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In 2007, the French government organized a series of meetings dealing with environment and sustainable development problematics under the title ⪡ Grenelle de l'Environnement ⪢. The conclusions of these meetings were introduced in a new law published in August 2009 (Law N° 2009-967) known as "Grenelle 1". Article 1 requires that the State designs a so-called Sustainable Development National Strategy (SDNS) structured around 9 targets. Target 1 consists in fighting against climate change. The SDNS is used as a basis for the involvement of public and private agencies in this perspective. The struggle against climate change and implementation of sustainable development principles within the agency framework raises a number of practical questions: how are adaptive methods and tools to be developed to help the agency reach a new balance given the environmental, economic and social risks induced by these broad targets? Are there any standards of reference and if not can an innovative approach be developed to support decision-making in situations of uncertainty? How can a management dashboard be developed for a proportional allocation of resources adapted to the various stakeholders and decision levels within the agency? How does one compare actions that can have different impacts in different sub-systems and with different time frameworks? Following a brief historical review of the origin of the challenges of sustainable development and climate change in the introduction part of the paper, we discuss the methodological approach selected and the investigator's intervention program in the first part of the paper. In the second part, we address practical issues for an agency facing the challenges of sustainable development and climate change. To this end we relate the experience of designing a sustainable development framework within a public agency using an organizational approach and a multiple criteria decision aid methodology. Finally, we discuss the decision-makers' choices and the lessons learned by implementing an innovative approach which we set up to face these new challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous research and development projects have been launched since the seventies in the French overseas territories. Their aim was to foster new activities in agriculture based on local productions for local markets, notably in the French West Indies (FWI). In this paper we analyze two development projects on the rearing of giant freshwater prawn, one in the FWI and the other in French Guyana, over twenty years after their launching. The purpose of these compared studies is twofold: first to try to understand why a set of relevant technical innovations ended in failure 15 years later; second to identify recommendations in terms of methodology in order to diminish risks of mistakes or failure for future projects. To reach this goal we followed two approaches. A first analysis is based on a set of three criteria: social acceptability, legitimacy and time planning. The second analysis, justified by the subjective need for an explanatory tool, is based on the actor-network theory. The results show that beyond the levels of political support and financial investment and support the three key criteria for success are: (i) reactivity of the decision-makers, notably when markets change, (ii) quality of leadership transfer between the launching phase and the stabilized phase, and (iii) capacity of the decision-makers to take into account the concrete consequences of the various scenarios. Regarding this third criterion, our analysis suggests that the scenario of full technical success needs to be explored, notably in terms of economic sustainability. The integration of these two types of analyses into an ex-ante frame should contribute to reducing risks of failure in similar development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is based on a literature review and analysis of sustainable indicator proposals for transport policies from different countries and international organizations. Its aim was to propose an approach to qualify these experiences. Indicators are drawn up in support of a particular posture, a characteristic which is relevant for our analysis. Several political postures were found to underlie the production of indicators and their uses. We highlighted three argumentative postures. An integrative posture which seeks to internalize social and environmental externalities, its aim being to optimize transport policies. A critical posture which argues for a more reasonable and less aggressive transport policy. This posture is often environmentally-based. Last, a global posture based on the sustainable development movement at national or international scales. These experiences deal with different development aspects, transport being only one of their concerns. We were able to demonstrate the analytical interest of these three postures in a study of four experiences of public debate. To conclude, our paper calls for a better definition of the governance contexts in which the sustainable transport indicators are used. The indicators proposed in the experiences studied relate to different postures within the same framework of debates and are difficult to use in describing them. Working on the governance context is essential to ensure a proper use of indicators that will enrich concertation and debates among actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]