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Research Paper
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INTRODUCTION society (Robinson and Tinker, 1997). Unsustain-
l
,
,
oping public policies to address these challenges,
Systems Research and Behavioral Science
Syst. Res.27, 446 ^460 (2010)
Published online inWiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI:10.1002/sres.1041
tal and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Cieˆncias e Engen-the persisting negative trends bring about a sense
of urgency and require short-term action, whilst
haria do Ambiente, Faculdade de Cieˆncias e Tecnologia, Universidade
Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
E-mail: nmvc@fct.unl.ptThe pursuit of sustainability goals requires the
understanding of the dynamics of three inter-
acting, interconnected and overlapping prime
systems: the biosphere, the economy and human
able development trends still persist in relation to
many issues such as climate change and energy
use, threats to public health, poverty and socia
exclusion, demographic pressure and ageing
societies, management of natural resources
biodiversity loss, transport and land use (CEC
2006). While many countries have been devel-
* Correspondence to: Nuno Videira, CENSE, Center for Environmen-Keywords participatory modelling; integrated sustainability assessment; system dynamics;
public participationCopSeveral authors have described the usefulness of participatory system dynamics
approaches in environmental decision-making processes, particularly in supporting
problem scoping and policy analysis. This paper explores how these approaches may
be expanded to provide a coherent, deliberative platform, which structures Integrated
Sustainability Assessments (ISA) of policy proposals. The proposed ISA framework forms
a five-stage feedback and learning process including scoping, visioning, model building,
simulation/assessment and monitoring. We discuss these elements considering a set of
best practice principles for participation in environmental assessment and decision
making. Subsequently, we lay out a roadmap for implementing and testing the frame-
work. We conclude that participatory modelling has a strong potential for supporting ISA
processes. It allows stakeholders to build alternative policies, to reflect on their long-term
dynamics, and to gain insights on the interrelationships underlying persistent sustain-
ability problems. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Ambiente, Faculdade de Cieˆncias e Tecnologia, UniveSE, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Cieˆncias e Engenharia do
rsidade Nova de Lisboa, PortugalNuno Videira
*
, Paula Antunes, Rui Santos and Rita LopesA Participatory Mod
Support Integrated S
Assessment Processeyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.lling Approach to
stainabilityReceived May 2009
Accepted February 2010

maintaining the need for adopting a longer-term
be
an
tion. This project aims at developing and
integratedassessments, aspresented inTable 1.To
Syst. Res. RESEARCH PAPERment’ (Weaver and Rotmans, 2006: p.284). Rot-
mans (2006) argues that it is difficult for a single
tool to grasp all ISA dimensions, and calls for
flexible approaches to linking elements together.
In this paper we present a conceptual frame-
work for ISA, developed within the scope of the
SUSTAINAMICS (‘Dynamic Modelling for Inte-
grated Sustainability Assessment’) research pro-
ject, funded by the Portuguese Science Founda-
Copyright
2010 JohnWiley & Sons,Ltd.to pInr a specific context is developed and applied in
integratedmanner in order to explore solutions
ersistent problems of unsustainable develop-wh
foning, experimenting, and learning through
ich a shared interpretation of sustainability‘cyc
sio08).
Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) is a
lical, participatory process of scoping, envi-(W
20anding of the dynamics and interrelationships
tween social, economic and ecological systems
eaver and Rotmans, 2006; Weaver and Jordan,pro
stperspective (CEC, 2006).
Sustainability issues generally involve com-
plex scientific and technical aspects and a wide
array of scientific uncertainty, value conflicts,
ecosystem dynamics and social dynamics (Stave,
2002). After more than 20 years of debate there
seems to be a broad consensus regarding over-
arching goals of sustainability policies, namely
(Gasparatos et al., 2007):

integrate economic, environmental, social and
institutional issues as well as their interde-
pendencies;

consider the consequences of present actions
well into the future;

acknowledge the existence of uncertainties
concerning the result of our present actions
and act with a precautionary bias;

actively engage the public and relevant
stakeholders in assessment and decision-mak-
ing processes;

include equity considerations (intra and inter-
generational).
Furthermore, sustainability literature has
increasingly acknowledged that new methods
and tools are needed to support assessment
cesses, in order to gain an improved under-tegrated Sustainability Assessment Processproduce transformational outcomes, ISA pro-
cesses focus on how the relationships underlying
undesirable trends may be changed, and not
directly on the impacts of a previously defined
proposal, as occurs in other IA conceptions.
Syst. Res.27, 446^460 (2010)implementing an innovative participatory model-
ling methodology to support ISA of emerging
policies, plans or programmes addressing the
pressing sustainability challenges faced by our
society.
SETTING THE CONTEXT
Integrated Sustainability Assessment:
Concepts and Main Challenges
The complexity surrounding sustainability issues
calls for an integrated approach to science,
education, policy and management that trans-
cends existing disciplinary and mental bound-
aries. Integrated Assessment (IA) consists of a
transdisciplinary process of structuring elements
from various disciplines and sources of knowl-
edge. In IA all relevant aspects of a complex
societal problem are considered in their mutual
coherence for the benefit of decision making
(Rotmans, 1999). IA provides a blueprint for
understanding and solving complex issues; it
may be regarded as a way of systems thinking
which tries to balance the ‘triple bottom line’ of
ecology, economics and sociology (Harris, 2002).
Different IA conceptions have been developed,
some of which have capitalized on the tradition of
formal environmental assessment processes (e.g.
Environmental Impact Assessment—EIA and
Strategic Environmental Assessment—SEA). Ot-
her approaches have extended IA to explicitly
integrate social and economic dimensions (e.g.
Sustainability Impact Assessment—SIA).
Within this evolutionary context, ISA has been
recently presented as the next generation of IA
frameworks (Pope et al., 2004). ISA is described as
a process by which the sustainability implications
of aproposedundertakingare evaluated (Paehlke,
2004). ISA has particular features which differen-
tiate it from EIA-driven and from objectives-ledDOI:10.1002/sres
447