Value of sustainability indicators for each sector
1. What is the value of sustainability indicators for each sector – government, business and civil society?
2. Thinking about the overall resilience of our global food system, where do you think is the most vulnerable, or most lacking in resilience?
3. “Without people understanding the influences of the social – political systems on the way decisions are made and ideas are acepted, the capacity to implement proposals for environmental sustainability area limited (COX 2004)”. Discuss, drawing on the concept of “social sustainability”.
4. Why are local governments believed to be a critical level of government for the implementation of sustainability?
5. Why have historic forms of community education and behavior change programs been so unsuccessful at changing people in any significant way?
6. What is the most exciting innovation in the business sector towards sustainability? Justify your argument with examples.
7. Thinking about the overall resilience of our global food system, where do you think is the most vulnerable, or most lacking in resilience?
8. How would you distinguish a systemic change approach from a behavior change when it comes to making households more sustainable?
9. How could you build more resilience into the mainstream food system in Australia? Draw on the work of walker and salt in your answer.
10. How can sustainability indicators help to create sustainable communities?
1. Since the commencement of the Rio Earth Summit, the sustainability indicators have been receiving major attention. In the context of the governmental sector, the sustainability indicators reflect the growing concern by the policy makers and the public over the trends of the environment. The sustainability indicators provide an overview of the progress towards more sustainable society, environment and economy[1]. In case of the governmental sector, the sustainability indicators are used as a means of evaluation of whether the nation is developing. In the context of civil society, the sustainability indicators are used to assess the effectiveness of the sustainable policies. In civil society, the sustainability indicators are the quantitative basis for sustainability informed management. Some of the indicators that are used for the civic society measurements such as social domains; environmental sustainability includes index, audits, benchmarks, appraisal and more. In the context of business, the sustainability indicators are used to measure the performance of a business organization together with effective monitoring and report for the future progress. The three major areas of sustainability indicators of a business organization include environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability.
Most vulnerable areas in the global food system
2. The understanding of the factors contributing to the ability of the global system of the food for actively responding and adapting to disruptions or resilience is tough in the context of sustainability of the human populations in the longer run. There exist three main dimensions of resilience. These includes biophysical capacity for intensifying and extensifying the production of the food, socio economic access towards food items on the basis of the income of the poorest quintile in relation to the food prices and finally the diversity and the magnitude of the recent domestic food production[2]. The biophysical capacity indicator is the most vulnerable and the most lacking in resilience at the countries of Africa and Eastern Europe due to the high potentiality for the extensification of the cropland and for yielding the closure of the gaps in the areas under cultivation. In Africa, this indicator has been declining rapidly. Furthermore the state of resilience in Africa also characterizes socio economic access towards the food items in the context of income since Africa is one of the poorest countries with maximum number of people residing under below poverty line.
3.Social sustainability is all about the identification and management of the impacts of the business and both the positive and the negative impact on the individual. Furthermore the action for the achievement of the social sustainability tends to unlock many new and innovative markets and features that help to retain and source innovation for new product line[3]. The concepts of social sustainability is often overlooked as the innovative aspect of sustainability from the perspective of business for the understanding of the impacts of the corporations on society and the individual for undertaking decisions and ideas and enhance the capacity for the effective implementation of innovative measures to promote environmental sustainability as suggested by Cox.
4. In the 2030 Agenda for the sustainable development, the local governments play a very important role in implementing the goals and the indicators of sustainability. Full and effective implementation of the sustainability cannot be addressed without the help of the local government. This is because the local governments are essential for the promotion of the awareness regarding the sustainability goals within the local communities and for the effective mobilization of all the stakeholders and their implementations[4]. Local governments are considered to be the critical governmental level since the agendas for the sustainability development and the goals gets translated to the concrete actions in the local levels. Majority of the sustainability targets gets failed to be achieved without the participation or the involvement of the local governments. Furthermore, the local government is best suited for the development of the policies which tends to address and respond towards the local requirements, catalyzes innovation at the local level and initiate promotion of a territorial approach towards the development. Thus it is essential to build up the capacity of the local governments for initiating engagement of the local stakeholders and enhance collection and analysis of data.
Social sustainability and environmental sustainability
5. The changes in the behavioral approach tend to promote health by enabling changes in individual lifestyle which are appropriate for the setting of the people. Before enabling changes in the lifestyle it is required for the people to understand the basic facts about the benefits of the community educational programs and the behavior change programs. Behavioral change programs and the community education programs have been unsuccessful till decade in changing the lives of the people in a significant way[5]. This is because the programs related to behavioral changes that have evolved over the time encompasses a wide range of activities and approaches that are used as rational facts for pursuing changes in the behaviors and the lives of the people. This community educational program furthermore forces people to enable adoption of behavior under the penalty threat for not following so. Furthermore lack of understanding of the procedure, embracing failure and lack of commitment with motivation by negative emotions are some of the major factors that contributes to the failure of the changes in the life’s of the people in a significant way.
6. Innovation towards sustainability in Business sector is defined as the procedure by which companies and the business organization manages their social, environmental and financial risks together with opportunities and obligations. Sustainability innovation in the business sector illustrates a frame for the thought process on how entrepreneurial forms and individuals enable effective contribution. Sustainability in the sector of business unit is not about the altruism and what is correct for its sake. Business unit with successful strategies and innovation of sustainability are more or less profitable since they integrate the consideration of resources and clean in the making economic sense. In the business sector the sustainability innovation is all about the illustration of economic development as the formation of social and public wealth for ultimately eliminating harmful impacts on the communities, ecological systems and human health[6]. One of the most exciting innovation in the business sector is the propagation of the eco logical model, recycling of the unused resources at workplace and driven innovation to use and design green products.
7. In the 2030 Agenda for the sustainable development, the local governments play a very beneficial and critical role in implementing the goals and the indicators of sustainability. Full and effective implementation of the sustainability cannot be addressed without the help of the local government. This is because the local governments are essential for the promotion of the awareness regarding the sustainability goals within the local communities and for the effective mobilization of all the stakeholders and their implementations[7]. Local governments are considered to be the critical governmental level since the agendas for the sustainability development and the goals gets translated to the concrete actions in the local levels. Majority of the sustainability targets gets failed to be achieved without the participation or the involvement of the local governments. Furthermore, the local government is best suited for the development of the policies which tends to address and respond towards the local requirements, catalyzes innovation at the local level and initiate promotion of a territorial approach towards the development. Thus it is essential to build up the capacity of the local governments for initiating engagement of the local stakeholders and enhance collection and analysis of data.
Local government’s role in sustainability
8. Systematic changes are the changes that pervade the parts of the system and take into account the interdependencies and the interrelationships among the factors inducing changes in the lives of the households. Systematic changes procedures include the procedure of alteration with varied planning before the execution and are generally successful in nature. In the context of sustainable household systems the concept of systematic change is a combination of varied factors. These include structures, flows, and rules, evolving powers, paradigm and goals. Various frameworks describe and illustrate the changes in the system and the procedure of the system change forming the basis of the strategy and system change interventions designs[8]. Sustainability Transition Theory furthermore triggers structural changes by the means of feedback loops. On the other hand, behavioral change refers to the modification and transformation of behavior of the human. The context of the behavioral change in case of making the household system more sustainable includes wide range of approaches and activities which focuses on the community, individual and the environmental factors that tends to influence the behavior and the livelihood of the individual. In case of the sustainable changes in the households, radical and the structural changes of the societal system together with the developments and evaluation of the cultural, economic and technological factors are the essential for the achievement of the factors inducing sustainability.
9. Resilience is used in number of contexts. Brian Walker & David Salt defined resilience as the system’s capacity for absorbing the discrepancy and re connect any of the undergoing alterations or changes. Furthermore, retention of essential similar functions, structures and feedbacks are essential norms in the context of resilience. In the context of resilience thinking, both of the scientists present an accessible explanation regarding the rising paradigm of resilience. The introduction of the symposium on the Australian food resilience can be one of the exciting innovations in the system of food in Australia[9]. The ability of the Australia’s food system for withstanding stress and shocks for leading collapse and disruptions are the matter on genuine concern. Some of the effective strategies that can be utilized to build more resilience into the Australian mainstream food system include involvement of the government with strong investments and improved regulations in the food system, improved scales of evaluation and solutions and introduction of alternative agricultural technologies for more profitability.
10. Sustainability is an increasing concern among various communities in the current decade. In response, the increasing number of public and grassroots groups is giving efforts to address the issues related to environmental, social and economic factors for initiating community wellbeing and security of the long term health of natural and human systems. For the regulation of the natural procedure and controlling of the activities of the human, sustainability assessments are required to be integrated into urban planning. Sustainability indicators are the basic fundamental tools or instruments which provide data for supporting decision making and policies[10]. The sustainability indicators thus initiates and addresses any of the gaps in the literature of the research for the improvements of future sustainability in the communities by gathering all the accessible and the reliable data targeting urban development and evolution. Furthermore sustainability indicators monitor the effect of the policies and implements general and specified feedbacks for the successful accomplishment of the desirable state of the sustainable community development. The three pillars of sustainability includes environmental, social and economic pillars which targets to meet the requirements of the present without initiating any sort of compromise towards the ability of the upcoming generations for meeting their requirements.
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