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.     

A socio-technical framework for cyber-infrastructure design : Implication for Korean cyber-infrastructure vision

This study presents a practical case application of socio-technical framework to assess and predict the development of cyber-infrastructure (CI) in Korea. Applying a socio-technical system approach to CI, this paper attempts to gain a clear understanding of how CI will evolve and stabilize in the cyber environment. It investigates the complex interaction between social and technical aspects of CI by highlighting the co-evolving nature, diversity, and interface which constitute the next generation network environment. It describes the challenges in developing, deploying, and maintaining the diverse components of CI and provides a snapshot of Korea's current approach to supporting members in meeting this challenge. The purpose of this study is to provide insight into these challenges and opportunities by offering a socio-technical analysis of CI development involving the social dynamics and organizational, policy, management, and administration decisions inherent in the design and development of CI.     

Foresight tools for participative policy-making in inter-governmental processes in developing countries: Lessons learned from the eLAC Policy Priorities Delphi

The paper shows how international foresight exercises, through online and offline tools, can make policy-making in developing countries more participatory, fostering transparency and accountability of public decision-making. A five-round Delphi exercise (with 1454 contributions), based on the priorities of the 2005-2007 Latin American and Caribbean Action Plan for the Information Society (eLAC2007), was implemented. This exercise aimed at identifying future priorities that offered input into the inter-governmental negotiation of a 2008-2010 Action Plan (eLAC2010). It is believed to be the most extensive online participatory policy-making foresight exercise in the history of intergovernmental processes in the developing world to date. In addition to the specific policy guidance provided, the major lessons learned include (1) the potential of Policy Delphi methods to introduce transparency and accountability into public decision-making, especially in developing countries; (2) the utility of foresight exercises to foster multi-agency networking in the development community; (3) the usefulness of embedding foresight exercises into established mechanisms of representative democracy and international multilateralism, such as the United Nations; (4) the potential of online tools to facilitate participation in resource-scarce developing countries; and (5) the resource-efficiency stemming from the scale of international foresight exercises, and therefore its adequacy for resource-scarce regions. Two different types of practical implications have been observed. One is the governments' acknowledgement of the value of collective intelligence from civil society, academic and private sector participants of the Delphi and the ensuing appreciation of participative policy-making. The other is the demonstration of the role that can be played by the United Nations (and potentially by other inter-governmental agencies) in international participatory policy-making in the digital age, especially if they modernize the way they assist member countries in developing public policy agendas.     

Wood and industrialization: Evidence and hypotheses from the case of Spain, 1860-1935

The aim of this paper is to study wood consumption during the industrial expansion which took place in the western world in the second half of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century, through the analysis of the case of Spain. For this purpose, we present the series of Spanish wood consumption both as a raw material (WRM) and as firewood (FW) between 1860 and 1935 and we carry out two exercises with these series. The first calculates the intensity of use (IOU), which relates wood consumption in physical terms with the evolution of the GDP. The second, more complex, exercise estimates a standard consumption function that allows us to know the elasticity of WRM with respect to the GDP, the Spanish price of wood and the Spanish price of a substitute material like iron. Based on our results, we discuss the lower dependence of the Spanish industrial economy on wood, the “liberation” of forest areas that may have occurred in Spain as a result of industrialization, and to what extent the trends observed for the Spanish case can be extrapolated internationally. The main conclusion is that industrialization transformed the uses of wood and, though the importance of this resource per unit of GDP decreased, its overall consumption increased, generating greater pressure on forests at an international level.     

Foresight analysis of tilapia supply chains (Sistema Producto) in four states in Mexico: Scenarios and strategies for 2018

In order to increase competitiveness among individual producers and to encourage their integration, the federal government of Mexico has pursued the establishment, at both the state and national levels, of supply chains, or Sistema Producto (SP). For fisheries and aquaculture, 33 SPs exist at the state level and 7 at the national level, 1 of them for tilapia. The objective of this study is to carry out a foresight analysis (FA) of 4 tilapia SPs in Mexico—for the States of Colima, Sonora, Tabasco and Yucatán—analyzing their 2018 vision for the development of the tilapia chain. FA provides an integral vision of both the internal and external environments, identifying the key factors for each SP and helping to develop the best strategies in order to compete successfully. Sonora, Tabasco and Yucatán identify marketing aspects as key elements for their 10-year future: adding value to the product by means of new processing technologies, developing their own brand, and identifying and differentiating their product based on sanitary issues. Colima focuses its industry future success on efficiency improvements. Finally, the main technological disruptions identified by the 4 states are the incremental use of information technology, product and process certification, new hatcheries with genetically-improved fry, and new processing methodologies developed and/or applied.     

A systems approach to policy analysis and development planning: Construction sector in the Turkish 5-year development plans

In this study, we propose a new model for systems analysis ‘of’ policy and systems analysis ‘for’ policy with the example of construction sector in the Turkish 5-year development plans.Our proposed model—integrated development management model (IDMM)—is conceptually based on the principles of systems thinking and integrated management approach.We present and discuss the results of our work in which we extracted all construction-related policies and strategies from eight 5-year development plans and analyzed them using the IDMM. In the light of the analyses, we give several answers to the question: “Why did the development plans fail to meet their targets in Turkey?” We propose that any development plan has to have claritas-unitas-integritas-consonantia between the management levels (normative, strategic, and operational) and components (goals, structures, and behavior) of IDMM.The paper is the first work that brings the concepts of development planning and foresight together. In a complementary stance, the time of integrating foresight and development planning has come.     

Embedded industrial production systems: Lessons from waste management in zinc production

To meet the sustainability challenge private companies must implement corporate strategies and adopt novel technologies. The technical and social embeddedness of industrial production systems, however, complicates these systems' transition towards sustainability. In the paper, mechanisms and conditions are reported for the development and implementation of waste management options in embedded industrial production systems. The focus is on the Dutch zinc production industry, which had to deal with a major waste problem; the generation of jarosite. The industry's options were to increase the jarosite waste storage capacity, to develop a jarosite treatment process or to switch to a zinc-ore of low-iron content whereby no jarosite waste would be generated anymore. Required conditions appeared to be a combination of technological capability and technical embedding and favourable economics. Case study research, however, revealed that adequate stakeholder management is crucial to address social pressure exerted and to obtain external acceptance for any transition strategy. Whilst appropriate, internal technological capabilities are important, effective interactions with and enrolment of various firm-external actors are crucial. In the case of zinc, access to the heterogeneous external actor network was critical for the development of the jarosite treatment solution direction. In conclusion, both the technical, organizational and social embedding of new technologies are crucial for successful implementation.     

Responding to climate and other change processes in complex contexts:: Challenges facing development of adaptive policy frameworks in the Ganga Basin

The Ganga Basin, one of the world's most densely populated and vulnerable regions, is also among the world's most dynamic hydrological systems. Rivers exiting the Himalaya deposit massive amounts of sediment in the plains and shift their courses regularly. The natural dynamics of this system have a direct impact on populations. On August 18th, 2008, for example, embankments on the Kosi River (a tributary to the Ganges), failed and the channel shifted by as much as 120 km (Sinha, 2008 [1]) displacing over sixty thousand people in Nepal and three and a half million in India. Transport and power systems disrupted across large areas. The embankment failure was not caused by an extreme event. Instead the breach represented a failure of interlinked physical and institutional infrastructure systems in an area characterized by complex social, political, and environmental relationships.Projected climate changes in the Ganga Basin are likely to greatly exacerbate vulnerability (Adaptation Study Team, 2008 [2]). While the Kosi breach had nothing to do with climate change, such events will increase if climatic variability, sediment transport, and extreme events increase. Understanding how populations can respond to the dynamic nature of rivers such as the Kosi is, as a result, essential to develop strategies for adapting to climatic change. Understanding is also essential at the policy level for building adaptive capacity. The challenge is to identify policy frameworks and their relationship to interlinked physical and institutional infrastructure combinations that create environments enabling adaptation within households, communities, and regions.This paper explores the challenges and opportunities facing the development of adaptive policy frameworks in the Ganga Basin. The characteristics of frameworks that are adaptive in themselves and enable adaptation along with their relationship to different types of interlinked institutional and infrastructure systems are explored first. Following this, the case of the Kosi embankment along with the projected impacts of climate change across the Ganga Basin is used to identify the key challenges and opportunities that are common in many regions. The paper concludes with specific observations on the development of adaptive policy frameworks for responding to climate change in complex developing country contexts.     

Human appropriation of net primary production in the United Kingdom, 1800-2000 : Changes in society's impact on ecological energy flows during the agrarian-industrial transition

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the United Kingdom's society's long-term intervention into the energy flows of domestic terrestrial ecosystems through the human appropriation of aboveground net primary production (aHANPP) covering the period 1800-2000. The depicted aHANPP trajectory and the historical development of its components are discussed in view of a continuously increasing population and the transition process from an agrarian to an industrial socioecological regime. During the 19th century, aHANPP shows a steady decline from its level of 71% in 1800. While even higher levels were reached during the mid 20th century, the trend during the last forty years of the period under investigation again shows a reduction of aHANPP, which lies at 68% in the year 2000. The high values of aHANPP in the United Kingdom are primarily attributable to the limited amount of forest in comparison to large agricultural areas. At the beginning of the studied period, the relative stabilisation or even decrease in aHANPP in comparison to population development was made possible through the area expansion of and productivity increases on cropland and permanent pastures. Later this was made possible through the outsourcing of biomass harvest, by satisfying local nutritional demands by means of overseas imports, and as from the mid 20th century through huge amounts of fossil fuel based inputs into agriculture (e.g. increased amounts of fertilizers and motorized traction) which allowed increases in biomass harvest to be decoupled from HANPP.     

ESTEEM: Managing societal acceptance in new energy projects : A toolbox method for project managers

There is now a large literature dealing with the policy question of public participation in technical choice and technology assessment (TA). Files such as the mad cow crisis, genetically modified food, and the emerging nanotechnologies have been edified into a public problem, and have given place to a number of experiments and reviews about participatory arrangements. Much less attention has been devoted so far to the application of the TA framework to more local and limited projects-not yet and maybe never reaching the public problem status-and the management of their societal dimensions. Among them, new energy technology represents a very interesting field for investigation: many of the new energy enjoy a global positive public image whereas the local implementation of their implantation often raises societal questions and oppositions. This paper describes an original experiment conducted in the field of new energy technologies during which a participatory technology assessment inspired approach was applied to a number of individual and local projects. A framework methodology called ESTEEM was developed to facilitate such participatory process to take place, and it was tested and evaluated in 5 projects located in 5 different countries over Europe. A detailed discussion of the ESTEEM method and its application to one case study, a Carbon Sequestration project in The Netherlands, is provided. We show that a major question in the application in such participatory framework is to establish a reflective practice of project management based on situated and constructive interactions between project promoters and project stakeholders.