Sustainability, Ethics and Nuclear Energy: Escaping the Dichotomy

Kermisch, Céline; Taebi, Behnam

doi:10.3390/su9030446

Cited by 23 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…This emphasis is not only justified because of the relevance of this notion in national and international policy-making on nuclear waste disposal, but also because separate discussion enables us to make a crucial empirical distinction between present, near and distant future generations. This distinction has generally been overlooked in the literature, while it is a crucial distinction with significant implications for different choices in nuclear waste disposal (Kermisch 2016;Kermisch and Taebi 2017). Only few empirical studies that have scrutinized the subject and the results suggest that lay people perceive the risks of repository siting differently depending on whether the focus is on present, near or distant generations (Drottz-Sj€ oberg 2010; Kojo, Kari, and Litmanen 2012;Seidl et al 2013).…”

Section: Bringing Nuclear Communities Justice and Acceptance Togethementioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of justice influencing community acceptance of spent nuclear fuel disposal. A case study in two Finnish nuclear communities

Vilhunen

Kojo

Litmanen

et al. 2019

Journal of Risk Research

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Final disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from nuclear power plants (NPPs) is an ethical issue with implications within and across generations. We address this issue from the perspective of nuclear communities that host nuclear waste disposal sites. These are primarily the communities that face injustice due to the potential radiological risks. A resident survey (n ¼ 454) was conducted in two Finnish nuclear communities, i.e. Eurajoki and Pyh€ ajoki, that are being considered as alternative sites for a second repository for SNF. The nuclear waste management (NWM) company Posiva is already building a repository in Eurajoki, the first in Finland. These communities are in different stages of their lifecycles as nuclear communities. We investigated the residents' conceptions of justice and trust regarding the repository SNF management and its main actors, and how these conceptions related to acceptance of the repository. The main findings show that residents of both communities perceived intragenerational and intergenerational injustices to be important in the procedures and the distribution of risks and benefits of the proposed repository. Claims regarding justice and trust were related to the acceptance of the repository. The community with the longer history with NWM expressed greater mistrust and perceived greater procedural injustice than the community with less earlier experience, whichin turnexpressed more concern over intragenerational distributive justice than the former community. Moreover, having longer history with NWM did not lead to a different understanding regarding responsibility toward future generations as resident's in both communities expressed similar concern over intergenerational justice. Moreover, having more experience of NWM did not enhance local acceptance. We emphasize that these results should be understood in the light of the prevailing situation in Finland, where the planning of the second repository is at a very early stage.

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Section: Bringing Nuclear Communities Justice and Acceptance Togethementioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of justice influencing community acceptance of spent nuclear fuel disposal. A case study in two Finnish nuclear communities

Vilhunen

Kojo

Litmanen

et al. 2019

Journal of Risk Research

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“…This author underlines the ethical value of making decisions on nuclear waste that future generations could reverse by taking profit of technical progress. Kermish and Taebi [16], in turn, studying the ethics of nuclear energy, consider that the analysis of the future impact of current environment decisions requires distinguishing between the ignorance problem and the distance problem. The former is related to the features and needs of future generations while the latter raises the question of the degree of compromise of current generations with future generations.…”

Section: The Pluralist Ethics Of Economics and Financementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The former is related to the features and needs of future generations while the latter raises the question of the degree of compromise of current generations with future generations. On this basis, these authors [16] propose to enlarge the concept of sustainability by including in it "what is morally relevant to be sustained, how that could be sustained, and for whom it should be sustained" [16] (p. 11). This approach sheds light on the complexity of pricing the impact of environmental sustainability on the value of corporate securities.…”

Section: The Pluralist Ethics Of Economics and Financementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Okrent and Pidgeon [15] consider the ethical dilemmas embedded in these decisions. In this respect, the complexity of some environmental decisions, among which nuclear energy is a case in point (see [16]). Wight [17] held that the ethics of economics is better understood through a pluralist approach that interweaves outcomes, duties, and virtues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainability and Ethics in the Process of Price Determination in Financial Markets: A Conceptual Analysis

2018

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This paper explores how financial markets can support the practical applicability of Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) principles and why ethics has a central role in this process. The efficient market hypothesis holds that a financial market is efficient when prices equate value. Extending this assertion to sustainability, it can be said that prices should become equal to sustainable value. Prices can be regarded as the addition of the present value of future expectations and the impact of short-term volatility. This property parallels the existence of two different types of shareholders: long-run shareholders, who are often involved in the management of the corporation, and short-run shareholders, who usually apply speculative strategies to the choice of their investments. The SGDs' principles are logically thought for a long-run horizon. Their impact on corporate value stems mainly from the changes they introduce in environmental and social risk, apart from becoming a potential source of innovation. Nevertheless, their effects on the short-run perspective can be very small unless either market traders assume sustainability as a goal of their own or the sustainability effects are incorporated into prices. We hold that the second issue is safer and preferable. Both involve ethics: the former would require that investors perform any trade from an ethical perspective. The latter needs that the ethical emphasis is placed on the process of price determination. The achievement of this goal demands a wide display of information on sustainability, placed together with financial information, and appropriate regulation. Its analysis considers the principles of behavioral finance.

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“…In line with this argument, and using a similar example, Kermisch and Taebi established a framework for evaluating nuclear energy that has the interests of close and distant (remote) generations at its centre. By doing so, the authors argue it affects the very notion of sustainability [27].…”

Section: The (Im)balance In the Wellbeing Of Present And Future Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Back to the Future: The Potential of Intergenerational Justice for the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

Oliveira

2018

Sustainability

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Abstract:The establishment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) bolstered momentum to achieve a sustainable future. Undeniably, the welfare of future generations is a fundamental value of sustainable development since the publication of the Brundtland report. Nevertheless, SDGs and their targets are meagre on intergenerational justice concerns. The 15-year target horizon of the SDGs might be beneficial for implementation reasons. However, such a short-term perspective is far from innocuous in justice terms. It jeopardises the establishment of long-term goals, which protect both present and future people. This article advocates for clearer stances on intergenerational justice. What type of distributive principles could and should dictate the present socio-economic development? Looking at intragenerational justice principles contained in SDGs does not provide a full answer since they express conflicting visions of what constitutes a fair development. Furthermore, a fair distribution of the development benefits and burdens among present and near future people does not necessarily guarantee the wellbeing of more distant generations. I propose an intergenerational sufficientarian perspective as a way of extending the beneficial impacts of SDGs to both close and distant future generations. Hopefully, it facilitates the translation of the SDGs into policies that promote fairer implementation strategies.

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Sustainability, Ethics and Nuclear Energy: Escaping the Dichotomy

Cited by 23 publications

References 27 publications

Perceptions of justice influencing community acceptance of spent nuclear fuel disposal. A case study in two Finnish nuclear communities

Perceptions of justice influencing community acceptance of spent nuclear fuel disposal. A case study in two Finnish nuclear communities

Sustainability and Ethics in the Process of Price Determination in Financial Markets: A Conceptual Analysis

Back to the Future: The Potential of Intergenerational Justice for the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

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