Governance for sustainable urban development: the double function of SDG indicators

Hansson, Stina; Arfvidsson, Helen; Simon, David

doi:10.1080/23792949.2019.1585192

Cited by 52 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The proposed indicators also cover aspects of SDG12 that deal with sustainable consumption and production patterns, such as SDG12.2 on the efficient use of natural resources. A focus on climate stabilisation, however, does not preclude using other sustainability indicators drawn from the SDG or human rights frameworks [31,106,107]. The literature on NETs report on SDG synergies in areas such as poverty eradication, food security, health, equality within and among countries, and gender [4,59,105,108].…”

Section: Synergiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Indicators for a Negative Emissions Climate Stabilisation Index: Problems and Prospects

Fridahl

Hansson

Anshelm

2020

Climate

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The incongruence between the United Nations objective to hold global warming well below 2 °C and the rate of global emission reductions has intensified interest in negative emissions. Previous research has explored several pros and cons of individual negative emissions technologies. Systematised approaches to comparing and prioritising among them are, however, largely lacking. In response to this gap in the literature, this article reviews the scientific literature on indicators for designing negative emissions climate stabilisation value indexes. An index typically provides summary measures of several components, often denoted indicators. Utilizing a narrative review methodology, the article derives five categories of indicators underpinned by overlapping and often mutually reinforcing environmental and socio-economic values. A list of 21 indicators are proposed to capture both positive and negative values associated with effectiveness, efficiency, scale, risk, and synergies. While discussing indicators capable of providing guidance on negative emissions is timely, given the emerging shift away from pure emission reduction targets towards net-zero targets, numerous complexities are involved in determining their relative values. The results herein serve to inform policy making on the prioritisation and incentivisation of negative emissions technologies capable of delivering on the new objectives, and the results highlight the many risks and uncertainties involved in such exercises. The article concludes that systematic research on the comparison of NETs is incomplete. An iterative, interdisciplinary research programme exploring such questions has the potential to be extremely rewarding.

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Section: Synergiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Indicators for a Negative Emissions Climate Stabilisation Index: Problems and Prospects

Fridahl

Hansson

Anshelm

2020

Climate

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“…Asset-based social policies provide a structural backdrop against which opportunities are created that allow low-income families to first accumulate assets and then build assets on their own. Moser's asset accumulation framework proposes that access to opportunities helps individuals to earn some marketable assets [52,53]. In a way, this goes beyond the mere concept of savings.…”

Section: Research Framework and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Scalar Approach for Assessing Costs and Benefits of Risk Reduction Alternatives for the People and the City: Cases of Three Resettlements in Visakhapatnam, India

Jain

Bazaz

2020

Sustainability

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Resettlement undertaken with the objective of reducing disaster risk often narrowly focuses only on reducing hazard exposure. However, when resettlements are analyzed from the perspective of holistic development outcomes, including livelihood conditions, health implications, social cohesion and employment opportunities, they are often found to be lacking. Apart from this contrast between considerations of disaster risk and everyday socio-economic risks at the household or settlement level, resettlement programs also lack a clear focus on achieving wider regional development goals including poverty reduction, economic growth and environmental protection. This relates to the sectorization of attitudes to disaster risk and the lack of integration with development concerns across multiple actors involved. This paper offers an approach: (1) to systematize costs and benefits; and using these (2) to assess policy alternatives that could maximize the beneficial outcomes for the resettlement intervention as well as improve overall sustainability for the urban areas they are set in. This paper first situates “risks” within a larger context of structural risks, and then uses the framework of asset accumulation to recognize the changes experienced by the people as costs or benefits. For this, it goes beyond the resettlement site to a broader regional perspective of the city and reflects on the long-term historical trends as well as future risks created by the intervention in the context of urbanization processes and increasing climate variability. To illustrate the use of this approach in assessing intervention alternatives, the paper analyzes three empirical case studies representing in-situ, voluntary and involuntary resettlements from urban Andhra Pradesh in India.

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“…Special attention must also be given to indicator coverage, inclusion of local context, and a threshold system for monitoring and comparing cases over periods of time. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were set to address such issues through unified sustainability indicators, but even these indicators have been found to be to some extent locally inapplicable, irrelevant, producing negative effects if applied alone, and lacking outcome and policy databases to ensure comparability and support for the exchange of best practices (Hansson, Arfvidsson, & Simon, 2019;Rozhenkova, Allmang, Ly, Franken, & Heymann, 2019).…”

Section: Future Research Needsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban transportation sustainability assessments: a systematic review of literature

Karjalainen

Juhola

2021

Transport Reviews

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The volume of urban transportation sustainability assessments in academic literature has steadily increased over the last two decades. This paper targets these studies through the first systematic literature review to construct a synthesised and critical overview of how urban transportation sustainability is in fact assessed. The sample consists of 99 peer-reviewed articles retrieved via three scientific search engines. The results reveal a Europe-centric and single-case focus, a strong interest to introduce new indicator systems with limited references to previous work, and a lack of qualitative approaches and stakeholder diversity regarding the assessment methods. Nearly 2400 indicators are identified in the articles with significant variation in their use. Furthermore, the comprehensive accounting for sustainability is often overlooked, and the inconclusive assessment results are often noted by the authors of the sample articles themselves. Our findings signal that the research field is highly fragmented and to some extent fails to accumulate knowledge generated by past studies and to comprehensively operationalise the concept of sustainability. The identified shortcomings of the assessments and their implications for transportation policy-making and planning are highlighted, and based on our results recommendations to develop more reliable, comparable, and inclusive sustainability assessments for the urban transportation sector are made.

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Governance for sustainable urban development: the double function of SDG indicators

Cited by 52 publications

References 53 publications

Towards Indicators for a Negative Emissions Climate Stabilisation Index: Problems and Prospects

Towards Indicators for a Negative Emissions Climate Stabilisation Index: Problems and Prospects

A Multi-Scalar Approach for Assessing Costs and Benefits of Risk Reduction Alternatives for the People and the City: Cases of Three Resettlements in Visakhapatnam, India

Urban transportation sustainability assessments: a systematic review of literature

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