From Planetary Boundaries to national fair shares of the global safe operating space — How can the scales be bridged?

The planetary boundaries framework proposes quantitative global limits to the anthropogenic perturbation of crucial Earth system processes, and thus marks out a planetary safe operating space for human activities. Yet, decisions regarding resource use and emissions are mostly made at less aggregated scales, by national and sub-national governments, businesses, and other local actors. To operationalize the planetary boundaries concept, the boundaries need to be translated into and aligned with targets that are relevant at these decision-making scales. In this paper, we develop a framework that addresses the biophysical, socio-economic, and ethical dimensions of bridging across scales, to provide a consistently applicable approach for translating the planetary boundaries into national-level fair shares of Earth’s safe operating space. We discuss our findings in the context of previous studies and their implications for future analyses and policymaking. In this way, we link the planetary boundaries framework to widely-applied operational and policy concepts for more robust strong sustainability decision-making

Bioeconomy Transitions through the Lens of Coupled Social-Ecological Systems: A Framework for Place-Based Responsibility in the Global Resource System

Bioeconomy strategies in high income societies focus at replacing finite, fossil resources by renewable, biological resources to reconcile macro-economic concerns with climate constraints. However, the current bioeconomy is associated with critical levels of environmental degradation. As a potential increase in biological resource use may further threaten the capacity of ecosystems to fulfil human needs, it remains unclear whether bioeconomy transitions in high income countries are sustainable. In order to fill a gap in bioeconomy sustainability assessments, we apply an ontological lens of coupled social-ecological systems to explore critical mechanisms in relation to bioeconomy activities in the global resource system. This contributes to a social-ecological systems (SES)-based understanding of sustainability from a high income country perspective: the capacity of humans to satisfy their needs with strategies that reduce current levels of pressures and impacts on ecosystems. Building on this notion of agency, we develop a framework prototype that captures the systemic relation between individual human needs and collective social outcomes on the one hand (microlevel) and social-ecological impacts in the global resource system on the other hand (macro-level). The BIO-SES framework emphasizes the role of responsible consumption (for physical health), responsible production (to reduce stressors on the environment), and the role of autonomy and selforganisation (to protect the reproduction capacity of social-ecological systems). In particular, the BIO-SES framework can support (1) individual and collective agency in high income country contexts to reduce global resource use and related ecosystem impacts with a bioeconomy strategy, (2) aligning social outcomes, monitoring efforts and governance structures with place-based efforts to achieve the SDGs, as well as (3), advancing the evidence base and social-ecological theory on responsible bioeconomy transitions in the limited biosphere

Matching scope, purpose and uses of planetary boundaries science

Background: The Planetary Boundaries concept (PBc) has emerged as a key global sustainability concept in international sustainable development arenas. Initially presented as an agenda for global sustainability research, it now shows potential for sustainability governance. We use the fact that it is widely cited in scientific literature (>3500 citations) and an extensively studied concept to analyse how it has been used and developed since its first publication. Design: From the literature that cites the PBc, we select those articles that have the terms 'planetary boundaries' or 'safe operating space' in either title, abstract or keywords. We assume that this literature substantively engages with and develops the PBc. Results: We find that 6% of the citing literature engages with the concept. Within this fraction of the literature we distinguish commentaries—that discuss the context and challenges to implementing the PBc, articles that develop the core biogeophysical concept and articles that apply the concept by translating to sub-global scales and by adding a human component to it. Applied literature adds to the concept by explicitly including society through perspectives of impacts, needs, aspirations and behaviours. Discussion: Literature applying the concept does not yet include the more complex, diverse, cultural and behavioural facet of humanity that is implied in commentary literature. We suggest there is need for a positive framing of sustainability goals—as a Safe Operating Space rather than boundaries. Key scientific challenges include distinguishing generalised from context-specific knowledge, clarifying which processes are generalizable and which are scalable, and explicitly applying complex systems' knowledge in the application and development of the PBc. We envisage that opportunities to address these challenges will arise when more human social dimensions are integrated, as we learn to feed the global sustainability vision with a plurality of bottom-up realisations of sustainability

New national and regional biological records for Finland 11. Contributions to Bryophyta and Marchantiophyta 10

Ten species of mosses (Bryophyta: Entosthodon obtusus, Entosthodon ulvinenii, Eurhynchiastrum diversifolium, Hedwigia emodica, Hedwigia mollis, Hygrohypnum styriacum, Plagiothecium rossicum, Polytrichum perigoniale, Tortella alpicola and Ulota intermedia) are presented as new for Finland. Cephalozia lacinulata, previously considered to be regionally extinct from Finland, is reported to being found again. New records in biogeographical provinces for 67 species of mosses and 34 species of liverworts are listed. Finally, 6 occurrences in provinces are removed due to misidentifications or missing specimens

Suomen sähköntuotannon taloudelliset ja biofysikaaliset kustannukset ja skenaarioita fossiilisista energialähteistä irtautumiselle

Maailman energiajärjestelmä perustuu fossiilisen energialähteiden laajamittaiseen hyödyntämiseen, mikä lisää ilmakehän hiilidioksidipitoisuutta ja kiihdyttää siten globaalia ilmastonmuutosta. Energian kysynnän kasvun ennustetaan jatkuvan tulevina vuosikymmeninä, mutta samalla fossiilisten energialähteiden resurssit käyvät yhä niukemmiksi, mikä pahentaa kysynnän ja tarjonnan välistä kuilua ja nostaa polttoaineiden hintoja. Siirtyminen pois fossiilisten energialähteiden käytöstä on siten välttämätöntä sekä ympäristöllisistä että saatavuuteen liittyvistä syitä. Osa taloustieteilijöistä on käyttänyt sekä taloudellista että biofysikaalista analyysia luonnonvarojen ja ihmisen hallitsemien prosessien arvottamiseen. Biofysikaaliset menetelmät pohjautuvat energia- ja materiaalivirtojen laskentaan ja ne perustuvat taloudellisten toimijoiden preferenssien sijasta tuotannon kustannuksiin, kuten klassisen taloustieteen arvoteoriassa ajateltiin (esim. Adam Smith; Ricardon ja Marxin työnarvon teoria). Biofysikaaliset mittarit ovat hyödyllisiä etenkin luonnonvarojen kulutuksen ja kestävän tuotannon arvioimisessa. Tässä työssä pyrittiin taloudellisen ja biofysikaalisen analyysin yhdistämiseen arvioimalla Suomen sähköntuotannon suoria taloudellisia ja biofysikaalisia (fossiilinen energia ja emergia) kustannuksia sekä hiilidioksidipäästöjä sekä laitos- että kansantalouden tasolla. Lisäksi Suomen sähköntuotannon tulevaisuudelle vuosille 2025 ja 2050 luotiin skenaarioita, joissa fossiilista energiaa korvattiin ei-fossiilisella energialla, eli uusituvilla energialähteillä (tuulivoimalla ja puupolttoaineilla), turpeella ja ydinvoimalla tämän hetken teknisten ja ekologisten mahdollisuuksien rajoissa. Skenaarioanalyysin pohjalta voidaan Suomelle suosittaa monipuoliseen energiantuotantoon ja paikallisten, uusiutuvien energialähteiden kestävälle hyödyntämiselle perustuvaa energiapolitiikkaa. Energiaturvallisuuden kannalta mahdollisimman hajautettu energiantuotanto, energiatehokkuuden parantaminen ja kestävä energiankulutus on tärkeää. Jatkotutkimusta tarvitaan selvittämään, mikä energiantuotantoyhdistelmä minimoisi sähköntuotannon sekä kansantaloudelliset kustannukset että ympäristökuormituksen. Lisätutkimusta kaivataan myös arvioimaan eri ohjauskeinojen, kuten verotuksen ja syöttötariffien, vaikutusta tulevaisuuden energiaratkaisuihin