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Understanding the system of connections between societal contexts and policy outcomes in municipal governments provides important insights into how community sustainability happens, and why it happens differently in various communities. A growing body of research in recent years has focused on understanding the socio-economic characteristics of communities and cities that are recognized as policy leaders in sustainability. In this paper, we expand the focus beyond the leaders in sustainability as we apply a selection of socio-demographic influences of community sustainability to a large sample of U.S. communities using community classification analytics to identity a range of community types and levels of engagement with sustainability. Our typology presents an integrated and comprehensive perspective on the structure of community sustainability in the United States, highlighting key points of comparison between human capital factors such as population size and density, affluence, home ownership, and adoption of sustainability policy. The analysis provides new insights not only about community leaders in sustainability, but also communities with the civic and social capacity to do more, and the challenges that may inhibit sustainability efforts in others.

AbstractThe penetration of financialization into the biocultural geographies of islands builds upon processes of commodification and privatization of environments, entailing enclosures of resource commons, environmental destruction and displacement of people, their livelihoods, knowledge and practices, with implications for sustainability. Against this background I critique the growing literature on acronym models of island development, arguing for more careful consideration of issues concerning democracy, human rights and sustainability. Drawing on the ‘right to the city’ literature, I highlight the importance of the ‘right to the island’ in an effort to move beyond the policy imperatives of MIRAB, SITE and PROFIT. Exercising the right to the island involves cultivating radically pluralistic democracy through struggles for alternative island futures. In so doing it problematizes what it means to develop and achieve sustainability.

Car-sharing services are developing at an ever-increasing pace. Taking into account the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and pursuit of the sustainable development of transport, implementing electric cars in car-sharing fleets is being proposed. On the one hand, these types of vehicles are referred to as emission-free, but on the other hand, their environmental friendliness is questionable due to the emission of carbon dioxide during the production of energy to power them. Although many scientific papers are devoted to the issue of reducing emissions through car sharing, there is a research gap concerning the real production of carbon dioxide by car-sharing vehicles during car-sharing trips. To fill this research gap, the objective of the article was to analyze the actual level of carbon dioxide emissions from combustion and electric vehicles from car-sharing systems produced when renting rides. The test results showed that the electric car turned out to be significantly less emitting. The use of electric vehicles in car-sharing fleets can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 14% to 65% compared to using cars with internal combustion engines. However, the key role during car-sharing trips is played by the driving style of the drivers, which has been omitted from the literature to date. This should be properly regulated by service providers and focus on the proper use of energy from electric vehicle batteries, especially at low temperatures. The article provides support for operators planning to modernize their fleet of vehicles and fills the research gap concerning car-sharing emissions.

To effectively address the sustainability crises our planet faces, decision-makers at different levels of government worldwide will have to get a handle on three key challenges: learning from Global North and South initiatives in tandem, taking stock of social innovations alongside technological fixes, and nurturing grassroots sustainable development initiatives next to, or in place of, top-down corporate and government interventions. Current scientific literature and grant-making institutions have often reinforced the compartmentalized fashion in which we learn and draw policy lessons from North/South, social/technical, and bottom-up/top-down sustainability initiatives, including local food system innovations. The strategic levers for global sustainable development lying in-between are thus left out. This paper uses exploratory, multiple case study analysis to address this omission. By concurrently drawing lessons from grassroots innovations in Brazil, New York, and Senegal—three profoundly different socioeconomic and geographic contexts—we identify common pressure points that have enabled local communities to drive system-wide transformations toward climate adaptation, resilience, and sustainability in the agri-food system. The findings of this paper would be of value to scholars, government officials, and community groups engaged in agri-food systems sustainability and interested in the processes of change that have allowed budding innovations to stabilize and scale up.

The objectives of this study are to: estimate African countries’ Government Openness Index (AGOI) to see the updated progress of open government in those countries, examine which areas African countries should further improve for sustainable development, and compare the performance of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) member countries to that of non-OGP countries in forming AGOI. This study developed the AGOI with 32 selected countries and four factors (ACC (accountability), TRA (transparency), CPF (citizen participation and freedom) and ICT (information and communication technology)) for the period of 2006–2019. The results show that African countries have continuously increased the values of AGOI for the period. ACC has barely changed, but TRA has increased slightly. Both CPF and ICT have increased at higher growth rates during the period. The OGP group reached much better scores than their non-OGP counterparts, with positive differences in AGOI, ICT, CPF, and TRA, except ACC. The results of this study suggest that the constantly increasing CPF and ICT levels in countries that have similar conditions as African countries should be further improved to function well enough to build accountability and transparency. It is also recommended that countries join the OGP in order to move towards improving government openness and creating sustainable development.

Although the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) advocate, through SDG 4 and SDG 10, equitable quality education and the reduction of inequalities within and between countries, respectively, few studies have examined how inequalities in regional sustainability influence higher education. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship between regional sustainability and higher education in China using fixed-effects panel modelling. A systematic force framework showing how regional sustainability drives higher education was constructed from economic, social, and environmental perspectives, and the endogeneity in the process of how regional sustainability affects higher education was explored by introducing one-year lagged values as instrumental variables. Our results show that regional sustainability has a significant impact on higher educational attainment in China, with differing effects in the eastern, central, and western regions, respectively. In central China, economic sustainability plays a significant positive role in higher educational attainment; in the western region, economic and social sustainability have stronger positive effects, while environmental sustainability has significantly negative effects. In terms of policy implications, our findings can be used to support regional development policies to promote regional higher education.

Twenty-minute neighbourhoods highlight the importance of well-connected and mixed-used neighbourhoods and communities with proximate access to employment, essential services, public transport, and open spaces. Shorter distances together with re-prioritised public spaces encourage more active transport choices, resulting in public health benefits and reduced environmental pollution. Higher liveability brought about by mixed-use developments enables people to have equitable access to local facilities, amenities, and employment opportunities, promoting vibrancy, social cohesion, and intergenerational connections. The attributes of 20-minute neighbourhoods also combine to create places, that are acknowledged as friendly for all ages, address changing needs across the life course, and provide better support for the ageing population. Furthermore, there are indications that 20-minute neighbourhoods may be more resilient against many of the negative impacts of stringent public health protocols such as those implemented in periods of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article, we evaluate and compare planning policies and practices aimed at establishing 20-minute neighbourhoods in Melbourne (Australia) and Scotland (the UK). Using case studies, we discuss similarities and differences involved in using place-based approaches of 20-minute neighbourhoods to address 21st-century challenges in key areas of health and wellbeing, equity, environmental sustainability, and community resilience.

A key determinant and outcome of successful environmental education is ‘pro-environmental behavior’, i.e., behavior that involves conscious action to mitigate adverse environmental impacts at personal or community level, e.g., reducing resource consumption and waste generation, avoiding toxic substances, and organizing community awareness initiatives. However, some theorists have sought to move away from rationalist models of behavioral modification, towards holistic pedagogical initiatives that seek to develop action competence. In light of the global push towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emerging evidence suggests that education initiatives should foster action competence so students may be equipped to contribute to sustainable development as part of their education. The UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Roadmap 2030 has also identified key priority areas to strengthen ESD in formal curricula. This article reports two informal environmental education initiatives for promoting action competence and pro-environmental behaviors in school-aged children. The authors recommend that formal education settings (e.g., schools) should incorporate self-directed, free-choice project-based learning to augment environmental education programs and promote students’ action competence for contribution to attainment of SDGs. To this end, we propose a Free-Choice Project-based Learning for Action Competence in Sustainable Development (ACiSD) Curriculum, comprising six implementation dimensions, namely: (1) project duration and teaming arrangements, (2) topic selection, (3) student support, (4) teacher support, (5) learning environments, and (6) digital access and equity. For each implementation dimension, we recommend action steps to help educators implement this curriculum in their own educational settings, with the aid of an illustrative worked example.