Nicola Tollin1,3,*, Javier Alvarez del Castillo1, Charlotte Book2

1 2

UNESCO Chair of Sustainability, Technical University of Catalunya, ES Department of Environment, Municipality of Malmo, SE 3 Department of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK * Corresponding author: UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at Technical University of Catalunya, EUETIT. Colom 1. 08222 Terrassa. SPAIN Email: tollin@catunesco.upc.edu

SYSTEMS THINKING AND SYSTEM DYNAMICS IN EVALUATION OF SUSTAINABILITY: The Case Study of SYNAPS World
In this article we will argue that system thinking and system dynamics can be very effective in the evaluation of sustainability, particularly in ex-ante evaluation based on the participation to the decision making through a learning process able to interlink information, knowledge and awareness. The article is divided in three sections, the first contains a review of EU policy framework, with reference to evaluation of sustainability and focusing on participation and decision making processes. The second part is describing briefly the evolution of the general system theory, system dynamics and system thinking, highlighting the importance of the use of system based methods and tools in relation with evaluation of sustainability. The third part presents a case study on a system thinking method, integrated with a web tool, called SYNAPS World, developed in the region of Skane in southern Sweden. The article finally defines the possible further development of this method with reference to his use to empower governance in evaluation of sustainability. Key words: system thinking, system dynamic, evaluation of sustainability, governance, decision making

Evaluation of sustainability: the EU policy perspective

Sustainable development it not a final state of the system but it is a dynamic process with multiple dimensions (society, economy and ecology), multiple scale implications (local, regional, national, global) and time perspectives (short, medium and long term). Thereby policies, plans and actions, following sustainable development principles, have to face a great complexity and uncertainty, for which reason it is not possible to define a priori one single sustainable best solution, but it is necessary to evaluate all possible alternatives, within their complex positive and negative implications, through a decision making process that should be highly participative. The importance of evaluation and of a participative decision making process, based on sound information and knowledge, is highly considered also within EU policies.

1.1

The Strategy for Sustainable Development -SSD- 2001

The European Commission in 2001 presents the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development SSD- (EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2001) that has been approved by the European Council in Gothenburg, the SSD is based on the work of World Commission for Environment and Development Brundtland Report(BRUNDTLAND G. ED., 1987) and the United Nations Rio Declaration (UN, 1992b). The aim of the SSD is to complete and balance the Lisbon Strategy (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2000) set by European council in 2000 that aimed to a dynamic knowledge based economy and to a greater social cohesion. The SSD recall the key role played by public administration is having in defining a long term policies but also the importance of individual citizens and businesses in terms of action and practice. Particularly it is recognized the need to assess the effects of policies and their impact on environment, economy and society, within multiple time and scale perspective, on the base of sound information especially dealing with risk and uncertainness. The SSD focuses also on the importance of the sense of ownership that individuals and communities should have in relation to sustainable development, through a sense of responsibility and the will to get actively involved in decision making processes. It is clear that the SSD does not define precise targets, but only strategic options, also calling for a close relation with the strategy for sustainable development of the member states. Although the implementation of this strategy at national level is kept on a voluntary base, it is necessary to state the importance of these recommendations.

1.2

The 6th Environment Action Programme -EAP- 2002-2012

The European Parliament and the Council of European Union adopted in 2002 the 6th Community Environment Action Programme (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2002), for the period 2002-2012. The EAP scope is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development and to promote the integration of environmental concern in all the policies of the Community; furthermore it identifies the improvement of understanding and the participation in environmental issues amongst citizens as key strategic approach, which should be obtained through: - Insuring access to information, participation and justice through early ratification of the Aarhus Convention by the Community and Member States - Supporting the provision of accessible information to citizen on the state and trends of the environment in relation to social, economic and health trends - General raising of environmental awareness - Developing general rules and principles for good environmental governance in dialog process The Programme states also that the environmental policy making process should be improved through:

ex-ante evaluation off the possible impacts, in particular the environmental impacts of new policies including the alternative of no action and the proposal for legislation and publication of results - ex-post evaluation of the effectiveness of existing measures in meeting their environmental objectives. In brief the Programme focuses very strongly on the importance of participation and governance, which should be based on sound and accessible information and on an integrated evaluative approach, ex-ante and ex-post, also with attention to monitoring mechanisms and the development of sets of indicators.

1.3

The Reviewed Sustainable Development Strategy -SDS- 2006

The European Council adopted in 2006 the Reviewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy SDS (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2006), trying to bridge the gap in between the environmental perspective given by the 6th Environmental Action Programme and by the Lisbon Programme (EUROPAN COMMISSION, 2005), approved by the European Council in 2005 as review of the Lisbon Strategy from 2000 (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2000), on the base of the midterm report Facing the Challenge edited by the High Level Group chaired by Wim Kok (KOK WIM ED., 2004). In fact the Lisbon Programme, although is mentioning fundamental the economic, social and environmental integrated dimensions, in practice focuses more strongly on growth and employment, due to the clear recommendations given by Koks report, making mandatory the development of national action programmes with specific focus on growth and jobs. It is then clear the importance of SDS to counter balance the Lisbon programme through the change of our present consumption/production patterns and of the integration of policy making, which requires urgently short term actions maintaining a long term perspective. The SDS defines clear principle to move toward a sustainable development; inter alia it is possible to recall the most important ones in relation to the evaluation of sustainability and participative decision making process: - Open and democratic society: guarantee citizens rights of access to information and ensure access to justice. Develop adequate consultation and participatory channels for all interested parties and associations. - Involvement of citizens: enhance the participation of citizens in decision-making. Promote education and public awareness of sustainable development. Inform citizens about their impact on the environment and their options for making more sustainable choices. - Involvement of businesses and social partners: enhance the social dialogue, corporate social responsibility and private-public partnerships to foster cooperation and common responsibilities to achieve sustainable consumption and production. - Policy coherence and governance: promote coherence between all European Union policies and coherence between local, regional, national and global actions in order to enhance their contribution to sustainable development. - Policy integration: promote integration of economic, social and environmental considerations so that they are coherent and mutually reinforce each other by making full use of instruments for better regulation, such as balanced impact assessment and stakeholder consultations. - Precautionary principle: Where there is scientific uncertainty, implement evaluation procedures and take appropriate preventive action in order to avoid damage to human health or to the environment. Basically the SDS recalls the importance of an integrated frame of evaluation of sustainability along the policy making process, assessing the impact of all the possible alternatives, including the non action, and an ex-post assessment of the obtained results, stressing the importance of public and stakeholders participation. Furthermore the SDS highlights the importance of education and training to build the knowledge society, referring particularly to the change of consumption/production pattern

and the construction of a responsible global citizenship, following the principles stated under the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The SDS recognizes the importance of regional and local level, particularly of urban areas, in the achievement of sustainability, and the importance of the implementation of Local Agenda 21 (UN, 1992a) and of the Aalborg Commitments (ICLEI, 2004). Most important, in relation with the present analysis, is the following statement there is still a strong need for further research in the interplay between social, economic and ecological systems, and in methodologies and instruments for risk analysis, back- and forecasting and prevention systems Furthermore it is important to notice that the SDS claims again the commitment for the full implementation of Aarhus Convention Access to Information, Public Participation in Decisionmaking and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, which is not stricto senso an EU policy but has been approved by the European Commission in 2005, although not ratified yet, and approved and/or ratified by the majority of the European Union members government (UN ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE, 2000).

1.4

The Aarhus Convention

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECE adopted in 1998 in Aarhus , during the 4th Ministerial Conference Environment for Europe, the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (UN ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE, 1998). The Aarhus convention aims to define measures to guarantee the right of present and future generation to live in an adequate environment for their well being and health, these measures are expressed within the following key articles: - Article: Access to Environmental Information - Article: 5 Collection and Dissemination of Environmental Information - Article: 6 Public Participation in Decisions on Specific Activities - Article: 7 Public Participation Concerning Plans, Programmes and Policies Relating to the Environment - Article: 8 Public Participation During the Preparation of Executive Regulations and/or Generally Applicable Legally Binding Normative Instruments - Article: 9 Access to Justice These measures refer directly to some of the principles of the United Nations Rio Declaration, particularly the principle 10 that call for the participation of all concerned citizen in decision making related to environmental issues, and on the base of an appropriate access to information. Furthermore the Convention defines that the participation to decision making should be granted to all natural or legal persons, including their associations, that are effected or likely to be affected, or having an interest in environmental matters, this include directly all NGO with environmental concern. The Aarhus Convention principles are already partially integrated in EU directives, as for example with regard to the article 6 Public Participation In decisions on Specific Activities that has been integrated in the Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment of 1985 (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 1985) through the amendment of the Directive 2003/35/EC (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2003), and the article 7 Public Participation Concerning Plans, Programmes and Policies Relating to the Environment that has been integrated by the Directive on Strategic Environment Assessment (EUROPEAN COUNCIL, 2001).

1.5

Toward Evaluation of Sustainability

The European Union through the environment and sustainable development policy frame seems to recognize, although not completely implementing, the use of an integrated frame for evaluation of sustainability, which should include:

Ex-ante evaluation: to assess alternatives and possible impacts of policies, programmes and plans. With reference to the Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment. - Monitoring: to follow all phases of implementation, also through the definition of performance indicators. - Ex-post evaluation: to assess the effectiveness of the measure in reaching their objectives. With reference to the Directive on Environmental Impact Assessment. It I clearly acknowledged the need of a full participative decision making process, related particularly to the ex-ante evaluation and with reference to the precaution principle, that involve actively the citizens on the base of the provision of sound information, and also aimed to strength awareness and commitment toward sustainable development. In fact the participation in is just not a mere instrument to build consensus but it is a learning process that should strength the interplay between information, knowledge and awareness and lead to effective and responsible actions. Furthermore there is a need to integrate sustainable development principles in all decision making processes, and for this reason the information itself may not be sufficient and need strong understanding (knowledge) and awareness. Sustainable development it is not a final defined stat but a process that, dealing both with uncertainness and complexity, is subject to values based appreciations(FUNTOWICZ SILVIO O. et al., 1993), thereby, here it is argued that the governance by evaluation of sustainability should be structured as a learning process with the support of methods to know and be aware of our system of reference and its complex dynamics, in order to be able to decide in between different alternative possible decisions.

Systemic Lerning Process

A systems restructure and re-thinking of our knowledge it is needed to face and to manage rapidly increasing challenges we are facing and their intrinsic unpredictability, aware that our patterns of growth are un-sustainable; as acknowledge by UNESCOs project Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 1997) and (MORIN E., 1999) that defines how a systemic approach can give to decision makers a strong support in evaluation toward sustainable development. Uncertainness and future unpredictability need a strong preparation of decision makers in facing and dealing with changes, requiring and additional ability and appropriated instruments to acquire constantly new information and to adjust and to modify the responses to it (ALCAMO JOSEPH et al., 1996) for these reasons systemic learning process can be an useful support for decision makers to restructure and re-organise both knowledge and thinking patterns, in integrated evaluation of sustainability.

2.1

System dynamics

The foundation of the general system theory can be tracked back in Vienna at the beginning of 20th century, here Paul Weiss defined a system as a complex composed by inner part and in relation with an external environment, that reacts to the changes of its parts through inverse changes, aiming at the stability through adaptation to the change of its conditions; acknowledging the interconnection between the system and the total context. In the same years Ludwig von Bertalanffy (BERTALANFFY VON K.L., 1962) defined the system as a set of elements related in between each other and with the environment, giving a non behavioural interpretation of the system unlikely Weisss one, retaken by the following theories of Arthur Koestler (KOESTLER A., 1978) who defined the system as hierarchical and multileveled composed by semi-autonomous sub-elements, and not as a simple summa of elementary parts and behaviours (DRACK M. et al., 2007). Systems dynamics has been developed during the last 45 years, based on the work of his founder Jay Forrester (FORRESTER J.W., 1968) it is based on the analysis of systems as composed by interrelated elements which are transformed through time both in their own

essence and interrelation. Systems dynamic aims to understand the systems through the complex interrelation between its elements within the whole, and to simulate its future development. For this reason the main focus of systems dynamics it is to understand and analyse the feedback loops between the systems part, and with the exterior systems, in order to understand the dynamic behaviour of the system within its contextual relations. System dynamics, and the models from here derived, offer the possibility not just to collect information about single elements but to structure knowledge and understanding of the elements of the systems and their dynamics (MARTI GARCIA J., 2004) giving, for this reason, an important support for decision makers in a post-normal science era (FUNTOWICZ SILVIO O. et al., 1994), defined by the importance and the magnitude of the stakes in relation with increasing degrees of uncertainness and complexity.

2.2

System thinking

Also in the 70s, Peter Checkland (CHECKLAND P. B., 1981)defined the System Thinking as aimed to analyze the behaviour of the system through the relations which occur in-between its structural elements, helping to understand the structure of the same system and the logic regulating its changes. System thinking it is a non-numerical logic used to analyze the and understand the system behaviour and for this reason, being a soft system methodology, is particularly indicated for system whereas it is central the human behave, being used particularly as management methodology (MARTI GARCIA J., 2004) A further development of system thinking, with reference to management, is given by Peter Senge (SENGE P. M., 1990) who interlinks system thinking with learning processes and learning organizations, aiming at the understanding of complexity, through global approach, here intended as the relation between the whole and the parts. Senge listed the 5 disciplines needed for a learning organization: - Building shared vision - Mental models - Team learning - Personal mastery - Systems thinking and defined system thinking as a conceptual framework, associating knowledge and tools, which integrate the other four disciplines. The effectiveness in the use of system thinking in decision making process that have to deal with complex systems and problems, has been proved both theoretically (BARRY RICHMOND, 1993). and practically (CAVALERI S et al., 1997) and (HUZ S. et al., 1997)and it is also argued that the understanding of the system structure it is necessary before to plan any strategy or action in order to achieve better performances (MAANI K.E. et al., 2004)Furthermore there are also evidences of the effectiveness in the use of a combination of system thinking and system dynamics in the case, referred to urban planning, reported by Rotmans (ROTMANS J. et al., 2000a) and(ROTMANS J. et al., 2000b). Summarizing it is possible to say that system dynamics analyzes the system behaviour through the use of numerical methods and models, in same cases with the use of specific software, aiming to forecast the system condition in the time through validated simulations that are normally computer based. For this reason it is possible to argue that system dynamic can be more useful for assessing the effects of the changes of the considered system, although, being based on expert models, limits the possible participation to the decision making process to the use of interfaces that do not allowed the actors to have a full control and understanding of the model and of the system itself. Instead system thinking can be considered a process methodology aimed to analyze the system behaviour, along a learning process actively performed through the interaction of different actors; a process that does not require a specific expertise or knowledge, although it needs the support of a facilitator and also the participation of experts,

and it is based more on the dialectic exchange of the different visions and set of values brought in by the actors involved.

The case study of SYNAPS World

SYNAPS World (SW)1 is a SYstems aNAlytical ProcesS oriented web based tool for sector integration, based on the principles of system thinking and aimed to support decision making process; SW has been designed for being be adopted and adapted by any kind of organisation, anywhere in the world, that wants to better contribute to sustainable development. Key functions of SW, is the identification of positive synergy effects and conflicts between, social, environmental and economic issues along decision making processes, through the understanding of potential effect and impacts of every activity. SW is both a tools and a methods aimed to facilitate concretion of what it actually means to different organisations to work practically with sustainable development in their daily work, and has been developed following the urgent need to find ways to understand the principles of sustainable development and to bridge the gap between theory and practice in order to allow actors to follow these principles in their daily work. SYNAPS World has been developed in the south of Sweden in collaboration with the regional county council (Region Skne), the university of Lund and Malm, several NGOs such as Sustainable Development Skne, enterprises such as Epsilon, and several municipalities in Skne such as the city of Malm (south west of Skne), Trelleborg (south of Skne) and Kristianstad (south east of Skne). SW development has been driven by the common desire expressed by all this organizations: improve their work with sustainable development, through a strong and dynamic collaboration between different stakeholders. Many other organisations has been also associated with its development since the start in fall 2004 such as state agencies, like the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish International Development Agency, different county administrations and councils around Sweden; furthermore the development of SW is ongoing within the collaboration of international actors such as the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency, the Turkish Government. In fact, Turkish government has shown interest in the use of SW due to the participation in a UNDP project which focuses on integrating different political objectives into their daily work and on steering different decisions towards sustainable development. The Swedish International Development Agency, which has been working for several years together with the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency, has purposed the use of SD, through project aimed at the educating Chinese civil servants at the provincial level, in order to give them insight about tools and methods for sustainable development, such as Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) and other Integrated Impact Assessments (IIA) Private, public or non-governmental organisation, both large and small, should be able to use SW in order to plan their activities to strengthen their own competitiveness, contributing to sustainable development at the same time. As it is a process oriented tool, the emphasis is on increased sector cooperation and integration, illustrating in a concrete way how social, environmental and economic issues are mutually reinforcing and dependent upon each other and to suggest what this practically means to different organisations in their daily work.

3.1

Background

SW focuses on sector integration, whereby decision-makers can gain a greater understanding of the positive synergy effects and conflicts implicit in all kind of decision under SD principles, which requires the integration of a number of political objectives with each other and the active collaboration with different stakeholders.
1

The web based SYNAPS World tool test.temp1.wbsab.info/synaps2/Synapsinfo.html.

can

be

found

on

this

address

http://synaps-

At the moment the web based tool is available in Swedish, Danish and English, although in the near future SW will be translated to Turkish and Chinese, due to the interested that in these countries has been shown for adapting SW to their conditions and needs to work with sustainable development. SYNAPS World emerged to answer to the need of integrating the principles of sustainable development into an organisations daily work, implementation of which is commonly very challenged by the complexity and level of abstraction of the concept sustainable development itself. .Actors in Skne region, such as municipalities, enterprises, non-governmental, regional and state agencies had been working long time with the challenge of finding an approach that would allow them to work more effectively with sustainable development and integrate their issues in a wider perspective by increasing their collaboration with actors from other sectors. Actors in this region had begun to talk openly of the importance to achieve economic growth but not at the expense of the environment or social welfare and to start understanding that the solution for such development could only come through closer cooperation between different actors fostering different perspectives. The initiative behind SYNAPS World began in fall 2004 with the Skne Region being the main initiator, however the development and financing of SW has been made in collaboration with several municipalities, state agencies, enterprises and non-governmental organisations of this region, but also national and international actors. The main scope for the development of SYNAPS World was to encourage and enable different actors to find new work procedures, underpinned by the principles of sustainable development, work procedures that may allow actors to understand effectively how they can contribute to a better future through their activities, as well as strengthening their own competitiveness. The learning and the process concerned with an effective work procedure for sustainable development is thus central to organisations successful contribution to a sustainable society and is what contributes to real change in peoples mindset and behaviour. The Skne Region presented in 2004 The Regional Development Programme A dynamic Skne2, that has been prepared in close collaboration with the regions 33 municipalities, private and non-political organisations, forming together a regional partnerships. In fact, in Sweden it is mandatory for all regions to define a regional development programme, stating their contribution and future strategy toward sustainable development; all the regional development programmes refer to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development which in turn has its base on the EU policy and legislation and UN recommendations on sustainable development. Skne Region, in the frame of the regional development programme, acknowledged the need to draw and implement strategies aimed to integrate environmental, social and economic objectives, calling for the active contribution of all actors operating in the region. Since the beginning it was clear that this strategy should not be just a document but an operative mean to help effectively and operatively the actors in Skne region to move from rhetorics to action and starts working with sustainable development in a structured and concrete way. For this reason, a review on already available tools has been carried out by civil servants of Skne Region in collaboration with researchers from Lund University and LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies), reaching the conclusion that there were many tools that integrated

3.2

The use

SYNAPS World was designed on the base of The Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development economic, social and environmental3, and The Regional Development
The Regional Development Programme for Skne www.skane.se/upload/Webbplatser/RU/Dokument/RUP_Kortversion_ENG.pdf 3 The Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development: economic, social and environmental
2

Program of Skne. In the national strategy were presented 8 core areas considered especially significant for developing a sustainable Sweden, under these areas have been defined 40 key objectives that have been taken to draw the structure of SYNAPS World, Each objective was then enlisted within one of the three pillars of sustainable development ,for example the objective public health was categorized within the social dimension, sustainable consumption within the environmental dimension and sustainable economy was categorized within the economic dimension. After the categorization the objective of the Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development were compared with the prioritized objectives of the Skne Regional Development Program. However, the political objectives were categorized within 4 regional development goals; Growth, Attractiveness, Sustainability and Balance, it was found that every national prioritized objective for sustainable development was represented at the regional level in Skne as well. In order to adapt SYNAPS World to both the national level and the regional level in Skne, two versions of SYNAPS World were produced, one according to the categorization under the three dimensions of sustainable development and the other under the four regional development goals of Skne. The first stage of the tool is aimed to analyze how and to what extent different decisions and activities would potentially affect these different political objectives a scale, from minus 3 to plus 3, was added to each objective, giving users the ability to score their perception of both positive and negative effects and impacts. This representation technique is aimed to illustrate the very complex relations within and between different objectives, for example: if its believed that the construction of a new road will potentially affect public health (one of the key issue of the national and the regional strategies) very negatively, one would give this objective a score of minus 3, at the same time somebody else can argue that can be less harmful for public health if the road construction will prioritize the cycling paths and that best available technology for construction will be applied, reducing the emissions and lowering the noise pollution with consequent reduction of the negative effects on human health. Thus a score on the public health objective could be illustrated as having minus 3 and/or plus 2 , depending on the person carrying out the analysis as the score will be based on that persons subjective values within a more complex analysis and evaluation of the available alternatives. A critical argument against SYNAPS World is that it may be too dependent on subjective values although, its developers argue that ultimately all decisions are made by people, and people are subjective in nature, driven by values, norms, worldviews, culture, disciplines etc. The developers will also argue that there is no objective truth and that by applying a tool as SYNAPS World doesnt make the decision more subjective or misguided. On the contrary, by applying SYNAPS World and analyzing different possible alternatives it is possible to optimize the conditions for the realization of that decision. SYNAPS World aimed to give a final perfect solution and its achievement, but it is a process tool that is aimed to support participation in decision making process following the principle of sustainable development and integrating it within any kind of decision should be performed by an organization, both public and private. The scoring process is aimed to weight the different objectives but also to foster a dialectic interaction in between the actors involved aimed to reach a better and more holistic understanding of the system analyzed and its dynamic, in order to reach a decision along a learning process. The second stage is aimed to compensate and reinforce measures, whereby one may suggest measures to compensate the inevitable negative effect or to suggest measure that my further strengthen some positive effect. This stage also allows for identifying what actors one may have to cooperate with in order to optimize the positive effects of the decision. This is an important function with SYNAPS World, as this can generate concrete ideas on how to increase sector cooperation which is one of the cornerstones of this approach. Besides having clear reference to the national and regional strategy for sustainable development, SYNAPS World also has direct reference made to the UN Rio and Johannesburg conventions, the Lisbon Strategy and the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development. These
www.sweden.gov.se/environment

documents and also more sector specific ones, such as the regional growth program, public health program and the environmental program for Skne are directly linked with the tool making it very accessible to the user. This is the other core cornerstone in SYNAPS World and shows exactly what kind of political objectives that are prioritized for sustainable development attain the international, european, national, regional and local level. The political documents and objectives in SYNAPS World are not static, in fact it is possible for different organizations in different countries to add objectives, policy, strategies and programs that are more relevant for them. Finally, at the end of the tool there is a follow-up section whereby one may very freely state the level of ambition to make the follow-up. The idea is that if the level of ambition is predetermined by the tool that this may restrain more than it will encourage taking greater responsibility for ones activities. Therefore the different stages of SYNAPS World has a high level of flexibility, this is the third very important cornerstone in the approach as it contributes to the tools adaptability to so many different contexts and organizations. Time and geographical aspects are also important components of the tool in fact for the use of the tool it is demanded to start stating what object one is under analysis and also what time frame the analysis will cover (i.e. is it short-term or long-term and exactly how many years will the analysis look at potential effects upon? And finally what exactly is the geographical area in which the analysis will take place? Is it the local geographical area, regional, national or global?) These three parameters are absolutely fundamentally important to be established at the beginning of the analysis providing a common ground of reference for the participating actors. A typical session with SYNAPS World would include either different competences from different parts of the same organization or with different stakeholders representing different sectors and perspectives. Depending on what it is going to be analyzed the group composition may vary every time. It is important to base the group composition on a preliminary stakeholder analysis trying to understand which contribution each stakeholder can give to the process itself. It is also possible to make a SYNAPS World analysis on your own; however, such an analysis will only have a singular perspective but may be useful to get familiar with the system logic behind it and within the principle of sustainable development. Prior to the analysis, the facilitator will provide a short introduction to the tool and the method to the actors, in order to make the m familiar to the process, and along the session will try to strength the process contribution to real change in peoples behaviour and mindset when planning for more sustainable future.

3.3

Future Development

The key function of SYNAPS World is the identification of positive synergy effects and conflicts between, and within, policy making under the pillars of sustainable development, function which will ultimately facilitate decision-making processes to become more proactive in regard to sustainability issues. There is a growing consciousness amongst different actors of society around the world today that they need to gain a greater understanding of how their activities affect society and vice versa. It is then needed to find tools and methods that may facilitate concretion of what it actually means to different organisations to work practically with sustainable development in their daily work. Furthermore there is an urgent need to find ways of bridging the gap between theory and practice for sustainable development and to understand the principles of sustainable development in order to allow actors to practice these principles in their daily work. SYNAPS World is one such attempt and initiative developed in the south of Sweden, Skne. The immediate future development of SYNAPS World will be the technical functions that may enable different users and organizations to make it even more customizable to their needs. Finally, the follow-up section and ways of more clearly illustrating in graphics how and to what extent decisions may affect society will also be prioritized. More long-term development will be to combine SYNAPS World with SEA

10

Preliminary Findings

First of all should be reminded that SYNAPS World focuses in increasing the knowledge and the awareness about sustainable development principles and its practical implementation and use in every evaluative decision making process performed by a large share of actors from public, private and non governmental organizations, following the need and necessity expressed by these same actors. In order to achieve this objective SYNAPSE World is following the principles set by United Nations, trying to fulfil the EU policy frameset and guidelines, and it is directly referring to the national and regional strategic guidelines. SYNAPS World aims to the integration of sustainable development principles within a process oriented methodology, which strength and effectiveness lays within the actors learning process, meanwhile they are evaluating the multiple aspects (time frame, scale, SD principles) of an open set of possible alternative decisions. The tool itself is very open and flexible able to be adapted to different kind of needs, from private to public organizations, and different regional and local contexts. It can be advisable to perform a more structured metaevaluation on SYNAP World performance in order to understand the effective impact of the learning process in the daily decision making task of different actors, in order to provide a better view on its spin-off and on its possible further upgrade. In fact SYNAPS World could be possibly and effectively be upgraded through the addition of logic and numerical modeling, based on system dynamics, which can help the definition of the impacts of possible decisions through simulation, and can be very useful both in monitoring and in performing an ex-post evaluation of the achieved results, transforming itself in a fully integrated methodology for evaluation of sustainability, strengthening even more the link learning process and the goal achievement, on the base of a sound interlink between information, knowledge and awareness. A further understanding of the usability of SYNAPS World can be done using the finding of the project Practical Evaluation Tools for Urban Sustainability PETUS, that highlighted some key reasons for the use of tools for evaluation of sustainability (JENSEN J.O. et al., 2007). SYNAPSE World seems to respond both to a policy/legislation requirement and to a direct demand from public and private actors, furthermore the method and the tool are open, accessible and transparent. It is can also increase informed participation and involvement, with the interaction of actors from different sector and disciplines, and can give a good understanding of the possible match between a decision and the policy objective present in the regional and national legislation. A stronger legitimation of the SYNAPS World could be achieved, may be also the use of labelling, through the integration with simulation modeling techniques and a more sound option for monitoring and ex-post evaluation, and with metaevaluation of the tool achievement itself same improvement can be done in order to strength the background information delivered to the actors, even through the use of a show case of sustainable best practices or technologies. As preliminary statement it can be said that SYNAPS has moved an important step toward the support of a participative decision making processes, soundly based on sustainable development principles within international, national and regional policy frame, and that it shows a great potential for further implementation toward a fully integrated evaluation methodology for sustainable development, on the base of its already sound learning process aimed to the construction of a pertinent knowledge (MORIN E., 1999) that can define universal problems and particular solutions through a multi/trans disciplinary focus on both context and complex, framed in a time and scale perspective.

11

References

ALCAMO, J./KREILEMAN, E./LEEMANS, R. (1996) Global Models Meet Global Policy : How Can Global and Regional Modellers Connect With Environmental Policy Makers? What Has Hindered Them? What Has Helped?, Global Environmental Change 6, no. 4:255-259 BARRY, R. (1993) Systems Thinking: Critical Thinking Skills for the 1990s and Beyond, System Dynamics Review 9, no. 2:113-133 BERTALANFFY VON K.L. (1962) Modern Theories of Development, New York: Harper. BRUNDTLAND, G. ED. (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press. CAVALERI S/JOHN D. (1997) Towards Evaluation of Systems-Thinking Interventions: a Case Study, System Dynamics Review 13, no. 2:171-186 CHECKLAND, P. B. (1981) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, New York: John Wiley and Sons. DRACK, M./APFALTER, W. (2007) Is Paul A. Weiss' and Ludwig Von Bertalanffy's System Thinking Still Valid Today?, Systems Research and Behavioral Science 24, no. 5:537-546 EUROPAN COMMISSION (2005) Common Actions for Growth and Employment: The Community Lisbon Programme, COM(2005) 330 final. EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2001) A Sustainable Europe for a Better World: A European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development, COM(2001)264 final. EUROPEAN COUNCIL (1985) Directive 85/337/EEC (on the Assessment of the Effects of Certain Public and Private Projects on the Environment), Official Journal of the European Communities L 175, EUROPEAN COUNCIL (2001) DIRECTIVE 2001/42/EC (on the Assessment of the Effects of Certain Plans and Programmes on the Environment), Official Journal of the European Communities L 197/30, EUROPEAN COUNCIL (2003) Directive 2003/35/EC (Providing for Public Participation in Respect of the Drawing Up of Certain Plans and Programmes Relating to the Environment and Amending With Regard to Public Participation and Access to Justice), Official Journal of the European Communities L 156, EUROPEAN COUNCIL (2000) Presidency Conclusions, Lisbon European Council. EUROPEAN COUNCIL (2002) DECISION No 1600/2002/EC (Laying Down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme), Official Journal of the European Communities L 242/1, EUROPEAN COUNCIL (2006) Review of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy, 10917/06 FORRESTER J.W. (1968) Principles of Systems, Waltham: Pegasus Communications.

12

FUNTOWICZ, S. O./RAVETZ, J. R. (1993) Science for the Post-Normal Age, Futures 25, no. 7:739-755 FUNTOWICZ, S. O./RAVETZ, J. R. (1994) The Worth of a Songbird: Ecological Economics As a Post-Normal Science, Ecological Economics 10, no. 3:197-207 HUZ S./DAVID F.A. (1997) A Framework for Evaluating Systems Thinking Interventions: an Experimental Approach to Mental Health System Change, System Dynamics Review 13, no. 2:149-169 ICLEI (2004) Aalborg+10 Inspiring Future, http://www.aalborgplus10.dk/media/finaldraftaalborgcommitments.pdf. Last access: 10-22008 JENSEN J.O./ELLE M. (2007) Exploring the Use of Tools for Urban Sustainability in European Cities, Indoor and Built Environment 16, no. 3:235-247 KOESTLER A. (1978) Janus: A Summing Up, London: Hutchinson. KOK, W. ED. (2004) Facing the Challenge: The Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment, Brussels: European Communities. MAANI K.E./MAHARAJ V. (2004) Links Between Systems Thinking and Complex Decision Making, System Dynamics Review 20, no. 1:21-48 MARTI GARCIA J. (2004) Sysware, Barcelona: Marti. MORIN E. (1999) Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future, Paris: UNESCO. ROTMANS J./VAN ASSELT M. (2000a) Towards an Integrated Approach for Sustainable City Planning, Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 9, no. 1-3:110-124 ROTMANS J./VAN ASSELT M./VELLINGA P. (2000b) An Integrated Planning Tool for Sustainable Cities, Environmental Impact Assessment Review 20, no. 3:265-276 SENGE, P. M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization., New York: Doubleday/Currency. UN (1992a) Agenda 21, New York: UN. UN (1992b) Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, New York: UN. UN ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE (2000) The Aarhus Convention: An Implementation Guide, New York, Geneve: UN. UN ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE (1998) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, Aarhus: UNECE. UNESCO (1997) Education for a Sustainable Future: A Transdisciplinary Vision for Concerted Actions, Paris: UNESCO.

13