The role of the environment in the development process is frequently framed as a one-way interaction, with humans decoupling from natural systems, and often damaging them in the process. When the environment is granted an influential role, it is often in establishing the initial conditions under which development will take place, for example, through natural resource endowments or climate factors. However, in some extreme environments, it may be responsible for not only the initial opportunities available in a society, but also for continuously shaping those opportunities through time. The field of Sustainable Development is fundamentally concerned with this two-way interaction between the environment and society, recognizing both as part of a coupled system. The chapters in this volume demonstrate some of the costs associated with development in an extreme environment using methods from climate science, ecology, remote sensing, and economics. By looking at places exposed to tropical cyclones, to persistent pollution resulting from fires that burn readily in a drought-prone location, to annual floods that frequently and randomly strike households in a country, we see that the environment critically shapes aspects of societies and their economic opportunities. By no means are all opportunities dictated by the environment. However, these chapters robustly illustrate that the environment imposes some critical boundaries on development in extreme environments and policies aiming to increase welfare must take account of the coupling of social and natural systems.

In less than two decades since the notion of sustainable development has become firmly established in policy and academic domains, the debate within the field of sustainable development has shifted from the issue of definition to one of measurement. From the national to local levels, considerable efforts have been embarked in China to develop appropriate sustainability assessment measures (SAMs). The studies of SAM at the municipal level in China are particularly booming due to the diversity of Chinese cities both in terms of size and function. In spite of the value in generating creative thinking, the overlapping and redundancy in efforts of devising SAMs, partly because of the inapplicability of the devised SAMs, have undermined the usefulness of SAMs to guide policy-making and foster behavioral changes toward sustainable development. Many Chinese academic researchers and professionals have indicated these problems but primarily focused on methodological and technical aspects. This research attempts to address the radical issues embedded in the whole scheme of sustainability assessment with the objective of improving the applicability and effectiveness of SAMs for Chinese cities. Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative investigations, this research identifies the major problems facing with the development and application of SAM for Chinese cities and the influential factors and proposes an implementation scheme for better appraisal of sustainability of Chinese cities. / The study has revealed a number of key findings. First, the evolvement of the SAMs for Chinese cities, typically characterized by increasing complexity and number of participants, was closely related to the evolvement of people's understanding of, and aspiration for, sustainable development. Second, of the problems identified by the sustainability assessment practitioners, the most crucial ones for SAM development and application respectively, are the unavailability of required data and incomprehensiveness of sustainable development dimensions. Third, the key factors that influence the applicability and effectiveness of SAMs for Chinese cities include difference between SAM developers and users in their understanding of the objectives and criteria of sustainability assessment; the context of the city subject to assessment, the process of decision-making in Chinese municipal governments and various methodological issues, etc. / With the above findings, this research concludes that sustainability assessment is an issue-driven, context-specified and decision-making-tailored task which demands the collaborative efforts of government users, data providers and SAM developers. The implementation scheme of sustainability assessment should preferably go through five phases: preparation for sustainability assessment, establishment of SAM, calculation of SAM results, application of SAM results and lastly the evaluation and improvement of SAM. Of the above, the first, the fourth and the last phases are of particular significances for Chinese cities. The research also highlights issues related to the evaluation of the applicability and effectiveness of SAM through an analysis of the ecological footprint and human development index of five cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taiyuan and Guilin. The perspectives and insights derived from these case studies have shed some light on the future development and application of similar SAMs for other Chinese cities. / Lu, Jia. / "May 2007." / Adviser: K. C. Lam. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-01, Section: A, page: 0333. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-229). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This research analyzes the relationship between local land use regulations and commercial development in the City of Bakersfield, California, specifically focusing on how the regulations are used to inform commercial development to be sustainable or not. This research contributes to similar research efforts through its contribution of the Sustainable Development Indicator Checklist, the tool used to measure sustainable development within the regulations as well as the built environment. Analysis of six case study locations falling under the C-B (Central Business), C-C (Commercial Center), and PCD (Planned Commercial Development) zone designations indicated the local land use regulations were not informing development to be particularly sustainable, mostly due to vague language, constraining language, and sometimes a combination of the two. Recommendations are made for how the City of Bakersfield can improve the land use regulations to be more pertinent to the process of informing future commercial development to be more sustainable.

"April 2004" / Bibliography: leaves 288-296. / xi, 345 leaves : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / "The main contributions to knowledge offered by this thesis include a detailed exploration of the multiple dimensions of sustainability in the development of a framework for assessing sustainable housing, and investigation of the context dependence of sustainability and finally, the application of the framework for generating guidelines for sustainable housing in Hanoi." --p. 281. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2004

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Idaho, 2006. / Abstract. "April 2006." Includes bibliographical references. Also available online in PDF format.

Thesis (MA.(Political science))-University of Pretoria, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

While commitments made at the Rio+20 conference paved the road for the building of a green and fair economy, the ability of economics to provide a satisfactory intellectual framework to support this process has been increasingly questioned, particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis. In order to make economics more responsive to present and future challenges, this study argues that education in economics must be centred on the pursuit of sustainable development with what has been termed Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). To qualify as ESD, this paper contends that economics education must embrace pluralism on four levels (theoretical, methodological, disciplinary and pedagogical). This fourfold pluralism will improve economists’ capacity to deal with societal challenges and allow for the long-term building of resilient green-er and fair-er economies. The University of Versailles Saint-Quentin (France) Bachelor of Economics and Management is chosen as a case study to identify the current institutional factors hindering the opening of economics education to pluralism. The thesis draws on relevant literature in the field, and also utilises interviews undertaken with five economic professors teaching in the Bachelor. Following analysis of the case study, five main barriers to a plural economics education were found; these barriers are professionalisation, recruitment, evaluation, laziness and performance.

The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development is expected to result in the launching of a process to devise a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2015. Whilst indicators are perceived to be a good vehicle of monitoring progress, currently there is no universally agreed method of measuring sustainable development. This thesis addresses this issue through assessing whether the capabilities approach can be adopted for a global framework in measuring sustainable development. In order to determine this, both theoretical and practical implications will have to be understood. The former is addressed through reviewing the compatibility between the key concepts of sustainable development and the capabilities approach. The latter is addressed through obtaining empirical evidence on the key drivers in selecting indicators via focus group discussions and a quantitative survey with key individuals involved in the Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) project in Malaysia. It was found that a weak conceptual basis can be attributed as the major challenge for establishing global sustainable development indicators. Whilst recognising that a range of mechanisms are required for operationalization, it was concluded that the capabilities approach provides a sound conceptual basis, framed on the basis of justice and equity in expanding and sustaining the capabilities of current and future generations to pursue their needs.

In the context of sustainable development, evaluations have particularly high relevance as complex issues have to be dealt with generally over an extended period of time. Furthermore, there is a growing demand to evaluate against the concept of sustainable development. Especially evaluations with sustainable development are a rather new type of evaluation, as the source of its evaluation questions and the criteria applied are rooted in the concept of sustainable development. Sustainability of a specific project or process is often highly case specific as sustainable development is determined by many often unique issues. However, evaluations would be highly inefficient, if they would have to be newly designed in every case. Thus it is necessary to determine and utilize the major issues for evaluations with sustainable development. This paper is part of a series of three papers - which can be used independently - that present the major common issues for evaluations with sustainable development in a Tool Box. The results presented here are based on outcomes of a research project funded by the "Austrian Science Fund". This paper includes the evaluation planning and commissioning procedure. It describes the steps from the idea to implementation of an evaluation with sustainable development. In the context of general requirements of evaluation planning and commissioning, the special features of evaluations with sustainable development are highlighted. (author's abstract) / Series: Research Paper Series of the Research Focus Managing Sustainability

This thesis studied four CEMUS courses offered in spring 2011. The purpose of this study was: 1) to measure CEMUS students‘ self-reported behavior and action as well as behavior intention towards sustainable development; 2) to analyze different factors and barriers to their behavior and action; 3) to analyze course coordinators‘ knowledge and perspectives about behavior change and action towards sustainable development; and 4) to analyze each course‘s impact on students. Finally, this thesis discusses how education can be improved to foster behavior and action towards sustainable development. This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. According to the results, most CEMUS students were willing to recycle; to switch off electricity when it‘s not needed; and to travel by bicycle or public transportation instead of by car. On the other hand, fewer students had a willingness to pay for environmental costs and to cut down water consumption and waste. Among the opportunities for indirect action, it was political participation and working within the field of sustainable development (SD) that were most preferred. In contrast, much fewer students were willing to avoid purchasing products from companies with poor track records on CSR, to participate in voluntary work related to SD and to donate money for social or environmental causes. The two most frequently perceived constraints for behavior change among students were a lack of money and obstructive social norms. As a course outcome, four out of six coordinators expect students to take action afterwards but there is a lack of knowledge on how to encourage students to behave and act more sustainably. Based on the results, this thesis discussed what kinds of learning methods can be applied in CEMUS and ESD. It was concluded that education should focus on a specific domain and a small spatial scale, and assign project assignments in which students communicate and interact with stakeholders. Such an approach will help to approach the goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). CEMUS could also implement the theory of locus of control, emotional involvement and four different kinds of knowledge in their education in order to improve the effectiveness of CEMUS courses when it comes to promoting behavior and action towards sustainable development.