performance of mobility systems of 150 countries was mapped and compared globally. The results showed that no country entered the defined safe and just space. High-income countries had high social achievement and ecological overshoot while low/middle income countries had no ecological overshoot but also low levels of social achievement. Estimating the ecological intensity of well-being, a development gap became apparent between high income countries and lower/middle income countries, but on both sides of this gap, the ecological intensity of well-being was found to worsen as GDP increased, potentially illustrating an N-shaped Kuznets curve for mobility provisioning. Our system level assessment substantiates the need to improve the socio-ecological efficiency of provisioning. We provide a brief future research agenda on the systemic, social, and political transformations potentially required to achieve it.

The role of ecosystem services in the doughnut economy – The example of whale ecosystem services in Disko Bay, Greenland

The doughnut economy framework has been increasingly advocated by academics, governance institutions and policy-makers as a tool for delivering economies that provide a social foundation for all people, are safe and socially just, and respect planetary boundaries. Thus far, the role of ecosystem services (ES) in contributing to the doughnut economy’s ambitions has been underexplored. This is surprising considering the wealth of ES literature addressing the theoretical components of ‘a good life’ and relationships between social-ecological systems (SES), resource use and human well-being. Two contributions to the literature are made by this study: (1) a generalised model is outlined linking natural capital to ES to the ecological ceilings and human needs of the doughnut economy’s framework, and (2) an illustrative case study of whale ES in Disko Bay, Greenland is provided to demonstrate linkages between ES and the doughnut economy’s framework. The findings are based on 19 interviews with representative stakeholders in August 2019 and observational data gathered by the researchers. Although the case study is a simplification of the complexity of SES, it nevertheless reveals several of the key contributions made by whale ES to a mixed economy, especially reduced pressures on the ecological ceilings linked to biodiversity loss and climate change, and a positive contribution to the human needs of food, health, income and work, and social equity. The case study stimulates a discussion that reflects on the limited recognition of the role of cultural ES in the doughnut economy’s conceptualisation, evidence of social-ecological trade-offs and complexities. These include some increased pressures caused by whale ES on ecological ceilings and tensions between the human needs, and multi-level governance challenges in operationalising the doughnut economy.

Is India’s largest fertilizer manufacturer misleading farmers and society using dubious plant and soil science?

Background and AimsThe accessibility and relatively low cost of nitrogen (N) fertilizers have been a gift to humankind and made it possible to feed the exponentially growing world population. The excessive use of N, in combination with a poor N use efficiency (NUE) in crop production, is associated with severe environmental impacts, and the scientific community has repeatedly warned that the safe operating space for N within the planetary boundaries has been exceeded. In the light of these considerations, a global player and India’s largest fertilizer manufacturer, the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO), has recently developed and patented a nanotechnology-based fertilizer marketed as Nano Urea (liquid). Strikingly, the producers state that it is now possible to replace a 45 kg bag of conventional urea, containing 21 kg N, by foliar application of just 20 g N in the form of nano urea (NU). If so, N from this novel high-tech fertilizer product should be able to increase the NUE of crops more than 1000 times compared to conventional urea. This year, the Indian government and IFFCO announced plans to massively boost production by building 10 new factories, with an annual production capacity of 440 million bottles NU by 2025 and to expand export of the product to another 25 countries, mainly situated in Asia, Africa and South-America. In the marketing of NU, IFFCO states that there is scientific evidence for distinct beneficial properties in terms of higher crop yields and reduced negative environmental impacts. Similar ambitions have recently been presented for Nano Zinc, Nano Copper, and Nano Di-Ammonium-Phosphate, a product that entered the market in March 2023.MethodsIn this Opinion Paper, we compare the claims made by IFFCO scientists to the existing scientific evidence in the field of foliar nanofertilizers.ResultsWe observe that NU is a poorly described product with no scientifically proven effects. The product is marketed with misleading and wrong statements about its fertilizer efficiency, the underlying plant uptake pathways, and the environmental friendliness.ConclusionThe expectations raised by IFFCO are far from reality and may lead to large-scale yield losses with serious consequences for food security and the livelihood of farmers. At the same time, the confidence in innovative sustainable products as well as the science behind them may be threatened. Based on the IFFCO case, and considering the booming emergence of novel nano based fertilizers appearing all over the world these years, it is clear that much more priority should be given to scientifically prove their efficacy and mode of action, before they are launched on the markets.

Of booms, busts, and sustainability: A socio-technical transition study of Iceland's mobility regime and its proximity to strong sustainability

The need to reconfigure provisioning systems to achieve a good life within the planetary boundaries has been recognized, but few studies have investigated the temporal change dynamics of such systems in the context of strong sustainability. Using Iceland's mobility sector as a case study, the effects of significant economic swings and other landscape/innovation developments from 1995 to 2018 were narrated. The influence of these factors on Iceland's mobility provisioning, and the associated impact of these changes on the sector's ecological overshoot and transport poverty/social externality indicators, were considered. The results showed that Iceland came close to achieving a just space by the end of the period, but where significant overshoot was seen throughout. This overshoot fluctuated with the country's economic booms and busts, reaching almost 1.5x at its peak as compared to its lowest point. These results identify the need to reduce the ecological intensity of Iceland's mobility provisioning.

Scenarios for reducing the environmental impacts of the UK clothing economy

In the 21st century the carbon emissions, material consumption, and impact on planetary boundaries associated with clothing have increased dramatically, driven in large part by fast fashion. The UK represents a typical, affluent, import-reliant Global North country, with clothing consumption per capita at double the global average and the impacts largely offshored. Progress towards a sustainable, circular clothing economy in the UK has been sluggish, as it has been globally. Here, we develop scenarios exploring how, over the coming two decades, the UK clothing economy could achieve the ambitious reductions in environmental impacts necessary to bring humanity's impact back within planetary boundaries. The scenarios consider the impacts of production- and consumption-focused changes, and the modelling uses material flow analysis to develop an assessment of energy consumption, carbon emissions, water consumption, and land use. We find that cleaner production and recycling alone could provide significant benefits for land and water use, reducing footprints by 60–70% by 2040. But to meaningfully reduce energy use, transformational changes will be required throughout supply chains at consumer and post-consumer stages. The same is true if the UK clothing economy is to be on track for net-zero by 2050, which requires these changes to be well under way within the next decade in order to halve emissions. Given the scale of change required, it seems highly unlikely that current clothing business models are compatible with a sustainable future.

Building within planetary boundaries: moving construction to stewardship

Building within planetary boundaries: moving construction to stewardship

Measuring just accessibility within planetary boundaries

ABSTRACT Our societies struggle to provide a good life for all without overconsuming environmental resources. Consequently, scholarly search for approaches to meet environmental and social goals of sustainability have become popular. In transport research, accessibility is a key tool to characterise linkages between people, transport, and land use. In the current paper, we propose a conceptual framework for measuring just accessibility within planetary boundaries. We reviewed transport studies and discovered a substantial literature body on accessibility and social disadvantage, much vaster compared to the literature around environmental and ecological impacts of accessibility. We also show a gap in approaches that have integrated these two perspectives. Building on the review, we suggest a conceptual framework for incorporating environmental and social sustainability goals in accessibility research. We conclude the paper by pointing to key challenges and research avenues related to the framework, including (i) dealing with uncertainty and complexity in socio-ecological thresholds, (ii) integrating environmental limits into the conceptualisations of transport equity, (iii) measuring accessibility through other costs than travel time, and (iv) integrating both quantitative and qualitative data.

Biosphere Defenders Leveraging the Human Right to Healthy Environment for Transformative Change

Earth’s life support systems depend on biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. Without radical transformations, staying within safe planetary boundaries becomes impossible. While the inequalities between Global North and Global South are increasingly acknowledged, the agency and rights of people often placed in the category of “vulnerable” -women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities- are not sufficiently recognized. This article discusses the role of biosphere defenders in the context of the 2022–2030 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the right to a healthy environment. Through dissecting judicial cases, the article investigates promising examples of ways in which biosphere defenders use the law to trigger societal change. This article finds that biosphere defenders contribute to unleashing values of responsibility by various actors, translating biocultural values of ecosystems into evidence in judicial processes impacting bureaucratic and financial systems. Supporting the work of biosphere defenders and placing the right to a sustainable environment at the heart of biodiversity and human rights law will be vital in confronting head-on the planetary crises.

Neoindustrialization—Reflections on a New Paradigmatic Approach for the Industry: A Scoping Review on Industry 5.0

Background: The Industry 5.0 emerges as a new paradigm for the industry by considering sustainability, human-centered approaches, organizational resilience, and interaction between humans and machines as its core values. This new trend for the future of the industry is referred to as neoindustrialization. Due to being a topic in development, there is still no precise consensus on its definition, which prompted the current study to comprehensively investigate and analyze the existing literature on Industry 5.0. Methods: The method employed was a scoping review, examining publications from various databases and academic journals, including those specific to the Brazilian context. Results: The results indicate a transition towards an industry that meets societal demands and respects planetary boundaries, aspects that were overlooked by Industry 4.0. Conclusions: In this new scenario, the industry reassumes its leadership by combining technology with new strategies and organizational models. Furthermore, it undergoes organizational changes to align its structure, operations, human resources, and new practices, aiming to meet the demands of society and all stakeholders involved. To achieve this, it is necessary to create an environment conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting the development of qualified human capital, investments in research and development, and strengthening partnerships between the public and private sectors. A successful neoindustrialization policy will generate high-quality jobs and foster economic growth. Industry 5.0 is the paradigm that will prevail in the 21st century. It is not a matter of speculation; it is an inseparable and inevitable reality. Otherwise, the industry will be relegated to a secondary role in the process of digital and social transformation.

Solar powering public health centers: A systems thinking lens

Around 300,000 women around the world die every year due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. An estimated 19.9 million children do not receive critical vaccinations putting them at serious risk of potentially fatal diseases. These risks and deaths are preventable with appropriate management and care. Access to healthcare in low resource settings requires a comprehensive approach that strengthens infrastructure, systems, and medical and human resources. The lack of access to energy within infrastructure strengthening dramatically contributes to the immense healthcare challenge faced by developing countries. Electricity is essential for access to health services, as essential as the healthcare center, human resources, equipment, medicines etc. Universal Health Coverage cannot be achieved without energy access in healthcare facilities.Healthcare today, without counting the potential services to the un-catered populations in the world, contributes to GHG emissions, equivalent to the 5th most polluting country in the world. Furthermore, if we must meet the goals of access to health today, it cannot be considered via traditional models of electrification, keeping both the health of the people andthe planetary boundaries in mind. Clean energy and particularly solar energy, if planned and deployed in a manner that is decentralized, need-based along with accounting for local capacities and conditions for sustenance - can become a ‘silver bullet’ in catalyzing healthcare access to under-resourced settings. Given low-resource settings and last mile healthcare requirements this article only takes into consideration off-grid solar systems, which could be one of the primary ways for health centers to become resilient and contribute to climate mitigation, irrespective of prevailing grid and on-grid conditions.With multiple similar programs for solar powering public health facilities over the past decade there are learnings that emerge from across the globe. One of the key learnings is the need for a system thinking lens while deploying decentralized solar for health programs that sustain from a long-term perspective. Systems thinking is an approach that enables one to consider the health system as a whole, while designing demand driven solar powering programs for driving access to healthcare goals. This can be done by breaking down all aspects of solar powering and ensuring that within each aspect, the need is well-understood, the key stakeholders and their priorities are considered and capacities and relationships are accounted for. Moreover, systems are put in place for customization, expansion, and maintenance over time. The suggestions and examples provided below prioritize healthcare needs while driving enabling conditions for design and sustenance of solar for meeting current and future healthcare challenges. While healthcare systems require multiple levels of both curative and preventative healthcare, the considerations below are primarily for last mile public health curative infrastructure. Below, some best practices are elaborated across the following aspects for solar powering health:1. Assessment2. Technical Design3. Financials and Budgeting4. Procurement5. Operations and Maintenance6. Capacity Building

Challenges and opportunities for improving nitrogen utilization efficiency for more sustainable pork production

Pork is one of the most consumed animal-derived protein sources around the world, but less than 45% of dietary nitrogen (N) is converted into edible lean meat. This inefficiency contributes to the 80% of human-induced N emissions that have resulted in exceeding the planetary boundaries for N. Reducing this inefficiency requires using a multifaceted approach. Swine genetic selection programs have improved the rate of lean growth in recent decades, but further improvements may be difficult because of lack of genetic variation within the global pig population. Breeding programs to increase litter size have led to intrauterine growth restriction and an increased proportion of low-birth-weight piglets which do not utilize dietary protein as efficiently as normal birth weight pigs. Intact males have greater lean growth rate and N efficiency than castrates and gilts, and the use of immunocastration technology has been implemented in some countries to capture this benefit while minimizing boar taint in pig meat. Use of other metabolic modifiers including porcine somatotropin and ractopamine, alone or in combination with immunocastration, can further enhance lean growth and dietary N efficiency, but a general lack of consumer acceptance and potential food safety concerns have led to regulatory restrictions in many countries. Because feed production contributes about 70% of N emissions in pig production systems, use of precision feed formulation and feeding practices, selected dietary feed additives, feed processing, and minimizing feed wastage appear to offer the greatest opportunity to reduce N waste and environmental footprint to improve the sustainability of pork production.

Sustainability in Publishing

Abstract This article is a transcript of the London Book Fair’s inaugural sustainability keynote delivered by Dr Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet. Horton delivers a challenge to the publishing sector to consider how sustainability sits alongside the ever-increasing uncertainties in the world, such as the ongoing pandemic and Ukrainian crisis. He spoke about the important role that publishing plays as an early warning system for society, introducing the concept of planetary health that demands consideration of a safe and just space for humanity alongside respect for planetary boundaries and the social and economic foundations of a healthy life. Horton finishes with three key challenges to publishers: to stand for something, to invest in our future, and protect the freedom of expression.