Taurage - From Baltic forests to the greenest municipality in Lithuania? Revealing the emergence of the local sustainability concept in a small municipality setting through a relational and integral approach

Sammanfattning: Active calls are made for sustainability science to step up and provide guidance to address the global challenges of climate change, land degradation, and unsustainable urbanisation. Some scientists claim that an “integral sustainability science” can provide some answers. Relationality and integral theory are combined in an experimental research design to reveal and capture the emerging concept of sustainability in the municipality of Taurage in Lithuania. A rich conceptualisation was revealed and it was found that the concept of sustainability in 2021 Taurage is very specialised and overly focused on renovation, modernisation, mobility, and energy. It is also found that the concept of sustainability in Taurage is not set in stone and is still malleable. Broadening of this concept is even desirable, indicating a possibility for the holistic understanding to emerge in the future. Finally, a number of gaps within the current concept are identified that the municipality should address immediately.