Development of the Arctic Regions within the Window of Weak Sustainability

The Russian policy towards the Arctic has changed in the last decade, the state and large firms are investing heavily in infrastructure, in the creation of new enterprises and the modernization of existing ones. But the northern nature is vulnerable, and the active development of extractive industries can lead to a crisis in the ecological situation. The development of the northern territories of the Russian Federation must meet the conditions of sustainable development, combine the growth of the economy, and the growth of incomes of the population, and the implementation of environmental restrictions. The purpose of this article is to develop methods for constructing windows of weak sustainability based on the construction of socio-ecological and economic models of the regions of the European North, and to study the possibilities of their sustainable development. The studies were carried out in four regions of the European North, which are fully or partially included in the Arctic zone of Russia - the republics of Karelia and Komi, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions. Models have been built linking economic, environmental and social indicators. The methodology for calculating windows of weak sustainability for the regional economy is presented. The possibility of its use on the data of the Republic of Karelia has been demonstrated. The results obtained can be used as an information and methodological basis for assessing and developing a policy for sustainable development of the Arctic regions of the Russian Federation.

Resilient Built Environment: Critical Review of the Strategies Released by the Sustainability Rating Systems in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, buildings have been viewed as a facilitator of disease spread, where the three main transmission routes (contact, droplets, aerosols) are more likely to happen. However, with proper policies and measures, buildings can be better prepared for re-occupancy and beyond. This study reviews the strategies developed by several Sustainability Rating Systems (SRS, namely WELL, Fitwel and LEED) to respond to any infectious disease and ensure that building occupants protect and maintain their health. The best practices, that are similar between each SRS, highlight that the overall sustainability of the spaces increases if they are resilient. Results indicate that SRS promote a weak sustainability approach since they accept that economic development can reduce natural capitals. SRS are also characterized by an aggregated level of assessment of different criteria that does not allow to map different choices. However, the decomposition of the concept of sustainability in its three bottom lines (i.e., environmental, social and economic) shows that preventive strategies are likely to be systematically adopted as the state-of-the-art. Finally, even if the latest research points out the airborne transmission as the major infection route, the SRS lack analytical measures to address issues such as social distancing.

Surviving Collapse

As environmental crises loom, this book makes an argument for radical changes in the ways in which people live in order to stave off a dystopian future. A possible way forward is radical sustainable development, which emphasizes environmental and social justice concerns that are at once transformative, or egalitarian toward total liberation, and regenerative, or restorative to heal the health of people and the planet. Radical sustainability is distinguished from weak sustainability—a critique of the neoliberal, sustainable development project that, in practice, prioritizes economic growth over people and the planet—using theories from ecofeminist, environmental justice, and postcolonial scholars. The prevailing notion of sustainable development has remained ineffective at reducing environmental degradation and social inequalities. To gauge possible solutions to these problems, the book examines two alternative, community-scale, socioecological models of development with small environmental footprints and more egalitarian social practices. Methods employed are qualitative, cross-national, and comparative. The cases are an urban ecovillage in the Pacific Northwest, United States and a Cuban urban farm in Havana. These cases are important reminders that elegant, low-cost solutions already exist for environmental harm mitigation as well as social equity and adaptation. Findings highlight that each case uses community-oriented, low-tech practices and integrates ancestral, Indigenous, and local ecological knowledges. They prioritize social and ecological efficiency and subsume economic rationality towards those ends. While neither is a panacea, both provide examples for how communities can move toward stronger forms of sustainable development and empower readers to imagine, and possibly build, more resilient futures.

Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change Policy

Although the task of formulating an appropriate policy response to the problem of anthropogenic climate change is one that raises a number of very difficult normative issues, environmental ethicists have not played an influential role in government deliberations. This is primarily due to their rejection of many of the assumptions that structure the debates over policy. This book offers a philosophical defense of these assumptions in order to overcome the major conceptual barriers to the participation of philosophers in these debates. There are five important barriers: First, the policy debate presupposes a stance of liberal neutrality, as a result of which it does not privilege any particular set of environmental values over other concerns. Second, it assumes ongoing economic growth, along with a commitment to what is sometimes called a weak sustainability framework when analyzing the value of the bequest being made to future generations. Third, it treats climate change as fundamentally a collective action problem, not an issue of distributive justice. Fourth, there is the acceptance of cost-benefit analysis, or more precisely, the view that a carbon-pricing regime should be guided by our best estimate of the social cost of carbon. And finally, there is the view that when this calculation is undertaken, it is permissible to discount costs and benefits, depending on how far removed they are from the present. This book attempts to make explicit and defend these presuppositions, and in so doing offer philosophical foundations for the debate over climate change policy.

Fiscal Sustainability in Indonesia with Asymmetry

The management of fiscal balance determines public debt sustainability, where a positive response of primary balance towards the debt ratio indicates a sustainable path. However, there might be asymmetry in the government’s fiscal management between different phases of the debt trajectory and business cycle. This study examines the sustainability of fiscal imbalance and public debt in Indonesia using the fiscal reaction function with annual fiscal data from 1976 to 2019. We incorporate asymmetry by decomposing the lagged debt ratio and cyclical output variables into their positive and negative partial sums. We find that Indonesia’s fiscal imbalance is on a path of weak sustainability as revenue grows more slowly than expenditure in the long run, with the bi-directional Granger causality between the two indicating fiscal synchronization. Long-run public debt sustainability is on a more sustainable path as primary surplus responds positively to the debt ratio. However, our asymmetric analysis suggests that this might be a false impression as primary balance decreases only in response to debt ratio decrease but increases less or fails to increase when the debt ratio rises, which is potentially dangerous.

Novel Fuzzy Composite Indicators for Locating a Logistics Platform under Sustainability Perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to help decision-makers choose the location of a logistics platform with sustainability perspectives. This study presents a compensatory and partially compensatory approach to build composite indicators, using mainly fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methods. In the first instance, the fuzzy full consistency method (F-FUCOM) was used to calculate the weight of the criteria and sub-criteria. In the second instance, two aggregation methods, namely the fuzzy multi-attribute ideal-real comparative analysis (F-MAIRCA) and the fuzzy preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (F-PROMETHEE), were used to rank the location of a logistics platform. The novelty of the work lays in studying the impact of limited sustainability and weak sustainability on the location of a logistics platform. In this respect, the aggregation of various sustainability criterion in fuzzy compensatory and partially compensatory composite indicators is an innovative and interesting approach used to locate a logistics platform. The obtained results show that economic sustainability is the most important criterion for the selection of a logistics platform, followed by the environmental criterion. Obviously, the F-MAIRCA and F-PROMETHEE methods provided the same ranking orders. Finally, sensitivity analyses were performed to validate the robustness of the proposed approach.

Does Egalitarian Democracy Boost Environmental Sustainability? An Empirical Test, 1970-2017

Many argue that the twin problems of poverty and environmental degradation are best addressed by adopting greater egalitarian processes of governance. Greater egalitarian societies apparently contain the required social trust and consensus for making hard choices and tradeoffs for achieving environmental gains. We employ novel data on egalitarian democracy, which measure the equal access of the poor to political power and societal resources, and data covering weak and strong sustainability measured by the “adjusted net savings” and several indicators of atmospheric pollution. The results suggest that greater egalitarian governance reduces weak sustainability and increases the intensity of climate-harming pollution. Regardless of democracy, other measures of social equity, such as the GINI and equal access to health and political resources, increase, not decrease, atmospheric pollution. These results are robust to estimating procedure, several alternative models, and data. While liberté, egalité and fraternité should be pursued for their own intrinsic value, meeting urgent challenges from global warming may require more targeted solutions.

SDGs and the ability to manage change within the European green deal: The case of Ukraine

The European Green Deal by the European Commission is an ambitious policy aimed at achieving a climate-neutral economy. For Ukraine, the EGD is a priority in accelerating its European integration processes until 2030. The study aims to determine the country’s ability to manage change towards the implementing the concept of sustainable development, adjusted in accordance with the European Green Deal’s provisions, based on the analysis of SDG achievements in Ukraine, as well as on the identified quantitative results of readiness for change. The ability to manage change is determined by applying methods of analysis and generalization of descriptive statistics related to aspects of sustainable development and the EGD, as well as quantifying intermediate and final integral values of change management in Ukraine in the EGD context. The relationship between the SDGs and the EGD provisions on the “need for very high sustainability – sufficiency of weak sustainability” continuum was prioritized. The proposed provisions of the cooperation program provide for a thorough analysis of Ukrainian, European and global trends in the field of climate change and relevant sustainable development policies, use of statistical data, constant monitoring of indicators characterizing the dynamics of socio-economic, environmental and demographic status of the state and regions in connection with climate change, generalization of the experience of a climate-neutral economy, green energy, European integration processes, etc. The program is interdisciplinary in nature, which allows to get a comprehensive vision and provide a systematic solution to the problem of transforming the national economy in accordance with the European Green Deal. AcknowledgmentThe paper contains the results of research conducted under the President of Ukraine’s grant Formation and Use of Natural-Resource Assets of the Recreational and Tourism Sphere (0120U100159).

Quantification of Doughnut Economy with the Sustainability Window Method: Analysis of Development in Thailand

The doughnut economy is a new approach for the inclusion of planetary boundaries and social foundation in the development of societies. The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) determine another view for development targets. The developed sustainability window approach provides a means for operationalization and quantification of the doughnut economy. The developed method calculates minimum economic development to guarantee sustainable social development and maximum economic development not to exceed environmental sustainability. The developed method, advanced suitability analysis (ASA) doughnut, is illustrated with case data from Thailand. The sustainability doughnut for Thailand has been calculated for both weak and strong sustainability criteria. It seems that strong sustainability is a too strict requirement regarding several environmental dimensions of development while the weak sustainability criteria are fulfilled. The developed method and tool are flexible and can be used for comparative analysis of different countries or regions, for dynamic analysis of sustainability development, for gap analysis of the required improvement of environmental or social efficiency, and analysis of degrowth possibilities. The selection of indicators for the analyses and their reliability is crucial for the validity of the results and usefulness in policy planning.