The Sustainability Cycle and Loop: Models for a more unified understanding of sustainability

Abstract

In spite of the considerable research on sustainability, reports suggest that we are barely any closer to a more sustainable society. As such, there is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of human efforts towards sustainability. A clearer and more unified understanding of sustainability among different people and sectors could help to facilitate this. This paper presents the results of an inductive literature investigation, aiming to develop models to explain the nature of sustainability in the Earth system, and how humans can effectively strive for it. The major contributions are two general and complementary models, that may be applied in any context to provide a common basis for understanding sustainability: the Sustainability Cycle (S-Cycle), and the Sustainability Loop (S-Loop). Literature spanning multiple sectors is examined from the perspective of three concepts, emerging as significant in relation to our aim. Systems are shown to provide the context for human action towards sustainability, and the nature of the Earth system and its sub-systems is explored. Activities are outlined as a fundamental target that humans need to sustain, since they produce the entities both needed and desired by society. The basic behaviour of activities operating in the Earth system is outlined. Finally, knowledge is positioned as the driver of human action towards sustainability, and the key components of knowledge involved are examined. The S-Cycle and S-Loop models are developed via a process of induction from the reviewed literature. The S-Cycle describes the operation of activities in a system from the perspective of sustainability. The sustainability of activities in a system depends upon the availability of resources, and the availability of resources depends upon the rate that activities consume and produce them. Humans may intervene in these dynamics via an iterative process of interpretation and action, described in the S-Loop model. The models are briefly applied to a system described in the literature. It is shown that the S-Loop may be used to guide efforts towards sustainability in a particular system of interest, by prescribing the basic activities involved. The S-Cycle may be applied complementary to the S-Loop, to support the interpretation of activity behaviour described in the latter. Given their general nature, the models provide the basis for a more unified understanding of sustainability. It is hoped that their use may go some way towards improving the effectiveness of human action towards sustainability.

Strategic sustainable development in the UK construction industry, through the framework for strategic sustainable development, using Building Information Modelling

“…Strategic education can be used to drive change by reframing a holistic understanding of sustainability (Hay et al 2014). Academia, in this case, has potentially filled a gap in the industry that currently exists with projects procured through bottom up leadership towards sustainability; the academy provided research and design expertise, as well as technical innovation and skills training.…”

From value-added tax to a damage and value-added tax partially based on life cycle assessment: principles and feasibility

“…However, if a majority of citizens considers that the consumption of certain products is not sufficiently taxed today (e.g., for the specific environmental, health, social, or ethical reasons mentioned above), it is always possible to add a specific damage tax (SDT) on these products. As highlighted by several studies (Bishop 1993;Baumgärtner and Quaas 2009;Ekins 2011;Hay et al 2014;Burritt and Schaltegger 2014), keeping the same valuation rules to measure environmental damage while taking into account the specificity of the human and social aspects of the development of each country (which here is done in particular through SDT) is not only cheaper (administrative simplicity). It is also more transparent and more coherent if we want to integrate the concern for environment, human health, resource depletion, and other aspects of sustainable development into the entire economic chain on a long-term basis.…”

Organizational infrastructure of innovation processes in Russian Russia

“…The options of estimation based on the level of competitiveness are "competitiveness through cooperation" indicators, suggested by . Teixeira [10] and "sustainable development" used by Hay and others, Vollebergh, Kemfert, and White in their researches [11][12][13]. Some researchers, for example Cooke or Buyanova consider the region as a significant unit of consideration in the question of innovation ensuring because the innovative clusters are mostly created at the regional level, the region creates local legislative and infrastructure conditions to provide innovation for the enterprises [14][15][16], but there are approaches, for example by Hamel .…”