Castan Broto, V; Westman, L; (2017) Just Sustainabilities and Local Action: Evidence from 400 Flagship Initiatives. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability , 22 (5) pp. 635-650. 10.1080/13549839.2016.1248379.

Preview

Text Castan Broto_Manuscript_anonymised_revised_V4.pdf Download (298kB) | Preview

Abstract

Just sustainabilities has emerged as a powerful discourse to guide local action towards sustainability. As an overarching discourse, it prescribes four policy principles: (1) addressing wellbeing and quality of life; (2) meeting the needs of present and future generations; (3) enabling justice and equity in terms of recognition, process, procedure and outcome; (4) living within ecosystem limits. Following previous calls for engaging public and private actors in just sustainabilities, this paper inquiries about the extent to which these principles can be realistically integrated in local environmental governance. A database of 400 sustainability initiatives in more than 200 cities in all world regions is analysed to examine whether just sustainabilities principles are already enshrined, explicitly or implicitly, in local sustainability initiatives. This analysis suggests that, in this sample, there is a significant deficit in terms of addressing the principles of justice and equity, and ecosystem limits. However, the data also suggests that local action may already be delivering some aspects of just sustainabilities, even if this is not always explicit. The paper concludes with a call for a coordinated effort to translate a just sustainabilities discourse to local actors leading action on the ground.

Download activity - last month

Export as JSONCSVXML

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item