Ozyegin University Example: Responsible Consumption & Responsible Stakeholders

Sustainability has been one of the core principles at Ozyegin University (OzU) since its establishment in 2008 and is deeply embedded in its education, research and governance strategy. For OzU, being a green university means building an organic community constantly improving itself on every aspect of sustainability in collaboration with all its stakeholders. OzU accomplished these by establishing the first Health & Safety and Environment (HSE) Department within a university in Turkey. Besides, OzU is also the first university in Turkey to have been concurrently awarded both ISO 14001 Environmental Management System and OHSAS 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Certifications. With these accomplishments OzU has pioneered the path for sustainable universities in Turkey resulting in various rewards and highest places in multitude rankings including GreenMetric. This paper discusses OzU’s strategy and the subsequent steps taken to attain these achievements including the roles of HSE Department and HSE Board

Facing paradoxical identities: How Indonesian organic food community unify consumers and environmentalist identities

This article explored how the Indonesian organic food community builds its identity as both consumers and environmentalists, which is often thought to be a paradox. Some researchers argue that combining consumption and environmental preservation under green consumption is a challenge and an oxymoron. Nevertheless, the organic food community is still able to build their identities. The author argued that organic communities have transformed into space to empower and shape those identities using conventional and new media as part of green political consumerism. To understand this issue, the author used qualitative research by collecting the communities’ official documents, webpage, and social media accounts’ posts. The author also interviewed the founders of two communities, Komunitas Organik Indonesia (KOI/ Indonesian Organic Community) and Lingkar Organik (LO/ Organic Circle), a KOI member. The author did participatory observation in one of KOI’s WhatsApp Groups for their members. Then, the author triangulated the data and analyzed it. The results revealed that communities maintain and transform their green value into identities and real action by conditioning their members with community structures, activities, and access to organic food either through online or offline services. Therefore, having both identities is not a paradox.

Place and Politics in the Work of George Sturt

Since the 1930s George Sturt's Change in the Village (1912) and The Wheelwright's Shop (1923) have been associated with the cultural theory of the journal Scrutiny and its idealised concept of a rural English ‘organic community’. Focusing on his earlier writing as contexts for these works, this essay offers a reappraisal of Sturt as a self-consciously political analyst of late-Victorian agrarian experience. His contributions to The Commonweal, the newspaper of William Morris's Socialist League, in the 1880s mark out a distinctively dissentient position that was developed through contributions to periodicals such as Country Life and in the two ‘Bettesworth’ books that drew upon the oral histories of local labour. These contributions to the developing commercial genre of English ‘country writing’ in the period are also critical reflections upon its modes and media. Formally experimental and uncomfortably reflective upon what he termed his ‘misery of being a Socialist employer of labour’, Sturt's examination of the relationship of agrarian tradition and modernity in West Surrey represents a distinctive contribution to the radical social history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

“I Have This Kind of Grief for the Earth”: A.S. Byatt’s Ecopoetics in Ragnarök, “Thoughts on Myth” and “Sea Story”

A.S. Byatt has expressed deep misgivings regarding the role which the human species has played in mis/shaping the natural world due to the wilful blindness which guides human behaviour in this respect. In fact, Byatt has focussed on the destruction of the planet caused by greedy and environmentally-unaware human beings in fictional texts such as Ragnarök: The End of the Gods (2011) or “Sea Story” (2013), as well as in critical pieces such as “Thoughts on Myth” (2011). Hence, I am particularly interested in investigating how Byatt’s texts have been shaped by environmental concerns, as expressed in both her fiction and her critical work. My reading of Byatt’s ecopoetics will therefore be set within the theoretical framework of ecocriticism. Finally, I will also examine Byatt’s argument that in a way her early fictional work was “a questioning quarrel” with her former Cambridge teacher F.R. Leavis’s, whose “vision and values” she nevertheless “inherit[s] and share[s]” (Passions of the Mind, 2) in light of Leavis’s discussion of “the organic community” as proto-ecocritical writing.

Re-empowering into voice: experiments in organic community co-production

This article explores and extrapolates an emerging concept within community practice: namely that of organic community co-production. The concept is influenced by previous uses of the term ‘organic’, specifically as applied by Tönnies in relation to certain types of community, and Gramsci in respect of a concept of leadership. Our development of the term has been generated within the context of reflective practitioner experience, located in a community-led action campaign Voice4Deptford, in South East London. The case study explores the interdisciplinary roots of this form of co-production. It highlights the way that these pre-existing principles and methods have been adapted, reflected upon and improvised in the light of 30 years’ grassroots engagement by Green to evolve a bespoke approach that we are proposing to call ‘organic community coproduction’. The case study outlines several original dimensions or modalities of community organic co-production including; stepping aside; the academic as a non-expert and giving voice. It unpacks the different elements of impact and transformation, that are consequent upon organic community co-production. These include; evidence of change; working together and community reflective time. The article concludes with a discussion of the issues involved in reframing of local power, the campaigns early successes and its continuing challenges.

Tradition in the Russian Theological World

Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth, Russian Christian thought developed a distinctive approach to the theology of tradition. Partly shaped by Romantic understandings of ‘participatory’ knowledge, but also utilizing some aspects of classical Orthodox ascetical theology, this view of tradition supported an Orthodox critique of both Western Catholic and Protestant theology and ecclesiology. Initially it was closely involved with the Slavophile ideal of organic community life and communal consciousness. In the hands of its foremost twentieth-century exponents (such as Florovsky and Lossky), it receives a more robust anchorage in patristic theology but is still bound up with a particular doctrine of the human person as relationally defined. The evolving model of tradition as ‘catholic consciousness’ is a good illustration of how Russian theology, both overtly and implicitly, creatively blends both an eclectic assortment of philosophical sources and a variety of traditional Eastern Christian categories of theological and spiritual analysis.

Water-Holding Characteristics of Litter in Meadow Steppes with Different Years of Fencing in Inner Mongolia, China

As a main restoration measure to address degraded grasslands, the installation of fences is often accompanied by accumulation of organic litter. This accumulated litter is a layer of physical moisture which intercepts rainfall and may inhibit plant growth and development. One of the important means to judge a reasonable length of time of fencing (the time a fence is present) is through assessing the water-holding mechanism and capacity of the litter. In this study, four meadows in the Chinese Hulunbuir grassland with different years of fencing duration were investigated in order to obtain data on organic community and litter accumulation. A soaking method was used to study water-holding characteristics of the litter and was divided into three parts of stem, leaves and decomposed parts as a means to summarize the water-holding mechanism within the litter. The results showed that: (1) Compared with the light grazing meadows, the diversity and uniformity of communities in meadows of fencing displayed a downward trend, while the accumulation of litter increased. (2) The stems, leaves, and decomposed components of litter in different communities showed a highly positive linear correlation with their maximum water-holding capacity (WHC). This indicates that the stem/leaf mass ratio and decomposition degree of litter are key factors in regulating WHC. (3) Based on this understanding, we established a model based on stem and leaf mass to predict the water-holding potential of litter in real world situations.

PEMBERDAYAAN KELOMPOK TANI SAYUR MELALUI PENERAPAN PERTANIAN SEHAT DI SENTRA PETANI SAYUR DESA BOKOR KECAMATAN TUMPANG KABUPATEN MALANG, JAWA TIMUR

The empowerment activity was motivated by excessive use of inorganic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and herbicides in the process of vegetable cultivation and other agricultural commodities in the vegetable center of Bokor Village. The high cost of labor for weed control causes farmers to overuse herbicides. On the long period, chemical residues can endanger consumer’s health. The objectives of this service are: 1) Increasing awareness of farmers to cultivate vegetables that are safe for consumption with the principles of healthy farming; 2) Reducing damage to agricultural ecosystems due to unhealthy agricultural practices. Mentoring activities are carried out during May-September 2018, with a target of 20 participants. The methods of activities that carried out was a survey and discussion of the implementation of healthy farming with the Bokor Village farmer group; comparative study on the Brenjonk Organic Community, Trawas, Mojokerto; then followed by mentoring vegetable cultivation using biological agents in the study plot. From the results of the mentoring activity, it can be concluded: 1. It has provided knowledge and skills to farmers to implement healthy farming, 2. It has been running quite effectively by looking at the results of evaluations that are in line with the achievement targets.abstrakKegiatan pemberdayaan dimotivasi oleh penggunaan berlebihan pupuk anorganik, pestisida kimia dan herbisida dalam proses budidaya sayuran dan komoditas pertanian lainnya di pusat sayur di Desa Bokor. Tingginya biaya tenaga kerja untuk pengendalian gulma menyebabkan petani terlalu sering menggunakan herbisida. Dalam jangka panjang, residu kimia dapat membahayakan kesehatan konsumen. Tujuan dari layanan ini adalah: 1) Meningkatkan kesadaran petani untuk menanam sayuran yang aman dikonsumsi dengan prinsip pertanian sehat; 2) Mengurangi kerusakan ekosistem pertanian karena praktik pertanian yang tidak sehat. Kegiatan pendampingan dilakukan selama Mei-September 2018, dengan target 20 peserta. Metode kegiatan yang dilakukan adalah survei dan diskusi pelaksanaan pertanian sehat dengan kelompok tani Desa Bokor; studi banding pada Komunitas Organik Brenjonk, Trawas, Mojokerto; kemudian dilanjutkan dengan pendampingan budidaya sayuran menggunakan agen biologi di plot studi. Dari hasil kegiatan pendampingan, dapat disimpulkan: 1) Telah memberikan pengetahuan dan keterampilan kepada petani untuk menerapkan pertanian sehat, 2) Telah berjalan cukup efektif dengan melihat hasil evaluasi yang sejalan dengan pencapaian target.

WILLINGNESS TO PAY KONSUMEN BERAS ORGANIK DAN FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG BERKAITAN DENGAN KESEDIAAN KONSUMEN UNTUK MEMBAYAR LEBIH

Increased public concern and awareness of health and environment, is expected to significantly increase organic rice consumers. Thus, it can be consumed and reached by more people. The objectives of the study were to identify the characteristics of organic rice consumers, measure willingness to pay of organic rice consumers and analyze the factors related to the willingness to pay of organic rice consumers. The method used in this study is a survey method with descriptive statistical analysis and Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). The numbers of research respondents were 51 people consisting of organic rice consumers in Warung Sehat 1000 Kebun (W1000K) as much 18 people and consumers of organic rice in several other places joined in the Indonesian Organic Community as much 33 people. The results showed that consumers were willing to pay up to 10% higher than the price offered for organic rice type of pandan wangi, menthik susu, red rice and brown rice sold in W1000K. Even in some other places, consumers are willing to pay for those rice at prices higher up to 22% of the offered price. While for organic rice type of black rice, consumers are willing to pay 9%-11% lower than the price offered. Factors related to consumers' willingness to pay more for organic rice are health (67%), food security (45%), impact on the environment (43%), knowledge of organic rice (39%), easy access to get rice (37%), service (33%), quality (25%), packaging (24%), price (20%), and lifestyle (18%).