Science of the Total Environment 613–614 (2018) 1275–1283
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Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv
Resilience and sustainability: Similarities and differences in environmental management applications Dayton Marchese a, Erin Reynolds a, Matthew E. Bates a, Heather Morgan b, Susan Spierre Clark c, Igor Linkov a,⁎ a b c
US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, US Army Corps of Engineers, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, 39109, MS, USA Headquarters, US Army Corps of Engineers, 441 G Street NW, Washington, 20314, DC, USA Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, 800 Cady Mall, Tempe, 85281, AZ, USA
a r t i c l e
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Article history: Received 24 June 2017 Received in revised form 9 September 2017 Accepted 9 September 2017 Available online xxxx Editor: Jay Gan Keywords: Sustainability Resilience Engineering policy Environmental governance Review
a b s t r a c t In recent years there have been many disparate uses of the terms sustainability and resilience, with some framing sustainability and resilience as the same concept, and others claiming them to be entirely different and unrelated. To investigate similarities, differences, and current management frameworks for increasing sustainability and resilience, a literature review was undertaken that focused on integrated use of sustainability and resilience in an environmental management context. Sustainability was defined through the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic system considerations. Resilience was viewed as the ability of a system to prepare for threats, absorb impacts, recover and adapt following persistent stress or a disruptive event. Three generalized management frameworks for organizing sustainability and resilience were found to dominate the literature: (1) resilience as a component of sustainability, (2) sustainability as a component of resilience, and (3) resilience and sustainability as separate objectives. Implementations of these frameworks were found to have common goals of providing benefits to people and the environment under normal and extreme operating conditions, with the best examples building on similarities and minimizing conflicts between resilience and sustainability. Published by Elsevier B.V.
1. Introduction In response to increasing environmental threats, such as high-impact storms, intense drought, food shortages and climate change, there has been a continuous effort by emergency response agencies (Ward et al., 2017), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Dynes and Quarantelli, 1975) and many others to secure a future with both a high quality of life and a resistance to the impacts of adverse events. These efforts have led to ever-growing interests in sustainability and resilience (Redman, 2014). However, consensus on the definitions and beneficial use of these two concepts is lacking. In general, sustainability is focused on increasing the quality of life with respect to environmental, social and economic considerations, both in the present and for future generations (Collier et al., 2013). Resilience, on the other hand, focuses on the response of systems (including environmental, social, and economic systems) to both extreme disturbances (National Research Council, 2012) and persistent stress (Folke, 2016). Both concepts represent large, complex, and important systemic issues, and joint implementation efforts should be carefully evaluated to reduce underperformance risks
⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address:
[email protected] (I. Linkov).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.086 0048-9697/Published by Elsevier B.V.
stemming from an incomplete understanding of their similarities and differences. There are many similarities between the concepts of sustainability and resilience, and they are often used without clear distinction in meaning and purpose for a variety of applications. Also note that application of these concepts requires that sustainability and resilience be descriptors of something else, rather than being distinct entities themselves. Sustainability and resilience are both used to describe a system (Carpenter et al., 2001). This could be almost any system, ranging from the global economy to a single person's mental or physical health. One similarity is that sustainability and resilience both refer to the state of a system or feature over time, focusing on the persistence of that system under normal operating conditions and in response to disturbances (Fiksel et al., 2014). Because of this joint focus on system survivability, sustainability and resilience share common research methodologies, such as life-cycle analysis, structural analysis, and socioeconomic analysis (Bocchini et al., 2014). Resilience and sustainability are also linked to global political trends, where global frameworks and multilateral agendas are being developed in ways that promoted sustainability and resilience in urbanization (Folke et al., 2002). These overlapping goals and application areas have led to combined sustainability and resilience departments in some government agencies (e.g., City of El Paso Office of Resilience and Sustainability), universities (e.g., Urban Sustainability and Resilience
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program at University College London), and nonprofits (e.g., Citizens for Sustainable and Resilience Coastal Communities). Despite the similarities between sustainability and resilience, these are separate and distinct concepts that are subject to misuse if their differences are neglected. Many applications illustrate differences in spatial and temporal scales, with sustainability efforts often focused on larger spatial scales (Redman, 2014) and longer temporal scales (Meacham, 2016) than resilience. Moreover, resilience can be achieved at one temporal or spatial scale at the expense of another (Chelleri et al., 2015; Meerow et al., 2016). In the community development context, sustainability initiatives tend to focus on preserving traditional methods of resource use, livelihoods, environmental knowledge, and environmental resources. In contrast, resilience initiatives tend to focus on adapting to new conditions, creating innovative uses of traditional knowledge, creating new environmental knowledge, and improving living conditions and employment (Lew et al., 2016). However, resilience is often simplified to focus on one of these dimensions for greater public appeal when used in community development (Mulligan et al., 2016). Further, resilience tends to prioritize processes of systems or features, whereas sustainability prioritizes outcomes of that system (Park et al., 2013). Other differences are present in the way in which sustainability and resilience are used in decision-making. Increasingly, sustainability is often incorporated into decisions made at an institutional level, with goals ranging from individual product or process enrichment to increasing community wellness through responsible development (Chelleri et al., 2015). Resilience, in many cases, is implemented as a response to interruption, although much of resilience remains rooted in preparedness (Linkov and PalmaOliveira, 2017). In practice, unfamiliarity with the similarities and differences between sustainability and resilience can lead to problems in implementation. Decision makers may fail to capitalize on synergies or account for competing objectives, leading to underperformance and future conflict. This has previously been seen with many climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies (Lizarralde et al., 2015), urban densification efforts (Landauer et al., 2015), and disaster response efforts (Asprone and Manfredi, 2015). Due to the potential for conflict between the two concepts, the need for integrated sustainability and resilience management has been widely articulated in the literature (Anderies et al., 2013; Bocchini et al., 2014; Lizarralde et al., 2015; Saunders and Becker, 2015; Xu et al., 2015). To address this need, we conducted a review of existing literature and frameworks for joint implementation of sustainability and resilience. The review enabled us to identify flexible definitions for sustainability and resilience, identify three major frameworks or perspectives that relate sustainability and resilience, and explore the advantages and disadvantages of these frameworks across different applications. Effective organization of resilience and sustainability, combined with knowledgeable individuals able to champion these concepts will help ensure that sustainability and resilience efforts work in a complementary manner within existing organizations and project frameworks.
field, we hope this organization structure is useful for future joint implementations of sustainability and resilience. 2.1. Framework 1: resilience as a component of sustainability Framework 1 describes resilience as an integral part of the larger concept of sustainability, with sustainability as the primary objective. Fundamentally, Framework 1 operates with the notion that increasing the resilience of a system makes that system more sustainable, but increasing the sustainability of a system does not necessarily make it more resilient. The Resilience Alliance, an international research organization, played a significant role in the launching this framework among academic institutions and government agencies. Additional support for Framework 1 includes the assertions that without resilience a system can only possess fragile sustainability (Ahern, 2013), sustainability provides the objectives of a system and resilience concepts are used to meet those objectives (Anderies et al., 2013), and for a system to be sustainable, its design process needs to consider the vulnerabilities of that system to disturbances (Blackmore and Plant, 2008). Fig. 1 illustrates how the resilience of a system can impact that system's sustainability, and addresses how a resilient system can become sustainable after recovering from a disruption through the adaptive component of resilience. Several quantitative methods have been proposed for integrating resilience as a component of sustainability. Walker et al. (2010) included resilience into sustainability quantification by using probabilistic risk analysis with sustainability defined as non-decreasing social welfare over time. Jarzebski et al. (2016) proposed a metric-based framework for measuring economic, environmental (natural capital), and social (socio-cultural capital) sustainability with resilience indicators, such as degree of trust in local government, use of traditional practices in farming and agroforestry, and percent of land area covered with forest. Milman and Short (2008) introduced a framework for building resilience into water system sustainability that includes indicators such as water supply estimate over the next 50 years, quality of service (e.g., chlorinated pipe or public well), and financial risk to water supplier. In addition to specifying resilience as an integral part of sustainability, some studies include other framework components. Saunders and Becker (2015) cite risk management as a subsection of resilience, which contributes to sustainability. The inclusion of risk is a common theme in resilience research (Blackmore and Plant, 2008; Linkov et al., 2014; Park et al., 2013). Saunders and Becker (2015) use this framework to explore case studies of risk in earthquake-prone communities in New Zealand, and conclude that lowering risk leads to increased resilience and increased sustainability. In another framework application, Seager (2008) presents resilience as one perspective among a spectrum of four sustainability perspectives including security, reliability, and renewal. On this spectrum, sustainability moves from secure or static (preservation of the status quo) to a state of renewal that facilitates rapid change and all-inclusive reorganization (Seager, 2008). 2.2. Framework 2: sustainability as a component of resilience
2. Frameworks for sustainability and resilience To identify the ways in which sustainability and resilience are jointly implemented, we conducted a literature review of published management frameworks and found 37 relevant documents. The full methodology for the literature review can be found in Appendix A. Table 1 shows 37 journal articles that proposed management frameworks for sustainability and resilience, organized by application field. Table 1 also indicates the inclusion of social, environmental and economic considerations in the definition and use of sustainability, and absorb, recover and adapt considerations in resilience for each document. These frameworks describe either: (1) resilience as a component of sustainability, (2) sustainability as a component of resilience, or (3) sustainability and resilience as separate conceptual objectives. While there are limitations to placing each of the works in Table 1 within a specific application
Another common perspective presents resilience as the ultimate objective of the system, with sustainability proposed as a contributing factor to resilience. We found recent studies in the fields of supply chain management (Ahi and Searcy, 2013; Bansal and DesJardine, 2014; Closs et al., 2011; McEvoy et al., 2006), public policy (Chapin et al., 2009; Saxena et al., 2016), and business management (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011) that use this framework. Fundamentally, implementations of Framework 2 operate with the assertion that increasing the sustainability of a system makes that system more resilient, but increasing the resilience of a system does not necessarily make that system more sustainable. The focus of resilience in this context is to maintain some primary goal or critical functionality (e.g., profit, safety, performance) during and after disturbances. And with increased economic, environmental, and social wellbeing, that critical functionality
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Table 1 Results of sustainability and resilience literature review. Framework
Application field
Citation
Sustainabilitya
1
Community resilience
Magis, 2010 Akamani, 2012 Jarzebski et al., 2016 Domptail et al., 2013 Anderies et al., 2013 Berkes and Ross, 2016 Pierce et al., 2011 Saunders and Becker, 2015 Asprone and Manfredi, 2015 Olsson et al., 2014 Seager, 2008 Ahern, 2011 Ahern, 2013 Blackmore and Plant, 2008 Li and Yang, 2011 Milman and Short, 2008 Folke and Gunderson, 2010 Park et al., 2013 Xu et al., 2015 Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011 Chapin et al., 2009 Saxena et al., 2016 Ahi and Searcy, 2013 Bansal and DesJardine, 2014 Closs et al., 2011 McEvoy et al., 2006 Bocchini et al., 2014 Manyena et al., 2008 Meacham, 2016 Ning et al., 2013 Lew et al., 2016 Derissen et al., 2011 Hunt, 2009 Lizarralde et al., 2015 Redman, 2014 Fiksel et al., 2014 Ulanowicz et al., 2009
++ + ++ + + ++ + ++ + + + + + + ++ +
Soc
Natural resource management Public policy
Business management Sustainability science Urban planning
2
Business management Public policy Supply chain management
3
Civil infrastructure
Community resilience Economics Public policy
Urban planning
++ ++ + ++ +
Env + ++ + + ++ ++ ++ + + + + + ++ + + ++ ++ + + ++ +
+ + +
++ ++ + + +
++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ +
Resilienceb Eco ++ ++ + + + ++ + + ++ + + + ++ +
+ + ++ + ++ + +
+ ++ + + + +
Absorb
Recover
Adapt
++ + + ++ ++
++
++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ + ++ ++ +
+ + + + ++ ++ ++ + + ++ + + ++ + + + ++ + + + ++ ++ ++ ++ + + ++
+ ++ + + + + ++ ++
+ ++ + ++ +
+ ++ ++ + +
+ ++ ++ + + + + ++ ++ ++ + ++
+ ++
++ + ++
a Refers to the inclusion of social (Soc), environmental (Env), and economic (Eco) wellbeing in the definition of sustainability in the journal article. A single plus sign (+) denotes a reference to the definition component, two plus signs (++) denotes the component as an integral part of the proposed framework. b Refers to the inclusion of absorption, recovery, and adaptation in the definition of resilience in the journal article. Column contents (+ or ++) follow the same structure as those for sustainability.
is more resilient to harmful events (Bansal and DesJardine, 2014). Fig. 2 illustrates sustainability as a component of resilience, with the more sustainable system better able to absorb, recover from, and adapt to economic, environmental, and social disturbances. Many implementation strategies that operate within Framework 2 occur in supply chain management (SCM) (Ahi and Searcy, 2013;
Fig. 1. Resilience as a component of sustainability. Proponents of this organization structure assert that systems that are more resilient can better achieve and maintain sustainable operation.
Bansal and DesJardine, 2014; Closs et al., 2011). A supply chain is a dynamic process that includes the continuous flow of materials, funds, and information across multiple functional areas within and between chain members (Ahi and Searcy, 2013). In a literature review, Ahi and Searcy (2013) found that the application of sustainable or “green” supply chain management has the primary goal of increasing the company's ability to maintain profitability during disturbances. They found that with increased economic, social, and environmental wellbeing, supply chains were less likely to be impacted by the range of possible business disturbances. For example, a supply chain with a diverse economic portfolio (economic sustainability) is less likely to be impacted by an industryor location-specific depression (see Fig. 2). Similarly, a supply chain that includes the use of non-toxic chemicals (environmental sustainability) would lose less profit as a result of a chemical spill. And a supply chain operated by a company with high quality health care for its employees (social sustainability) is less likely to lose workforce capacity in response to a disease outbreak. With respect to sustainable business management, Avery and Bergsteiner (2011) assert that sustainable leadership (a balance of profit, people, and the planet) is necessary to ensure that businesses generate the social capital needed to weather disturbances. Social capital is the well-being of employees, suppliers, partners, etc., which contributes to resilience by enhancing the performance of a business and its prospects for survival (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2011). In public policy, Saxena et al. (2016) argued that sustainability principles, such as income, wellbeing, food security, or social status can be used to evaluate overall community
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Fig. 2. Sustainability as a component of resilience. The more sustainable system loses less critical functionality, and recovers quicker in response to economic, environmental, and social disturbances.
resilience. They propose a quantitative framework for assessing community resilience based on a combination of the Cross Scale Resilience Analysis (CSRA) and the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF). Similarly, Chapin et al. (2009) investigated many of the municipal offices of sustainability and found that their primary goal was to increase the resilience of that city through the implementation of sustainable principles. 2.3. Framework 3: resilience and sustainability as separate objectives Framework 3 describes resilience and sustainability as concepts with separate objectives that lack hierarchical structure, and that can complement or compete with each other (Fig. 3). Proponents of Framework 3 are found in the fields of civil infrastructure (Bocchini et al., 2014; Manyena et al., 2008; Meacham, 2016; Ning et al., 2013), economics (Derissen et al., 2011), urban planning (Fiksel et al., 2014; Ulanowicz et al., 2009), community resilience (Lew et al., 2016), and public policy (Hunt, 2009; Lizarralde et al., 2015; Redman, 2014). Implementations of Framework 3 maintain that resilience does not fundamentally contribute to sustainability, nor does sustainability fundamentally contribute to resilience. Instead, this framework suggests that projects and policies can
Fig. 3. Sustainability and resilience as separate efforts. Approaches to sustainability and resilience can either be negatively correlated, uncorrelated, or positively correlated.
affect resilience, sustainability, or both (Bocchini et al., 2014; Derissen et al., 2011; Fiksel et al., 2014; Lew et al., 2016; Lizarralde et al., 2015; Meacham, 2016). Separate implementations of sustainability and resilience are prevalent in civil infrastructure. For example, consider construction guidelines. Separate from resilience are sustainable building codes (e.g., the Building Code of Australia), sustainable policy regulations (e.g., Singapore's Building Control Act), financial incentives, industry training programs, public outreach campaigns, and voluntary building codes (e.g., BREEAM [England], LEED [U.S.], Energy Star [U.S.], BELS [Japan]) (Meacham, 2016). Also in civil infrastructure, resilience is addressed separate from sustainability through mandated measures (e.g., earthquake upgrade requirements for existing buildings in New Zealand) and voluntary measures (e.g., seismic retrofitting in Japan) (Meacham, 2016). These separate approaches in building regulations potentially lead to conflicts and underperformance in both efforts. Other methods for integrating sustainability and resilience take a synergistic approach, where the objectives of sustainability and resilience are achieved by building on commonalities. Bocchini et al. (2014) propose a quantitative framework for this type of strategy using the concepts of risk and probability of occurrence. This framework describes resilience as the response to low probability, high impact events, while sustainability is the response to high probability events for which the impacts are spread out over the infrastructure life cycle. Sustainability is viewed through economic, environmental, and social domains, and are evaluated using life-cycle assessment (Bocchini et al., 2014). Resilience, here, is viewed as the resistance to reduction in functionality of the system or feature, which can be translated to monetized parameters such as infrastructure repair cost, cost of lost operational time, and outsourcing requirements (Bocchini et al., 2014). Similarly, Lizarralde et al. (2015) found in a literature review of civil infrastructure sustainability and resilience paradigms that the goals are best sought through a joint effort, citing the complexity of the agendas as the primary reason. In the field of community resilience (Lew et al., 2016), found that simultaneous implementation of sustainability and resilience by Taiwanese rural tourism communities resulted in higher scores on performance indicators, such as unemployment rate, support for the elderly, and education.
3. Discussion and conclusions Given the differences in definition, methodology, tools, and application domains for sustainability and resilience, no single management framework can be proposed to meet the needs of all stakeholders. However, existing implementation strategies in the literature can be categorized using three generalized frameworks that capture the objectives of sustainability and resilience: (1) resilience as a component of sustainability, (2) sustainability as a component of resilience, and (3) resilience and sustainability as separate objectives. Common efforts exist across disciplines and framework styles for implementing resilience and sustainability. These efforts include prioritizing sustainability and resilience objectives (Ahern, 2013; Bocchini et al., 2014), capitalizing on synergies (Redman, 2014; Ulanowicz et al., 2009), alleviating the negative impacts of conflicts (Derissen et al., 2011; Gasparini and Manfredi, 2014), and communicating efforts to stakeholders (Magis, 2010; Xu et al., 2015). The three frameworks identified in this review are informed by the lenses through which resilience and sustainability are viewed. Framework 1 is constructed through an institutional perspective, with resilience fitting within previously established institutional boundaries of sustainability. Framework 2 is focused on the subcomponents sustainability, and how being economically, socially, and ecologically sustainable makes a system more resilient. Framework 3 is informed by objective-oriented efforts, such that short term goals of resilience and sustainability can compete. Because of these different lenses, the similarities and differences between sustainability and resilience become partially framework-dependent.
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One important difference between sustainability and resilience is the temporal scale of implementation. Sustainability efforts are often understood on longer time scales than resilience. The primary objective of sustainability is to create desirable conditions for future generations (Meacham, 2016). Thus, the effects of sustainability policies may not directly influence present conditions, but may have substantial effects on future conditions. Resilience, on the other hand, is understood in many situations to apply to more immediate temporal scales (Lew et al., 2016; Mejia-Giraldo et al., 2012). Policies that increase the resilience of a system will protect the system in the short term from potential disturbances. Endeavors to prioritize resilience and sustainability objectives are important for all projects, especially large-scale efforts in which resources must be carefully allocated. Sustainability is described as prioritizing desired outcomes, and resilience as prioritizing processes (Bocchini et al., 2014; Park et al., 2013; Redman, 2014). Sustainability outcomes may be broadly categorized as enhanced human quality of life, advanced social equity, and increased environmental integrity (Redman, 2014). Achieving these outcomes for the present and future requires end-goal objectives. One way this works is by stakeholders and policy makers planning for a specific sustainability goal (e.g., resource conservation or waste minimization), and technical professionals altering the processes involved in order to achieve that goal. Alternatively, increasing resilience of a system involves maintaining processes and does not prescribe outcomes (Saunders and Becker, 2015). Resilience efforts promote the functionality of a feature or system during and after a disturbance and are understood to be a property of what the system does (Park et al., 2013). This suggests that a resilient approach does not involve choosing between alternative outcomes, but rather choosing a desired functional process. There is significant opportunity to develop sustainability practices that are more consistent with resilience methods. An example of this approach is to frame sustainability as a critical function of a project, policy, or system, which is to be maintained during and after a disturbance. This critical function may be represented as a combination of environmental, social, and economic indicators, or as a single holistic indicator such as the Human Development Index (HDI), which includes metrics for income, health, and education (Neumayer, 2001). Fig. 4 provides an illustration of how these indicators might be tailored to national sustainability objectives. Here, the emphasis is on evaluating and building the resilience of the sustainable components of a system and, by design, the less sustainable components would be more likely to fail during a disturbance, which creates additional opportunity for change. For
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example, by focusing investments on building resilience into low-impact energy systems (e.g., solar and wind) instead of coal or natural gas, the fossil-fuel generated energy would be more likely to fail in response to a disturbance. Later, the resources that would be used to repair those less sustainable system components can be focused on sustainable objectives. Increasing the resilience of social and economic systems could follow a similar practice. For example, telecommunication in many businesses and government agencies still includes analog telephone services because these phones are more resilient. However, analog telephones are more expensive to install and maintain. By increasing the resilience of digital or internet-based telephones, telecommunications systems could become more sustainable. Although indicators and indices can be useful in describing sustainability and resilience, the lack of weighted aggregation weakens the utility of indicators as a means of performance assessment. Although this literature review focused on peer-reviewed works and important government document, future work on comparing sustainability and resilience could include a thorough investigation of the grey literature and policy documents. This analysis was also weighted toward functional implementations of resilience and sustainability. Future work could include a more detailed analysis of the socio-cultural understanding of these concepts, such as the notion that resilience may mean different things to different social classes or that sociopolitical asymmetries between the Global North and the Global South may lead to differences between sustainability and resilience. This work summarizes and compares the different functional approaches to sustainability and resilience. By drawing conclusions from a wide breadth of applications, this analysis provides critical insights for the joint implementation of sustainability and resilience that can more effectively drive action and management. Hopefully, this will aid in future efforts to minimize conflicts and maximize synergies between sustainability and resilience. Appendix A. Definitions and literature review of sustainability and resilience A.1. Defining sustainability and resilience Discussions of sustainability and resilience can be confounded by the myriad of definitions that exist and the various uses of the two terms across disciplines. Some definitions of sustainability are vague and all
Fig. 4. Resilient response of example sustainability metrics to a disturbance.
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encompassing, such as “anything that ensures the wellbeing of societies and environments” (Lew et al., 2016) or “an ethical concept that things should be better in the future than they are at present” (Seager, 2008). Other definitions of sustainability are more narrow, such as “to maintain the status quo” (Lew et al., 2016). Still others view sustainability simply as longevity: the longer a system can be maintained, the more sustainable it is (Lew et al., 2016). The Brundtland Commission (1987) expanded on this concept of longevity in the report “Our Common Future”, to define sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This definition is vague in that “needs” may indicate different things in different situations. In this paper we use a definition that attempts to further identify these needs, the TBL definition. The TBL definition was established in 1997 as part of a sustainable business model, and defines sustainability as a combination of wellbeing as identified in social, economic, and environmental domains (Elkington, 1997). Although the TBL definition originated as a way to achieve responsible business success, we use it in a more general way to describe environmental sustainability with consideration for the social and economic wellbeing of people interacting with the environment. Similar to sustainability, there are multiple definitions of resilience across fields as varied as psychology, urban planning, and civil engineering (Linkov et al., 2014). Some of the heterogeneity in definitions arises from two diverging views of resilience, engineering resilience and ecological resilience (Folke and Gunderson, 2010). Engineering resilience, sometimes referred to as “bounce-back” resilience (Manyena et al., 2011), emphasizes that a resilient system is one that returns to its predisturbance state as quickly as possible. Alternatively, ecological definitions of resilience view systems as having multiple stable states or regimes, which the system can shift between as the result of a disturbance. Engineering resilience is applicable to systems operating within one stable state, while ecological resilience is applicable in systems with multiple stable states, such as ecosystems, socio-ecological systems, or information and energy networks (Folke and Gunderson, 2010; Redman, 2014). In this paper, we take the NAS view, which defines resilience as “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events” (National Research Council, 2012). This follows the ecological resilience paradigm because the inclusion of adaptation to adverse events allows for a change from one stable state to another. Additional definitions and examples of resilience can be accessed in the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) Resource Guide on Resilience (https://www.irgc.org/riskgovernance/resilience) (Florin and Linkov, 2016).
framework for both sustainability and resilience, as opposed to describing these concepts or documenting a case study. Further investigation into the body of some documents was necessary, as framework information was not always clear in the abstract. Additionally, we selected documents with relevant definitions of the key search terms, and omitted those items with unrelated definitions. For example, articles that define resilience as “the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, then release that energy upon unloading” were omitted due to the materials science nature of the definition and associated work. From this selection process, we found 37 items (Appendix B) that proposed frameworks for sustainability and resilience in relevant application areas. A.3. Classification scheme To assess trends in combined sustainability and resilience efforts, we analyzed and coded the 37 items found in the literature search. Articles were coded on several characteristics including management framework for sustainability and resilience, field of study, and definitions of resilience and sustainability. The management frameworks that we found are (1) resilience as a component of sustainability, (2) sustainability as a component of resilience, and (3) sustainability and resilience as separate conceptual objectives. These generalized frameworks are discussed in detail in Results Section of this work. The fields of study include community resilience, natural resource management, public policy, business, sustainability science, urban planning, supply chain management, civil infrastructure, and economics. Definitions of sustainability in each item was assessed based on the emphasis of some subset of the TBL, such that if environmental, social, or economic wellbeing was prioritized, we noted that prioritization. Definitions of resilience for each item was assessed on the inclusion of some subset of the ability of a system to absorb, recover, and adapt in response to disturbances. A.4. Trends in the literature There has been a general upward trend in the use of sustainability and resilience in recent literature. Fig. A.1 shows the publication years of the 196 documents found in the preliminary screening process, which include both sustainability and resilience as main topics of the works. The joint use of sustainability and resilience is increasing in recent years, suggesting that the concepts share common goals and similar approaches. This increasing interest in sustainability and resilience as combinatory topics serves as an indicator that organized and wellunderstood implementations are needed.
A.2. Literature search methodology To evaluate the state of the field, we completed a literature review using the Web of Science™. The initial search included the key terms sustainability and resilience, requiring that at least one of these key search terms be in the title of the item. This initial search limited publication years to between 1992 and 2016. We restricted the document type to journal articles, book chapters, and review articles, excluding other publications, such as letters, editorial materials, and meeting abstracts. In this initial search we found 1220 items. From the 1220 items found in the initial search, we performed a preliminary screening to eliminate items with focus areas that did not relate to management frameworks of sustainability and resilience. These omitted focus areas include healthcare, psychology, education, hunting, music, ecotourism, law, genetics, and housing. We also omitted documents that represent specific case studies of previous works. This preliminary screening yielded 196 items for further investigation. From these 196 items, we performed a summary analysis, including an evaluation of publication year, publication title, and reoccurring topics. To properly select the documents from the 196 items for further evaluation, we read the abstracts of those items identified in the screening process. We only considered articles that proposed a management
Fig. A.1. Sustainability and resilience publications. Each of these publications appear in applications areas related to environmental management and contain both sustainability and resilience as keywords, with at least one of the key words in the title. Hatching in 2016 represents that the analysis was completed before the end of that calendar year.
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A word cloud was constructed representing the 196 article titles found in the preliminary screening process of our literature review (Fig. A.2). In relation to sustainability and resilience, publications range from a variety of topics including water, systems, climate, development, urban areas, etc. These topics provide a snapshot of the use cases of joint application of sustainability and resilience.
Fig. A.2. Word cloud of sustainability and resilience article titles. This word cloud represents the 196 article titles found in the preliminary screening step of the associated literature review. Stop words and common English words (e.g., thinking) were removed from the word cloud.
The majority of the effort in sustainability and resilience publishing is found in engineering and science journals. Table A.1 presents the ten journals that have published the highest quantity of relevant work from the 196 items in our preliminary screening of the literature. Other notable focus areas with publications in resilience and sustainability include manufacturing and public policy. Table A.1 Top ten publishing journals in combined sustainability and resilience, 1994–2016. Journal title
Number of articles
Sustainability Ecology and Society Ecological Economics Sustainability Science Scientia Iranica Ambio Journal of Cleaner Production Landscape and Urban Planning Building Research and Information Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions
14 12 6 6 5 4 4 3 3 3
Appendix B. 37 relevant citations screened from literature search Ahern, J. 2011. From fail-safe to safe-to-fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world. Landscape and Urban Planning 100(4):341–343. Ahern, J. 2013. Urban landscape sustainability and resilience: the promise and challenges of integrating ecology with urban planning and design. Landscape Ecology 28(6):1203–1212. Ahi, P., and C. Searcy. 2013. A comparative literature analysis of definitions for green and sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production 52:329–341. Akamani, K. 2012. A community resilience model for understanding and assessing the sustainability of forest-dependent communities. Human Ecology Review 19(2):99–109.
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Anderies, J. M., C. Folke, B. Walker, and E. Ostrom. 2013. Aligning Key Concepts for Global Change Policy: Robustness, Resilience, and Sustainability. Ecology and Society 18(2):8. Asprone, D., and G. Manfredi. 2015. Linking disaster resilience and urban sustainability: A glocal approach for future cities. Disasters 39(s1):s96–s111. Avery, G. C., and H. Bergsteiner. 2011. Sustainable leadership practices for enhancing business resilience and performance. Strategy & Leadership 39(3):5–15. Bansal, P., and M. R. DesJardine. 2014. Business sustainability: It is about time. Strategic Organization 12(1):70–78. Berkes, F., and H. Ross. 2016. Panarchy and community resilience: Sustainability science and policy implications. Environmental Science & Policy 61:185–193. Blackmore, J. M., and R. A. J. Plant. 2008. Risk and resilience to enhance sustainability with application to urban water systems. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management-Asce 134(3):224–233. Bocchini, P., D. M. Frangopol, T. Ummenhofer, and T. Zinke. 2014. Resilience and Sustainability of Civil Infrastructure: Toward a Unified Approach. Journal of Infrastructure Systems 20(2):4,014,004. Chapin, F. S., G. P. Kofinas, and C. Folke. 2009. Principles of ecosystem stewardship: Resilience-based natural resource management in a changing world. Principles of Ecosystem Stewardship: Resilience-Based Natural Resource Management in a Changing World:1–409. Closs, D. J., C. Speier, and N. Meacham. 2011. Sustainability to support end-to-end value chains: the role of supply chain management. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 39(1):101–116. Collier, Z., Wang, D., Vogel, J.T., Tatham, E.K., Linkov, I., 2013. Sustainable roofing technology under multiple constraints: a decision analytic approach. Environment, Systems, Decisions 33, 261–271. Derissen, S., M. F. Quaas, and S. Baumgaertner. 2011. The relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems. Ecological Economics 70(6):1121–1128. Domptail, S., M. H. Easdale, and Yuerlita. 2013. Managing Socio-Ecological Systems to Achieve Sustainability: A Study of Resilience and Robustness. Environmental Policy and Governance 23(1):30–45. Fiksel, J., I. Goodman, and A. Hecht. 2014. Resilience: Navigating toward a Sustainable Future. Solutions:1–13. Folke, C., and L. Gunderson. 2010. Resilience and Global Sustainability. Ecology and Society 15(4):43. Hunt, J. 2009. Integrated policies for environmental resilience and sustainability. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Engineering Sustainability 162(3):155–167. Li, Y., and Z. F. Yang. 2011. Quantifying the sustainability of water use systems: Calculating the balance between network efficiency and resilience. Ecological Modelling 222(10):1771–1780. Lizarralde, G., K. Chmutina, L. Bosher, and A. Dainty. 2015. Sustainability and resilience in the built environment: The challenges of establishing a turquoise agenda in the UK. Sustainable Cities and Society 15:96–104. Magis, K. 2010. Community Resilience: An Indicator of Social Sustainability. Society & Natural Resources: An International Journal 23(5):401– 416. Manyena, S. B., S. B. Mutale, and A. Collins. 2008. Sustainability of rural water supply and disaster resilience in Zimbabwe. Water Policy 10(6):563–575. McEvoy, D., S. Lindley, and J. Handley. 2006. Adaptation and mitigation in urban areas: Synergies and conflicts. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Municipal Engineer 159(4):185–191. Meacham, B. J. 2016. Sustainability and resiliency objectives in performance building regulations. Building Research and Information 44(5– 6):474–489. Milman, A., and A. Short. 2008. Incorporating resilience into sustainability indicators: An example for the urban water sector. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions 18(4):758–767. Nhuan, M. T., L. T. T. Hien, N. T. H. Ha, N. T. H. Hue, and T. D. Quy. 2014. An integrated and quantitative vulnerability assessment for proactive
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hazard response and sustainability: a case study on the Chan May-Lang Co Gulf area, Central Vietnam. Sustainability Science 9(3):399–409. Ning, X., Y. Liu, J. Chen, X. Dong, W. Li, and B. Liang. 2013. Sustainability of urban drainage management: a perspective on infrastructure resilience and thresholds. Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering 7(5):658–668. Olsson, P., V. Galaz, and W. J. Boonstra. 2014. Sustainability transformations: a resilience perspective. Ecology and Society 19(4):1. Park, J., T. P. Seager, P. S. C. Rao, M. Convertino, and I. Linkov. 2013. Integrating risk and resilience approaches to catastrophe management in engineering systems. Risk Analysis 33(3):356–367. Pierce, J. C., W. W. Budd, and N. P. Lovrich. 2011. Resilience and sustainability in US urban areas. Environmental Politics 20(4):566–584. Redman, C. L. 2014. Should sustainability and resilience be combined or remain distinct pursuits? Ecology and Society 19(2):37. Saunders, W. S. A., and J. S. Becker. 2015. A discussion of resilience and sustainability: Land use planning recovery from the Canterbury earthquake sequence, New Zealand. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 14:73–81. Saxena, A., B. Guneralp, R. Bailis, G. Yohe, and C. Oliver. 2016. Evaluating the resilience of forest dependent communities in Central India by combining the sustainable livelihoods framework and the cross scale resilience analysis. Current Science 110(7):1195–1207. Seager, T. P. 2008. The Sustainability Spectrum and the Sciences of Sustainability 453(September):444–453. Seager, T., E. Selinger, and A. Wiek. 2012. Sustainable Engineering Science for Resolving Wicked Problems. Journal of Agricultural & Environmental Ethics 25(4):467–484. Ulanowicz, R. E., S. J. Goerner, B. Lietaer, and R. Gomez. 2009. Quantifying sustainability: Resilience, efficiency and the return of information theory. Ecological Complexity 6(1):27–36. Xu, L., D. Marinova, and X. Guo. 2015. Resilience thinking: a renewed system approach for sustainability science. Sustainability Science 10(1):123–138. References Ahern, J., 2011. From fail-safe to safe-to-fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world. Landscape and Urban Planning 100 (4), 341–343. Ahern, J., 2013. Urban landscape sustainability and resilience: the promise and challenges of integrating ecology with urban planning and design. Landsc. Ecol. 28:1203–1212. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-012-9799-z. Ahi, P., Searcy, C., 2013. A comparative literature analysis of definitions for green and sustainable supply chain management. J. Clean. Prod. 52:329–341. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.018. Akamani, K., 2012. A community resilience model for understanding and assessing the sustainability of forest-dependent communities. Human Ecology Review 19 (2), 99–109. Anderies, J.M., Folke, C., Walker, B., Ostrom, E., 2013. Aligning key concepts for global change policy: robustness, resilience, and sustainability. Ecol. Soc. 18:8–24. https:// doi.org/10.5751/es-05178-180208. Asprone, D., Manfredi, G., 2015. Linking disaster resilience and urban sustainability: a glocal approach for future cities. Disasters 39:s96–s111. https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12106. Avery, G.C., Bergsteiner, H., 2011. Sustainable leadership practices for enhancing business resilience and performance. Strateg. Leadersh. 39:5–15. https://doi.org/10.1108/ 10878571111128766. Bansal, P., DesJardine, M.R., 2014. Business sustainability: it is about time. Strateg. Organ. 12, 70–78. Berkes, F., Ross, H., 2016. Panarchy and community resilience: Sustainability science and policy implications. Environmental Science & Policy 61, 185–193. Blackmore, J.M., Plant, R.A.J., 2008. Risk and resilience to enhance sustainability with application to urban water systems. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. 134:224–233. https:// doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(2008)134:3(224). Bocchini, P., Asce, M., Frangopol, D.M., Asce, D.M., Ummenhofer, T., Zinke, T., 2014. Resilience and sustainability of civil infrastructure: toward a unified approach. J. Infrastruct. Syst. 20:1–16. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000177. Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J.M., Abel, N., 2001. From metaphor to measurement: resilience of what to what? Ecosystems 4, 765–781. Chapin, F.S., Kofinas, G.P., Folke, C., 2009. Principles of ecosystem stewardship: resiliencebased natural resource management in a changing world. Princ. Ecosyst. Steward. Resil.-Based Nat. Resour. Manag. Chang. World:1–409 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0387-73033-2. Chelleri, L., Waters, J.J., Olazabal, M., Minucci, G., 2015. Resilience trade-offs: addressing multiple scales and temporal aspects of urban resilience. Environ. Urban. 27, 181–198.
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