[en] The paper aims to substantiate the importance of endogenous innovations when evaluating the compatibility of natural resource use and economic development. It explains that technological change has the potential to compensate for natural resource scarcity, diminishing returns to capital, poor input substitution, and material balance restrictions, but is limited by various restrictions like fading returns to innovative investments and rising research costs. It also shows how innovative activities are fostered by accurate price signals and research-favouring sectoral change. The simultaneous effects of increasing technical knowledge, decreasing resource inputs, and increasing world population largely determine the chances of long-run sustainable development. Consequently, future research has to be directed at a more thorough understanding of the mechanisms driving innovations in the presence of natural resource scarcity

[en] Sustainability assessment is needed to build sustainable farming systems. A broad range of sustainability concepts, methodologies and applications already exists. They differ in level, focus, orientation, measurement, scale, presentation and intended end-users. In this paper we illustrate that a smart combination of existing methods with different levels of application can make sustainability assessment more profound, and that it can broaden the insights of different end-user groups. An overview of sustainability assessment tools on different levels and for different end-users shows the complementarities and the opportunities of using different methods. In a case-study, a combination of the sustainable value approach (SVA) and MOTIFS is used to perform a sustainability evaluation of farming systems in Flanders. SVA is used to evaluate sustainability at sector level, and is especially useful to support policy makers, while MOTIFS is used to support and guide farmers towards sustainability at farm level. The combined use of the two methods with complementary goals can widen the insights of both farmers and policy makers, without losing the particularities of the different approaches. To stimulate and support further research and applications, we propose guidelines for multilevel and multi-user sustainability assessments. - Highlights: ► We give an overview of sustainability assessment tools for agricultural systems. ► SVA and MOTIFS are used to evaluate the sustainability of dairy farming in Flanders. ► Combination of methods with different levels broadens the insights of different end-user groups. ► We propose guidelines for multilevel and multi-user sustainability assessments.

[en] Objective: To introduce new progress of the standard for radiological health in our country and related standardization work. Methods: Research status of standard for radiological health and standardization work since the establishment of the seventh committee were analyzed and summarized. Results: New progress in the professional committee of standard for radiological health, status of standard for radiological health, standardization work of radiological health and existing problems was elaborated. Conclusion: The analysis and summary are helpful to the standardization work of radiological health, the implementation of the standardizing construction, and meeting the requirements of sustainable development on the health standard. (authors)

[en] Improving access to energy is a multi-faceted challenge that has far-reaching implications and long-lasting obligations. Energy is essential to all human activities and, indeed, critical to social and economic development. Lack of energy is a contributing factor to states of perpetual poverty for individuals, communities, nations and regions. In contrast, access to energy opens many new opportunities; and meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals cannot be accomplished without access to affordable energy services

[en] ‘Greening existing buildings’ is an approach to apply the principles of green building to old and existing buildings with environment responsive and energy efficient ‘green features’ or devices, e.g. through retrofitting, as and when required. It allows considerable reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. However, the practice is not getting momentum, especially in Brunei. A study was therefore undertaken to generate and/or gauge the awareness of ‘greening existing buildings’, through identifying and assessing the key benefits of greening existing buildings. This paper presents the outcomes of 68 responses from an ongoing questionnaire survey of mainly clients and consultants. 15 benefits were identified, with “reduced energy/electricity consumption” topping the list, and “increase in building occupancy/usage rates” at the bottom. All the 15 benefits were found to be significantly important, both in the total sample, as well as in the groups of clients and consultants, and people with or without experience of green building. The two-way grouping also revealed that the above paired groups significantly showed their importance of different benefits in the same way. The outcomes are therefore considered as a general consensus of the respondents on the benefits of greening, despite some disagreements on the relative rankings of individual benefit by different groups of respondents. The outcomes are largely similar to elsewhere, and show a general awareness of the respondents to the overall benefits of greening existing buildings. Such outcomes are expected to inspire the clients to undertake more greening projects to demonstrate proven benefits. This is expected to help wider use of greening existing buildings in Brunei and elsewhere and thereby implement sustainable development. (paper)

[en] Highlights: • We have established an indicator system to identify key areas of imbalanced supply and demand of ESs. • Changes in the supply and demand of ESs reflect the urbanization progress. • Some coastal cities face the challenge of ESs in short supply. • The supply and demand of ESs in some cities has turned into a state of extreme incoordination. • Identifying key areas can inform eco-compensation and urban planning. The coordinated supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESs) is important for ensuring regional sustainable development. However, research identifying key areas of imbalanced supply and demand of ESs at the urban agglomeration scale is limited. Therefore, in this study, using the Fujian Delta urban agglomeration of China as the research area, based on multi-source data, and analysis tools, such as ArcGIS, ENVI, and GeoDa, we constructed a research framework and indicator system for ESs supply and demand to determine the spatial change law, matching degree, and coupling coordination degree (CCD) of the ESs. On this basis, the key areas of imbalanced supply and demand of ESs were identified, and optimization strategies were proposed. The results showed that (1) there is obvious spatial heterogeneity between ESs supply and demand in the study area, and different degrees of spatial changes occurred with urbanization. Specifically, areas with large changes were concentrated in urban core areas and economic development zones. (2) The matching degree between ESs supply and demand is quite diverse and shows a trend of polarization. Under the influence of urbanization, some cities began facing ESs supply shortages. (3) Overall, the CCD between ESs supply and demand in the study area is in a state of mild incoordination, but with increasing urbanization, some cities have turned into a state of extreme incoordination. Our results indicate that the ESs supply and demand status in some cities at the urban agglomeration scale has become increasingly severe. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on certain “key areas” to formulate optimization strategies. For key areas with “low supply-high demand” and extreme incoordination, the population and land use intensity should be controlled to reduce the ESs demand level. Meanwhile, for key areas with “high supply-low demand” and extreme incoordination, the utilization efficiency of ecological resources should be improved to enhance the ESs supply capacity. The results of this study will help decision-makers optimize the relationship between ESs supply and demand in order to achieve the sustainable development of urban agglomeration.

[en] Nowadays, substantial improvements in sustainable micro-manufacturing are explicitly addressed based on the triple bottom line (TBL) concept. However, strong criticisms are leveled for the applications of TBL as immense complexities of inner relationships of items and dimensional relationships within TBL, which they cause an inefficacy of accessing critical information in introducing the TBL concept to sustainable micro-manufacturing. In this study, social network analysis (SNA) is used for developing a TBL network of sustainable micro-manufacturing to find out precise meanings of individual items of various dimensions of TBL and the relationships between them. The main metrics of the dominant items of TBL such as in-degree, out-degree, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality are detailly discussed with 16 nodes for three dimensions in the TBL networks. The related findings are further analyzed to reveal the current situation, technical gaps and chances for the sustainable development of the micro-manufacturing sector. This study aims to reveal the relationship between the items of TBL of micro-manufacturing, and delivers the significant roles of the items of TBL according to the findings of metrics and visual analyses for sustainable micro-manufacturing, supporting micro-manufacturing sectors to implement effective sustainable strategies for production activities.

[en] Highlights: • There are two sides of doing a PhD in a transdisciplinary research (TDR) project. • Early career scientists benefit for career development outside of science. • Regarding a career in academia, early career scientists face additional obstacles. • It needs tailored measures to support young scientists in TDR projects. • Amongst others, we recommend the introduction of a transdisciplinary doctorate. Doing a PhD in a transdisciplinary research (TDR) project allows early-career scientists (ECSs) to study innovative topics in socioecological systems and to apply methods involving the co-design and co-production of knowledge with practitioners. However, a series of interviews and a group discussion with ECSs involved in TDR projects revealed not only the benefits for career development but also a number of challenges and even risks related to working on such projects. We discuss the vital role of ECSs in sustainability science and the professionalization of TDR processes. To ensure fair conditions for these researchers, experienced supervisors who assume responsibility for ECSs in TDR projects are required, as is the acknowledgement of the twofold efforts of ECSs in TDR projects and support from scientific networks (e.g., Future Earth) to transform the academic system and build the careers of ECSs in sustainability science. Finally, it has been shown that the scientific discourse on TDR and sustainability science must pay more attention to the specific roles of ECSs and work conditions.

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No abstract available