We investigate whether mandatory energy performance certificates of existing residential properties contribute to property price premiums after the implementation of the EU directive on the energy performance of buildings in the Swedish private housing market. Analysing mandatory energy performance certificates of the 2009-2010 private housing transactions, we find that energy performance is associated with transaction price in situations when it is conditional on a reference benchmark. We also document property price premiums for energy performance within housing segments built before 1960 and those with a lower transaction price per square metre. Our results suggest that the property market values energy performance, and we make recommendations on which housing segments need policy support to encourage energy improvements.
This introduction of the special issue about responsible investments deals with the main theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges. It also highlights the key features of the papers in this special issue.
This paper draws on secondary and primary data derived from a field survey undertaken in Torsukpo and Agbogbla communities in the South Tongu District of Ghana to discuss possibilities of enhancing the roles of local institutions in resource management. Key issues addressed in the paper include (i) limitations which share cropping (abunu-abusa) as a local social institutional arrangement places on tenant farmers and (ii) the role of the District Assembly with specific reference to policy provisions placed at its disposal that could be used to formulate co-operative strategies that may help mobilize and empower the local people for effective natural resources management. To complement efforts in this direction, the paper also highlights some possible ways in which NGOs could play more effective roles in facilitating development process in the district.
Efforts to decouple environmental impacts and resource consumption have been confounded by interactions and feedback between technical-economic, environmental and social aspects not considered prior to implementing improvement actions. This paper presents a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio-economic drivers that result in changes in these flows, in order to reduce conflicts between localized gains and global losses. The framework emphasizes the need for (i) having different settings of system boundaries (broader and narrower), (ii) explicitly accounting for causal relationships and feedback loops and (iii) identifying responsibilities between stakeholders (e.g. producers, consumers, collectors, recyclers, policy makers). Application of the framework is exemplified using the case of the global mobile phone product system. 'Product design and development' and 'Retailers and users as part of a collection system' were identified as central intervention points for implementing improvement strategies that included designing for longer life, designing for recycling and improving collection, designing for limiting phone hibernation time and internalizing external costs.
Governments and civil society are increasingly aware that the decarbonization of energy systems needs to be aligned with justice principles of recognition, distribution, and process. This paper establishes a conceptual linkage between “sustainable development”, “low-carbon energy transitions” and “energy justice” and examines social priorities to address peoples' competing priorities associated with low-carbon energy interventions. By analyzing a renewable energy project in Vietnam as a case study, the paper shows that linking social priorities to energy justice provides a useful contribution for energy policy makers toward a better understanding of the multidimensional and complex aspects of low-carbon energy transitions, and how different segments of society prioritize and perceive them for the achievement of socially just energy decisions.
In the Nordic countries, housing is one of society's greatest users of resources. Making housing more sustainable will call for changes in buildings, management routines and residents' habits, each having its possibilities as well as a built in resistance against change. Households might play a key role in this change, directly as consumers, but also indirectly and jointly as pressure groups towards real estate owners, managers and local society. Making housing more sustainable can be seen as society's 'sustainability challenge' to the housing consumers. In this paper, the extent of this challenge is discussed for the households of the Nordic countries, for different types of ownership and building etc. Its realization is seen in a ten-year perspective and in relation to the acquisition, maintenance, operation and use of the dwellings. Preliminary results indicate that a move to a new dwelling will give the household an opportunity to influence many aspects of its environmental impacts, but that moving will have little direct effect on the environmental performance of the built environment as a whole. Furthermore, that the activities of daily living have a potential for improvement without the inertia of reconstructing the building stock. In the end, however, co-operation between households and other stakeholders of the building sector is often a prerequisite for change.
The research project MAMMUT explores synergies between the processes of urbanization and sustainable development. In a pilot study, we tested the assumption that the concept of situations of opportunity can define the project's unit of analysis. We applied MAMMUT's conceptual framework to the Stockholm Underground, identified that situation's formative moment (1941, when main decisions were taken) and analysed its prehistory and factual outcome. To illustrate its field of options, a counterfactual highway and roads scenario was developed. For outcome and scenario, we outlined the resulting urban structure, the institutions of development and operation and the households' ways of life, and assessed environmental impacts. The situation concept was found to be useful for identifying and analysing synergies between urbanization and sustainable development. It needs to be further developed to study the relationships between its four disciplinary aspects. Applying it to futurological studies calls for methodological development including scenario techniques and backcasting.
There is a fragmented approach to social sustainability in the literature, and this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the meanings and interpretations of that concept while reviewing and discussing the social dimension of sustainability from the perspectives of two fields: urban development as well as companies and products. The analysis identifies commonalities and differences in the understanding of the conceptualization of social sustainability and helps to identify core aspects that cross disciplinary boundaries. The paper shows that compiling a list of comprehensive aspects that is representative of social sustainability is not straightforward, as interpretations are context dependant and aspects are often closely interconnected. Differences often occur because of variations in scoping and context, or whether or not a life cycle perspective is used. Nonetheless, there seems to be an underlying common understanding of what social sustainability is, and a set of key themes (social capital, human capital and well-being) is suggested as an alternative to put more specific measures and indicators in perspective. However, context-specific information is still necessary in practical applications.
The Chinese government has announced a national mitigation target towards sustainable development of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit GDP (CO2/GDP) by 40-45% by 2020 compared with the 2005 level. This paper analyses China's CO2 strategic mitigation target and suggests possible ways to reduce CO2/GDP. The mitigation target of reducing CO2 intensity in terms of GDP is ambitious and would greatly reduce CO2 emissions compared with business as usual (BAU) in China. However, it would not prevent an increase in absolute CO2 emissions and therefore a more ambitious target, e.g. a larger reduction goal for CO2/GDP, is still needed. Promoting energy structure by more ambitious economic instruments to increase the proportion of renewable energy and replace coal consumption with oil and gas, and improving energy efficiency by applied advanced technologies, are both necessary measures. Special attention should be given to improving technologies in the manufacturing sector owing to its high energy consumption and low energy use efficiency.