Suchergebnisse

Authors would like to acknowledge the support of the research grant SPS Flagship ReIndustrialise Project, financed by EIT Climate KIC supported by EIT, a body of the European Union. ; Organisations have been disclosing environmental and social information through different tools, including their websites. However, the type of environmental and social information that organisations disclose online, and what are the characteristics of those organisations is still not fully understood. This research aims to (a) identify which environmental and social information organisations disclose online; and (ii) explore drivers of the specific information disclosed. We collected data on sustainability disclosures from 2008 Italian organisations. Results show that overall the amount of environmental and social information disclosed online is low. However, organisational characteristics explain different contents of disclosure. Bigger organisations (in terms of revenues and number of employees), and with environmental and social certifications in place tend to disclose more environmental and social information. Also, consumer goods' organisations disclose mostly information related to the supply chain; whilst resource-intensive industries disclosemostly information on corporate social responsibility. This research shows that overall there is still a reserved attitude towards disclosing environmental and social information in Italian organisations, providing little information to stakeholders about environmental and social policies, strategies and practices. This study provides researchers and practitioners information on the content of sustainability information disclosed and possible drivers for their disclosure; this supports their understanding of the conditions where voluntary sustainability disclosure is more expected. ; publishersversion ; published

The assessment of sustainability of public services is an important issue, especially at local level, takeninto account the central role of local governments as a major public employer and provider of a diversity ofservices. Local governments are close to citizens and are moving faster than other public sector levels withregard to the integration of sustainability principles in their operations and strategies. A sustainabilitylabel to communicate public service performance enables to disclose information directly to serviceusers. However, there is a dearth of research about labels addressing specific sustainability criteria forlocal services. The main aim of this research was the development of a conceptual framework to definea sustainability label, as a tool to assess and communicate sustainability of local public services. Theapproach was developed taking into account criteria of the European Union Ecolabel and indicators ofthe Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. The ecolabel is a relatively well-known voluntary instrumentin Europe and has the potential for application in public service activities and operations, but only assessthe environmental component of sustainability. The Global Reporting Initiative, in particular the SectorSupplement for Public Agencies, was then used to integrate the other sustainability components. Thirty-six (36) criteria and respective indicators were adapted for the proposed sustainability label conceptualframework. A Portuguese local public service was used as an exploratory case study to test the proposedconceptual model into practice. The overall results demonstrate that few criteria were accomplished inthis local public service, stressing that new practices and public policies need to be adopted to invertthe current trend, especially through the application of assessment systems. This exploratory case studyresearch has shown how useful can be a sustainability label to support local governments in evaluatingand communicating the sustainability performance of their public services. This case could drive andsupport other government levels, including central and regional public administration, in adopting andexploring public service labels and their associated performance approaches. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The aim of the project as the cluster analysis was to in part to develop a generic structured quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) model of human salmonellosis due to pork consumption in EU member states (MSs), and the objective of the cluster analysis was to group the EU MSs according to the relative contribution of different pathways of Salmonella in the farm‐to‐consumption chain of pork products. In the development of the model, by selecting a case study MS from each cluster the model was developed to represent different aspects of pig production, pork production, and consumption of pork products across EU states. The objective of the cluster analysis was to aggregate MSs into groups of countries with similar importance of different pathways of Salmonella in the farm‐to‐consumption chain using available, and where possible, universal register data related to the pork production and consumption in each country. Based on MS‐specific information about distribution of (i) small and large farms, (ii) small and large slaughterhouses, (iii) amount of pork meat consumed, and (iv) amount of sausages consumed we used nonhierarchical and hierarchical cluster analysis to group the MSs.The cluster solutions were validated internally using statistic measures and externally by comparing the clustered MSs with an estimated human incidence of salmonellosis due to pork products in the MSs. Finally, each cluster was characterized qualitatively using the centroids of the clusters.

AbstractOrganisations are increasingly adopting sustainability performance assessment tools. However, these formal organisational sustainability assessments are typically managed and prepared by technical staff. There is a lack of research on approaches that enable a stakeholder‐driven performance assessment. This paper develops a framework of informal/complementary stakeholder‐driven sustainability performance assessment, from the perspective of employee voluntary collaboration. The framework composes a checklist of questions covering the main sustainability domains: perceptions, individual practices, and voluntary monitoring indicators. In an exploratory case study in a public organisation, the checklist was evaluated by employees in a participatory workshop. The evaluation criteria of understanding and usefulness were rated more positively than reliability. This paper shows a novel way of integrating employee inputs for informal sustainability assessment and supports the importance of empowering public organisations, thereby increasing their understanding of sustainability management frameworks. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

A farm‐to‐consumption quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) for Salmonella in pigs in the European Union has been developed for the European Food Safety Authority. The primary aim of the QMRA was to assess the impact of hypothetical reductions of slaughter‐pig prevalence and the impact of control measures on the risk of human Salmonella infection. A key consideration during the QMRA development was the characterization of variability between E.U. Member States (MSs), and therefore a generic MS model was developed that accounts for differences in pig production, slaughterhouse practices, and consumption patterns. To demonstrate the parameterization of the model, four case study MSs were selected that illustrate the variability in production of pork meat and products across MSs. For the case study MSs the average probability of illness was estimated to be between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 10 million servings given consumption of one of the three product types considered (pork cuts, minced meat, and fermented ready‐to‐eat sausages). Further analyses of the farm‐to‐consumption QMRA suggest that the vast majority of human risk derives from infected pigs with a high concentration of Salmonella in their feces (≥104 CFU/g). Therefore, it is concluded that interventions should be focused on either decreasing the level of Salmonella in the feces of infected pigs, the introduction of a control step at the abattoir to reduce the transfer of feces to the exterior of the pig, or a control step to reduce the level of Salmonella on the carcass post‐evisceration.