Pub Date : 2024-06-03DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000112
Michał Bączyk, K. Frenken, M. Punt, I. Wanzenböck
This study analyzes the role of international alliances in the adoption of new technology at the national level. We look at the worldwide diffusion of six key infrastructure technologies during the past six decades among 161 countries: nuclear power, solar power, wind power, marine power, high-speed rail, and telecommunication satellites. Acknowledging that international relations are not solely structured by formal alliances, we further investigate the impact of neighboring states on technology diffusion, as neighbors tend to maintain strong economic and cultural ties. We further look at simple imitation effects between states with similar political systems. With our focus on international alliances as drivers of international technology diffusion, our study complements economic studies on technology diffusion. For most of the technologies, we find evidence for spillovers between allied states as well as between neighboring states, while no such evidence was found for institutionally similar states. These results confirm the important role that international alliances may play in technology diffusion.
{"title":"International alliances and technology diffusion: A worldwide analysis of adoption of energy, railway and satellite technologies","authors":"Michał Bączyk, K. Frenken, M. Punt, I. Wanzenböck","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000112","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzes the role of international alliances in the adoption of new technology at the national level. We look at the worldwide diffusion of six key infrastructure technologies during the past six decades among 161 countries: nuclear power, solar power, wind power, marine power, high-speed rail, and telecommunication satellites. Acknowledging that international relations are not solely structured by formal alliances, we further investigate the impact of neighboring states on technology diffusion, as neighbors tend to maintain strong economic and cultural ties. We further look at simple imitation effects between states with similar political systems. With our focus on international alliances as drivers of international technology diffusion, our study complements economic studies on technology diffusion. For most of the technologies, we find evidence for spillovers between allied states as well as between neighboring states, while no such evidence was found for institutionally similar states. These results confirm the important role that international alliances may play in technology diffusion.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"42 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141270018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-22DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000109
J. Ford, Peter G. Taylor
If the UK is to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2050, significant land-use change will be required. More woodland will have to be created and more perennial energy crops (PECs) will need to be grown. Land will also be required for food production, habitat restoration, and for new settlements. Government intervention will be required if landowners are to deliver this transition in land use. This research identified 43 policies that had been proposed for delivering increased planting of PECs and new woodlands. Their desirability, feasibility and potential effectiveness were assessed by a panel of experts using a policy Delphi method. Results showed that the most important was a comprehensive land-use policy, which will have to be delivered by the post-Brexit, Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme in the UK. PEC cultivation could be most effectively encouraged by delivering investment or incentives to electricity generators at the top of the supply chain. Woodland creation requires support from attractive, well-administered grants to replace annual farm income. Educational and informational policies are also needed to breakdown the divisions between the farming and forestry sectors, and to overcome reluctance of landowners and farmers to grow non-food crops.
{"title":"An assessment of policies to promote perennial energy crop and woodland planting","authors":"J. Ford, Peter G. Taylor","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000109","url":null,"abstract":"If the UK is to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2050, significant land-use change will be required. More woodland will have to be created and more perennial energy crops (PECs) will need to be grown. Land will also be required for food production, habitat restoration, and for new settlements. Government intervention will be required if landowners are to deliver this transition in land use. This research identified 43 policies that had been proposed for delivering increased planting of PECs and new woodlands. Their desirability, feasibility and potential effectiveness were assessed by a panel of experts using a policy Delphi method. Results showed that the most important was a comprehensive land-use policy, which will have to be delivered by the post-Brexit, Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme in the UK. PEC cultivation could be most effectively encouraged by delivering investment or incentives to electricity generators at the top of the supply chain. Woodland creation requires support from attractive, well-administered grants to replace annual farm income. Educational and informational policies are also needed to breakdown the divisions between the farming and forestry sectors, and to overcome reluctance of landowners and farmers to grow non-food crops.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141109093","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000107
Malte Hager, Khaled Alzafari, Lubna Rashid
Amidst the increasing ecological pressures arising from industrial activity and consumerism, with particularly tangible impacts outside of the global north, the private sector is being held accountable to reduce its environmental footprint and transition to sustainable business models and processes. Nevertheless, perceptions of sustainability and its dimensions largely vary between cultures and contexts, while local media discourses both shape and reflect those concepts and narratives. This in turn shapes sustainability practices and the nature and impacts of emerging entrepreneurial business activity. Given the dearth of sustainability research in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) and the region’s extreme vulnerability to climate change, pollution, draughts combined with political instability and institutional fragility, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of media narratives at the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship in the region. This was done by means of the machine learning method of topic modelling on two datasets of 486 and 217 news media articles extracted from a major regional English-language news outlet, followed by a manual content analysis of the extracted topics and articles. We find that the term sustainability is highly associated with economic prosperity and that ecology-related themes are often formulated in terms of financial gain, for instance transitioning out of oil & gas dependence. We find a surprising lack of focus on water scarcity and biodiversity, coupled with a welcomed focus on the energy transition, recycling, urban mobility, as well as social networking and minority integration. Our findings hence provide a nuanced contextual understanding of sustainability, which may support businesses and decision-makers alike in (re)defining priorities and reflecting upon the status quo and necessary next steps in the transition to more sustainable societies.
{"title":"Media narratives on (Ecological) sustainability: A topic modeling analysis of entrepreneurship news in the MENA region","authors":"Malte Hager, Khaled Alzafari, Lubna Rashid","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000107","url":null,"abstract":"Amidst the increasing ecological pressures arising from industrial activity and consumerism, with particularly tangible impacts outside of the global north, the private sector is being held accountable to reduce its environmental footprint and transition to sustainable business models and processes. Nevertheless, perceptions of sustainability and its dimensions largely vary between cultures and contexts, while local media discourses both shape and reflect those concepts and narratives. This in turn shapes sustainability practices and the nature and impacts of emerging entrepreneurial business activity. Given the dearth of sustainability research in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) and the region’s extreme vulnerability to climate change, pollution, draughts combined with political instability and institutional fragility, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of media narratives at the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship in the region. This was done by means of the machine learning method of topic modelling on two datasets of 486 and 217 news media articles extracted from a major regional English-language news outlet, followed by a manual content analysis of the extracted topics and articles. We find that the term sustainability is highly associated with economic prosperity and that ecology-related themes are often formulated in terms of financial gain, for instance transitioning out of oil & gas dependence. We find a surprising lack of focus on water scarcity and biodiversity, coupled with a welcomed focus on the energy transition, recycling, urban mobility, as well as social networking and minority integration. Our findings hence provide a nuanced contextual understanding of sustainability, which may support businesses and decision-makers alike in (re)defining priorities and reflecting upon the status quo and necessary next steps in the transition to more sustainable societies.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"13 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141020001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-25DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000108
Haruna Sekabira, S. Feleke, Victor Manyong, Leonhard Späth, P. Krütli, Guy Simbeko, Bernard Vanlauwe, Johan Six
Achieving the United Nation’s 2030 agenda which aims, among other goals, to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, requires a sustainable resource use model deployed at scale across global food systems. A circular bioeconomy (CBE) model of resource use has been proposed to reuse of organic waste in agricultural production to enhance food security. However, despite several initiatives recently introduced towards establishing a CBE in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), minimal scientific efforts have been dedicated to understanding the association of CBE practices and food security. This study use data from 777 smallholder farm households from DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa, to examine associations between three CBE practices (use of organic waste as compost, as livestock feed, and sorting waste) and household food security. Using different regression and propensity score matching models (PSM). Result reveal that using CBE practices more likely adds a 0.203 score of food insecurity access prevalence (HFIAP), 1.283 food insecurity access scale (HFIAS-score) and 0.277 for household dietary diversity score (HDDS) among households using CBE practiced groups. Associations regarding using organic waste as compost are generally positive but insignificant, while those with sorting waste are significantly and consistently negative. Thus, CBE innovations aiming to enhance household food security could prioritize organic waste valorization into livestock feed consider socio economic aspects such as access to land, access to market, education level, using mobile phone, income and city regions where interventions took place. However, prior sorting of waste is necessary to enable effective waste valorization.
{"title":"Circular bioeconomy practices and their associations with household food security in four RUNRES African city regions","authors":"Haruna Sekabira, S. Feleke, Victor Manyong, Leonhard Späth, P. Krütli, Guy Simbeko, Bernard Vanlauwe, Johan Six","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000108","url":null,"abstract":"Achieving the United Nation’s 2030 agenda which aims, among other goals, to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, requires a sustainable resource use model deployed at scale across global food systems. A circular bioeconomy (CBE) model of resource use has been proposed to reuse of organic waste in agricultural production to enhance food security. However, despite several initiatives recently introduced towards establishing a CBE in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), minimal scientific efforts have been dedicated to understanding the association of CBE practices and food security. This study use data from 777 smallholder farm households from DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa, to examine associations between three CBE practices (use of organic waste as compost, as livestock feed, and sorting waste) and household food security. Using different regression and propensity score matching models (PSM). Result reveal that using CBE practices more likely adds a 0.203 score of food insecurity access prevalence (HFIAP), 1.283 food insecurity access scale (HFIAS-score) and 0.277 for household dietary diversity score (HDDS) among households using CBE practiced groups. Associations regarding using organic waste as compost are generally positive but insignificant, while those with sorting waste are significantly and consistently negative. Thus, CBE innovations aiming to enhance household food security could prioritize organic waste valorization into livestock feed consider socio economic aspects such as access to land, access to market, education level, using mobile phone, income and city regions where interventions took place. However, prior sorting of waste is necessary to enable effective waste valorization.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"5 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140658886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-18DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000104
Irene S. Fortune, Alethea S. Madgett, Ann Scarborough Bull, Natalie Hicks, Milton S. Love, David M. Paterson
Offshore oil and gas platforms (OGP) have been installed worldwide and initially with limited consideration given to the nature of their positive or negative long-term interactions with the natural marine habitats. However, as OGP reach the end of their useful life, with many being decommissioned and removed, it is timely to review the growing evidence of the association of marine biota with OGP to provide a summary and synthesis for policy makers and to give insight to decisions in increasingly crowded marine spatial plans. In the last decade, there has been rapid increase in studies concerning the ecological role of OGP. This research reveals strong contextual difference between platforms in different geographical regions, but all OGP add to local biodiversity particularly where hard substrata are introduced to areas dominated by depositional (mud and sand) habitats. This includes the attraction and increased productivity of fish, sessile invertebrates, and algae while also affecting change in the benthic habitats beneath platforms. There also evidence of the OGP changing local hydrodynamics conditions with effects on phytoplankton and local scour. In terms of the biota associated with OGP, water depth is a major driver of community type across systems. This study emphasises that while knowledge of OGP communities and species has improved, there are still significant knowledge gaps that may prevent the most environmentally beneficial decisions being made around decommissioning. There are few studies following the effect of decommissioning (topping, toppling, or removal) on the ecology of the systems as they change with time (longitudinal research) for the decommissioning event. There is also a need for more studies comparing the biodiversity and functionality of OGP system to artificial and natural reefs and habitats to better understand the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning scenarios. Finally, commercial data is often unavailable and even when available, surveys are often conducted using varied methodology that prevents comparative analysis. By imposing/agreeing standards and sharing data around the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning strategies, improve policy guidance concerning OGP planning, and management might emerge.
{"title":"Haven or hell? A perspective on the ecology of offshore oil and gas platforms","authors":"Irene S. Fortune, Alethea S. Madgett, Ann Scarborough Bull, Natalie Hicks, Milton S. Love, David M. Paterson","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000104","url":null,"abstract":"Offshore oil and gas platforms (OGP) have been installed worldwide and initially with limited consideration given to the nature of their positive or negative long-term interactions with the natural marine habitats. However, as OGP reach the end of their useful life, with many being decommissioned and removed, it is timely to review the growing evidence of the association of marine biota with OGP to provide a summary and synthesis for policy makers and to give insight to decisions in increasingly crowded marine spatial plans. In the last decade, there has been rapid increase in studies concerning the ecological role of OGP. This research reveals strong contextual difference between platforms in different geographical regions, but all OGP add to local biodiversity particularly where hard substrata are introduced to areas dominated by depositional (mud and sand) habitats. This includes the attraction and increased productivity of fish, sessile invertebrates, and algae while also affecting change in the benthic habitats beneath platforms. There also evidence of the OGP changing local hydrodynamics conditions with effects on phytoplankton and local scour. In terms of the biota associated with OGP, water depth is a major driver of community type across systems. This study emphasises that while knowledge of OGP communities and species has improved, there are still significant knowledge gaps that may prevent the most environmentally beneficial decisions being made around decommissioning. There are few studies following the effect of decommissioning (topping, toppling, or removal) on the ecology of the systems as they change with time (longitudinal research) for the decommissioning event. There is also a need for more studies comparing the biodiversity and functionality of OGP system to artificial and natural reefs and habitats to better understand the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning scenarios. Finally, commercial data is often unavailable and even when available, surveys are often conducted using varied methodology that prevents comparative analysis. By imposing/agreeing standards and sharing data around the ecological cost-benefit of decommissioning strategies, improve policy guidance concerning OGP planning, and management might emerge.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":" 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140688112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-16DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000106
Mair L. H. Thomas-Possee, Peter J. Shaw, Robert E. S. Bain, Allan G. Hill, J. Okotto-Okotto, L. Okotto, M. Dzodzomenyo, J. Wright
Disposable diaper use is widespread in many low- and middle-income countries whilst waste collection services are scarce. Despite the potential environmental and public health impacts of disposable diaper consumption by households lacking waste services, an international system for monitoring such consumption is lacking. This study therefore aims to develop and evaluate a method for estimating disposable diaper use based on secondary data, specifically nationally representative household expenditure surveys. Disposable diaper expenditure reported via household expenditure surveys for Nigeria (from 2018–19), Kenya (2015–16) and Ghana (2016–17) was used to estimate national disposable diaper consumption among households lacking waste collection services. To assess plausibility of reported expenditure, consumption-smoothing was examined, and Receiver Operating Curve analysis was used to infer mean toilet-training age. In Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, households lacking appropriately managed waste services consumed an estimated 19 million, 210 million and 285 million disposable diapers per year (292 child/year, 433 child/year and 59 child/year among nappy-consuming households), respectively. Mean toilet-training ages were 24 to 30 months. Disposable diaper purchasing patterns showed evidence of consumption-smoothing among poorer households. Where commodity coding allows, household expenditure surveys can be used to construct internationally comparable indicators depicting disposable diaper consumption among households lacking waste services. Such indicators could be used to advocate for accelerated diaper product innovation, and target areas with high disposable diaper consumption but low waste service coverage.
{"title":"Disposable diaper consumption in sub-Saharan Africa: Estimating the risks of associated unsafe waste","authors":"Mair L. H. Thomas-Possee, Peter J. Shaw, Robert E. S. Bain, Allan G. Hill, J. Okotto-Okotto, L. Okotto, M. Dzodzomenyo, J. Wright","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000106","url":null,"abstract":"Disposable diaper use is widespread in many low- and middle-income countries whilst waste collection services are scarce. Despite the potential environmental and public health impacts of disposable diaper consumption by households lacking waste services, an international system for monitoring such consumption is lacking. This study therefore aims to develop and evaluate a method for estimating disposable diaper use based on secondary data, specifically nationally representative household expenditure surveys. Disposable diaper expenditure reported via household expenditure surveys for Nigeria (from 2018–19), Kenya (2015–16) and Ghana (2016–17) was used to estimate national disposable diaper consumption among households lacking waste collection services. To assess plausibility of reported expenditure, consumption-smoothing was examined, and Receiver Operating Curve analysis was used to infer mean toilet-training age. In Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, households lacking appropriately managed waste services consumed an estimated 19 million, 210 million and 285 million disposable diapers per year (292 child/year, 433 child/year and 59 child/year among nappy-consuming households), respectively. Mean toilet-training ages were 24 to 30 months. Disposable diaper purchasing patterns showed evidence of consumption-smoothing among poorer households. Where commodity coding allows, household expenditure surveys can be used to construct internationally comparable indicators depicting disposable diaper consumption among households lacking waste services. Such indicators could be used to advocate for accelerated diaper product innovation, and target areas with high disposable diaper consumption but low waste service coverage.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"10 48","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140695956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-20DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000101
E. Looney, André Buscariolli, Maria C. Yang, Geoffrey Raymond, T. Buonassisi, I. M. Peters
Hardware-based startups risk having longer times-to-market, deterring investment in the clean technologies that are critical to a sustainable future. We interviewed 55 leaders at hardware startups, 20 of which are cleantech, mapped their development timelines, and found prototyping to be the longest development step (median of 19 weeks per prototype) regardless of prototype complexity or iteration. Qualitative interview analysis reveals the prototyping team’s choice of development style is a major factor affecting timeline. We define two development styles: natural and structured, typified by free-form exploration and rule-based execution, respectively. On average, natural development takes 35% less time than structured, and is thus preferred for early iterations, but adopting structure at strategic points is needed for timely commercialization. Critical points of transition to a structured style include adding new team members or engaging external partners, which demand clear communication and expectations. When pivoting to a new product or market, returning to a natural style is beneficial.
{"title":"Strategic styles of hardware product development could accelerate commercialization in cleantech startups","authors":"E. Looney, André Buscariolli, Maria C. Yang, Geoffrey Raymond, T. Buonassisi, I. M. Peters","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000101","url":null,"abstract":"Hardware-based startups risk having longer times-to-market, deterring investment in the clean technologies that are critical to a sustainable future. We interviewed 55 leaders at hardware startups, 20 of which are cleantech, mapped their development timelines, and found prototyping to be the longest development step (median of 19 weeks per prototype) regardless of prototype complexity or iteration. Qualitative interview analysis reveals the prototyping team’s choice of development style is a major factor affecting timeline. We define two development styles: natural and structured, typified by free-form exploration and rule-based execution, respectively. On average, natural development takes 35% less time than structured, and is thus preferred for early iterations, but adopting structure at strategic points is needed for timely commercialization. Critical points of transition to a structured style include adding new team members or engaging external partners, which demand clear communication and expectations. When pivoting to a new product or market, returning to a natural style is beneficial.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"19 20","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140227060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-12DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000081
J. Kohlitz, Melita Grant, Ratan Budhathoki, Shova Chhetri, Heman Paneru, Min Prasad Basnet, Sunetra Lala, G. Halcrow, N. Carrard
Transformative change in how local governments support rural water services is required to accommodate the increasingly extreme effects of climate change on water service systems. This study explores the potential for contextualised soft systems thinking activities to prepare local government officials with responsibilities pertaining to rural water services in Nepal to shift towards more transformative thinking. First, the study presents the findings of focus group discussions in two rural districts of Nepal that identified common climate-related problems for rural water access including water shortages, contamination, and unequal burden of impacts. Second, we facilitated workshops with local government and non-government stakeholders, drawing on the focus group findings to frame the challenges for rural water linked to climate change that require local government response. We designed the workshops drawing on ‘transformative spaces’ concepts and included soft systems thinking activities to foster systemic perspectives. Participants learned about worldviews, leverage points, rich pictures, root cause analysis, and theory-of-change based action planning. Following the workshops, the study team participated in reflective sensemaking in which they deliberated on their experiences and notes from facilitating the workshops to assess the extent to which the participants demonstrated transformative thinking about rural water systems. The workshop approach showed promise in shifting how local government participants think about rural water services beyond technical fixes towards addressing deep-seated issues. However, further work is required to foster new relationships necessary to support transformation and grapple with ethical dilemmas pertaining to power dynamics at community and government levels. Nevertheless, the approach presented here is a replicable, low-cost way to prepare local government stakeholders in Nepal for transforming their thinking and systems to ways that enable sustainable rural water service delivery under threats of climate change.
{"title":"Laying foundations for transformation: Insights from local government engagement on climate-resilient rural water services in Nepal","authors":"J. Kohlitz, Melita Grant, Ratan Budhathoki, Shova Chhetri, Heman Paneru, Min Prasad Basnet, Sunetra Lala, G. Halcrow, N. Carrard","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000081","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000081","url":null,"abstract":"Transformative change in how local governments support rural water services is required to accommodate the increasingly extreme effects of climate change on water service systems. This study explores the potential for contextualised soft systems thinking activities to prepare local government officials with responsibilities pertaining to rural water services in Nepal to shift towards more transformative thinking. First, the study presents the findings of focus group discussions in two rural districts of Nepal that identified common climate-related problems for rural water access including water shortages, contamination, and unequal burden of impacts. Second, we facilitated workshops with local government and non-government stakeholders, drawing on the focus group findings to frame the challenges for rural water linked to climate change that require local government response. We designed the workshops drawing on ‘transformative spaces’ concepts and included soft systems thinking activities to foster systemic perspectives. Participants learned about worldviews, leverage points, rich pictures, root cause analysis, and theory-of-change based action planning. Following the workshops, the study team participated in reflective sensemaking in which they deliberated on their experiences and notes from facilitating the workshops to assess the extent to which the participants demonstrated transformative thinking about rural water systems. The workshop approach showed promise in shifting how local government participants think about rural water services beyond technical fixes towards addressing deep-seated issues. However, further work is required to foster new relationships necessary to support transformation and grapple with ethical dilemmas pertaining to power dynamics at community and government levels. Nevertheless, the approach presented here is a replicable, low-cost way to prepare local government stakeholders in Nepal for transforming their thinking and systems to ways that enable sustainable rural water service delivery under threats of climate change.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"73 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140249294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-22DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000098
Brent M. Haddad, Barry D. Solomon
Ecological economics, developed in the late 1980s, came to be known as the multi- and transdisciplinary science of sustainability. Since that time, it has blended basic and applied research with the intention of both informing and bringing change to environmental policy, governance, and society. However, many conventional economists have questioned its originality and contributions. This paper begins by clarifying the foundational perspectives of ecological economics that it engages an economy embedded in both real and limited ecosystems as well as socially constructed power relations. Herman Daly, a founder of the field, expanded on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s entropy economics by focusing on a quantifiable sustainable scale of the economy and achieving justice in the control and distribution of economic benefits. He called for both quantitative analyses of economic scale and discursive approaches to a just distribution. The paper then discusses how the terms entropy, scale, and justice are used and interact in the literature, illustrated by some of the key debates in the field involving the Ecological Footprint, substitutability of natural and manufactured capital, and the growth—“agrowth”—degrowth debate. The debates also illustrate the potential for the field to influence policy. Ecological economics as the science of both sustainability and transformation can deploy numerous concepts and tools to provide insights on how to illuminate and solve some of the most pressing problems of the Anthropocene.
{"title":"Ecological economics as the science of sustainability and transformation: Integrating entropy, sustainable scale, and justice","authors":"Brent M. Haddad, Barry D. Solomon","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000098","url":null,"abstract":"Ecological economics, developed in the late 1980s, came to be known as the multi- and transdisciplinary science of sustainability. Since that time, it has blended basic and applied research with the intention of both informing and bringing change to environmental policy, governance, and society. However, many conventional economists have questioned its originality and contributions. This paper begins by clarifying the foundational perspectives of ecological economics that it engages an economy embedded in both real and limited ecosystems as well as socially constructed power relations. Herman Daly, a founder of the field, expanded on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s entropy economics by focusing on a quantifiable sustainable scale of the economy and achieving justice in the control and distribution of economic benefits. He called for both quantitative analyses of economic scale and discursive approaches to a just distribution. The paper then discusses how the terms entropy, scale, and justice are used and interact in the literature, illustrated by some of the key debates in the field involving the Ecological Footprint, substitutability of natural and manufactured capital, and the growth—“agrowth”—degrowth debate. The debates also illustrate the potential for the field to influence policy. Ecological economics as the science of both sustainability and transformation can deploy numerous concepts and tools to provide insights on how to illuminate and solve some of the most pressing problems of the Anthropocene.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"6 23","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139957748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-14DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000097
Sergiu Spatan, Daniel Peter, Gundula Thiele, Marc Wolfram, Franziska Ehnert, Stefan Scherbaum, Moritz Schulz, Caroline Surrey
Disruptions (systemic disturbances) are crucial to initiate and accelerate sustainability transformations of large-scale social systems (be they socio-ecological, socio-technical, or socio-institutional). Their emergence, characteristics and effects strongly relate to the role of agents who aim to disrupt and transform the status quo, and which thus possess what we call disruptive agency. In this paper, we highlight the epistemic dimension of disruptive agency in social transformations, first by conceptualizing disruptive agents as epistemic outsiders with respect to the social system that they intend to disrupt and transform, and second by connecting this conceptualization to notions of belief, social practices, social networks, discourses, or institutions. We identify five advantages of this approach. Firstly, it informs and conceptually enables various promising interdisciplinary avenues to explore and potentially influence transformative change towards sustainability. Secondly, an epistemic conception of disruptive agency offers a key for an integrated analysis of the individual and collective levels of agency involved in sustainability transformations. Thirdly, the notion of epistemic outsiders conceptually connects agent positions across system boundaries that are understood to be of crucial importance for sustainability transformations respectively (e.g., “niche innovators” or “regime intermediaries”) but which lack an integrated understanding. Fourthly, an epistemic perspective additionally highlights the changing requirements and challenges resulting in two principal stages of transformations unfolding over time, namely before/after a new epistemic layout is shared by a majority of agents. Finally, the above features allow to derive and conceive of new intervention formats and strategies.
{"title":"Epistemic outsiders: Unpacking and utilising the epistemic dimension of disruptive agency in sustainability transformations","authors":"Sergiu Spatan, Daniel Peter, Gundula Thiele, Marc Wolfram, Franziska Ehnert, Stefan Scherbaum, Moritz Schulz, Caroline Surrey","doi":"10.1371/journal.pstr.0000097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pstr.0000097","url":null,"abstract":"Disruptions (systemic disturbances) are crucial to initiate and accelerate sustainability transformations of large-scale social systems (be they socio-ecological, socio-technical, or socio-institutional). Their emergence, characteristics and effects strongly relate to the role of agents who aim to disrupt and transform the status quo, and which thus possess what we call disruptive agency. In this paper, we highlight the epistemic dimension of disruptive agency in social transformations, first by conceptualizing disruptive agents as epistemic outsiders with respect to the social system that they intend to disrupt and transform, and second by connecting this conceptualization to notions of belief, social practices, social networks, discourses, or institutions. We identify five advantages of this approach. Firstly, it informs and conceptually enables various promising interdisciplinary avenues to explore and potentially influence transformative change towards sustainability. Secondly, an epistemic conception of disruptive agency offers a key for an integrated analysis of the individual and collective levels of agency involved in sustainability transformations. Thirdly, the notion of epistemic outsiders conceptually connects agent positions across system boundaries that are understood to be of crucial importance for sustainability transformations respectively (e.g., “niche innovators” or “regime intermediaries”) but which lack an integrated understanding. Fourthly, an epistemic perspective additionally highlights the changing requirements and challenges resulting in two principal stages of transformations unfolding over time, namely before/after a new epistemic layout is shared by a majority of agents. Finally, the above features allow to derive and conceive of new intervention formats and strategies.","PeriodicalId":384293,"journal":{"name":"PLOS Sustainability and Transformation","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139837932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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