The achievement of a less unsustainable future requires a multi-dimensional approach that addresses a range of \'issues\' (i.e. the sustainability indicator spectrum; demographics through to water) within a bounded yet diverse \'space\' (i.e. global through to local scale) over \'time\' (i.e. current and future generations; their needs and aspirations). Futurescenarios provide challenging, plausible and relevant stories about how the future, typically within 5 to 100 years, could unfold. As neither forecasts nor predictions and unconstrained by the requirement for substantiating how one gets from here to there they allow a range of sustainability issues to be challenged at different scales in future worlds. Urban Futures (UF) research has identified a substantial set (>450) of seemingly disparate scenario visions published within the literature over the period 1997-2011. Whilst it is evident that some comparisons have been undertaken there is little evidence to substantiate converging rather than diverging themes from which an overarching scenario archetypal could be drawn. This is significant shortfall for those who wish to test the principles of sustainability / resilience against a generic scenario set, rather than derive yet more scenarios to add to the list already identified. In fulfilling this research need it has been possible to identify, based upon their scenario narratives, a sub-set of 150 scenarios that can be categorised according to three world types (i.e. Business as usual, Barbarisation and Great Transitions) and six scenarios; two for each world type (i.e. Policy Reform - PR, Market Forces - MF, Breakdown - B, Fortress World - FW, Eco-Communalism - E and New Sustainability Paradigm – NSP respectively) first proposed by the Global Scenarios Group (GSG) in 1997. It is suggested that four of these (MF, PR, NSP and FW) are sufficiently distinct to facilitate active stakeholder engagement and allow sustainability/resilience to be tested over a broad range (e.g. high to low technological efficiency). Moreover this archetypal scenario set is accompanied by a well-established, internally consistent set of narratives that provide a deeper understanding of the key fundamental drivers (e.g. economic, environmental, social, technological, political and organisational) that could bring about realistic world changes through a push or a pull effect. This is testament to the original concept of the GSG scenarios and their development and refinement over a 20 year period.

All countries of the world are vulnerable to climatic variations and change, and developing countries especially, those in arid, semi-arid and high rainfall regions, are particularly so. Africa is considered the most vulnerable region in the world in terms of climate change and variation, due to its physical and socio-economic characteristics. Climate variation generally occurs at local scale, regional scale, national scale and global scale. Having established that the global climate has varied slowly over the past millennia, centuries, and decades it is expected to continue to vary in future. Like the climate change, variability may be due to, national internal process within the climate (internal variability), or variations in natural or anthropogenic external forces (external variability). Evidence of climate variations is now well documented, and the implications are becoming increasingly clear as data accumulates and data and climate models become increasingly sophisticated. The fluctuations in rainfall and temperatures regimes are basically the atmospheric deriving forces that are responsible for the climate variations over Imo State and the entire southeastern part of Nigeria as the case in other regions of the world. This paper examines the impacts of climate variability and change in Imo state of Nigeria. The study employed the use of 30 years (1980-2009) precipitation (rainfall) and temperature data of Imo state recorded at Owerri (the capital) synoptic station which was acquired from Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET). The study shows a lot of variation in rainfall and fluctuation in temperature in the area within the period under study, which have caused a lot of environmental problems in the state including sea-level rise, increased heat wave, increased coastal/soil erosion, flooding and flood –related disasters such as pollution, increased diseased vectors, communicable diseases and epidemics amongst others.

Since 1992, European Member States are legally committed to monitor the biodiversity in designated areas of community interest. This was the success of the European Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC; HabDir) which established a network of these NATURA 2000 sites where trends in area and the quality of the protected habitats have to be observed. To fulfill the Directive\'s reporting requirements, Earth observation (EO) techniques are regarded as crucial to effectively map and monitor habitat status and change dynamics. The derived information supports public authorities in implementing management strategies The shift from focusing on single species to protecting entire habitats is a step towards sustaining the natural environment sensu nature conservation in several aspects: (1) habitats have a large umbrella function providing living space to whole ecosystems and (2) habitat protection is area-effective meaning that habitats have critical spatial parameters of their integrity (such as connectivity etc.), which can be assessed mapped and managed. That results in a significant share of a country\'s territory is under direct concern. The potential of new concepts and methods combing EO data and in-situ measurements is currently investigated in the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) project MS.MONINA (www.ms-monina.eu) which aims at offering EO-based services to authorities on European, national and local level. The multiscale approach followed by the project reflects both the specific information requirements on different (political) implementation levels of the Directive and the ecological levels addressed, i.e. the level of single habitats, over habitat arrangements on site and range level, up to biogeographical regions. Local management of NATURA 2000 sites is required to regularly report on the conservation status including information on habitat range, area, quality, impacts and threats. Monitoring the changes also includes judging whether site conditions would improve or deteriorate. The latter triggers explicit management strategies in order to safeguard a favorable conservation status. Dependent on the occurring habitat types and pressures, specific information products are required from high-resolution satellite imagery. Such services shall be provided in a high operational level so to deliver the required information steadily and sound, but also user-focused. Several pilot sites all over Europe have been chosen in MS.MONINA to elaborate information products for different habitat types and user requirements. Heathlands, grasslands, estuaries, floodplains and riverine forests, as well as alpine meadows are among the habitats to be addressed. The anthropogenic impacts include farming, settlement land use, land abandonment and tourism. On the level of federal states or countries tools will be provided to monitor precious ecosystems outside the NATURA 2000 network of protected areas. On either level, services based on dedicated EO-based data helps foster a sustainable maintenance of precious ecosystems and reduce the loss of biodiversity.

Perspectives for Brazilian Electricity Sector has continuously being changed in recent years. This is due to technological advances in wind turbines (with fallen costs), growing environmental constraints (specially related to hydropower potential), nuclear expansion uncertainties (after Fukushima event), among others. As a result of these facts, Brazilian auctions for electricity has surprisingly achieving good results for renewables, as wind power plants. The aim of this paper is analyse the atractiveness of power generation from a sustainability point of view, updating the study published in 2010 by La Rovere et al ("The sustainable expansion of the Brazilian electricity sector using sustainability indicators as an instrument to support decision making"). The following generation sources are assessed: natural gas, small hydro, nuclear, wind, municipal solid waste, sugar cane bagasse, solar PV, agriculture solid residues and coal. Results shows that Brazilian energy matrix is following the path of sustainability.

Assuring safer and sustainable development in seismic prone areas requires predictive measurements, i.e. hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment. This research aims to assess urban vulnerability due to seismic hazard and integrate it into risk based spatial plan. It highlights hazard, vulnerability and risk as constituent part of mitigation process in urbanized area. The idea of urban vulnerability assessment is to indicate current and future potential of losses due to specified hazard in given spatial and temporal unit, although it is extremely dynamic. Herein, the urban vulnerability refers to classic separation between social vulnerability assessment and physical vulnerability assessment. In mere sense, both assessment refers to pre-existing condition of being unfavorable due to seismic hazard expressed on a scale from 0 (no loss/damage) – 1 (lethal/full damage) within specified time. The research area covers six sub-districts in Bantul, Indonesia. It experienced 6.2 Mw earthquakes in May, 27^th, 2006 and suffered from 5.700 death tolls, economic losses up to 3.1 billion US$ and damaged nearly 80% out of total 508 km² area. Overall, it has experienced three major environmental issues, i.e. (1) seismic hazard, (2) rapid land conversion and (3) dominated by low income group. Based upon existing research problem, this research employs spatial multi criteria evaluation (SMCE) for social vulnerability (SMCE-SV) and for physical vulnerability (SMCE-PV). It is a method which allows diverse input criteria to explain unstructured condition such as vulnerability. There are several phases to conduct the SMCE, such as problem tree analysis, standardization, weighting and map generation. The research reveals two important findings. First, SMCE-SV and SMCE-PV are empirically feasible to indicate urban vulnerability indices. Second, integrating vulnerability assessment into risk based spatial plan requires broad dimension, from strategic, technical, substantial and procedural integration process. In summary, without adequate knowledge and political will to integrate urban vulnerability into risk based spatial plan, thus manifestation towards safe and sustainable development claimed meager and haphazard.

A decent, or sufficient, lifestyle is largely considered an important objective in terms of a sustainable future. From an ecological sustainability point of view, a the natural resource consumption of a decent lifestyle should not exceed the long-term carrying capacity of nature. The material footprint based on the MIPS concept (material input per unit of service) can be used as an indicator of the natural resource consumption of lifestyles. Thus, it can provide a rough indication of the long-term ecological sustainability of lifestyles when compared to the level of natural resource consumption that is estimated sustainable. Previous research shows that low-income households consume a relatively small amount of resources. Thus the material footprint of their consumption is assumed to be closer to the ecologically sustainable level of resource use than the consumption of an average household. In order to show the amount of natural resources a minimum consumption level requires, this paper presents the material footprint of households living on a minimum level of social benefits in the Finnish welfare state. The data was collected in a questionnaire on the consumption habits and lifestyles of 18 single households belonging to the lowest income decile in Finland. The results are compared to the results of a previous study on the material footprints of households with varying income levels as well as of an average Finn. In addition, the results are compared to the material footprint of decent minimum reference budgets defined consensually by the Finnish National Consumer Research Centre in a cooperation of experts and a consumer panel. The results show that the low-income households have a lower material footprint than average. Thus, a decrease in material footprint by a factor of 2 - 4 from present average can already be achieved. However, the resource consumption of all the households studied is still higher, in most cases by a factor of 2 and more, than long-term ecological sustainability would require although it is in most cases lower than the material footprint of the social and economic minimum defined for a decent life. The paper discusses this discrepancy and presents conclusions in order to make future lifestyles more sustainable. The central conclusion is that ecologically sustainable consumption cannot be achieved solely by households\' efforts but there is a great need for innovations in technology, business and politics.

Modeling BEE market with game theory can provide insights on the interactions amongst the different stakeholders, possible choices and likely outcomes available to them in different scenarios. Competition between the developers is an important aspect determining the supply of BEE in the market. This implies that if the demand and price of BEE are exogenous, then the developers have no options but to compete with each other and reduce the cost of BEE in order to maximize their profits. Moreover, there are many factors both rational and irrational, such as information asymmetry, opportunistic behavior, ill-informed users, lacking mandatory requirements, etc., which incur different level of transaction costs. This may affect the willingness of the developers to take part in BEE market. Therefore, this study is to look into the developer\'s decision-making on BEE in two different scenarios: 1. without considering transaction costs; 2. with transaction costs into consideration. By modeling the game between developers over BEE investment, we will investigate the mechanism of competition between developers, look into the transaction costs impacts on game equilibrium. The findings will support some of the transaction cost theoretical statements under the BEE real estate development scenario using the game model, and effectively explain what the mind-set of the developers is and how their decision-making of BEE is reached. The findings will also help draw policy implication on how to increase the willingness to supply from the developers by reducing the market transaction costs.

The use of geothermal energy systems is widespread but, having had a revival in the 1980\'s and recently, both the sustainability and impact of these systems on the environment are now being questioned. Due to its efficiency, the use of geothermal energy is advantageous in many cases. However, little research is available to guide regulatory agencies and industry towards designs and installations that maximize their sustainability. One potential hindrance to the sustainability of these systems at their design efficiency is the thermal loss from the system itself, which can affect adjacent systems and the surrounding ground. Studies show that interference effects are present in some installed geothermal systems. The influence of these systems on each other implies that they have a spacing that is smaller than the threshold spacing for such systems to avoid thermal interactions, and indicates that there is a limit to the density of geothermal development that can occur in a given region of the ground. Many studies in the area of geothermal energy have focused on modeling single ground boreholes. The potential existence of thermal interaction among multiple boreholes is identified in the literature, but not formulated, and the affecting parameters have not been assessed in detail. In order to model interacting borehole systems, Koohi-Fayegh and Rosen (2011) evaluated the temperature response in the soil surrounding multiple boreholes in a numerical study. They assumed that the heat flux from the borehole wall is constant and, therefore, that heat conduction in the direction of the borehole length is negligible for a major part of the solution domain. In the current study, the assumption of constant heat flux along the borehole wall is examined by coupling the problem to the heat transfer problem inside the borehole. A numerical finite volume method in a three dimensional meshed domain is used to model the conduction of heat in the soil surrounding boreholes. In order to determine the heat flux boundary condition, the analytical quasi-three-dimensional solution to the heat transfer problem of the U-tube configuration inside the borehole (Zeng et al, 2003) is used. This solution takes into account the variation in heating strength along the borehole length due to the temperature variation of the fluid running in the U-tube. Thus, critical depths at which thermal interaction occurs can be determined. References Koohi-Fayegh S., Rosen M. A., Examination of thermal interaction of multiple geothermal storage and heat pump systems, Proc. 3rd International Conference on Applied Energy, 16-18 May 2011, Perugia, Italy, pp. 3473-3486. Zeng, H. Y., N. R. Diao, Z. Fang, 2003, Efficiency of vertical geothermal heat exchangers in ground source heat pump systems. Journal of Thermal Science 12(1):77–81.

Several initially attractive possible explanations for the engagement of people in more ecological behaviour have been shown as not influencing individual pro-environmental behaviour, unless there is some personal benefit which is obvious and immediate. Although not all pro-environmental behaviours and practices used at work are transferrable to the home or community spheres of employees, it is reasonable to assume that organisations that embrace pro-environmental practices at the core, will have an impact on actual employee practices and behaviours, and consequently on awareness levels about environmental issues. It is argued that the current trend in organisations towards implementing pro-environmental greening behaviours and practices may contribute to a process of \'sustainability evolution\'. Understanding the factors and processes which determine employees\' pro-environmental behaviour patterns, with regard to the settings and interfaces of work, home and community permits one to grasp the main factors and processes that may influence the interaction of resource and sustainable waste management behaviours, among all life domains.

In a world of globalized production and consumption, both positive and negative environmental and social impacts are abundant in product supply chains. With the complexity of sourcing and distributing around the globe, a great deal of transparency is lost. Transparency, in economic theory, implies providing key information to help stakeholders make decisions, which in turn creates incentives for businesses to align their practices with the public\'s priorities. Consumers are more frequently questioning where, by whom, and under what conditions their products are being sourced and produced. One emerging technique is Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). New Earth, a non-profit organization fostering innovative strategies and tools to help achieve sustainable development on a global level is providing a solution to acquire greater supply chain visibility. The Social Hotspots Database (SHDB) offers an overarching, global database that eases the data collection burden in S-LCA studies. The UNEP SETAC Guidelines for S-LCA of products recommended the development of such a resource (Benoît & Mazijn, 2009). It enables mainstream application of S-LCA by allowing stakeholders to prioritize unit processes for which site-specific data collection will be desirable. Data for two criteria are provided to inform prioritization: (1) labor intensity in worker hours per unit process and (2) risk for, or opportunity to affect, relevant social themes related to Human Rights, Labor Rights and Decent Work, Governance and Access to Community Services. The SHBD system utilizes an Input-Output global trade model, derived by New Earth from GTAP, a general economic equilibrium model facilitated by Purdue University, supplemented with data on wage rates from the ILO. The model calculates worker hours estimates by country and sector involved in the supply chain of products. The Social Hotspots Database incorporates more than 100 references to develop data tables for nearly twenty social themes, and continues to grow. The paper will present an overview of the SHDB development and features, as well as results from a pilot study conducted with the SHDB on strawberry yogurt. These studies, mandated by The Sustainability Consortium, focus on the potential social impacts existing in the supply chains of various product categories. The potential hotspots in the supply chain are proposed as places in the supply chain where further site-specific investigations are pertinent. Benoît C, Mazijn B (eds). 2009. Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products. UNEP/SETAC.