Social values and sustainable development: community experiences

Walter Leal Filho; Vanessa Levesque; Subarna Sivapalan; Amanda Lange Salvia; Barbara Fritzen; Ronald Deckert; Valerija Kozlova; Todd Jared LeVasseur; Kay Emblen-Perry; Ulisses M Azeiteiro; Arminda Paço; Bruno Borsari; Chris Shiel

doi:10.1186/s12302-022-00641-z

Social values and sustainable development: community experiences

Environ Sci Eur. 2022;34(1):67. doi: 10.1186/s12302-022-00641-z. Epub 2022 Aug 9.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chester Street, Manchester, M11 5GD UK.
² European School of Sustainability Science and Research, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Ulmenliet 20, D-21033 Hamburg, Germany.
³ Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Southern Maine, 106 Bailey Hall, 37 College Ave, Gorham, ME 04038 USA.
⁴ School of Education, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia.
⁵ Graduate Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Passo Fundo, Campus I - BR 285, Passo Fundo, São José, RS 99052-900 Brazil.
⁶ Dekan Fachbereich Technik, HFH · Hamburger Fern-Hochschule, Alter Teichweg 19, 22081 Hamburg, Germany.
⁷ Faculty of Business and Economics, RISEBA University of Applied Sciences, Meza Street 3, Riga, 1048 Latvia.
⁸ College of Charleston, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Sustainability Literacy Institute, Charleston, USA.
⁹ Department of Management and Finance, Worcester Business School, University of Worcester, Worcester, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Biology and CESAM - Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
¹¹ NECE-UBI (Research Centre for Business Sciences), Universidade da Beira Interior, Rua Marquês D'Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal.
¹² Department of Biology, Winona State University, Winona, MN 55987 USA.
¹³ Department of Life and Environmental Science, Bournemouth University, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB UK.

Abstract

Background: This paper presents a review of the literature and trends related to social values and sustainable development and describes a set of case studies from a variety of community-based projects which illustrate the advantages that social values bring about as part of efforts to promote sustainability. Three approaches were used to develop this study: a bibliometric analysis of the topic "social values and sustainable development", an analysis of case studies that concretely present community projects addressing social values and sustainability, and the development of a framework linking up bibliometric clusters and the cases studies.

Results: While the bibliometric analysis revealed clusters where social values are strongly connected with sustainable development, the case studies indicated the lack of a common terminology and understanding of the relation between social values, sustainable development, and community-based projects.

Conclusions: The study concludes by suggesting a set of measures that could be deployed to better take social values into account when planning policies or making decisions related to community projects.

Keywords: Community; Initiatives; Projects; Social values; Sustainability.