Suchergebnisse

This study is an exploratory examination of the projected sustainability of more than 100 projects funded by the Australian government. Using data collected by the body that evaluated the projects and data from a government database, it examines the predictors of various forms of sustainability. Findings show that some two thirds of the project leaders who expected their programs to continue after the expiration of the initial funding expected them to continue with the same activities and target population; almost half envisioned them diversifying to new activities, target groups, or locations. Auspice organization involvement increased the expectation that the project would be continued, project effectiveness decreased that expectation, and diversity of initial funding became less important as other sources of support and sustainability were taken into consideration.

Purpose
This study aims to understand if geographers, who teach in a new sustainability program, are conveying new knowledge, understanding, skills and competence about the integrated and holistic concept of "sustainability", rather than individual human-environmental issues to the students. In other words, are geography professors creating effective sustainability courses in a department with a rich history in geography education?


Design/methodology/approach
This study utilizes the McKeown–Ice and Dendinger comprehensive assessment tool for sustainability teaching to examine how geographers teach sustainability from an integrated and holistic perspective. Surveys with students are used to evaluate and compare how effective three geography courses were at teaching sustainability.


Findings
The results suggest that each course was effective in teaching students the main concepts of sustainability. There were, however, differences in teaching practical solutions to achieve sustainability and in the coverage of the causes of sustainability problems. Geographers might consider altering their curriculum or pedagogy to build stronger interdisciplinary linkages to teach the integrated concepts of sustainability rather than its individual parts.


Research limitations/implications
This initial study focuses on one research university in the USA. Its proof of concept will be expanded to evaluate international sustainability education programs nested in existing departments and degree programs.


Originality/value
Sustainability education programs are being created across the globe and are often attached to existing degree programs exhibiting components of sustainability. How effective are they in teaching this interdisciplinary concept? This study validates a framework for assessing sustainability teaching and learning. It recommends changes to enhance the ability for integrated sustainability education programs to comprehensively teach sustainability.

The notion that sustainability rests on three pillars – economic, environmental and social – has been widely accepted since the 1990s. In practice, however, the economic and environmental aspects have tended to dominate the sustainability agenda, and social aspects have been sidelined. Two reasons for this are: 1) there is a lack of data collected about which to build meaningful pictures of social aspects of sustainability for populations over time, and 2) there is a lack of recognition of the role of social factors in sustainability, and a related lack of understanding of how to analyse them in conjunction with economic and environmental factors. This paper surveys the literature about sustainability in fisheries, focussing on Australia, and focussing on the way social aspects have been treated. The paper finds that the problems that have been identified for assessing the social in sustainability in general are certainly manifest in fisheries. Management of Australian fisheries has arguably made great improvements to biological sustainability over the last decade, but much remains to be done to generate similar improvements in social sustainability for fishing communities. This is the case for government-run resource management as well as for initiatives from the private sector and conservation organizations as part of movements for corporate social responsibility and ethical consumerism. A significant challenge for improving sustainability in Australian fisheries, therefore, lies in improving data collection on social factors, and in bridging disciplinary divides to better integrate social with economic and biological assessments of sustainability.

High levels of trust in government are important in addressing complex issues, including the realization of the mainstream sustainability agenda. However, trust in government has been declining for decades across the western world, undermining legitimacy and hampering policy implementation and planning for long-term sustainability. We hypothesize that an important factor in this decline is citizen disappointment with the current types of public participation in governance and that this could be reversed through a change from informing/consulting to a relationship of partnership. Using case studies from Western Australia, the paper investigates whether an intervention targeted at establishing a partnership relationship through mini-public, deliberative, participatory budgeting would improve trust and help the implementation of sustainability. These results show evidence of improvements in trust and provide conceptual and practical tools for government administrations wishing to close the detrimental trust gap that may hamper the implementation of a sustainability agenda.

AbstractWe argue that most of what passes for mainstream reporting in corporate sustainability management fails to do precisely the one thing it purports to do – which is make it possible for organizations to measure and report on the sustainability of their operations. It fails because of the lack of what the Global Reporting Initiative calls sustainability context, a shortcoming from which it, too, suffers. We suggest that this missing context calls for a new notion of sustainability (the binary perspective), which can be conceptualized in the form of sustainability quotients. We provide specifications for such quotients in ecological and social contexts, and suggest that sustainability is best understood in terms of the impact organizations can have on the carrying capacity of non‐financial capital, or what in the social case we call anthro capital. We conclude by introducing a quantitative quotients‐based method for measuring and reporting on the social sustainability of an organization, the social footprint method. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Purpose– This research aims to describe sustainability practices adopted by companies and the influence they have with the involvement of stakeholders.Design/methodology/approach– Qualitative investigation, using case study methodology, was undertaken in 17 companies that use strategic sustainability practices in some way. The companies were observed under the theoretical perspective of social responsibility and sustainability, and with the approach of strategic practices.Findings– Interpreting the data produces an alternative framework of analysis for strategic organizational activities oriented toward the understanding of practices of sustainability, especially in processes aimed at catering to and/or involving stakeholders. The research further supports the idea that sustainability practices, regardless of their level of implementation, have a strong relationship, in these companies, with stakeholder interests.Originality/value– The intent is that the proposed analytical framework will allow further debate toward better understanding of actions focused on environmental determinism and internal company conditions.

Many organizations have found themselves well advanced in their sustainability strategies and reaching the limits of progress made through eco-efficiency measures and regulatory compliance. Looking for novel approaches and solutions, many managers are turning to bioinspiration and related fields such as biomimicry, nature-inspired innovation, circular economy, and cradle to cradle as tools for sustainability-oriented innovation. This innovation paradigm has been gaining popularity across disciplines in recent decades as the world grapples with the challenge of sustainable development. This book offers a succinct guide and overview for managers and sustainability professionals who are interested in exploring various aspects of business inspired by nature. With applicability ranging from technological, organizational, and system-building innovations, there is a broad realm of possibilities that suit a manager's scope of influence regardless of their position within the organization. This book aims to exhibit the applications of business inspired by nature that extend beyond the boundaries of the organization and encourage open innovation with novel partners in unlikely scenarios, with all partners aligned by the principles of natural systems.

This study investigated the nature and level of market-oriented sustainability of Sjenica sheep cheese, a Serbian Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)-registered product. In the analysis of the supply chain market sustainability, three theories were used: Resource dependence theory, upper echelons theory, and signaling theory. The data were collected using a stepwise research design, applying techniques of observation and in-depth and telephone interviewing. The results show that the low recognition of the PDO label among Serbian consumers and all participants in the supply chain and the lack of the presence in the markets and large packages negatively impact domestic consumers in their decisions to purchase higher amounts of Sjenica sheep cheese. Small producers lack bargaining power, whereas their perceptions hinder formation of inter-organizational arrangements. The insufficient education of big producers and distributors impede the achievement of better business results. The main challenges for the export of Sjenica sheep cheese are the inadequate certification of this food product for the European Union market, the lack of standardized production process that results in variations in the product quality, and the unawareness of the regional consumers of Sjenica sheep cheese due to insufficient communication efforts.

This book studies the sustainability and optimality of public debt under different scenarios: the closed economy, the small open economy, and a two-country setting. Sustainability refers to the existence and the stability of the long-run equilibrium. Optimality relates to the path of public debt that maximizes discounted utility. The analysis is conducted within the framework of the Solow model, the overlapping generations model and the infinite horizon model. The government can follow different strategies, it either fixes the deficit ratio or the tax rate. As a result, a fixed deficit ratio generally can be sustained. By contrast, a fixed tax rate generally cannot be sustained. Depending on the chosen fiscal strategy, there exists either an optimal deficit ratio or an optimal tax rate that maximizes the sum of consumption and government purchases per capita.

Social work has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing the interaction of people and their environment, although this systems perspective has focused almost exclusively on the importance of social relationships. There is an emerging emphasis within the profession regarding the need to pay more attention to the critical role of the physical environment. The last fifty years has seen a growing global ecological movement, and the profession is joining the call to action for sustainability. Social work must extend this mission to include environmental justice, the human right to live in a clean, safe, and healthy environment. The world's most poor, vulnerable, and oppressed people often live in the most degraded environments and have no control over resources. The important connections between social work, sustainability, human rights, and environmental justice in our contemporary world need to be more clearly articulated in the scholarly literature. An understanding of these separate but closely linked concepts is necessary for the profession to effectively pursue the goal of making the world a more just, humane, and sustainable home for all life.

"Der Beitrag über 'Wilkhahn Mehrwerte' erläutert am konkreten Unternehmensbeispiel die Möglichkeiten, umfassend Rechenschaft über die vielfältigen Aspekte einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung abzulegen. Dafür werden die Bereiche Ökonomie, Produktentwicklung, Innen- und Außenbeziehungen, Ökologie und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung kritisch analysiert, zueinander in Beziehung gesetzt und mit Zielsetzungen unterlegt." (Autorenreferat)

Purpose– This paper aims to evaluate how transformative learning is key to innovating sustainability education in the built environment in the region's universities, in addition to reporting on the research project undertaken to integrate sustainability thinking and practice into engineering/built environment curricula in Asia-Pacific universities.Design/methodology/approach– The project drew from the experiences of academics in built environment programmes and espoused a collaborative inquiry process wherein the role of the industry was vital. A literature review focusing on sustainability integration into curricula was followed by a workshop which brought together academic and industry participants.Findings– The general direction of education for sustainability is moving increasingly towards integration and innovation. However, the slow progress of integration of sustainability in the built environment curricula may have been due in part to the outcome/practice-led approach of built environment education, which is the hallmark of the discipline and lends to a largely discipline-based curriculum framework.Research limitations/implications– The project focused only on the curricula of university programmes and courses taught in the participating Asia-Pacific universities and institutions.Practical implications– This paper highlights how the framework for the proposed curriculum guide focusing primarily on built environment programmes and courses can provide guidance for potential application in other higher education institutions.Originality/value– Much is written about embedding sustainability and education in built environment curricula. However, little analysis, application and collaborative work in Asia-Pacific universities have taken place. This paper considers the value of transformative learning in the innovation of the predominantly discipline-based engineering/built environment programmes for sustainability.