Search

The electrification of transportation has accelerated greatly in recent years with the support of policymakers. However, this transformation raises the crucial question of the sustainability of such a change. In parallel, the concept of Planetary Boundaries has recently emerged as a framework for quantifying the human pressure on the Earth System. A real interest in applying the Life Cycle Assessment methodology in relation with the Planetary Boundary framework is growing to evaluate the absolute sustainability of products or services. In fact, this could be an opportunity to establish sustainable thresholds for each technology that should not be exceeded. This paper aims to develop a methodology for evaluating the absolute sustainability of the deployment of batteries in the context of the electrification of the French private car fleet. Several sharing principles are used for assigning a Share of the Safe Operating Space, and a prospective LCA is conducted based on different de-carbonization pathways. As a result, this work will provide insights into the development of a go/no-go strategy for the ecodesign and the upscaling of the electric batteries in a prospective perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating scenarios and models to assess the sustainability of future regional ecosystem services is at the forefront of ecosystem service science. However, there are a lack of comprehensive reviews on this topic. Therefore, this study provides a systematic review of the research progress considering two aspects: ecosystem service scenario simulation and sustainability assessments based on the concept of a "safe operating space." We found that (1) a number of studies have already started to explore methods for evaluating the sustainability of future ecosystem services; (2) in terms of scenario construction methods, most existing studies have adopted the global classical scenario downscaling approach, while less consideration has been given to the important socio-economic-environmental characteristics of a region itself, which affect the credibility and policy relevance of scenarios; and (3) in terms of sustainability simulation evaluation, most existing studies are qualitative comparisons of the sustainability of ecosystem services within different scenarios, while quantitative methods are lacking. We proposed an approach that combined participatory scenario construction and a regional safe operating space to address the above identified challenges. Successfully implementing this research approach would provide decision makers with more accurate and practical early warning information regarding the sustainability of future ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological imagination and innovation processes have always been at the basis of economic growth and the expansion of human domination over other species. Nevertheless, something seems to have got stuck. Can the leaps in technological development that make it possible to "reset" the clock to start growing again in a sustained form really be infinite? Or are we facing something different, a limit in the structural stability of the ecosystem itself? The worsening of the polycrisis - certainly also energetic - will require drastic solutions but should also finally allow the (re)emergence of radical ideas of renewal and transformation, as well as concrete proposals for spatial organisation associated with the new lifestyles they prefigure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walleye (Sander vitreus) are an ecologically important species managed for recreational, tribal, and commercial harvest. Walleye prefer cool water and low light conditions, and therefore changing water temperature and clarity potentially impacts walleye habitat and populations across the landscape. Using survey data collected from 1993 to 2018 from 312 lakes in Minnesota, we evaluated the relationship between thermal-optical habitat and the relative abundance of small (0–300 mm), medium (300–450 mm), and large (450 + mm) walleye. Thermal-optical habitat was positively correlated with the relative abundance of small and medium walleye but not large walleye. Walleye were more abundant in larger, naturally reproducing lakes opposed to smaller, stocked lakes. Thermal-optical habitat changed in 59% of lakes since 1980 (26% increasing and 33% decreasing) and appears to be driven primarily by changes in water clarity and thus optical habitat area. Our study provides important insights into local and regional drivers that influence walleye populations that can be used to assist fisheries managers in setting population goals and managing harvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for policies to address and reduce the pressure from human activities on the Earth system. Holistic assessment methods are needed for evaluating the potential of policies to contribute to reducing pressures to within sustainable levels. Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA) methods can be applied for evaluating environmental outcomes of policies and their effectiveness towards achieving environmental sustainability targets. In this study, an AESA is applied to evaluate the effectiveness of policies on the energy and transport sector in Tonga. Environmental impacts were estimated for three different policy scenarios, i.e. Baseline, Business-as-usual, Tonga Energy Efficiency Master Plan (TEEMP), and Transformational Change. By relating the impacts to an assigned share of the planetary boundaries for Tonga, we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of the policies and to which extent these contributed to staying within the planetary boundaries. Compared to the Business-as-usual scenario, a 40 % and 65 % reduction in climate change related impacts was achieved in the TEEMP and Transformational Change scenarios, respectively. The TEEMP and Transformational change scenarios allowed for reducing impacts to within the share of the planetary boundaries assigned to Tonga for all impact categories, except for climate change. This indicate that more stringent policies are required to achieve sustainability climate-wise. Especially, when considering the additional impacts associated with other industry sectors in Tonga. Conclusively, this study shows that AESA can be used for evaluating policies and contribute to selecting the most efficient policy and identifying how policies contribute to achieving environmental sustainability targets. • New method for absolute environmental sustainability assessment of policies. • Apply method on energy and transport policy scenarios in Tonga. • Aid evaluation of policy effectiveness and ability to achieve sustainability goals. • Support development of policies that allow for staying within planetary boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers and global energy models are increasingly looking towards hydrogen as an enabling energy carrier to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors (projecting growth in hydrogen consumption in the magnitude of hundreds of megatons). Combining scenarios from global energy models and life cycle impacts of different hydrogen production technologies, the results of this work show that the life cycle emissions from proposed configurations of the hydrogen economy would lead to climate overshoot of at least 5.4–8.1× of the defined "safe" space for greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the cumulative consumption of 8–12% of the remaining carbon budget. This work suggests a need for a science-based definition of "clean" hydrogen, agnostic of technology and compatible with a "safe" development of the hydrogen economy. Such a definition would deem blue hydrogen environmentally unviable by 2025–2035. The prolific use of green hydrogen is also problematic however, due to the requirement of a significant amount of renewable energy, and the associated embedded energy, land, and material impacts. These results suggest that demand-side solutions should be further considered, as the large-scale transition to hydrogen, which represents a "clean" energy shift, may still not be sufficient to lead humanity into a "safe" space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weak sustainability, WS, attempts a comprehensive notion of sustainability, sustaining human welfare directly, or equivalently, sustaining inclusive wealth, IW, sufficient to sustain welfare. Sustainability is, in principle, forever, and accordingly, IW is conceived and assessed in a very long-term context. Given that future outcomes are unobservable, IW assessments are conducted in terms of expectations. However, this introduces pervasive circular reasoning: the calculated value of IW assumes that our expectations will be met, but that is the question. Optimistic expectations (for example) increase calculated IW, which, in turn, increases our confidence that our society is on a sustainable path. Given the logical difficulties of projecting IW into the future, analysts resort to tracking IW at regular intervals through the recent past. This reduces, but does not eliminate, the circularity problem. The signals from tracking IW are less than perfect from a policy perspective: they are too aggregate, perhaps masking impending crises regarding particular resources until it is too late; and too dependent on imperfect markets; and they document the recent past, so policy managers are always playing catch-up. WS-based sustainability policy frameworks include WS-plus, which invokes ad hoc strong sustainability, SS, patches to address threatened resource crises. It may also be possible to allow a degree of WS flexibility for individual jurisdictions within the constraints of a global safe operating space, SOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of regime shift generally refers to a deterministic dynamical system switching from an attraction basin to another after an isolated perturbation. However, when the dynamics is constantly submitted to random perturbations, the system can go back and forth between attraction basins and the usual concept seems inadequate. To address this issue, we consider a stochastic dynamical system and we assume that its functioning is satisfactory in a subset of its state space, called the satisfaction set. We define regimes with respect to the propensity of the system to become and to remain satisfactory. We investigate two indicators available in the literature: (i) the first-exit time from the satisfaction set and (ii) the sojourn time in the satisfaction set. Using statistics on these indicators, we define regimes of durable or resilient satisfaction. Applying the same definitions to the dissatisfaction set, we define durable or resilient dissatisfaction. Our results show the emergence of a tipping set, equivalent to tipping point in the deterministic case. We illustrate our approach using three different types of dynamics: two theoretical models based on the exploitation of natural resources and predator–prey dynamics, as well as the eutrophication of the French Lake Bourget. • We propose conceptual tools integrating uncertainty within regime shifts. • We introduce a satisfaction set defined by constraints that we want to comply with. • Such an approach generalizes the classical definition of regime shifts. • We define tipping sets, the equivalent of tipping points for deterministic dynamics. • We applied our approach on two models before addressing the real case of lake Bourget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology / Yingyong Shengtai Xuebao is the property of Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Human influence extends across the globe, from the tallest mountains to the deep bottom of the oceans. There is a growing call for nature to be protected from the negative impacts of human activity (particularly intensive agriculture); so-called “land sparing”. A relatively new approach is “rewilding”, defined as the restoration of self-sustaining and complex ecosystems, with interlinked ecological processes that promote and support one another while minimising or gradually reducing human intervention. The key theoretical basis of rewilding is to return ecosystems to a “natural” or “self-willed” state with trophic complexity, dispersal (and connectivity) and stochastic disturbance in place. However, this is constrained by context-specific factors whereby it may not be possible to restore the native species that formed part of the trophic structure of the ecosystem if they are extinct (e.g., mammoths, Mammuthus spp., aurochs, Bos primigenius); and, populations/communities of native herbivores/predators may not be able to survive or be acceptable to the public in small scale rewilding projects close to areas of high human density. Therefore, the restoration of natural trophic complexity and disturbance regimes within rewilding projects requires careful consideration if the broader conservation needs of society are to be met. In some circumstances, managers will require a more flexible deliberate approach to intervening in rewilding projects using the range of tools in their toolbox (e.g., controlled burning regimes; using domestic livestock to replicate the impacts of extinct herbivore species), even if this is only in the early stages of the rewilding process. If this approach is adopted, then larger areas can be given over to conservation, because of the potential broader benefits to society from these spaces and the engagement of farmers in practises that are closer to their traditions. We provide examples, primarily European, where domestic and semi-domestic livestock are used by managers as part of their rewilding toolbox. Here managers have looked at the broader phenotype of livestock species as to their suitability in different rewilding systems. We assess whether there are ways of using livestock in these systems for conservation, economic (e.g., branded or certified livestock products) and cultural gains.

In the light of increasing human pressures on the Earth system, the issue of sharing in the face of scarcity is more pressing than ever. The planetary boundary framework identifies and quantifies nine environmental boundaries and corresponding human pressures. However, when aiming to make the concept operational for decision support it is unclear how this safe operating space (SOS) within each of the planetary boundaries should be shared. This study proposes a two‐step approach, where the operating space is first downscaled to the individual level using ethical allocation principles and next scaled up to a higher organizational level using different upscaling methods. For the downscaling, three allocation principles are demonstrated: egalitarian (equal per capita); grandfathering (proportional to current share of the total impacts); and ability to pay (proportional to economic activity). For upscaling from the individual level final consumption expenditure is used as a proxy for the priority that the individual gives to the product or sector. In an alternative upscaling approach, an additional upscaling factor is based on the eco‐efficiency (ratio between turnover and environmental impact) of the product or sector. A demonstration of the method's application is given by applying the framework to two of the planetary boundaries, climate change and biogeochemical flows, with the Danish, Indian and global dairy sectors as cases. It is demonstrated how the choices of allocation and upscaling approaches influence the results differently in the three cases. The developed framework is shown to support an informed and transparent selection of allocation principles and upscaling methods and it provides a step toward standardization of distributing the SOS in absolute environmental sustainability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-technical summary Transformation of the world towards sustainability in line with the 2030 Agenda requires progress on multiple dimensions of human well-being. We track development of relevant indicators for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1–7 against gross domestic product (GDP) per person in seven world regions and the world as a whole. Across the regions, we find uniform development patterns where SDGs 1–7 – and therefore main human needs – are achieved at around US$15,000 measured in 2011 US$ purchasing power parity (PPP). Technical summary How does GDP per person relate to the achievement of well-being as targeted by the 2030 Agenda? The 2030 Agenda includes global ambitions to meet human needs and aspirations. However, these need to be met within planetary boundaries. In nascent world-earth modelling, human well-being as well as global environmental impacts are linked through economic production, which is tracked by GDP. We examined historic developments on 5-year intervals, 1980–2015, between average income and the advancement on indicators of SDGs 1–7. This was done for both seven world regions and the world as a whole. We find uniform patterns of saturation for all regions above an income threshold somewhere around US$15,000 measured in 2011 US$ PPP. At this level, main human needs and capabilities are met. The level is also consistent with studies of life satisfaction and the Easterlin paradox. We observe stark differences with respect to scale: the patterns of the world as an aggregated whole develop differently from all its seven regions, with implications for world-earth model construction – and sustainability transformations. Social media summary Reaching human well-being #SDGs takes GDP levels of $15k. This may help shape transformation to a world that respects #PlanetaryBoundaries.

Purpose: The planetary boundaries framework contains regional boundaries in addition to global boundaries. Geographically resolved methods to assess regional environmental impacts are therefore needed. Existing planetary boundaries-based life cycle assessment (PB-LCA) methods have limited geographical resolution or are not applicable to full product systems, due to high spatial requirements on inventory data. Here, we enable PB-LCA of full product systems across a comprehensive set of regional and global PB impact categories. Methods: We propose comparing environmental impacts of individual processes within a product system to assigned shares of regional or global safe operating space (SOS). This is followed by aggregation of process-level results so that accumulated exceedance of assigned SOS is derived across the entire life cycle. We then present a procedure for aggregating geographically resolved characterization factors (CFs) and SOS to country, continent and global levels, ensuring compatibility with typical life cycle inventory results. We then apply the new techniques to a model laundry case study. It involves 61 selected processes, two geographically resolved PB-LCA methods, related to impacts from freshwater use and nitrogen emissions, and a largely spatially generic PB-LCA method that covers a comprehensive set of impact categories. Results and discussion: The calculation of accumulated exceedance of assigned SOS may help inform decisions about where in a life cycle to focus impact reduction efforts most urgently. The number of case study processes that exceed their assigned SOS differs when applying the geographically resolved methods, as opposed to the largely spatially generic method. Case study results differ greatly across PB-LCA impact categories, reaffirming the importance of covering a comprehensive set. Geographically resolved methods are needed for all regional impact categories and software support would be advantageous. Existing methods will require periodic updates to reflect ongoing advancements in PB science. Best practice approaches or a consensus for assigning regional SOS to processes are needed. Conclusions and outlook: Our study provides a step towards greater operability of geographically resolved PB-LCA methods by enabling application to a full product system within an assessment that covers a comprehensive set of impact categories. The case study application shows potential advantages of the process-level approach and points to the need for quantifying uncertainties in such assessments. Future studies should seek to explore the potential role of PB-LCA in decision support compared with conventional LCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the 'Safe Operating Space' of nations are important for devising suitable strategies for the effectual implementation of UN-Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). In this context, the present study attempts to ascertain the environmental and social challenges hindering sustainable development (SD) in India along with linking these challenges to the SDGs and policy mechanisms in place for their alleviation. Environmental issues were determined by down-scaling the planetary boundaries (PB) to national scales while the social issues were highlighted in terms of their deprivation rates fixing the possession rates for all indicators at hundred percent. An in-depth analysis of available literature and scoping of national reports and databases were undertaken for the determination of national boundaries and the retrieval of values against the selected indicators, respectively. Furthermore, the existing policies and national missions were critically assessed to establish the linkages between existing challenges, SDGs and government policies. Results obtained highlighted gender inequality and severely stressed biocapacity as well as land use change as the major social and environmental issues, respectively. However, indicator based statistics compiled for rural India showed improved possession rates in the sanitation and electricity sectors thereby signifying the progress achieved by the country in these fronts. Analysis of policy frameworks revealed the existence of multiple interconnections between the SDG targets and environmental and social dimensions and thereby highlighting the role of governance for SD. A national policy for 'Safe Habitat and Sustainable Environment' along with several policy recommendations such as exploring the potential of education and research for SD were proposed for boosting the sustainability governance in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cumulative effects assessments (CEA) evolved to holistically understand and account for the impact of a spectrum of human and natural disturbances on ecosystems. Yet, the practice of CEA has struggled to overcome siloed and reductionist underpinnings common in the impact assessment arena. One way to move CEA towards more integrated approaches is by drawing on the concept of ecological resilience. Despite gaining considerable attention in other academic spheres, however, ecological resilience remains largely unexplored in CEAs. Motivated by this gap, the objective of this article is to explore how CEAs can be reimagined through an ecological resilience lens to cultivate more integrated and holistic CEA practices. We provide a brief synthesis of CEA theory and practice, highlighting where reductionist, disciplinary, and siloed approaches prevail. Then, we explore three shifts that could recast CEA through the concept of ecological resilience: (1) a shift from valued ecological components to values/identity (resilience pivots), (2) a shift from baseline assessments to ecological trajectories, and (3) a shift from management thresholds to safe operating spaces. We argue that intersecting the practice of CEA with the concept of ecological resilience offers a real opportunity to extend beyond simply being passive respondents to an incremental "death by 1000 cuts" to cultivating the conditions needed for ecological adaption and transformation along desirable pathways. • Cumulative effects assessments struggle to account for ecological resilience. • We explore mindset shifts needed to integrate resilience into CEA practices. • Key recommendations include re-imagining VECs, baselines, and thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have attempted to evaluate the transgression of the water planetary boundary at sub-global levels. Typically, this has been done by assessing water consumption in a country/city or sector against the assigned share of the global limit. Such an approach enables evaluating whether a sub-global unit operates within the safe global limits. However, it ignores spatial water availability and thus may provide an incomplete image of water-related environmental impacts and thus local boundaries. This study demonstrates how the water planetary boundary concept can be integrated within the Environmentally Extended Multi-Region Input-Output (EEMRIO) framework to assess global and local (watershed level) boundaries. Our results demonstrate that even though most countries operate within globally safe limits, for several countries, a large share of water comes from watersheds that have reached unsafe water consumption levels. This highlights the importance of combining local and global level assessments to design more accurate and tailored policy responses targeting specific watersheds that are most at risk.

Scientists suggest placing planetary boundaries on human-induced threats to key Earth system sinks and resources. Such boundaries define a "safe operating space" on depletion and pollution. Treating any remaining "space" as a depletable economic asset allows derivation of optimal and actual rules for depletion. We apply this analysis to natural forests, and find that the critical asset is tropical forests. The size of the safe operating space and assumptions about the annual rate of tropical deforestation matter significantly. In the most critical scenario, actual depletion could occur in 11–21 years, whereas optimal depletion is 65 years. The optimal unit rental tax equates the actual price with the optimal price path. The tax rate and its amount vary with the depletion scenario and increases over time. However, if the environmental benefits of tropical forests are sufficiently large, the remaining safe operating space should be preserved indefinitely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional cooperation among water utilities can improve the robustness of urban water supply systems to challenging and deeply uncertain futures. Through coordination mechanisms such as water transfers and regional demand management, water utilities can improve the efficiency of resource allocation and delay the need for new infrastructure investments. Though cooperation provides utilities with the potential for reduced cost strategies for improving the reliability of their services, two important challenges are worthy of careful consideration. First, regional utilities often have to navigate robustness conflicts stemming from potential asymmetries in their risk exposure, demand dynamics, and the availability of supply resources. Second, successful implementation of candidate compromise water portfolios requires that cooperating utilities understand their operational tolerances to deviations from the recommended regional actions ("imperfect implementation"). This study contributes a framework for identifying compromises across regional robustness conflicts and quantifying tolerances to implementation uncertainties. The framework is demonstrated on a system of four interdependent but institutionally independent water utilities in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina that are confronting robustness conflicts given asymmetries in their vulnerabilities to growing demands and hydroclimatic uncertainties. Our findings highlight that seemingly balanced compromise management strategies can yield significant and potentially surprising unintended consequences that could degrade regional cooperation. Moreover, asymmetries in regional robustness can be amplified with modest deviations from their agreed upon actions. Results of this analysis are broadly applicable to water supply regionalization as a global challenge and provide insights for discovering robust compromises and safe operating spaces for multi‐actor water supply systems. Plain Language Summary: Cooperation among neighboring urban water utilities can help water managers face challenges stemming from climate change and population growth. Water utilities can cooperate by coordinating water transfers and water restrictions in times of water scarcity (drought) so that water is provided to areas that need it most. In order to successfully implement these policies, however, cooperative partners must find a compromise that is acceptable to all regional actors, a task complicated by asymmetries in resources and risks often present in regional systems. The possibility of deviations from agreed upon actions is another complicating factor that has not been addressed in water resources l iterature. Our study focuses on four urban water utilities in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina who are investigating cooperative drought mitigation strategies. We contribute a framework that includes the use of simulation models, optimization algorithms, and statistical tools to aid cooperating partners in finding acceptable compromises that are tolerant modest deviations in planned actions. Our results can be used by regional utilities to avoid or alleviate potential planning conflicts and are broadly applicable to urban regional water supply planning across the globe. Key Points: Fallback bargaining methods can be used to find compromises to regional robustness conflictsImplementation uncertainty can exacerbate robustness conflicts within cooperative regional water portfolio planningDelineating operational safe operating spaces can assist stakeholders in finding actionable compromise water supply portfolios [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoiding whinges from various and potentially conflicting stakeholders is a major challenge for sustainable development and for the identification of sustainability scenarios or policies for biodiversity and ecosystem services. It turns out that independently complying with whinge thresholds and constraints of these stakeholders is not sufficient because dynamic ecological-economic interactions and uncertainties occur. Thus more demanding no whinge standards are needed. In this paper, we first argue that these new boundaries can be endogenously exhibited with the mathematical concepts of viability kernel and viable controls. Second, it is shown how these no whinge kernels have components, such as harvesting of resources, that should remain within safe corridor while some other components, in particular biodiversity, have only lower conservation limits. Thus, using radar charts, we show how this no whinge kernels can take the shape of a tree that we name viability tree. These trees of viability capture the idea that the unbounded renewal potential of biodiversity combined with a bounded use of the different ecosystem services are crucial ingredients for the sustainability of socio-ecosystems and the design of no whinge policies reconciling the different stakeholders involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scarcity is ideologically charged and shapes political possibilities. The recent but richly debated formulation termed the Anthropocene – as a distinct intellectual rubric for exploring human challenges and prospects in an already climate changed world – claims to offer new conceptual grounds for radically re-envisioning the existing challenges that confront humanity. Instead of the earlier anxieties about an over populated planet running out of resources, the Anthropocene warns of a crisis brought on by tipping points from excess Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, climate chaos from a heated planet and the crossing of critical bio-physical thresholds. The Anthropocene eco-catastrophe, hence, is less about the struggle over resource scarcities than it is about sustaining conditions for planetary life. But does dealing only with the excesses of GHG emissions entirely revise the urgency for engaging with the notion of scarcity? Not so, this essay argues, especially if scarcity continues to imply finite limits and boundaries that cannot be crossed. Uncovering the Athropocene notion of scarcity, however, requires one to see double. First, the idea of scarcity can only be meaningfully fleshed out when located within broader discussions about environmental change and environmentalism. And second, through a comparative contrast with environmental histories of South Asia, I argue, the novel claims of the Anthropoene discourse can be brought into sharp and visible relief. The Anthropocence, I suggest, is not only compelled to acknowledge a strong version of scarcity but, critically as well, its notion of finite limits shapes, defines and influences a Neo-Malthusian variant of environmentalism that, in essence, rests on the politics of pre-emption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining safe operating spaces for exploited natural systems in the face of uncertainty is a key sustainability challenge. This challenge can be viewed as a problem in which human society must navigate in a limited space of acceptable futures in which humans enjoy sufficient well-being and avoid crossing planetary boundaries. A critical obstacle is the nature of society as a controller with endogenous dynamics affected by knowledge, values, and decision-making fallacies. We outline an approach for analyzing the role of knowledge infrastructure in maintaining safe operating spaces. Using a classic natural resource problem as an illustration, we find that a small safe operating space exists that is insensitive to the type of policy implementation, while in general, a larger safe operating space exists which is dependent on the implementation of the "right" policy. Our analysis suggests the importance of considering societal response dynamics to varying policy instruments in defining the shape of safe operating spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing water problems have promoted the Chinese government to implement the strictest water resources management system (SWRMS), the first national policy that puts into practice the concept of "safe operating space" for human water use. Here, we investigate the impact of the SWRMS on China's water use and water stress based on a newly compiled high-resolution and multi-sectoral water use dataset. Results indicate that China's total water use (TWU) increased significantly from 549 km3 yr-1 to 610 km3 yr-1 between 2000 and 2012 (i.e., the pre-SWRMS period), but decreased remarkably in the post-SWRMS period (2012–2020), reaching 565 km3 yr-1 by the year 2020. The decline in TWU was attributed to the improvements of irrigation and industrial water use efficiency (WUE), which were strictly controlled by the SWRMS at various administrative levels of China. The improved WUE has yielded about ∼90 km3 of water savings per year, freeing 17 prefectures from extreme water stress that affects 6% of China's population and 10% of its GDP. Although the improved WUE caused a significant decrease in TWU, the reduction in China's average water stress was insignificant due to the considerable influence of water availability. We further identified hotspots with great potential for water stress reduction, mainly in northwestern China, and hotspots at high risks of water security, primarily on the North China Plain. This study underscores the crucial role of the SWRMS in addressing China's water shortage and provides valuable insights to other countries grappling with water problems in defining their own "safe water operating spaces". [Display omitted] • China's strictest water policy (SWRMS) defined "safe operating space" for human water use • Decomposition and counterfactual analyses were employed to assess the impact of the SWRMS • The policy's target of increasing water use efficiency reversed China's water use trends • Improved water use efficiency yielded great water savings and reduced exposure to water stress [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have started to develop policy programs for the sustainable use of natural resources. Indicators and targets can cover both a territorial and a life-cycle-wide global perspective. This article focuses on how a safe operating space for global material resource use can be outlined based on existing economy-wide material flow indicators. It reflects on issues such as scale and systems perspective, as the choice of indicators determines the target “valves” of the socio-industrial metabolism. It considers environmental pressures and social aspects of safe and fair resource use. Existing proposals for resource consumption targets are reviewed, partially revisited, and taken as a basis to outline potential target values for a safe operating space for the extraction and use of minerals and biomass by final consumption. A potential sustainability corridor is derived with the Total Material Consumption of abiotic resources ranging from 6 to 12 t/person, the Total Material Consumption of biotic resources not exceeding 2 t/person, and the Raw Material Consumption of used biotic and abiotic materials ranging from 3 to 6 t/person until 2050. For policy, a “10-2-5 target triplet” can provide orientation, when the three indicators are assigned values of 10, 2, and 5 t/person, respectively.

Decision makers often have to act before critical times to avoid the collapse of ecosystems using knowledge that can be incomplete or biased. Adaptive management may help managers tackle such issues. However, because the knowledge infrastructure required for adaptive management may be mobilized in several ways, we study the quality and the quantity of knowledge provided by this knowledge infrastructure. In order to analyze the influence of mobilized knowledge, we study how the following typology of knowledge and its use may impact the safe operating space of exploited ecosystems: (1)knowledge of the past based on a time series distorted by measurement errors; (2)knowledge of the current systems' dynamics based on the representativeness of the decision makers' mental models of the exploited ecosystem; (3)knowledge of future events based on decision makers' likelihood estimates of extreme events based on modeling infrastructure (models and experts to interpret them) they have at their disposal. We consider different adaptive management strategies of a general regulated exploited ecosystem model and we characterize the robustness of these strategies to biased knowledge. Our results show that even with significant mobilized knowledge and optimal strategies, imperfect knowledge may still shrink the safe operating space of the system leading to the collapse of the system. However, we also show that in some cases imperfect knowledge may unexpectedly increase the safe operating space by suggesting cautious strategies. We leverage the quantitative results to frame a discussion focusing on the importance of understanding subtleties of how adaptive knowledge mobilization and knowledge infrastructure affect the robustness of exploited ecosystems. Key Points: Knowledge infrastructure influences the quantity (complete or incomplete knowledge) as well as the quality (biased or unbiased) of the knowledge used by managersTo study the impact of knowledge infrastructure on managed ecosystems, we build a typology of knowledge used for regulating uncertain exploited ecosystemsWe then assess the robustness of stylized adaptive management strategies to biased knowledge quantitatively and present the results qualitatively in terms of the size of the safe operating space of regulated exploited ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Planetary Boundaries concept has emerged as a framework for articulating environmental limits, gaining traction as a basis for considering sustainability in business settings, government policy and international guidelines. There is emerging interest in using the Planetary Boundaries concept as part of life cycle assessment (LCA) for gauging absolute environmental sustainability. We tested the applicability of a novel Planetary Boundaries-based life cycle impact assessment methodology on a hypothetical laundry washing case study at the EU level. We express the impacts corresponding to the control variables of the individual Planetary Boundaries together with a measure of their respective uncertainties. We tested four sharing principles for assigning a share of the safe operating space (SoSOS) to laundry washing and assessed if the impacts were within the assigned SoSOS. The choice of sharing principle had the greatest influence on the outcome. We therefore highlight the need for more research on the development and choice of sharing principles. Although further work is required to operationalize Planetary Boundaries in LCA, this study shows the potential to relate impacts of human activities to environmental boundaries using LCA, offering company and policy decision-makers information needed to promote environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background : For decades, scientists have attempted to provide a sustainable development framework that integrates goals of environmental protection and human development. The Planetary Boundaries concept (PBc)—a framework to guide sustainable development—juxtaposes a ‘safe operating space for humanity’ and ‘planetary boundaries’, to achieve a goal that decades of research have yet to meet. We here investigate if PBc is sufficiently different to previous sustainability concepts to have the intended impact, and map how future sustainability concept developments might make a difference. Design : We build a genealogy of the research that is cited in and informs PBc. We analyze this genealogy with the support of two seminal and a new consumer-resource models, that provide simple and analytically tractable analogies to human-environment relationships. These models bring together environmental limits, minimum requirements for populations and relationships between resource-limited and waste-limited environments. Results : PBc is based on coherent knowledge about sustainability that has been in place in scientific and policy contexts since the 1980s. PBc represents the ultimate framing of limits to the use of the environment, as limits not to single resources, but to Holocene-like Earth system dynamics. Though seldom emphasized, the crux of the limits to sustainable environmental dynamics lies in waste (mis-)management, which sets where boundary values might be. Minimum requirements for populations are under-defined: it is the distribution of resources, opportunities and waste that shape what is a safe space and for whom. Discussion : We suggest that PBc is not different or innovative enough to break ‘Cassandra’s dilemma’ and ensure scientific research effectively guides humanity towards sustainable development. For this, key issues of equality must be addressed, un-sustainability must be framed as a problem of today, rather than projected into the future, and scientific foundations of frameworks such as PBc must be broadened and diversified.

In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods.

Renewable energy targets in the European Union (EU) have raised the demand for timber and are expected to increase dependence on imports. However, EU timber consumption levels are already disproportionally high compared to the rest of the world. The question is, how much timber is available for the EU to sustainably harvest and import, in particular considering sustainable forest management practices, a safe operating space for land-system change, and the global distribution of "common good" resources. This article approaches this question from a supply angle to develop a reference value range for the current as well as future sustainable supply of timber at the EU-27 and global levels. For current supply estimates, national-level data on forest area available for wood supply, productivity in that area, as well as the rate available for harvest were collected and aggregated into three potential supply scenarios. For future supply estimates, a safe operating space scenario halting land use change, a sensitivity analysis, and a literature review were performed. To provide both a comparison of global versus EU sustainable supply capacities and to develop a benchmark toward evaluating and comparing levels of consumption to sustainable supply capacities, per capita calculations were made. Results revealed that the per capita sustainable supply potential of EU forests is estimated to be around three times higher than the global average in 2050. Whether a global or EU reference value is more appropriate for EU policy orientation, considering both strengthened economic and cultural ties to the forest in forest-rich countries as well as the need to prevent problem shifting associated with exporting land demands abroad, is discussed. Further research is needed to strengthen and harmonize data, improve methods for modeling future scenarios and incorporate interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspectives toward the development of robust and politically relevant reference values for sustainable consumption levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study makes a first attempt to operationalize the safe operating space concept at a regional scale by considering the complex dynamics (e.g. non-linearity, feedbacks, and interactions) within a systems dynamic model (SD). We employ the model to explore eight ‘what if’ scenarios based on well-known challenges (e.g. climate change) and current policy debates (e.g. subsidy withdrawal). The findings show that the social-ecological system in the Bangladesh delta may move beyond a safe operating space when a withdrawal of a 50% subsidy for agriculture is combined with the effects of a 2 °C temperature increase and sea level rise. Further reductions in upstream river discharge in the Ganges would push the system towards a dangerous zone once a 3.5 °C temperature increase was reached. The social-ecological system in Bangladesh delta may be operated within a safe space by: 1) managing feedback (e.g. by reducing production costs) and the slow biophysical variables (e.g. temperature, rainfall) to increase the long-term resilience, 2) negotiating for transboundary water resources, and 3) revising global policies (e.g. withdrawal of subsidy) that negatively impact at regional scales. This study demonstrates how the concepts of tipping points, limits to adaptations, and boundaries for sustainable development may be defined in real world social-ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The planetary boundaries define a safe operating space for humanity to act within without potentially destabilizing the planet. The safe operating space is often used a sustainability reference in Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessments (AESAs) where a share of the safe operating space (SoSOS) is assigned to the assessed activity. An identified challenge is that current methods are suited for business-to-consumer (B2C) industries and companies, but ill-suited for assessments of business-to-business (B2B) as the sharing is often based on the direct value to humans. Thus, this study presents a systematic framework for assigning a SoSOS to both B2C and B2B industries and companies. The framework uses multi-region input-output models to link industries and to estimate the direct and indirect value to humans for both B2B and B2C industries. The framework was tested in a case study for a B2B company to show its application and to evaluate the sensitivity of the framework towards different modelling choices. The results of the case study and sensitivity analyses were used to provide recommendations for further improvement of the framework. While there is still need for improvement and refinement, the framework shows large potential. Mainly because it directly facilitates AESA of B2B industries and companies, in order to help gauging their environmental performance relative to absolute boundaries and, thus, provide better basis supporting strategic sustainability related activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have tightened regulations pertaining to drug manufacturing and research based on the concept of Quality by Design (QbD) in order to improve drug quality and safety. Although many QbD methods have been reported in the pharmaceutical research community, there is room for improvement associated with design space identification. The primary motivation of this paper is to propose an alternative identification method for generating a safe, multidimensional design space for quality-oriented drug development. First of all, the functional relationships between input factors and their associated output responses are exploited and estimated by using response surface methodology (RSM). Second, the normal acceptable ranges can also be obtained while customising statistical confidence and prediction intervals for RSM. Following this, a safe multidimensional design space is generated on an overlay contour plot including the importance of input factors. Finally, a case study for a drug development process is performed for verification purposes. From the proposed method, significant improvement in drug quality through factors such as variability reduction, statistical reliability, and the reproducibility of quality characteristics can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]