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Conference Presentations by Jose Manuel Diaz-Sarachaga

10th International Congress for Spatial Planning, 2021

Los sucesivos avances tecnológicos experimentados en las últimas décadas han acelerado el proceso... more Los sucesivos avances tecnológicos experimentados en las últimas décadas han acelerado el proceso global de digitalización en todos los sectores de actividad, y por ende, una profunda transformación en la sociedad. El proceso de digitalización se ha erigido también como uno de los pilares fundamentales en los que se sustentan los planes de recuperación elaborados por los miembros de la Unión Europea para mitigar los impactos negativos derivados de la pandemia de coronavirus. Siendo el comercio un sector estratégico para la economía de los países y un elemento básico vertebrador de la vida social y económica en los núcleos urbanos, este estudio analiza la incorporación de la tecnología digital en el sector comercial español y su contribución en el desarrollo sostenible urbano. Se propone una serie de recomendaciones para incorporar eficientemente el proceso de digitalización en las actividades comerciales promoviendo el cumplimento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), especial- mente el ODS9: Industria, innovación e infraestructura.

XI International Greencities Congress 2020, 2020

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and sustainability awareness have developed new w... more Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and sustainability awareness have developed new ways of understanding and managing cities. Diverse authors define «Smart City» as the combination of ICT with infrastructure, architecture, urban equipment and people to address social, economic and environmental issues. With regard to ICT, two mainstream approaches have emerged oriented to the technology and people. Whilst the former is focused on the efficiency and upgrading of infrastructure and technology through ICT, the latter is directed to social and human capital in terms of knowledge, participation, equity, safety, and so forth. However, the holistic integration of environmental, economic and social dimensions with technological opportunities is still scarce. Since the Brundtland Commission coined the term «Sustainable Development» in 1987, several global initiatives have been adopted by the international community in order to deal with the biggest challenges facing humankind. In September 2015, 193 countries subscribed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity that comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be reached by 2030. Due to the ongoing urbanization and growth of the world´s population, there will be about 2.5 billion more people added to the urban population by 2050. Thus, cities will play a leading role in the achievement of these goals. The SDG #11 was more specifically conceived to make cities and communities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable places. Although recent studies have incorporated sustainability into smart city approaches, the contribution of smart cities to the attainment of SDGs has been rarely explored. This research aims at bridging this gap by examining how smart cities can strengthen sustainability, resilience, safety and inclusiveness of urban areas.

ICSD 2020 - International Conference on Sustainable Development, 2020

The continuous flow of population from rural to urban areas in search of a better life has booste... more The continuous flow of population from rural to urban areas in search of a better life has boosted urbanization process, whilst sustainability pillars (social, economic, environmental and institutional) have been negatively affected. Since the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) in 1976, where serious effects derived from rapid urbanization were recognized, multiple global initiatives have been conducted to promote sustainable urban development policies at national level. Local Agenda 21 can be deemed as the pioneering worldwide action. An extensive public participation, the partnership between different social agents and open making-decision structures underpinned this initiative aiming at defining efficient strategies to be applied in every municipality of distinct countries, according to principles and mandates of Agenda 21 adopted in the 1992 Earth Summit. Same precepts were also incorporated into subsequent endeavors such as the Spanish Urban Agenda. However, the design of tools focused exclusively on certain local contexts highly undermines their assessment, as well as the benchmarking of results among cities. In this study, the Urban Agendas currently implemented in Spain were analyzed to determine their contribution to sustainable development of cities to which they were addressed. The fact that Spanish Urban Agendas do not have a normative character hampers significantly their implementation. The lack of monitoring indicators and metrics disables the assessment of progress. Furthermore, the Spanish Urban Agendas are devoid of specific actions to gather required information from public institutions to feed metrics. Efficiency of the examined Agendas is also cast into doubt because some of them omit some Sustainable Development Goals. Excluding the 2050 Bultzatu Agenda, the remaining Spanish Agendas envisage no urban action plan beyond 2030.

5th International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD), 2019

Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of disaster events and this trend is expe... more Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of disaster events and this trend is expected to grow in the future. Extensive structural damages and fatalities are particularly located in urban areas where people, activities and resources are largely concentrated. In this context, the concept of community resilience has gained high prominence, as well as the need of developing methods and instruments for its assessment. During the last decade, diverse frameworks and tools have been developed in order to reduce disaster risk and prepare communities to withstand and adapt to a wide range of disasters. After selecting the most relevant urban resilience assessment frameworks, this research aims to determine the adequacy of the City Resilience Index (CRI), the City Resilience Profiling Tool (CRPT), the Disaster Resilience Index (DRI), the ICLEI Asian Cities Climate Change Resilient Network (ACCCRN) Process and the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities to be globally implemented. Timeframe, stakeholders involvement, comprehensiveness and outcomes of the selected tools were examined in addition to the coverage of all abilities of resilience, namely Preparedness & Plan, Absorption, Recovery and Adaptation. Findings revealed significant gaps in several tools when analyzing the benchmarks adopted. The paper concludes by suggesting the City Resilience Index as the most suitable instrument to assess the resilience of urban communities worldwide.

IV Built Environment and Sustainable Development Congress, 2016

At the beginning of the new Millennium, world leader members of the United Nations organization e... more At the beginning of the new Millennium, world leader members of the United Nations organization established 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be met for the next 15 years. At the end of this period, a new set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced them. As consequence of the strong connection between people and planet, additional goals for the land, the oceans and the waterways were also included in SDGs. During the last two decades, some infrastructure rating frameworks such as Envision (USA), Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) assessment (UK) and Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Tool (Australia) were launched to assess the sustainability of infrastructure projects. The contribution of these systems in the achievement of MDGs and SDGs goals can be crucial due to the huge investments spent in infrastructure worldwide to promote the development of countries. Even though mentioned Development Goals are biased to health and educational fields, they can be balanced by including further social and economic aspects. Mentioned infrastructure rating systems can provide an effective structured framework to contribute the fulfilment of these goals. 2

I International Congress of Civil Engineering , 2016

During the last century, the continuing urban drift has contributed to the exponential growth of ... more During the last century, the continuing urban drift has contributed to the exponential growth of cities. In addition , population continues expanding rapidly, between 2010 and 2030 world population will increase by 2 billion, from 6.1 to 8.1 billion, most of people will be located in urban settlements. In the last 50 years, cities development pattern reflects the vision of early urban planners where automobile was the primary source of transportation. The combination of urban drift and population growth has confirmed existing infrastructure is inadequate and the negative effect on our planet and on us. At the end of the 20th century, new concepts of sustainability, low impact development, smart growth, and integrated sustainable infrastructure arose in community planning and design. While building industry has broadly developed different tools and guidelines focused on urban development such as Building Research Establish Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) Communities, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development , Sustainability Tools for Assessing & Rating (STAR) Communities and so on, infrastructure field has remained impassive. This paper aims to reaffirm the predominant role of Sustainable Infrastructure Rating Systems such as Envision TM , Infrastructure Sustainable (IS) rating tool and Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) in urban development.

Papers by Jose Manuel Diaz-Sarachaga

Cities, 2025

The rampant urbanization process has highlighted the need of an efficient governance for urban ar... more The rampant urbanization process has highlighted the need of an efficient governance for urban areas. Nevertheless, cities must face the challenge of adapting to technology advances arising from the digital era we are living in. Under this context, urban digital twins (UDTs) have recently superseded smart cities in the attempt of improving the management of city resources and the live of citizens through the use of sophisticated technology. Although the governance of smart cities has been broadly handled in the literature, the influence of UDTs on urban governance still remains unaddressed. This article aims at closing this gap by developing a framework to assess the contribution of UDTs in the governance of cities. A mixed methodology combining an in-depth literature review, a four-round Delphi technique and the Best-Worst multi-criteria decision making method was implemented to this end. The new instrument consists of a two-tier scheme comprising 7 categories and 33 attributes, of which 26 were deemed as essential for an efficient governance. Institutional dimension prevailed over the remaining sustainability domains. Three performance thresholds were defined: low governance, average governance and high governance. The application of the rating system to the UDT of Singapore as case study determined a high level of governance for this city. Some policies were however recommended to strengthen gaps found in Singapore.

Global Sustainability, 2024

The adoption of the 2030 Agenda represents a daunting challenge for countries worldwide, which f... more The adoption of the 2030 Agenda represents a daunting challenge for countries worldwide, which found its continuation in the New Urban Agenda (NUA) geared predominantly toward urban settlements. Although the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has been widely monitored by global and national institutions, the progress of the NUA has not been properly addressed to date. With the purpose of filling this gap, this study aims to gauge the implementation level of the NUA through the analysis of all status reports issued hitherto by countries, on the basis of the reporting template designed to this effect by the United Nations. Findings revealed the scarce attention paid to report national progress on the application of the NUA, particularly marked in the most developed economies. Reporting guidelines showed a poor coverage of the SDGs, being mostly focused on a limited number of these as well as the institutional and economic dimensions. The low level of NUA implementation and the questionable effectiveness of the reporting framework for monitoring are main conclusions. Some recommendations were lastly suggested to enhance the application process of the NUA. Social media summary. Most countries worldwide show little interest in the application of the New Urban Agenda.

Sustainability, Dec 9, 2022

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2024

The New Urban Agenda was conceived as a global endeavor to transpose the Sustainable Development ... more The New Urban Agenda was conceived as a global endeavor to transpose the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda into urban areas. Both initiatives were merged into the Spanish Urban Agenda (SUA), which includes 10 strategic and 30 specific goals, among which leading and promoting digital innovation toward the development of smart cities stand out. As Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) are a technology that arises to enhance smart cities, this research aims at assessing how they may contribute to the achievement of the SUA. A framework was accordingly built to associate UDTs with the SUA to then be applied to the Barcelona digital twin as case study. A combination of an in-depth literature review on UDTs and the Delphi technique was used as methodological approach. More than 70 % of the strategic and specific goals included in the SUA, as well as the four sustainability dimensions are represented in the new instrument. The case study reflected a limited contribution in pursuing the SUA. Nevertheless, the proposed framework offers potential lines of action to reinforce the role of the Barcelona digital twin towards the SUA.

Sustainable Development, 2024

The Spanish Urban Agenda (SUA) intends to promote sustainable development through the implementat... more The Spanish Urban Agenda (SUA) intends to promote sustainable development through the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at the local level. Since all world stakeholders are called to participate in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, diverse instruments adopting a collaborative approach between social actors have gained importance. Among them, urban living labs (ULLs) involve distinct

Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2022

The prominent role played by cities on human life has meant that one of the 17 Sustainable Develo... more The prominent role played by cities on human life has meant that one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals included in the 2030 Agenda is focused on the urban phenomenon. Sustainability, resilience, inclusiveness and safety are four aspects to be significantly strengthened in cities before the end of 2030. Climate change has been the usual source of natural disasters that have hit urban settings in the last years causing thousands of fatalities and billionaire property losses worldwide. As a consequence, resilience has captured the attention of scholars to promote the abilities of communities to prepare, adapt, response and recover to/from a disaster. Nevertheless, the analysis of hazards that emerge from society and led to a profound social transformation has been scarcely addressed. With the purpose of bridging this gap, this chapter introduced the term "social hazard" and provided an overview of linkages with sustainability and resilience thinking in the urban realm. As an exponent of a social hazard, the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on urban settlements were analyzed. The study concluded that resilience in cities should be mostly focused on maintaining the operation of urban systems, for which a changing scenario that encompasses complex adaptive systems should be considered.

Educatio Siglo XXI

Whether the identification of attitudes and behaviors good teachers should have is a daunting tas... more Whether the identification of attitudes and behaviors good teachers should have is a daunting task, the assessment of these aspects, which is normally undertaken by students or agencies exterior to schools, is even more so. This study devised a new rating system to appraise the competences of secondary school teachers (SEVADES) through an in-depth literature review and questionnaires collected from 22 secondary education institutions in Santander (Spain). The application of the new tool aimed to self-evaluate 88 teachers from private and state schools, who obtained an average score of 8.341 points (Very good). For state secondary schools, scarce differences between the assessment of managers and teachers were reported. Regarding private institutions, managers slightly outperformed lecturers’ scores. Whilst Leadership was the most appreciated attitude, Vocation was assigned the lowest rates. Si la determinación de las actitudes del buen docente es una tarea complicada, aún lo es más ...

Academia Letters, 2021

Where children are engaged in design, whether in the classroom or participatory design, the proce... more Where children are engaged in design, whether in the classroom or participatory design, the process often involves adults to a greater or lesser extent. Adult involvement has been shown to have a negative influence on children's creative ability in design. This study introduces an independent child-led approach to design by allowing children to print embroidered designs onto textiles using carefully selected technology and materials that do require adult involvement and are suitable for use by children. The approach allows children the opportunity to realise their imaginations without adult impediment and create within a new design paradigm. Using focus groups, the study reveals that children welcome the opportunity to design independently from adults and that such independence leads to motivation and a sense of increased creativity.

espanolLas ingentes inversiones en infraestructuras que se realizan anualmente en los paises subd... more espanolLas ingentes inversiones en infraestructuras que se realizan anualmente en los paises subdesarrollados para promover su desarrollo sostenible requieren herramientas que cuantifiquen el cumplimiento de los objetivos establecidos. El analisis de los sistemas existentes de rating de la sostenibilidad de los proyectos de infraestructuras (Envision, Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) e Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Tool) determino la necesidad de un nuevo sistema contextualizado a estos paises. Esta Tesis Doctoral tiene como objeto el desarrollo de esta nueva herramienta (SIRSDEC). La metodologia seguida para el desarrollo del sistema incluye la definicion de su arbol de decision, el calculo de los factores de ponderacion utilizando el metodo Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) y la caracterizacion de las funciones de valor de sus indicadores segun el Modelo Integrado de Valor para Evaluaciones Sostenibles (MIVES). El sistema quedo validado con su aplicacio...

European Journal of Sustainable Development, 2021

Losses from commercial activities reflect the decline and deterioration of the downtown, the urba... more Losses from commercial activities reflect the decline and deterioration of the downtown, the urban fabric and the social structure of the cities. The dependence on motorized vehicles has grown significantly among consumers who must move to meet their daily needs. Such a process marginalizes vulnerable populations by promoting urban lifestyles less sustainable. Proximity trade is therefore becoming increasingly important for those groups because it encourages dynamism among distinct urban areas and reduces the use of vehicles. This urban model addresses a relevant issue as universal accessibility that allows residents to enjoy an available city and move freely without encountering obstacles. The major role played by trade in the creation of wealth and urban fabric demands the integration of commercial areas provisions into urban policy guidelines. In this context, the study aims at developing a set of indicators that link proximity trade with the promotion of sustainable urban develo...

Sustainability, 2021

The 2030 Agenda highlights the importance of governance to achieve Sustainable Development Goals ... more The 2030 Agenda highlights the importance of governance to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). However, we observe that there is an underestimation of the governance dimension in the SDG indices. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, indices assign a lower weight to governance compared to the other dimensions of sustainability. Secondly, most governance indicators do not measure the relational dynamics that underlie sustainable development policies. The aim of this study is thus to provide alternative methods for a more accurate assessment of the governance dimension in the frame of the 2030 Agenda. With this purpose, we examine the performance of 100 Spanish cities on the SDGs included in the first report elaborated by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Spain in 2018. Using this data, we first develop a methodology to rebalance the current underestimation of the governance dimension, comparing its impact on the SDG performance of these cities. Secondly, we build a n...

10th International Congress for Spatial Planning, 2021

XI International Greencities Congress 2020, 2020

ICSD 2020 - International Conference on Sustainable Development, 2020

5th International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD), 2019

IV Built Environment and Sustainable Development Congress, 2016

I International Congress of Civil Engineering , 2016

Cities, 2025

Global Sustainability, 2024

Sustainability, Dec 9, 2022

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2024

Sustainable Development, 2024

Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2022

Educatio Siglo XXI

Academia Letters, 2021

European Journal of Sustainable Development, 2021

Sustainability, 2021

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2021

Despite stakeholder pressure boosts companies to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (... more Despite stakeholder pressure boosts companies to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), only thirty six percent of Spanish firms have implemented a corporate strategy towards the 2030 Agenda. Furthermore, the correlation between the SDGs and corporate sustainability reporting systems has barely been studied. This research aims at identifying gaps in reporting on corporate contributions in the SDGs by examining the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and annual reports disclosed by the Spanish industry leaders in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index in 2018 and 2019. Findings revealed a high inconsistency between GRI disclosures and actions performed by firms. Intangibility, omission of negative impacts, poor standardization, diversity of criteria and lack of comparability are the main features of corporate reporting employed by enterprises. The design of a quantitative framework that enables the standardization and measurement of positive and negative corporate contributions in the achievement of the SDGs was suggested.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2021

Corporate sustainability reporting has gained increasing prominence over the last years to quanti... more Corporate sustainability reporting has gained increasing prominence over the last years to quantitative and qualitatively reflect progress of enterprises toward sustainability. However, the measurement of the economic contribution of firms in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is still a pending issue. This research aims at bridging this gap by devising a new system that monetizes impacts of Spanish companies in the fulfillment of the SDGs. A panel of three experts in sustainability determined a set of 33 suitable indicators that represent the SDGs. Best-Worst method was then used to perform a multi-criteria decision analysis to determine weighting factors through responses from a two-part questionnaire circulated to 50 national respondents. The application of the new tool to a Spanish firm underlined a weak linkage between some SDGs and business activities, and the complexity of disaggregating accounting data to feed the metrics of the new framework. The development of instruments that associate the challenges of the 2030 Agenda with corporate accounting was recommended.

Land, 2020

Due to industrial civilization, the decline of the countryside has become a global phenomenon. Sp... more Due to industrial civilization, the decline of the countryside has become a global phenomenon. Spain is a good example that reflects this issue in the rural areas of the European Union because more than half of all municipalities in the country are at risk of extinction. This manuscript aims at combining social engagement and the application of sustainable development goals (SDGs) to propose a sustainable rural revitalization plan. Several multi-sectoral working groups participated in three consultation rounds to prescribe 52 customized actions directed to Pesquera-San Miguel de Aguayo area. Social (17) and environmental (16) dimensions collected the highest number of initiatives, whilst the institutional dimension was only addressed by eight proposals. Furthermore, 40 out of the 169 SDG targets of the 2030 Agenda were put forward in the rural strategy, which also contemplated most priorities adopted by the Rural Development Programme for Cantabria. A cooperative association was ide...

Sustainability, 2018

The unstoppable world population growth is increasing the concentration of people in urban settle... more The unstoppable world population growth is increasing the concentration of people in urban settlements and the number of megacities, especially in developing countries where urbanization exacerbates social and economic inequalities. Green rating systems have been launched during the last decades to facilitate the assessment of sustainable development in terms of building and infrastructure, including the evaluation of sustainable urban development through the study of communities. This article assesses two of the most renowned sustainable rating systems through the prism of economy, environment and society and the international actions undertaken toward the promotion of sustainable development worldwide, in order to determine their effectiveness to assess urban development in poorer nations. Hence, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighbourhood Development (LEED ND) and Envision, both from the United States, were chosen as representatives of building and infrastructure fields, respectively, so that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (Habitat III) were the benchmarks selected to define the sustainability aspects required to evaluate their potential application in less developed countries. The absence of metrics in the New Urban Agenda led to relate its commitments to the SDGs, which revealed that the prerequisites and credits included in LEED ND and Envision mainly focused on managerial and environmental aspects and disregarded the economic and social dimensions. Consequently, the premises under which LEED ND and Envision were developed must be updated and complemented with the two latest guidelines recently adopted by the United Nations in the field of urban and sustainable development.

Natural Hazards, 2019

The occurrence of major natural disasters in recent years has impacted large cities worldwide and... more The occurrence of major natural disasters in recent years has impacted large cities worldwide and boosted the need of assessing urban resilience. As a key factor of resilience, vulnerability correlates attributes of communities with the level of damage caused by hazards. Although a large amount of studies has reviewed the assessment of vulnerability from the perspective of a particular hazard, the combined analysis involving all kind of hazards and vulnerability dimensions in the urban context is uncommon. This research provides a critical analysis of a selected sample of 72 contributions released from 1998 to 2018 and related to the appraisal of vulnerability, in order to determine their adequacy in the evaluation of urban vulnerability. The findings stemming from this process revealed that the social dimension was a priority, whilst qualitative components associated with risk awareness were slightly covered. Furthermore, multi-criteria decision analysis and weighting allocation were the most widely used techniques to address urban vulnerability, whilst 32 methodologies were bespoke built to be applied to particular locations. Most of the cases examined were oriented to specific hazards, with only 10 of them focused on multiple hazards. Hence, the results suggest the need for developing a new framework applicable to multiple hazards worldwide to bridge the identified gaps.

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Over the last two decades, numerous towns have been involved in the Local Agenda 21 program in Sp... more Over the last two decades, numerous towns have been involved in the Local Agenda 21 program in Spain, which is founded on social participation. In the wake of this initiative, the recent promotion of the new Spanish Urban Agenda by the national government seeks to implement the 2030 Agenda in municipalities nationwide. This research aims to examine the Local Agenda 21 process by using Madrid as a case study to determine the lessons learned to enable the effective application of the new Spanish Urban Agenda. A total of 3712 activities included in the action plans of the 21 districts of Madrid were analyzed to identify linkages with the Sustainable Development Goals and the targets of Sustainable Development Goal # 11 (“Sustainable cities and communities”). Methodologies used were solely oriented to develop an ad hoc Local Agenda 21 plan for each district, hindering the comparison of schemes and findings. Social, institutional, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable dev...

Cities, 2019

Extensive damages and numerous casualties are produced by natural disasters and hazards in urban ... more Extensive damages and numerous casualties are produced by natural disasters and hazards in urban areas. Hence, the absorption, recovery and adaptation to them through resilience are highly necessary to ensure operation and enhancement of urban systems. The significance of urbanization led to launch some tools such as BREEAM Communities, CASBEE for Urban Development, DNGB Urban Districts, Green Star Communities, LEED for Neighbourhood Development or STAR Community to promote sustainable development in communities and cities. After selecting the most relevant community rating systems, this research determined their adequacy to handle urban challenges by benchmarking them against the major international efforts and some relevant resilience assessment tools extracted from the study of eight global frameworks. Thus, the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda represented the former, whilst the latter considered the City Resilience Index and the City Resilience Profiling Tool. The findings of this investigation revealed that the indicators of STAR Community and BREEAM Communities reflected the highest level of correspondence with the resilience assessment frameworks. However, the existence of prominent gaps in all the screened community rating systems suggests the need for developing a new tool involving both resilience and sustainability.

An Agenda for Sustainable Development Research. World Sustainability Series., 2024

At the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Summit, the UN 2030 Agenda was adopted to push... more At the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Summit, the UN 2030 Agenda was adopted to push society towards a sustainable development path. Understanding how to guarantee the well-being of current and future generations within the limits of the natural world is the overarching goal of sustainability research. However, rather than defining a research agenda based on sustainability as a holistic and integrated view, some particular topics, inter alia climate change, green energy, social sustainability and sustainability education have been individually examined. Therefore, in an effort to bridge this gap, this chapter introduces the Sustainability Institute of Cantabria (ISOSCAN) as an expression of the Triple Helix Model in Spain to face main regional challenges by a comprehensive approach that jointly covers all sustainability dimensions. To this end, The Regional Development Agency of Cantabria (SODERCAN) championed a cluster comprising four private companies and one university of the region. A detailed plan to revitalize the most declining rural areas of Cantabria was presented as case study to emphasize research through the collaboration between university, industry and governance.

Springer, Cham, 2023

The 2030 Agenda was predominantly defined to be applied by national states, but the role of regio... more The 2030 Agenda was predominantly defined to be applied by national states, but the role of regional and local governments is also becoming essential to the accomplishment of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the pursuit of a better world for all. The European Union has adopted the 2030 Agenda as a flagship initiative to promote wealth and well-being among member countries. This chapter analyzed the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in a declining European region like the Principality of Asturias, which enabled to shed light on challenges encountered in this process. This Spanish region approved a pioneering annual budget for 2022 in line with the SDGs. The level of coverage of the SDGs was firstly assessed by comparing the SDG indicators with the metrics proposed in Asturias. Open data were then used to evaluate the institutional performance in the fulfillment of the regional sustainability objectives over the last years. Main findings showed a low number of indicators focused on the measurement of SDG progress in Asturias with respect to those deemed in the 2030 Agenda. Furthermore, some inconsistencies were also found when assigning budget allocations to each SDG. The present study may be considered as a representative example of how the 2030 Agenda was implemented in the European region.

Handbook of Sustainability Science in the Future, 2022

Extracto de "Las agendas urbanas y el gobierno de las ciudades: Transformaciones, desafíos e inst... more Extracto de "Las agendas urbanas y el gobierno de las ciudades: Transformaciones, desafíos e instrumentos", dirigido por María Rosario Alonso Ibáñez y coordinado por Sonia de Gregorio Hurtado y Moneyba González Medina. La ciudad se ha convertido en el centro de la vida humana. Esta obra analiza las políticas urbanas o agendas urbanas de alcance internacional, nacional, regional y local que, aun presentando una heterogeneidad relevante, se caracterizan por un conjunto de elementos o posicionamientos comunes. Coautoría de: Ícaro Obeso Muñiz, Isabel Hernández San Juan, Mariela Belén Agüero, Marta Domínguez Pérez, Antonio Alejo Jaime, Montserrat Crespi-Vallbona, María del Carmen García-Peña, María Victoria Gómez García, Iago Lekue López, José Manuel Díaz Saráchaga, Imanol Telleria Herrera, María Ángeles Huete García, Rafael Merinero Rodríguez, Serafín Pazos Vidal, Sonia de Gregorio Hurtado. ISBN: 978-84-290-2358-9.

Las agendas urbanas y el gobierno de las ciudades. Transformaciones, desafíos e instrumentos , 2020

El comienzo del siglo XXI se ha caracterizado por un renovado protagonismo de las ciudades, que s... more El comienzo del siglo XXI se ha caracterizado por un renovado protagonismo de las ciudades, que se manifiesta tanto en el impulso de políticas específicamente urbanas como en su mayor notoriedad en el ámbito internacional. En la actualidad, las ciudades se configuran como lugares de centralidad política que han ido transformando su rol como actor colectivo, su forma de gobierno y de elaborar políticas públicas.
En este marco, en los últimos años se observa un creciente lanzamiento de políticas urbanas o agendas urbanas de alcance internacional, nacional, regional y local que, aun presentando una heterogeneidad relevante, se caracterizan por un conjunto de elementos o posicionamientos comunes. Esto permite hablar de la potenciación en el presente de políticas netamente urbanas, y la mayor interrelación de estas con ámbitos de política sectorial que tienen una clara influencia en las ciudades. Todo esto se está materializando en instrumentos de política pública que exploran y buscan nuevas maneras de abordar los principales retos de nuestro tiempo, teniendo en cuenta la complejidad de las áreas de gobernanza en las que se actúa y de la realidad que impone un mundo que cambia a gran velocidad.
El objetivo de este libro es dar lugar a un marco de reflexión desde la Academia en torno a temas claves relacionados con la potenciación de las agendas urbanas y los fenómenos a los que estas responden, que den cuenta de estas trasformaciones y de sus consecuencias, así como de los contextos desde los que se verifican, en términos jurídicos, políticos, urbanísticos, espaciales y sociales a través de una mirada multidisciplinar. Este interés, y la oportunidad de este libro, es parte de la actividad que las autoras vienen realizando desde el marco de la URBAN RED para iniciar y potenciar la formación de esta reflexión académica.