Dynamic sustainability assessment: The case of Russia in the period of transition (1985-2008)

Russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change, which had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy, infrastructure, the quality of the environment and the well-being of its people. The current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of Russia.The paper employs the UN Sustainable Development framework of indicators and assesses sustainability of Russia using multi-criteria evaluation methods, namely the uncertainty randomization multi-criteria evaluation method “Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters under Information Deficiency” (ASPID). The analysis covers economic, environmental and social trends in Russia's development in 1985-2008 and assesses sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria.The results show the potential of employment of multi-criteria methods for the sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process. Such an analysis reveals the degree of harmoniousness of sustainable development policy. It shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments. This paper is one of the first to apply multi-criteria methods to the macro sustainability analysis in the dynamic setting.     

Well-being and/or quality of life in EU countries through a multidimensional index of sustainability

The aim of my paper is to demonstrate that Sen's theory of well-being can be applied to make the concept of sustainable human development operational through the building of a multidimensional index of sustainability which takes into account, at the same time, economic, social and environmental variables. This index may be considered an alternative to the current measures of welfare/sustainability since not only conventional measures such as GDP, but also multi-attribute indices, such as Human Development Index (HDI), Genuine Savings, Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) etc., are found to be inadequate to make the concept of sustainable development operational. Therefore, the limitations of these measures of welfare/sustainability justify the search for a new index of sustainability. This index will show, at the operational level, how Sen's theory of well-being can be useful to sustainable development. It was applied to EU countries using the standardised deviation methodology being the closest and most suitable methodology to be adopted for building multidimensional indices. The factor analysis methodology will also be used in my paper. Lastly, the comparison between Sen's trend of sustainability and GDP trend index number-which are both of them applied to Italy-will show how much the criticisms and the limitations directed towards the indicator of GDP are founded.     

区域可持续发展监测的方法学研究

对近年来国内外有关区域可持续发展监测的进展做了调研和分析,并选取宁波、广州、苏州、扬州以及三明和烟台等城市展开案例研究。从经济学、生态学、社会政治学和综合评价等出发讨论了4种监测方法,系统地提出了指标综合评价方法的基本步骤:指标的筛选、指标和数据的评估、指标体系的建立、数据的处理方法以及最终报告的撰写与发布,并介绍了研究中区域数据库的建立与评估软件的开发。案例研究的结果表明:资源损耗、环境损失、人均GDP是影响区域可持续发展的核心因子。对上述因子的定量核算,从多学科角度来综合评估监测区域可持续发展是必要的。     

Spatial Welfare Economics Versus Ecological Footprint: A Sensitivity Analysis Introducing Strong Sustainability

The aim of this paper is a sensitivity analysis with the core-periphery model of ‘new economic geography’ put forward in Grazi et al. (Environ Resour Econ 38:135–153, 2007). This model comprises interregional trade, agglomeration advantages and resource (land) use or environmental externalities. Grazi et al. (2007, GBR) compare a social welfare (SW) indicator with the ecological footprint (EF) indicator for measuring spatial sustainability of a set of land use configurations. Their main result is that the SW and the EF indicator can yield completely different rankings and only for extreme parameterizations of environmental externalities the rankings coincide. We adapt the model by interpreting total natural land as a resource constraint and differentiate between weak and strong sustainability. In a sensitivity analysis we show that the main results of GBR (2007) correspond to the case of weak sustainability in our adapted model version. In the case of strong sustainability our adapted model version shows the same welfare rankings for both indicators without the extreme parameterization that is necessary to obtain the same results in the original GBR (2007) model.     

How Useful Is the Genuine Savings Rate as a Sustainability Indicator for Regions within Countries? Australia and Queensland Compared

This article shows how macroeconomic indicators of sustainable development can be applied to the Queensland economy. While recognising the complex and contentious theoretical and practical issues in deriving the Genuine Savings Rate (GSR) to serve as such an indicator, we use the World Bank's methodology, which includes only mineral depletion, deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions as environmental terms, to estimate GSRs for Queensland for the period 1989 to 1999, and compare these to World Bank estimates of Australia's GSR for the same period. We find that Queensland has a higher rate of natural resource depletion and a lower GSR than the whole of Australia. We also examine how well the World Bank GSR performs as a ‘headline’ measure of overall sustainability, review criticisms of the GSR, and compare its implicit policy implications with those of net state savings, and of the GSR plus a suite of other indicators.     

Eco-efficient environmental policy in oil and gas production in The Netherlands

This article presents the quantitative eco-efficiency method developed for prioritising environmental investments in NOGEPA, The Netherlands Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Association involving all major oil and gas producers in The Netherlands. They are committed to a high level of environmental improvement in a Covenant with Dutch central government. Quantitative assessment of eco-efficiency in terms of cost per unit of environmental improvement requires the quantification of both costs and environmental impacts, each in a single indicator. The present study focuses on the development of a single environmental indicator for that purpose. The overall process for arriving at such an indicator has been structured according to ISO 14042 about the life cycle impact assessment. For the last step in this process, the establishment of weighting factors across environmental themes, a panel method has been chosen, involving as stakeholders the government officials involved, the industry experts and independent experts from scientific institutes.     

Comparing region-specific sustainability assessments through indicator systems: Feasible or not?

Numerous indices help us to compare country and local performance in the field of human development, globalization and sustainable development. Obvious problems arise, such as data availability and data quality. A less obvious issue is that such sets and indices do not permit the inclusion of specific characteristics or discourses that are important in a country or region. This paper investigates the possibility of comparing regional sustainability assessments in four case studies, where the indicators vary from region to region, but the method of making the assessment is similar. The concepts of weak and strong comparability were used in this analysis. Comparability of sustainable development between different regions is not an issue of rigid comparison of indicator by indicator. It should take into account regional specifics. The resulting shift from strong to weak comparability should not be seen as a lessening of the quality of the assessment and decreasing comparability. Rather than focusing on individual indicators within frameworks that do not permit inclusion of regional developments, this approach allows to look at the broader picture of regional dynamics. It reveals specific regional weaknesses that need attention, and possible areas for building alliances between regions, thus creating a more sustainable Europe.     

基于能值分析的土地可持续利用态势研究

本文应用能值分析的理论和方法，构建了基于能值的标定土地可持续利用态势的若干指数，如土地利用总能值投入产出比，土地利用工业能能值投入产出比，土地利用环境负载指数以及土地可持续利用指数。作为案例研究，作者利用上述指数对1978－1999年中车农业土地的可持续性进行判定。结果表明，尽管粮食产量或农业产值等经济指标为土地利用总能值投入产出比和工业能能值投入产出指数前期剧烈下降，后期趋于平缓；土地利用环境负载指数持续上升的态势说明，中国农用土地的环境压力逐渐增大，土地可持续利用指数在前期呈现上升趋势，至1985的达到最高，此后呈持续下降态势，近年趋于稳定。这表明，由过度使用化石能量引起的环境负面效应对农用土地生态系统的压力不断增大，若不遏制这种发展势头，中国农用土地生态系统的可持续性将得不到延存。     

Time-frequency comovement among green financial assets and cryptocurrency uncertainties

The high energy consumption and carbon footprints have raised environmental and sustainable concerns of green investors and policymakers. This study explores comovements between three green and socially responsible financial assets, S&P global clean energy index (GCEI), S&P green bonds index (GB), DJ sustainability world index (DJSWI) and four cryptocurrency uncertainty/attention indices cryptocurrency policy uncertainty index, Central Bank Digital Currencies Uncertainty Index, Central Bank Digital Currencies Attentions Index and Index of Cryptocurrency Environmental Attention using the bivariate wavelet coherence approach. The findings show that GCEI, GB, DJSWI returns have consistent positive comovement with all cryptocurrency uncertainty/attention indices in the medium-term, suggesting their time-varying leading role. Evidence of negative coherences shows that higher cryptocurrency uncertainties/attentions lead to lower green financial asset returns, reflecting the adverse impact of higher uncertainties/attention on the trust of green and sustainable investors. The above empirical findings offer up-to-date insights for guiding policymakers, and regulators, enabling them in environmental policy development. Furthermore, socially responsible investors can make better investment judgments by considering the environmental concerns in the cryptocurrency marketplaces.     

Employment and Environment in a Sustainable Europe

major challenges in Europe. The EuropeanTreaties require an integration of environmental, economic and social policies in orderto allow for a Sustainable Development. This is of special importance for the linkbetween environmental and employment policy. This paper starts with a definition of thethree pillars of sustainable development, the viability (resilience) of environmental, economicand social systems. With regard to economic development and the social field,these objectives are relatively easy to operationalise: GDP and employment are generallyused headline indicators of sustainable development. The total material input into aneconomy can be seen as an indicator showing the environmental impact.This view brings about major challenges for economic theory:We include the total material input along with resource productivities to describe, explainand evaluate possible developments of economic and environmental variables.With the help of the results from a German research project weshow the relationships between the indicators, the productivities and how they can beinfluenced by policy measures. The simulation results indicate the possibility ofwin-win situations concerning the environment and employment. Additionally, we investigatewhether the developed minimum conditions of sustainable development are valid for Austria.     

The economic relevance of sustainable agroforestry practices — An empirical analysis from Tanzania

This paper investigates the economic relevance of sustainable behavior of agroforestry practices for smallholders using the example of firewood exploitation in rural Tanzania. Three questions are addressed: (1) To what extent do households behave sustainably regarding firewood extraction from agroforestry? (2) Which factors determine the likelihood of households practicing sustainable agroforestry? (3) Are sustainably behaving households better off in terms of income compared to households practicing unsustainable agroforestry? The analysis is based on cross-sectional data of 314 households. A sustainability indicator shows that the share of sustainable households varies between 14 and 41% depending on the underlying wood growth rate. The results of the logistic regression indicate that property rights regarding the ownership of agricultural land and environmental awareness increase the likelihood of sustainable firewood extraction. Empirical evidence from the quantile regression reveals that poorest households generate higher income if they extract firewood unsustainably. The opposite is true for households of upper income percentiles. Thus, the poor are likely to increase environmental degradation to generate more income causing a ‘downward spiral’ of the poverty–environment trap resulting in income losses in the long run. Households with a per capita income of 524 TZS or more manage their tree stocks sustainably.     

Significance of environment in the assessment of sustainable development: The case for south west Victoria

The assessment of sustainable development is often based on the three pillars of sustainability model using social, economic and environmental indicators. It is thought that by measuring the performance of each system, information can be gained about the sustainability of the whole system. However it seems there has been no attempt to evaluate if such an assumption is true. During the development of a sustainability assessment framework for south west Victoria, Australia, it has become evident that this approach to sustainability assessment does not provide an accurate assessment of system sustainability. The project found that environmental indicators were considered the most important for assessing regional sustainability. As a consequence, the assessment produced shows that in south west Victoria, sustainability is largely determined by the condition of the environment. This finding highlights the current disconnection between the theory and reality of sustainability. Here, we describe a framework for sustainability assessment that attempts to re-connect theory to practice.     

北京市拒马河流域可持续发展对策研究

通过构建流域可持续发展评价指标体系,采用综合指数评价法对该流域的可持续发展能力进行综合评价。研究结果表明,拒马河流域的可持续发展能力自2003年至2008年逐年增强,到2008年流域整体达到中等可持续发展水平,仍有待提升;水资源和耕地资源的相对缺乏、农村居民人均纯收入低且存在较大地域差异、农民生活仍不富裕、产业结构失衡、以及旅游业迅速扩张带来的生态环境压力是拒马河流域可持续发展的主要制约因素,研究中从流域综合管理、流域水土资源优化配置、环境可持续发展、以及提高居民收入水平等方面提出了该流域可持续发展的具体对策。     

A coevolutionary model for promoting agricultural sustainability

This article presents a coevolutionary model of agricultural development that is based on observations from the environmental history of agriculture and the need for addressing development processes toward sustainability. It asserts that the challenge of agricultural sustainability can be fruitfully addressed within an analytical framework that consciously and explicitly considers agricultural development as consisting of processes of coevolution involving agriculture and the surrounding ecological and socioeconomic systems. Widening the processes to include strong interconnectedness with national and global systems with respect to off-farm resources and farm outputs has led to various agro-ecological problems. Strengthening local interaction and interconnectedness in a rural-urban context is found to be essential for developing a system of sustainable agriculture. Such development requires influencing many subsystems and implementing changes in production methods and land use as short-term responses to the problem, and technological development, resource allocation and changes in values as long-term responses. It also requires some sustainability principles and indicators in order to direct actions and to facilitate communications, which can be derived from the model. Applying the model on Swedish agricultural sustainability during the twentieth century reveals some, probably, important findings for “building” sustainable agriculture and lends support to the usefulness of the model.     

An adaptive learning process for developing and applying sustainability indicators with local communities

Sustainability indicators based on local data provide a practical method to monitor progress towards sustainable development. However, since there are many conflicting frameworks proposed to develop indicators, it is unclear how best to collect these data. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the literature on developing and applying sustainability indicators at local scales to develop a methodological framework that summarises best practice. First, two ideological paradigms are outlined: one that is expert-led and top–down, and one that is community-based and bottom–up. Second, the paper assesses the methodological steps proposed in each paradigm to identify, select and measure indicators. Finally, the paper concludes by proposing a learning process that integrates best practice for stakeholder-led local sustainability assessments. By integrating approaches from different paradigms, the proposed process offers a holistic approach for measuring progress towards sustainable development. It emphasizes the importance of participatory approaches setting the context for sustainability assessment at local scales, but stresses the role of expert-led methods in indicator evaluation and dissemination. Research findings from around the world are used to show how the proposed process can be used to develop quantitative and qualitative indicators that are both scientifically rigorous and objective while remaining easy to collect and interpret for communities.     

Planting flexibility: Implications for agricultural sustainability

There is a general belief that federal commodity programs restrict adoption of more sustainable production systems. In the 1990 farm legislation, Congress introduced limited planting flexibility to address these concerns and to reduce federal farm program costs. This program estimates the impact of planting flexibility on selected agricultural sustainability indicators and its policy implications. Results show that planting flexibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for implementing more sustainable production systems. Other factors such as the availability of economically viable alternatives, macroeconomic conditions, and local resource and environmental concerns need to be considered. Policy reforms can help in achieving economic and environmental gains only in locations with economically viable alternatives. In other cases, increased research and development of new systems are needed to achieve desired results.     

Conceptualizing sustainable development: An assessment methodology connecting values, knowledge, worldviews and scenarios

Sustainability science poses severe challenges to classical disciplinary science. To bring the perspectives of diverse disciplines together in a meaningful way, we describe a novel methodology for sustainability assessment of a particular social-ecological system, or country. Starting point is that a sustainability assessment should investigate the ability to continue and develop a desirable way of living vis-à-vis later generations and life elsewhere on the planet. Evidently, people hold different values and beliefs about the way societies sustain quality of life for their members. The first step, therefore, is to analyze people's value orientations and the way in which they interpret sustainability problems i.e. their beliefs. The next step is to translate the resulting worldviews into model-based narratives, i.e. scenarios. The qualitative and quantitative outcomes are then investigated in terms of associated risks and opportunities and robustness of policy options.The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) has followed this methodology, using extensive surveys among the Dutch population. In its First Sustainability Outlook (2004), the resulting archetypical worldviews became the basis for four different scenarios for policy analysis, with emphases on the domains of transport, energy and food. The goal of the agency's Sustainability Outlooks is to show that choices are inevitable in policy making for sustainable development, to indicate which positive and negative impacts one can expect of these choices (trade-offs), and to identify options that may be robust under several worldviews. The conceptualization proposed here is both clear and applicable in practical sustainability assessments for policy making.