Suchergebnisse

On 15 October 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt received a Radboud honorary doctorate in recognition of his work on strategic sustainable development. This edition includes honorary promotor Han van Krieken's laudatio, Karl-Henrik Robèrt's acceptance speech, and a detailed recollection of his professional history.
Trained as an oncologist, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt became aware in the last decades of the twentieth century that systematically increasing air, soil and water pollution in the environment were threatening global health. It became his goal to make people aware of the environmental problems and to develop a framework for sustainable development. In 1989, he founded 'The Natural Step', an organisation that initiated the development of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, which later became a topic for further refinements through systematic international cooperation between scientists, and leaders from public and private sectors. The international hub for this work is Blekinge Technical Institute, where Dr Robèrt holds his chair. For his work, Robèrt received in 2000 the Blue Planet Prize - the 'Nobel Prize' for sustainability.
Honorary promotor Han van Krieken: "It is for a variety of reasons that Radboud University wants to honour Professor Karl-Henrik Robèrt. Our university's new Strategic Plan defines explicitly our 'responsibility for the world in which we live'. It states as one of our goals that 'we want to be in the vanguard when it comes to achieving the United Nations' sustainable development goals and to make our own contribution to the changes needed in the world in the coming decades'. Professor Robèrt can show us ways in which we can translate these goals more effectively."

Municipal and regional governments can play a key role in global society's transition towards sustainability. However, municipal leaders often lack a sufficient overview of sustainability and thereby the capacity to coordinate efforts across sectors. Several municipal planning frameworks are available but vary greatly in terms of definitions, scope, and hands-on advice on processes. To complement and unify approaches, the framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) has been developed. It utilizes backcasting from operational boundary conditions for the full scope of social and ecological sustainability. This study aims to evaluate a recently developed model for long-term implementation of FSSD across sectors for more cohesive cooperation towards sustainability. This is done through participatory action research (PAR) in ten Swedish municipalities and regions. The evaluation is done to examine if the implementation model (i) lives up to its purpose to help sectors cooperate effectively by using the FSSD as a shared mental model, (ii) aid the handling of previously identified barriers to strategic sustainable development in municipalities and regions, (iii) may contain barriers of its own for appropriate use and (iv) has room for improvement. We used observations, dialogues, and surveys to capture the strengths, weaknesses, enablers, and barriers of the preliminary implementation model. While the compliance of the model varied, our findings show a general appreciation and identified the needs for the approach. From experiencing barriers for the application of the model, practitioners provided several ideas for additional support, such as assessment and alignment support of on-going work and further developed guiding material. In a second phase of the PAR project, application of the implementation model will continue, and such additional support will be developed and evaluated. © 2020 by the authors. ; open access

The Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) Karlskrona, Sweden, will begin a new Master's programme focusing on sustainable development in September 2004. The programme is intended to contribute to a growing international network of sustainability practitioners, including early and mid-career professionals, resource managers, executives and political decision-makers. As with many programmes of this type, this one will require coverage of numerous complex economic, social and ecological issues. In so doing, it will cover a number of interrelated disciplines concepts and tools (e.g. environmental science, system dynamics, public policy, business strategies, corporate social responsibility, dematerialization and 'green technologies'). Various sectors of the sustainability arena will also be studied including agriculture, transportation, health, energy and product development. To deal with the high complexity inherent in sustainable development, we intend to test the enhanced learning capabilities of three unique and interrelated aspects of this Master's programme including: (1) a structured comprehension of sustainable development, using "Backcasting from Basic Socio-Ecological Principles of Sustainability"; (2) free creativity within basic constraints established by the structured comprehension and (3) a learning process that 'walks the talk' with respect to free creativity within basic constraints. Recognizing that "society within the biosphere" is inherently a complex system, the programme will revolve around a generic, structured model for planning and decisionmaking in any complex system. The model is adaptable to any system at any scale – e.g. an organization, a football game, and in this case, "society in the biosphere". The programme distinguishes five essential system levels including: (i) the system; (ii) success; (iii) strategy; (iv) actions and (v) tools. Second, a structured comprehension, anchored to basic principles at the success level – the 'trunk and branches of sustainability' – allows for and promotes free creativity on actions in a particular context – the 'leaves'. Third, the students will be exposed to a learning process of creative use of actions and tools that the model allows for in any organization – sharing the basic trunk and branches and practicing free creativity amongst the leaves. The programme's learning process will facilitate a systematic approach to analysis of all kinds of current sectors and problem areas through envisioning of solutions and finding strategic paths of actions and tools towards sustainable outcomes within those sectors. It will culminate in a thesis, following the same general structure, during the last-half of the programme.

The transport sector's dependence on fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges in a shift towards a climate-neutral and sustainable society. This roadmap report aims to investigate how electric vehicle systems can contribute to a faster transition to sustainable passenger transport in Southeast Sweden, as well as to present a methodology for guidance of similar work for faster transitions in other regions and sectors. This work has been guided by a scientifically designed and proven Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). Specifically, answers are given to four research questions structured in relation to the four subsystems 'Politics and instruments', 'Users and markets', 'Vehicles and infrastructure' and 'Energy and materials': What could a sustainable vision for passenger transport in Southeast Sweden look like? What could be a milestone goal for 2030? What is the current reality in relation to the 2030 goal and the vision? How could the gap between the present, 2030 and the vision be bridged? The report's results show that today's focus on fossil independence and measures against climate change must be broadened to cover the whole sustainability challengeso that other sustainability issues are addressed and so that solutions to some of the sustainability issues do not create new ones. The report also clarifies that it is necessary, practically possible and economically advantageous for Southeast Sweden to make a faster sustainability transition of passenger transportthan what has been proposed in previous studies and investigations. It is also likely that the same applies to the entire transport system and for the whole of Sweden and the world. Even geopolitical benefits are likely. A global transition to transport and energy systems based on energy from widely available flow resources like sun and wind instead of the limited fossil fuels would likely reduce the conflicts risks in the world.Restricted cobalt, lithium and platinum resources that battery and fuel cell cars depend on, and other metals needed for solar cells and wind turbines can, however, give rise to similar conflict risks. This roadmap report's recommendations on reduced transport needs and car dependency and its focus on resource efficiency counteract these conflict risks by striking against underlying resource-driving mechanisms. Should this roadmap be translated into practical policies, the forthcoming transition would therefore likely be made considerably more 'future-proof'. ; GreenCharge Southeast