Building urban resilience through sustainability-oriented small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, and the unprecedented social and economic costs it has inflicted, provide an important opportunity to scrutinize the interplay between the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the resilience of the communities they are embedded in. In this article, we articulate the specific ways that SMEs play a crucial, and underappreciated role in building resilience to human and natural hazards, and provide new opportunities to accelerate the adoption of sustainability practices through the configuration of 'enabling ecosystems' geared towards promoting sustainability in the private sector. We argue that capacity-building and experimentation are not only required within companies, but also throughout this emerging supportive ecosystem of policies, resources (i.

Structuring and advancing solution-oriented research for sustainability : This article belongs to Ambio's 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Solutions-oriented research.

The sustainability challenges the world faces today call for concerted and immediate action. Complementing problem-oriented, descriptive-analytical research with solution-oriented research could strengthen sustainability science's contribution to address these challenges. We introduce different types of solution-oriented sustainability research to structure the discourse, outline opportunities to advance this research trajectory, and close with recommendations on how to support particularly students and early career researchers in getting involved with solution-oriented sustainability research.

Building actor-centric transformative capacity through city-university partnerships.

Cities worldwide are rising to the challenge of sustainable development, calling for large-scale and fast-paced transformations towards sustainability. Urban sustainability challenges are now being reframed as a lack of capacity of individuals and organizations to carry out such socio-technical transformations. This article expands on transformative capacity literature by elucidating the concept of actor-centric transformative capacity.

Sustainability appraisal of water governance regimes: the case of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Sustainability appraisals produce evidence for how well water governance regimes operate and where problems exist. This evidence is particularly relevant for regions that face water scarcity and conflicts. In this study, we present a criteria-based and participatory sustainability appraisal of water governance in a region with such characteristics-the dry tropics of NW Costa Rica.

A comprehensive sustainability appraisal of water governance in Phoenix, AZ.

In Phoenix, Arizona and other metropolitan areas, water governance challenges include variable climate conditions, growing demands, and continued groundwater overdraft. Based on an actor-oriented examination of who does what with water and why, along with how people interact with hydro-ecological systems and man-made infrastructure, we present a sustainability appraisal of water governance for the Phoenix region. Broadly applicable to other areas, our systems approach to sustainable water governance overcomes prevailing limitations to research and management by: employing a comprehensive and integrative perspective on water systems; highlighting the activities, intentions, and rules that govern various actors, along with the values and goals driving decisions; and, establishing a holistic set of principles for social-ecological system integrity and interconnectivity, resource efficiency and maintenance, livelihood sufficiency and opportunity, civility and democratic governance, intra- and inter-generational equity, and finally, precaution and adaptive capacity.

Risk assessment of engineered nanomaterials: a survey of industrial approaches.

Engineered nanomaterials pose many new questions on risk assessment that are notyet completely answered. Thus, voluntary industrial risk assessment initiatives can be considered vital to the environmental health and safety issues associated with engineered nanomaterials. We present an overview of the general properties of nanomaterial products in the market, and how industry, in general, approaches issues of nanomaterial risk and safety based on a written survey of 40 companies working with nanomaterials in Germany and Switzerland.

Measuring societal effects of transdisciplinary research projects: design and application of an evaluation method.

Most Transdisciplinary Research (TdR) projects combine scientific research with the building of decision making capacity for the involved stakeholders. These projects usually deal with complex, societally relevant, real-world problems. This paper focuses on TdR projects, which integrate the knowledge of researchers and stakeholders in a collaborative transdisciplinary process through structured methods of mutual learning.

Public acceptance of nanotechnology foods and food packaging: the influence of affect and trust.

Nanotechnology is increasingly being employed in the areas of food production and packaging. Public perception will be crucial to the realization of these technological advances. We examined how lay people (N=153) perceive nanotechnology foods and nanotechnology food packaging, and we examined the factors that influence willingness to buy these products.

Laypeople's and experts' perception of nanotechnology hazards.

Public perception of nanotechnology may influence the realization of technological advances. Laypeople's (N=375) and experts' (N=46) perception of 20 different nanotechnology applications and three nonnanotechnology applications were examined. The psychometric paradigm was utilized and applications were described in short scenarios.