Knowledge integration in sustainability governance through science-based actor networks

Understanding how science, technology and innovation can best help to accelerate progress in achieving sustainable development remains a grand challenge for researchers and practitioners. In the context of the global consultation process for preparing a post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda, various science-based actor networks have emerged, aiming to translate research into political decision-making and to inform transformations towards sustainability. Over the last years, these networks seem to have taken an ever-growing role in structuring the science-policy interface in global sustainability governance. The question arises, however, how they understand and organize ‘scientific knowledge integration’ in sustainability politics.This study offers a structured comparison of twelve global science-based actor networks engaged in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. It shows that these networks use two types of strategies to foster scientific knowledge integration in sustainability governance. A new framework emerges, in which each strategy corresponds to two main approaches of scientific knowledge integration: The entrepreneurial strategy generally seeks to advance advice-oriented and solution-oriented knowledge processes, while assessment-oriented and learning-oriented processes in scientific knowledge integration are mainly promoted through a mediating strategy.     

Evaluating sustainability transitions pathways: Bridging analytical approaches to address governance challenges

The paper sets out a proposal for bridging and linking three approaches to the analysis of transitions to sustainable and low-carbon societies: quantitative systems modelling; socio-technical transition analysis; and initiative-based learning. We argue that each of these approaches presents a partial and incomplete picture, which has implications for the quality and usefulness of the insights they can deliver for policy and practice. A framework for bridging these different approaches promises to enrich each of the approaches, while providing the basis for a more robust and complete analysis of sustainable transitions pathways that serves better to address questions and dilemmas faced by decision-makers and practitioners. We elaborate five key challenges for the analysis and governance of transitions pathways, and compare the three approaches in relation to each of these. We suggest an integration strategy based on alignment, bridging, and iteration, arguing that a structured dialogue between practitioners of different approaches is needed. In practical terms, such a dialogue would be organised around three areas of joint knowledge production: defining common analytical or governance problems to be tackled through integration; establishing shared concepts (boundary objects); and establishing operational bridging devices (data and metrics, pathways evaluation and their delivery). Such processes could include experts and societal partners. We draw conclusions about future research perspectives and the role of analysis in transitions governance.     

The anticipatory governance of sustainability transformations: Hybrid approaches and dominant perspectives

Anticipation methods and tools are increasingly used to try to imagine and govern transformations towards more sustainable futures across different policy domains and sectors. But there is a lack of research into the steering effects of anticipation on present-day governance choices, especially in the face of urgently needed sustainability transformations. This paper seeks to understand how different perspectives on anticipatory governance connect to attempts to guide policy and action toward transformative change. We analyze perspectives on anticipatory governance in a global network of food system foresight practitioners (Foresight4Food) – using a workshop, interviews, and a survey as our sources of data. We connect frameworks on anticipatory governance and on transformation to analyse different perspectives on the future and their implications for actions in the present to transform food systems and offer new insights for theory and practice. In the global Foresight4Food network, we find that most foresight practitioners use hybrid approaches to anticipatory governance that combine fundamentally different assumptions about the future. We also find that despite these diverse food futures, anticipation processes predominantly produce recommendations that follow more prediction-oriented forms of strategic planning in order to mitigate future risks. We further demonstrate that much anticipation for transformation uses the language on deep uncertainty and deliberative action without fully taking its consequences on board. Thus, opportunities for transforming future food systems are missed due to these implicit assumptions that dominate the anticipatory governance of food systems. Our combined framework helps researchers and practitioners to be more reflexive of how assumptions about key human systems such as food system futures shape what is prioritized/marginalized and included/excluded in actions to transform such systems.     

Elaborating global private meta-governance: An inventory in the realm of voluntary sustainability standards

Voluntary sustainability standards and certification schemes are expanding in a variety of economic sectors. The relatively uncoordinated coexistence of multiple competing schemes has created a very fragmented governance system. One way to analytically approach the search for solutions to this fragmentation is grasped with the relatively new concept of meta-governance. Meta-governance as we understand it draws attention to the management of plurality with the aim to induce more coherence in the governance of an issue area. In political science, meta-governance has mainly been attributed to governmental authorities. However, over the past decade, a number of voluntary standards setters have – with or without the support of UN agencies – started to address the need for meta-governance as well. Their efforts generally entail the coming together of a number of frontrunner schemes and the organizations backing them to jointly address the challenges their self-created regulatory systems face and produce greater coherence among their efforts. This paper studies private meta-governance attempts in the fields of fair labor (JO-IN), sustainable tourism (GSTC), and organic agriculture (ITF), as well as a meta-governance initiative that aims to improve the credibility of private standards as governance mechanisms (ISEAL Alliance). Based on document analysis and interviews we analyze how these meta-governance initiatives have given shape to their aspirations, how successful their efforts have been in effecting change, and what determining factors are. From the empirical research, we distil some more general lessons and insights about the politics and practice of private meta-governance.     

Food system sustainability: Questions of environmental governance in the new world (dis)order

In a time of climate emergency, the question of environmental governance is not only critical, but also epistemic. How ‘environment’ is represented is as critical as how environmental crisis is managed. This essay addresses a debate of this kind by considering the complementary and contradictory relations between the concepts of ‘multi-functionality’ and ‘food sovereignty,’ as they define the global landscape. The juxtaposition of these concepts and their practical implications for political economy and ecology has its formative origins in a European-led debate over the role of agriculture, as a critical dimension of environmental governance. In this chapter I examine this debate as posing questions with broader, global significance.     

Global sustainability,innovation and governance dynamics of national smart electricity meter transitions

Smart electricity meters are a central feature of any future smart grid, and therefore represent a rapid and significant household energy transition, growing by our calculations from less than 23.5 million smart meters in 2010 to an estimated 729.1 million in 2019, a decadal growth rate of 3013%. What are the varying economic, governance, and energy and climate sustainability aspects associated with the diffusion of smart meters for electricity? What lessons can be learned from the ongoing rollouts of smart meters around the world? Based on an original dataset twice as comprehensive as the current state of the art, this study examines smart meter deployment across 41 national programs and 61 subnational programs that collectively target 1.49 billion installations involving 47 countries. In addition to rates of adoption and the relative influence of factors such as technology costs, we examine adoption requirements, modes of information provision, patterns of incumbency and management, behavioral changes and energy savings, emissions reductions, policies, and links to other low-carbon transitions such as energy efficiency or renewable energy. We identify numerous weak spots in the literature, notably the lack of harmonized datasets as well as inconsistent scope and quality within national cost-benefit analyses of smart meter programs. Most smart meters have a lifetime of only 20 years, leading to future challenges concerning repair, care, and waste. National-scale programs (notably China) account for a far larger number of installations than subnational ones, and national scale programs also install smart meters more affordably, i.e. with lower general costs. Finally, the transformative effect of smart meters may be oversold, and we find that smart electricity meters are a technology that is complementary, rather than disruptive or transformative, one that largely does not challenge the dominant practices and roles of electricity suppliers, firms, or network operators.     

Firms and sustainability: Mapping the intellectual origins and structure of the corporate sustainability field

Business research has repeatedly been criticized for its lack of engagement with pressing issues such as climate change, despite a surge of publications on corporate sustainability topics in recent years. We are therefore interested in identifying the knowledge development and knowledge gaps in business scholarship on the relationship between firms, environment and society. This paper provides a systematic review of the corporate sustainability field in form of a bibliometric analysis based on citation data acquired from the Social Sciences Citation Index. The final dataset contained 3117 records published between 1953 and 2011. Our analysis shows that, over the last 50 years, the field of corporate sustainability has emerged from a few primary nodes of research and developed into four distinct conceptual genealogies: corporate social performance theory, stakeholder theory, a corporate social performance versus economic performance debate, and a greening of management debate. The results of our analysis suggest four key findings. First, the four genealogies only comprise a relatively narrowly focused research scope. Second, there is very little integration and citation of work in other disciplinary areas such as ecology or environmental science. Third, the existing literature has a strong focus on empirically examining the relationship between a firm's environmental and/or social performance and its financial performance. Finally, there is little consideration of managerial implications and consequences of climate change in the corporate sustainability literature to date. We suggest that while this may be a reflection of an insular field, it may also be a role played by the management literature turning away from problem based issues in favor of empirical results, theory building, and the identification of variables that influence firm profitability and can be subjected to direct managerial control. We conclude by outlining pathways for future research.     

Closing the governance gaps in the water-energy-food nexus: Insights from integrative governance

The water-energy-food nexus has become a popular concept in environmental change research and policy debates. Proponents suggest that a nexus approach promotes policy coherence through identifying optimal policy mixes and governance arrangements across the water, energy and food sectors. Although the nexus literature identifies some barriers to achieving coherence it does not clearly explain why the barriers are present, what influences them, and how they can be acted upon. These gaps disconnect the nexus literature from the governance processes it ultimately seeks to influence. This paper examines how the integrative environmental governance literature can help to close these gaps. It extracts insights from seven streams of research literature and discusses their relevance for the nexus literature. We argue that connecting the nexus to decision-making processes requires: i) rethinking the boundaries of nexus analysis vis-à-vis other sectors and levels; ii) elaboration of shared principles that can guide decision-making towards policy coherence − or an appropriate form of fragmentation − in different contexts; iii) viewing policy coherence as a continuous process of changing values and perception rather than as an outcome.     

From seed to sequence: Dematerialization and the battle to (re)define genetic resources

In the past decade and a half, key international agreements have established systems of access and benefit sharing that aim to obtain consent and provide compensation for commercial use of plants, animals, and microorganisms—particularly those sourced in the Global South. Yet the rise of genomics, gene editing and synthetic biology may threaten the legitimacy of these agreements. Thus far, agreements have governed these resources in their physical form—as organisms in situ or germplasm in gene banks. However, both public and private research are increasingly utilizing genomic sequences and associated information. As a result of this shift, debates are unfolding at international fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture on whether existing agreements apply to physical resources only, or also to their sequence data or other associated information. Some call uninhibited access to digital sequence information (DSI) a new form of biopiracy, whereby digital resources are used without permission from those in the Global South. Others argue that access to DSI should remain unencumbered by bureaucracy, as it is key to biodiversity conservation and food security. This paper examines these debates over DSI and the rationales and justifications employed by the two sides, which loosely follow a divide between Global South and North. We find that different conceptualizations of genetic resources—particularly with regard to when, where and how value is added—define respective positions. Outcomes of these debates have important implications for management of global biodiversity, food security and issues of equity and justice for actors in biodiverse regions of the world.     

Climate change adaptation,social capital,and the performance of polycentric governance institutions

Climatic Change - How do patterns of interactions among policy actors shape their ability to contribute to climate change adaptation decision-making processes in fragmented regional governance...     

Historical manufacturing volatility and local sustainability efforts: A link to the past

Renewed attention to the role of subnational efforts in addressing myriad environmental challenges necessitates a greater understanding of the factors associated with program adoption. Given observed relationships between adoption of sustainability practices and the presence of carbon-intensive industry, and separately the observed persistence of industrial history in a given place, we explore the link between historical manufacturing employment volatility and current sustainability plan adoption at the local level. Our analysis suggests that the magnitude of changes in manufacturing employment is inversely related to the likelihood of sustainability plan adoption. Our analysis further suggests that, given the same pace of change, counties with shrinking manufacturing employment are more likely to adopt sustainability plans than those with growing employment. Lastly, we find that the link between past industrial transitions and local sustainability commitment is moderated by local disaster experience and priority for environmental protection. Collectively, the findings also shed light on potential—and otherwise unobservable—barriers to transitions to sustainable practices at the local level. In particular, the inverse relationship between pace of employment change and plan adoption suggests that minimizing the rapidity of contemporary transitions may counterintuitively ease the eventual adoption of sustainability-related policies.     

Use of a synoptic classification scheme to define seasons

Summary This paper presents a synoptic surface weather map classification scheme, and uses the categorization technique to meteorologically define seasons. Winter is defined as that period of the year in which a location is most frequently poleward of the polar front, while summer occurs when the site is most commonly equatoward. Fall and Spring are the transition periods when, respectively, increasingly more frequent and less frequent periods of time poleward of the polar front occur.Using 10 years of data, the application of this definition of seasons to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States is presented. While the frequency of the specific types of major synoptic weather features varied with latitude, the meteorological definitions of season are comparatively invariant with latitude (differing by no more than a month) for this geographic area. Using the meteorological definitions of season, the average winter for this region occurs from late October or early November to late March or early April. Summer is from late May to early June until late August or late September.

---

Zusammenfassung Diese Arbeit stellt ein synoptisches Klassifikationsschema nach Bodenwetterkarten vor, das eine Kategorisierungstechnik verwendet, um die Jahreszeiten meteorologisch zu definieren. Der Winter ist als die Periode des Jahres festgelegt, in der ein Ort meist polwärts der Polarfront, während der Sommer jene Periode ist, in der er äquatorwärts der Polarfront liegt. Herbst und Frühjahr sind die Übergangsperioden, in denen zunehmend häufigere bzw. weniger häufige Abschnitte polwärts der Polarfront vorkommen.Die Anwendung dieser Jahreszeitendefinition wird mit Hilfe der Daten aus 10 Jahren für die Atlantik- und Golfküste der Vereinigten Staaten vorgestellt. Während die Häufigkeiten bestimmter Wetterlagen mit der geographischen Breite schwanken, erwies sich diese meteorologische Jahreszeitendefinition demgegenüber als vergleichbar invariant (mit einem maximalen Unterschied von einem Monat) innerhalb des ausgewählten Gebiets. Der so definierte Winter dieser Region beginnt zwischen Ende Oktober und Anfang November und dauert bis Ende März bzw. Anfang April. Sommer ist zwischen Ende Mai/Anfang Juni und Ende August/Ende September.

---

---

With 21 Figures     

全球气候治理背景下的船舶营运能效评级方法

为共同应对全球气候变化,国际海事组织(IMO)计划制定一套强制性船舶营运能效(碳排放强度)国际机制,与现有强制性船舶设计能效机制互为补充.然而,由于受诸多因素影响,船舶营运能效具有较大的随机性和不确定性,为相关国际机制的构建带来巨大挑战.文中通过构建带有年份虚拟变量的碳强度分位数回归模型,实现了对不同时期海运船队碳排放...     

从巴黎到卡托维兹：全球气候治理中的统一和分裂

《巴黎协定》达成之后的实施细则谈判从一开始就面临各种挑战。尽管如此,卡托维兹气候大会基本完成了实施细则的磋商,通过统一规则的制定夯实了基于规则的气候治理框架,为“自下而上”的松散协定注入了更多规则绑定强制性色彩,提升了协定的法律地位。会议也见证了气候世界的分裂,包括主要缔约方立场的退化、谈判集团的分化重组、利益集团的博弈、对科学报告的分歧等,从而使关于力度的磋商没有实质进展。从巴黎到卡托维兹的谈判路程表明治理全球化、治理效率以及国家主权之间暂时存在“不可能三角”。未来的谈判应促进从规则到行动的转变。     

Climate change and the transition to neoliberal environmental governance

What are the guiding principles of contemporary international governance of climate change and to what extent do they represent neoliberal forms? We document five main political and institutional shifts within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and outline core governance practices for each phase. In discussing the current phase since the Paris Agreement, we offer to the emerging literature on international neoliberal environmental governance an analytical framework by which the extent of international neoliberal governance can be assessed. We conceptualize international neoliberal environmentalism as characterized by four main processes: the prominence of libertarian ideals of justice, in which justice is defined as the rational pursuit of sovereign self-interest between unequal parties; marketization, in which market mechanisms, private sector engagement and purportedly ‘objective’ considerations are viewed as the most effective and efficient forms of governance; governance by disclosure, in which the primary obstacles to sustainability are understood as ‘imperfect information’ and onerous regulatory structures that inhibit innovation; and exclusivity, in which multilateral decision-making is shifted from consensus to minilateralism. Against this framework, we argue that the contemporary UNFCCC regime has institutionalized neoliberal reforms in climate governance, although not without resistance, in a configuration which is starkly different than that of earlier eras. We conclude by describing four crucial gaps left by this transition, which include the ability of the regime to drive adequate ambition, and gaps in transparency, equity and representation.     

Assisted network governance: An inclusive innovation to mitigate extreme water scarcity

We study a local innovation of natural resource governance in Chile in times of extreme water scarcity. Through the issuance of a scarcity decree, the government obliges local water user associations (WUAs) to reach viable water redistribution agreements in order to avoid being overruled by the state. In the Aconcagua River, the government together with the WUAs created the Executive Committee, where only the WUAs have a vote, but private and public stakeholders participate in the process of negotiating water use agreements. Grounded on thematic coding of the detailed minutes of over 80 committee meetings since its inception, we examine the workings of a new local model of Assisted Network Governance (ANG). Based on content and social network analysis of over 1,000 directed interactions among committee members, we find that ANG, as an element of broader hybrid governance, has not only produced viable agreements for immediate water redistribution, but has also facilitated longer-term system improvements by building mutual understanding, resolving conflicts, and mobilizing external resources to improve infrastructure. We conclude that ANG helps accomplish common objectives in the field of natural resources under conditions of extreme water scarcity.     

Beyond REDD+ readiness: land-use governance to reduce deforestation in Peru

Peru contains the fourth largest area of tropical forest in the world, yet faces a worsening net deforestation rate. In 2008, to address this threat, the national government announced its ambition to reduce deforestation to zero by 2021. Via literature review and key informant interviews, this study assess two years of REDD+ readiness preparations according to six readiness functions. A mixed pattern of outcomes emerge. Although significant advances were made by various local-level initiatives, national-level efforts continue to struggle. Three crucial challenges persist: (1) greater involvement and coordination of ministries and government agencies associated with REDD+ planning, (2) better understanding of deforestation agents and drivers, and (3) integration of REDD+ policies into national and regional plans, which includes clarification of safeguard procedures and design of incentive mechanisms. Integrated land use planning is presented as a platform to foster dialogue that helps to reconcile divergent stakeholder perspectives, coordinate changes to land use, and resolve overlapping land rights.

Policy relevance

This article presents the outcomes of a multi-dimensional assessment of the REDD+ readiness process in Peru. The six key functions in the analytical framework provide the opportunity to evaluate the process in an integrated and systematic manner and highlights the persistence of complex, transversal governance challenges across diverse economic sectors and government agencies. Research findings also reveal a need for policy change and continued investment to ensure success of the national process in Peru. Strong leadership is needed to generate consensus in cross-sectoral negotiations and to establish coordinated land governance and monitoring mechanisms.     

Poverty, sustainability and human wellbeing: A social wellbeing approach to the global fisheries crisis

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which a social wellbeing approach can offer a useful way of addressing the policy challenge of reconciling poverty and environmental objectives for development policy makers. In order to provide detail from engagement with a specific policy challenge it takes as its illustrative example the global fisheries crisis. This crisis portends not only an environmental disaster but also a catastrophe for human development and for the millions of people directly dependent upon fish resources for their livelihoods and food security. The paper presents the argument for framing the policy problem using a social conception of human wellbeing, suggesting that this approach provides insights which have the potential to improve fisheries policy and governance. By broadening the scope of analysis to consider values, aspirations and motivations and by focusing on the wide range of social relationships that are integral to people achieving their wellbeing, it provides a basis for better understanding the competing interests in fisheries which generate conflict and which often undermine existing policy regimes.     

Rethinking barriers to adaptation: Mechanism-based explanation of impasses in the governance of an innovative adaptation measure

Many of the possible barriers in the governance of climate change adaptation have already been identified and catalogued in the academic literature. Thus far it has proven to be difficult to provide meaningful recommendations on how to deal with these barriers. In this paper we propose a different perspective, with different epistemological assumptions about cause and effect than most existing barrier studies, to analyze why adaptation is often challenging. Using the mechanismic framework, we study how the idea for an innovative “Water Plaza” was realized in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Mechanisms are understood as patterns of interaction between actors that bring about change in the governance process that lead to policy impasses. Our analysis reveals three mechanisms that explain the impasses in the first Water Plaza pilot project: the risk-innovation mechanism, the frame polarization mechanism, and the conflict infection mechanism. Only after several substantive changes in the project design, location choice, and process architecture was the project of Water Plaza's revitalized. We discuss how the short-sighted ideas about cause–effect relationships, reflected in the superficial identification of barriers, may prove to be counterproductive; if there is high uncertainty about the risks of an innovation, the solution of offering more certainty is not very helpful and could, as it happened in the case study, trigger other mechanisms, creating an even tighter deadlock. Our study also suggests that when adaptation is considered as something innovative, the chances will increase that the risk-innovation mechanism will occur. We conclude that unearthing mechanisms offers new opportunities and different types of strategic interventions in practice than most existing studies have offered.     

Formation and performance of collaborative disaster management networks: Evidence from a Swedish wildfire response

Natural disasters present a multitude of entangled societal challenges beyond the realms and capacities of single actors. Prior research confirms that effective collaboration is of critical significance to address such complex collective action problems. Yet, studies rarely investigate if patterns of collaboration are appropriately aligned (‘fit’) with how different challenges (tasks) are interdependent, or how levels of fit influence collective action performance. We develop a set of hypotheses specifying what constitutes a good fit between collaborative networks and task interdependency. Using unique empirical data from the response to a major wildfire in Sweden, we examine how individual actors select collaboration partners and tasks during the formation the collaborative crisis response network. Then we test if levels of fit in the established network influence performance. We show that patterns of actor and task interdependency influence the formation of collaborative networks and that a good fit seems to be associated with more effective collaboration. Our data even suggest that a good fit is more important for performance than actors’ prior crisis management experience and level of professionalization. Further, we show that actors only partially engage in actor-task configurations conducive to high performance. Our study probes the limitations of simplified accounts of collaborative disaster management by enabling more precise and theoretically informed empirical inquiries regarding the mechanisms that shape the structure and performance of collaborative networks.