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The dramatic increase in express delivery packaging poses severe environmental threats, making recycling a top priority. A comprehensive conceptual framework was developed for exploring citizens' recycling behavior by integrating structuration and social network theories, and the nonlinear effects of determinants were identified. Further, the 1538 micro-data obtained from five eastern Chinese cities are used for descriptive, correlation, and ordinary least squares regression analysis. It is clarified that there are three distinct recycling behavior patterns, the most prevalent of which is collection station recycling behavior (CSRB), followed by mart equipment recycling behavior (SERB), and door-to-door recycling behavior (DTDRB). The empirical results indicate that social sanctions, responsibility attribution, and centrality positively predict recycling behaviors. Place attachment strengthens SERB and DTDRB. Notably, the authority effect exerts inverted U-shaped effects on recycling behaviors, and trust has an inverted U-shaped effect on CSRB. This study reveals the nonlinear effects of variables, and the findings provide implications for recycling practice. • Construct an integrated model considering social structuration and network theories. • Empirical reveal the possible negative impacts of positive antecedent. • Three kinds of recycling behavior exist among Chinese citizens. • Authority effect exerts an inverted U-shaped effect on recycling behaviors. • Trust has an inverted U-shaped effect on collection station recycling behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The three-pillar concept of environmental, economic, and social sustainability is widely known in academia. Research on sustainable development has noted its complex nature, also reflected in the decision-making process, which requires structuration and systematization. To support decision making for sustainable development, many multi-criteria techniques, both isolated or integrated, have been used. Among them, the analytic hierarchy process stands out as the most often used. This study conducts a systematic literature review on the analytic hierarchy process's support for decision making for sustainable development, making it possible to identify gaps and future research pathways. To do so, it gathers, maps, analyzes, and summarizes the academic literature by reviewing 173 manuscripts published between 2014 and 2018, which are indexed by the Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct databases. The results, analysis, and discussion of the screened manuscripts are comprised of (a) a descriptive analysis, (b) mental mapping, (c) bibliometric data, (d) an in-depth analysis of the most cited literature, (e) an in-depth analysis of the most recently cited literature, and (f) the clustering of research evolution. The findings substantially elucidate the advancements in the state-of-the-art of the analytic hierarchy process for sustainable development. Implications for research and practice, as well as promising challenges for further research, are presented. Graphical abstract Image 104176 Highlights • AHP has been used to assess criteria for sustainability models in various fields. • Fourteen application areas of AHP to support sustainable development are identified. • MCDM technique integration has grown in decision-making for sustainability. • Fuzzy AHP has been the preferred tool to support sustainable development decisions. • Manufacturing and urban-related sustainability decisions have mostly used AHP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature agrees that companies' sustainability concerns are related to stakeholders' sustainability awareness. However, these studies disagree on how this relationship occurs. Some suggest that companies strategically decide to be more sustainable, expecting that stakeholders' recognition of their efforts will generate competitive advantage (inside-out perspective). However, others suggest that companies' sustainability awareness (and actions) increases only in response to stakeholder requests (outside-in perspective). Each perspective offers different views on how much stakeholders should trust the available information sources about companies' sustainability performance—what companies say (e.g., sustainability reports) and what ESG ratings companies present—because obtaining direct information about what companies do may be difficult for external stakeholders. In exploring how these theories support each other, we suggest strong structuration theory as a helpful tool for integrating inside-out and outside-in perspectives. We argue that these perspectives are complementaries instead of opposites, propose a framework to approach empirical settings, and apply the said framework to analyze the Cerrado Manifesto case, a zero-deforestation initiative led by private organizations, mainly European, on the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Using different information sources, we apply SmartPLS 4.0.9.2 to test the relationship between what companies say, do, and what ESG ratings say they do, additionally investigating the influence of social pressure, institutional environment, and controversies around companies. The results show no direct relationship between what ESG ratings say companies do and manifesto-signing (what companies do), but show an indirect effect through reporting (what companies say). A positive relationship was found between ESG rating and reporting, and between reporting and manifesto-signing. Significant relationships were found between the pressure received construct and both manifesto-signing and reporting. The proposed framework, integrating inside-out and outside-in perspectives, explains a company's manifesto-signing. [Display omitted] • We explored how ESG rating, what companies say, and what they do are connected. • We examined the role of social pressure to understand what companies do and say. • We studied company-level reporting and practice and its links to social pressure. • ESG controversy and headquarters country's SDG moderate social pressure and company practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a new landscape of social finance institutions (SFIs) is evolving rapidly in Europe, the academic literature on the structures of legitimation that characterize the development of social finance has been limited. This paper addresses this gap: (1) by conceptualizing social finance (SF) as a pre-paradigmatic field where leading SF institutions have spontaneously adopted different investment rationalities and logics to achieve positive social impact through financing and banking activities; (2) by discussing dominant institutionalization patterns, empirically exploring the institutionalization of SF at the organizational, inter-organizational and institutional levels. A sample of seventeen SF institutions in three European countries, i.e. Ireland, Italy and the UK, was examined. The analysis highlighted that two forms of SF, i.e. social impact investment and ethical banking, guide the institutionalization and paradigm-building process. These two forms both assume the production of social impact, i.e. impact on society, the environment and sustainable development, as a distinguishing trait from commercial financial approaches, but differ in terms of business models and products and services provided to customers. Dominant institutionalization patterns reflect the social-embeddedness of these institutions. The convergence of the two dominant models would be desirable in order to further facilitate the development of social finance as a new paradigm in the financing and banking industry, alternative to commercial finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Policy of Solid Waste, recently approved in Brazil, establishes the implementation of reverse logistics networks for several residues, such as electronic waste. One of the primary points of the legislation is the principle of ‘shared responsibility’, which establishes that all actors in a supply chain are responsible for the reverse logistics, such as manufacturers, distributors, importers, retailers, the government and the final consumer. This situation characterizes a group decision context and, emphasises the need of aggregate different and often conflicting viewpoints. Thus, this paper proposes the use of a specific Problem Structuring Method, the Strategic Options Development Analysis, which is based on the construction of cognitive mapping techniques, for developing strategic analysis based on the decision-makers' viewpoints. In order to apply the methodology, we conducted online workshops with 8 representatives of the stakeholders involved in this decision context. At the end of the process, four categories of actions to be implemented were found and developed: strategic, environmental, economic and social. These categories are based not only to technically assessment, but also on stakeholder's perspectives. The contribution of this paper is mainly related to the analysis and structuration of the problem of reverse logistics of electronic waste under a problem structuring methodology, which is few explored in the literature. This paper also contributes to researchers estudying reverse logistics of electronic waste, mainly in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Systems integration (the combination of previously independent systems) is one of the solutions proposed by industrial ecology scholars to tackle environmental problems. Systems integration has not yet been analysed as an innovation process, which could bring additional insights to its challenges and barriers. This paper is a first attempt to fill this gap. Using a conceptual model based on actor-network theory and insights from structuration theory, we analyse the case of developing sewage gas for transport in Stockholm. Results show that the process was very dynamic and that the network grew in such a way that it became risky for actors not to join it. Moreover, pre-existing socio-technical rules had to be re-negotiated during the process. The process through which types of pre-existing rules were modified was unique for each pre-existing network that was involved. Besides, in one instance systems integration required the development of a bridging network allowing interaction between initially independent networks for sewage and private transport. Finally, results also show that systems integration requires a “superstructure” i.e. an organisation that can coordinate activities and take important risks to see to it that systems integration gets realised. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a heuristic for supporting the transition from material flow analysis to material flow management. The heuristic combines material flow analysis with a newly developed method, structural agent analysis (SAA). The latter is based on Giddens structuration theory and provides a basis for understanding the social structures restricting or enabling strategies for managing material flows. We consider the specific advantages of SAA to be that it does the following: (i) it considers the interaction and dynamics of social structure and human agency and, thus, allows for including the role of structural factors such as culture in the analysis; (ii) it provides a cross-level approach allowing the study of interferences among agent groups; and (iii) it considers the different time scales of change of social structures constraining the implementation of options for improving material flows. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]