The heightened awareness of environmental issues caused by human activity has spurred interest in maximizing sustainability efforts – that is, efforts that benefit the well-being of the environment in the future. Efforts include reducing carbon emissions, lowering pollution, and even consuming less beef to reduce methane emissions. Moreover, people are also engaging in climate change protests, demanding climate justice (see Figure 1). This awareness has increased focus on how decision making should incorporate scientific sustainability efforts. The role of science in informing political decisions has been an important factor in advancing sustainability efforts, and there has been a new rise in understanding the production of actionable knowledge; defined as “…that knowledge required to implement the external validity [relevance of research] in the world”.¹ The term roots in Aristotle’s idea of Praxis, which involves the process of realizing theory and practice. A concept that may result in helping sustainability science researchers to effectively achieve sustainability goals. 

In an effort to realize this goal, many research institutions have called for the co-production of actionable knowledge. Co-production is essential to ideas in the theory and practice of knowledge and governance for global sustainability.² Despite its essential nature, the definition of co-production is not a concrete one.³ Although this generates a barrier itself, the concept involves bringing researchers and users of science into a collaborative process.⁴ When the calls for actionable knowledge are answered, however, results have focused largely on the procedural methods, instead of its use in actions that further sustainability. Despite the value of the procedure involved in conducting research, perhaps a better understanding of the relationship between science and use is needed to obtain actionable knowledge. Theoretical collaborative forms of engagement aim towards co-production of knowledge with the people who are likely to use the knowledge in making changes in their organizations, communities, or environments. Knowledge making and decision making can thereby continually reshape society to better achieve sustainability efforts.⁴ Enabling this type of knowledge creation can help address environmental issues we face today.

However, with new efforts to obtain actionable knowledge, the fundamental question that arises is: What is use? (Note: For clarity, the word use is italicized when considered as a noun). What constitutes as use and how can researchers measure use? Intuitively, use is the application of knowledge in policy to achieve sustainability goals. Research has, however, long-highlighted the methodological challenges of assessing research use. Where methodological challenges can be barriers to accurate data accumulation that attempt to coherently define use. These challenges include defining outcome variables of use, identifying independent variables, identifying users, and facilitating user recall of uses.⁶ In essence, what is the outcome of use? Is use interdependent? Can use be repeated by the targeted user? What is use and how can we obtain it? Several scientists have created models intended to define use, but ultimately use remains as clear as mud. These challenges have driven researchers to attempt to uncover a concrete definition of use that may contribute to the efficacy of sustainability efforts.

Recent research by James C. Arnott and Maria Carmen Lemos, of the University of Michigan and the Aspen Global Change Institute, attempts to tackle the issue of use as it relates to environmental sustainability through an intensive study including 32 grant recipients of the coastal area management grant program funded from 1998 to 2014 through National Estuarine Reserve Research System –a  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) applied coastal research program.⁷ The purpose is to examine the tension between clearly understanding use and the reality of its complexity. For this purpose, Arnott and Lemos conducted an in-depth case study of how grant recipients characterize attributes of knowledge use — when reflecting on the process and outcomes resulting from their completed projects — is carried out. The stated aim of grant recipients is to produce actionable knowledge to inform sustainable resource management in coastal areas. Researchers specifically asked members of the NOAA-funded grant teams, “…to what extent do deliberate approaches to producing usable science yield clearer and more specific description of knowledge use?” ⁷ Grant recipients were asked to reflect on whether these descriptions and uses comply with the expectations of funders and institutions? If not, what are the implications of this disconnect between expectations and actual outcomes for developing new approaches to understand and inform society of the use of knowledge for sustainability? Grantees were then interviewed to expand on how their findings contribute to use, users, and broader impacts on coastal sustainability. 

A typology is simply a classification framework organized to a general type, and it can be viewed as a method of defining knowledge use. To measure knowledge use Arnott and Lemos used an established typology that defines usability, namely the DC Pelz Typology. Introduced in the late 1970s, the DC Pelz Typology analyzes use in three main classifications:

• Instrumental use–when knowledge provides direct input to decision making,
• Conceptual use–when knowledge is used more abstractly to inform background understanding of a topic, and
• Symbolic use–when knowledge is employed in more strategic methods to justify already established commitments.⁹

In an effort to obtain a clearer definition of use, Arnott and Lemos blended the DC Pelz typology with the typology of Knott and Wildavsky (est. 1981), which describes use based on the different stages of the policy process across which knowledge is adopted: recognition, cognition, reference, effort, adoption, implementation, and impact (see Figure 2). These stages of use attempt to define how use is processed from its reception to its impact.

Next, interviews were conducted using a structured interview process, audio recorded, and transcribed using a third party transcription service. The structure process involved coding interviews based on five themes identified in studies as barriers to advancing the study of knowledge use⁹: how interviewees identified uses and users; and how they tracked, attributed, and reported outcomes associated with use (see Figure 3).

After conducting the interviews, however, grant recipients still could not clearly define use for their research, clearly identify users, nor could they clearly present evidence of broader impacts. Of thirty-two grant teams, eleven did not cite any evidence or even provide anecdotal examples of use when interviewed. When asked about use attribution (how use is ascribed), grantees generally failed to provide detailed explanations. Three main reasons were offered to explain this relative failure of grant recipients to consider how their research results could be used:

• Either there was not sufficient time or money to achieve something that was usable,
• There were technological limitations that either rendered the resulting knowledge or tools nonfunctional, or
• The results were far too complex for intended users.

Still, grantees in the NOAA applied coastal research program argued that their findings were pivotal, yet found it difficult to specifically address usability.⁹ This generates a deep problem for sustainability action. If researchers cannot compose actionable knowledge how can an advance of sustainability efforts in policy be envisioned?