Disruptive seeds: a scenario approach to explore power shifts in sustainability transformations
AbstractOver the last 2 decades, it has become increasingly evident that incremental adaptation to global environmental challenges —particularly climate change—no longer suffices. To make matters worse, systemic problems such as social inequity and unsustainable use of resources prove to be persistent. These challenges call for, such is the rationale, significant and radical systemic changes that challenge incumbent structu res. Remarkably, scholarship on sustainability transformations has only engaged with the role of power dynamics and shifts in a limited fashion. This paper responds to a need for methods that suppor...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 27, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Contributions of healthier diets and agricultural productivity toward sustainability and climate goals in the United States
AbstractMeeting ambitious climate targets will require deploying the full suite of mitigation options, including those that indirectly reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Healthy diets have sustainability co-benefits by directly reducing livestock emissions as well as indirectly reducing land use emissions. Increased crop productivity could indirectly avoid emissions by reducing cropland area. However, there is disagreement on the sustainability of proposed healthy U.S. diets and a lack of clarity on how long-term sustainability benefits may change in response to shifts in the livestock sector. Here, we explore the GHG ...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 24, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Critical change agent characteristics and competencies for ensuring systemic climate adaptation interventions
AbstractRapidly changing global environmental contexts require thinking differently about climate adaptation projects to achieve faster positive systemic change. Adaptation theory and practice have begun to focus on change agents, people who can help catalyse this change, but it is poorly understood why some people are better able to influence positive systemic change or how climate adaptation projects cultivate and assist them in doing so. This paper synthesises insights on good practice for intervention design and implementation from a wide range of intervention literature domains, including health, education and interna...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 21, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Correction to: Exploring complementarity among interdependent pastoral institutions in Mongolia
(Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - November 19, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Sustainability innovations: a proposal for an analytical framework and its empirical application in the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve
This study therefore contributes to transitions studies via a detailed characterization of sustainability innovations and of their outcomes, as well as through a generic synthes is of variables into an analytical framework that is applicable to a large and diverse range of individual sustainability innovations. Further empirical studies should test these findings in other contexts, to pinpoint generic innovation development patterns and to develop a typology of sustainabil ity innovation archetypes. (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - November 17, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Long-term pathways analysis to assess the feasibility of sustainable land-use and food systems in Mexico
AbstractMexico aims to develop highly productive and sustainable food systems that ensure national self-sufficiency. This paper employs an integrated land-use modeling tool —the FABLE Calculator—to estimate the degree of policy ambition required for the country to meet mid-century climate, conservation and production goals in the land-use sector. We generate national-level land-use pathways to mid-century in terms of agricultural production, land use change dynamic s, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and availability of land supporting biodiversity under varying assumptions of national policy and productivity changes. W...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 15, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
From Necrocene to Na íocene—promising pathways toward sustainable agri-food systems
(Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - November 15, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Correction: Integration of knowledge systems in urban farming initiatives: insight from Taipei Garden City
(Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - November 15, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Living labs in the context of the UN sustainable development goals: state of the art
AbstractThis paper reports on a comprehensive study, which has investigated the approaches, methods and tools being deployed in implementing living labs among higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world. Two methods were employed. First, a bibliometric analysis of the current emphasis given to living labs in a sustainable development context and in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Second, an empirical study aimed at identifying the use levels of living labs at HEIs. This was accomplished through an analysis of selected case studies that showcased successful approaches to SDGs implem...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 10, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
An urgent need for COP27: confronting converging crises
AbstractThe last 12 months have provided further evidence of the potential for cascading ecological and socio-political crises that were warned of 12 months ago. Then a consensus statement from the Regional Action on Climate Change Symposium warned: “the Earth’s climatic, ecological, and human systems are conver ging towards a crisis that threatens to engulf global civilization within the lifetimes of children now living.” Since then, the consequences of a broad set of extreme climate events (notably droughts, floods, and fires) have been compounded by interaction with impacts from multiple pandemics (inc luding C...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 10, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Developing positional awareness in sustainability science: four archetypes for early career scientists working in an SDG world
We describe four archetypes at play in sustainability research and argue that these positions allow ECRs to reflexively navigate their roles and purposes in sustainability research. (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - November 8, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Sustainable pathways towards climate and biodiversity goals in the UK: the importance of managing land-use synergies and trade-offs
AbstractAgricultural and environmental policies are being fundamentally reviewed and redesigned in the UK following its exit from the European Union. The UK government and the Devolved Administrations recognise that current land use is not sustainable and that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to define a better land strategy that responds fully to the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable development. This paper presents evidence from three pathways (current trends, sustainable medium ambition, and sustainable high ambition) to mid-century that were co-created with UK polic...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 7, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Development towards low carbon and sustainable agriculture in Finland is possible with moderate changes in land use and diets
AbstractFood security under climate change, several sustainability problems, and ambitious climate targets are considered challenges for agriculture and food sectors in many countries. Since agricultural production and its land use produce appr. 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of Finland, reducing agricultural GHG emissions is important for meeting national target of climate neutrality by 2035. Healthier food diets, maintenance of biodiversity, and reduced nutrient leaching from agriculture are also required for a more sustainable food economy. This paper aims to show how agriculture in Finland, traditionally dominat...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 6, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
Living with typhoons and changing weather patterns: Indigenous resilience and the adaptation pathways of smallholder farmers in Taiwan
This study aimed to address this gap by focusing on two Indigenous Tayal communities in northern Taiwan and how they have coped with and built resilience in the face of climate change and climate-related disasters. This study employed both quantitative (n = 101) and qualitative methods (n = 10) to determine the factors that shape the livelihood adaptation pathways and resilience capacities (i.e., absorptive, adaptive, and transformative) of Indigenous and local smallholder farmers. This study demonstrated that the adaptation pathways of individual households must be placed in th e broader context of economic, socia...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 6, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
The impact of teenagers' emotions on their complexity thinking competence related to climate change and its consequences on their future: looking at complex interconnections and implications in climate change education
This study seeks to address critical gaps in climate change education research with regard to (1) emotions triggered in teenage students learning about climate change, (2) the students ’ complexity thinking competence in the context of climate change consequences, and (3) the interconnections between different types of emotions and the levels of complexity thinking competence in teenagers’ explanations of climate change. The study drew on quantitative and qualitative data from 315 (2013–2015) and 246 (2021) teenage secondary school students from a pre-/post-intervention survey from Austria’s year-longk.i.d.Z.21 —...
Source: Sustainability Science - November 5, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: research
