The Power of Urban Planning on Environmental Sustainability: A Focus Group Study in Finland

Does political stability contribute to environmental sustainability? Evidence from the most politically stable economies

The study evaluates the effect of political risk on CO₂ emission in the top 10 most politically stable economies (Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland) from 1991/Q1 and 2019/Q4. To the investigators' understanding, this is the first empirical analysis that inspects the effect of political risk on CO₂ emissions in the top 10 most politically stable economies. Therefore, the current paper fills a gap in the existing literature. Innovative quantile-on-quantile regression and quantile causality approaches are applied to explore this nexus. The quantile-on-quantile regression results reveal that in the majority of the quantiles, political risk enhances environmental quality for the case of Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Switzerland. Moreover, political risk degrades the quality of the environment in Australia, Germany, and Denmark, while the outcomes were mixed for the rest. Since political stability has encouraged international corporations to invest. As a result, guaranteeing political stability will attract more foreign investment, pressuring the governments of these countries to treat the climate catastrophe more urgently. Moreover, reforms should be aimed at sustaining existing environmental policies related to the green economy, while local and international firms should vigorously pursue investments in renewable energy sources and energy-saving-efficient technologies.

Toward Sustainable Communities: A Case Study of the Eastern Market in Detroit

Community development tends to focus on large-scale, government-funded transformations or on small-scale, grassroot initiatives. In the US, the financial resources, available infrastructure, and broad-based civic support to implement large-scale community transformations are frequently lacking. In contrast, niche interventions, while often locally successful, tend to be unscalable. Accordingly, many community development programs either do not go beyond an ideational stage, or they are unscalable or unsustainable in the long run. In this qualitative case study, we analyze the Eastern Market in Detroit, Michigan, a local institution that contributes considerably and in several ways to the sustainability of multiple communities. Using Content Configuration Analysis (CCA), we conduct a bottom-up exploratory analysis of fieldwork notes, nonparticipant observations, as well as audio, visual, and written materials including policy and strategy documents from the City of Detroit, Wayne County, and the State of Michigan, academic publications, strategy and annual reports, websites, blogs, vlogs, social media outlets, newspapers, podcasts, and interviews along two lines of inquiry: first, to examine how the market contributes to sustainable community development and, second, to explore the systemic underpinnings that facilitate such development. Specifically, we focus on the Eastern Market to identify system-relevant actors, interests, relations, interventions, and outcomes that illustrate an institution which operates well beyond the ideational confines of a conventional farmers market. In the process of exploring the adaptive nature of the Eastern Market within its financial and infrastructural constraints, we also exemplify with this case that a well-established institution, a farmers market, can reinvent itself to serve multiple needs of larger, heterogeneous communities, and that the successful adaptations associated with this reinvention reimagine the community in which it is embedded.

A User-Based Look at Visualization Tools for Environmental Data and Suggestions for Improvement—An Inventory among City Planners in Gothenburg

With a growing interest in environmental data and the need to consider various environmental factors earlier in the planning processes, it becomes more important to disseminate this type of information to different target groups in a comprehensible way. To support easier decision making, many cities and municipalities are increasingly using digital city models where it is possible to integrate different types of information based on simulation and visualization of future scenarios. Such tools have high potential, but the visual representation of data still needs to be developed. In this paper, we investigate how professionals within urban planning currently use visualization to communicate environmental data, and what their needs are regarding tools and visual representation. We discuss challenges for representing environmental data in urban development processes, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of these issues. We base our investigation on a literature study, an inventorying survey and a focus group discussion with professionals within urban planning. This study provides an end-user perspective among urban planners and valuable insights on tool usage and visualization. Results show that applications used for environmental visualization still can be improved regarding, e.g., user friendliness and information handling, which may increase their efficiency.

Sustainable Development Model for the Automotive Industry

The relationship between sustainability and business has become one of the central debates at the national and international level in both industrialized and emerging countries. A series of existing business models lack some critical aspects. The automotive industry strongly affects economic development, requiring rethinking business models in order to reduce their impact on the environment. An evaluation of the websites of the major automotive industry companies shows they have reported sustainability (through different methods) and present various practices in implementing organizational sustainability (OS). This paper aims to present a new business model for the automotive industry that takes into account the three dimensions of sustainability and emphasizes the importance of involving stakeholders in the OS approach. This model is developed based upon the literature review of three focus groups with a participation of 33 automotive industry members, of which three are highly-skilled experts of the industry. The proposed sustainable development model is scientifically relevant as it considers that all dimensions of sustainability exist and aims to increase organizational capacity for sustainable organizational development. It is also relevant from a practical point of view because it has been developed and validated by industry experts with automotive industry companies, taking into account the industrial, technical, and technological requirements for organizational sustainability assessment. The findings of this research will guide shareholders and managers in planning and developing organizational strategies.

Urban Sustainability and the SDGs: A Nordic Perspective and Opportunity for Integration

Urban sustainability has been used to cover multiple aspects of urban development. Terms related to sustainability have been generously used to advance ubiquitous and hard-to-measure targets not least in response to global and national sustainable development (SD) targets. However, ad-hoc and governed urbanization processes differ. In addition to different development pathways, local differences in interpretation of sustainability exist. This renders a global urban sustainability discourse disconnected from local practice. In this paper we focus on the Nordic cities, combining what is known about the similarities of the cities and societies, their recent development and highlights. Comparing with the global sustainability discourse spearheaded by the UN development goals (SDGs) we analyze the potential links in Nordic urban development to the global aims, as well as the local action taken via ex-ante review and assessment. With increasing demands for transformative change in urban planning and other institutions due to environmental, social and economic challenges, we demonstrate where strengthening the urban sustainability agenda is particularly needed. Findings show surprisingly little focus on socially just and cross-thematic development pre-SDGs, while it is expected that the dominant technocratic focus will give way to these other aspects necessary to address sustainability under the current SDG framework.

Evaluation of Wood Coverage on Building Facades Towards Sustainability

This study explores the acceptance of different wood coverages on building facades with the aim of optimization of materials, and in turn improving overall sustainability. It firstly develops the principal physical variables and evaluation criteria; then, test models are created using an orthogonal design experiment; finally, two evaluation methods are used to comprehensively test acceptance, based on a questionnaire and an eye-tracking study. The results show that: (1) The effects of the amount of wood coverage and the wood patterns are significant, whereas the effect of material combinations is insignificant. (2) The acceptance of building facades is at the highest level when the amount of wood coverage is 65%. (3) The amounts of wood coverage for facades in the range of 35% to 50% are effective when designing the facade of wood buildings, in order to implement the dual targets of saving wood and higher acceptance.

GHG Emissions Reduction through Urban Planners’ Improved Control over Earthworks: A Case Study in Finland

Most climate change mitigation schemes in urban planning concentrate on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the distant future by altering the urban form and encouraging more sustainable behaviour. However, to reach climate change mitigation targets, a more immediate reduction in GHG emissions is also needed as well as a reduction in GHG emissions in other fields. This article evaluates the important role of earthworks in the prompt and substantial reduction required for GHG emissions. The research includes a single case study and three focus group interviews. The results of the case study reveal the magnitude of possible emission reductions through urban planners’ control over earthworks, whereas the findings of the focus groups shed light on the relevance of the findings beyond the single case. Three urban planning solutions were implemented in the case area to reduce GHG emissions from earth construction, resulting in the saving of 2360 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Notable savings were also achieved in other emission categories. Such a successful management of rock and soil material flows requires a strong vision from the urban planner, cooperation among many different actors, and smart decisions in multiple planning phases. Furthermore, numerical data is needed to confirm the environmental benefits if the coordination of earthworks is to be widely included in regional climate change mitigation strategies.