Sustainability assessment and complementarity

Alrøe, Hugo Fjelsted; Noe, Egon

doi:10.5751/es-08220-210130

Cited by 31 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(77 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The papers in this Special Feature differ in the weight they put on these two challenges, from papers that emphasize the role of assessments in enhancing the knowledge basis for making decisions toward sustainability transformation through better tools and tool choices , Peano et al 2014, Schader et al 2014, to papers that emphasize different approaches to exposing the value basis (Thorsøe et al 2014, Alrøe andNoe 2016) and working with the value basis for taking actions toward sustainability transformation in form of value http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss1/art38/ communication (Kastberg 2015), motivation (Laessøe et al 2014), and trust (Freyer et al 2014, Rittenhofer andPovlsen 2015). However, none of the papers explicate this difference between working with better knowledge or stronger values in the development of methods and tools for sustainability transformation.…”

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Peano et al (2014) focuses on how to assess a food system, the Slow Food Presidia, as a whole, with a tool that monitors networking and communication, but does not as such facilitate communication. Two other papers in this Special Feature discuss a tool that focuses entirely on facilitating communication in the food system (Kastberg 2015, Alrøe andNoe 2016). This tool was proposed by the MultiTrust project as a cooperative communicational platform for developing more sustainable food chains.…”

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gasparatos 2010). Many of the papers in this Special Feature touch upon the essential role of values in multicriteria assessments and some of the authors go further by emphasizing the "locked in" nature of values from different disciplines and the need for normative consistency (Thorsøe et al 2014, Alrøe andNoe 2016).…”

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Four courses of action will help form such a strategy: (i) elucidate and make explicit the values of each research assessment; (ii) openly discuss the decisive choice of perspective; (iii) formulate common goals that can be translated into the different perspectives; and (iv) consider assessment of food system sustainability as a learning process and design it as such. Alrøe and Noe (2016) further analyze the problems of integrating multiple incompatible perspectives into overall assessments. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr's complementarity from quantum mechanics, they identify two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity (e.g., monitoring vs. development in assessment tools) and value complementarity (e.g., naturalness vs. care in animal welfare).…”

Section: Multicriteria Assessment and Sustainability Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This theme involves fundamental considerations on the conception of values in different assessment perspectives (Thorsøe et al 2014), the role of complementarity in sustainability assessment (Alrøe and Noe 2016), and the role of motivation (Laessøe et al 2014), communication (Kastberg 2015), and trust (Freyer et al 2014, Rittenhofer andPovlsen 2015) in organic food systems. The benefits of bringing in different research perspectives, and the problems and methodological issues in doing so, characterize most of the papers in this theme.…”

Section: Multicriteria Assessment and Sustainability Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Opportunities and challenges for multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability

Alrøe¹,

Møller²,

Læssøe³

et al. 2016

E&S

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. The focus of the Special Feature on "Multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability" is on the complex challenges of making and communicating overall assessments of food systems sustainability based on multiple and varied criteria. Four papers concern the choice and development of appropriate tools for making multicriteria sustainability assessments that handle built-in methodological conflicts and trade-offs between different assessment objectives. They underscore the value of linking diverse methods and tools, or nesting and stepping their deployment, to help build resilience and sustainability. They conclude that there is no one tool, one framework, or one indicator set that is appropriate for the different purposes and contexts of sustainability assessment. The process of creating the assessment framework also emerges as important: if the key stakeholders are not given a responsible and full role in the development of any assessment tool, it is less likely to be fit for their purpose and they are unlikely to take ownership or have confidence in it. Six other papers reflect on more fundamental considerations of how assessments are based in different scientific perspectives and on the role of values, motivation, and trust in relation to assessments in the development of more sustainable food systems. They recommend a radical break with the tradition of conducting multicriteria assessment from one hegemonic perspective to considering multiple perspectives. Collectively the contributions to this Special Feature identify three main challenges for improved multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability: (i) how to balance different types of knowledge to avoid that the most wellknown, precise, or easiest to measure dimensions of sustainability gets the most weight; (ii) how to expose the values in assessment tools and choices to allow evaluation of how they relate to the ethical principles of sustainable food systems, to societal goals, and to the interests of different stakeholders; and (iii) how to enable communication in such a way that the assessments can effectively contribute to the development of more sustainable food systems by facilitating a mutual learning process between researchers and stakeholders. The wider question of how to get from assessment to transformation goes across all three challenges. We strongly recommend future research on the strengths, weaknesses, and complementarities of taking a values-based rather than a performancebased approach to promoting the resilience and sustainability of coupled ecological, economic, and social systems for ensuring food security and agroecosystem health in the coming millennium.

show abstract

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prospects For Future Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Multicriteria Assessment and Sustainability Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Multicriteria Assessment and Sustainability Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Opportunities and challenges for multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability

Alrøe¹,

Møller²,

Læssøe³

et al. 2016

E&S

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Toward a More General Understanding of Bohr’s Complementarity: Insights from Modeling of Ion Channels

Kesić

2021

Acta Biotheor

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Some contemporary theorists such as Mazzocchi, Theise and Kafatos are convinced that the reformed complementarity may redefine how we might exploit the complexity theory in 21 stcentury life sciences research. However, the motives behind the profound re-invention of -biological complementarity‖ need to be substantiated with concrete shreds of evidence about this principle's applicability in real-life science experimentation, which we found missing in the literature. This paper discusses such pieces of evidence by confronting Bohr's complementarity and ion channel modeling practice. We examine whether and to what extent this principle might assist in developing ion channel models incorporating both deterministic and stochastic solutions. According to the -mutual exclusiveness of experimental setups‖ version of Bohr's complementarity, this principle is needed when two mutually exclusive perspectives or approaches are right, necessary in a particular context, and are not contradictory as they arise in mutually exclusive conditions (mutually exclusive experimental or modeling setups).A detailed examination of the modeling practice reveals that both solutions are often used simultaneously in a single ion channel model, suggesting that the opposite conceptual frameworks can coexist in the same modeling setup. We concluded that Bohr's complementarity might find applications in these complex modeling setups but only through its realistic phenomenological interpretation that allows applying different modes of description regardless of the nature of the underlying ion channel opening process. Also, we propose the combined use of complementarity and Complex thinking in building the multifaceted ion channel models. Overall, this paper's results support the efforts to establish a more general form of complementarity to meet today's complexity theory-inspired life sciences modeling demands.

show abstract

Can sustainability auditing be indigenized?

Reid

Rout

2017

Agric Hum Values

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sustainability assessment and complementarity

Cited by 31 publications

References 49 publications

Opportunities and challenges for multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability

Opportunities and challenges for multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability

Toward a More General Understanding of Bohr’s Complementarity: Insights from Modeling of Ion Channels

Can sustainability auditing be indigenized?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About