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Although the world faces serious environmental, economic, and social challenges, we believe that a combination of science and innovation, effective governance, and public-private collaboration can help to overcome many of them and achieve sustainable development. Numerous government policies are now promoting sustainable management practices, while...
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Education for Sustainability (EpS), with its focus on transformative approaches, focused on integrating sustainable principles in a multidisciplinary way, enriches the learning and teaching of the Business Administration. In this sense, its effectiveness will only be possible as long as institutions and professors rethink their roles as agents of c...
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... We are now midway through the timeline established to meet these goals, and while some progress has been made, it remains far short of the requirements (Gehringer 2020), with the last two years even showing no progress (Sachs et al. 2022). To achieve the goals, collaboration between the public, private, and third sectors is crucial (Hecht et al. 2012;Saxena et al. 2021). Next to directly contributing to the SDGs via service provision, the third sector plays a key role in achieving the SDGs by serving as a broker between sectors and representing the voice of civil society (Arhin 2016). ...
The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in 2015 and achieving them by 2030 is crucial for human development. However, progress on the goals currently remains short of the requirements. As the third and public sectors play a crucial role in achieving the goals, this study analyzes how the SDG-related third sector and public administration literature has evolved over the last thirty years. I use a state-of-the-art method to map articles to the SDGs. In contrast to previous studies that have found an increase in publications that directly mention the SDGs, I find a decline in the proportion of articles that relate to the SDGs without necessarily mentioning them directly. I also analyze how the SDG-relatedness of an article corresponds to its citation count. While I find mixed results across SDGs and data sources, the relationship between SDG-relatedness and citation count is significantly more positive for work published after the adoption of the SDGs. While the association between SDG-relatedness and citation count is now positive for the third sector literature published after 2015, it is still negative for the public administration literature.
... Twenty years after the historic Rio Conference, in June 2012 world leaders met again for a conference in Rio de Janeiro (Hecht et al., 2012). The most important outcome of the Rio+20 conference (UNEP, n.d.) was the adoption of the report "The Future we want" which was the UN Declaration on Sustainable Development with specific relative goals (ΕΕΑ, n.d). ...
... The great challenge discussed by these heads of state during Rio + 20 was how to solve the dichotomy of maintaining economic progress and at the same time reducing the exploitation of natural resources, thus postponing their scarcity. These issues were widely discussed during the Earth Summit, but no significant resolution was observed over the course of the subsequent two decades (Hecht et al., 2012). ...
... On the other hand, Rio + 20 brought positive perspectives for the implementation of sustainable development in the largest number of countries to date and the awareness of several leaders, companies and large financial entities to deal with environmental issues. Emphasis was placed on the exponential advancement of technology, which enables the optimization of production processes, new waste treatment techniques, the promotion of renewable energy sources and government incentives for sustainable initiatives (Hecht et al., 2012). ...
To ensure the survival and quality of life of our species, we seek sustainable development to balance the economic, social and environmental spheres in an ethical and equitable manner. The United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) have become the guiding principles aimed at guaranteeing a safe space for everyone through awareness and clarity of the responsibilities of each individual. This article addresses different views on the topic “sustainable development,” relating them to ethical issues and then associating the discussions with the SDGs. However, in relation to the subject of ethics and concern for planet Earth, several other documents, such as Laudato Si', Gaia and Gaia 2.0, are of great importance to complement and enrich the discussion. A global perspective is proposed, based on the encyclical Laudato Si', the Gaia theory of James Lovelock, religious concepts and idea of the good of humanity, along with the vision of Timothy Lenton who talks about Gaia 2.0. It is highlighted that understanding the role of the Church, the government and academic research in combating environmental, social and economic problems is of great relevance. Finally, based on the discussions provided herein it can be observed that although the statements and documents examined present similarities in pointing to an ethical agenda, they need further debate and research.
... This may be due to the number of events that the company has no control of and as a result is difficult to predict. For example, change in regulation and economic stability often does not provide the stability needed for investment (Hecht et al. 2012) and may exacerbate business risk (Morrison et al. 2010). ...
Risks and futures methods have complementary strengths as tools for managing strategic decisions under uncertainty. When combined, these tools increase organisational competency to evaluate and manage long-term risks, improving the flexibility and agility of the organisation to deal with gross uncertainties. Here, we set out a framework to guide the assessment of strategic risks for long-term business planning, based on its application at Portugal’s largest water utility, Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres. Our approach extends strategic risk assessment by incorporating scenario planning—a futures approach used to help the utility move beyond single point forecast of risks to focus on critical dimensions of uncertainty that are fundamental to the resilience of corporate objectives and their vulnerability to external pressures. We demonstrate how we combine two complementary approaches—risk and futures—and use them to assess (i) how a set of baseline strategic risks for a water utility evolves under alternative futures, (ii) the aggregate corporate-level risk exposure, and (iii) the process and responses needed to manage multiple, interdependent strategic risks. The framework offers a corporate approach to evolving strategic risks and improves a utility’s (i) knowledge of uncertainties, (ii) ability to assess the impacts of external developments over long time horizons and the consequences of actions and (iii) degree of flexibility to adapt to possible future challenges. The framework supports risk managers in their long-term strategic planning, through the appraisal and management of multiple, interdependent long-term strategic risks and can be replicated in other organisational contexts to bridge operational and corporate perspectives of enterprise risk.
... Livelihood includes the capabilities, assets, and activities required for a means of living (Chambers and Conway 1992). The consideration of livelihood aspect is important since the dependency on natural resources is coming under dynamic pressure mainly for population growth (Barbier 2005;Hecht et al. 2012). On the other hand, the increased rate of degradation and depletion has impacted the wellbeing of local communities (Béné et al. 2000;Midmore and Whittaker 2000;Scherr 2000;Kesavan and Swaminathan 2006;Guerin 2007). ...
Azad AK, Pitol MNS, Rakkibu MG. 2020. Livelihood status of local communities around Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem in Shymnagar Upazila, Satkhira, Bangladesh. Asian J For 5: 28-35. Sundarbans of Bangladesh is the largest single mangrove complex in the world which plays essential roles in delivering economic, ecological, and social functions, including providing livelihoods for local communities. The study aims to know the livelihood status and dependency of local people on Sundarbans in Shymnagar Upazila, Satkhira District, Bangladesh. A questionnaire survey was carried out in the studied area, involving 130 respondents in three unions. Most of the respondents (65%) were middle-aged (30-50 years old) and 22% of them were female and 78% were male. Among them about 51% were illiterate, 24% had primary education, while 25% had secondary education. About 72% of the respondents were fully dependent and 21% were partially dependent on Sundarbans for their livelihoods. Only 37% of people in these areas had their shrimp farm (gher). The respondents collected fuelwood (92%), aquatic resources (80%), small timber (54%), honey (27%), goran (Ceriops decandra) (8%), and golpata (Nypa fruticans) (6%) from Sundarbans. Only 63% of the respondents had their livestock like cows (2%), poultry (68%), and goats (30%), whereas 84% of respondents were involved with different NGOs. Among the respondents, 70% had the access to disaster warnings, whereas only 24% had shelter facilities. Only 28% of respondents had access to drinking water from deep tube-well and 33% from ponds. About 50% of the respondents did not get better medical treatment and were dependent on village doctors and only 8% of respondents received treatment from Government hospitals. It was alarming to know that about 91% of respondents did not know co-management in Sundarbans. Most of the people living here were not satisfied with their present occupations and about 98% of them were eager to start a new occupation. Only 11% of respondents got benefitted from government Vulnerable Group Feeding / Vulnerable Group Development support. The results of this study suggest that the government and different NGOs might provide necessary supports for local people so that they can start alternative occupations and their dependencies on the Sundarbans may be reduced significantly.
... ( EPA 2015, Fisher 2019Hecht et al. 2012;Tainter 2003;Tainter 2006) When confronted with the term "sustainability" we must also consider these questions: Sustain what? For whom? ...
To understand the ancient Maya as a complex society and investigate their practices of sustainability, we must utilize the archaeological record. This literature review examines the sustainability of ancient Maya "green cities". Drawing on the fields of archaeology and urbanism, academic research related to ancient Maya agricultural systems, social organization, and diet was reviewed and discussed. The results of this review indicate that the ancient Maya practiced various systems of sustainability in accordance with the three pillars of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Contemporary urban planning in combination with prior knowledge of sustainability through the field of archaeology, should aid in the advancement for sustainable solutions in the present. Understanding the sustainability of ancient Maya cities can provide society with the compelling lessons on how to improve cities today with true sustainable agricultural methods. This paper aims to encourage scholars to rethink how ancient Maya agricultural practices could be imitated in contemporary context to aid in the construction of modern green cities.
... Sustainable development means striving for harmony in the fields of economy, environment and social development (Bentham et al., 2015). More recently, resource limitations and the resultant disruptions to natural cycles (Bates et al., 2008) have led to major human tragedies, such as negative impact on human health and well-being (Pimentel et al., 2007), poverty and malnutrition (Hecht et al., 2012), and social system disruptions (Wilkinson, & Pickett, 2009). ...
... V roku 1987 Svetová komisia pre životné prostredie a rozvoj pod vedením Gro Harlem Brundtland zhodnotila globálny vývoj ako dlhodobo neudržateľný a ako politický kompromis navrhla koncepciu udržateľného rozvoja (WCED 1991, NOVÁČEK 2010. Táto bola rozpracovaná v Agende 21 z Konferencie OSN o životnom prostredí a rozvoji, konanej v roku 1992 v Rio de Janeiro a v agende Budúcnosť akú chceme z konferencie Rio + 20 z roku 2012 (HECHT et al. 2012) a snaží sa vyvažovať jeho hlavné piliereekologický, ekonomický a sociálny. V roku 2015, bola v OSN prijatá Agenda udržateľného rozvoja do roku 2030 so sedemnástimi strategickými cieľmi (UN 2017). ...
The presented monography is an attempt to contribute to the methodology of ecological complexity (EK) and ecological integrity (EI) assessment at the level of ecosystems and to verify and demonstrate the feasibility of this assessment in practice.
As a part of its theoretical background is still rather new, the first chapter is devoted to the theoretical framework, with the emphasis on the theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics of living systems and its significance. This includes also explanation of the EI concept and a short outline of the history and approaches to assess ecological integrity of ecosys-tems.
The second chapter presents a short review of starting points and available methodologies, which allowed us to build-up a new and holistic approach to ecological complexity and integrity assessment. This includes synthetic evaluation of the indicators of the functional and structural components of EK and EI. In the first case two indexes of solar energy dissipation and solar energy capture by individual ecosystems have been used, as well as two proxy indexes based on temperature of the ecosystem surface.
The evaluation of the structural component puts together the assessments of the species diversity and the assessment of vegetation quality. The first one builds on both standard and less used indexes and the second one builds on indexes of vegetation hemeroby (indicated by vegetation synanthropisation and abundance of alien species), as well as nativeness and nature conservation value (indicated by representation of threatened and endemic species). Seven indexes forming this second group are original. Another added value of this chapter consists in systemic build-up of the synthetic indexes of complexity and integrity, which were built from the species diversity indexes with the input of all the other mentioned indexes.
To verify and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach we have realised experiments in six localities within the period 2009 – 2015, of which we have selected and presented here the results of applying the described methodology in two loca-lities – one situated on the foothills of the Tematin hills in Považský Inovec Mts. and the second one on the terraces with non-forest vegetation in the mountain slopes above Štefanová settlement in Krivánska Fatra Mts. The most important chap-ters 3 and 4 are based on the selection of the results obtained in these localities.
Chapter 4 includes some results which have been already published (which is denoted there) and new ones, developing the case further. Concerning indexes of solar energy dissipation and solar energy capture, these distinctly increase towards higher successive stages (demonstrated in Tematin hills) and towards more wet ecosystems (wetlands, demonstrated in Krivánska Fatra). This underlines the ecolo-gical importance of forests and wetlands, but also species rich meadows in a landscape and their distinctive role in mitigating impacts of climate change. Calculations of our original partial indexes of hemeroby and quality of vegetation demonstrated their feasibility and their value in describing horizontal structure of the community in a relatively simple way.
Finally, it should be said that final, synthetic indexes of EK and EI should be understood as a tentative attempt to express EK and EI in an integrated way, which combines such different areas as are solar energy dissipation and hemeroby and quality of vegetation. We stress that these synthetic indexes require further methodological discussion and calibration which may lead to their further improvements.
... For cadastral mapping, numerous studies have demonstrated the potential of UAVs especially in terms of fast data capturing and high accuracy [40]. UAV-based cadastral mapping could contribute to contemporary initiatives such as the United Nations' sustainable development goals, as it allows a new economic, environmental and social approach to cadastral mapping [228]. With UAVs being able to rapidly map small areas, the cadastral map could be kept up-to-date at low-cost in a sustainable way. ...
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a rapid, low-cost and flexible acquisition system that appears feasible for application in cadastral mapping: high-resolution imagery, acquired using UAVs, enables a new approach for defining property boundaries. However, UAV-derived data are arguably not exploited to its full potential: based on UAV data, cadastral boundaries are visually detected and manually digitized. A workflow that automatically extracts boundary features from UAV data could increase the pace of current mapping procedures. This review introduces a workflow considered applicable for automated boundary delineation from UAV data. This is done by reviewing approaches for feature extraction from various application fields and synthesizing these into a hypothetical generalized cadastral workflow. The workflow consists of preprocessing, image segmentation, line extraction, contour generation and postprocessing. The review lists example methods per workflow step—including a description, trialed implementation, and a list of case studies applying individual methods. Furthermore, accuracy assessment methods are outlined. Advantages and drawbacks of each approach are discussed in terms of their applicability on UAV data. This review can serve as a basis for future work on the implementation of most suitable methods in a UAV-based cadastral mapping workflow.
... This is considered a starting point of a major concern for the natural environment, which has to be interrelated with social and economic development, inter and intra generationally. Then, in recent years, the sustainability paradigm has been the leading guide for development at any scale of thought and action, pervading policies as well as practices of intervention in any field of application (Hecht et al., 2012). ...
In this paper we focus on crucial issues concerning the effectiveness of evaluation of sustainability in the built environment. The paper argues that we need to rethink the evaluation of urban-building sustainability from an integrative perspective. It advances a theoretical and methodological model based on the regenerative approach, which opens up a new way to deal with the sustainability of the built environment. An enlarged definition of urban metabolism is used to carry out the integrated evaluation.
Central in it is the concept of reliability, which expresses the ability of products and processes in the built environment to be adaptive, resilient and regenerative. We use reliability in a transversal manner through the process of making the built environment sustainable, referring it both to buildings and the regenerative process triggered by sustainable actions addressed to buildings. Holistic indicators allow assessing it quantitatively or qualitatively.
Through reliability we bring regenerative thinking from a theoretical to an operational level. When referred to buildings, reliability allows considering sustainable performances not usually assessed in current evaluations. When referred to processes, it helps to understand directions of change in relation to sustainability of the built environment. Our method can be easily associated to current evaluation systems exceeding their boundaries.
