Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / The aim of this thesis is to support the evaluation of sustainable development strategies for industrial networks in the context of industrial ecology (IE). Industrial networks are a group of units which carry out, or contribute to, industrial activity, and are connected by material and energy flows, but also capital and information exchanges. The components of an industrial network encompass resource extraction, processing and refining, forming and assembly, use, disposal, as well as recycling and reprocessing. The motivation behind this research is the realisation that much of the current environmental system analysis focus within IE lacks a structured approach to considering: • system environment • dynamic nature of the system and its environment • economic and social impacts • the effect of uncertainty on analysis outcomes. It is argued in this thesis that current environmental analysis approaches used in IE can be improved in their capacity to capture the complexity of industrial systems, with the objective of promoting sustainable development. While IE emphasises the benefit of a systems approach to identifying environmental strategies in industry, analysis tools have to date not engaged extensively with important aspects such as the influence of system environment and dynamics on the viability of an environmental strategy, or with the economic or social impacts of industrial system development, which are equally important for sustainable development. Nor is the assessment of the effect of uncertainty on analysis outcomes an integral part of environmental analysis tools in IE. This is particularly significant when, in fact, the degree of uncertainty in assumptions and data used increases with the scope, and therefore the abstraction, of the system under consideration. IE will have to engage with the network and contextual complexities to a greater degree if it is to evolve from a concept to the application of its principles in practice. The main contribution of this thesis is therefore the development of a structured approach to analysing industrial networks for the purpose of identifying strategies to encourage sustainable development, while accounting for the complexity of the underlying system as well as the problem context. This analysis is intended to allow the identification of preferred network development pathways and to test the effectiveness of sustainable development strategies. A top-down, prescriptive approach is adopted for this purpose. This approach is chosen as the industrial network analysis is intended to identify how a network should develop, rather than focusing on how it could develop. Industrial networks are systems which are complex in both their structure and behaviour. This thesis also delivers a characterisation of these networks, which serves two purposes – quantifying key elements of structure and behaviour; and using this information to build a foundation for subsequent industrial network analysis. The value of such an approach can be seen in the following example. With a detailed understanding of individual network characteristics, both separately and collectively, it is possible to determine the source of issues, the means available to address them, any barriers that might exist, and the consequences of implementing any strategic interventions. The analysis approach proposed in this thesis is based on multi-criteria decisions analysis (MCDA), which, as a process, combines initial problem structuring and subsequent quantitative analysis stages. The tools employed within MCDA have been employed variously around considerations of sustainable development. Their value in this thesis is their integration within a rigorous analytical framework. Rigorous problem structuring is attractive as it helps elucidate the complexities of the system and its environment and is, by definition, designed to deal with multiple environmental social and economic criteria that would have to be considered to promote sustainable development. For the quantitative analysis, the industrial network analysis draws from existing analysis tools in IE, but predominately from other systems research disciplines, such as process systems engineering (PSE) and supply chain management (SCM). These fields, due to their maturity and practical focus, have invested a lot of research into system design and strategic planning, capturing system dynamics and uncertainty to ensure, within selected system constraints, that a proposed system or changes to a system are viable, and that the system is capable of achieving the stated objectives. Both PSE and SCM rely heavily on optimisation for system design and planning, and achieve good results with it as an analytical tool. The similarity between industrial networks and process systems / supply chains, suggests that an optimisation platform, specifically multi-objective dynamic optimisation, could be employed fruitfully for the analysis of industrial networks. This is the approach taken in this thesis. It is consistent with the “top down” approach advocated previously, which is deemed preferable for the identification and implementation analysis of strategic interventions. This enables the determination of a structure (design) that is “best” able to operate under future conditions (planning) with respect to the chosen sustainable development objectives. However, an analysis is only ever as good as its underlying data and assumptions. The complexity and scope of the industrial network and the challenge of articulating sustainable development target(s) give rise to significant uncertainties. For this reason a framework is developed within this thesis that integrates uncertainty analysis into the overall approach, to obtain insight into the robustness of the analysis results. Quantifying all the uncertainties in an industrial network model can be a daunting task for a modeller, and a decision-maker can be confused by modelling results. Means are therefore suggested to reduce the set of uncertainties that have to be engaged with, by identifying those which impact critically on model outcomes. However, even if uncertainty cannot be reduced, and the implementation of any strategy retains a degree of risk, the uncertainty analysis has the benefit that it forces an analyst to engage in more detail with the network in question, and to be more critical of the underlying assumptions. The analysis approach is applied to two case studies in this thesis: one deals with waste avoidance in an existing wood-products network in a large urban metropolis; the other with the potential for renewable energy generation in a developing economy. Together, these case studies provide a rich tableau within which to demonstrate the full features of the industrial network analysis. These case studies highlight how the context within which the relevant industrial network functions influences greatly the evolution of the network over time; how uncertainty is managed; and what strategies are preferred in each case in order to enhance the contribution of each network to sustainable development. This thesis makes an intellectual contribution in the following areas: • the characterisation of industrial networks to highlight sources of environmental issues, role the characteristics (could) play in the identification of (preferred) sustainable development strategies, and the need to explicitly consider these in a systems analysis. • the synthesis, adaptation and application of existing tools to fulfil the need for analysis tools in IE that can handle both contextual and system complexity, and address the above mentioned issues of lacking consideration of o system environment o dynamic nature of the system and its environment o economic and social impacts o the effect of uncertainty on analysis outcomes. • the development and demonstration of an industrial network analysis approach that o is flexible enough to model any industrial network at the inter-firm level, regardless of form and configuration of materials and products circulated, and depending on the existing network and the proposed strategies. o is able to encompass a wide range of environmental strategies, either individually or in combination depending on what best suits the situation, rather than focusing on any strategy in particular. o ensures long term viability of strategies, rather than short term solutions delivering incremental improvement. • the development of a comprehensive approach to capturing and assessing the effect of uncertainty on solution robustness for industrial network analysis, including the screening to determine the most important parameters, considering valuation and technical uncertainties, including future uncertainty. The industrial network analysis approach presented in this thesis looks more to how a network should develop (according to a set of sustainable development objectives), rather than how it may in actual fact develop. Consequently, the influence of agent interests and behaviour is not considered explicitly. This may be construed as a limitation of the industrial analysis approach. However, it is argued that the “top down” modelling approach favoured here is useful at a policy-making level. Here, for example, government instrumentalities, trade organisations and industry groupings, non-government organisations and community-based organisations are likely to be interested more in the performance of the network as a whole, rather than (necessarily) following the behaviour of individual agents within the network. Future work could well entertain the prospect of a mixed approach, in which the top-down approach of this thesis is complemented by a “bottom-up”, agent-based analysis. In this manner, it would be possible to give an indication of how attainable the identified industrial network development pathways are. Furthermore, the use of government incentives can be explored to assess if network development could approach the preferred development pathway which is identified using the methodology and results articulated in this thesis.

The current population in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is more than 7 million. Due to pressures of increasing population, the developing economy and climate change, the future security of water supply is far from satisfactory. There is also pressure to connect a large number of customers currently not connected to the HCMC water supply reticulation grid. Current water resources management tends to be fragmented and focused purely on supply side management. It is not economically and environmentally sustainable to focus purely on augmenting supply to meet increasing demand. Sustainable water resources management requires a broader more holistic approach. Government's plans to improve current and future water management issues are examined in the context of two case studies, one from Australia (a developed country) and one from the Philippines (a developing country). The sustainable water management approaches adopted by these two case studies sit at either end of the s pectrum of options. One is closer to a centralized government planning model and the other is a more radical privatisation flavoured model. The thesis investigates the current water demand and supply balance for residential, commercial and industry; and propose a balanced strategy to meet the HCMC's demand until year 2020. The amount of water savings are calculated by implementing a suite of water conservation initiatives. The proposed initatives will substantially narrow the gap between the planned supply and forecasted demand, thus providing a acceptable reasonable supply security for the community.

My dissertation has three main aims. The first is to specify and defend a normative baseline for environmental ethics. By "baseline" I mean a minimally acceptable level of conduct in our collective interactions with nature. In Chapter 1, I argue that we should specify the baseline in terms of maintaining (or restoring) ecological health. At least some areas of biological integrity must also be maintained (or restored) because these areas are instrumentally important to the maintenance of ecological health. I clarify the concepts of health and integrity, and address various complexities and objections that arise with respect to these concepts. / The second aim is to illuminate normative considerations that are important for an environmental ethic, but that do not reduce to the baseline considerations defended in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, I consider two ways of thinking about environmental values, namely, end-state and historical views. To value nature in an end-state way is to value it because it embodies certain desirable properties, such as complexity or resilience. In contrast, an historical view says that an important determinant of nature's value is its particular history and genesis. I explore in detail two contemporary versions of an historical view---Robert Elliot's and the view defended in recent work by John O'Neill, Alan Holland, and Andrew Light. My focus is on clarifying what the normatively relevant history is, and on assessing the claim that historical considerations function, in practice, to block certain types of land use. In Chapter 3, I turn to the question of how animals fit into my account. I argue that animals are ontologically distinctive in the order of nature in virtue of the fact that there is something it is like to be an animal. I consider various reasons for thinking that being an animal is ethically significant, including the fact that humans and other animals share a way of being an animal. Concern for animals complicates and enriches the account of why nature matters, for nature includes a variety of beings that experience first-personally their own natural good, or its thwarting. / The third aim of the dissertation is to suggest how the various normative considerations adduced in Chapters 1--3 might be integrated into a coherent view that can clarify the meaning of sustainability. I regard debates about sustainability as aiming to specify the nature we should care about, and the relative importance of concern for nature and for human welfare. In Chapter 4, I argue for a conception of sustainability that specifies the normatively relevant sense of nature in terms of ecological health and a non-instrumental view of biological integrity. My view is sensitive to humans being able to meet their needs from nature, and hence sensitive to anthropocentric considerations. But my view also includes a robust defense of nature and nonhuman animals as valuable in ways that do not reduce to human needs or interests. Further, I outline a justice-based compensation argument to address the issue that already disadvantaged people and nations may have to forego certain development opportunities for the sake of environmental protection.

This study examines the relationship between the developing landscape and the water flowing through it. The study area was an 86 sq. mi. watershed located in the coastal plains in Harris County, Texas. Daily streamflow data for 52 years was obtained from USGS and coincident precipitation data was obtained from NOAA. Georeferenced parcel-level data was obtained from the Harris County Appraisal District with sufficient detail to determine year of development, parcel area, and impervious cover. Watershed boundaries were obtained from the Harris County Flood Control District. After controlling for daily precipitation, streamflow exhibited significant increases at all levels over time. Increasing streamflow was not associated with climate change. FRAGSTATS was used to quantify spatial patterns in the developed landscape on an annual basis. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between spatial and non-spatial measures of development and streamflow. It was found that models based on the spatial configuration of the developed landscape predict streamflow better than non-spatial measures such as total impervious cover. Several metrics were identified for their potential use as guidelines for urban planning.

Thailand’s economy has gone through a quick development during the past two decades As a result of the economic crisis in 1997, His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej introduced the philosophy of sufficiency economy (SE). SE is built upon a model which can be used every day, notonly during crises, to strengthen the economy within the country and the society. Due to the worldwide attention on the philosophy it is interesting to research how applicable SE is in Sweden or generally worldwide.The aim of the field study and the thesis is to obtain a contemporary interpretation of the applicability of sufficiency economy.The approach of the field study consisted of four main steps; feasibility study, research tool, the field study procedure and evaluation. The study includes a literature study with a combination of interviews with key persons, a multinational company situated in Bangkok and Thai students. The intention of the selection was to obtain a conceptual interpretation of SE in relation to the interviewed people. The answers of the different groups were first put in their own context, and then a comparison was made in order to make the analysis.Several different opinions were uncovered regarding the interpretation of SE. It is necessary to interpret it at an individual level.The rational decision making and following the middle way is important to achieve a balanced life. However it is a knowledge gap within theThai society where it is important to have a stable government and the right spokesman of SE. / Mior Field Studies via SIDA

Best practices for Restoration Ecology have been largely derived from case studies. Novel Ecosystems is an approach that has the possibility of providing the field of restoration research with both structure and a road map for ecological recovery. In December 2015, Ontario Parks will be ceasing the lease of approximately 122 ha of farmland within Boyne Valley Provincial Park. My thesis aims to bridge the gap between social and ecological systems and build a resilient restoration project at Boyne Valley Provincial Park. My approach integrated the best case scenarios from each the social and ecological aspects to determine a restoration plan. From the social aspect, I chose the method photo-elicitation to bridge the communication gap between myself, the researcher, and the interviewees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six major stakeholders including a farmer who is currently leasing land within Boyne Valley Provincial Park, a frequent hiker of the Ontario Parks’ trail system, an academic researcher for Ontario Parks, and three Ontario Parks’ personnel to understand the different landscape preferences of stakeholders within Boyne Valley Provincial Park. From the ecological aspect, I examined the success of restoration for the first year after a fall planting in terms of species richness and percent cover for all species, including native species (planted and not planted) and non-native species across three fields with different initial conditions. To test which species should be used as the initial ground cover after farming has ceased, I looked at the survivorship and growth of five species: Danthonia spicata, Elymus trachycaulus ssp. trachycaulus, Sporobolus cryptandrus, Monarda fistulosa and Penstemon hirsutus. My recommendations for restoration at Boyne Valley Provincial Park include implementing the restoration efforts at a smaller scale to start. The remaining fields should continue to be farmed until restoration can commence or mowed at least four times a year before seeds are formed. Open communication should continue between all stakeholders. Soil preparation should include tilling the soil prior to planting only if the land was left abandoned (e.g. old-field). A plant composition survey should be conducted prior to restoration – more particularly in hay fields - to determine if native meadow species are found. If native meadow species are present (e.g. Sisyrinchium montanum) that would not survive tilling, a no-till planting method may be a better option than tilling. Acknowledging these are early results, my initial recommendation based on survivorship and growth for the first year after planting would be to use plant plugs for Elymus trachycaulus ssp. trachycaulus and a combination of plant plugs and seeds for Monarda fistulosa and Penstemon hirsutus. Future studies should incorporate other herbaceous species to increase the biodiversity while choosing flowers that bloom at different times. Additionally, pilot studies should be completed at all Ontario Parks locations where agriculture leases are ending to develop restoration methodologies that are applicable across Ontario. Information on each of the species to be planted should be distributed to the farmers that border Ontario Parks’ boundaries. This information should include at minimum the species life history, dispersal mechanisms, and a photograph. The research in this thesis outlines initial restoration efforts to guide restoration recommendations for the first year after land abandonment. Much longer-termed research is necessary to understand community dynamics and potential recovery of system.

This dissertation is about the development of corporate responsibility and sustainability advocacy in Ireland. It shows how the biopolitics of corporate responsibility (or CR) and sustainability was rendered—by CR advocates and interested companies—as an ethical ecology, not dissociated from the biopolitical but rooted in it. By ‘ecology’ I mean to refer to the growing consciousness and deliberate cultivation of the interconnections, dependencies and feedback as well as responsibilities between heretofore discreet parts of the social landscape—between business and employees for example. These nascent interconnections—between what we might think of as systems and their environment—were also being presented as compelling ethical striving and to an extent, facilitating it. Importantly this effort was to be directed towards what was coming to be understood by the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘responsible business.’ Hence, I also used the word ‘ecology’ in the sense of how this argument for ethics had roots in concern for the planet itself and for the very survival of the human race. In a deeper sense then, the matrix or the features of biopower—“[1] one or more truth discourses about the ‘vital’ character of living human beings; [2] an array of authorities considered competent to speak that truth; [3] strategies for intervention upon collective existence in the name of life and health; [4] and modes of subjectification, in which individuals work on themselves in the name of individual or collective life or health” (Rabinow and Rose 2006, 195)—permeated this concern with sustainability (the ecology or the engagement of systems and environments in the name of ‘life’ as such) and certainly as it was rendered in this arena of business and all that surrounds it, sustainability weighed heavily on ethical quest or government of the self for its potential for success. Furthermore, these logics could be extended into the less biological concern with the sustainability of our ways of life—including communities, businesses and markets; as proxies for vital human bodies, they too were at risk and dependent on changed dispositions to action for their durability.

Humankind's ability to ensure sustainability of the biosphere depends upon the integrated and concerted efforts of all peoples in all places. This study examines the critical need to focus on the achievement of sustainability in urban centres, specifically in North America, and evaluates the potential for city core neighbourhoods to contribute to the accomplishment of this goal. Four criteria are presented as necessary for the realization of urban sustainability, two of which, livability and equity of access, (identified as the 'social' criteria) become the focus of this inquiry. Community involvement at the neighbourhood level is also identified as necessary to the process by which sustainability will be achieved. The synergy of livability and equity to create a 'sense of community' and attendant community involvement is explored. The St. Lawrence neighbourhood in Toronto serves as a case study to inform future efforts to ensure livability, equity, and the resulting community involvement necessary to achieve urban sustainability, and points to subtle but important lessons regarding the dynamism of various conditions within a neighbourhood that can contribute to this potential.

Sustainability has become a goal for many recreational tourism businesses. For ski resorts, the goal of sustainability has been driven by a growing understanding of the impacts ski resorts have on the biophysical environment and the host communities in which they reside. In addition, ski resort owners and operators have an inherent self-interest and ethical responsibility as corporate citizens to pursue sustainability. Has a sustainable ski resort, however, been adequately defined at a conceptual level? The current understanding of sustainable ski resorts is limiting because it encourages ski resort owners and operators to address sustainability challenges in a compartmentalized fashion and in isolation of one another. This thesis examines how ski resorts would benefit from taking an integrated systems approach to sustainability—an approach that when applied, can be used to assess the state of sustainability at an organization and can broaden the scope of decision-making at an organization. This approach is missing in an industry where sustainability has historically meant focusing on achieving outcomes in efficiency thus failing to acknowledge the broader socio-ecological footprint of a ski resort. Gibson et al. (2005) argue the journey toward sustainability ought to be guided by a set of requirements based on principles of sustainability. Such principles operate on an integrated systems approach. This thesis uses the Gibson principles as the criteria by which to assess literature that discusses desirable characteristics of businesses and recreation/tourism destinations in sustainability terms. The intention here is to incorporate context specific insights into the Gibson principles such that the Gibson principles are adapted for ski resorts. The sustainable ski resort principles emerge out of this adaptation process and are applied using an exploratory case study. Specifically, the principles are compared against the current conditions of sustainability at Blue Mountain Resort (BMR), located in the Town of Blue Mountains (Ontario), with the goal of assessing the state of sustainability at BMR. The analysis resulted in the identification of five areas where the sustainable ski resort principles advanced the understanding of what constitutes a sustainable ski resort. First, the sustainable ski resort principles clearly require that there be limits on quantitative growth and, as such, ski resorts must strive towards decoupling improvements in quality and service from further growth and consumption. Second, a sustainable ski resort contributes to narrowing the socio-economic gaps within the workplace and the host community while operating within a multigenerational timescale to ensure future generations are fairly represented. Third, a sustainable ski resort reduces its net consumption of materials and resources and invests these savings in areas that are deficient in natural and social capital. Fourth, the sustainable ski resort principles require decision making power to be shared amongst internal and external stakeholders. Fifth, stakeholders must pursue opportunities to arrive at decisions that strengthen the well-being of both human and ecological systems through the integrated application of the sustainable ski resort principles. The analysis of the case study findings reveals that five of the eight sustainable ski resort principles are partially realized as represented by BMR’s demonstrated leadership amongst ski resorts in Ontario in the areas of solid waste reduction, energy efficiency and staff/public education. As evidenced in the case study, the ski resort industry’s responses to its sustainability challenges have largely been handled in isolation using conventional approaches to decision-making that tend to address sustainability challenges as separate entities. This perpetuates the notion that sustainability challenges are detached and therefore detached solutions are proposed or pursued. These approaches fail to recognize the linkages and interdependencies between entities thereby failing to pursue integration—the essence of sustainability as articulated by the sustainable ski resort principles.

Civilization’s vantage point has shifted with advances in technology from an eye-level view of the horizon to a bird’s eye view from a plane, to a planet-wide view from space. This relatively new global view is now the cultural perspective and embraces the holistic view of the biosphere as a large, interconnected, complex habitat that is subject to ever increasing anthropogenic pressures. The newly realized global perspective and realizations of global scale man-made impacts has added the concept of sustainability to the architectural realm. Architectural design issues of sustainability are inherently multi-scale, interconnected, and complex; and can not be resolved with western reductionist science alone. The holistic perspective is a core component of the evolving analysis methodology for pursuing insights on the interactions and connectivity of sustainable design. This thesis will speculate on the future of sustainable urban housing as a nonlinear outcome resulting from the rebalance of culture, technology and economy interacting with choice in our society. Through time, the interactions of these changing major forces is converging on a new equilibrium point that, to some extent, can be moved by choice. The architecture of urban housing has a potential role to play in moving that rebalance point in the future towards sustainability. This thesis will attempt to put on stage a context for urban housing in Canadian society that is transitioning towards sustainability in 2020, the year of perfect vision.