Welcome to ProSus - Program for Research and Documentation for a Sustainable Society

Program for Research and Documentation
for a Sustainable Society

Centre for Development and the Environment

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ProSus
Centre for Development and the Environment
University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1116 Blindern
N-0317 Oslo - Norway
Tel: +47 22 85 89 00
Fax: +47 22 85 87 90
E-mail: informasjon@prosus.uio.no

News on Environment and Sustainable Development from ProSus:

ProSus becomes more integrated with SUM

From January 1st, ProSus has become a research programme on line with the others at Centre for Development and the Environment, UiO. This implies some changes for our contacts and readers. We now have a new web site, which means that this page will no longer be updated. Publications up to and including 2005 will still be available here, while newer publications can be found on the new site. We want to stress that ProSus will continue as a programme even if our distincive profile is incorporated into SUMs. Concerning evaluation and information, ProSus will focus its activities around the recently established SusNordic website - the site for evaluation and information on politics for sustainable development in the Nordic countries. (11.01.06)

Read Lafferty's leader from Monitor21

Assessing the role of the World Business Council

The new report by Irja Vormedal examines the role of the organization World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in global governance for sustainable development. The report assesses the WBCSD's organization and political agenda, and its leading policy discourse "Corporate Sustainability" (CS). The study critically scrutinizes the political influence exercised by the WBCSD and CS within international institutions and sustainable development policy negotiations. (04.01.05)

Download the report (pdf 359kb)

Reporting on Corporate Responsibility in Norway's 100 largest companies

ProSus report 9/2005, Corporate Responsibility Reporting in Norway: An Assessment of the 100 Largest Firms, investigates how Norway's 100 largest companies report on issues like the environment, social issues, business ethics and local social value for the account year 2004. The study points to a large potential for improvement among most companies.(11.01.06)

Download the report (pdf)

Governance through Learning: The UN Global Compact and Corporate Responsibility
The ProSus report 7/2005 examines the role of learning in strengthening corporate responsibility through the UN Global Compact (GC). Vormedal argues that while learning can play a transformative role in the construction of new corporate identities, several of the GC
engagement mechanisms have failed to produce any significant learning
between participants. (14.11.05)

Climate change and the local level
Gard Lindseth has written the article "Local level adaption to climate change: Discursive strategies in the Norwegian context" published in "Journal of environmental policy & and planning". Lindseth argues that climate adapation as a specifc policy priority can be further developed through a discourse approach. (03.10.05)

New book about Industrial Transformation
The book "Industrial Transformation - Environmental Policy Innovation in the United States and Europe", evaluates the effectiveness in bringing about industrial transformation of twelve innovative voluntary, information-based and collaborative programs. Audun Ruud, senior research fellow at ProSus, discusses the effect of the Norwegian Accounting Act’s imposition from 1998 on environmental disclosure in the financial annual reports (03.10.05)

Indicators for Local-Scale Climate Vulnerability Assessments
This report from ProSus (6/2005) is part of a cross-institutional project entitled "Climate Change in Norway: An analyses of Economic and Social Impacts and Adaptions". One of the purpose of the project has been to develop an indicator based model for assessment of local risk and vulnerability with regard to future climate changes and policies. The report is a translated version of ProSus Report 6/2004. (15.09.05)

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Norway: An Assessment of Sustainability Reporting by Major Firms in 2003
An important part of CSR is to provide information about the enterprise´s environmental, social and ethical challenges. This report from ProSus (5/2005) evaluates sustainability reporting, known as non- financial reporting, by the 100 largest companies in Norway. Only 16 per cent of the companies can be said to have met the legal requirements for environmental reporting in a satisfactory manner. (10.06.05)

Governing Innovation for Sustainable development: Integration of Environmental and Innovation Policies in Norway

In this report Olav M. Larsen conceptualize innovation for sustainable development and asks to what extent environmental concerns are integrated into innovation policies and to what extent Norwegian innovation policies contribute to sustainable development. The report is based on empirical evidence from the Ministry of Trade and Industry the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the Ministry of Environment. The findings indicate that Norwegian environmental and innovation policies are only integrated to a very little extent. Furthermore, very few of the green innovation policy initiatives in place actually promote sustainable development. Here you can read the abstract
(01.06.05)

Market-based lock-in
as a challenge for eco-design strategies
The report "Market-based Lock-in as a Challenge for Eco-design Strategy: Probing the Compatibility between Economic and Industrial-Ecological Approaches" is part of ProSus' ongoing CondEcol-project. The report 2/2005 aims to clarify the compatibility of the market-based approach to lock-in with the strategic management approach of "ecological design". Using empirical references from two case studies Shecco and ScanWafer, the report structures a "meeting of perspectives". The cases are assessed from a market-based lock-in analysis, to determine whether and how the eco-design approach incorporates similar types of information and insight.
Read the report (pdf)
This is a follow-up of ProSus report 7/2003.

SusNord Gateway: New knowledge site on Nordic sustainability implementation

ProSus has developed a new English internet site on the work on sustainable development in the Nordic countries.
The main focus of the SusNord Gateway - Governance for Sustainable Development in the Nordic Region is the historical and current status of the implementation of the Rio and Johannesburg agreements. (09.03.05)
Read the press release.

Ecological footprint in a local context
Carlo Aall and Ingrid Norland has published their article "The use of the ecological footprint in local politics and administration: results and implications from Norway" in the latest edition of Local Environment. They argue for adjustments in the footprint methodology when shifting from a national to a local policy context, to ensure the indicator's applicability in local politics and administration. (09.03.05)
Read more about ecological footprint

Working paper on UN Global Compact
How does Global Compact contribute to sustainable development? Through four Norwegian case studies Maria Gjølberg and Audun Ruud explore the potential effects of the GC at micro and macro level. Company practices are often changed by a membership, but in order to influence international political discourse, the limits of voluntary initiatives should not be under-communicated. (09.01.05)

ProSus plays central role in conference on global environmental change
Research director William Lafferty was key note speaker at the 'Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change' 3-4 Dec. The annual conference is arranged by Freie Universität Berlin. This year's theme was Greening of Policies Interlinkages and Policy Integration. Lafferty has, in co-operation with Olav Mosvold Larsen og Audun Ruud, written two papers for the Berlin conference. They are published as ProSus Working Papers.
Read Lafferty's speech here
Download the papers WP 2/04 og WP 3/04 (06.12.04)

Governance for Sustainable Development
William Lafferty is the editor of this book, which contains nine separate contributions on governance for sustainable development in Europe. The book is published by Edward Elgar Publishing, and is nominated for the Harold and Margaret Sprout award for the best book on international environmental affairs.
Book review in Environmental Politics
Booklaunch
Ordering the book (01.12.04)

Modelling for sustainable development

ProSus director William M. Lafferty delivered the closing lecture "Integrating Environmental Modelling into Governance for Sustainable Development" at the conference Understanding Sustainable Development: Models, Data and Policy in Austria 17-19 October 2004. International model and indicator experts were gathered at the conference arranged by The European Network for Sustainable Urban and Regional Development (ENSURE), the American Environmental Protection Agency, the Austrian Ministry of Environment and the EU Commission.

Regional Sustainable Development in Europe – The Challenge of Multi-Level, Cross-Sectoral,
Co-operative Governance
This book from ProSus presents a selection of papers presented at the second workshop of the REGIONET network. It provides a wealth of theoretical and empirical materials directly aimed at improving our understanding of the challenge of regional sustainable development in Europe.

REGIONET has also conducted the first comparative study of regional sustainable development in Europe. ProSus has written the National Report of Norway.