Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability In The Baltic Sea Region

The challenges of sustainable development require that everybody, every institution and every nation work towards long-term strategies in order to move away from unsustainable practices. The same line of thinking applies to all nations around the Baltic Sea. A general challenge for the Baltic Sea region is to broaden the interest of people in discussions of national approaches supporting sustainability. Finding effective instruments to support the process of sustainable development in countries in transition with an emerging and largely inexperienced entrepreneur community and economically fragile, is as important as the promotion of long-term integrated sustainability strategies in countries which have well established democracies. The knowledge of the ongoing changes and the driving social, economic and ecological factors essential for the implementation of sustainable development in countries in transition must be broadened. A special need seen in the three Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - as elsewhere in the Baltic region, is the need to avoid development patterns of - business as usual and to gain access to information and to advancements in sustainable development both in Europe and worldwide. The Baltic countries now joining the EU have to build capacity, for example by establishing teams of young researches to draw up sustainable development strategies at the national level, which are consistent with European strategies. A bottom-up flow from the grass-root level is required to change the pattern of development strategies in the Baltic countries. The Conference - Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability, whose experiences are documented inthis book, was held on 26-29 March, 2003."

This book documents and promotes the experiences from the 2nd Conference on Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability (SHARING), held in Jurmala, Latvia, on May 11th to 24th, 2005. Attended by over 200 delegates from across the Baltic Sea region and beyond, the event provided an important contribution towards strengthening the integration of the region's RTD community and the sharing of knowledge and expertise in the Baltic, across Europe (including the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions) and elsewhere. The first part of this book contains some introductory remarks on sustainable development as a whole and on integratives approaches in particular. Furthermore, issues related to cleaner production and the moves towards zero emissions are outlined. Part two of the book focuses on developments in the Baltic Sea Region, with a special emphasis on policy, implementation technologies and technologies for sustainable development. In the next part of the book, readers will find a special section on science for sustainable development. One special feature of this section is that papers are predominantly written by young researchers, some of whom will find in this volume, for the first time, the chance to publish results from their works. The final section of the book deals with social corporate responsibility and the environment, focusing on sustainable community development, corporate responsibility at an international level and concepts for education for sustainable development. This publication provides a very good overview of sustainability issues in the Baltic and beyond, illustrating the number of excellent works being performed by municipalities, universities, research agencies and NGOs, also showing the various ways. via which sustainability can be delivered.

This book documents and compares the experiences of a wide range of universities across the five continents with regard to sustainable development, making it of special interest to sustainability researchers and practitioners. By showcasing how integrative approaches to sustainable development at the university level can be successfully employed to bridge the gaps between disciplines, the book provides a timely contribution to the literature on sustainability and offers a valuable resource for all those interested in sustainability in a higher education context.

Climate change is a matter of global concern and specific sectors of society such as universities need to engage and be active in the search for regional and local solutions for what is a global problem. Despite the fact that many universities all around the world are undertaking remarkable efforts in tackling the challenges posed by climate change, few of such works are widely documented and disseminated. The book "Universities and Climate Change" addresses this gap. The book pursues three aims. Firstly, it presents a review of the approaches and methods to inform, communicate and educate university students and the public on climate change being used by universities around the world. Secondly, it introduces initiatives, projects and communication strategies undertaken by universities with a view to informing students and other stakeholders in order to raise awareness on matters related to climate change. Finally, the book documents, promotes and disseminates some of the on-going initiatives.

This thesis explores the avenues for the ecosystem approach to management in the Baltic Sea Region. This region is one of the most contaminated water bodies in the world, although the first Regional Seas Convention was created here and theregion has a long history of cooperation and environmental protection. The current environmental governance arrangements are examined with specific focuson governance structures, cross-sectoral integration and ecological boundaries.The ecosystem approach to management as both a tool and vision of holistic management of natural resources is traced through the evolution of environmental governance, as well as its manifestation in contemporary environmental policies in the region. It is found that the major EU directives, as well as HELCOM polices, promote the ecosystem approach and that its presence has increased inrecent years; it is now the major guiding principle in European marine governance. However, the governance structures impede implementation indifferent ways. The environmental problem areas in the region all require different governance arrangements, thus obstructing a holistic approach. The environmental problems per se also affect each other, necessitating far-reaching sectoral integration and cross-border cooperation, which at present is the major obstacle regarding implementation. The contemporary trends combining solid regionalisation through HELCOM with increased Europeanisation and macro regionalisation by different EU initiatives offer some promise, but the cross sectoral impediments must be resolved if the ecosystem approach is to become apractical approach and not just a policy principle.

This edited volume presents a comprehensive and coherent interdisciplinary analysis of challenges and possibilities for sustainable governance of the Baltic Sea ecosystem by combining knowledge and approaches from natural and social sciences. Focusing on the Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM) and associated multi-level, multi-sector and multi-actor challenges, the book provides up-to-date descriptions and analyses of environmental governance structures and processes at the macro-regional Baltic Sea level. Organised in two parts, Part 1 presents in-depth case studies of environmental governance practices and challenges linked to five key environmental problems - eutrophication, chemical pollution, overfishing, oil discharges and invasive species. Part 2 analyses and compares governance challenges and opportunities across the five case studies, focusing on governance structures and EAM implementation, knowledge integration and science support, as well as stakeholder communication and participation. Based on these cross-case comparisons, this book also draws a set of general conclusions on possible ways of improving the governance of the Baltic Sea by promoting what are identified as vital functions of environmental governance: coordination, integration, interdisciplinarity, precaution, deliberation, communication and adaptability.

The book contributes to a better understanding of the role of knowledge societies in achieving sustainability. It is based on the conference with the same title held in Riga, which brought together experts from Europe and the rest of the world. The book highlights sustainable development in relation to the knowledge society and smart future manufacturing technologies, and it helps provide a better understanding of the interplay between sustainable development and knowledge society issues, and how these could lead to a better future.

This title was first published in 2003. The Baltic Sea region offers exceptionally rich material for the discussion of civil society. This is because it has witnessed the erosion of communist regimes, the crisis of the welfare state, the increasing importance of new social movements and the shift from a centralist paradigm to one oriented towards networks. This engaging book focuses on the phenomena and prospects for civil society in north-eastern Europe which have had a major impact on political and scholarly debates since 1989. Nineteen experts from the region provide a comprehensive and comparative account of the history, the present state and the perspectives of civil society in the Baltic Sea area. The reader will learn that civil society should not only be seen in opposition to the state and that it has a major impact on current developments of European integration.