| 1. |
- Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca, et al.
(författare)
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Ecosystem service information to benefit sustainability standards for commodity supply chains
- 2015
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Ingår i: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. - : Wiley. - 0077-8923 .- 1749-6632. ; 1355, s. 77-97
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The growing base of information about ecosystem services generated by ecologists, economists, and other scientists could improve the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of commodity-sourcing standards being adopted by corporations to mitigate risk in their supply chains and achieve sustainability goals. This review examines various ways that information about ecosystem services could facilitate compliance with and auditing of commodity-sourcing standards. We also identify gaps in the current state of knowledge on the ecological effectiveness of sustainability standards and demonstrate how ecosystem-service information could complement existing monitoring efforts to build credible evidence. This paper is a call to the ecosystem-service scientists to engage in this decision context and tailor the information they are generating to the needs of the standards community, which we argue would offer greater efficiency of standards implementation for producers and enhanced effectiveness for standard scheme owners and corporations, and should thus lead to more sustainable outcomes for people and nature.
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| 2. |
- Diaz, Sandra, et al.
(författare)
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Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 366:6471
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The human impact on life on Earth has increased sharply since the 1970s, driven by the demands of a growing population with rising average per capita income. Nature is currently supplying more materials than ever before, but this has come at the high cost of unprecedented global declines in the extent and integrity of ecosystems, distinctness of local ecological communities, abundance and number of wild species, and the number of local domesticated varieties. Such changes reduce vital benefits that people receive from nature and threaten the quality of life of future generations. Both the benefits of an expanding economy and the costs of reducing nature's benefits are unequally distributed. The fabric of life on which we all depend-nature and its contributions to people-is unravelling rapidly. Despite the severity of the threats and lack of enough progress in tackling them to date, opportunities exist to change future trajectories through transformative action. Such action must begin immediately, however, and address the root economic, social, and technological causes of nature's deterioration.
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| 3. |
- Guerry, Anne D., et al.
(författare)
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Natural capital and ecosystem services informing decisions : From promise to practice
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 112:24, s. 7348-7355
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (i) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (ii) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (iii) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals.
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| 4. |
- Li, Cong, et al.
(författare)
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Impacts of conservation and human development policy across stakeholders and scales
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 112:24, s. 7396-7401
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ideally, both ecosystem service and human development policies should improve human well-being through the conservation of ecosystems that provide valuable services. However, program costs and benefits to multiple stakeholders, and how they change through time, are rarely carefully analyzed. We examine one of China's new ecosystem service protection and human development policies: the Relocation and Settlement Program of Southern Shaanxi Province (RSP), which pays households who opt voluntarily to resettle from mountainous areas. The RSP aims to reduce disaster risk, restore important ecosystem services, and improve human well-being. We use household surveys and biophysical data in an integrated economic cost-benefit analysis for multiple stakeholders. We project that the RSP will result in positive net benefits to the municipal government, and to cross-region and global beneficiaries over the long run along with environment improvement, including improved water quality, soil erosion control, and carbon sequestration. However, there are significant short-run relocation costs for local residents so that poor households may have difficulty participating because they lack the resources to pay the initial costs of relocation. Greater subsidies and subsequent supports after relocation are necessary to reduce the payback period of resettled households in the long run. Compensation from downstream beneficiaries for improved water and from carbon trades could be channeled into reducing relocation costs for the poor and sharing the burden of RSP implementation. The effectiveness of the RSP could also be greatly strengthened by early investment in developing human capital and environment-friendly jobs and establishing long-term mechanisms for securing program goals. These challenges and potential solutions pervade ecosystem service efforts globally.
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| 5. |
- Schill, Caroline, et al.
(författare)
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A more dynamic understanding of human behaviour for the Anthropocene
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2398-9629. ; 2:12, s. 1075-1082
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human behaviour is of profound significance in shaping pathways towards sustainability. Yet, the approach to understanding human behaviour in many fields remains reliant on overly simplistic models. For a better understanding of the interface between human behaviour and sustainability, we take work in behavioural economics and cognitive psychology as a starting point, but argue for an expansion of this work by adopting a more dynamic and systemic understanding of human behaviour, that is, as part of complex adaptive systems. A complex adaptive systems approach allows us to capture behaviour as ''enculturated' and 'enearthed', co-evolving with socio-cultural and biophysical contexts. Connecting human behaviour and context through a complex adaptive systems lens is critical to inform environmental governance and management for sustainability, and ultimately to better understand the dynamics of the Anthropocene itself.
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| 6. |
- Selomane, Odirilwe, et al.
(författare)
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Towards integrated social-ecological sustainability indicators : Exploring the contribution and gaps in existing global data
- 2015
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Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 118, s. 140-146
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sustainable development goals (SDGs), which recognise the interconnections between social, economic and ecological systems, have ignited new interest in indicators able to integrate trends in - and interactions between nature and socio-economic development. We explore whether existing global data can be used to measure nature's contribution to development targets and explore limitations in these data. Using Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1- eradicate extreme hunger and poverty. We develop two indicators to assess the contribution of nature to progress in this goal. The indicators (based on income and employment data from nature-based sectors (NBS) represented by agriculture, forestry and fisheries) show large but declining contributions of nature to MDG 1: NBS contributed to lifting 18% of people out of poverty and provided 37% of global employment between 1991 and 2010. For low income countries, the contributions were 20% and 55% respectively. In exploring data gaps the study highlighted low reporting rates especially in low income countries, as well as lack of other measures of poverty alleviation beyond income and employment. If we are to move beyond target setting to implementation of sustainable development goals at national scales, these shortcomings require as much attention as the elaboration and agreement on the post-2015 development goals.
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| 7. |
- Sterner, Thomas, 1952, et al.
(författare)
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Policy design for the Anthropocene
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Sustainability. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2398-9629. ; 2, s. 14-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2019, Springer Nature Limited. Today, more than ever, ‘Spaceship Earth’ is an apt metaphor as we chart the boundaries for a safe planet1. Social scientists both analyse why society courts disaster by approaching or even overstepping these boundaries and try to design suitable policies to avoid these perils. Because the threats of transgressing planetary boundaries are global, long-run, uncertain and interconnected, they must be analysed together to avoid conflicts and take advantage of synergies. To obtain policies that are effective at both international and local levels requires careful analysis of the underlying mechanisms across scientific disciplines and approaches, and must take politics into account. In this Perspective, we examine the complexities of designing policies that can keep Earth within the biophysical limits favourable to human life.
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| 8. |
- van den Bergh, Jeroen, et al.
(författare)
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What if solar energy becomes really cheap? A thought experiment on environmental problem shifting
- 2015
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Ingår i: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. - : Elsevier BV. - 1877-3435 .- 1877-3443. ; 14, s. 170-179
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Solving one environmental problem may often invoke or intensify another one. Such environmental problem shifting (EPS) is a neglected topic in global sustainability research. Indeed, it is difficult to study as it requires the merging of insights from various research areas. Here we identify relevant studies, and provide an illustration and guidelines for the systematic study of EPS. As a modest thought experiment to illustrate the relevance of EPS, we consider solutions to scarcity of energy resources and climate change that, due to their extreme nature, may lead to considerable environmental problem shifting. We qualitatively assess the likely environmental and socioeconomic impacts of three hypothetical energy futures to highlight the possibility that as we resolve one environmental problem, another may be aggravated. We further present a set of guidelines to study EPS in a systematic and focused way. Here we stress that shifting can be mediated by biophysical as well as socioeconomic mechanisms, which means that its analysis requires a genuine interdisciplinary effort.
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