Mapping citizen science contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a vision for achieving a sustainable future. Reliable, timely, comprehensive, and consistent data are critical for measuring progress towards, and ultimately achieving, the SDGs. Data from citizen science represent one new source of data that could be used for SDG reporting and monitoring. However, information is still lacking regarding the current and potential contributions of citizen science to the SDG indicator framework. Through a systematic review of the metadata and work plans of the 244 SDG indicators, as well as the identification of past and ongoing citizen science initiatives that could directly or indirectly provide data for these indicators, this paper presents an overview of where citizen science is already contributing and could contribute data to the SDG indicator framework. The results demonstrate that citizen science is “already contributing” to the monitoring of 5 SDG indicators, and that citizen science “could contribute” to 76 indicators, which, together, equates to around 33%. Our analysis also shows that the greatest inputs from citizen science to the SDG framework relate to SDG 15 Life on Land, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing, and SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation. Realizing the full potential of citizen science requires demonstrating its value in the global data ecosystem, building partnerships around citizen science data to accelerate SDG progress, and leveraging investments to enhance its use and impact

Kapitel 8. Landnutzung und Klimawandel im Kontext der Nachhaltigen Entwicklungsziele

Dieses Kapitel präsentiert und bewertet den aktuellen Stand des Wissens zum Konnex Landnutzung und Klimawandel in Österreich aus dem systemischen Blickwinkel der UN Agenda 2030 für eine Nachhaltige Entwicklung. Dabei wird dem Thema entsprechend auf die Verflechtungen zwischen den lokalen, nationalen und internationalen Ebenen eingegangen. Die Menschheit befindet sich in kritischen, vielfältigen und vernetzten Krisen. Integrative und globale Lösungsansätze, wie sie in der Agenda 2030 festgeschrieben sind, haben für diese multiplen Krisen ein hohes Lösungspotenzial

The Potential Role of Citizen Science for Addressing Global Challenges and Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The contribution of citizen science to addressing societal challenges has long been recognized. The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as an overarching policy framework and a roadmap to guide global development efforts until 2030 for achieving a better future for all, could benefit from the potential that citizen science offers. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the value of citizen science, particularly in addressing the data needs for SDG monitoring, among the UN agencies, national statistical offices, policy makers and the citizen science community itself. To address this challenge, we launched a Community of Practice on Citizen Science and the SDGs (SDGs CoP) in November 2018 as part of the EU Horizon 2020 funded WeObserve project. The SDGs CoP brings together citizen science researchers, practitioners, UN custodian agencies, broader data communities and other key actors to develop an understanding on how to demonstrate the value of citizen science for SDG achievement. The initial focus and the main objective of the SDGs CoP has been to conduct a research study to understand the contribution of citizen science to SDG monitoring and implementation. In this talk, we will present the work of the SDGs CoP. We will first discuss existing data gaps and needs for measuring progress on the SDGs, and then provide an overview on the results of a systematic review that we undertook within the CoP, showing where citizen science is already contributing and could contribute data to the SDG framework. We will provide concrete examples of our findings to demonstrate how citizen science data could inform the SDGs. We will also touch on the challenges for and barriers to the uptake of citizen science data for the SDG monitoring processes, and how to bring this source of data into the scope of official statistics

The ‘Biophilic Organization’: An Integrative Metaphor for Corporate Sustainability

This paper proposes a new organizational metaphor, the ‘Biophilic Organization’, which aims to counter the bio-cultural disconnection of many organizations despite their espoused commitment to sustainability. This conceptual research draws on multiple disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and architecture to not only develop a diverse bio-cultural connection but to show how this connection tackles sustainability, in a holistic and systemic sense. Moreover, the paper takes an integrative view of sustainability, which effectively means that it embraces the different emergent tensions. Three specific tensions are explored: efficiency versus resilience, organizational versus personal agendas and isomorphism versus institutional change. In order to illustrate how the Biophilic Organization could potentially provide a synthesis strategy for such tensions, healthcare examples are drawn from the emerging fields of Biophilic Design in Singapore and Generative Design in the U.S.A. Finally, an example is provided which highlights how a Taoist cultural context has impacted on a business leader in China, to illustrative the significance of a transcendent belief system to such a bio-cultural narrative

Technische Zusammenfassung

Die Technische Zusammenfassung des APCC-Sonderberichts ″Landnutzung und Klimawandel in Österreich″ umfasst die Kernbotschaften der Kapitel 1–9. In ihr sind die Hauptaussagen zu den sozioökonomischen und klimatischen Treibern der Landnutzungsänderungen, zu den Auswirkungen von Landnutzung und -bewirtschaftung auf den Klimawandel, zu Minderungs- und Anpassungsoptionen im Kontext nachhaltiger Entwicklungsziele sowie zu Synergien, Zielkonflikten und Umsetzungsbarrieren von Klimamaßnahmen enthalten

Transaction costs and transaction benefits associated with the process of PGI/PDO registration in Austria

Since 1992, the European Union protects names of regional foods as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) or Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). Besides direct benefits such as higher prices or the protection from unfair competition, researchers and rural development agents emphasize the indirect benefits resulting from an intensified interaction of producers, processers and retailers during the registration process. Based on a comparative case study in Austria, this paper analyses the relation of transaction costs and transaction benefits associated with the registration process of two PGIs. Whereas one case was based on extensive outsourcing to a private consultancy (for just under 50,000 Euro + 160 working hours invested by the producers over 3.5 years), the other one was mostly the result of extensive personal contributions of the regional producer group (2,000 hours over ten years) who were assisted by the state extension services (Chamber of Agriculture, additional 1,000 work hours). The comparative case study does not give any indication that outsourcing necessarily bears the risk of diminishing indirect benefits, such as social capital building, intensified co-operations with other rural sectors, higher awareness of and compliance with quality standards. This does not mean that there is no positive relation between transaction costs and transaction benefits but it emphasizes that there are more and less efficient processes

L'organisation des services d'entretien de la voirie rurale en Autriche et France : l'intérêt du cadre de l'économie néo-institutionnelle

International audienceThis paper presents an analytical framework for the analysis of the maintenance of minor roads in Austrian and French rural areas. Minor rural roads are essential components of landscapes, as constitutive elements and supports of access. Moreover, their management reflects the current evolution of uses in the countryside as well as the potential conflicts between new uses (recreation, sports, nature conservation) and traditional uses (circulation, production). The aim of the study is to shed light on the governance of rural landscapes. In the context of economic and demographic changes in the French and Austrian countryside, what are the implications of the organisation of the supply of landscape maintenance in terms of economic development and employment? From a theoretical point of view, the research is based on the fields of service economics and New Institutional Economics (NIE). We focus on the organisation of the environmental services at stake in the maintenance of minor rural roads. In our definition, the provision of environmental services is intentional from the point of view of the service provider and corresponds to a collective demand (Aznar, Perrier-Cornet, 2003). The framework of NIE and more particularly of Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) allows for an analysis of the organisational forms governing the provision of rural roads maintenance services (such as, mowing of road verges, marking of roads, planting and maintenance of hedges, trees or herbaceous borders). The paper describes the organisation of the maintenance of minor rural roads in the Austrian and French contexts and identifies several research issues in the light of the NIE framework

Understanding landscape stewardship. Lessons to be learned from public service economics

International audienceWe argue that public service economics provides a new perspective on landscape stewardship by explaining it as human-to-human transfer of partial property rights. These mutually linked exchanges involve rights to use, to access, or to control and allocate land, labour, skills or information. From the perspective of public service economics, we identify the actors involved in landscape stewardship and distinguish entrepreneurial strategies for service provision based on resource orientation, user orientation or competiveness orientation. The difficulties in evaluating the quality of services in general and landscape stewardship in particular result in substantial uncertainty. Three types of contracts that cope differently with this uncertainty can be distinguished: contracts focusing on the technical process, on the intended outcome or on the choice of suppliers based on trust and features of their performance potential. We conclude that a service economics perspective can add to the understanding of landscape stewardship. Due to the fact that ‘public service’ is already a well-known and broadly acknowledged concept in society, public service economics could possibly provide more rapid progress towards a better co-ordination of supply and demand for landscape qualities than other more novel concepts