scholarly journals Operationalizing Sustainability as a Safe Policy Space

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauriane Mouysset ◽  
Luc Doyen ◽  
François Léger ◽  
Frédéric Jiguet ◽  
Tim Benton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Capital ◽  
Local System ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Viability Analysis ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Safe Operating

It is possible to frame sustainability as occurring when the global or local system is within a set of limits and boundaries, such as the concept of safe operating spaces within planetary boundaries. However, such framings, whilst highly useful conceptually, have been difficult to translate into operation, especially in the development of policies. Here we show how it is possible to define a safe operating space, bounded by sets of constraints. These constraints can be of a variety of forms (e.g., income, or biodiversity), and, importantly, they need not all be converted to a single common metric such as money. The challenge is to identify a set of policy options that define the “safe policy space” which maintains the system within the safe operating space defined by boundaries. A formal methodology, Co-Viability Analysis (CVA), can be used to do this. This provides a coherent framework to operationalize sustainability and has a number of extra advantages. First, defining a safe policy space allows for a political choice of which policies and so is not prescriptive—such as would be the case if a single policy option were defined. Secondly, by allowing each boundary to be defined with its own scale of measurement, it avoids the necessity of having to value natural capital or ecosystem services in financial terms. This framework, therefore, has the potential to allow decision-makers to genuinely meet the needs of their people, now and in the future.

scholarly journals Winners and losers - communicating the potential impacts of policies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Brick ◽  
William John Skylark ◽  
Alexandra Lee Jessica Freeman ◽  
Theresa Marteau
Keyword(s):  
Policy Decision ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Communication Effectiveness ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Effective Policy ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Long Timescales ◽  
Review Current

Individual decision-makers need communications that succinctly describe potential harms and benefits of different options, but policymakers or citizens evaluating a policy are rarely given a balanced and easily understood summary of the potential outcomes of their decision. We review current policy option communication across diverse domains such as taxes, health, climate change, and international trade, followed by reviews of guidance and evidence for communication effectiveness. Our conceptual synthesis identifies four characteristics of policy options that make their communication particularly difficult: heterogeneous impacts on different segments of the population, multiple outcomes, long timescales, and large uncertainties. For communicators that are trying to inform rather than persuade, these complexities reveal a core tension between issue coverage and comprehensibility. We find little empirical evidence for how to communicate policy options effectively. We identify promising current communications, analyze them based on the above synthesis, and suggest priorities for future research. Recognizing the particular challenges of balanced, effective policy option communications could lead to better guidelines and support for policy decision-making. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0121-9

scholarly journals Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Rockström ◽  
Will Steffen ◽  
Kevin Noone ◽  
Åsa Persson ◽  
F. Stuart III Chapin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Safe Operating

The Right to Food and the Planetary Boundaries Framework

2017 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
Wiebina Heesterman
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Legal Entitlement ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Safe Operating

The ‘Right to Food’ is a legal entitlement owed to all human beings established in international law more than half a century ago. Fulfilment of the right has been entrusted to states parties to the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). However, in practice, the right is often breached because of hostility or indifference from individuals or institutions refusing access to provisions, or because of vicissitudes of nature. Adverse impacts due to human interference in natural processes are increasingly noticeable in the area of food production. These processes have been classified into nine distinct categories, all of which need be kept within certain margins, so-called ‘Planetary Boundaries’, which delineate a safe operating space for humanity. This paper discusses the impact each of these human-induced developments has on the provision of food as well as the other way round and what the consequences would be if the boundaries were exceeded. Yet there are means of keeping the worst consequences of most of these processes at bay. The paper explores some of these.

scholarly journals Quantifying Nature Positive

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Mieke Mathilde Vlieg ◽  
Shadia Moazzem ◽  
Direshni Naiker ◽  
Delwyn Gloria Jones
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Good News ◽  
Positive Development ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Positive Gain ◽  
Life Impact ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Negative Messages ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Safe Operating

To become mainstream, Nature Positive development needs positive messaging, measures and metrics to guide, plan and assess urban outcomes. With accelerating climate crisis and negative messages getting the upper-hand, it is important to avoid paralysis by bad news. Whilst striving for a nature positive world, more effort should be on moving beyond zero to qualify and quantify benefits, gains and regenerative outcomes instead of around damage and loss sticking points. Life Cycle Benefit Assessment (LCBA) methods measure gains in accelerating regeneration and climate security that enables a good news focus. Its reach beyond negative quantifies and shows positive gain beyond zero loss outcomes. The aims are to clarify concepts, challenges and quantitative methods then review real-world 3rd party Certified nature positive case studies. Climate security, human wellness and resource viability gains inside safe operating space within planetary boundaries are quantified as positive benefits. contrary to conventional Life Impact Cycle Impact Assessment LCBA assigns damage losses as negatives debts and benefit gains as positive savings. It concludes that LCBA remains under development with more research needed to model economic outcomes.

scholarly journals Staying within planetary boundaries as a premise for sustainability: On the responsibility to address counteracting sustainable development goals

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Heidi Rapp Nilsen
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
The Other ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Ethical Guidelines ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Conceptual Paper ◽  
Safe Operating

Sustainable development, as explained through the three pillars of environment, society and economy, is a well-known concept and has been used extensively in recent decades. There is finally a growing acknowledgement that environmental sustainability is the prerequisite for achieving the other two pillars of societal and economic sustainability. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to not explicate the negative interactions between the pillars of sustainability, as in the interlinkages between the UN’s sustainable development goals. In this paper, we draw attention to a method for explicating both reinforcing and counteracting goals. This is a conceptual paper but with short, illustrative examples from different levels of the R&D sphere on how this method can be used: one example is at the project level, two are from financiers of R&D projects, and the other is at the UN level. Finally, a longer discussion on relevant ethical guidelines is presented. This paper addresses the responsibility to recognize when and how sustainability goals counteract each other through two key actions. The first action is to identify transgressions of global ecological system boundaries and the resulting serious consequences for trading on environmental sustainability. The second involves bringing to the fore relevant ethical guidelines from the Norwegian National Research Ethics Committee. An update of these guidelines is suggested to reflect recent research on the transgression of planetary boundaries and the consequences for a safe operating space for humans on Earth. Keywords: Environmental sustainability, ethical guidelines for research, UN sustainable development goals, counteracting goals

scholarly journals From Planetary Boundaries to national fair shares of the global safe operating space — How can the scales be bridged?

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 60-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiina Häyhä ◽  
Paul L. Lucas ◽  
Detlef P. van Vuuren ◽  
Sarah E. Cornell ◽  
Holger Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Fair Shares ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Safe Operating

Environmental Accounting and the Management Challenge

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger L. Burritt ◽  
Stefan Schaltegger ◽  
Katherine L. Christ
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Accounting ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Improvement Measures ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Management Challenge ◽  
Safe Operating

There is a need to achieve sustainability through development of economies and companies that operate in the safe operating space of planetary boundaries and contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This requires that decision makers are informed about the state of the natural environment, the environmental impacts being caused, and the effectiveness of improvement measures. Environmental accounting focuses on such environmental issues. It informs decision makers about combined environmental and economic matters and supports improvement processes. Environmental accounts at the national and regional macro level are mostly focused on the environmental condition and changes in condition over time. In contrast, company environmental accounting at the micro level either focuses on reporting on the overall impact in the past, providing detailed internal information for managers to address key problem areas, or identifying aspects for improvement. Transdisciplinary research helps to address the economic and management challenge of linking company-related micro level accounts and activities with macro level environmental objectives.

scholarly journals Sustainable Use of the Environment, Planetary Boundaries and Market Power

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 949
Author(s):  
Edward B. Barbier ◽  
Joanne C. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
Resource Rents ◽  
Dominant Firms ◽  
Operating Space ◽  
Safe Operating

Many of the environment and natural resources that constitute key “safe operating spaces”, as designated by planetary boundaries, are being exploited by a handful of large firms with considerable market share. In this paper, we discuss how the environment and natural resources that occur within a safe operating space can be treated as an exploitable finite stock. We use an optimal depletion model to show how the extraction of these exhaustible assets can be managed optimally, and allow for adjustment in price paths due to technological innovation and environmental externalities. Given the growing market concentration and monopoly power in the key economic sectors that exploit the environment and resources that constitute many safe operating spaces, we then explore how monopoly conditions can alter the extraction and price path of the environmental assets over time compared to that under competitive market conditions. We show that the monopoly may be compatible with more sustainable use, by extending the life of the exploitable, depletable stock, at the expense of firms capturing excessive resource rents from exploitation. This tradeoff means that any policies implemented to tax the excessive monopoly rents need to be designed without compromising the sustainable use of the environment. The tax revenue raised can be channeled into protecting or regenerating natural assets that are essential for global environmental sustainability. If investment in regeneration efforts is sufficiently substantial, or if the wider social and environmental values associated with the exhaustible assets are taken into account, then the safe operating space may be conserved indefinitely. Such policy challenges will become increasingly important as dominant firms exert market power over the planet’s remaining environment and resources that constitute key “safe operating spaces”, as designated by planetary boundaries.

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