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Sustainability Buckets: A Flexible Heuristic for Facilitating Strategic Investment on Place-Dependent Sustainability Narratives
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Sustainability Buckets: A Flexible Heuristic for Facilitating Strategic Investment on Place-Dependent Sustainability Narratives

Barbara Ribeiro and James A. Turner
Sustainability, Vol.13(16), 9367
2021
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Published522.92 kBDownloadView
CC BY V4.0 Open Access

Abstract

Environmental Sciences Environmental Sciences & Ecology Environmental Studies Green & Sustainable Science & Technology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics
This article presents a heuristic framework to help respond to gaps in knowledge construction in sustainability transitions. Transition theory publications highlight concerns ranging from contentious understandings of sustainability to the need for generalisable conceptual frameworks around how place specificity matters in transitions. The heuristic presented here is a flexible framework for developing place-dependent narratives of sustainability transitions grounded in investment choices. The sustainability buckets development resulted from the abduction and retroduction methods. It was also underpinned by a praxis-oriented mechanism from business ('strategic investment buckets'), a transition theory conceptual framework ('the multi-level perspective'-MLP), and a social sciences heuristic ('sustainability cultures'). The sustainability buckets resulted from synthesising the critical literature with empirical findings drawn from two case studies in New Zealand. The heuristic proved helpful to navigate, organise, and code meanings and understandings of sustainability in the New Zealand agri-food context. It also helped facilitate dialogue with research participants from different backgrounds, such as government and business. The heuristic was designed to transform, remaining fit for purpose as transitions evolve. This article suggests the sustainability buckets could be used to enable investment opportunities for upscaling, reproducing, and transplanting transitions happening in distinct sectors and high-level systems.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#7 Affordable and Clean Energy
#9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
#13 Climate Action

Source: InCites

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Citation topics
6 Social Sciences
6.115 Sustainability Science
6.115.880 Renewable Energy Transition
Web Of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Studies
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
ESI research areas
Environment/Ecology
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