Reimagining Sustainability: An Interrogation of the Corporate Knights' Global 100

This study examines sustainability reports of the Corporate Knights' “Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies in the World” in order to examine if and how they have been affected by Arturo Escobar's original critique of sustainable development (SD). Via thematic analysis, the study reveals that these corporations have circumvented Escobar's assessment by emphasizing sustainability as corporate growth and profit, without addressing some of the most prominent social concerns in our world today. The goal of this study was to trigger new ways of imagining SD, which speak to issues of equality and justice. Thus, it advances a view of sustainability that is driven by the logic of nature rather than by the logic of market. This study also suggests that researchers and practitioners should define praxis through engagement with local communities rather than through the traditional top-down approaches to sustainability.     

Promoting Sustainability with Ecological,Economic and Social Dimensions in Developing Countries

Abstract

Sustainable development is one of the most important ideas, and goals of our time. It is defined as “development which meets the needs and aspirations of the current generation and develops safe and sound society for future generation”. Achieving sustainable development thus involves a vigorous and urgent debate on different dimensions. The different dimensions of sustainability as a framework involve all issues such as science, technology, economic growth and development, health, education, finance investment and trade, politics, natural disasters, population growth and terrorism, etc. No single dimension is responsible to develop sustainable society. This article mainly described the integrated relationship among the three dimensions of sustainability.     

“Degrowth” vs. Other Types of Growth: Labeling Affects Emotions but Not Attitudes

Questioning the compatibility of economic growth and environmental sustainability, some scholars and activists call for a degrowth strategy. This idea presents an attack on the economic growth paradigm, and it has thus raised considerable attention. Yet, although many agree with questioning economic growth, a debate continues as to whether the term “degrowth” is (dis)advantageous in wider public communications. This debate, however, lacks empirical evidence. Here, we present two studies on how “degrowth” is perceived compared to other relevant terms. In Study 1, we show that “degrowth” elicits more negative affective and emotional reactions compared to “post-growth” and “prosperity without growth.” In Study 2, we find that the effects of labeling on attitudes and voting intentions toward a sustainable economy are relatively small. These initial results suggest that “degrowth” may evoke somewhat more negative emotional reactions than similar terms, but this may not have significant consequences. We discuss the results and draw implications for communication and further research.     

The triple-bottom-line: framing of trade-offs in sustainability planning practice

Sustainability principles are at the forefront of regional planning. In Hawaii, the movement toward “sustainability” gave way to revisiting the State Plan. This paper uses a case study of the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan (Hawaii 2050) to illustrate how adopting popular notions of sustainability, without critical examination of how the respective policy frames diverge or interrelate, can lead to “tautological traps.” In the case of Hawaii 2050, the “triple-bottom-line” (embedded within sustainable development) became the dominant sustainability frame during the solicitation of public input and was thus used to guide the planning discourse. The application of triple-bottom-line concepts at the level of policy and planning led to a process that polarized economic and environmental interests. While the goals of sustainable development and the use of triple-bottom-line concepts are useful for planners, we argue that they should be applied within the parameters of ecological sustainability in a US regional context, lest resulting plans continue to allow the momentum of development to override ecological concerns.     

Sustainability: new strategic thinking for business

Some researchers insist that sustainability should be represented as a continuous quest, doubting that there is the ‘right’ way to be sustainable. Acknowledging the immensity of sustainability challenges, this article takes a different perspective, arguing that without understanding of concrete barriers and seeking solutions, the challenge of addressing unsustainable practices becomes unsurmountable. This article will summarize research in sustainability literature that indicates that sustainability requires a constant human population, as well as ecologically benign method of production. This article will survey a number of helpful frameworks that address the key obstacles to sustainability, namely population growth, and unsustainable production and consumption. These frameworks are discussed in the context of business-level solutions and production systems. As illustrated by examples of best practices as well as potential pitfalls associated with each system, these systems have the potential to move the quest for sustainability beyond ‘business as usual.’     

A new approach to natural capital sustainable development

The three-dimension (3D) ecological footprint makes the analysis of the relationships between the demand and supply of natural capital more credible by importing footprint depth and footprint size. This article used China’s regions as the object to analyze the high-level sustainability of the natural capital from the view of “ecology – efficiency – fairness” multidimensional framework. Research showed that China’s ecological footprint has risen while bio-capacity per capita has descended in recent 20 years. This paper also discusses the spatial distribution of China’s natural capital ecological sustainability, efficiency sustainability and fairness sustainability. Finally, it builds multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) models to get multidimensional sustainability framework taking ecological sustainability, efficiency sustainability, and fairness sustainability into consideration.     

Assessing the impacts of sustainable development projects in the Amazon: the DURAMAZ experiment

Since 1992, a boom of “sustainable development projects” has been registered in the Brazilian Amazon, turning it into a kind of open-air laboratory for sustainability. But their real impacts remain unclear, especially because of inadequate evaluation tools. A new device is therefore needed to unveil the inner mechanisms of development aid despite the difficulties linked with the diversity of contexts or the heterogeneity in the relevant parameters. Those are the challenges we met when we engaged in comparing the impacts of sustainable development programs in 13 sites throughout the Brazilian Amazon in order to identify determining factors of sustainability. To achieve our objective, we conceived an indicator system based on the results of intensive fieldwork, including social, economic, environmental, and biographical issues. Our results show that the most prominent problem of sustainability—evaluation of effectiveness—has not been tackled; life conditions and environmental preservation continue to appear antagonistic. At the same time, variability appears among outwardly coherent social groups, showing that a case-to-case approach is definitely indispensable and confirming the need to go “beyond panaceas” to find resolutions. This article successively addresses three points. First, we present the starting point of our research, or how the Amazon region was turned into a laboratory for sustainability and how our research project aimed at analyzing the consequences of this trend. Second, we discuss how available indicator systems fail to respond to the need for a multidimensional evaluation at the local level and, therefore, how we constituted our own analytical tool. Third, we focus on some results that can be derived from our system, especially in terms of identifying key factors needed to achieve sustainability in the Amazon.     

Towards a Paradigmatic Shift in Sustainability Studies: A Systematic Review of Peer Reviewed Literature and Future Agenda Setting to Consider Environmental (Un)sustainability of Digital Communication

The materiality of digital communication inflicts substantial environmental damage: the extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands required to sustain data generated by digital communication. This damage, however, is paradoxically under-theorized in scholarship on environmental sustainability. Despite the existing critique of the “techno-fix” approach in sustainability studies, digitization – and digital communication in particular – continue to be celebrated as the tool for environmental sustainability; an approach we coin “digital solutionism.” The article presents the first systematic review of the literature to map the implicit assumptions about the relationships between digital communications and environmental sustainability, in order to examine how digital solutionism manifests, and why it persists. We propose a concept matrix that identifies the key blind spots with regards to environmental damages of the digital, and call for a paradigmatic shift in environmental sustainability studies. An agenda for future research is put forward that advocates for the following: (1) a systematic account of material damages of devices, platforms and data systems adopted into sustainability research and practice, resulting in changes in both research framing and methodological foundations; (2) a reconceptualization and denaturalization of the digital itself as a promising solution; (3) a theoretical dialogue between sustainability studies and environmental communication. (4) an expansion of environmental communication as a field, from focusing on the communication aspect of environmental change to include the environmental footprint of communication itself.     

The importance of human population to sustainability

Human population growth challenges efforts toward sustainability. People who are concerned about the environment, development, and sustainability are in a position to stress the importance of human population and to encourage people to choose small family size (Grossman, in Conserv Biol, 24(6), pp 1435–1436, 2010). Nevertheless, this vital subject has been treated infrequently in this journal. Of more than 500 articles published since its inception, only 15 have touched on human population, few have had population as a primary subject and only three have suggested that readers of this journal can and should have influence over population growth. This article concludes by suggesting ways that we who are concerned about sustainability should promote education about family planning and the advantages of small family size.     

The idea of weak sustainability is illegitimate

Since the introduction of the sustainability challenge, scientists disagree over the interpretation of the term “sustainability.” Weak and strong sustainability are the two main interpretations of sustainability, which are opposing each other. Some researchers stated that the interpretation of the term depends on the context; others disagree pointing out that it always implies the meaning of continuation. The term “sustainability” can be used as attribute, which adds a certain characteristic to the noun. If something can be attributed as being sustainable, it can also be unsustainable. The sustainability challenge consists of shifting from the current unsustainable towards a sustainable system. This paper outlines that the weak sustainability term is illegitimate, as it leads to a contradiction with the acknowledged assumption that the current state is unsustainable. This contradiction is revealed through an analysis of the occurrence of decoupling in agriculture: Agricultural land use could be decoupled from agricultural production, but only with the trade-off of massive increases in fertilizer, pesticide, energy and water usage. This paper outlines an inherent inconsistency within the ongoing discussion about the interpretation of sustainability. Through identifying the invalidity of the weak sustainability interpretation the focus can be shifted form the discourse to the sustainability challenge itself.     

A perspective on radical transformations to sustainability: resistances,movements and alternatives

A transformation to sustainability calls for radical and systemic societal shifts. Yet what this entails in practice and who the agents of this radical transformation are require further elaboration. This article recenters the role of environmental justice movements in transformations, arguing that the systemic, multi-dimensional and intersectional approach inherent in EJ activism is uniquely placed to contribute to the realization of equitable sustainable futures. Based on a perspective of conflict as productive, and a “conflict transformation” approach that can address the root issues of ecological conflicts and promote the emergence of alternatives, we lay out a conceptual framework for understanding transformations through a power analysis that aims to confront and subvert hegemonic power relations; that is, multi-dimensional and intersectional; balancing ecological concerns with social, economic, cultural and democratic spheres; and is multi-scalar, and mindful of impacts across place and space. Such a framework can help analyze and recognize the contribution of grassroots EJ movements to societal transformations to sustainability and support and aid radical transformation processes. While transitions literature tends to focus on artifacts and technologies, we suggest that a resistance-centred perspective focuses on the creation of new subjectivities, power relations, values and institutions. This recenters the agency of those who are engaged in the creation and recuperation of ecological and new ways of being in the world in the needed transformation.     

Theorizing stakeholders of sustainability in the digital age

Stakeholder theory, originally introduced in 1984 by philosopher Edward Freeman, is among the most influential theories today addressing the complex interplay of societal actors. It underwent several transformations and expansions, but the original Freeman model as well as the latest approaches places the corporation at the center positioning the theory as management driven. In this article—from a sustainability science perspective—we argue that sustainability could also be considered as the center, around which societal actors are grouped, because everyone, individuals as well as stakeholders, have a stake in a ‘common future’ that is built on the transformative concept of sustainability. Next to this shift of perspective from corporation to sustainability at the center, we advance the concept of sustainability stakeholders with the new paradigm of the digital age we (are about to) live in: the proposed sustainability-centered stakeholder theory is developed to incorporate novel parameters as brought about by digitalization (such as big data, real-time transparency, algorithmic correlations, predictive analytics, or changing privacy standards). Hence, we classify the stakeholders of sustainability according to their roles as “big data stakeholders:” collectors, generators, and utilizers of big data. This digital sustainability stakeholder model operationalizes the complex interplay between stakeholders focused on their ‘stake’ in sustainability and a common future and illustrates their roles in the digital age. Thus, it offers a normative framework to analyze stakeholders’ responsibility to contribute to, advance, promote, and achieve sustainability.     

Sustainability from a Chinese cultural perspective: the implications of harmonious development in environmental management

Sustainable development has broad consensus in environmental science and policy discourse, but its implications differ in specific cultural contexts. This article articulates sustainable development from a Chinese cultural perspective by tracing ideas from Chinese traditional culture and exploring China’s concept of harmonious development with emphasis on environmental management. Ideas that resemble sustainable development are not new to Chinese culture, but have roots in ancient Chinese thoughts, which in turn influence current governance and policies. Notably, Chinese traditional philosophies such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Yin–Yang contain philosophies fundamental to sustainable development. As a distinct local discourse, such concepts were well interpreted and understood in the ancient meaning of harmony, giving China unique sustainability perspectives with institutional implications for policies of harmonious development and environmental management. Currently, China is driven to create a new national identity of harmonious development that involves Chinese traditional philosophies and values in its modern administration. The slogans “harmonious society” and “Chinese dream” reflect this new way of responding to the world with the aspiration to achieve cleaner growth, personal prosperity, and social stability. The Chinese and Western roots of sustainable development are conceptually, ideologically, and historically different, and this paper articulates how the convergence of the two underlies contemporary international debates.     

Investigating the role of smartness for sustainability: insights from the Smart Grid domain

Over the past decades, information and communication technologies (ICT) established themselves as the key force towards more effective and efficient usage of resources in our society, namely via better use of available information, automation, stakeholder involvement, and decision support. By analyzing recent advancements in knowledge offered by ICT, it is possible to identify their strong correlation with the principles, aims, and interests of sustainability science, which can be highly inspired by ICT-intensive domains. In this paper, we study the theoretical background on system thinking as an interpretative lens able to support better understanding of dimensions and dynamics involved in the domain of sustainability, and examine the role of ICT in advancing sustainability goals. Then, we analyze the domain of the Smart Grid as a prominent example of complex technological contribution in face of the challenges of sustainability, and present the insights from this domain, which are turned into sustainability guidelines for other domains, linking smartness, and sustainability in the light of systems thinking and Smart Grid experience. In summary, the core recommendation of this work is the employment of information technology to widen the scope of the sustainability “game” by sliding activities in time and space, and in engaging more “players” in the game, which is now made possible thanks to the advancement in ICT.     

中国城市住宅售租比时空分异格局及影响机制

以2009～2017年中国336个地级以上城市为基本研究单元,利用空间趋势面和探索性空间回归技术(ESDA)对中国城市住宅售租比的空间分布进行模拟和估计,并利用地理探测器模型从城市的经济因素、人口因素、社会因素和预期因素4大方面探析售租比时空分异的影响机制。结果表明:中国城市住宅售租比整体呈波动式上升的态势,空间分布呈现出"东高西低"、"东热西冷"的阶梯状格局,且住宅价格、住宅租金和售租比均存在明显的空间正相关性和较强的区域集聚性。收入水平和工资水平是影响售租比最大的因素,住宅预期、人口吸引力、租赁户比重、家庭规模、经济预期等也是影响售租比的重要因素,经济因素、人口因素、预期因素和社会因素的解释力依次减弱,4大因素相互联系、相互作用,形成中国售租比的时空分异格局。     

The Moral Appeal of Environmental Discourses: The Implication of Ethical Rhetorics

Environmental sustainability demands civic action through both changes in individual and community behaviors in addition to national and international agreements and cooperation. In moral appeals to the environment, individuals are often called upon to behave in “good” ways—reduce, reuse, recycle—to “save the planet.” Behavior, and our attitudes about it, is therefore an important component to ongoing sustainability efforts. This pilot study, conducted in Fall 2009, brings together research methods in sociolinguistics and rhetorical studies to examine the discourses that students produce when describing issues and practices concerning sustainability. In interviews with 15 students in an earth sustainability general education core, our study found that students were knowledgeable about environmental issues and expressed intentions to engage in sustainable behaviors. Yet, students produced accommodating discourses when addressing competing demands on their time and resources. The sociolinguistic analysis of interview data shows a disassociation from environmental issues at the symbolic level of language use. The rhetorical analysis shows that this disassociation manifests as guilt, largely because when choosing between various moral appeals in their social context, students are left without tangible direction for engaging in new sustainable behaviors.     

Unravelling the Threads: Discourses of Sustainability and Consumption in an Online Forum

This article analyzes an online discussion that followed an article published by UK environmental activist and journalist George Monbiot in The Guardian online newspaper. The analysis addresses the ways in which participants in an online forum debate responded to the tensions and contradictions between lifestyle, consumption, and sustainability highlighted in the original article. The discursive construction of class, green political orientations, and identities; visions of “the good life”; and appeals to religion and science are highlighted throughout the analysis—as are the discursive strategies for positioning self, other, and audience in the debate. The argument emphasizes the heterogeneity of discursive positioning and reflects on the role of social media in the politics of consumption and sustainability, especially given the inherent reflexivity of web forums as online communicative forms.     

Crossing technology and sustainability in cities’ development

This paper deals with sustainability in cities and the role technology plays in furthering sustainable results. Recently, many interventions have been implemented in cities to propose paths and models promoting the sustainability of cities from an overall perspective. Technologies are favouring the achievement of aims recalling the three spheres of sustainability as proposed by Arcadis (2017), namely “planet”, “profit”, and “people”. The ties between technology and the three spheres are investigated through a content analysis of reports issued by the 10 cities with the most significant advances in terms of becoming sustainable cities, as indicated in the Arcadis Report 2016. The results highlight technology as an element crossing sustainability, as processes and models in cities management and service provisions to citizens are significantly changing. New tools are innovating the processes addressing environmental issues, thus leading to cost efficiency and better economic conditions. Parallel to this, new models for city management and the provision of public services are addressing the need for a better quality of life for citizens and cities’ other stakeholders. Technology itself is thought of as sustainable because it should lead to efficiency and being efficient itself. A qualitative cluster analysis and a focus on excerpts from reports are proposed to highlight the ties between technologies and the elements representing key issues in managing and leading a city towards more sustainable conditions.     

What is “Chernobyl Syndrome?” The Use of Radiophobia in Nuclear Communications

This article examines the use of “radiophobia,” “Chernobyl syndrome,” “irrationality,” and other similar concepts in communications on nuclear issues. Historically, these terms have been used in two ways: to describe psychological effects among people affected by nuclear disasters such as Hiroshima or Chernobyl, and to explain the concerns of the unaffected lay public about radiation or nuclear power projects. The latter was actively used in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet countries such as Belarus to rejects citizens’ complaints and to denounce the arguments of the anti-nuclear camp. This study argues that although the terms can legitimately be used in many situations, their use in communications about nuclear issues can be problematic.     

基于GIS的中国A级物流企业时空演变特征及其影响因素

基于中国A级物流企业数据，采用标准差椭圆、核密度估计以及探索性空间数据分析方法，对2007、2012、2017年中国A级物流企业空间格局演变特征进行分析，并采用地理探测器模型探讨其空间分布的影响因素及其交互作用，主要结论如下：（1）A级物流企业发展阶段特征差异明显，不同等级发展存在不平衡，呈现出“两头小、中间大”发展格局。（2）A级物流企业分布格局总体呈现“南（略偏西）—北（略偏东）”的空间分布态势，且沿东部沿海逐渐向内陆地区扩散；A级物流企业经历了“二核多中心”—“三核多中心”—“三核多中心连片发展”的空间分异格局。（3）A级物流企业在省域单元的分布具有空间集聚特征，集聚程度先增大后降低；冷热点分布格局虽有变化，但仍然较为稳定，冷热点格局的梯度变化特征较为明显且逐渐增强。（4）影响中国A级物流企业空间分异格局的核心因素主要为市场规模、人口密度、城镇化水平、对外开放程度和地区经济实力等，且影响程度朝着均衡化方向发展；不同因素交互作用对A级物流企业空间分布的影响力均大于各因素单独作用的影响力。