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Recognizing that management scholarship does not adequately address the preservation of natural resources, an ecological resource orchestration model is introduced in this article. To this end, we build on the case of Poiscaille, a French online platform that offers a distribution model for ultra-fresh fish and seafood with the goal of preserving the ocean for future generations. Using the extended case method, this study advances the resource orchestration model through an empirical case. The Poiscaille case provides rich insights into the resource orchestration model by showing how it fosters the sustainable management of natural resources. Thus, this article contributes to natural resource management research and the resource-based view literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing calls for circularity in business, the trending Circular Economy (CE) is not converting into action and the global usage of secondary material is declining. Addressing this gap is vital for our future well-being. Hence, more research is needed on whether and how companies translate broader CE discourses into their future visions. This study employed frame analysis to investigate how the CE's meaning and goals are being envisioned and shaped in companies' external communication to advance their future goals. Drawing empirical insights from documents focused on 41 Finnish self-declared front-runner CE companies from various industries, the paper contributes to current CE literature in two ways. First, five distinct future vision frames were identified – technological utopia, outsourcing circularity, business-as-usual, market leader, and systemic change – that demonstrate how self-described front-runner companies communicated circularity to their stakeholders. Second, the study demonstrates how company-level future visions align with or differ from macro-level CE visions. The study found that even self-described frontrunner CE companies were reluctant to align with strong sustainability in their framing, limiting the transformative potential of CE in business context. The findings have implications for managers regarding how they can assess their future visions from the perspective of weak or strong sustainability.

Hungary relies heavily on fossil and nuclear fuel imports from Russia. An urgent challenge is to develop a more sustainable and more independent energy system. There is a 2019 and a 2023 (draft) version of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) but they arguably do not follow this direction. However, there are also alternative scenarios for Hungary that propose more comprehensive changes. This paper compares the targets proposed by the Hungarian NECPs to those proposed in two alternative studies: the sufficiency-based European-focused CLEVER (Collaborative Low Energy Vision for the European Region) scenario (created by a research team including 26 partner organisations from 20 European countries), and the de-growth-based “This Way Ahead” (TWA) scenario (which is the result of a Hungarian inter-university research, coordinated by the ELTE University's energy geography research group). A new element of this recent study is the simulation of hourly electricity supply and demand in these scenarios using EnergyPLAN to compare import requirements, potential surplus generation, and self-sufficiency. The review shows that the NECPs need to be reconsidered to increase the share of decentralized renewable electricity supply in a way that allows progress without increasing energy use and environmental burdens. Priority must be given to the rapid expansion of wind energy capacity by at least 10–20 times, which should be complemented by biogas-based flexible energy supply.

This document is a list of references and citations from various sources related to the topic of payments for ecosystem services (PES) and their impact on sustainability and livelihoods. The sources cover a range of perspectives and research studies on the subject, including case studies from different countries and regions. The document provides a comprehensive collection of scholarly articles and reports that library patrons can use to further explore the topic of PES and its implications for environmental conservation and poverty alleviation. [Extracted from the article]

Water security is a global concern sharpened by the biggest humanity challenge of climatic crisis. With the end of designing and implementing efficient and sustainable water management strategies, it is necessary to recognize the interdependence and coevolution between natural and social systems and understand how the double way relationships between these systems shape sustainability. The socio‐ecological systems (SES) sustainability approach is an alternative to this end. Conceptual challenges have been identified in the analysis of the sustainability of SES. These challenges include (i) A lack of clarity in the definition of SES sustainability, (ii) the non‐inclusion of some inherent SES characteristics that determine critical thresholds, and (iii) a lack of conceptual frameworks for analyzing the sustainability of SES and water security‐related ecosystem services. This study proposes a conceptual framework, based on a strong sustainability approach, for analyzing SES sustainability focusing on water security and addressing the above‐mentioned challenges. This conceptual development includes three elements: (i) the key thresholds to ensure ecological functionality; (ii) the benefits that society derives from ecological functioning and; (iii) the two‐way relationship between natural capital and social systems. Analyzing these three elements helps identification of different sustainability states of SESs, focusing on water security, in the presence of endogenous or exogenous drivers of change. The conceptualization and operationalization of SES sustainability focusing on water security allows the analysis of the trajectories of change and provides insights into the required water management strategies in the target territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some human activities have caused a serious environmental crisis, producing irreversible damage and loss of resources and diversity, which is why a strong sustainability approach is required to keep human activities within planetary boundaries. However, a strong sustainability concept can be difficult for teachers to convey and for students to grasp, because it has few practical examples and applying it seems utopian. This article presents a teaching strategy of active learning for teaching strong sustainability at the university level and evaluates its usefulness for empowering students for another type of relationship with the environment. The teaching strategy is supported by a pedagogy that promotes critical thinking and recognizes learning as a way of questioning and empowering oneself. The teaching strategy was successfully applied in three university subjects that promote environmental education. Based on an online questionnaire to enrolled students (N = 87; 46F, 41M), the perspective of the teacher and the critical-thinking of authors, it was demonstrated that the teaching strategy allowed the strong sustainability concept to be appropriated by students of different disciplines, and demonstrated the feasibility of its practical application. Finally, the teaching strategy can be useful for teaching several disciplines, for curricular integration, and for promoting societal changes to achieve sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the environmental sustainability of Japan by applying the environmental sustainability gap (ESGAP) framework, which builds on the concepts of strong sustainability, critical natural capital, environmental functions, and science-based reference values. The assessment is carried out using two indices of environmental sustainability (Strong Environmental Sustainability Index (SESI) and Strong Environmental Sustainability Progress Index (SESPI)) that provide a snapshot and a trend perspective on environmental sustainability performance and on progress toward it. The results reveal that Japan has not experienced significant changes in terms of aggregate environmental sustainability throughout the 2011–2017 period, but this is primarily a consequence of the mutually offsetting movements of different indicators. The country performs best for the human health and other welfare indicators, but worst for the sink function indicators such as the per-capita CO2 emissions and the eutrophication of fresh water. The indices also expose the main policy areas that Japan needs to strengthen to improve its environmental performance. They include issues such as tropospheric ozone pollution, which has long been discussed in scientific literature but never been a primal policy focus of the government until very recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the problem of sustainable development of Ukraine's regions, since competitive regions are a source of balanced and sustainable development of the entire country. It was emphasized that the development of the development management strategy of any region of Ukraine should be based on the environmental safety policy, the current norms and requirements of which must be adapted in accordance with European standards. The subject of the study is the greening of tourist activity as a factor in the sustainable development of the regions of Ukraine. The purpose of the study is to build a model of sustainable development of regional tourism based on the ecosystem restoration of security of the tourist and recreational potential of Ukraine in the post-war period. Tasks that were set to achieve the goal: to investigate the management mechanism of sustainable development of regional tourism; to analyze the impact of military actions on the ecological state of the regions of Ukraine; to propose a program model for the sustainable development of tourism in Ukraine. In accordance with this direction of research, the author chose and applied the following methodological approaches: systemic and institutional when considering the interrelationships of actors at both the national and regional levels. Within the framework of the system approach, the functioning of the tourism industry of Ukraine was investigated within the framework of new ecological realities. Thanks to the institutional approach, the necessary legal framework for the sustainable development of tourism was considered. The following results were obtained. The authors proposed the formation of a model of sustainable development of tourism, which emphasizes the sustainability of ecological, economic, cultural and social spheres, taking into account the ranking of factors of sustainable development depending on the level of sustainability. The proposed model takes into account an important aspect - after the war, it will be necessary to ensure different levels of sustainability for individual regions of Ukraine.

This study conceptually characterizes and theoretically represents the four main sustainability paradigms (strong sustainability, weak sustainability, de-growth, and a-growth) in terms of equality and inequality. It then applies these conditions to developed and less-developed countries (OECD and non-OECD countries) and empirically shows that the change in production technology (∆θ) required by a-growth is impossible and the change in consumption preferences (∆α) required by de-growth is unfeasible. Finally, it combines a-growth and de-growth in a theoretical solution for the relationship between ∆α and ∆θ that meets the conditions required by both strong and weak sustainability (parameters are the world’s population, consumption preferences, and production technologies or concerns for nature and future generations in developed and less-developed countries) and empirically demonstrates that this solution is feasible. In particular, sustainability turns out to be an ethical issue more than a technological issue, and the ethical concern for nature turns out to be more favorable than the ethical concern for future generations. Ethical assumptions and implications of the four main sustainability paradigms are highlighted and ethical assumptions and implications of the combined theoretical model are discussed. In particular, intergenerational efficiency is achieved in terms of welfare, and intergenerational equity is achieved in terms of environmental status.

Given the strategic role of design when addressing societal changes and its prominence in the circular economy (CE) discourse and practice during the past decade, a plethora of tools and methods is nowadays available to support organizations in the transition from a linear model of production to a circular one. The need for an intersection of CE, corporate sustainability, strategic design and strong sustainability is gaining momentum. Considering (a) the critical voices pointing out several limitations to the CE concept, (b) the call for linking CE to a strong sustainability paradigm and (c) the implementation mechanisms for an effective contribution to sustainable development, the focus of this research is to address the gap in CE and circular design frameworks due to missing elements therein for its successful implementation, using a Delphi method approach. Our results strongly suggest that the current CE and circular design concepts and practices are insufficient to meet the challenge of addressing strong sustainability, and new models are needed. To conclude, a new definition of design for CE in a strong sustainability paradigm and a first approach to the main elements of the new model assisted by guiding principles are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Non-technical summary The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are at the core of the development agenda. Despite their wide adoption, it is still unclear the extent to which they can provide insights on environmental sustainability. The paper presents an assessment of the potential of the indicators used in the SDGs to track environmental sustainability. The results show that only a few SDG indicators describe the state of the environment, and those that do so, do not, generally, have science-based targets that describe whether environmental sustainability conditions are met. The latter aspect should be reinforced in framework that will replace the SDGs after 2030. Technical summary The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are at the core of the development agenda. Despite their wide adoption, it is still unclear whether they can be used to monitor environmental sustainability, if this is to be understood from a strong sustainability perspective. The paper presents an assessment of the adequacy of the indicator sets used by United Nations, Eurostat, OECD, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for strong sustainability monitoring. The results show that most environmental indicators do not have science-based environmental standards that reflect whether natural capital meets environmental sustainability conditions, thereby preventing their use as strong sustainability indicators. While meeting the SDGs would likely contribute to improving environmental performance, on their own they are not adequate to monitor progress toward it. Complementary scientifically grounded metrics are needed to track the underlying state of natural capital that provides non-substitutable functions. The strong sustainability dimension within the SDGs will need to be strengthened in post-2030 sustainable development monitoring framework. Social media summary The Sustainable Development Goals are insufficient to monitor environmental sustainability.

This brief introduction discusses the concept of strong sustainability from three basic pillars: The non-substitutability of natural capital, the necessity to have holistic analysis of sustainability using multi-dimensional criteria, and the construction of a new social contract to formulate sustainable trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we assess the validity of the elasticity of substitution indicator to evaluate natural resource substitution. After clarifying the importance of the static equilibrium hypothesis for the development of such an indicator, we demonstrate that its application to growth conditions imposes the observation of decreasing inflows of natural resource as a necessary consequence. We derive this result without making any assumptions not recognized by advocates of the neoclassical approach. In addition to refuting the neoclassical substitution model, this result helps clarify the relationship observed since the Industrial Revolution between the physical and economic substitution of natural resources.

Realizing a circular economy (CE) has been widely recognized by practitioners and researchers as the key to the transition toward sustainability. Thus far the academic emphasis has been predominantly on economic and environmental aspects. However, the development and implementation of CE initiatives actually rely on extensive collaboration at the societal level. Hence, an understanding of how a more inclusive society can strengthen the transition is warranted. By systematically and critically reviewing the related academic literature, the results of this paper show that sensitivity to inclusion aspects is crucial to alleviate the transitional burdens on society. Seven main aspects were discerned on inclusion: (1) informal waste pickers, (2) e-waste and health risks, (3) accessibility of services/materials/facilities, (4) consumer behavior, (5) corporate and institutional involvement, (6) technology application, and (7) governance measures. Following these insights, a strong sustainability perspective and agenda on the CE transition are proposed by identifying key actors and structuring their interrelationships as an inclusive system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tracce Urbane: Rivista Italiana Transdisciplinare di Studi Urbani is the property of Sapienza University Press 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.)

Copyright of Terra: Revista de Desarrollo Local is the property of Terra: Revista de Desarrollo Local 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.)

Copyright of Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente is the property of Universidade Federal do Parana 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.)

Context: Managing land use to promote an ecosystem service (ES) without reducing others is challenging. The spatial scale at which no-loss constraints are imposed is relevant. Objectives: We examined the influence of the spatial scale of no-loss constraints on ESs when one ES was optimised. Specifically, we investigated how carbon sequestration could be maximized at different spatial scales in France with constraints of no-loss on other ESs. Methods: We used a statistical model linking land use and land cover variables to ESs [carbon sequestration (CS), crop production (CP), livestock production, timber growth] in French small agricultural regions (SARs). We optimised CS at the country scale posing no-loss constraints on other ESs at increasing spatial scales, i.e., SARs (scenario 'SARs'), department ('DEP'), administrative region ('REG'), and France ("FRANCE"). We analysed differences between optimized and initial configurations. Results: Optimized CS at the country scale increased with the spatial scale at which no-loss constraints were posed (~+ 0.51% for 'DEP' and ~+ 2.05% for 'FRANCE'). The variability of ES variation among the SARs similarly increased. This suggested that constraints at larger scales lead to ES segregation. Correlations among ES variations changed with the scenarios (Spearman's ρ between CS and CP was − 0.43 for 'DEP' and − 0.70 for 'FRANCE'). This indicated that different land use strategies produce different degrees of enhancement/softening of ES trade-offs/synergies. Conclusions: A trade-off was highlighted: larger spatial scales promoted better performance of the target ES but also spatial inequality. We argue that addressing smaller scales will lead to land-sharing solutions that avoid the local environmental impacts of land-sparing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After explaining the content coverage and elementary explanation of the basic dimensions of the paradigm of sustainable development, the concept of sustainability is considered in the light of preserving the total amount of capital in the production process, assuming no technological change and population growth. The research task set in this way brought to the fore the extremely complex question of the substitutability of produced and natural capital (stocks of natural resources and carrying capacity of the environment). The answer to it is directly related to the concept of weak and strong sustainability. The concept of poor sustainability allows substitutability between produced and natural capital, provided that the total amount of available capital does not decrease. On the contrary, the concept of strong sustainability implies a special observation of produced and natural capital. It practically eliminates the possibility of replacing one form of capital with another in the production process and from the point of view of the development economy is the only acceptable option in the long run. If unlimited substitution between natural and produced capital is allowed, then natural resources will eventually be depleted due to the creation of produced capital.

The evolution of the development discourse is profoundly political. Despite a range of innovations the situation remains much the same, and has led over time to the dominance of the economic growth model. Whilst academic/ideological vigour, policy relevance and institutional support, together with intellectual independence, are essential; too radical an alternative approach would be dismissed by mainstream opinion, either by design or neglect. To survive and to remain influential, any alternative requires the mainstream to engage with it for political feasibility. The development discourse has thus evolved through a delicate balancing act, acknowledging a need for a cautiously optimistic outlook. By tracing changes in two approaches to development (basic needs and human development) and in two global development goals (millennium development goals and sustainable development goals) through their selection and use of indicators, this article explores both the explicit and the implicit power of the mainstream in the past and present alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The weak and strong sustainable development models are analysed in this paper. The emergence of weak and strong models of sustainable development, the bases and principles that distinguish them from each other, as well as the arguments of the supporters of these approaches are studied. It is noted in this paper that, believing that there can be a smooth replacement of resources, the weak sustainability approach does not see any environmental threat to economic growth. The disadvantage of this approach is that it does not take into account the fact that human life would be unstable if the basic natural resources were depleted without any compensation. From this viewpoint, the arguments of the strong sustainability approach are considered more realistic and accepted as more attractive. A strong approach to sustainable development, which is a more cautious approach to economic growth, emphasises that sustainable development can be achieved through environmental responsibility. Ensuring environmental responsibility is presented as one of the important conditions for economic expediency and social solidarity. Strong sustainability model opposes the possibility that human capital can be replaced by natural capital. Analysing the positions of those scientists, who support strong sustainability, it is concluded that the replacement of development characterised by quantitative growth with qualitative sustainable development to increase welfare is one of the important principles of strong sustainable development.

The principal aim of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is to foster sustainable development. Sustainability can be conceived along a 'weak' and 'strong' continuum, in which the latter holds that substitution of natural capital is severely limited, and evidence suggests that weak sustainability prevails in decision-making supported by EIA. Therefore, based on the assumption that strong sustainability is the required goal to protect biodiversity and mitigate future climate change, the aim of this paper is to establish the concept of transformative effectiveness to better evaluate how EIA can foster the transformation of stakeholders' frames of references towards strong sustainability. The EIA systems of the US, EU, and Brazil were analyzed to identify the implicit and explicit drivers towards transformative change to a strong sustainability goal. A literature review of transformative change within impact assessment was used for identifying the necessary changes that need to come from both within policy actor networks and from the wider social-ecological-technological system in which EIA operates. From this, a new dimension of transactive effectiveness is characterized that can help to evaluate the extent to which EIA practice is transforming towards strong sustainability as a goal. • Transformative effectiveness for evaluating EIA introduced. • Strong sustainability purpose and principles in EIA identified. • Transformative purposes of EIA in Brazil, European Union, and US detailed. • How learning in EIA can transform stakeholders' values. • Transformation change in EIA at micro- macro- and meta-scales discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of REUNIR: Revista de Administração, Contabilidade e Sustentabilidade is the property of REUNIR - Revista de Administracao, Contabilidade e Sustentabilidade 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.)

The Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Asia and the Pacific (MCED-5) provided a regional implementation plan to pursue economic development in Asia-Pacific. Achieving environmentally sustainable economic growth or green growth is considered necessary by the ministerial declaration of the conference. The ministerial declaration defines green growth as an approach to sustaining economic growth and employment creation, a prerequisite for effective poverty reduction while coping with natural resource constraints and climate change. Based on the importance of green growth, the study seeks to investigate the progress towards sustainable economic development in Pakistan from 1990 to 2019. The study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the direct and indirect effects of the variables of the green growth model adopted in the MCED-5. The results of the study indicate that an increase in the net national income of the country leads to increased natural resource depletion. The declining stock of natural capital points towards the difficulty in fulfilling biocapacity sustainability in Pakistan while achieving social progress and declining carbon intensity in the quest for sustainable development. Based on the analysis, it can be claimed that the negative impact of increasing inclusive wealth on natural capital makes Pakistan in environmental terms a weakly sustainable nation. Thus, the conclusion is that Pakistan is following a path of weak sustainability. As a result, there is a need to shift the country's sustainable economic development from weak sustainability to strong sustainability if the increasing natural resource depletion is to be restrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the sustainable development strategy by the United Nations and the 10th anniversary of eco-civilization becoming one of the key elements of China' s modernization. Sustainability science is a theoretical study of sustainable development but there are opinion conflicts between weak sustainability and strong sustainability. Eco-civilization is recognized as China' s agenda for sustainable development but would be potential to contribute to the theoretical construction of sustainability science. Based on policies and practices of eco-civilization in China and discussing five controversial key issues, this article shows that China' s eco-civilization is strong-sustainability-oriented, and suggests that the theory base of sustainability science should include five critical elements with logic relationships. The five critical elements pursue the social and economic prosperity within Earth' s bio-physical limits; consider controlling eco-scale much more important than improving eco-efficiency; introduce different transition models for developed and developing countries, respectively; set up a three-level framework for sustainable development; and organize the interdisciplinary studies into an integrated paradigm. This article concludes that academic studies of sustainable development need to be updated to a new version with strong sustainability as a core principle, and that China' s eco-civilization as a social movement of such a large scale unprecedented in the rest of the world could play a leading role in deepening and developing sustainability science. [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 aim of this study is to define the concept of sustainability as it applies to one of the most competitive and accelerated subsystem of human activity, elite sport (or professional sport) to construct a robust understanding of it. Based on qualitative research with Hungarian Olympic athletes, we created an elite-sport-based Sustainable Sport questionnaire with 23 statements to test and map emerging topics related to elite sport. Revealed elements of Sustainable Sport include (1) future orientation, (2) community, (3) decommodification, and (4) a redefined concept of performance. This definition reflects the problems of sport particularly, and (hypothetically) of society and the economy in general. It points toward both environmental sustainability (strong sustainability) and enhanced wellbeing and may serve as a broader guide to human activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business action for sustainability is still mostly limited to 'weakly sustainable' activities that do not significantly change the way of doing business and only decrease negative environmental and societal impacts of doing business to a limited extent. Strongly sustainable business creates positive environmental, economic and social value and operates within the boundaries of the planet. Tools to help companies transform to this paradigm are still lacking. This research developed and tested the game-based tool "The Road to Flourishing". The tool aims to raise knowledge and change intended behaviour of business sustainability. The tool evaluation used a Theory of Planned Behaviour lens to understand whether the game play could change players' attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control, intended behaviour, and knowledge of business sustainability. A pre-post-survey was filled in by 220 participants with background in academia, business, business studies and consultancy. It was evaluated using t-tests to find potential changes due to the gameplay. Statistically significant differences were observed in players' knowledge levels and some components of intended behaviour but not the behavioural intention itself. We suggest using insights from other research streams to test sustainable business tools and ensure that they meet their intended objectives. We furthermore support the call for ensuring that businesses incorporate a strong sustainability paradigm and hope that The Road to Flourishing can help in this endeavour. • The game-based tool The Road to Flourishing was developed and its impact tested. • Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the potential impact on players was assessed. • The objectives to change behaviour and increase knowledge were partially met. • The gameplay changed some components of intended behaviour but not all. • Knowledge of the concepts for strongly sustainable business action increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability faces numerous challenges when applied to the real-world global economic model of capitalism. In implementing sustainability planning based on the triple bottom line (TBL), the prevailing trend of the economic pillar compromises both the environment and society. A new vision of enduring sustainability is proposed in this paper to address such challenges by first considering the global economic model in the real world and, second, having strong core values of sustainability. To evaluate the first characteristic, a review of the literature regarding capitalism and TBL-sustainability has been conducted. For the second characteristic, a historical–philosophical discussion around the role of society and the economy has been conducted. The results suggest that a realistic sustainable society requires a fixed and sustained focus on environmental and social pillars together with a flexible organisation of society (including its economic model). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitalisation of industrial production and the actual positive and negative consequences for sustainable development are not yet sufficiently understood. This study describes and evaluates the linkages between corporate digitalisation and sustainability management based on qualitative data analysis of sustainability reports of DAX 30 companies and applying the concept of sustainability worldviews. The results show a predominate worldview of weak or business‐centred sustainability on digitalisation, which could potentially pose a threat to sustainable development. In particular, the focus on customer demands without stakeholder involvement and the worldview of digitalisation as a way of doing 'business as‐usual' but in a more effective way reproduces unsustainable economic patterns. A holistic sustainable approach on digitalisation should also include possible negative impacts like increased resource consumption which is not the case yet in the studied companies. Different types of 'sustainability worldviews on digitalisation' can be distinguished. While 'Pioneer' companies can inform policy‐making, the other types of 'Intermediates', 'Indecisive' and 'Laggards' could be addressed by information exchange, support and regulation to promote a more sustainable worldview on corporate digitalisation. The 'Unsustainable' digitalisation type would be the most difficult to address with soft policy instruments and requires a more regulated approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The negative impact of the dominant socioeconomic paradigm on the biosphere, on the climate, and on societies themselves is acute. Yet, the success of countries is measured by indicators known to be limited because they target a socially attractive but environmentally unsustainable model of society. A myriad of indicators have been proposed to address this lack of relevant measurements that assess the real social achievements of countries. At the same time, the impacts of human societies on life and climate have become increasingly well monitored and have shown the ecological deadlock of the dominant development model. Although social and environmental thresholds have been highlighted, combined indices that allow countries to track their trajectories toward greater social justice without exceeding biophysical thresholds are still lacking. A combined socio-environmental index (SEI) is constructed here to fill this gap. The relationship between SEI and gross domestic product (GDP), population density and sustainable development index (SDI) is then analyzed. This allows for a re-examination of the Easterlin paradox from a social and environmental perspective. In addition, considering population density allows to test the influence of population on the country's sustainability success. It is shown that combining social and environmental thresholds into a combined index is not only feasible but provides a useful complementary tool to detailed and specific social or environmental indicators. SEI highlights and quantifies the limits, already exceeded in many countries, beyond which economic development is clearly related to a decline in social achievements and a crossing of biophysical thresholds. Unlike GDP, population density and population growth were not found as being related to the current unsustainable development model. Therefore, the results call for a degrowth in the environmental impact of high-income countries, which may result in social improvements and yield room of maneuver for the development of social foundations in other countries. All of these transformations require new narratives, goals, and measurement tools that can be partly provided by SEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of economics, the two main branches that deal with the analyses of economy-ecology interactions are Environmental and Resource Economics (ERE) and Ecological Economics (EE). The latter is typically characterized as being fundamentally at odds with ERE’s negligence of biophysical constraints to economic activity. EE has proceeded to develop as a pluralist and trans-disciplinary field whose literature engages in the stipulation of previously overlooked considerations. For some, this pluralism represents the biggest strength: its success hinges on both the acceptance of multiple and incommensurable epistemologies that detect fissures in the dominant epistemology and the debate that arises out of the different delineations of dissent. Others argue that over the course of EE’s existence, pluralism has been insufficiently able to rid the field from mainstream, particularly neoclassical, economic epistemologies and formalisms. The aim of this paper is to provide recommendations for the development of an alternative to the current formal abstractions of ecology-economy configurations. This is done through a reinterpretation of the natural capital concept from an eco-Marxist perspective. After introducing the natural capital concept and discussing how the treatment thereof differs across ERE and EE, we isolate strong sustainability as one of the main attributes of EE when it comes to formalization practices. Strong sustainability’s prescription to treat natural capital as a complementary input in economic production functions has led to the implementation of various strategies concerning natural capital conservation. The bulk of these strategies has subsequently relied on monetary valuation for the purpose of embedding conservation strategies within the broader rationale of the market. In this paper we discuss monetary valuation in light of planetary boundaries, such as atmospheric sink capacities, and ecosystem services such as the habitat provision for endangered species. Critical studies have identified the monetary valuation of biophysical and ecological processes as commodification and we address both the theorized and experienced contradictions it is associated with. In our view, the logic behind the exchange value assessment of ecological processes can easily be traced back to the underlying assumptions of mathematical formalization in EE. In order to dissect these assumptions, we find it fruitful to draw on ecological Marxism. After introducing the reader to the gist of Marx’s ecological insights we discuss the concept of dualism in ecological Marxism and economics. We contend that our explicit focus on mathematical formalization forecloses a complete rejection of dualism since the specification of variables requires a process of conceptual distinction. This is why we adopt the notion of duality; where the separation and opposition between two essential elements is replaced by interdependence. Having positioned ourselves in the eco-Marxist debate on dualism, we then proceed with a discussion of Marx’s labour process theory and Moore’s world-ecology. The labour process is subject to two elements: ‘purpose realisation’ and ‘material metabolism’. The first refers to labour as an imposition of human intention; causing nature to capitulate to humanity’s will. ‘Material metabolism’ describes labour as an exchange or mediation between itself and nature. World-ecology offers an ecological interpretation of capital accumulation over the course of history. One of the concepts used to distinguish historical ecology-economy configurations, or world-ecological regimes, over capitalism’s long-dureé is the ecological surplus. This is a ratio between the system-wide appropriation and capitalization of both human and extra-human inputs. High ecological surpluses allow capital accumulation to proceed by means of labour productivity gains which are facilitated by appropriated labours, entities and processes. Low ecological surpluses hamper accumulation and trigger investments in new sources of appropriation, cheaper capitalized inputs or efficiency increasing technologies. How do these two eco-Marxist insights facilitate a reinterpretation of the assumptions underlying the practice of mathematical formalization in EE? Through the concept of the ecological surplus, world-ecology allows us to consider the commodification of ecological processes as an instance of capitalization. When valuation techniques disclose the benefit of an ecological process in monetary terms, said ecological process can be treated as an input in the production function. But according to world-ecology, an increase in capitalization also diminishes the ecological surplus which subsequently hampers capital accumulation. This begs us to question why the capitalization of ecological processes is a dominant strategy in response to ecological degradations. We argue that capitalization is a fruitful strategy in the face of future constraints to accumulation, such as diminished labour or human-made capital productivity and/or future opportunities for accumulation through for example, greenwashing. Marx’s labour process theory allows us to further argue that the incentives which capitalization aim to foster can be seen as desired alternations to the ‘material metabolism’ element of the labour process. The socially defined set of ‘purpose realisations’ on the other hand remains faithful to “the endowment of natural objects with humanistic forms for the purpose not of use value creation, but exchange value accumulation”. This leads us to conclude that the depiction of economy-ecology configurations by means of natural capital which enters the production function supports the underlying assumption that ecological sustainability is best achieved when capital bargains on behalf of nature. Furthermore, by explicitly focusing on capitalized ecological processes, the status-quo of formal abstraction in EE presumes dualism and is therefore incomplete. We argue that a more comprehensive portrayal requires the consideration of appropriated ecological processes in order to capture reciprocity and the unified management of interdependent flows which reproduce metabolic value. To this end, we introduce a trivial conceptual framework which summarizes the (proposed) mathematical formalization of economy-ecology configurations across ERE, EE and Ecological Marxism. The formal abstraction we propose from an eco-Marxist perspective is not only based on the consideration of appropriated ecological processes but also imposes duality instead of dualism between the ‘societal’ and ‘natural’ elements of production. The contribution of Ecological Marxism in this paper should not be seen as the formulation of an alternative to capitalization. Our proposed formal abstraction is based on the assumption that the ‘purpose realisation’ element of the labour process facilitates the goal of exchange value accumulation. Instead, we hope our contribution has shown that Ecological Marxism provides useful insights which can stretch the current confines of EE’s mathematical formalization; allowing for a more comprehensive portrayal of economy-ecology configurations.