Sustainable futures: Multi-disciplinary perspectives on multi-level transitions

Dendler, Leonie; Sharmina, Maria; Calverley, D.; Traut, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.envdev.2012.03.002

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The fundamental strategy is for policies to go beyond the foundation resource industries and build more diversified societies with enriched human capital and economic opportunities. This is consistent with Dendler (2012)'s model and contributes to the important dialogue about the future of north-western China.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 70%

“…recognised that "the overriding objective of urban sustainability is to achieve a high quality of life for the whole community within a socio-economic framework that minimises the impact of the city on the local and global environment". The sustainable future requires multi-level and multi-actor transitions from physical to institutional, from government to community, and from public to private (Dendler, 2012).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zhang's (2006b) synthesis contends that urban structure and function need to be improved constantly at the micro-level to achieve urban sustainability. More recently Dendler et al (2012) saw a sustainable future as requiring multi-level and multi-actor transitions from the physical to the institutional, from government to the community, and from the public to the private sectors. Such a perspective strongly suggests that a multi-disciplinary approach to urban problems is required.…”

Section: Sustainable Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Part of the explanation is that there is no universally accepted set of theories, methods and strategies for researching SD. This reflects the ambiguity of this concept and diverse purposes with regard to SD (Dendler et al, 2012;Parris and Kates, 2003). However, most interpretations of SD involve two basic emphases on guaranteeing human needs and benefiting future development (Childers et al, 2014;.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, integrated perspectives, approaches and management involving multiple actors are necessarily important to understand and explore the realworld solutions . Complex environmental management cannot be achieved through a single action but must be addressed with adaptive solutions at multi-level perspectives (Cash et al, 2006;Dendler, 2012;Smith et al, 2010). This process of developing integrated and specific strategies involves continuous exploration of complementary and competing pathways by drawing on the merits of a variety of models.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Enhancing the Understanding of Urban Systems for Sustainability Transition: A Study of Urban Environmental Management in the Natural Resource-Based Industrial City of Jinchang, China

Liu¹

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Rapid world urbanisation calls attention to the issue of sustainable urban development. Urbanisation problems are especially pressing in the industrial cities of China, where environmental conditions have deteriorated with rapid economic and urban development. This study is an exploration of sustainability in an urban context using the natural resource-based industrial city of Jinchang in N.W.China as a case study. The main objective of this study has been to gain a better understanding of urban systems and potential ways of facilitating urban sustainability.The study demonstrates that urban transitions toward sustainability can be facilitated by a systematic and holistic understanding of complex urban systems. The study established a theoretical framework for understanding sustainable urban development and reviewed China's environmental governance philosophies to provide a cultural and political context. A mixed methodology that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches was then applied to Jinchang City to test this framework.Urban metabolism modelling using Material Flow Analysis (MFA) was used to model Jinchang's urban biophysical system and evaluate its sustainability potential over a twenty years period. The study showed that Jinchang's urban development relies heavily on local resources with high material/energy consumption and high waste/pollution generation. This directly challenges sustainable urban development. However, a sustainable trend was observed as economic growth has been strongly decoupled from air pollution while material utilisation efficiency has significantly improved. This suggests that synchronised progress in economic development and environmental improvement requires radical transformations of dematerialisation and decoupling of economic growth from material/energy consumption by adopting technical approaches of cleaner production, circular economy and economic structural adjustment.A field inquiry with semi-structured interview as the main approach explored multi-level human responses to urban problems. This provided insights into the real world from a bottom-up perspective and helped to gain an in-depth understanding of human-environment interactions. The model of urban social system based on public responses revealed that the influences of urban social system on sustainable urban development are determined by key factors in three clusters: commitment of stakeholders, institutional development, and personal development. The challenge for a transition to sustainable behaviour is to bridge the gaps between knowledge and practice. The commitment of government is particularly important in promoting collaboration and participation of stakeholders to fill knowledge gaps and confront governance challenges. Cultural and personal development are soft ii power to accelerate this transition by promoting the knowledge, motivation and commitment of stakeholders. The study suggests that transitions towards sustainability involve multi-level reforms and their synthesis across levels ...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sustainable Urban Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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