Despite numerous initiatives, methodologies and approaches, municipalities and regions continue to face challenges in sustaining long-term efforts toward sustainability. While continuously learning from mistakes and success factors, comprehensive recommendations for how to take a long-term approach for the work, specifically developed for leadership in local and regional contexts, are largely lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify a comprehensive set of essential factors that could support long-term sustainability efforts. The study is mainly related to the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, but the findings are likely relevant also in relation to other comprehensive sustainability methodologies and approaches. Re-analysis of longitudinal data from action research in Sweden and Finland is supplemented by new qualitative data collection, the study identifies eight conditions for continuity. Being introduced to these conditions upfront may save valuable time and could be utilized as a checklist to be revisited regularly and to strive toward.

We have previously developed the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). It is based on robust boundary conditions for sustainable redesign. This supports sustainable development transitions that takes the whole civilization/biosphere system into account in a systematic way while ensuring sufficient access to money and other resources. We have applied the FSSD for regional sustainable development to develop goals for sustainable transports in the South of Sweden, plus roadmaps to get there. Building on this we have also made sustainability comparisons of future scenarios and transition pathways with and without Maglev systems in a Swedish and Scandinavian context. In this new study, we revisit the Swedish case while furthering the combined sustainability comparison model to improve our capacity to analyse Maglev systems anywhere in the world. We found that new Maglev systems have a generic ‘plus-side’ with aspects like higher speed and efficiency, lower energy use and maintenance costs, spatial advantages, etc. On the generic ‘minus-side’ we also found that existing rail-systems with supporting infrastructure have already been built which may speak in favour of upgrading it for traditional high speed trains rather than building a Maglev infrastructure from scratch. In Sweden, the societal land transport discourse has mainly revolved around whether highspeed trains should be developed on an already existing infrastructure for rail-traffic, one that is already plagued by difficulties to stay on time, with high maintenance costs to make already existing cargo traffic and various types of personal train transportation fit the same structure. We conclude that Sweden now needs a thorough sustainability cost/benefit evaluation where transport futures with and without highspeed trains and Maglev are objectively compared.  

The number of sustainability supports keeps growing. However, they are typically not capable of bridging planetary-to-organizational scales and therefore in themselves provide limited guidance for how organizations can contribute strategically to global sustainability. This is severe since the power of change that organizations represent is essential for humanity to succeed with the transition to sustainability. Furthermore, a specific sustainability support typically lacks a clear description of what gap it is designed to fill. This may add confusion to an already complex area and can result in organizations selecting supports that are not the most appropriate for the organization's purpose and transition plan. The aim of this study was therefore to prototype an approach for SWOT analyses of sustainability supports and for guiding effective and coordinated use of them. We tested the approach for some examples of supports that are currently receiving much attention: the sustainable development goals, planetary boundaries, circular economy, and science-based targets. We argue that the tested approach can be generalized and makes it possible to clarify limitations and value of any support from a systemic, systematic, and strategic sustainability perspective and, therefore, also to clarify how the supports relate to each other and can be selected and used in an effective and coordinated way. This is similar to how an operative system of, say, a smartphone, facilitates an effective and coordinated use of apps. We argue that the presented approach addresses one of the most dangerously, still most commonly, missed pieces in public and private discourses on sustainability. 

Municipal and regional leaders' achievements for synchronised sustainability transitions are still not enough. Systemic, systematic and strategic cross-sectoral collaboration and co-creation are needed. However, sectors isolated in silos leads to suboptimal measures and strategies, and a reductionist view on what hinders and enables joint action towards full sustainability. Consequently, methodological support for addressing the coordinative challenge is often not asked for. This study investigates the observed reductionist perspective as foundation for developing enhanced methodological support for strategic sustainable development (SSD) and further aimed to gain insight into how leaders can be better supported to understand their current reality of barriers and enablers for cross-sectoral SSD work and to prototype such support. Results from fieldwork with leaders in six municipalities and regions suggest that both frequency and depth of barriers and enablers in relation to elements for SSD are insufficient. Nine categories were identified and combined with SSD core elements into a diagnostic tool.

To systematically address the sustainability challenge, local and regional government leaders are key actors to facilitate action-oriented dialogues between practitioners from different sectors and disciplines. However, to address sustainability in collaboration is a complex challenge and leaders as well as practitioners need methodological support. This study is an off shot of an Action Research project that tested and developed an implementation model for cross-sector strategic transitions towards sustainability. While the implementation model as such gained appreciation for the scientifically robust overarching approach, our learnings from four years of action research with ten Swedish municipalities and regions point to needs of additional support regarding application guidelines for the methodology to be autonomously viable after introductions and moderated sessions facilitated by the research team. Example needs include support for capacity building for strategic sustainable development (SSD), advise for how to recruit leaders into the process upfront and support for valuing and aligning previous and on-going work for sustainability. This paper presents such support. It is based on a combination of conceptual SSD analyses and dialogue with initiated people within local or regional governments. In the dialogue, participants were supported to identify gaps in terms of capacity for an SSD approach to improve cross-sector strategies towards the full scope of social and ecological sustainability, and to better align existing methods, processes, and routines into cohesive actions. The procedure was designed, tested, and refined through interaction within one municipality. The feedback was that through applying the support, government leaders can better prepare for and prioritize their strategic actions for sustainability and search for good examples and best practices with enhanced precision. Forthcoming research will test and further refine the support.

An implementation model for a systemic, systematic, and strategic approach to integrate sustainability across sectors has been tested and developed further within a four-years action research project. Valuable insights on how the approach can be best introduced to facilitate broad application can be gained already from test uses of the preliminary model and this study aims to evaluate and learn from one of the regions participating, Åland (an autonomous protectorate of the Republic of Finland). With a comprehensive sustainability initiative for the whole community, including funding and human resources in place, Åland had particularly favourable conditions and came out as best practice in the research project. We examined what had been done and how initiatives have been received through interviews with process leaders and stakeholders from different sectors of society and through desktop reviews. Key success factors and challenges for the work were put in relation to elements of the implementation model. Indeed, the work has come a long way in terms of collaboration platforms and structures, and much can be learnt from at the Åland case. However, parts of the strategic sustainable development (SSD) perspective are seemingly forgotten or in hibernation. Reintroducing and reinforcing concrete SSD informed processes and support could arguably address several of the expressed challenges while making use of key success factors, such as the capacity building centre.

Municipal and regional governments can play a key role in global society's transition towards sustainability. However, municipal leaders often lack a sufficient overview of sustainability and thereby the capacity to coordinate efforts across sectors. Several municipal planning frameworks are available but vary greatly in terms of definitions, scope, and hands-on advice on processes. To complement and unify approaches, the framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) has been developed. It utilizes backcasting from operational boundary conditions for the full scope of social and ecological sustainability. This study aims to evaluate a recently developed model for long-term implementation of FSSD across sectors for more cohesive cooperation towards sustainability. This is done through participatory action research (PAR) in ten Swedish municipalities and regions. The evaluation is done to examine if the implementation model (i) lives up to its purpose to help sectors cooperate effectively by using the FSSD as a shared mental model, (ii) aid the handling of previously identified barriers to strategic sustainable development in municipalities and regions, (iii) may contain barriers of its own for appropriate use and (iv) has room for improvement. We used observations, dialogues, and surveys to capture the strengths, weaknesses, enablers, and barriers of the preliminary implementation model. While the compliance of the model varied, our findings show a general appreciation and identified the needs for the approach. From experiencing barriers for the application of the model, practitioners provided several ideas for additional support, such as assessment and alignment support of on-going work and further developed guiding material. In a second phase of the PAR project, application of the implementation model will continue, and such additional support will be developed and evaluated. © 2020 by the authors.

The purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive and cohesive description of the most recent version of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD), and also to describe and discuss the overall method for developing the FSSD, elaborate on the general rational for and general benefits of a framework of this type, and Validate benefits of the FSSD through examples of its application. The purpose is also to point to pertinent future work. In preparation of this paper, we have reviewed previous publications and other documents related to the FSSD and reflected on the 25-year learning process between scientists and practitioners. We conclude that the FSSD has proven to aid organizations in thoroughly understanding and putting themselves in context of the global sustainability challenge, and to move themselves strategically towards sustainability, i.e., to stepwise reduce their negative impacts on ecological and social systems at large while strengthening the own organization through capturing of innovation opportunities, including new business models, exploration of new markets and winning of new market shares, and through reduced risks and operation costs. Specifically, we conclude that the FSSD aids more effective management of system boundaries and trade-offs, makes it possible to model and assess sustainable potentials for various materials and practices before investments are made, and offers the possibility for more effective collaboration across disciplines and sectors, regions, value-chains and stakeholder groups. We also conclude that the FSSD makes it possible to prevent damages, even from yet unknown problems, and not the least, to guide selection, development and combination of supplementary methods, tools, and other forms of support, which makes it possible to increase their utility for strategic sustainable development. Finally, we have shown that the FSSD is useful for structuring transdisciplinary academic education and research. Several examples of ongoing FSSD related research, as well as ideas for future work, are given. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The vast and growing array of concepts, methods and tools in the sustainability field imply a need for a structuring and coordinating framework, including a unifying and operational definition of sustainability. One attempt at such framework began over 25 years ago and is now widely known as the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. However, as with the larger sustainability field, the social dimension of this framework has been found to not be sufficiently science-based and operational and thus in need of further development. In this two-part series an attempt at a science-based, operational definition of social sustainability is presented. In part 1 a systems-based approach to the social system was presented, based on extensive literature studies as well as conceptual modelling sessions using the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development as the guiding structure. The focus of that study was on the essential aspects of the social system that need to be sustained, namely trust, common meaning, diversity, capacity for learning and capacity for self-organization. The aim of this second paper is to identify and present overriding mechanisms by which these aspects of the social system can be degraded, thereby finding exclusion criteria for re-design for sustainability. Further literature studies, conceptual modelling sessions and initial testing of this prototype with partners in academia, business and NGOs were performed. Based on the understanding of the essential aspects of the social system and the identified overriding mechanisms of degradation of these, a hypothesis for a definition of social sustainability by basic principles is presented. The proposed principles are that in a socially sustainable society, people are not subject to structural obstacles to: (1) health, (2) influence, (3) competence, (4) impartiality and (5) meaning-making. Overall, the two papers aim to provide a hypothesis for a definition of social sustainability, which is general enough to be applied irrespective of spatial and temporal constraints, but concrete enough to guide decision-making and monitoring. It is also a further development of the social dimension of the FSSD, which practitioners and researchers have requested for some time and can act as a support towards better integration of social sustainability in many other fields, e.g., sustainable product innovation, sustainable supply chain management, sustainable transport system development, and others.

The vast and growing array of concepts, methods and tools in the sustainability field imply a need for a structuring and coordinating framework, including a unifying and operational definition of sustainability. One attempt at such framework began over 25 years ago and is now widely known as the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. However, as with the larger sustainability field, the social dimension of this framework has been found to not be sufficiently science-based and operational and thus in need of further development. In this two-part series an attempt at a science-based, operational definition of social sustainability is presented. In this paper (part one), a systems-based approach to the social system is presented, as a basis for presenting a zero-hypothesis of principles for social sustainability in part two. Extensive literature studies as well as conceptual modeling sessions were performed and the social system was examined from various angles – complex adaptive system studies, human needs theory and other social sciences, and insights from these fields were woven together. The whole work was structured and guided by the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. The focus of the study was on the essential aspects of the social system that need to be sustained (that cannot be systematically degraded) for it to be possible for people to meet their needs. These essential aspects were found to be trust, common meaning, diversity, capacity for learning and capacity for self-organization. Trust seems to be generally acknowledged to be the overriding aspect of a vital social system. A sense of common meaning is also stated by several authors as an important part of social capital and something that helps to keep a group or society together. Diversity is acknowledged as essential for resilience; in the human social system this can be interpreted as, e.g., diversity of personalities, ages, gender, skills. Capacity for learning and self-organization are also motivated from a resilience point of view by several authors. These results form a basis for the hypothesis for a definition of social sustainability presented in paper 2, which in turn is a step towards creating an enhanced support for strategic planning and innovation for sustainability.