The art of living together: space mining ecosystem, sustainability and accountability

Abstract

PurposeA major obstacle regarding the measurement of an organization's sustainability and accountability in the space economy is defining the context and boundaries of commercial activity in outer space. Here, we introduce an ecosystem framework to address this obstacle. We utilize this framework to analyze the space mining sector. Our ecosystem framework sets the space mining sector's boundaries and helps a firm identify key stakeholders, activities, policies, norms and common pool resources in that sector and the interactions between them; a significant step in structuring how to measure space sustainability and accountability.Design/methodology/approachBorrowing theories and perspectives from a wide range of academic fields, this paper conducts a comprehensive context analysis of the space mining ecosystem.FindingsUsing our ecosystem framework to define the context and set boundaries for the space mining sector allowed us to identify sustainability-related issues in the sector and offer roadmaps to develop sustainability measures and standards.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first papers to introduce a framework to define boundaries in the global space economy and provides a tool to understand, measure and evaluate the space mining sector's environmental, social and economic issues.

Not because it is easy … accounting research enters the space age

“…The researchers employed a transaction cost economics framework to determine the methods employed by NASA to encourage private investment in the space travel sector and to examine the factors that affect the implementation of these methods. Lee and Fong (2024) conducted a context analysis of the space mining ecosystem to detect sustainability-related matters in the sector and to conduct an environmental, social and economic cost and benefit analysis. This enabled them to develop a proposed ecosystem framework comprising five components -activities, stakeholders, formal governance mechanisms, informal governance mechanisms and common pool resourceswhich enable researchers, accountants and corporations to better identify major stakeholders operating in a given space context as well as to evaluate how their activities are interconnected and how such interconnected activities create environmental, social and economic impacts.…”