Title: Communicating sustainability under increasing public budget constraints

Authors: Jari Lyytimäki

Addresses: Environmental Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland

Abstract: Sustainability is simultaneously the fundamental and a secondary challenge for societies. It is a fundamental challenge defining the operating space for humanity, but as a long-term, wide-spanning, and holistic issue, it is often overlooked by actors focusing on narrowly defined and short-term economic or social concerns. The main aim of sustainability communication is to create bridges between these co-existing realms of long-term and immediate challenges. This paper discusses the use of sustainability strategies and indicators as tools to encourage a wide variety of actors, including private enterprises, to take concrete actions that produce systemic changes towards sustainability. Experiences from the ongoing national-level sustainable development commitment process of Finland are presented, and lessons for Latin America are identified. A key lesson is the importance of transparency in sustainability communication.

Keywords: public-private partnerships; PPPS; sustainability strategies; sustainability indicators; sustainable development; sustainability communication; transparency; systemic transformation; public budgets; budget constraints; Finland; Latin America.

DOI: 10.1504/LAJMSD.2014.065476

Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development, 2014 Vol.1 No.2/3, pp.137 - 145

Received: 05 Mar 2014
Accepted: 01 May 2014
Published online: 12 Nov 2014 *

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