scholarly journals Seeing environmental injustices: the mechanics, devices and assumptions of environmental sustainability indices and indicators

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Requena-i-Mora ◽  
Dan Brockington
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Global North ◽  
Distributional Conflicts ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Sustainability Indices

At the heart of any colonization project, and therefore any move to de-colonize, are ways of seeing nature and society, that then allow particular ways of governing each. This is plainly visible in a number of tools that exist to measure progress towards (or regress from) environmental sustainability. The tools use indices and indicators constructed mostly by environmental scientists and ecologists. As such, they are not neutral scientific instruments: they reflect the worldviews of their creators. These worldviews depend on three dimensions: the values they prioritize, the explanatory theories they use and the futures they envision. Through these means different tools produce conflicting notions of the sustainability of our economies and societies. In this article, we shed light onto the theoretical and epistemological assumptions that lie behind key international sustainability indices and indicators: the Environmental Performance Index,Domestic Material Consumption, Material Intensity, the Material Footprint, the Carbon Footprint, the Ecological Footprint and CO2 emissions (territorial). The variables included in these indices, the way they are measured, aggregated and weighted all imply a particular way of understanding the relationships between economy, society and environment. This divergence is most clearly visible in the fact that some indices are negatively correlated with each other. Where one index might plot growing environmental sustainability, another shows its decline. Our results highlight that those devices and the theories informing them are particularly interesting for way how colonialism is materialized. Some of these measurements hide the material roots of prosperity and the ecological (and economic) distributional conflicts exported to the poorer countries by the global North, and others show how its production and consumption levels are reliant upon a socio-ecological 'subsidy' imposed on Southern countries. These subsidies represent injustices that present a primafacie case for decolonizing indices and indicators of environmental governance.

scholarly journals What Are the Implications of Globalization on Sustainability?—A Comprehensive Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sai Tang ◽  
Zhuolin Wang ◽  
Gengqi Yang ◽  
Wenwen Tang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Differentiated Goods ◽  
Environment Sustainability ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Comprehensive Study ◽  
Sustainability Indices

It is becoming more and more certain that globalization is not just purely an economical phenomenon; it is exhibiting itself on a worldwide level. Amid globalization’s observable appearances, the most obvious are the larger international mobility of goods and services, flows of finance capital, data and information and most importantly people. On top of that, there are technological progresses and more international cultural interactions, which are facilitated by the enhancement of free trade of large quantities of more differentiated goods and also through immigration and tourism. The political changes and ecological concerns play an important part in this regard. In the current study, sustainability Indices are linked with the KOF Globalization Index to understand if more globalized countries are performing better in terms of sustainable development and its dimensions, especially environmental sustainability. Sustainability indices such as Human Development Index (HDI) and Environmental Performance Index (EPI) showed a stronger relation with different levels of globalization while others (Red List Index (RLI), Environment Sustainability Index (ESI)) did not. The results reveal that globalization has a positive implication on sustainability in the overall perspective.

scholarly journals Time for Science-Based National Targets for Environmental Sustainability: An Assessment of Existing Metrics and the ESGAP Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkaitz Usubiaga-Liaño ◽  
Paul Ekins
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
National Level ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Strong Sustainability ◽  
Development Goals

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence on the ongoing degradation of the environment, there is a clear gap between the urgency of the environmental crisis and the policy measures put in place to tackle it. Because of the role of metrics in environmental governance, the way environmental information is translated into metrics is of utmost relevance. In this context, we propose criteria to assesses the suitability of environmental metrics to monitor environmental sustainability at the national level. After assessing well-known environmental metrics such as the Sustainable Development Goals indicators and the Environmental Performance Index, we conclude that countries still lack robust and resonant metrics to monitor environmental sustainability. In order to bridge this metric gap, we present the Environmental Sustainability Gap (ESGAP) framework, which builds on the concepts of strong sustainability, critical natural capital, environmental functions and science-based targets. Different composite indicators are proposed as part of the ESGAP framework. Through these metrics, the framework has the potential to embed strong sustainability thinking and science-based targets in nations in which these concepts are not currently sufficiently reflected in policies.

Oceans and Landless Farms: Linking Southern and Northern Shadow Places of Industrial Livestock (1954–1975)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floor Haalboom
Keyword(s):  
Animal Feed ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Global South ◽  
Humboldt Current ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Boom And Bust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North

This article argues for more extensive attention by environmental historians to the role of agriculture and animals in twentieth-century industrialisation and globalisation. To contribute to this aim, this article focuses on the animal feed that enabled the rise of ‘factory farming’ and its ‘shadow places’, by analysing the history of fishmeal. The article links the story of feeding fish to pigs and chickens in one country in the global north (the Netherlands), to that of fishmeal producing countries in the global south (Peru, Chile and Angola in particular) from 1954 to 1975. Analysis of new source material about fishmeal consumption from this period shows that it saw a shift to fishmeal production in the global south rather than the global north, and a boom and bust in the global supply of fishmeal in general and its use in Dutch pigs and poultry farms in particular. Moreover, in different ways, the ocean, and production and consumption places of fishmeal functioned as shadow places of this commodity. The public health, ecological and social impacts of fishmeal – which were a consequence of its cheapness as a feed ingredient – were largely invisible on the other side of the world, until changes in the marine ecosystem of the Pacific Humboldt Current and the large fishmeal crisis of 1972–1973 suddenly changed this.

scholarly journals Sustainability Requirements of Digital Twin-Based Systems: A Meta Systematic Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5519
Author(s):  
Rui Carvalho ◽  
Alberto Rodrigues da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Data Communication ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Reducing Costs

Sustainable development was defined by the UN in 1987 as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and this is a core concept in this paper. This work acknowledges the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., economic, social, and environmental, but its focus is on this last one. A digital twin (DT) is frequently described as a physical entity with a virtual counterpart, and the data, connections between the two, implying the existence of connectors and blocks for efficient and effective data communication. This paper provides a meta systematic literature review (SLR) (i.e., an SLR of SLRs) regarding the sustainability requirements of DT-based systems. Numerous papers on the subject of DT were also selected because they cited the analyzed SLRs and were considered relevant to the purposes of this research. From the selection and analysis of 29 papers, several limitations and challenges were identified: the perceived benefits of DTs are not clearly understood; DTs across the product life cycle or the DT life cycle are not sufficiently studied; it is not clear how DTs can contribute to reducing costs or supporting decision-making; technical implementation of DTs must be improved and better integrated in the context of the IoT; the level of fidelity of DTs is not entirely evaluated in terms of their parameters, accuracy, and level of abstraction; and the ownership of data stored within DTs should be better understood. Furthermore, from our research, it was not possible to find a paper discussing DTs only in regard to environmental sustainability.

‘Cambiando el chip’: The gendered constellation of subjectivities of the financialisation of remittances in Mexico

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110061
Author(s):  
Rahel Kunz ◽  
Brenda Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Transnational Families ◽  
Development Models ◽  
Transnational Family ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

In the wake of the global financial crisis and a context of stagnating development aid, the international community now promotes linking remittances to finance as a development strategy, in what has been termed the ‘financialisation of remittances’ (FOR). This article analyses the ways in which the financialisation of remittance manifests in Mexico in gendered ways, and what this tells us about financialisation and financial subjectivation processes beyond the global North. We find that the financialisation of remittance represents a shift from earlier remittance-based development models whereby remittances become linked to financial inclusion and social welfare agendas and the focus is broadened beyond migrant income to diaspora wealth. Focusing on the governing arrangements of the financialisation of remittance, we propose the concept of ‘constellation of subjectivities’ in order to analyse the interrelated and interacting programmatic subjectivities through which the financialisation of remittance manifests in Mexico. Combining this conceptualisation with interdisciplinary feminist insights on financialisation, we analyse the various intersecting social dynamics that weave through such constellations. The analysis – based on document, interview and observation material – finds that the financialisation of remittance in Mexico creates and governs a gendered constellation of financial subjectivities with three dimensions: migrant men, remittance-receiving women and the constitutive outside of the non-transnational family. While most studies tend to focus on transnational families, we demonstrate that non-transnational families are an integral part of the financialisation of remittance. Our analysis destabilises the notion of the universal financial subject and highlights the importance of broadening our analysis of financialisation to constitutive outsides that often fall off the radar.

scholarly journals COVID-19 As an Opportunity for a Healthy-Sustainable Food Transition. An Analysis of Dietary Transformations during the First Italian Lockdown

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5661
Author(s):  
Raffaele Matacena ◽  
Mariangela Zenga ◽  
Marco D’Addario ◽  
Silvia Mari ◽  
Massimo Labra
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Generational Cohort ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Daily Food ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 emergency and the consequent social distancing requirements have caused major disruptions in daily food-related practices at the household level. In this paper, we evaluate the transformations that occurred in the daily nutritional choices and behaviors of a convenience sample (n = 2288) of Italian residents during the first nation-wide lockdown (March–May 2020) to assess the impact on the health and socio-environmental sustainability of their diets. Results portray a scenario of wide-spread change, especially in relation to the quantity of daily food consumed, the composition of diets and the time and commitment devoted to home-cooking, with young individuals emerging as the most impacted generational cohort. Through the construction of an indicator for healthy–sustainable transition (HST index), we demonstrate that such changes unfold on a gradient, revealing that while for many respondents lockdown nutrition implied overeating and weight gain, a substantial segment of the population conversely improved the healthiness and sustainability of their daily nutritional patterns. In this sense, improvements are associated with young age, socio-economic status, frequency and enjoyment of cooking-from-scratch and, more generally, an attentive attitude towards the quality, provenance and materiality of food that, in turn, the COVID-19 crisis appears to have re-kindled. We conclude by highlighting five areas of institutional intervention (i.e., young people, time, tools, food supply at work, and local food chains) on which to focus in order to ensure the current crisis does not represent a missed opportunity for creating the necessary conditions for sustainable food production and consumption to take hold as the ‘new’ normal in the post-pandemic era.

scholarly journals Sustainability in Participatory Sports Events: The Development of a Research Instrument and Empirical Insights

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6034
Author(s):  
Ine Hugaerts ◽  
Jeroen Scheerder ◽  
Kobe Helsen ◽  
Joris Corthouts ◽  
Erik Thibaut ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Research Instrument ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Goals

The United Nations (UN) considers sports as an important enabler of sustainable development. The popular and fast-growing Participatory Sports Event (PSE) sector can play an important role in this regard, however, research that measures and reports sustainability in PSEs is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to construct and validate a research instrument based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, and to examine sustainability in PSEs. To this end, an online survey was administered among a representative sample of 303 PSE organisers, located in Flanders, Belgium. A confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the instrument and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. The results reveal significant discrepancies between the three dimensions, with a noticeable lower score for environmental sustainability compared to social and economic sustainability. Furthermore, challenges are highlighted in the field of the civil society sector and in walking sports events. The findings also indicate that large-sized events are more likely to be sustainable. The current study can act as a foundation for future research on sustainability in PSEs and can assist PSE organisers and policymakers to increase the sustainability-related performance of the sector.

scholarly journals Recoupling Economic and Social Prosperity

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Lima de Miranda ◽  
Dennis J. Snower
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
Material Gain ◽  
New Perspective

This paper explores a new theoretical and empirical approach to the assessment of human well-being, relevant to current challenges of social fragmentation in the presence of globalization and technological advance. We present two indexes of well-being—solidarity (S) and agency (A)—to be considered alongside the standard indexes of material gain (G) and environmental sustainability (E). The four indexes—SAGE—form a balanced dashboard for evaluating well-being. The solidarity index covers the needs of humans as social creatures, living in societies that generate a sense of social belonging. The agency index involves people’s need to influence their fate through their own efforts. While “economic prosperity” (material gain) is conventionally measured through GDP per capita, “social prosperity” can be measured through our solidarity and agency indexes, alongside environmental sustainability that is measured through the Environmental Performance Index. The SAGE dashboard is meant to provide a “sage” approach to assessing well-being, since it aims to denote sagacity in the pursuit and satisfaction of fundamental human needs and purposes. Many of the prominent challenges of the 21st century, including the dissatisfaction of population groups who feel left behind by globalization and technological advance, may be viewed in terms of a “decoupling” of economic prosperity from social prosperity. We present a theoretical model that provides a new perspective on the welfare effects of globalization and automation. The dashboard is meant to provide an empirical basis for mobilizing action in government, business, and civil society to promote a recoupling of economic and social prosperity.

scholarly journals El comportamiento de las exportaciones españolas de vino en los mercados internacionales

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc J. Cervera Ferrer ◽  
Raúl Compés López
Keyword(s):  
Export Performance ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Wine Production ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Target Markets

<p>The different evolution of wine production and consumption in Spain in recent decades has pushed the sector into a model which is highly dependent on international markets. In these circumstances, the variable that determines the viability of many enterprises is the performance of exports. This article evaluates the performance of Spanish wine exports using a set of indicators that measure their diversification, adaptation and competitiveness in target markets. The results show a positive export performance in three dimensions, which contributes to determine the keys to their success, especially in volume, and to guide future strategies.</p>

scholarly journals Global Seafood Trade: Insights in Sustainability Messaging and Claims of the Major Producing and Consuming Regions

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11720
Author(s):  
Wesley Malcorps ◽  
Richard W. Newton ◽  
Silvia Maiolo ◽  
Mahmoud Eltholth ◽  
Changbo Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Global North ◽  
Trade Shows ◽  
Business To Business ◽  
Food Safety And Quality ◽  
Aquaculture Production ◽  
The Way

Seafood supply chains are complex, not least in the diverse origins of capture fisheries and through aquaculture production being increasingly shared across nations. The business-to-business (B2B) seafood trade is supported by seafood shows that facilitate networking and act as fora for signaling of perceptions and values. In the Global North, sustainability related certifications and messaging have emerged as an important driver to channel the demands of consumers, institutions, and lead firms. This study investigates which logos, certifications, and claims were presented at the exhibitor booths within five seafood trade shows in China, Europe, and USA. The results indicate a difference in the way seafood is advertised. Messaging at the Chinese shows had less of an emphasis on sustainability compared to that in Europe and the USA, but placed a greater emphasis on food safety and quality than on environmental concerns. These findings suggest cultural differences in the way seafood production and consumption is communicated through B2B messaging. Traders often act as choice editors for final consumers. Therefore, it is essential to convey production processes and sustainability issues between traders and the market. An understanding of culture, messaging strategies, and interpretation could support better communication of product characteristics such as sustainability between producers, traders, and consumers.

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