Published online ● http://sspp.proquest.com ● email: [email protected]Volume 11 ● Issue 2 Journal Editor Winter 2015 Maurie Cohen (New Jersey Institute of Technology) Managing Editor ISSN: 1548-7733 Brie Betz Articles A typology for complex social-ecological systems in mountain communities Mark Altaweel, Arika Virapongse, David Griffith, Lilian Alessa, & Andrew Kliskey, University College London, United Kingdom…………………………………………………………………………………………………….1 Sufficiency in social practice: searching potentials for sufficient behavior in a consumerist culture Melanie Speck & Marco Hasselkuss, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, Germany…14 Closing the food loops: guidelines and criteria for improving nutrient management Jennifer McConville, Jan-Olof Drangert, Pernilla Tidåker Tidåker, Tina-Simone Neset, Sebastien Rauch, Ingrid Strid, & Karin Tonderski, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden…………………………33 Forum on Sustainability and the Library Introduction to the Forum on Sustainability and the Library Amy Forrester, University of Tennessee, USA……………………………………………………………44 Archival adaptation to climate change Eira Tansey, University of Cincinnati, USA……………………………………………………………….45 Growing our vision together: forming a sustainability community within the American Library Association Beth Filar Williams, Madeleine Charney, & Bonnie Smith, Oregon State University, USA……...………57
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Published online ● http://sspp.proquest.com ● email:
Winter 2015 Maurie Cohen (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
Managing Editor
ISSN: 1548-7733 Brie Betz
Articles
A typology for complex social-ecological systems in mountain communities Mark Altaweel, Arika Virapongse, David Griffith, Lilian Alessa, & Andrew Kliskey, University College
London, United
Kingdom…………………………………………………………………………………………………….1
Sufficiency in social practice: searching potentials for sufficient behavior in a consumerist culture Melanie Speck & Marco Hasselkuss, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, Germany…14
Closing the food loops: guidelines and criteria for improving nutrient management
2016 Altaweel et al. CC-BY Attribution 4.0 License. Fall 2015 | Volume 11 | Issue 2 1
ARTICLE
A typology for complex social-ecological systems in mountain communities Mark Altaweel1, Arika Virapongse2, David Griffith2, Lilian Alessa2, & Andrew Kliskey2 1 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PY UK (email: [email protected]) 2 Center for Resilient Communities, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844 USA (email: [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]) Effective and standardized assessment of social-ecological systems is crucial for supporting increased resilience of human communities and for developing adaptation strategies. However, few analytical frameworks exist to assess the social-ecological resilience and vulnerability of different landscapes. To help fill the gap in this literature, we inves-tigated the utility of a conceptual social-ecological systems typology by assessing 21 mountain communities in the western United States. Our results show that larger cities or urban areas are generally more resilient than smaller communities, but the variation is not particularly notable. Resilience differences are found most often among com-munities of different population sizes. In our sample, no community was deemed to be highly vulnerable to social-ecological change. More broadly, development of standardized social-ecological systems typologies can be applied toward accommodating unique environmental niches while allowing for cross-comparisons among regions on a broader continental scale. KEYWORDS: classification, local communities, montane environments, ecosystem resilience, environmental sociology
Introduction
Classification of social-ecological systems is an
important first step for identifying and assessing fac-tors that affect resilience and vulnerability of commu-nities and their resources (Alessa et al. 2009; Ostrom, 2009; Ostrom & Cox, 2010) and determining poten-tial interventions, such as those intended to enhance a system’s resiliency (Cumming et al. 2005). A social-ecological system (SES) consists of human and bio-physical components that are interconnected and linked through complex system feedbacks and de-pendencies (Berkes et al. 2003). Mismatch in the scales of SESs, in whole or in part and ranging from community- to landscape-level systems, is often an obstacle to comparative studies (Cumming et al. 2006; 2013). Existing typologies focus on SESs at such a broad level that it is not clear if unique quali-ties of environmental niches and community specific-ity can be easily addressed (e.g., Alessa et al. 2009; Ostrom, 2009; Ostrom & Cox, 2010). Information derived from large-scale studies is often not informa-tive when assessing community resilience in specific regions, such as mountainous areas that are varying and complex landscapes characterized by large bio-physical gradients and great fluxes in resource quality and quantity. Without robust tools to comparatively assess the resilience of communities located in spe-
cific types of landscapes, it remains a challenge to sustainably manage available valuable natural re-sources and the social and environmental changes that are expected in the near future.
Typologies of SESs have been developed as practical tools that can be used to classify SESs by applying information generated through conceptual models and existing datasets. By testing such concep-tual models in the real world, typologies can help identify key characteristics, drivers, and dependen-cies within and among systems (Blair et al. 2014; Buergelt & Paton, 2014). Typologies allow for stand-ardized characterization by using specific metrics, so that characteristics (e.g., vulnerability to environmen-tal change) can be compared among communities and management decisions and planning can be conduct-ed with greater standardization. Standardizing the metrics used to assess SESs makes possible scaling up from community to landscape levels so that cross-comparisons can be conducted at broader scales. As an analytical framework, SES typologies are effective in contrasting communities located in specific land-scapes with shared biophysical features (e.g., moun-tains) as well as among landscape types (e.g., moun-tains and coastal areas) on much broader scales. To develop such a tool, existing SES typologies must be examined and refined in accordance with specific landscapes (e.g., Alessa et al. 2009; Ostrom, 2009).
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
This article’s main goal is to evaluate the resili-ence of mountain-system communities using a modi-fied version of the “Messy SES” typology (Alessa et al. 2009) and to offer recommendations for further development of typologies as a framework. The unit of analysis used to characterize SESs is a community and its associated resources. We apply the typology in this study to evaluate the resilience of 21 mountain communities located in the western United States. Based on our analysis, we offer recommendations for how the SES typology can be further refined for use in specific types of landscapes. With more enhance-ment and development, such typologies can be valu-able for conducting cross-comparisons among differ-ent landscapes so that assessments of SESs can occur on a continental and global scale. Background Why Typologies?
Human-environmental interactions are integral components of interconnected, large-scale systems—the “ecological macrosystem” (Brondizio & Chowdhury, 2013; Heffernan et al. 2014). Such mac-rosystem processes, for instance climate change, have been linked to accelerating rates of natural disasters, economic crises, and livelihood vulnerabilities (Alley et al. 2003; Skoufias, 2003). To improve social pre-paredness for large-scale change, scientists have for-mulated high-level frameworks to address communi-ty resilience in practice, such as toolkits that enable resilience self-assessment (e.g., U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, 2015). Offering a more region-specific framework, typologies provide a template for researchers and managers to systematically identify resilience/vulnerability levels for communities in a comparable and scalable manner.
The most challenging aspect of developing an SES typology is to identify appropriate social, bio-physical, and integrated metrics for capturing resili-ence or vulnerability, as well as finding accessible long-term datasets to support such metrics. Typolo-gies for community-level resilience have focused on aspects of social metrics, such as change in settle-ment structure, institutions, and livelihoods (Carney, 1998; Berkes et al. 2003; Krausmann et al. 2008). They also can investigate relationships among stake-holders, decision makers, and sociocultural values regarding economic concerns (Wallace, 2007; Reed et al. 2009). Biophysical metrics used in typologies have included presence of different ecosystems, land-cover change, and availability of ecosystem services (Adger et al. 2002; de Groot et al. 2002; Lambin et al. 2003). Integrated metrics include activities of rural landholders and land use (Emtage et al. 2006; Nuissl et al. 2009). To address community-level adaptation
and resilience, different social scales (e.g., individual to community level; Buergelt & Paton, 2014), rela-tionships between governance and ecosystem ser-vices (Ostrom, 2005; 2009), and community size and resource connectivity (Alessa et al. 2009) are as-sessed and included in typologies. The applied typol-ogy considered here studies the heterogeneity that exists across SESs in their given landscapes by inves-tigating different SES elements. Mountain System Communities
Mountain SESs require special attention because of their position in the upstream-downstream gradi-ent, unique ecosystem characteristics, changing hu-man demographics, effects on resource and manage-ment decisions, and cultural and political aspects. As the location of intensive exploitation or as the source of renewable and nonrenewable resources—such as timber, minerals, and water—mountainous regions and their associated watersheds are critical for most societies (Messerli et al. 2004; Winkler et al. 2007; Emelko et al. 2011). As in other systems, mountain-based human communities are subject not only to pressure from macro-environmental drivers such as climate change, but also from human-driven factors such as population growth/decline, economic devel-opment, migration, and urbanization. In contrast to other types of SESs, however, extreme biophysical gradients within mountain landscapes can create unique vulnerabilities to disturbance, availability of ecosystem services, and patterns of ecological and natural-resource exploitation (MtnSEON, 2015).
Considered unique and understudied from eco-logical and biogeographical perspectives (Beniston, 2003), mountain landscapes are defined by high-contrast biophysical and ecological characteristics, such as steep physical gradients (e.g., elevation, pre-cipitation, temperature), ecotones (abrupt ecological transition zones), and highly varied ecosystems and physical characteristics (Haslett, 1997; Gardner & Dekens, 2007). Mountains have extreme and varying topographies along a large continuum; for example, consider the differences between Snowdon in Wales (high precipitation, heavily forested, anciently vol-canic, and standing 1,085 meters) and Mount Kili-manjaro in Tanzania (dry, sparsely forested, many endemic plants, actively volcanic, and standing 5,149 meters). Extreme, but local, spatial heterogeneity also differentiates mountains from surrounding lowland areas, so that mountainous regions are often defined according to relative prominence (vertical differentia-tion from surrounding landscapes). For example, the town of Browning, Montana (USA) is considered to be on the “high plains” at 1,334 meters; this can be contrasted with Mount Rogers in Virginia (USA), identified as a mountain at 1,746 meters, and the
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
aforementioned Snowdon in Wales, unquestionably a mountain at only 1,085 meters.
High-contrast biophysical characteristics also subject mountain landscapes to hazards that are unique or more pronounced than in other landscapes. For example, landslides, avalanches, flash floods, forest fires, and extreme cold events are characteristic of mountain SESs, but largely absent from lowland temperate regions where most of the world’s popula-tions resides (Gardner & Dekens, 2007; Hewitt, 2014). Due to the great biophysical, microclimatic, and ecological variability of mountain areas, their ecosystems are reservoirs for biodiversity and highly vulnerable to global change. Prominence and separa-tion of peaks by lowlands with inhospitable biophysi-cal characteristics results in many mountains acting as ecological “sky-islands,” with unique fauna and flora that are susceptible to environmental and cli-mate change and physically unable to migrate to more suitable habitat as conditions change (Holycross & Douglas, 2007). Mountains also serve as refuges for many endangered species, such as large carnivores (Weaver, 2001). Global climate change is predicted to have greater effects on mountain ecosys-tems, and other high-latitude ecosystems, than on most landscapes (a prediction that is actually begin-ning to occur) (Kullman, 2004).
The biophysical and geographical characteristics of mountainous landscapes contribute to pronounced cultural, socioeconomic, and political diversity and significance for these regions. Mountain ecosystems, especially in Europe, have been modified, molded, and tended by self-organizing and self-regulating cultures at the fringes of larger polities and societies (Rescia et al. 2008). Due to historical patterns of for-est use and resource extraction in many mountainous regions of the world, mountain landscapes and asso-ciated communities experience (and in some instanc-es engage in activities that directly cause) more de-forestation, related flooding, and extreme erosion than comparably sized lowland SESs (Gibon et al. 2010). Mountain ranges have been used to define political frontiers between nations (Stoddard, 1991), and the enforcement of law and effective governance by states is typically weaker in mountainous regions (Ratner, 2000). Often, in mountainous areas minority groups are isolated (e.g., India), natural resources are heavily exploited (e.g., logging and mining), and military conflict persists (e.g., Afghanistan, Yemen; Blaikei & Sadeque, 2000). In addition, mountains regularly serve as sacred sites of cultural importance and these features have been correlated with higher biodiversity (Anderson et al. 2005). As a result of different or unique characteristics for mountain sys-tems and communities, researchers and stakeholders have suggested specific guidelines for protecting the
biological and cultural diversity of these regions (Wild et al. 2008).
Mountain systems are critical for understanding watersheds and their connectivity from high elevation to the sea (Kaneshiro et al. 2005). This importance is exemplified in the ancient Hawaiian managed land-scape, or ahupua’a, a land division stretching from upland mountains to the near shore that formed the basis for agro-ecological management and acted as a foundation for local cultural and political economies (Kamehameha Schools, 1994; Kliskey et al. 2009). In temperate environments, mountain-to-sea connectivi-ty has been extended to icefield-to-ocean linkages, given changes in elevation and moisture, similarly highlighting the critical roles of downstream connec-tivity, transitions, and gradients for mountain land-scapes in entire watersheds (O’Neel et al. 2015). Methods Analytical Approach
We use the “Messy SES” typology as a starting point to assess community-level resilience in the western United States mountain system (Alessa et al. 2009). Resilience and vulnerability are designated as two ends of a continuum in this typology, which em-phasizes community size, resource use, and commu-nity connectivity, acknowledging that SESs are inher-ently difficult to categorize or assess (Folke, 2006). In comparison to the SES typology proposed by Ostrom (2005; 2009), Alessa et al. (2009) requires fewer proxies, so it is more manageable in practice. Our analysis assessed the Alessa et al. (2009) typolo-gy to improve its utility for providing information helpful to making management and community-planning decisions. The unit of analysis in our study is a community, defined as an area and population associated with an organized and commonly gov-erned collection of households.
To assess the typology, we first selected 21 com-munities from the western mountainous region of the United States (Intermountain and Rocky Mountains) as a sample group (Figure 1). We defined a moun-tainous region as a landscape with significant promi-nence, sloping terrain, valleys, and human communi-ties. We studied communities located in such land-scapes in the states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, with pop-ulation sizes ranging from 204 people (Washtucna, Washington) to 663,900 residents (Denver, Colora-do).
We next considered the eleven resilience proxies used in Alessa et al. (2009) and their relevance to our mountain-system communities (see the next section). Resilience proxies are diversity, distance, retention, distribution, persistence, collectivism, variability,
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
substitutability, communication, and risk. We identi-fied specific metrics for each proxy (Table 1), based on the availability (e.g., open source, freely available) of quantitative datasets. Where possible, we identi-fied both social and biophysical metrics for each proxy. Metrics that were only available at large scales (e.g., state level) were scaled down to the community level based on population proportions. In other words, we took the state-level data and applied it to the community.
After all data were collated, we calculated the range for each metric for the sample group. We then divided the range into three parts (Table 1, column “Metric Defined”). Qualitative identifiers were given for each part (e.g., low, middle, high) to describe their relationship to the metric. These identifiers were then assigned numeric values that reflected the met-ric’s contribution to resilience. For most metrics, the transformation was 1 = low, 2 = middle, and 3 = high. Some categories, with more quantitative data that allowed for fine-scale treatment, also apply 0.5 intervals. For other metrics, an inversion was needed. For example, “distance to freshwater” was considered 1 = high, 2 = middle, and 3 = low, as a shorter dis-tance to water is associated with higher resilience. After all results were described numerically, data in each proxy were averaged. We then translated the averages into categories A, B, and C (resilient to vul-nerable, respectively), where the bottom-, middle-, and top-third of averaged results correspond to A‒C categories, respectively. Resilient communities (A) are those which are most likely to withstand disturb-
ance, transitional communities (B) respond unevenly to disturbance, and vulnerable communities are those least able to resist the negative effects of disturbance (c.f. Alessa et al. 2009).
Size (i.e., population) is considered separately from the proxies (Alessa et al. 2009), because the scale of social organization is a strong discriminator with respect to environmental change and response (Wilbanks & Kates, 1999; Marston, 2000). Size of-fers the opportunity to scale resilience assessments for cross comparisons among communities. For ex-ample, the number of residents is associated with aggregated benefits (e.g., tax revenue) and costs (e.g., resource use; Dasgupta, 1995). In mountain regions, size is particularly important because the human-carrying capacity is often limited by topography. Small communities are often located in canyons or on sloped land, with larger population concentrations situated in valleys or at the edge of mountainous are-as (Cohen & Small, 1998).
Our analysis defines community size by estimat-ed population, ranging from small (3 < 2,500), me-dium (2 = 2,500‒50,000), to large (1 > 50,000) ac-cording to the United States Census Bureau’s (2010a) urban-rural classification for towns (data are collect-ed from U.S. Census, 2015a). The resilience classifi-cation (A, B, or C) is combined with the size classifi-cation (1, 2, or 3) so that nine different categories for community resilience are possible (i.e., Types 1A‒3C).
Figure 1 Location and elevation of sample communities.
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
Proxies and Metrics for the Typology The eleven proxies considered in the typology
are intended to capture a range of social-ecological factors affecting community-level resilience and vul-nerability (Alessa et al. 2009). Proxies address com-ponents of vulnerability including root causes (e.g., factors that produce unequal distribution of resources among people), dynamic pressures (e.g., processes and activities such as environmental change), and unsafe conditions (e.g., spatial location and the built environment; Wisner et al. 2004). We evaluated the
proxies according to: 1) relevance to mountain sys-tems and 2) metrics and available datasets to inform the proxy. Table 1 lists the specific proxies that we applied. A total of nineteen metrics and eighteen dif-ferent sources for datasets informed our typology. Table 1 also indicates the thresholds of metrics em-ployed to evaluate communities by identifying the range within the sample group (column “Metric De-fined”). We identified relatively informative metrics and good quality datasets for most proxies. Data were all derived from free, publicly available sources on
Table 1 Descriptions, definitions, and datasets for metrics used for each proxy.
Proxy Metric Metric Description1 Metric Defined2 Data Set Citation
Diversity Industry diversity
Range across percent of participation of top three industries of the town (%)
High (3) < 5, Medium (2) 5–10, Low (1) > 10, Range: 0‒15
U.S. Census (2013a)
Diversity Biodiversity Biodiversity of plants, fungi/lichens, animals, by state (number of species)
Low (1) < 6,915, Medium (2) 6,915‒7,827, High (3) > 7,827; Range: 6,003–8,739
Nature Serve (2013)
Distance Ocean distance
Distance from the ocean (km) Low (3) < 603, Medium (2) 603‒1,107, High (1) > 1,107; Range: 100‒1,510
Google Earth (2015)
Distance Water distance
Distance from main water source for community use (km)
Low (3) < 60, Medium (2) 60‒115, High (1)> 115; Range: 5‒170
Google Earth (2015); community websites
Retention Renewable energy use
Energy used from renewable sources (wind, solar, hydro, geo, biomass) by state (%)
Low (1) < 34, Medium (2) 34‒67, High (3) > 67; Range: 0‒100
USDOE (2013)
Retention Recycling activity
Number of people per recycling center (individuals/center)
Low (3) < 10,374, Medium (2) 10,374‒20,748, High (1) > 20,748, communities with no centers identified as “high”; Range: 0‒31,122
RecyclingCenters.org (2015)
Distribution Airport distance
Distance to international airport (km) Low (3) < 258, Medium (2) 258‒503, High (1) > 503; Range: 13‒748
Travel Math (2015)
Distribution Conduits available
Connection points to Interstate highways (Number of connection points)
Google Earth (2015) Google Earth (2015) Range: 0‒5
Persistence Establishment age
Founding year for community (year) Older (3) < 1,863, Medium (2) 1,863‒1,880, Young (1) > 1,880; Range: 1,847‒1,896
Wikipedia (2015)
Collectivism Union affiliation
Employed and salary workers with union affiliation by state (%)
Low (1) < 9, Medium (2) 9‒14, High (3) > 14; Range: 4.60‒18.40
BLS (2014)
Collectivism NGO participation
Number of people per NGO by community (individuals)
Low (3) < 153, Medium (2) 153‒256, High (1) > 256; Range: 50‒360
IRS (2015)
Variability Precipitation range
Range in precipitation record per year (inches)
Low (1) < 20, Medium (2) 20‒30, High (3) > 30; Range: 9.4‒41.7
Western RegionalClimate Center (2015)
Variability Population change
Change in community population from 1990 to 2015 (%)
Low (3) < 121, Medium (2) 121‒154, High (1) > 154; Range: 88‒187
City Data (2015)
Directionality Export-import difference
Difference between exported and imported goods by state (US$)
Low (3) < 8,944, Medium (2) 8,944‒23,774, High (1) > 23,774; Range: ‒5,887‒38,605
U.S. Census (2015b)
Substitutability Commuting activity
Change in daytime population due to commuting, by county (%)
Low (1) < 5.2, Medium (2) 5.2‒16.1, High (3) > 16.1; Range: ‒5.7‒27
U.S. Census (2010b)
Substitutability Growing days Number of growing days for cultivated plants per year by state (days)
Low (1) < 115, Medium (2) 115‒156, High (3) > 156; Range: 74‒197
Farmer’s Almanac (2015)
Communication Internet access
Percent of people with computer and Internet access, by community (%)
Low (1) < 81, Medium (2) 81‒85, High (3) > 85; Range: 8‒89
U.S. Census (2013b)
Risk Social Vulnerability Index
Vulnerability measurement 1‒4 Low (1) < 1.33, Medium (2) 1.33‒2.66, High (3) > 2.66; Range: 1‒3
HVRI (2013)
1 Qualitative description of metrics, including the scale of the dataset and unit of analysis (in parentheses). 2 Quantitative categorization of the metric, including a qualifier describing the town’s metric in relation to the sample group (low to
high); numeric designation describing the metric’s contribution to the town’s resilience (in parentheses, 1: negative, 2: neutral, 3: positive); and range of actual values within the sample group.
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
the Internet. Diversity (the first of the eleven proxies), which
considers a community’s varying access to both local and distant resources, is a measure of a community’s social and biophysical options for meeting livelihood needs, such as mechanisms for accessing resources (e.g., livelihood activities) and availability of re-sources (e.g., timber, energy deposits). Economic di-versity, such as the presence of different industries, helps to inform how communities might adapt to shifts and stresses arising from evolving economic circumstances (Chapin et al. 2004). Diversification promotes livelihood security by helping households overcome crises and abrupt change (Shackleton & Shackleton, 2004). Similarly, biophysical diversity, such as biological, ecological, and natural resource diversity, offers a great range of options and alterna-tives for communities to be more adaptive to change (Adams et al. 2004, Reyers et al. 2012). In mountain systems, diversity is linked to distance and distribu-tion and provides different options for livelihood strategies.
Distance refers to the physical distance to essen-tial resources (e.g., water, goods, trade). For example, communities located near headwaters have great po-tential for environmental impact on downstream communities. Mountain communities are often iso-lated; steep gradients can cause distribution of re-sources to be more sensitive to change than in more homogeneous topography. Climate change, for ex-ample, is expected to affect mountain regions by making some natural resources either physically more distant, scarce, or no longer available (Hope, 2014). Therefore, distance is linked to the proxies of topography, diversity, and distribution.
Retention is defined as efficiency in resource utilization, such as through renewable and recycled materials. In mountainous regions in the western United States, renewable natural resources that con-tribute directly to livelihoods include, but are not lim-ited to, arable soil, trees and plants, fish and game, and wind for power generation. More varied and nu-merous renewable resources provide long-term secu-rity for mountain communities (Forman, 2008). Secu-rity can be measured based on how much renewable energy or how many resources are used in a commu-nity, including the capacity and infrastructure for recycling resources. Retention is linked to distance, as isolation can drive higher retention or prevent re-cycling of materials through lack of infrastructure.
Distribution is a measure of a community’s level of connectivity to a broader economy, such as through transportation conduits. In terms of infra-structural resilience, a community with easy access to highways, major airports, and rail interconnections is
more resilient than an isolated community (Cutter et al. 2010). Strong connections to surrounding com-munities and a broader region enhance community resilience by allowing more access to resources and emergency aid while being responsive to external factors or shocks.
Persistence is measured based on a community’s previous history in facing threats and overcoming and adapting to social-ecological stresses (Assche & Lo, 2011). Historical records can form a baseline indicat-ing how effectively communities have dealt with social-ecological stress in the past. For mountain communities, this is particularly important for antici-pating and adapting to natural threats, such as floods. This proxy helps to measure a community’s experi-ences recovering from major ecological disturbances such as pine-beetle infestations. As a metric for per-sistence, community age can be informative, with historical memory being preserved through records and traditional, generational knowledge.
Collectivism represents how community-driven processes and institutions, such as governmental, pri-vate, and public organizations, respond to social-ecological change (Buduru & Pal, 2010). This char-acteristic indicates how well communities are able to respond to endogenous or exogenous stresses through local cooperation and systems of organization. A high number of community-based programs and in-stitutions [such as labor-union affiliation and the presence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)] relative to population can determine if organizational systems enable resilience. High levels of collectivism help to shape more rapid and flexible responses among communities through such processes as adap-tive governance (Folke et al. 2005).
Variability refers to the consistency of environ-mental factors and resource availability for a commu-nity over time. Environmental variability, for ex-ample, has been identified as an important determi-nant of community vulnerability in traditional agri-cultural systems throughout the world (Altieri, 2004). Variability can be measured in several ways: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for ex-ample, has used change in precipitation, river dis-charge, and air temperature over a minimum of 30 years to monitor environmental variability. In moun-tain systems, variability is often determined by the location of a community along different gradients (e.g., elevation, location in watershed, slope). As cli-mate change begins to have greater effects on spe-cific landscapes over the next century, variability in environmental factors such as precipitation is ex-pected to increase, greatly affecting agriculture and other activities (Beniston & Stoffel, 2014).
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
Directionality refers to the input or output of re-sources due to trade or environmental change. Some mountain communities are more self-sufficient due to local natural resources (e.g., timber), but industrial goods and services needed to capture more value from these resources may be outsourced to other lo-cales. For example, a mountain-ski town imports goods and services to earn revenue through visitors to the resort, gaining resources. A mining town, on the other hand, may extract and export natural resources (removing resources). Directionality informs how (negative or positive) communities are able to accu-mulate resources that promote resilience and adapta-tion related to proxies of distance, distribution, and retention (Carpenter & Brock, 2008).
Substitutability measures a community’s range of available resource options and gauges its ability to adapt under social-ecological stress by having access to redundant and multiple social-ecological resources (Folke et al. 2005). Metrics to inform this proxy can include the availability of nearby work opportunities (e.g., percentage of local residents that commute to jobs) and growing days for agricultural and cultivated plants.
Communication relates to a community’s ability to access knowledge to help promote resilience and adaptation, which can be in the form of mass media or social networks that spread ideas (Vogel et al.
2007). Quantifying the population’s level of access to the Internet and other communication (e.g., libraries, archives) informs this proxy.
Risk is important for determining how likely it is that communities will be affected by disturbance events (e.g., flooding, economic crisis, or disease out-break). Depending on their specific location, higher elevation communities may experience major shocks such as shifts in the quantity and timing of precipita-tion due to climate change, while lower elevation communities may be less affected. Meaningful risk metrics for mountain systems include predicted change in precipitation and snowpack, which can increase due to storm events. Distance from contami-nation sources, such as elevation and location along a watershed gradient, can affect pollution spread (Briggs, 2003). While ambient temperature generally varies with altitude and latitude, variation in meteoro-logical conditions due to climate change is expected to be inconsistent across time and space. The Social Vulnerability Index (HVRI, 2015) is a useful meas-urement of risk that considers susceptibility to envi-ronmental hazards by categories such as race, ethnici-ty, and age, as different cohorts may have greater risk due to socio-economic status.
Based on an SES science approach, all of the proxies inform and affect each other through feed-back loops. However, some proxies are more closely
Table 2 Values of the resilience proxy measures for the 21 sample communities, including size and analysis results. Resilience level category ranges are as follows: A = 3.0–2.4; B = 2.3–1.7; C = 1.6–1.0.
Community / Proxy Siz
e
Div
ersi
ty
Dis
tan
ce
Ret
enti
on
Dis
trib
uti
on
Per
sist
enc
e
Co
llec
tivi
sm
Var
iab
ility
Dir
ecti
on
alit
y
Su
bst
itu
tab
ility
Co
mm
un
icat
ion
Ris
k
Ave
rag
e o
f re
silie
nce
pro
xies
Res
ilien
ce
leve
l
Res
ilien
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Denver, CO 1 2.5 2 2 3 3 2 1.5 3 3 2 2 2.4 A 1A Colorado Springs, CO 1 2.5 1 2 2.5 3 1.5 1 3 1.5 3 3 2.2 B 1B Durango, CO 2 2 2 2 1.5 1 2.5 2 3 1 2 3 2 B 2B Berthoud, CO 2 2 2 2 2 2 2.5 1 3 1.5 2 3 2.1 B 2B Orofino, ID 2 2 3 3 1 3 2 2.5 3 2 2 2 2.3 B 2B Salmon, ID 2 1.5 2.5 3 1 2 2 2 3 1.5 2 2 2.1 B 2B Blackfoot, ID 2 2 2.5 3 2 2 1 1.5 3 1 2 2 2 B 2B Boise , ID 1 1.5 2.5 2 1.5 3 1.5 1 3 1.5 1 2 1.9 B 1B Butte, MT 2 2.5 2.5 2 1.5 1 2.5 2 3 1 1 2 1.9 B 2B Arlee, MT 3 2 2.5 1 1 2 3 2 3 1.5 1 1 1.8 B 3B Tigard, OR 1 3 3 3 2.5 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2.5 A 1A Vale, OR 3 3 3 3 1 1 3 2 3 2 2 2 2.3 A 3A Medford, OR 1 2.5 3 3 2 1 2.5 1.5 3 1.5 1 2 2.1 B 1B Monticello, UT 3 2.5 2 2 1.5 1 1 2 3 1.5 2 1 1.8 B 3B Salt Lake City, UT 1 2.5 2.5 2 3 3 2 2 3 2.5 2 2 2.4 A 1A Washtucna, WA 3 2 3 2 1.5 2 2.5 2 1 1.5 2 2 2 B 3B Spokane, WA 1 1 3 3 2 2 2.5 2 1 1.5 2 2 2 B 1B Bingen, WA 3 1.5 3 3 2.5 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 B 3B Cheyenne, WY 1 2.5 1.5 1.5 3 2 1.5 1.5 3 1.5 2 2 2 B 1B Baggs, WY 3 2 2.5 1 1 2 2 1 3 1 1 2 1.7 B 3B Cody, WY 2 3 2.5 1 1 1 2 2 3 1.5 1 3 1.9 B 2B
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
related than others. Diversity, variability, distance, retention, distribution, and directionality are all based on a community’s physical features. Size, persis-tence, and collectivism focus on social aspects of local history and social organization. Risk stands alone because it is based on the prediction of future events, according to an analysis of all other proxies. Topography is not included as a proxy, although it affects many of the proxies, including size, distance, risk, and distribution. Results
Table 2 displays the size of the communities and aggregate measures of the metrics for each resilience proxy so that they can be compared across communi-ties. The table also shows the final combined size and resilience score for each community. Communities typed A to C are more to less resilient, respectively; community sizes 1 to 3 are large to small, respective-ly.
On the basis of our analysis (Table 2 & Figure 2), most sample communities are characterized as transitional (n = 17); however, four communities are classified as resilient. Large communities, or cities, are deemed to be either resilient (n = 3) or transition-al (n = 5). Medium-sized communities are all identi-fied as transitional (n = 7). The majority of small towns are transitional (n = 5). Using the framework provided by Alessa et al. (2009), none of the towns in our sample are classified as vulnerable, although Baggs, WY scores very close.
As an illustration of the assessment of SES resili-ence using the typology it is useful to consider the in-dividual measures for a single community. As an ex-ample, the town of Salmon, Idaho, is a small rural community of 3,112 residents located in the Salmon River Mountains of the American Continental Divide in central Idaho—rated as a medium-sized communi-
ty (Type 2). The town is situated at an elevation of 1,202 meters above sea level (ASL), immediately west of Continental Divide-mountain peaks that reach in excess of 3,000 meters ASL, and at the up-per headwaters of the Salmon River—a tributary of the Columbia River Basin, and 1,560 kilometers up-river from the Columbia River mouth on the Pacific Ocean (Figure 1). Salmon has a semi-arid climate with cold, dry winters and hot, slightly wetter sum-mers. Historically, the Salmon River valley is home to the Native American Lemhi Shoshone people and notable as the birthplace of Sacajawea, the Shoshone guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804–1806, and the route taken by that expedition as they crossed the Continental Divide en route to the Pacific Ocean.
The overall diversity proxy for Salmon of 1.5 (medium) tempers a low industrial diversity, based on over 12% participation in lumber, ranching, and tourism as the top three industries, with a high biodi-versity, resulting from close proximity to relatively unmodified forest and riverine environments (Tables 1 & 2). The distance proxy of 2.5 (medium-low) combines a particularly large distance from the ocean (1,560 kilometers) at the very headwaters of the Co-lumbia River, and short distance from the town’s main water source—the entire town is within one kilometer of the Salmon River (Tables 1 & 2). The retention proxy of 3 (very low) combines low metrics for renewable-energy use and recycling activity (Ta-bles 1 and 2). The distribution proxy of 1 (very low) reflects Salmon’s single connection to Interstate 90 which is 226 kilometers away and accessible in Mis-soula to the north (Tables 1 & 2). Its persistence proxy of 2 (medium) mirrors the founding of Lemhi County and the City of Salmon in 1866 (Tables 1 & 2). The collectivism proxy of 2 (medium) reflects the combination of 12% of employed and salaried work-ers in union affiliation for Idaho and 165 people per NGO (Tables 1 & 2). The variability proxy of 2 (me-dium) indicates both a modest environmental varia-bility (range in annual precipitation) and a modest change in community population from 1990 to 2015 (+0.03%). The directionality proxy of 3 (low) for Salmon echoes relatively low self-sufficiency due to the importation relative to exportation of resources (Tables 1 & 2). A substitutability proxy of 1.5 (medium-low) reflects little change in daytime popu-lation due to scant commuting (the only other incor-porated city in the county being Leadore with only 105 residents some 74 kilometers away, and a medi-um number of growing days per year (Tables 1 & 2). Its communication proxy of 2 (medium) is due to a moderate percentage (83%) of the community pos-sessing computer and Internet access. And the risk proxy of 2 (medium) reflects a moderate social vul-
Figure 2 Typology results for the communities assessed.
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
nerability index score (2.0) for the community (Ta-bles 1 & 2). The average resilience for Salmon of 2.1 is in the range of transitional resilience—an uneven response to disturbance resulting in an overall rating for the community as a type 2B transitional com-munity (Table 2 & Figure 2).
Discussion Benefits and Limitations
The Alessa et al. (2009) typology offers descrip-tions of proxies, but does not specify the metrics that should be used. The categories in the typology are not unique to mountain systems, but mountain char-acteristics such as precipitation, temperature, transport, and diversity of available resources do af-fect results by influencing resilience. As such, the ty-pology allows for flexibility to use different region-specific metrics for capturing resilience in mountain systems. By testing the utility of the typology with mountain communities, we were able to assess the challenges, benefits, and limitations of the typology, so that more robust taxonomies can be developed and data gaps identified. Our proxies were not weighted, as the intent was to identify the communities that showed more or less vulnerability within this particu-lar framework.
Datasets are generally available to capture the size and proxies for resilience reasonably well. Since each of our datasets came from a different source, it was time consuming to collect the appropriate data to inform each metric. As other SES studies have noted, the different scales used for each dataset (e.g., coun-ty, zip code, state levels) present challenges, because there is a need to scale down some datasets to the town level (e.g., per capita) (Cumming et al. 2006). To improve quantitative capacity to evaluate the re-silience of communities, datasets should be collected at the community level.
As an evolving field, resilience science continues to test conceptual SES models that identify metrics of resilience as well as relationships among metrics (Berkley & Gunderson, 2015). In the absence of guidance from a foundation of literature that defines specific metrics to be used in a typology, we select measures that are able to demonstrate the typology’s workability using publically available data. Among the proxies, persistence proves to be the least in-formative in our analysis, as all of the communities were established at roughly the same time. For varia-bility, we use population change from 1990 until the present, which demonstrates that communities can leverage human capital into infrastructure improve-ment (Short & Mussman, 2014). Although less than ideal, the data were readily available and could be used to highlight the relative ability of communities
to address variable resource or ecological conditions. We use the number of growing days for the substitut-ability proxy, as this shows the range of crops that can be grown given prevailing climatic advantage. While mountain communities in the United States are not often known for large-scale commercial agricul-ture, food production does enable local residents to provide for themselves during disruption. For our assessment of risk, we use the Social Vulnerability Index (HVRI, 2013), which we recognize does not include the biophysical aspect of vulnerability, but offers a straightforward way to differentiate risks among communities.
Our typology has potential to be more readily ap-plied using quantitative—rather than qualitative—data, as they provide values that can be directly trans-lated to resilience categories. However, some proxies like collectivism may best be informed through quali-tative documentation of activities conducted by gov-ernment, nongovernmental, and private-public part-nerships. The current typology framework is not very conducive for such qualitative datasets. To under-stand the context that underlies community resilience, better ways to assess qualitative data, such as through the deployment of historical perspectives, are needed to improve typologies. In addition, data sources for metrics are not available in a central repository, so time-consuming online searches in a dispersed and changing digital landscape are needed. We suggest that future typologies consider better ways to include qualitative datasets. While qualitative databases are often inherently difficult to work with, relative measures within such qualitative understanding can at least provide information on what is more or less important from the perspective of resilience.
In this study, we relied only on publically availa-ble data rather than community-based information (e.g., local knowledge, unpublished municipal man-agement information). These data, which are labor in-tensive to collect, could be used in analyses after spe-cific communities of interest have been identified through applying the typology. Depending on open-access data makes the typology useful for managers and planners, who can efficiently allocate their lim-ited resources by more quickly identifying vulnerable communities that may warrant further investigation. In our current study, we emphasize access to data over a more comprehensive approach because we believe that typologies must be easy to populate and implement to be useful in land, resource, and com-munity management. Science often fails to translate results into methodologies that can be utilized by managers and applied researchers, resulting in a research-implementation gap that this study attempts to fill (Walsh et al. 2014).
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
Another limitation of our approach is that the metric scores are calculated based on our sample. However, we selected this approach because our main goal was to demonstrate the potential utility of the typology as one step in a more encompassing process toward vulnerability assessment of a large number of communities. One benefit of our approach, nevertheless, is that the resilience score is adaptable to changing circumstances within the sample itself. As new resilience typologies and assessments are developed and tested, more rigorous comparisons will be possible. This was attempted for this study but proved difficult for the given data values that were available. In any case, we contend that our analysis offers valuable perspective on advancing SES typologies.
Relevance of Results
Our assessed communities indicate that larger cities are slightly more resilient than smaller commu-nities, where Size 1 settlements average a 2.18 resili-ence score vs. 2.06 for all other settlements. On one hand, the higher resilience result could be because relatively larger communities generally have more diversified economies; more efficient connections to national and international transportation networks; use of resources; and ability to leverage social, knowledge, and financial capital. In advanced econ-omies, cities tend to have social and economic capac-ity to develop increasingly resilient infrastructures (Pretty & Ward, 2001; Vugrin et al. 2010; Walker & Cooper, 2010; Smith & Stirling, 2011). In compari-son to larger cities, smaller mountain communities, particularly those with populations of less than a few thousand, are slightly more vulnerable (Size 3 com-munities have a 1.98 resilience average). Interesting-ly, no communities are classified as Type C (vulnera-ble). There are a number of possible explanations, such as that no communities in the sample group are vulnerable, the United States is simply relatively wealthier and better able to address resilience, and the typology is not specific enough to inform the re-silience context of mountains (e.g., mountain system may represent a nested typology within the typology that we used). Instead of adjusting scores so that some communities are assigned to each of the re-silience categories (e.g., centering proxy scores at “2”), we chose to maintain the original protocol, so that the results could be comparable to future typo-logical analyses.
Unfortunately, we were unable to find many oth-er studies similar to the approach that we have em-ployed here, making comparison to previous work difficult. Pickett et al. (2014) propose some relevant ideas of urban adaptation and how it could benefit types (large to small) of communities, but this does
not include a practical implementation of a typology to case studies. Although comparable current re-search efforts have been produced to investigate cit-ies and their capacity for resilience (e.g., Arup Group, 2015; BRR, n.d.), we find that these studies do not account sufficiently for environmental, geo-graphical, or biogeographic effects.
Future Direction
This study offers yet one more step in improving typologies so that they can provide useful infor-mation for stakeholders seeking to make decisions regarding community- and landscape-level resilience. A next step entails more rigorous analysis and identi-fication of appropriate metrics. Even among monitor-ing initiatives, it is unclear what indicators should be assessed to support improvements in community re-silience (Carpenter et al. 2001), a situation that remains a major challenge for the broader monitoring community (Schimel & Keller, 2015).
We applied our typology to mountain communi-ties in the western United States, where data are more available than for less developed nations (Sunderlin et al. 2005). A major obstacle for all managers is data availability, which has led to advocacy for open-access publishing (Fuller et al. 2014). With a new push for large-scale, standardized, and publicly ac-cessible data around the world (e.g., observatories, census data, satellite maps), data will likely become more accessible in the future, making possible global-scale analyses. Remote-sensing data is another attractive and simple resource useful for providing quick proxy measurements until more adequate re-sources are obtained from ground-based sources.
Based on our experience, we have some concrete recommendations for the next steps needed to devel-op an effective and useful SES typology. Researchers should strive to:
Develop a portal that assembles datasets for met-
rics in one place, so that the mining of data can be made more efficient.
Define best practices, particularly in regard to the unit analysis and scales used among different datasets, so that the data can be more interopera-ble and easier to use.
Increase testing of SES and resilience science theories, conceptual models, and typologies to better define the metrics and relationships among metrics.
Increase the sample size used to test typologies to better define the range and thresholds for met-rics.
Altaweel et al.: Typology for Mountain Communities
Test the limits of the typology in other mountain systems, ecosystems and landscapes, and geopo-litical and sociopolitical contexts.
Foster better partnerships with data- and informatics-science communities to help over-come data challenges in the typology, such as the need to identify better ways to include qualitative data and community-based data.
Conclusion
We present an application of the Alessa et al. (2009) SES typology to evaluate its utility for as-sessing resilience of communities located in moun-tain landscapes. We offer suggestions to further re-fine a conceptual SES typology so that better assess-ment of the resilience of communities in specific landscapes can occur. With such refinement, SES typologies can provide useful information for region-al planners, for instance at the state level, as a way to compare vulnerability of multiple communities. For researchers, typologies offer a useful tool and ap-proach to better evaluate conceptual SES models and to analyze patterns and causes of resilience or vulner-ability to change. Efforts to standardize data and ana-lytical approaches for SESs and resilience science will help to advance these fields toward new frontiers and increase their application in practice.
Our study offers a starting point for further de-velopment of typologies. Taxonomic tools are critical for identifying communities and regions or geograph-ic areas that are more or less resilient, but these pro-vide a coarse-level diagnostic, so that more compre-hensive assessment and data collection can be applied more efficiently. With growing global population, changing climate, and increasing pressures on limited natural resources and infrastructure, an SES approach is needed in land and natural resource management, so that the landscape and its components can be treat-ed as an interconnected system with shared goals toward greater resilience. Acknowledgments This work was supported by the Mountain Social Ecologi-cal Observatory Network (MtnSEON; NSF award #DEB 1231233), the Dynamics of Coupled Natural Human Sys-tems: Water-use Decisions in a Dynamic Environment Pro-ject (CNH; NSF Award #BCS 1114851), and the Idaho EPSCoR Program (MILES; NSF award #IIA-1301792). The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the funders. We also express our gratitude to Kacy Kreiger (University of Alaska Anchorage) for the carto-graphic design on Figure 1.
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Sufficiency in social practice: searching potentials for sufficient behavior in a consumerist culture Melanie Speck & Marco Hasselkuss Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, Doeppersberg 19, Wuppertal, North-Rhine Westfalia 42103 Germany (email: [email protected]; [email protected])
To live a life of sufficiency in a consumerist culture may be one of the most ambitious experiments an individual could undertake. To investigate this challenge, we employed a social-practice approach. This article is based on 42 qualitative interviews asking respondents why and how they acted in a sufficient way within a Western infrastructure and culture. The results indicate that sufficiency-oriented people draw on particular meanings in everyday-life practices when adopting relevant resource-extensive actions. These understandings encompass an amalgam of environmentally friendly attitudes, positive social intentions, and/or personal commitments to thriftiness. We further identified a set of specific practices—including sharing, recycling, and reusing—as useful for the adoption of a sufficient lifestyle. For our respondents, many of these sufficiency practices occurred regularly in daily life and were rarely questioned. Using an additional survey, we show that these routines lead to less resource-intensive lifestyles and demonstrate how a small group of people has been able to habitually adopt sufficiency practices. However, the majority does not see a need for more frequent implementation of such routines because daily decision-making processes are widely focused on the consumption of products. KEYWORDS: consumerism, social practice, sufficiency, consumption, behavior, social impact, environmental impact
Introduction1
After decades of industrialization and globaliz-
ation, advanced economies have become significantly
more efficient in their use of materials despite
mounting environmental pressures (Meadows et al.,
2004; Princen, 2005; Rockström et al. 2009). While
prior to the Industrial Revolution, people lived more
work on consumption and social practices has shown
the methodological challenges of such approaches
(Evans, 2011; Halkier & Jensen, 2011; Hargreaves,
2011; Sahakian & Wilhite, 2013). For instance,
Halkier & Jensen (2011) describe two advantages of
a construct-ivist approach to social practices in terms
of 1) understanding consumption as entangled in
webs of social reproduction and changes rather than
focusing on individual consumer choices, and 2)
viewing ways of consuming as continuous relational
accom-plishments in “intersectings of multiple
practices” (Halkier & Jensen, 2011). Here, the
concept of duality of structure and agency that is
inherent in practice theories offers important insights.
Using such an understanding, Evans (2011) shows
that food waste is not a consequence of immoderate
consumer choices but rather a matter of managing the
multiplicity of everyday practices and contingencies.
A problem of a purely constructivist perspective, as
promoted by Halkier and Jensen (2011), however, is
to foreground the discourse and negotiation of
normative elements in consumption among
practitioners at the expense of downplaying factual
knowledge about boundaries or indicators.
Practice-theoretical research pertaining to
sustainable consumption thus highlights the social
embeddedness of consumption, the negotiation that
takes place within social networks about normative
elements, and the acceptability of practices, power
relations, and intersections of different daily routines.
Nevertheless, to date most of these studies lack a
clear concept of sustainability and fail to analyze
practices in the most environmentally relevant fields
of activity (housing, food, and mobility; see
Lettenmeier et al. 2014).
The following sections explain sufficiency and
how it is actually performed, using different
strategies from the perspective of social practice. It is
important to consider another point of differentiation,
namely that between practices as performance (i.e.,
tangible, observable actions, different skills,
knowledge and competences that actors need to
engage in practices, as emphasized by Reckwitz,
2002) and practices as entities (representing a
concept of social structure related to Giddens’ idea of
rules and resources as stressed by Schatzki, 1996).
The latter represents institutionalized social practices
that are similarly (re)produced by a large number of
actors in a social system bridging time and space.
This also accounts for individual deviation in practice
performance without any effect on practice as entity.2
Figure 1 illustrates how Shove et al. (2012)
conceptualize links among different practices, for
instance through similar meanings connected to
various practices in a related field of action (in this
case automobility). In Figure 2, we adopt this idea to
show how a specific meaning to avoid unnecessary
consumption can link different social practices as
exemplified by home heating and cooking.
Based on the results and concepts of previous
work (most prominently Shove et al. 2012; see also
Stengel, 2011; Liedtke et al. 2013), we propose that
meanings are the most important element in implem-
enting change and further claim that a specific
constellation of meanings is a linking element among
various practices in different fields of activity (e.g.,
mobility, nutrition, housing) when consumers
perform actions considered as sufficient. Speaking of
a currently dominant consumerist society, the linking
element among almost all institutionalized and
routinized practices, involving some kind of
consumption, is a meaning associated with material
wealth as accumulation of goods and with ownership
2 In the terminology of social practice theories, performance refers
to a set of practices that are considered within the context of daily frameworks.
Figure 2 Meanings of sufficiency linking the performance of consumption to engagement in social practices, for example, cooking and heating (adapted from Shove et al. 2012).
Figure 1 The concept of meaning in two related practices (adapted from Shove et al. 2012).
Speck: Sufficiency in Social Practice: Searching Potentials for Sufficient Behavior in a Consumerist Culture
Table 1 Performances in conventional and sufficient behavioral patterns
Framework Mobility Nutrition Housing Leisure Vision of Individual
Consumption Behavior
Conventional consumption [no restriction]
Using all mobility infrastructures without limitation, primarily individual cars
Buying discount and retail products, only conventional food, regularly using takeaway offers
Living in old buildings without restriction on space, partial energy saving in heating, electricity, water
Using full range of travel possibilities (skiing, Caribbean cruises)
Focus on “conspicuous consumption” and buying durable goods only in specific areas of consumption
Sufficiency [Restriction at the level of individual actions up to time-consuming behavior changes]
Primarily traveling by train and public transport, using a bike, not owning a car
Exclusively buying seasonal and organic food, maintaining a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Inner-city, energy-efficient buildings, medium size of dwellings (maximum 30 square meters per person), collective usage of basic commodities, strong energy-saving for heating, electricity, water
Shifting holiday destinations to regional level, travelling by bicycle or train, maximum of 1–2 trips per year
Often using second-hand goods, online exchange platforms, sharing services, generally avoiding new goods
Based on: Gregg (1936), Leonard-Barton (1981), Jackson (2005a), Princen (2005), Schor (2011), Stengel (2011), Alexander (2012), Lettenmeier et al. (2012), Müller & Paech (2012), and Lettenmeier et al. (2014).
to identify the main categories that respondents use to
frame their daily routines related to the different
fields of consumption and show which
circumstances they perceive as helpful or unhelpful.
We present examples from the material for the main
categories, themes, and sub-themes that emerged
from coding the interviews and analyze them through
the theoretical lens provided by the three elements of
social practices.
Primarily to underline our results and argument-
ation, we conduct a model calculation of resource use
for a sufficient lifestyle, matching it with the
assumptions of a resource-light lifestyle (Lettenmeier
et al. 2014). Finally, we consider the following
research question: What is the most important
element to cause social practices to become more
sufficient?
The Study: Describing Sufficiency Using an
Empirical Data Set
To identify sufficiency in everyday practices and
their linked performances, competences, and
meanings, we studied typical consumers. The
research used a grounded-theory methodology to
gather and analyze a qualitative data sample (Glaser
& Strauss, 1967; Corbin & Strauss, 2008). A first
feature of this approach was that the respondents
should have a “regular” approach to life with no
special commitment to sufficiency, for example to
downshifting.5 Second, we sought interviewees that
5 For this article, we focus on a group of sufficient respondents (n
= 7) and on the group of moderately sufficient interviewees (n = 30) so as to highlight the results of these two groups.
lived in a conventional German suburban or urban
setting within the common consumer society. In other
words, radical downshifters who had moved to a
wooden house and tried to live autonomously were
not part of the sample. Similarly, individuals who had
lost a job and were forced to drastically reduce their
consumption were excluded from the study.
Respondents were recruited through universities,
virtual social networks and, to reach seniors, clubs
for the elderly. The participants were sought out
using a widespread pyramid scheme. The elderly
people were all contacted in clubs, while the middle-
agers who had responded to announcements in virtual
networks were also asked for suggestions for other
participants, and the same was done with the
students. Thus, one interview led to another.
Prior studies using a practice-theoretical
approach have encountered methodological obstacles
both in data production and in generalizing results
(Evans 2011; Halkier & Jensen 2011). Concerning
data collection, Evans (2011) favors a research
strategy of participant observation that focuses on
actions as demanded by practice theory. Given the
challenges of conducting ethnographic research with
private households, the preferred strategy is for the
investigator, at least to some extent, to join in
activities of the respondents. Such a research design
is demanding and often necessarily entails scaling
back the number of participants so as not to exceed
available resources. Consistent with Halkier & Jensen
(2011), we assume that all qualitative data can be
treated as enactments and performances of social
practitioners in different contexts and therefore opted
for interview data.
Speck: Sufficiency in Social Practice: Searching Potentials for Sufficient Behavior in a Consumerist Culture
The empirical analysis in this article is based on
42 interviews. The sample consists of participants
varying in gender and socioeconomic status from
three different age groups—young adults, empty
nesters, and golden agers—to generate different
perspectives on daily consumption and schemes of
sufficient action.6 All respondents lived in Germany,
but the sample is mixed, with the majority from the
western part of the country.7 Interviews were
conducted using a problem-centered protocol
(Witzel, 2000). The focus was on everyday
consumption and participants’ concept of
consumption, as well as attitudes toward
environmental and social issues deemed to influence
consumption patterns and decisions. The interviews
averaged sixty minutes in duration and were digitally
recorded and transcribed for analysis using the
software package ATLAS.ti. Following the
grounded-theory approach, we first investigated each
interview transcript in detail to generate a general
understanding of every respondent’s experiences and
the influences on their consumption in different
phases of life. Second, a constant comparative coding
and cross-comparison of interviews was carried out
to form categories. Finally, these categories were
formed and summarized into key and subcategories.8
We analyzed the interviews using an inductive
strategy of creating main categories and subthemes
(Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Corbin & Strauss, 2008)
(Table 2). The outcomes presented here are the result
of a year-long examination of all interviews using the
grounded theory approach and associated coding
system. The respondents have a robust connection to
consumerism due to their social settings—the
majority was middle-class Germans.
The sample enables us to understand social
practice in the context of sufficiency and provides the
evidence base to identify the opportunities and
barriers for a sufficient way of life. By now, the
sufficiency strategy is, from our perspective, more
often integrated in actions and practices than current
science is able to prove. Regarding the ability of
practice research to make generalizations beyond
methodological individualism (Halkier & Jensen,
6 We actively excluded potential respondents in early parenthood,
since Jaeger-Erben’s (2010) work was devoted to such individuals. 7 We acknowledge that some of our results may be particular to the circumstances of our study, which focused on respondents with
German cultural backgrounds. Consumption styles might differ
elsewhere. 8 We note here that the interview responses were strongly related to
sufficient practices. This may suggest that a majority of
respondents acted sufficiently, but in fact the largest share were classified as non- or slightly sufficient. Therefore, the selection
discussed in this article refers to the smallest part of the sample,
namely the participants who were identified as strongly sufficient. See Lukas (2015) for further details.
2011), we build types not to categorize consumers
individually or by lifestyles but to find relatively
stable meanings in certain sufficient practice
performances.
During the course of the coding process, we
identified meanings in the participants’ description of
their practices-as-performance. Meanings at the level
of actual practice-as-entity could be found by
identifying common aspects across cases and by
drawing on existing literature.
We assembled the quantitative results to
calculate the resource use into a spreadsheet with
several closed questions conducted by six persons.
This survey was done after the main interview.
Questions included “How often do you eat meat per
week?” (Possible answers: I eat meat one/two/three
times per week or more than three times; I am
vegetarian; I am vegan) and “Do you have a car?”
(yes/no). This part of the study was carried out by
telephone only with respondents who agreed to
complete the second questionnaire. The method of
utilizing a spreadsheet to calculate the resource use in
several fields of action such as nutrition, mobility,
housing, and leisure is based on Wiesen et al. (2014).
Findings and Discussion: Sufficient Action in
Everyday Life
In this section, we analyze our sample to provide
an overall outline on several important themes,
following grounded-theory methodology. The sample
was screened to examine daily social practices that
are compatible with a sufficient lifestyle. Thus,
consumers can usually be regarded as partly
sufficient, or even only sufficient in a few fields of
actions. With the help of the following main
categories, we map various impact factors and
decision-making structures, but first we point out the
resource intensities of different lifestyles.
Matching Lifestyles and Resource Use
9 Within debates and analyses pertaining to
sufficiency, commentators frequently ask what
constitutes a “better” lifestyle. In our case, we follow
a descriptive approach of empirically classifying
sufficient performances of everyday social practices
and link our results to research and policy discussions
about quantifying the resource use of specific
activities without rendering any assessment about
“better” or “worse” lifestyles. This connects to
overlapping considerations about “environmental
space” (Spangenberg & Lorek, 2002) and “safe
economic operating space” (Rockström et al. 2009),
9 This section is based on calculations from Lukas (2015).
Speck: Sufficiency in Social Practice: Searching Potentials for Sufficient Behavior in a Consumerist Culture
Closing the food loops: guidelines and criteria for improving nutrient management
Jennifer McConville
1, Jan-Olof Drangert
2, Pernilla Tidåker
3, Tina-Simone Neset
2, Sebastien Rauch
4, Ingrid
Strid5, & Karin Tonderski
6
1 Department of Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology, Sven Hultins gata 6, Gothenburg, SE-41296 Sweden (email:
[email protected]) 2 Department of Thematic Studies-Environmental Change, Linköping University, Linköping, SE-581 83 Sweden (email:
[email protected]; [email protected]) 3 Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Box 7033, Uppsala, SE-750 07 Sweden (email:
[email protected]) 4 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Sweden (email:
[email protected]) 5 Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7032, Lennart Hjelms väg 9, Uppsala,
SE-750 07 Sweden (email: [email protected]) 6 Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, SE-581 83 Sweden (email: [email protected])
As global consumption expands, the world is increasingly facing threats to resource availability and food security. To meet future food demands, agricultural resource efficiency needs to be optimized for both water and nutrients. Policy makers should start to radically rethink nutrient management across the entire food chain. Closing the food loop by recycling nutrients in food waste and excreta is an important way of limiting the use of mineral nutrients, as well as improving national and global food security. This article presents a framework for sustainable nutrient management and discusses the responsibility of four key stakeholder groups—agriculture, the food industry, consumers, and waste management—for achieving an effective food loop. In particular, we suggest a number of criteria, policy actions, and supporting strategies based on a cross-sectoral application of the waste hierarchy. KEYWORDS: Food processing industry wastes, agricultural wastes, waste utilization, food additives, material balance
Introduction
The global population has grown sharply over
the last century, placing increasing burdens on the
natural resources that provide us with food, energy,
and shelter. Roughly one third of food internationally
produced for human consumption, equivalent to 1.3
billion tons per year, is lost or wasted (Godfray et al.
2010; Gustavsson et al. 2011). Estimates of the vol-
ume of food wasted along global supply chains, from
agricultural production to final human consumption,
range from 25–50%. There are great differences
among regions in the amount of food lost and in
terms of where the losses are most pronounced
(Mena et al. 2011). In all regions, however, there is
growing recognition of the need to improve agricul-
tural resource efficiency with respect to both water
and nutrients (Foley et al. 2011). Increasing access to
fertilizers, particularly locally produced agricultural
additives, and improved soil-nutrient management
are critical in assuring global food security (Chen et
al. 2011).
Increased productivity since World War II has
been achieved through application of chemical ferti-
lizers, pesticides, and irrigation, yet the contemporary
global environmental situation and growing con-
straints in resource availability challenge us to take a
more sustainable approach. The production of chemi-
cal fertilizers relies on limited sources of phosphorus
and energy-intensive nitrogen fixation. Both nitrogen
and phosphorus cycles have been identified as critical
planetary boundaries for maintaining a balance in the
Earth’s biophysical processes (Rockström et al.
2009). Currently, cycles for these two elements are
under threat in many parts of the world where reac-
tive nitrogen from fertilizer production ends up pol-
luting waterways or is released as a greenhouse gas
(nitrous oxide), and excessive use of phosphorus not
only reduces access to this limited resource, but
phosphorus runoff causes eutrophication of lakes and
puts oceans at risk for anoxic events. Better manage-
ment of these macronutrients is needed both from an
agricultural perspective in terms of, for example, re-
ducing fertilizer runoff and with respect to the global
environment by managing material flows of these
McConville et al.: Guidelines for Closing Food Loops
elements. At the same time, it is important that we
devote more attention to the role of micronutrients
and soil organic carbon in enhancing productivity.1
Studies show that an increased soil organic-carbon
pool can influence yields (Lal, 2006) and that many
micronutrients enhance disease resistance and toler-
ance (Dordas, 2009). The recycling of organic waste
has the potential to return both carbon and nutrients
to soils.
The planetary boundary for nitrogen has already
been exceeded and that for phosphorus is threatened
(Rockström et al. 2009). It is time to radically rethink
nutrient management across the entire food chain.
Scientists see recycling of nutrients in food waste and
excreta, for example, as an important way of limiting
the use of mineral nutrients as well as improving na-
tional and global food security (Cordell et al. 2009),
particularly if such measures can balance local and
regional nutrient flows. Improving global nutrient
management will require a holistic approach that
includes the entire food cycle from production and
distribution to consumption and resource recovery.
There is a need for guiding principles and actions that
reach a broad spectrum of stakeholders in diverse
sectors and unite them in a global vision for sustaina-
ble nutrient management. Taking this broader ap-
proach means linking material flows and manage-
ment sectors that today are generally managed on a
separate basis, such as food-processing plants and
wastewater-treatment facilities.
This article aims to influence policy develop-
ment by presenting a working framework for sustain-
able nutrient management based on multi-stakeholder
collaboration. Current models for sustainable waste
and material-flow management highlight the need for
waste prevention, recycling, and life-cycle perspec-
tives. Building on the popular waste hierarchy, while
recognizing the need to focus on waste minimization
(Price & Joseph, 2000), our framework is based on
two key principles: 1) increasing the effectiveness of
nutrient use in the overall provisioning system (i.e.,
minimizing waste flows) and 2) closing the loop on
fertilizing nutrients (i.e., reuse & recycling). The sec-
ond principle also entails ensuring that nutrient-flow
streams are kept free from contaminants so that the
constituent resources can be reused. This article pre-
sents a number of criteria, policy actions, and sup-
porting strategies, for stakeholders at all levels of the
food chain, for achieving the goal of sustainable nu-
trient management. The text explains the theoretical
framework based on a multi-sector approach to food
1 Micronutrients are those elements essential for plant growth that
are needed in only very small quantities, as opposed to macronutri-
ents (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sul-fur) that are required in larger quantities.
loops and the waste hierarchy. The framework is then
presented with discussion of the roles of each sector.
Finally, specific policy strategies and methods for
enabling change are discussed.
Theoretical Framework
The sustainable management of nutrients means
achieving a balance between the removal and addi-
tion of organic and mineral material. Such practices
also entail avoiding the net accumulation of heavy
metals and other undesirable compounds, such as
medical residues and pesticides, in soil. This article
uses a framework based on three concepts that aim to
capture the complexity associated with the formula-
tion of sustainable solutions: food loops, a multi-
sector approach, and the waste hierarchy.
Food Loops To maximize resource efficiency, it is necessary
to adopt a life-cycle perspective with respect to nutri-
ent flows within the food system. Closing food loops
means the nutrients are recovered and returned to
agriculture to the greatest extent possible (Figure 1).
Food loops exist at several levels and may connect
one or more sectors. For example, the internal agri-
cultural loop returns manure and harvest waste to the
fields, while other loops transport food products from
fields to consumers and on to waste-treatment plants.
However, each sector tends to focus on its own
agenda and thus cross-sectoral collaboration for nu-
trient management is a weak point in many policies
Figure 1 Food Loops: from agricultural production and processing to consumption and collection/treatment of food waste so as to return valuable organic and mineral compounds to agriculture. Note to readers: this article focuses on the larger loop in which food passes through all four sectors.
McConville et al.: Guidelines for Closing Food Loops
provement. The following sections provide support-
ing arguments for selecting the functional criteria.
Agriculture Farmers around the world have typically used lo-
cally based food-loop strategies for generations. Op-
timizing internal recycling of organic material at the
farm level should, of course, be encouraged. The cri-
teria presented here focus on what the agriculture
sector (primary producers of crops and livestock) can
do to enable wider food loops in connection with
other stakeholders.
A primary concern is, of course, that agriculture
should not become a dumping ground for society’s
waste. Therefore, the first priority should be efficient
use of fertilizers and minimization of hormone and
chemical additions to the soil. Use of harmful chemi-
cals, including those in recycled food waste, should
be discontinued to avoid long-term contamination of
soils. The second priority strategy should be to reuse
food waste directly on the farm. This includes using
unprocessed urine as fertilizer and giving food waste
directly to livestock. Export of manure from areas
with abundant livestock to crop-intensive areas is a
reuse option that may need wider stakeholder collab-
oration. It requires dewatering of the manure to
achieve the most cost-effective transport, and thus
there may be advantages for tighter collaboration
with the waste-management sector that regularly uses
dewatering technology (UWE, 2013). Finally, food
waste that cannot be directly reused should be recy-
cled into fertilizers or fodder whenever safe and fea-
sible.
Maximizing the return of food-related material
flows to agriculture in this way, particularly at a local
scale, can greatly reduce nutrient losses to water and
air, as well as improve soil conditions. However,
these strategies require that farmers know about op-
timal fertilizer and chemical dosing to prevent over-
fertilization or accumulation of other toxic com-
pounds. In particular, information about the fertiliz-
ing values of potential reused and recycled food
wastes needs to be documented and disseminated, as
different wastes have different characteristics and
thus differ in expected fertilizer effect (Delin et al.
2012). The same applies to using food-waste prod-
ucts as fodder, which can be encouraged through
formalization and product marketing to assure quality
Table 1 Functional criterion for improving nutrient management in the food chain. Supporting guidelines and policy documents are shown in Table 2. Arrows indicate direction of material flows.
McConville et al.: Guidelines for Closing Food Loops
parent management and certification processes, pref-
erably in close dialogue with farmers and consumers,
can ensure acceptable and high-quality products.
Sweden, for example, has implemented certification
of solid waste-derived fertilizers and sewage sludge
to reduce discharges of heavy metals and organic
pollutants in the raw wastewater, improving the
quality of waste-derived fertilizers for agriculture.
The waste-management sector should also establish
measurable standards and organizational norms that
maximize potential for recovery of nutrients from
food-derived waste and their return to agriculture.
Policy Strategies
This section provides suggestions for how the
criteria presented in Table 1 can be translated into
policy (Table 2). Many of the actions suggested here
are guidelines, standards, and certification systems,
some of which are sector-specific, but several that
require input and action from multiple sectors (high-
lighted in bold in Table 2). For example, a register of
safe agricultural fertilizers and chemicals (including
those produced from food waste) will require infor-
mation from other sectors regarding the contents of
these products. The information to create many of
these guidelines already exists, but needs to be syn-
thesized into more readily accessible platforms.
In the agriculture sector, farmers are primarily
concerned about the quality of products applied to
their fields (and potential negative consequences) and
the potential to sell their produce. They need infor-
mation regarding the contents of recovered food
waste and guidelines on how to best apply these
products. To eliminate harmful chemicals in the food
loop, a register of safe fertilizers and chemicals for
agricultural use should be developed through collabo-
ration of agricultural and food/drug specialists. Fi-
nally, quality certification of products from “reuse”
agriculture can build consumer acceptance and in-
crease the number of farmers adhering to such prac-
tices. Such a certification process would, of course,
require collaboration with stakeholders across the
entire food loop.
As the food industry comprises a diverse and
complex network of actors involved in transporting,
processing, packaging, and wholesaling, a unifying
vision is needed that outlines a holistic perspective
regarding nutrient management, particularly high-
lighting potential areas for stakeholder collaboration.
Such a vision needs to include policy documents and
guidelines for minimizing food waste, limiting addi-
tives, and recovering food products within the indus-
Table 2 Supporting guidelines and policy actions that should be developed for improving nutrient management within key sectors based on the waste strategy that they support. Points highlighted in bold will require collaboration across sectors.
Agriculture Food Industry Consumers Waste management
+ Register of safe agricultural fertilizers & chemicals (including those from food waste)
+ Guidelines for reuse/recycling food waste within agriculture
+ Certification of “reuse” agriculture products
+ Vision for food-loop management, including collaboration points and standards for reuse/ recycling
+ Register of food additives, including nutrient content, toxicity, persistence, and health effects
+ Certification & product labeling to promote reuse/recycling
+ “Sustainable lifestyle” guidelines, including advice on purchasing, preparation, & storage
+ Incentives for household-level reuse/recycling of food products
+ Guidelines for home reuse, separation of food waste & safe disposal of harmful chemicals
+ Technical standards & organizational norms for designing systems for nutrient reuse/recycling
+ Monitoring standards & norms for tracking nutrients and harmful chemicals in waste
McConville et al.: Guidelines for Closing Food Loops
Archival adaptation to climate change Eira Tansey University of Cincinnati Libraries, PO Box 210113, Cincinnati, OH 45221 USA (email: [email protected])
Discussion of the likely impacts of climate change on archives is significantly deficient in the archival profession. Ar-chives hold rare and unique materials that are irreplaceable and institutional adaptation to climate change is critical to the survival of these resources. The earliest effects of climate change are likely to be increased weather events that threaten the physical safety of holdings. Hurricanes, floods, and fires pose particular risks to archives due to potential damage to buildings as well as from limitations of local infrastructure to rapidly respond to disasters. Disaster prepar-edness for archives needs to include planning responses to a wide variety of situations that threaten holdings. As societies begin to adapt to climate change, archivists should consider how values of sustainability and resiliency might inform archival practice. KEYWORDS: archives, archivists, preservation, cultural heritage, climate change, sea-level rise, climate adaptation, resilience
Introduction
According to the National Climate Assessment,
the United States will in future years likely experi-
ence an increasing number of climate-change related
trends that will influence residential patterns, agricul-
ture, natural resources, and future investments in in-
frastructure. Many of these changes will be due to
increasingly severe weather and rising sea levels that
will pose significant dangers to most of the popula-
tion in the country (USGCCRP, 2014).
Climate change is one of the greatest contempo-
rary threats to archival repositories and the records in
their custody. Increasingly severe disasters like hurri-
canes, floods, and wildfires pose immediate dangers.
At best, archives affected by such events may be able
to evacuate certain holdings, to move collections to
safer parts of buildings, or to salvage materials using
disaster-response teams. At worst, a disaster may
result in total loss, with collections of records or even
a repository’s entire holdings damaged or lost beyond
recovery. Longer-term trends such as human migra-
tion and rising sea level may necessitate decisions
concerning the geographic relocation of archival rec-
ords.
Despite these mounting threats, the American
archival profession has to date not demonstrated
significant interest in addressing the likely impacts of
climate change on archival repositories, the liveli-
hoods of archivists working in vulnerable locations,
and the public’s ability to access vital records threat-
ened by severe weather. To the extent that risks to
archival holdings have been considered, it has pri-
marily been through the lens of disaster planning and
management, which emphasizes emergency response,
but does not address long-term adaptation for
repositories in geographically vulnerable areas
(Gordon-Clark & Shurville, 2010). However, a
significant body of literature has examined the effects
of climate change on long-term viability of other
areas of cultural heritage, such as monuments and
architecture (Holtz et al. 2014; UCS, 2014; O’Brien
et al. 2015). This work has significant value for
archivists who are only beginning to consider similar
questions.
As archivists adapt to meet the challenges of
climate change, they can draw inspiration from pre-
vious shifts in theory and practice. Revising tradi-
tional archival methods to meet contemporary chal-
lenges is familiar to most practitioners. Archivists
have responded to the processing demands associated
with increasingly large collections of modern paper
and electronic records by embracing new processing
and cataloging practices that recognize limited insti-
tutional resources. These techniques have been de-
veloped in recent decades to help archivists make
more records available to users. This may be con-
strued as a sustainability response, albeit from a labor
and resource-allocation perspective, rather than an
environmental one. Embedding responses to climate
change in long-term planning for stewardship of rec-
ords is a path toward developing a professional cul-
ture of sustainability and resiliency. Current archival
practice emphasizes access for researchers in the
foreseeable future, but overlooks major shocks out-
side the control of archivists.
Archivists will have to meet the challenges of
climate change on two fronts: interim protections and
Growing our vision together: forming a sustainability community within the American Library Association Beth Filar Williams1, Madeleine Charney2 & Bonnie Smith3
1 OSU Library, Oregon State University, 121 The Valley Library, Corvallis, OR 97331 USA (email: [email protected]) 2 W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 154 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01002 USA (email: mcharney@library. umass.edu) 3 George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, PO Box 117000, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA (email: [email protected])
As long-standing keepers of democracy and information stewardship, library professionals are a natural fit for advocating and promoting sustainability within their communities. From seed libraries to Occupy Wall Street libraries, their view of sustainability extends beyond environmental concerns to include community activism, economic development, and social equity. Empowering people, facilitating dialogue, and providing resources for a more resilient future are at the center of librarians’ vital and changing roles. These visionary professionals have powered libraries’ work as outspoken advocates with well-founded initiatives. For a long time, however, there was no cohesive sustainability-focused venue for sharing best practices, collaborating, and contributing to the profession. In 2013, after one year of focused research and promotion, the American Library Association (ALA) approved a new group, the Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT). This article describes how library advocates built SustainRT over the years and gained momentum with a pivotal webinar series. Clear signs of SustainRT’s early success are a testimony to the critical need for a sustainability-related Community of Practice (CoP). The article shows how the steps taken to achieve this national group’s standing can serve as a model for fostering dialogue and collaboration (often through virtual means) that allows for wide participation.
within ALA itself. Sari Feldman, ALA’s President for
2015–16, launched the Libraries Transform (LT)
campaign, which highlights how libraries support
individual opportunity and community progress. One of
its goals is to “Energize and engage all library workers
as well as build external advocates to influence local,
state, and national decision makers” (Feldman, 2015).
The LT campaign includes the Center for the Future of
Libraries, which, according to ALA Executive Director
Keith Michael Fiels, helps libraries “identify emerging
trends, provoke discussion on how to respond to and
shape the future, and build connections with experts and
innovative thinkers in other fields who can help libraries
understand and meet the challenges of the future” (ALA,
2013a). One trend identified by the Center is resilience,
which is particularly aligned with SustainRT’s core
value of equity and access; the term “resilience” is
actually embedded in SustainRT’s byline. The statement,
“Truly resilient communities would embrace distributed
renewable energy, support diversified local agriculture,
and foster social equity and inclusion,” demonstrates that
ALA already upholds the three E’s of sustainability.
Also related is the LT campaign’s Libraries
Transforming Communities program, which trains
library staff to better understand communities, change
processes and thinking to make conversations more
community-focused, be proactive to community issues,
and put community aspirations first (ALA, 2015b).
A particularly powerful example of SustainRT’s
work so far, and ALA’s support, is the passing of an
ALA resolution, The Importance of Sustainable
Libraries (ALA Council, 2015). Within ALA, a
resolution is “a clear and formal expression of the
Table 1 SustainRT Communities of Practice Model
CoP Lifecycle Phase CoP Lifecycle Phase Explanation SustainRT Steps Taken
Inquire Explore, in order to identify audience, purpose, goals, vision
Webinar series with embedded questions regarding: the resurrection of TFOE, hoped for outcomes of a webinar session, how to initiate contact with library groups, how to address diverse needs of all library types, interest in presenting at sustainability conferences.
Design Define activities, technologies, group processes, roles to support the group
Used virtual technology for webinars, including chat function to stimulate discussion, ideas, and connections; invited guest speakers to webinars.
Prototype
Pilot the community with a select group of key stakeholders, to gain commitment, test assumptions, refine the strategy, and establish a success story
Formed an interim steering committee across library types; navigated the channels of ALA for becoming an official round table; collaborated on writing bylaws; selected neutral title of “Coordinator” for lead officer.
Launch
Roll out the community to a broader audience, in ways that engage newcomers, and deliver immediate benefits.
Launched social media, listserv and website with resources, news, events, and opportunities; circulated e-petition and asked everyone to share it with colleagues and other library groups; used open LinkedIn group for communicating; celebrated approval of the round table at an in-person social event.
Grow
Engage members in collaborative learning and knowledge sharing activities, group projects and networking events, that meet individual, group and organizational goals while creating an increasing cycle of participation and contribution.
‘Think Pair Share’ exercise at initial in-person meeting to elicit ideas from everyone; established ‘Project Teams,’ intentionally named to stimulate collaborative and tangible results; Lightning Rounds for sharing success stories at conferences; collaborative environmental scan of sustainability library projects; widely communicated goal of 300 members by end of 2015.
Sustain
Cultivate and assess the knowledge and “products” created by the community, to inform new strategies, goals, activities, roles, and technologies.
Continue to populate Project Teams, encouraging members to serve as chairs, with officers moving to liaison roles; open virtual meetings prior to in-person meeting to gather ideas from everyone; free and open professional development webinar series.
opinion or will of the assembly which supports ALA’s
strategic plan, its mission and/or its core values” (ALA,
2013b). The ALA initiatives outlined above provided a
logical, relevant, and welcoming bridge to passing this
resolution in June 2015. This synergistic awakening
within ALA as an organization invites its members to
commit to more specific, unified sustainability practices,
presumably with support and insights from SustainRT.
From greening library conferences, to offering
professional development, to funding more sustainability
projects, success will be partially measured by “the