Paul-Marie Boulanger | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 19, 1950 |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Education | University of Strasbourg, Leuven |
Paul-Marie Boulanger is a Belgian sociologist active in the study of sustainable development and consumption.
Paul-Marie Boulanger | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | March 19, 1950 |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Education | University of Strasbourg, Leuven |
Paul-Marie Boulanger is a Belgian sociologist active in the study of sustainable development and consumption.
Paul-Marie Boulanger received his degrees in sociology from the University of Strasbourg and that of Leuven. His work at the Demography Department of the Catholic University of Leuven focused on demographic, social security and labour market, [1] [2] while when working at the European Agency for Development and Health he was concerned – also as responsible of the Agency’s information system – with food security and famine prevention in Africa. [3] Paul-Marie Boulanger is one of the founders of the Institute for Sustainable Development (Belgium) where he worked since 1996 on sustainable development and transitions. Between 1999 and 2016 he was president of the Institute. Several of his papers are in the theory of sustainable development and consumption. [4] [5] His work on models for sustainable development [6] has been used by several authors. [7] [8] Boulanger also worked on social indicators of human well-being, [9] models and methods for decision support, [10] and climate change. [11] [12] As discussed in, [13] Boulanger gave a contribution to the theory of composite indicators, [9] [10] including an analysis of the scarce traction of indicators of development meant to unseat GDP as a measures of progress.
He also studies the application of the theories on Niklas Luhmann, such as to science’s reproducibility crisis [14] and to interpreting the present pandemic. [15]
I = (PAT) is the mathematical notation of a formula put forward to describe the impact of human activity on the environment.
The ecological footprint measures human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks human demand on nature through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use to satisfy their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region, nation, or the world (biocapacity). Biocapacity is the productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature. Therefore, the metric is a measure of human impact on the environment. As Ecological Footprint accounts measure to what extent human activities operate within the means of our planet, they are a central metric for sustainability.
Genuine progress indicator (GPI) is a metric that has been suggested to replace, or supplement, gross domestic product (GDP). The GPI is designed to take fuller account of the well-being of a nation, only a part of which pertains to the size of the nation's economy, by incorporating environmental and social factors which are not measured by GDP. For instance, some models of GPI decrease in value when the poverty rate increases. The GPI separates the concept of societal progress from economic growth.
Post-normal science (PNS) was developed in the 1990s by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz. It is a problem-solving strategy appropriate when "facts [are] uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent", conditions often present in policy-relevant research. In those situations, PNS recommends suspending temporarily the traditional scientific ideal of truth, concentrating on quality as assessed by internal and extended peer communities.
Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the idea of fairness or justice between generations. The concept can be applied to fairness in dynamics between children, youth, adults, and seniors. It can also be applied to fairness between generations currently living and future generations.
Sustainability metrics and indices are measures of sustainability, and attempt to quantify beyond the generic concept. Though there are disagreements among those from different disciplines, these disciplines and international organizations have each offered measures or indicators of how to measure the concept.
Sustainability science first emerged in the 1980s and has become a new academic discipline. Similar to agricultural science or health science, it is an applied science defined by the practical problems it addresses. Sustainability science focuses on issues relating to sustainability and sustainable development as core parts of its subject matter. It is "defined by the problems it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs" and "serves the need for advancing both knowledge and action by creating a dynamic bridge between the two".
Degrowth is an academic and social movement critical of the concept of growth in gross domestic product as a measure of human and economic development. Degrowth theory is based on ideas and research from a multitude of disciplines such as economics, economic anthropology, ecological economics, environmental sciences, and development studies. It argues that the unitary focus of modern capitalism on growth, in terms of the monetary value of aggregate goods and services, causes widespread ecological damage and is not necessary for the further increase of human living standards. Degrowth theory has been met with both academic acclaim and considerable criticism.
Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions : environmental, economic, and social. Many definitions emphasize the environmental dimension. This can include addressing key environmental problems, including climate change and biodiversity loss. The idea of sustainability can guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels. A related concept is that of sustainable development, and the terms are often used to mean the same thing. UNESCO distinguishes the two like this: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal, while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."
Demographic economics or population economics is the application of economic analysis to demography, the study of human populations, including size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.
Sustainability measurement is a set of frameworks or indicators to measure how sustainable something is. This includes processes, products, services and businesses. Sustainability is difficult to quantify. It may even be impossible to measure. To measure sustainability, the indicators consider environmental, social and economic domains. The metrics are still evolving. They include indicators, benchmarks and audits. They include sustainability standards and certification systems like Fairtrade and Organic. They also involve indices and accounting. And they can include assessment, appraisal and other reporting systems. These metrics are used over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Sustainability measures include corporate sustainability reporting, Triple Bottom Line accounting. They include estimates of the quality of sustainability governance for individual countries. These use the Environmental Sustainability Index and Environmental Performance Index. Some methods let us track sustainable development. These include the UN Human Development Index and ecological footprints.
Traditionally, market orientation (MO) focuses on microenvironment and the functional management of an organisation. However, contemporary organisations have widened their focus to incorporate more roles, functions and emphasis on the macro environment. Firms have been concerned with short run success and often not taken into account the long-run ecological, social and economic effects from their activities. Despite growth in the MO concept, there is still a need to reconceptualise the concept with a greater emphasis on external factors that influence a firm.
Hans Emiel Aloysius Bruyninckx is a Belgian political scientist and international relations scholar specialized in international environmental governance and European environmental politics. He has headed the European Environment Agency since 2013. While in this position, he is on leave from his posts as Professor of International Relations and Global Environmental Governance, Institute for International and European Policy; and Director, Research Institute for Work and Society, both at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Saadi Lahlou is Professor in Social Psychology, in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics. He conducts and publishes research in the areas of social psychology, consumer behaviour, survey and forecast methods, lexical analysis, cognition and design. He is the Director of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study
In statistics and research design, an index is a composite statistic – a measure of changes in a representative group of individual data points, or in other words, a compound measure that aggregates multiple indicators. Indexes – also known as composite indicators – summarize and rank specific observations.
Silvio O. Funtowicz is a philosopher of science active in the field of science and technology studies. He created the NUSAP, a notational system for characterising uncertainty and quality in quantitative expressions, and together with Jerome R. Ravetz he introduced the concept of post-normal science. He is currently a guest researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), University of Bergen (Norway).
The Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) conducts research and fosters dialogue about how the global commons, such as the atmosphere and the oceans, might be used and shared by many yet nevertheless be protected. In 2021, the International Center for Climate Governance ranked MCC among the top ten think tanks worldwide for the fourth consecutive year.
Sustainable Development Goal 14 is about "Life below water" and is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. The official wording is to "Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development". The Goal has ten targets to be achieved by 2030. Progress towards each target is being measured with one indicator each.
Sensitivity analysis studies the relationship between the output of a model and its input variables or assumptions. Historically, the need for a role of sensitivity analysis in modelling, and many applications of sensitivity analysis have originated from environmental science and ecology.
Andrea Saltelli is an Italian scholar studying quantification with statistical and sociological tools, extending the theory of sensitivity analysis to sensitivity auditing. Andrea worked on physical chemistry, environmental statistics, impact assessment and science for policy. He is currently Counsellor at the UPF Barcelona School of Management.
 | This article about a sociologist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |