Trade-off between market and ecosystem services drives settlement decisions among smallholder ranchers in Baja California Sur, Mexico
AbstractWhile smallholder food producers increasingly depend on goods and services provided by distant markets, they are still constrained by their local ecology, as their rural communities often lack many of the infrastructural advantages of urban centers. Navigating the costs and benefits of market and ecosystem services is, as a consequence, crucial to their livelihoods and overall well-being. Here, we explore one aspect of that market –ecology trade-off: its effect on the residential choice behavior of ranchers living in the arid Sierra de la Giganta Mountains along the eastern spine of the Baja California Peninsula ...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 24, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Community-based sustainability initiatives: the quality of relationships matter?
This study examines the role of the qualities of social relationships within 22 different community-based sustainability initiatives each framed round different types of sustainability challenges, from flooding and climate change to community development and youth engagement. Research involved 37 semi structured interviews, combined with visual techniques, to explore the qualities of different relationship from the perspective of actors actively engaged in developing and progressing initiatives with different communities across Scotland. A typology of relationship qualities (tense, pragmatic and supportive qualities) is pr...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 24, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Learning to collaborate within transdisciplinarity: internal barriers and strengths of an art –science encounter
AbstractDespite the recognized importance of transdisciplinarity, including art –science collaborations, for tackling the complex challenges of the Anthropocene, little is known about the internal mechanisms of such alliances. At its best, transdisciplinarity should involve social learning with transformative potential. However, we still need evidence on how this can be achie ved, specifically regarding developing interpersonal interactions and group dynamics. Our study explored the social learning processes and outcomes of an art–science encounter, aiming to highlight such a collaboration’s internal barriers and en...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 23, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Transdisciplinary approaches to local sustainability: aligning local governance and navigating spillovers with global action towards the Sustainable Development Goals
This study underscored the importance of harmonising local initiatives with global sustainability objectives and can inspire local governance to champion resilience poli cies that harmoniously integrate local actions with global sustainability goals, adapting to evolving uncertainty scenarios.Graphical abstract (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - April 23, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Benefits of air quality for human health resulting from climate change mitigation through dietary change and food loss prevention policy
In this study, we explored the impact of dietary changes on future air quality and human wellbeing. We also assessed the influence of dietary transformation policies in the context of climate change mitigation, with the objective of understanding how policies can effectively complement each other. We used a chemical transport model and an integrated assessment model to determine changes in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) concentrations. Then, an exposure model was applied to estimate premature deaths as a consequence of air pollution. Our results showed that dietary changes could play a crucial role in mitig...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 22, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Limiting money: redesigning the artifact that shapes modern people
AbstractThe transdisciplinary argument in this article is that the social and ecological unsustainability of modern, globalized capitalism ultimately derives from the design of its central artifact: what Polanyi called all- or general-purpose money. The notion of a singular measure of economic value is a peculiar cultural conception that is inherently at odds with physical reality, yet it pervades modern economic thought and practice as if it were immutable. To transcend the political impasse of economic globalization, a complementary national currency (CC) exclusively for local use could distinguish a sphere of exchange a...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 18, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
How do we reinforce climate action?
AbstractHumanity has a shrinking window to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet climate action is still lacking on both individual and policy levels. We argue that this is because behavioral interventions have largely neglected the basic principles of operant conditioning as one set of tools to promote collective climate action. In this perspective, we propose an operant conditioning framework that uses rewards and punishments to shape transportation, food, waste, housing, and civic actions. This framework highlights the value of reinforcement in encouraging the switch to low-emission behavior, while also consi...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 11, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Mapping lock-ins and enabling environments for agri-food sustainability transitions in Europe
AbstractEuropean agri-food systems must overcome structural lock-ins to achieve more sustainable modes of production and consumption. Yet European regions are highly diverse, and we lack understanding of how different regional characteristics may enable or inhibit sustainability transitions. This hinders the development of context-tailored governance strategies. In this paper, we identify and apply sets of spatial indicators to map the regional potentials for agri-food transitions. We first analyse the strength of lock-in to the incumbent agro-industrial paradigm. We then map the enabling environments for two alternative a...
Source: Sustainability Science - April 8, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Climate-friendly healthcare: reducing the impacts of the healthcare sector on the world ’s climate
AbstractIf the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the fifth-largest carbon emitter, also producing massive volumes of waste. A revolutionary transition to an environmentally sustainable model of healthcare is required. Decarbonisation efforts are initially focused on transitioning to renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency in healthcare facilities (Scopes 1 and 2). One of the major challenges is to reduce the carbon intensity of the broader healthcare sector, especially operational and supply chain-related emissions, which represent 71% of the sector ’s worldwide emissions (Scope 3). Th...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 29, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Pampang Parikesit: front runner of sustainability science in Indonesia
(Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - March 29, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Designing solidarity cryptocurrency: a path to foster borderless local development
In this study, we draw on the concept oftecnologia social and the design ethnography of an in-the-making solidarity cryptocurrency to propose six design principles and sixteen corresponding strategies for implementing a solidarity cryptocurrency. These design principles provide an initial guide for practitioners and policymakers who seek to create initiatives to scale the socioenvironmental impact of community currencies. (Source: Sustainability Science)
Source: Sustainability Science - March 23, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
The ecor as global special purpose money: towards a green international monetary system to finance sustainable and just transformation
AbstractCountries from the Global South face significant challenges to finance sustainable and just transformation. These challenges primarily stem from the hierarchical character of the current international monetary system, which requires Global South countries to obtain US dollars to finance imports of green goods, services, and technologies that they cannot (yet) produce, but require for the sustainable transformation. To overcome this hurdle, we propose the foundation of a green international monetary system with a Green World Central Bank (GWCB) at its centre. The GWCB would be allowed to create its own unit of accou...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 21, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Why is the sky blue? A new question for political science
AbstractThe future of political science in this crucial century requires that it (i) adopt the contemporary scientific paradigm, (ii) open itself to pluri-, inter- and transdisciplinarity, and (iii) redefine the main political actor, ourselves, in light of post-anthropocentric and relational turns. A theoretical revolution to a post-normal and eco-political science is needed and, through the influence of new fields such as sustainability science, is probably already in motion. In the Anthropocene, it implies paying attention to biological links that once seemed extemporaneous. And this is when we realize that the sky has b...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 19, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Telecoupling lens for integrating ecological and human dimensions of the biological invasion problem
AbstractHuman activities that define the Anthropocene can lead to multi-faceted (social, ecological, economic) problems, such as biological invasions. Yet, interdisciplinary collaborations focused on understanding their causes and finding solutions remain relatively scarce. Telecoupling lens helps to conceptualize the biological invasions process (transport –introduction–establishment–invasion) across distal coupled human–nature systems. Using invasive non-native plants as an example, we explain how their invasion can alter either one or both of the sending (native) and receiving (invaded) systems. This occurs thro...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 18, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
Towards true prices in food retailing: the value added tax as an instrument transforming agri-food systems
AbstractCurrent crises (i.e., climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting energy and food shortages) indicate the need for robust, and sustainable supply chains with regional food production and farmland to secure food supply in the European Union (EU). Recent research shows that organic food is more resilient to supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations. In this context, we examine an approach for the sustainable and resilient transformation of agri-food networks: can an adaptation of value added tax (VAT) levels work as a financial incentive to amplify resilient agricultural pr...
Source: Sustainability Science - March 15, 2024 Category: Science Source Type: research
