transformative change
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2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangdan Piao ◽  
Jun Xie ◽  
Shunsuke Managi

Abstract Background Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) engagement is expected to benefit corporations in terms of their efficiency and sustainability. The transformative change in management practices would not only provide support for employees but also bring about additional workload, which may affect employee psychological well-being. However, the examination of the relationship between corporate ESG activities and occupational stress is scarce; hence, this study aims to fill this knowledge gap. Methods In total, 110,351 observations were collected from 41,998 employees regarding occupational stress to reflect employee psychological well-being. The data were derived from 11 corporations in Japan from 2017 to 2019. Data on ESG activities were collected from the MSCI ESG database from 2015 to 2017. The effect of 1-year lagged corporate ESG activities on employee psychological well-being was investigated using a lagged variable linear regression model. Results Positive and negative relationships were found between corporate environmental activities and occupational stress. Activities that reduce water stress during operation and adopt clean technology were found to benefit employees’ psychological well-being. On the contrary, the program for reducing toxic emissions and waste lowered employees’ occupational stress levels significantly. Regarding corporate social activities, the improvement of job satisfaction or work-life balance was associated with occupational stress. However, corporate governance activities were found to have unfavorable effects on employees’ psychological well-being. Conclusion The effects of corporate ESG activities on employees’ psychological well-being are found. The managerial implications suggest that caring for employees’ occupational stress during the implementation of environmental activities is necessary, and the adoption of social activities could enhance employees’ psychological well-being. Notably, corporate governance activities are a stressor for employees; top management teams should pay attention to it.


Author(s):  
Margret Carstens

Abstract This article analyses the impact of covid-19 on the rights of indigenous peoples, particularly in Brazil. It deals with the current situation of the Brazilian indigenous peoples, the impacts of the pandemic, the rights created on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people and land rights in Brazil. Does the Brazilian government comply with international law, with constitutional rights of indigenous peoples in the current covid-19 crisis, particularly with the Brazilian Supreme Court decision on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people? With a focus on the 2020 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this paper will identify and examine the gaps in protection of the indigenous peoples rights by reason of the impact of the covid-19 crisis. This paper argues that the crisis is misused as an occasion for land invasions, deforestation, forest fires and the denial of basic indigenous rights. Especially in Brazil, a transformative change, an emergency support for indigenous peoples, and a still stand agreement on logging and extractive industries operating next to indigenous communities are needed. Brazilian ngo statements give guidelines as to how to manage the threats of the present pandemic on indigenous peoples of Brazil. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation all offer further relevant suggestions as to how to address the serious impacts in the response to and the aftermath of this crisis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 13981
Author(s):  
Diana Rahman ◽  
Theano Moussouri ◽  
Georgios Alexopoulos

The current food system is unsustainable and no longer able to cope with the challenges caused by climate change and consumer behaviours. In this context, agroecology, with its commitment to crossing disciplinary boundaries, has been endorsed as one of the main approaches to the creation of a sustainable food system. Despite this, the integration of the social research on food has not been evident enough in agroecology as a discipline. To be sure, studies related to foodways, food traditions, and, more recently, food heritage have long been present, and have provided important insights into the social and cultural aspects of food. However, there appears to be little convergence between this body of research and the mainstream agroecology literature. This paper aims to address this disconnection between the sociocultural and environmental aspects of the food system, and to propose ways of moving forward. We argue that knowledge about food heritage can be a catalyst for the achievement of agroecology’s vision for whole-system transformative change, and a moving towards global food security and nutrition. Using the agroecology framework of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and looking at the examples of the subak system in Indonesia and the EU-funded BigPicnic project, we employ the elements of ‘co-creation and sharing of knowledge’, ‘culture and food traditions’ and ‘human and social values’ as entry points for the creation of sustainable transitions of the food and agricultural systems.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110649
Author(s):  
Rob Booth

Net zero emissions targets are of growing international relevance given their increasing uptake by governments across the world. This article analyses net zero targets as a distinctly future-oriented approach to environmental governance. It does so from a critical perspective, examining whether net zero targets serve to reproduce the existing temporalities of environmental policymaking or whether they represent a break with current practices and, in turn, develop new temporalities and novel ways of engaging with the future. In order to do this, this article focuses on efforts to reduce agricultural emissions in England to net zero. In 2019 the United Kingdom introduced legislation requiring a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. This, in turn, has encouraged actors in the food system to produce various imagined pathways to net-zero agriculture. This article critically analyses how these imagined pathways are discursively produced by influential actors within this sphere through a critical discourse analysis of recent grey literature produced by Defra, the Climate Change Committee and the National Farmers’ Union. It asserts that, to an extent, the net zero and target oriented approaches enshrined in current environmental policymaking represent the ongoing reproduction of both an ‘empty’ modernist future with some post-political dimensions. This assessment is, however, nuanced by recognising the tensions that emerge within and between the state and non-state institutions producing these discourses. Ultimately, however, the net zero transition draws actors together around a techno-optimistic vision of an agricultural future defined by sustainable intensification and negative emissions technologies. In doing so, it serves to suppress calls for transformative change in agriculture based on social as well as material change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 175797592110575
Author(s):  
Alok Mukhopadhyay ◽  
Nancepreet Kaur

The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of our civilization and reinforced the importance of living in harmony with nature, not rampaging it in a conquering mode. South and South-East Asia have a vital role to play in achieving the global goal of ‘Health for All’ as the regions have a significantly large share of global income and multidimensional poor compared to other regions. Clearly, the progress in health and development outcomes of these regions cannot be achieved without addressing social determinants of health and ensuring active public participation. These regions must collectively address the social determinants of health following a realistic health promotion model. It is indeed a favourable time to look beyond the so-called predominantly reductionist biomedical model of health care to a more holistic model of health, that places humans and the environment at the centre, and emphasizes the importance of promoting health and wellbeing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
I.M. Poiasnyk ◽  
V.A. Gryb

The article analyzes how higher medical education is currently undergoing a gradual butsignificant change to the transformation into online learning adapt accordingly in orderto fulfill the core competencies of medical training and to provide quality education tomedical students during the COVID-19 pandemia.Objective – to study the challenges and opportunities faced by medical schoolsin introduction of the remote learning for basic science teaching in response to theCOVID-19 crisis.Conclusions. Despite the pace of this transition, both formal and informal studentfeedback indicated that students have an extremely high level of satisfaction andengagement with online learning activities. The use of emergent technology (e.g.,artificial intelligence for adaptive learning, virtual simulation, and telehealth) foreducation is most likely to be indispensable components of transformative change andpost-COVID medical education. These measures could then be followed by hands-onexperience that is provided in a safe environment. As physicians begin to use telehealth(phone calls, video visits, and communication over online medical record applications)to communicate with their patients, students should be included (and instructed) in thislearning environment. It is likely that telehealth will persist long after the pandemicrecedes perhaps even as a preferred method of physician-patient interaction in somesituations. Therefore, it is essential that students graduate from medical school welltrained in telehealth including technological aspects as well as learning the mostprofessional models of the physician-patient distance interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Hellin ◽  
Eleanor Fisher ◽  
Ana María Loboguerrero

Climate risk management is part of the response to the threat of climate change. Much effort has focused on the promotion on climate-resilient agriculture. There continues to be undue focus on technology solutions per se and not enough attention on the coupling of technologies and socio-economics and how they become embedded in ecological systems underpinning smallholder agriculture. In this perspective, we argue that an intertwined social–ecological–technological systems approach to climate risk management is needed to ensure that climate-resilient agriculture contributes more to the realization of goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Furthermore, in line with broader policy thinking on the need for transformative change toward sustainably living on the planet and “leaving no one behind,” a greater focus on transformative adaptation is required. Transformative adaptation tackles the root causes of vulnerability including unevenly distributed power relations, and extant networks of control and influence. There are, however, relatively few examples of moving from the theory of transformative adaptation to practice. Three recent practical examples of transdisciplinary approaches, that we have direct experience of as researchers, provide lessons for initial ways forward as part of climate risk management initiatives. Examples from Vietnam, East and Southern Africa, and Guatemala illustrate the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary responses whereby the inequalities underlying unequal power structures may be addressed, enabling farmers to pursue climate risk management pathways that contribute to climate resilience and human development, as epitomized by the Sustainable Development Goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13421
Author(s):  
Nihit Goyal

Although India has made significant progress towards the sustainable development goal on energy (SDG 7), further policy innovations are essential for closing the gap, addressing geographic disparities, and harnessing energy for transformative change. Research can support this process by creating policy-relevant knowledge regarding the energy transition, but there is no systematic account of the literature pertaining to energy policy in India to map the research area and suggest key avenues for future research. In this study, I conduct a bibliometric review and computational text analysis of over 2700 publications to identify the key themes, geographies, and public policy concepts (not) examined in the research on energy policy in India. I find that: (i) the literature is dominated by topics in energy supply and less attention is paid to demand-side management, energy efficiency, and electricity distribution; (ii) existing studies have hardly examined subnational policy (-making), especially in the case of eastern and north-eastern India; and (iii) research on both analysis for policy and analysis of policy is limited. I conclude that the current foci lack the breadth and depth necessary for supporting the Indian energy transition and urge scholars to diversify the thematic, geographic, and conceptual engagement in future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Inga Narbutaite Aflaki

Abstract Building upon findings from a strategically selected case study of a pioneering Swedish municipality, Jönköping, a participant in a Horizon2020 project on co-creating public service innovations in Europe (CoSIE), this paper illustrates how local municipalities may take a systemic approach to creating the necessary conditions for sustainable co-creation and assesses whether this illustrates an ongoing paradigmatic shift in service management and culture. The strategic change management efforts in adapting a public sector organisation to a co-creation culture, are assessed against a normative theoretical framework for such a transformative change (Finansdepartementet 2018; Torfing et al, 2016;). The study employs the concept of co-creation to highlight the paradigmatic shift in the approach to citizens as service end users from passive clients to active citizens with resources and capabilities to exert an impact on service design, delivery, and value creation. Th e article offers new insights into how a robust organisation may be moving towards a new public administration paradigm that accommodates co-creation, and especially how a new approach to management based on trust may be strategically implemented as a key factor in facilitating systemic change (Torfing et al, 2016). Against the background of a significant shortage of studies exploring how conditions for such a transformative change are created at different system levels, the article examines a longitudinal real-time study and illustrates new management approaches, strategies, and tools used. The study also contributes a normative framework to explore a shift to more trust-based steering and a more nuanced explanation of an ongoing managerial shift towards a ‘co-creation’ paradigm. It argues that achieving trust-based steering has major potential to facilitate a co-creation culture but that a paradigmatic shift towards such a culture requires congruence in discourses and actions on different system levels and a major transformation of approaches, roles, and relationship dynamics between senior and first-line management.


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