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Sustainability
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The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development
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The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 12471

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ryan M Yonk

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
American Institute for Economic Research, Berkshire County, MA, USA
Interests: environmental economics and policy; public choice; rural policy
Dr. Veeshan Rayamajhee

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Center for the Study of Public Choice and Private Enterprise, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, USA
Interests: climate adaptation; food and energy security; environmental externalities

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Academics and policymakers draw diverse views on what the future of nature and the natural world should look like. Discussion of what, if anything, should be done to protect and conserve the natural world has become a source of both academic discussion and policy debate. While there is consistent agreement that conservation is desirable, little agreement exists among policymakers about how to do so. In practice, the desire to conserve the natural world has manifested itself through proposed policy solutions that focus on the use of regulatory rules or improved social planning. A wide literature explores these solutions in some detail. In practice, however, these approaches face stiff resistance in policy implementation since they are often viewed as conflicting with goals to increase standards of living and economic development.

Much has been written on how these approaches to sustainability can lead to better outcomes for the natural world, and some scholars have sought to explore how policy might be crafted to avoid the most severe trade-offs between development and improved environmental outcomes. Despite these attempts, the broader sustainable development literature has underexplored the potential of voluntary alternatives and other governance mechanisms to accomplish both development and environmental goals absent large scale state intervention.

Among those that explored the possibility of alternative approaches, many based their exploration on Elinor Ostrom’s work on the emergence of governance institutions and polycentricity. We hope that this special issue will find additional applications and extensions of that work. Complementing Ostrom’s approach is an emergent thread of literature on free market environmentalism, which explores how market forces might be used to achieve sustainable development. We invite submissions that extend these literatures as well as others that explore alternative approaches to sustainable development and help to better address the potential trade-offs between development and conserving the natural world.

Dr. Ryan M Yonk
Dr. Veeshan Rayamajhee
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • conservation
  • sustainable development
  • polycentricity
  • environmental policy
  • free market environmentalism

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 257 KiB  
Article
The Tragedy of the Nurdles: Governing Global Externalities
by Ilia Murtazashvili, Veeshan Rayamajhee and Keith Taylor
Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7031; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097031 - 22 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2144
Abstract
Nurdles have been referred to by some as a global environmental disaster. However, relative to the controversies surrounding industrial fracking practices, such as public health and safety associated with extraction of shale gas (as well as shale oil), the problems with nurdles are [...] Read more.
Nurdles have been referred to by some as a global environmental disaster. However, relative to the controversies surrounding industrial fracking practices, such as public health and safety associated with extraction of shale gas (as well as shale oil), the problems with nurdles are not as widely known. In this article, we highlight that fracking and nurdles are interrelated: fracking processes are a major source of the raw materials used to produce nurdles, which are tiny plastic pellets polluting our waters. Our contention is that a key question for analysis of fracking is how to regulate the externalities associated with downstream products produced in the fracking process. This article takes insights from Elinor Ostrom and scholars of the Bloomington School of Political Economy—such as polycentricity, diversity of collective action problems (CAPs), coproduction, and institutional diversity—to analyze nurdles pollution as a global commons problem. Nurdles generate widespread, large-scale negative externalities that are difficult to contain and address within a fixed geographical boundary governed by a static jurisdictional authority. Using the case of the Royal Dutch Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, we show that nurdles present complex and nested challenges that require coproduction, with citizen monitoring playing an essential role in mitigating negative externalities. We demonstrate the efficacy of applying polycentric approaches toward addressing CAPs associated with nurdles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development)
14 pages, 276 KiB  
Article
Achieving Ecological Reflexivity: The Limits of Deliberation and the Alternative of Free-Market-Environmentalism
by Justus Enninga and Ryan M. Yonk
Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6396; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086396 - 8 Apr 2023
Viewed by 2351
Abstract
Environmental problems are often highly complex and demand a great amount of knowledge of the people tasked to solve them. Therefore, a dynamic polit-economic institutional framework is necessary in which people can adapt and learn from changing environmental and social circumstances and in [...] Read more.
Environmental problems are often highly complex and demand a great amount of knowledge of the people tasked to solve them. Therefore, a dynamic polit-economic institutional framework is necessary in which people can adapt and learn from changing environmental and social circumstances and in light of their own performance. The environmentalist literature refers to this knowledge producing and self-correcting capacity as ecological reflexivity. Large parts of the literature agree that deliberative democracy is the right institutional arrangement to achieve ecological reflexivity. Our paper sheds doubt on this consensus. While we agree with the critique of centralized, technocratic planning within the literature on deliberative democracy and agree that ecologically reflexive institutions must take advantage of the environmental ‘wisdom of the crowd’, we doubt that deliberative democracy is the right institutional arrangement to achieve this. Ecological deliberation fails to address its own epistemic shortcomings in using crowd wisdom: Rational ignorance, rational irrationality and radical ignorance weaken the performance of deliberative institutions as an alternative and reflexive form of ecological governance. Instead, we propose an institutional order based on market-based approaches as the best alternative for using the environmental wisdom of the crowd. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development)
18 pages, 426 KiB  
Article
Can Markets Improve Recycling Performance? A Cross-Country Regression Analysis and Case Studies
by Elena C. Prenovitz, Peter K. Hazlett and Chandler S. Reilly
Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 4785; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15064785 - 8 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1969
Abstract
Can recycling reduce negative externalities created by landfills? Environmentalists argue yes; however, the efficiency of recycling will be institutionally contingent. Entrepreneurs will face less barriers to profit from recycling in countries with more economic freedom. Additionally, recycling conducted by private firms will be [...] Read more.
Can recycling reduce negative externalities created by landfills? Environmentalists argue yes; however, the efficiency of recycling will be institutionally contingent. Entrepreneurs will face less barriers to profit from recycling in countries with more economic freedom. Additionally, recycling conducted by private firms will be more cost-effective and have higher rates of innovation in recycling technology relative to a nationalized industry. The purpose of this study is to test these claims. First, a two-way fixed effects regression model is estimated using panel data from 34 countries over the years 2000 to 2019. Our regression results show that increases in economic freedom have a positive effect on recycling rates, independent of related policy effects. Second, using two brief case studies of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, we show how the inefficiencies of bureaucratic management suggest that private industry can be a less costly solution to encouraging recycling. The empirical results and case studies strongly suggest that increases in economic freedom can be an important mechanism for increasing recycling rates, and private industry involvement in existing recycling programs can limit unnecessary costs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development)
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9 pages, 264 KiB  
Article
Environmental Status Goods and Market-Based Conservation: An Arm of Ostrom’s Polycentric Approach?
by Shane Sanders
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4167; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054167 - 25 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 981
Abstract
Ostrom suggests that collective action problems may present an obstacle to the reduction in (external costs from) global greenhouse gas emissions and that a polycentric approach is necessary to find a solution. A market-based prong of such a polycentric solution—alongside, e.g., governance-based prongs [...] Read more.
Ostrom suggests that collective action problems may present an obstacle to the reduction in (external costs from) global greenhouse gas emissions and that a polycentric approach is necessary to find a solution. A market-based prong of such a polycentric solution—alongside, e.g., governance-based prongs such as transferable pollution permits—may lie in the nature of certain salient “environmentally friendly” goods (e.g., Toyota Prius, Tesla cars, home solar panels). The present study analyzes the social welfare consequences of positional conservation (i.e., consumption of salient environmentally friendly goods for the purpose of status signaling) within a choice theoretic model. For example, the Toyota Prius and Tesla have been shown to be such a type of good. In a two-good model of strategic consumer choice, in which consumers choose between a positional, “conservation good” and an externally costly, “non-conservation good”, we find that positional conservation improves social welfare if the unit external cost of the non-conservation good consumption is sufficiently large. In such a case, positionality serves to (partly or fully) correct an under-consumption of the positional good. Fershtman and Weiss find, within a one-good (action) model, that positionality can be corrective of distortions from positive externalities but not of distortions from negative externalities (e.g., pollution). Within a two-good model of consumer choice, we find that “social rewards” can help to correct distortions generated by negative externalities and improve social welfare. The results of the present study suggest that the Paretian objective may not be to curb positional spending but to shift positional spending toward conspicuous goods that are otherwise under-consumed (e.g., conservation goods or education). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development)
24 pages, 348 KiB  
Article
The Continuing Case for a Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change
by Jordan K. Lofthouse and Roberta Q. Herzberg
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3770; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043770 - 18 Feb 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4039
Abstract
Elinor Ostrom argued that effectively coping with manmade climate change requires a polycentric approach. Although we agree with Ostrom’s assessment, her arguments regarding the advantages of polycentricity could be taken further. In this paper, we supplement Ostrom’s work by fleshing out the reasons [...] Read more.
Elinor Ostrom argued that effectively coping with manmade climate change requires a polycentric approach. Although we agree with Ostrom’s assessment, her arguments regarding the advantages of polycentricity could be taken further. In this paper, we supplement Ostrom’s work by fleshing out the reasons of how and why a polycentric approach is more conducive to coping with climate change than national governments that attempt to centrally direct climate change policies. We argue that there are at least six advantages that polycentric systems have for coping with climate change: competition among decision makers, cooperation among decision makers, perceptions of legitimacy that lead to coproduction, mutual learning through experimentation, institutional resilience/robustness, and emergent outcomes that are socially desirable but not centrally planned. The combination of these six factors gives polycentric governance systems distinct advantages over more top-down ones, especially in terms of epistemics and incentive compatibility. Scholars and policymakers who are concerned about the implications of climate change should appreciate the many diverse and nuanced advantages of a polycentric approach for coping with climate change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Future of Nature: Alternative Approaches to Sustainable Development)
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