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The accelerated development of cities involves important inflows and outflows of resources. The construction sector is one of the main consumers of raw materials and producers of waste. Due to its quantity and potential for recovery, waste from the construction sector constitutes significant deposits and requires major action by bringing together different stakeholders to achieve the objectives of a circular economy. Consequently, it is crucial to understand the current knowledge of urban metabolism, deposits, and recovery practices. This article aims to investigate the role of local authorities in the planning of strategies to facilitate a circular economy; in particular, this article aims to answer how local authorities facilitate circular economy initiatives in the building sector and what opportunities and obstacles they encounter in the process. The strategy used for the study was to conduct semistructured interviews with those responsible for circular economy projects within local authorities that were pioneering circular economy projects in metropolitan France. The results highlight the importance of community involvement in the implementation of circular economy principles in the building sector. Thus, it is essential to identify the different stakeholders and their respective challenges to build an operational framework.

With increasing urbanisation, new approaches such as the Circular Economy (CE) are needed to reduce resource consumption. In Switzerland, Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste accounts for the largest portion of waste (84%). Beyond limiting the depletion of primary resources, implementing recycling strategies for C&D waste (such as using recycled aggregates to produce recycled concrete (RC)), can also decrease the amount of landfilled C&D waste. The use of RC still faces adoption barriers. In this research, we examined the factors driving the adoption of recycled products for a CE in the C&D sector by focusing on RC for structural applications. We developed a behavioural framework to understand the determinants of architects’ decisions to recommend RC. We collected and analysed survey data from 727 respondents. The analyses focused on architects’ a priori beliefs about RC, behavioural factors affecting their recommendations of RC, and project-specific contextual factors that might play a role in the recommendation of RC. Our results show that the factors that mainly facilitate the recommendation of RC by architects are: a senior position, a high level of RC knowledge and of the Minergie label, beliefs about the reduced environmental impact of RC, as well as favourable prescriptive social norms expressed by clients and other architects. We emphasise the importance of a holistic theoretical framework in approaching decision-making processes related to the adoption of innovation, and the importance of the agency of each involved actor for a transition towards a circular construction sector.

Forests of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) have a rich diversity of valuable non-timber forest products (NTFP) that local communities extract for their sustenance and income. The region is home to over 60% of species recognized for novel bio-medicinal properties in the Indian Himalayas. There is significant national and international demand for these species, providing income and employment for more than 60% of the population of J&K. Despite this, NTFP are not adequately recognized for their contributions to rural livelihoods and the regional economy due to the lack of appropriate policy and governance mechanisms. In this study, we embrace a bioresource vision to examine challenges and opportunities for transition to a sustainable bioeconomy in J&K. Selected NTFP were considered for valuation to showcase their bioeconomy potential using two approaches. First, we used the ‘market price method’ to estimate the contribution of NTFP to the local economy. Second, the ‘maximum willingness to pay method’ was used to project the bioeconomy potential of NTFP in the region. The analysis reveals that local communities’ revenues could increase by as much as 18 times their current price with appropriate actions to include NTFP. However, to realize this potential, policies and governance frameworks based on increased access and benefit sharing with inclusive institutional models would support the transition of the local economy into a bioeconomy. Fostering public–community partnership by improving the local participation of producers and processors in NTFP value chains for overcoming the existing governance barriers is needed.

Since the early 1990s, sustainability has formed a development paradigm for tourism. Recently, however, researchers and policymakers have shown considerable interest in the notion of responsibility in tourism. While responsible and sustainable tourism share many common elements, their ideological context and societal background may involve critical differences. The purpose of this review paper is to discuss the ideas of responsibility and sustainability in tourism and especially how they have emerged in tourism studies and activities, and what implications their differences may have for tourism development and its future practices and policies. Here, sustainable tourism is understood as being based on regulative structures involving multiple scales of policies and decision-making, while responsible tourism derives some of its core focus and practices from neoliberal governance with its emphasis on individualized and personalized behavior and decision-making. These different contextual backgrounds indicate why we should not automatically equate these two ideas in research, especially when thinking about how the growth-driven tourism industry could and should respond to global challenges in future. Furthermore, building on the structuration theory, the paper discusses how these two different approaches are often interconnected and can lead a way towards sustainable development in tourism.

The Amazon Rainforest suffers from unsustainable exploitation and encroachment on native peoples’ territories, leading to poverty and environmental destruction. This inquiry aims to understand the impact of deforestation on the economic development of communities and peoples and the relationships between persistent poverty and social pathologies. The research project employed empirical and conceptual methods, collecting data through interviews and constructing a systemic model concerning pathological dynamics within the Amazon region. The study found traps involving innovation, biodiversity, capacity building, access to economic assets, social development, cultural identity, access to knowledge, savannization, and forest appropriation. A systemic approach that reconnects with nature is essential to establish a sustainable economy in the Amazon rainforest. Proposed solutions include an ecological economy, stopping deforestation, encouraging entrepreneurship, valuing tradition, safe environment, building skills and competencies, increasing information and communication effectiveness, and fostering cooperation. This research seeks fundamentally new solutions that reach beyond the existing regime and contributes to establishing a new paradigm for the Amazon Forest.

This study compares the differences in the attitudes of last-mile delivery companies operating with different business models toward economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The economic perspective focuses on productivity, the environment, and social sustainability, and where the environment and social sustainability are concerned, on carbon neutrality goals and means, and on what societal factors companies consider important, respectively. In this multi-case qualitative study, a literature review was carried out and 11 semi-structured expert interviews were conducted in companies representing three business model categories: crowdshipping companies, last-mile providers, and traditional logistics service providers. Based on this study, crowdshipping and last-mile companies were largely loss making, whereas logistics service providers were profitable. The first two groups invest heavily in growth, which explains the loss. All logistics service providers, half of the last-mile providers, and no crowdshipping companies set a carbon neutrality target. The biggest difference in environmental measures comes from the fact that in the crowdshipping business model deliveries are performed partly in conjunction with other travel, emphasizing job creation in society and freedom of work. In contrast, the last-mile and traditional logistics companies emphasized the responsibilities of the employer. For the scientific community, this study provides new insights into the subject from the perspective of different business models. For management, this research provides insight into the views of other companies that can be utilized in future decision making. For example, if the legislation of crowdshipping becomes clearer, then traditional companies could consider using it in their own operations to overcome labor shortages.

Labour migration in Nepal is having profound effects on land management. We take two examples from the hills of Nepal where the increasing trend in outmigration continues unabated and explore its consequences. The purpose of this study is to understand the impacts of the subsequent labour shortage on land management and how it affects households. We used data from two surveys and assessed land use change and degradation with a qualitative mapping method. The findings show that the local context leads to very different strategies in terms of land management. In one study area, land was left to lie fallow without any use, leading to overgrowth and forest recovery due to favourable climate conditions. In the other, land was no longer used as cropland but turned into grazing land with consequences such as land degradation. This study provides strong empirical data and also contributes to the mountain research community by shedding light on the effects of outmigration on land management in the hills of Nepal. We suggest that these effects, including the labour shortage and the increasingly important role of remittances, should be addressed in an integrative but differentiated way that takes into account the regional context.