Analysing trade-offs and synergies between SDGs for urban development, food security and poverty alleviation in rapidly changing peri-urban areas: a tool to support inclusive urban planning

Transitional peri-urban contexts are frontiers for sustainable development where land-use change involves negotiation and contestation between diverse interest groups. Multiple, complex trade-offs between outcomes emerge which have both negative and positive impacts on progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These trade-offs are often overlooked in policy and planning processes which depend on top-down expert perspectives and rely on course grain aggregate data which does not reflect complex peri-urban dynamics or the rapid pace of change. Tools are required to address this gap, integrate data from diverse perspectives and inform more inclusive planning processes. In this paper, we draw on a reinterpretation of empirical data concerned with land-use change and multiple dimensions of food security from the city of Wuhan in China to illustrate some of the complex trade-offs between SDG goals that tend to be overlooked with current planning approaches. We then describe the development of an interactive web-based tool that implements deep learning methods for fine-grained land-use classification of high-resolution remote sensing imagery and integrates this with a flexible method for rapid trade-off analysis of land-use change scenarios. The development and potential use of the tool are illustrated using data from the Wuhan case study example. This tool has the potential to support participatory planning processes by providing a platform for multiple stakeholders to explore the implications of planning decisions and land-use policies. Used alongside other planning, engagement and ecosystem service mapping tools it can help to reveal invisible trade-offs and foreground the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. This is vital for building approaches which recognise how trade-offs between the achievement of SDGs can be influenced by development interventions

Open Source for Digital Social Innovation

Advancing the UN sustainable development goals (UN-SDGs) needs cooperation from both public and private corporations. Involving in open source initiatives is considered risky from an organisational perspective but highly promoted by governments as a way to build digital sovereignty in the European context. Open source initiatives have a greater potential to contribute to digital social innovations (DSI) and advance several UN-SDGs. However, it is not clear to practitioners and IS scholars how might corporations collaboratively pivot and sustain digital social innovations through open source initiatives. To address this practical and theoretical gap, we use a case study method and describe how few corporations associated with the French non-profit association called TOSIT (The Open Source I Trust) collaborate on projects/joint activities to achieve DSIs thereby creating a positive impact to our society. We also delineate a few essential steps for effectively pivoting an open source strategy at an organisational level. This novel guide aims to provide initial clarity to technology managers tasked with undertaking open source initiatives for DSI motives

Classroom collaborations: enabling sustainability education via student-community co-learning

open access articlePurpose: This case study explores co-learning classes, a novel approach to leveraging universities’ capacity to contribute to the local sustainable development agenda whilst enhancing students’ learning. These participatory classes were piloted on a UK university Masters module focussed on action for sustainability. The classes sought to combine knowledge exchange, reflection and social network development, by bringing together students and community stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: The classes were run as a series of five free events, each focussed on sustainability issues relevant for local practitioners. These were either regular timetabled sessions opened up to the public or additional on-campus public events. Attendance was either face-to-face or online. Evaluation was based upon participation data, written feedback and module leader’s post-event reflections. Findings: The classes successfully secured participation from diverse community members, including local government staff, voluntary sector workers, and interested individuals. Both students and community stakeholders valued the participatory format, linkages of theoretical and practical knowledge and diversity of attendees. Research limits/implications: Findings are based upon a small-scale pilot study. Further research using a wider range of contexts is required to enhance understanding of the co-learning approach. Practical implications: This paper highlights some key practical issues to consider if employing co-learning approaches in other contexts, including using inclusive language, aligning with students’ motivations and choosing appropriate focal event topics. Originality/value: Opening up participatory university classes for the public to attend as co-learners is a rarely used approach and has little coverage in academic literature. This small-scale study therefore has value by highlighting some of the potential impacts, strengths and limitations of this approach.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSHE-11-2018-0220/full/html#sec01

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Workshop report : Earth and Environmental Science for Sustainable Development (Nairobi, March 2017)

This report describes the outcomes of a two-day interactive workshop in Nairobi (Kenya), conducted in March 2017. We gathered 32 delegates from 22 organisations in Kenya to determine sustainable development priorities and consider the role of Earth and environmental science in addressing these. Delegates came from diverse disciplines (e.g., geology, agriculture, geography, hydrology, ecology) and sectors (e.g., academia, commercial, civil society, government). Using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a reference tool, participants identified primary development challenges and their research and data needs to help address these. Key themes included the food-water-energy nexus, clean water, and natural resources (minerals). Participants co-designed a set of draft science-for-development projects relating to these themes. BGS are using this information, together with the results of additional workshop activities, to inform the development of collaborative science-for-development activities in eastern Africa as part of our commitment to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the region. We will further develop specific project ideas, using information gathered at this workshop, with appropriate regional and international partners. Information from this workshop provides supporting evidence of expressed development need and stakeholder expertise in eastern Africa. This information will guide future project applications to the Global Challenges Research Fund, and other appropriate research and innovation funding sources. Key Results and Conclusions Small group discussions and group voting generated a collective ranking of SDG priorities. Participants also reflected on where they believe Earth and environmental science can make the greatest contribution to development impact. These rankings were: Overall SDG ranking (Eastern Africa) based on summing of small groups votes: 1. Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) 2. No Poverty (SDG 1) 3. Zero Hunger (SDG 2) 4. Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG 3) 5. Quality Education (SDG 4) Role for Earth and environmental science rankings: 1. Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) 2. Climate Action (SDG 13) 3. Life on Land (SDG 15) 4. Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7) 5. Zero Hunger (SDG 2) Group discussions suggested that interconnectedness of SDGs and basic (immediate) development needs were likely to influence the prioritisation process. For example, participants noted that ending poverty (SDG 1), ending hunger (SDG 2) and ensuring access to clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) would underpin progress in many of the other SDGs. We used these rankings to establish three thematic working groups, with each tasked to identify specific challenges, research priorities, information needs and potential projects. Groups were: Food-water-energy nexus. This group identified geographic areas of interest, and considered crosscutting issues (data, cultural and political barriers, partnerships, lessons learned, and capacity building). Clean water and sanitation. This group discussed water availability mapping, enhanced water policy/governance/management, improved catchment management, data gaps, and applied research and training activities. Natural resources (minerals). This group identified activities relating to a Mombasa to Kisumu resource corridor, and artisanal and small-scale mining activities. Developing these activities will require effective science-for-development partnerships. Partnership characteristics of greatest importance to Kenyan participants were (i) sharing of project outputs, (ii) sharing of data, (iii) being treated as equals by other members of the partnership, and (iv) access to training and capacity building

D10.6 - Final Version of NanoCommons Sustainability Plan

NanoCommons was funded as an infrastructure project for a starting community. This means that it was supposed to build the concepts and foundation on which the community can continue to build solutions and services; in the case of NanoCommons, the infrastructure goal was to address the starting community’s data and nanoinformatics needs. NanoCommons did not start entirely from scratch, as it was building on efforts of the Nanosafety Cluster’s Working Group F on data management, and benefited from a general appreciation of the value of data reuse and computational predictions in the community. The push towards increasing use of chemoinformatics and nanoinformatics approaches was also endorsed by the public, regulatory and funding agencies, including being accelerated by the European ban on animal testing in the cosmetics industry and the European Green Deal. Similarly, industry is increasingly acting as a driver: fostering implementation and adoption of data harmonisation, FAIRness (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability of data) and openness and recognising that these activities require targeted and centralised efforts, which were provided by NanoCommons. However, a starting community is just that: a start upon which the community can build, a coalescence point around which collective efforts can nucleate. Our journey is still at the earliest stages, and much is needed in terms of automation, tooling, and continued training and education to drive the mindset changes within the community to fully embed data management at the start of the data lifecycle. Sustained and continuous support will be needed to achieve sufficient levels of digitalisation, global adoption of reporting standards both in scientific and regulatory settings, and machine-readability and machine-actionable data, all of which will lead to better quality and reproducible research, and more trust in the data and understanding of its applicability and suitability for reuse thus enhancing the value of the data and knowledge generated. This starts with sustaining what we already have, which in our case is the NanoCommons Knowledge Infrastructure, the implemented services from NanoCommons, as well as other associated partners and projects, and the collaboration with other projects established beyond the borders of nanosafety research. The term sustainability can be described as “the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level”. Applied to NanoCommons, this means that the services/tools/materials that were designed and developed during the project and are already being offered to support the nanosafety community will continue to be maintained and ideally further developed, beyond the end of the funded period of the project, ensuring future accessibility for users and potential customers. Since there will be no direct public funding for these services anymore (pending further applications via Horizon Europe for example), planning for sustainability and creation of a (not necessarily commercial) business model were started very early in the project as a central task of WP10 and possible options were continuously evaluated and adapted based on stakeholder feedback coming from surveys and, more importantly, from users of the starting infrastructure services and expertise who received support in the form of Transnational Access (TA) projects or as part of the Demonstration Cases (see deliverable reports D9.3 and D9.4 for details of the first and second round Demonstration Cases, respectively). Deliverable D10.6 presented here builds on the previous deliverables D10.4 “First Testing and Evaluation Results of NanoCommons Sustainability Plan” and D10.5 “Second Testing and Evaluation Results on the NanoCommons Sustainability Plan”, proposing the first version of the business model and analysing all project activities related to sustainability during the last period, respectively. Together, these three reports outline the considerations and activities undertaken with the aim of ensuring the sustained existence and utilisation of the NanoCommons project outcomes beyond the project lifetime. A major NanoCommons objective has been to achieve a sustainable and open knowledge infrastructure for the whole nanosafety community, and thus a considerable effort was invested in exploring the options and approaches, focussing on those business models consistent with the ethos of openness and accessibility, given the public funding used to develop the services, and the critical importance of access to Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) data globally. In this final deliverable, evaluation of the TAs and Demonstration Cases with respect to their (potential) contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is completed by looking at the results from the third funding period. Additionally, the targeted activities with the strategic partners most of whom were previously identified as significant routes via which to sustain and further develop the NanoCommons tools and services, are summarised. The NanoCommons focus areas for short/long term sustainability are presented, along with the justifications of these choices. All of this information is then condensed into the final NanoCommons sustainability plan

A Tertiary Review on Blockchain and Sustainability With Focus on Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable development is crucial to securing the future of humanity. Blockchain as a disruptive technology and a driver for social change has exhibited great potential to promote sustainable practices and help organizations and governments achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Existing literature reviews on blockchain and sustainability often focus only on topics related to a few SDGs. There is a need to consolidate existing results in terms of SDGs and provide a comprehensive overview of the impacts that blockchain technology may have on each SDG. This paper intends to bridge this gap, presenting a tertiary review based on 42 literature reviews, to investigate the relationship between blockchain and sustainability in light of SDGs. The method used is a consensus-based expert elicitation with thematic analysis. The findings include a novel and comprehensive mapping of impact-based interlinkage of blockchain and SDGs and a systematic overview of drivers and barriers to adopting blockchain for sustainability. The findings reveal that blockchain can have a positive impact on all 17 SDGs though some negative effects can occur and impede the achievement of certain objectives. 76 positive and 10 negative linkages between blockchain adoption and the 17 SDGs as well as 45 factors that drive or hinder blockchain adoption for the achievement of SDGs have been identified. Research gaps to overcome the barriers and enhance blockchain’s positive impacts have also been identified. The findings may help managers in evaluating the applicability and tradeoffs, and policymakers in making supportive measures to facilitate sustainability using blockchain.publishedVersio