The human dimensions of sustainability can often be one of the most difficult for us to define as practitioners and advocates, and it can be a struggle to put social theory into action. A new series of Real Change academic work, called the “Elaboration of Sustainability Principles,” now aims to develop more robust, cohesive and operational Social Sustainability Principles for The Natural Step Framework to help us gain a better understanding of this challenge.
The first paper in this series, led by PhD candidate Merlina Missimer, will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production. In this work, the team comes to the conclusion that Sustainability Principle 4 is not as robust, cohesive and operational as the ecological side of the Framework (SPs 1, 2 and 3), and then proposes a way in which to address this issue.
We look forward to following this work - Congratulations, Merlina and team!