An aggregate resource efficiency perspective on sustainability: a Sustainable Value application to the EU-15 countries

The Sustainable Value approach integrates the efficiency with regard to environmental, social and economic resources into a monetary indicator. It gained significant popularity as evidenced by diverse applications at the corporate level. However, its introduction as a measure adhering to the strong sustainability paradigm sparked an ardent debate. This study explores its validity as a macroeconomic strong sustainability measure by applying the Sustainable Value approach to the EU-15 countries. Concretely, we assessed environmental, social and economic resources in combination with the GDP for all EU-15 countries from 1995 to 2006 for three benchmark alternatives. The results show that several countries manage to adequately delink resource use from GDP growth. Furthermore, the remarkable difference in outcome between the national and EU-15 benchmark indicates a possible inefficiency of the current allocation of national resource ceilings imposed by the European institutions. Additionally, by using an effects model we argue that the service degree of the economy and governmental expenditures on social protection and research and development are important determinants of overall resource efficiency. Finally, we sketch out three necessary conditions to link the Sustainable Value approach to the strong sustainability paradigm.

The DACCIWA project: dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa

Massive economic and population growth, and urbanization are expected to lead to a tripling of anthropogenic emissions in southern West Africa (SWA) between 2000 and 2030. However, the impacts of this on human health, ecosystems, food security, and the regional climate are largely unknown. An integrated assessment is challenging due to (a) a superposition of regional effects with global climate change, (b) a strong dependence on the variable West African monsoon, (c) incomplete scientific understanding of interactions between emissions, clouds, radiation, precipitation, and regional circulations, and (d) a lack of observations. This article provides an overview of the DACCIWA (Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa) project. DACCIWA will conduct extensive fieldwork in SWA to collect high-quality observations, spanning the entire process chain from surface-based natural and anthropogenic emissions to impacts on health, ecosystems, and climate. Combining the resulting benchmark dataset with a wide range of modeling activities will allow (a) assessment of relevant physical, chemical, and biological processes, (b) improvement of the monitoring of climate and atmospheric composition from space, and (c) development of the next generation of weather and climate models capable of representing coupled cloud-aerosol interactions. The latter will ultimately contribute to reduce uncertainties in climate predictions. DACCIWA collaborates closely with operational centers, international programs, policy-makers, and users to actively guide sustainable future planning for West Africa. It is hoped that some of DACCIWA’s scientific findings and technical developments will be applicable to other monsoon regions.

Sustainable social housing: examination of global best practice

This report reviews best social housing schemes from around the world, and makes recommendations for a more sustainable approach.

Researching farmer behaviour in climate change adaptation and sustainable agriculture: lessons learned from five case studies

Understanding farmer behaviour is needed for local agricultural systems to produce food sustainably while facing multiple pressures. We synthesize existing literature to identify three fundamental questions that correspond to three distinct areas of knowledge necessary to understand farmer behaviour: 1) decision-making model; 2) cross-scale and cross-level pressures; and 3) temporal dynamics. We use this framework to compare five interdisciplinary case studies of agricultural systems in distinct geographical contexts across the globe. We find that these three areas of knowledge are important to understanding farmer behaviour, and can be used to guide the interdisciplinary design and interpretation of studies in the future. Most importantly, we find that these three areas need to be addressed simultaneously in order to understand farmer behaviour. We also identify three methodological challenges hindering this understanding: the suitability of theoretical frameworks, the trade-offs among methods and the limited timeframe of typical research projects. We propose that a triangulation research strategy that makes use of mixed methods, or collaborations between researchers across mixed disciplines, can be used to successfully address all three areas simultaneously and show how this has been achieved in the case studies. The framework facilitates interdisciplinary research on farmer behaviour by opening up spaces of structured dialogue on assumptions, research questions and methods employed in investigation.