@Article{DowningWoDyAgSeJi:2021:WhWhLe,
author = "Downing, Andrea S. and Wong, Grace Y. and Dyer, Michelle and
Aguiar, Ana Paula Dutra de and Selomane, Odirilwe and Jimenez
Aceituno, Amanda",
affiliation = "{The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences} and {Stockholm University}
and {Stockholm University} and {Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas
Espaciais (INPE)} and {Stockholm University} and {Stockholm
University}",
title = "When the whole is less than the sum of all parts – Tracking
global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives",
journal = "Global Environmental Change",
year = "2021",
volume = "69",
pages = "e102306",
month = "July",
keywords = "China, Cross-system social-ecological burdens, Reforestation,
Sustainable Development Goals, Telecoupling framework, Trade
routes.",
abstract = "The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are
described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability
challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve
global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly
focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal
individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts
of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the
sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we
investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on
countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China.
Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast
Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South
Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of
production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We
use a three-step multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal
trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a
telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to
analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies
driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change
to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in
China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and
cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad.
Narratives of economic development support commodity production
abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and
assumptions of substitutability of socio-ecological forest
systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports
unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed
effects where processes that support the achievement of SDGs
exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our
study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level
impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides
cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify
drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of
effective sustainability policies.",
doi = "10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102306",
url = "http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102306",
issn = "0959-3780",
language = "en",
targetfile = "Downing_when.pdf",
urlaccessdate = "03 jun. 2024"
}