Expected start date:

2022/09/01

Expected end date:

2024/03/31

Institute:

UNU-FLORES

Project Status:

Ongoing

Project Type:

Research

Project Manager :

Saroj Kumar Chapagain

The Resource Nexus has been the subject of global attention since 2011, in conjunction with the growing recognition of interdependent nature of resources, and their value to sustainable development (Sarkodie & Owusu, 2020; Simpson et al., 2019). Numerous studies have contributed to the advancement of this domain over the past decade – many of which have been produced by UNU-FLORES. However, despite ample research and the great potential of this topic to support sustainable development, the resource nexus as a concept still faces challenges in terms of its realisation,and has yet to be fully integrated in policy planning. These challenges have emphasised the need for analytical research to explore possibilities to effectively translate the resource nexus into applications (i.e., operationalisation/realisation)

Sustainability assessment provides a valuable analytical viewpoint that can be utilised to support the operationalisation of the resource nexus concept (e.g., Avellán et al. 2019). Moreover, sustainability assessment can impart an important first step toward the establishment of an evaluative approach to enable a deep understanding of the resource nexus – particularly considering the sustainability-related risks posed by an unbalanced nexus (Yi et al. 2020). The short and long-term implementation of sustainability assessment is fundamental to a comprehensive understanding of the interdependencies of natural resources and to stimulate policy creation for resource management that considers social, economic, and environmental dimensions, without disregarding other facets, such as technical, institutional, and cultural (e.g., Balkema et al. 2002; Waas et al. 2011).

This project aims to review past and on-going research projects at UNU-FLORES through the lens of sustainability assessment. A specific focus will also be placed on exploring the relationship between resource nexus and sustainability assessment, and how these frameworks complement each other. The project will further explore new avenues of research on sustainability assessment and resource nexus in collaboration between UNU-FLORES, BASF and PRISMA.