This book documents and promotes the experiences from the 2nd Conference on Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability (SHARING), held in Jurmala, Latvia, on May 11th to 24th, 2005. Attended by over 200 delegates from across the Baltic Sea region and beyond, the event provided an important contribution towards strengthening the integration of the region's RTD community and the sharing of knowledge and expertise in the Baltic, across Europe (including the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions) and elsewhere. The first part of this book contains some introductory remarks on sustainable development as a whole and on integratives approaches in particular. Furthermore, issues related to cleaner production and the moves towards zero emissions are outlined. Part two of the book focuses on developments in the Baltic Sea Region, with a special emphasis on policy, implementation technologies and technologies for sustainable development. In the next part of the book, readers will find a special section on science for sustainable development. One special feature of this section is that papers are predominantly written by young researchers, some of whom will find in this volume, for the first time, the chance to publish results from their works. The final section of the book deals with social corporate responsibility and the environment, focusing on sustainable community development, corporate responsibility at an international level and concepts for education for sustainable development. This publication provides a very good overview of sustainability issues in the Baltic and beyond, illustrating the number of excellent works being performed by municipalities, universities, research agencies and NGOs, also showing the various ways. via which sustainability can be delivered.

The Conference addresses the subjects of regional development in an integrated way in accordance with the principles of sustainability and provides a common forum for all scientists specialising in the range of subjects included within sustainable development and planning.

The book contributes to a better understanding of the role of knowledge societies in achieving sustainability. It is based on the conference with the same title held in Riga, which brought together experts from Europe and the rest of the world. The book highlights sustainable development in relation to the knowledge society and smart future manufacturing technologies, and it helps provide a better understanding of the interplay between sustainable development and knowledge society issues, and how these could lead to a better future.

The challenges of sustainable development require that everybody, every institution and every nation work towards long-term strategies in order to move away from unsustainable practices. The same line of thinking applies to all nations around the Baltic Sea. A general challenge for the Baltic Sea region is to broaden the interest of people in discussions of national approaches supporting sustainability. Finding effective instruments to support the process of sustainable development in countries in transition with an emerging and largely inexperienced entrepreneur community and economically fragile, is as important as the promotion of long-term integrated sustainability strategies in countries which have well established democracies. The knowledge of the ongoing changes and the driving social, economic and ecological factors essential for the implementation of sustainable development in countries in transition must be broadened. A special need seen in the three Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - as elsewhere in the Baltic region, is the need to avoid development patterns of - business as usual and to gain access to information and to advancements in sustainable development both in Europe and worldwide. The Baltic countries now joining the EU have to build capacity, for example by establishing teams of young researches to draw up sustainable development strategies at the national level, which are consistent with European strategies. A bottom-up flow from the grass-root level is required to change the pattern of development strategies in the Baltic countries. The Conference - Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability, whose experiences are documented inthis book, was held on 26-29 March, 2003."

This book highlights the importance of the subnational level of governance in relation to sustainable development, exploring how subnational governments have taken up the challenge to design sustainable development policies and their involvement in international decision-making on sustainable development.