Sustainability Science

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to elicit global mobilization to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and are increasingly used in support of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Previous studies have highlighted interdependencies between SDGs, with potential interactions between four Sustainability Domains: Economy, Governance, Planet and Society. This study aimed to assess whether people’s perception of the relative importance of the SDGs reflects recognition of the need to prioritize efforts across Domains, or whether this perception is based on different valuations of the Sustainability Domains themselves. We designed an interactive online tool in which participants used the Q-sort technique to rank the SDGs according to their subjective valuation of importance. We analyzed the rankings of 108 participants, all learners at universities in three Small Island States (SIS): Aruba, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Analysis of the correlation structure among participants’ Q-sorts showed that higher perceived importance of the Society- and Economy-related SDGs 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9 traded off with lower perceived importance of the Planet-related SDGs 13, 14 and 15. Furthermore, SDG rankings of learners from Aruba occurred furthest toward the Planet-based part of this trade-off axis. For ESD programs, our method provides a novel tool to identify key interactions between SDGs that may not yet be recognized by program participants. In this way, communicating the need for simultaneous action and policy development across Sustainability Domains could be specifically tailored to the local context. Such connections may increase the effectiveness of ESD in addressing the substantial sustainability challenges facing SIS.

The successful design, implementation and management of the institutional arrangements for climate change adaptation are critical components of sustainable development. This is especially true for small island developing states (SIDS), a group of 58 countries spread across three main geographic regions, which are acknowledged as being disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In many instances, the dynamics of these arrangements in SIDS are poorly understood and documented. This study helps to fill this gap by identifying and analyzing “networks of action situations” through semi-structured interviews with 14 national and international climate change officials and practitioners in four SIDS (Comoros, Maldives, Seychelles, and Singapore) in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans region. We find that there are a few strategic actors involved in multiple, mutually reinforcing and sometimes conflicting arrangements, which are simultaneously being shaped and reshaped at different scales. We also find varying patterns of power, politics and participation that act as both drivers of and barriers to adaptation in these countries. By deconstructing institutional interlinkages and strategic feedback loops, this paper contributes to a broader understanding of the complexities of environmental governance in small jurisdictions.

Blue Growth is promoted as an important strategy for future food security, and sustainable harvesting of marine resources. This paper aims to identify dominating ideologies and strategies of Blue Growth in the Faroe Islands, mainly regarding salmon farming and industrial capture fisheries, and to investigate how these ideologies materialize in the social metabolism of Faroese society. The analysis approaches the Faroese Blue Economy from a holistic perspective using analytical concepts and frameworks of social (island) metabolism, environmental justice and degrowth to assess how current Blue Growth strategies pertain to long-term sustainability and human well-being. It offers a critical analysis of aquaculture in the Faroe Islands and shows that although the rhetoric around Blue Growth is framed within mainstreamed sustainability discourse, the ideologies and visions underpinning current Blue Growth strategies result in a continuation of conventional growth through the exploitation of new commodity frontiers. Finally, the negative consequences of Blue Growth are assessed and discussed through a mapping of recent and ongoing social and ecological distribution conflicts in the Faroes.

International aid is increasingly focused on adaptation to climate change. At recent meetings of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the developed world agreed to rapidly increase international assistance to help the developing world respond to the impacts of climate change. In this paper, we examine the decision-making challenges facing internationally supported climate change adaptation projects, using the example of efforts to implement coastal protection measures (e.g. sea walls, mangrove planting) in Kiribati. The central equatorial Pacific country is home to the Kiribati Adaptation Project, the first national-level climate change adaptation project supported by the World Bank. Drawing on interview and document research conducted over an 8-year period, we trace the forces influencing decisions about coastal protection measures, starting from the variability and uncertainty in climate change projections, through the trade-offs between different measures, to the social, political, and economic context in which decisions are finally made. We then discuss how sub-optimal adaptation measures may be implemented despite years of planning, consultation, and technical studies. This qualitative analysis of the real-world process of climate change adaptation reveals that embracing a culturally appropriate and short-term (~20 years) planning horizon, while not ignoring the longer-term future, may reduce the influence of scientific uncertainty on decisions and provide opportunities to learn from mistakes, reassess the science, and adjust suboptimal investments. The limiting element in this approach to adaptation is likely to be the availability of consistent, long-term financing.

The intent of this paper is to place the concepts of exposure, vulnerability, resilience and risk in the context of the consequences of global change for the sustainable development of small island developing states (SIDS). Many such states face a number of global climate change risks, such as an increase in the proportion of more intense storms, along with other global change threats that include energy security and costs. All these threats come on top of local development threats, such as increased run-off, often with increasing levels of contaminants due to unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices. When taken together, the resulting pressures on islands and their communities lead to significant increases in vulnerability to change due to reduced resilience to these changes. Vulnerability is also increasing as a result of contemporary processes that heighten the exposure of material and other assets. The capacity to address hazard risk also influences vulnerability. This includes the level of awareness of coastal hazards and exposure, and access to critical life support infrastructure, especially for people living in hazard-prone areas. Vulnerability and resilience are considered to be important integrating concepts when managing the local consequences of global changes. There are many initiatives that will help reduce the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of SIDS to such changes. These include improving risk knowledge and coastal resource and land use management, while also strengthening socio-economic systems and livelihoods. In this way, managing global change can be closely aligned with local development and humanitarian processes, thereby enhancing the overall sustainability of development processes and outcomes.