We have developed a visualized 3-D model of a City Sustainability Index (CSI) based on our original concept of city sustainability in which a sustainable city is defined as one that maximizes socio-economic benefits while meeting constraint conditions of the environment and socio-economic equity on a permanent basis. The CSI is based on constraint and maximization indicators. Constraint indicators assess whether a city meets the necessary minimum conditions for city sustainability. Maximization indicators measure the benefits that a city generates in socio-economic aspects. When used in the policy-making process, the choice of constraint indicators should be implemented using a top-down approach. In contrast, a bottom-up approach is more suitable for defining maximization indicators because this technique involves multiple stakeholders (in a transdisciplinary approach). Using different materials of various colors, shapes, sizes, we designed and constructed the visualized physical model of the CSI to help people evaluate and compare the performance of different cities in terms of sustainability. The visualized model of the CSI can convey complicated information in a simple and straightforward manner to diverse stakeholders so that the sustainability analysis can be understood intuitively by ordinary citizens as well as experts. Thus, the CSI model helps stakeholders to develop critical thinking about city sustainability and enables policymakers to make informed decisions for sustainability through a transdisciplinary approach.

This study developed a sustainability education program that incorporated the concept of city sustainability, delivered it to local university students in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area (Jabodetabek), Indonesia, and then evaluated its effectiveness using questionnaire surveys. The educational materials consisted of a case story and scenario analysis report relating to city sustainability. The case story was a fictional narrative describing sustainability issues in Jabodetabek, in which the protagonist is the head of the local urban planning bureau. The scenario analysis provided three hypothetical scenarios regarding land-use patterns with predicted values of sustainability indicators in 2050. In January 2016, 46 students from Bogor Agricultural University participated in three workshops. Participants completed questionnaire surveys before and after the workshops. The results from the ordered probit models that were based on participants’ responses to 68 items of sustainability-related attitudes and perspectives showed that their participation in the workshops enhanced participants’ environmental concerns and their intention to take pro-sustainability actions. In addition, the participants tended to have a more balanced view on sustainability issues across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. This suggested that the sustainability education program focusing on city sustainability successfully enhanced the motivation of learners to contribute toward a more sustainable future.

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that can change the environmental friendliness of individuals in the context of climate change issues in terms of values, beliefs, controllability, concern, attitude, intention, and behavior through a survey experiment, and to test the hypothesis that providing information about the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions attributable to an individual with its threshold value motivates him/her to reduce that amount using statistical analyses (the Mann–Whitney test) and multivariate regressions (the ordered logit model). It is crucial to change the behavior of individuals as well as organizations to reduce the emissions of CO₂ for solving climate change issues, because the aggregate amount of individual CO₂ emissions is too large to ignore. We conducted a survey experiment to detect factors affecting the environmental friendliness of individuals. Subjects of the experiment were 102 students at Shiga University in Japan. They were randomly provided with communication opportunities, information about individual or group CO₂ emissions, and information about their threshold value. The finding is that provision of information about the amount of individual and group CO₂ emissions may be able to improve that person’s environmental friendliness in terms of values, beliefs, concern, attitude, intention, and behavior.