Sustainability Challenges in an Business Organisation

Social science theory for environmental sustainability: A practical guide makes social science theory accessible and usable to anyone interested in working toward environmental sustainability at any scale. Environmental problems are, first and foremost, people problems. Without better understandings of the people involved, solutions are often hard to come by. This book answers calls for demonstrating the value of theories from the social sciences for solving these types of problems and provides strategies to facilitate their use. It contains concise summaries of over thirty social science theories and demonstrates how to use them in diverse contexts associated with environmental conflict, conservation, natural resource management, and other environmental sustainability challenges. The practical applications of the theories include persuasive communication, conflict resolution, collaboration, negotiation, enhancing organizational effectiveness, working across cultures, generating collective impact, and building more resilient governance of social-ecological systems. Examples throughout the book and detailed vignettes illustrate how to combine multiple social science theories to develop effective strategies for environmental problem solving. The final chapter draws out key principles for enhancing these efforts. The book will serve as a key reference for environmental professionals, business people, students, scientists, public officials, government employees, aid workers, or any concerned citizen who wants to be better equipped to navigate the social complexities of environmental challenges and make a meaningful impact on any environmental issue.

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Global Sustainability Crossroads: A Participatory Simulation Game to Educate in the Energy and Sustainability Challenges of the 21st Century

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11133672 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (13) ◽

pp. 3672 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Iñigo Capellán-Pérez ◽

David Álvarez-Antelo ◽

Luis J. Miguel

Keyword(s):

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Simulation Game ◽

Climate Mitigation ◽

Global Sustainability ◽

Environmental Consequences ◽

Environment Model ◽

Participatory Simulation ◽

Simulation Group ◽

Energy Economy ◽

Sustainability Challenges

There is a general need to facilitate citizens’ understanding of the global sustainability problem with the dual purpose of raising their awareness of the seriousness of the problem and helping them get closer to understanding the complexity of the solutions. Here, the design and application of the participatory simulation game Global Sustainability Crossroads is described, based on a global state-of-the-art energy–economy–environment model, which creates a virtual scenario where the participants are confronted with the design of climate mitigation strategies as well as the social, economic, and environmental consequences of decisions. The novelty of the game rests on the global scope and the representation of the drivers of anthropogenic emissions within the MEDEAS-World model, combined with a participatory simulation group dynamic flexible enough to be adapted to a diversity of contexts and participants. The performance of 13 game workshops with ~420 players has shown it has a significant pedagogical potential: the game is able to generate discussions on crucial topics which are usually outside the public realm such as the relationship between economic growth and sustainability, the role of technology, how human desires are limited by biophysical constraints or the possibility of climate tipping points.

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Pedagogical publics: Creating sustainable educational environments in times of climate change

European Educational Research Journal ◽

10.1177/14749041211005618 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 147490412110056

Author(s):

Lovisa Bergdahl ◽

Elisabet Langmann

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Public Pedagogy ◽

Sustainable Living ◽

The Public ◽

Educational Environments ◽

Adults And Children ◽

Emotional Dimensions ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Sustainability Challenges ◽

Educational Scholarship

The paper offers a pedagogical response to the complexity of sustainability challenges that takes the existential and emotional dimensions of climate change seriously. To this end, the paper unfolds in two parts. The first part makes a distinction between ‘public pedagogy’ as an area of educational scholarship and ‘pedagogical publics’ as a theoretical lens for identifying certain qualities within educational environments, exploring what potential this distinction has for rethinking public pedagogy for sustainable development. Turning to Bonnie Honig (2015) and her call for creating ‘holding environments’ in the public sphere as a response to the democratic need of our time, the second part translates her political notion into an educational notion asking what fostering pedagogical publics as holding environments might involve. In relation to sustainability challenges, it is suggested that an environment that ‘holds’ people together as a pedagogical public has three main qualities: a) it makes room for new rituals for sustainable living to be developed in order to offer a sense of permanence; b) it invites narratives that can frame sustainability challenges in more positive registers; and c) it reinstates an intergenerational difference that serves to give back hopes and dreams to adults and children in troubling times.

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How do we know where there is potential to intervene and leverage impact in a changing system? The practitioners perspective

Sustainability Science ◽

10.1007/s11625-021-00956-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Birney

Keyword(s):

International Development ◽

Systems Change ◽

System Change ◽

Systems Dynamics ◽

Leverage Points ◽

Actionable Knowledge ◽

The Future ◽

Sustainability Challenges ◽

The Right ◽

Silver Bullet

AbstractMore and more people and organisations who are addressing complex sustainability challenges are turning to systems change practices. They are looking to get to grips with complexity and to better understand how to use their resources, position and influence to address the challenges. These people are working across civil society, philanthropy, business, international development, government and beyond. Many hope that adopting this emerging practice will give them the answers to the long held questions of – How do I know where to intervene? How do I know that what I am doing is the ‘right’ thing? Am I using my resources for their greatest effect? Once we have set ambitious goals around issues like inequality and climate change, how do I know I am creating impact?. In 1999 Donella Meadows wrote a paper entitled Leverage points: places to intervene in a system to help translate the work of systems dynamics into understanding where a small amount of energy might have a greater effect. Ever since, practitioners have been chasing these elusive leverage points trying to understand how this might be made useful and practical. There is, however, no silver bullet to changing a system. At Forum for the Future and through the School of System Change, we work on a number of different projects such as the Protein Challenge and Boundless Roots Community as well as collaborate on, coach and co-inquire with others such as the Marine CoLAB, Oneless, Lankelly Chase Foundation. In this paper we seek to build on systems change ideas and theories, using Forum for the Future experience of working with these ideas in practice, and offer actionable knowledge (Coghlan 2007) to other change makers who are grappling with these questions. This paper provides four qualities that help us understand the dynamics of a changing system, and how potential in these dynamics might be identified and be translated into strategy and interventions. I explore and illustrate these through cases and examples and raise the question about how change makers might value what we measure when understanding impact in the context of a changing system.

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Making Resilient Decisions for Sustainable Circularity of Fashion

Circular Economy and Sustainability ◽

10.1007/s43615-021-00040-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Celinda Palm ◽

Sarah E. Cornell ◽

Tiina Häyhä

Keyword(s):

Value Chain ◽

Circular Economy ◽

Ecological Impacts ◽

Ecological System ◽

Fashion Industry ◽

State Response ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Industry Value Chain ◽

The Many ◽

Sustainability Challenges

AbstractThe fashion and textiles industry, and policymakers at all levels, are showing an increased interest in the concept of circular economy as a way to decrease business risks and negative environmental impacts. However, focus is placed mainly on the material ‘stuff’ of textile fashion and its biophysical harms. The current material focus has several shortcomings, because fashion is a social-ecological system and cannot be understood merely by addressing its environmental dimensions. In this paper, we rethink the fashion system from a critical social-ecological perspective. The driver-state-response framework shows social drivers and ecological impacts as an adaptive social-ecological system, exposing how these interacting aspects need to be addressed for sustainable and resilient implementation of circular economy. We show how current responses to global sustainability challenges have so far fallen short. Our overall aim is to expand possibilities for reframing responses that better reflect the complex links between the global fashion system, culture and creativity and the dynamics of the living planet. We argue that reducing planetary pressure from the global fashion and textiles industry requires greater recognition of the system’s social drivers with more emphasis on the many cross-scale links between social and ecological dimensions. Resilient decisions aiming for sustainable circularity of the fashion industry must therefore pay attention to social activities beyond the industry value chain, not just material flows within it.

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Human capital and sustainability challenges for Airbnb Bed and Breakfast lifestyle entrepreneurs

Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism ◽

10.1080/15022250.2021.1927828 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-27

Author(s):

Consuelo Griggio ◽

Anette Oxenswärdh

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Bed And Breakfast ◽

Sustainability Challenges

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Using Deliberative Democracy for Better Urban Decision-Making through Integrative Thinking

Urban Science ◽

10.3390/urbansci5010003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 3

Author(s):

Janette Hartz-Karp ◽

Dora Marinova

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Case Studies ◽

Deliberative Democracy ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Capital City ◽

City Region ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Urban Issues ◽

Sustainability Challenges

This article expands the evidence about integrative thinking by analyzing two case studies that applied the collaborative decision-making method of deliberative democracy which encourages representative, deliberative and influential public participation. The four-year case studies took place in Western Australia, (1) in the capital city Perth and surrounds, and (2) in the city-region of Greater Geraldton. Both aimed at resolving complex and wicked urban sustainability challenges as they arose. The analysis suggests that a new way of thinking, namely integrative thinking, emerged during the deliberations to produce operative outcomes for decision-makers. Building on theory and research demonstrating that deliberative designs lead to improved reasoning about complex issues, the two case studies show that through discourse based on deliberative norms, participants developed different mindsets, remaining open-minded, intuitive and representative of ordinary people’s basic common sense. This spontaneous appearance of integrative thinking enabled sound decision-making about complex and wicked sustainability-related urban issues. In both case studies, the participants exhibited all characteristics of integrative thinking to produce outcomes for decision-makers: salience—grasping the problems’ multiple aspects; causality—identifying multiple sources of impacts; sequencing—keeping the whole in view while focusing on specific aspects; and resolution—discovering novel ways that avoided bad choice trade-offs.

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