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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out to achieve the ambitious goal of addressing all forms of poverty, fighting inequality, tackling climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind. Five years into the implementation of the SDGs, though progress has been recorded in some places, significant challenges persist globally. In 2019, the UN Secretary-General declared a "Decade of Action" commencing in 2020 until 2030. In the light of this campaign, it is important that all effort is garnered to accelerate action towards achieving the goals. The local government level is increasingly being recognized as the key locus of development effort, particularly because the SDGs are relevant to local jurisdictions and change can be tangibly measured at smaller scales. This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on how best to localize the global goals. Reflecting on the Ghanaian context, the paper discusses guiding principles for effective communities of practice at the local government level. Overall, the paper underlines the advantages of coordination among stakeholders, which constitute essential ingredients for accelerating action towards the SDGs especially as we commence the "Decade of Action." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationalisation of higher education has diverging implications for climate change, on the one hand entailing greenhouse gas emissions through mobility, but also contributing to climate action through international collaboration. These apparent contradictions and resulting trade-offs present significant challenges to universities. This paper puts forward a framework for understanding the combination of impacts, the interactions between them and implications for the climate crisis. It distinguishes between three dimensions of internationalisation: actors (movements of students and staff), practices (integration of the international into curriculum and research) and influence (the global reach of the various impacts of the university). Internationalisation in these three dimensions can have positive or negative implications for climate action and sustainability, through direct impacts (greenhouse gas emissions) and indirect ones (changes in individuals, societal structures, knowledge and technologies). Implications are drawn out for the actions and strategies of universities, as well as for the global system of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the United Nations member states unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a part the Agenda for Sustainable Development, with a target completion date of 2030. Of these, (9) Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, (12) Responsible Production and Consumption, and (13) Climate Change have direct links to transportation and to aviation. One goal, (5) Gender Equality has especially powerful connections to and impacts on air transport. This paper will discuss the relationship between sustainability, gender equity, and air transport and make recommendations for a future of transport that is economically, socially, financially, and environmentally more sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important policy in the current global response to climate change and has been widely recognized by various industries. In the process of promoting carbon neutrality, new energy plays a pivotal role. In this study, the definition and connotation of new energy and its role and specific operation in the energy transition of carbon neutrality are firstly explained. Promoting new energy development requires significant green and low-carbon investments. Taking China as an example, this paper analyzes the opportunities brought by the carbon neutral process to the field of green finance and analyzes the main features and development trends of green finance in China at present. Then this paper proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the development of green finance in China in terms of improving the green financial policy system, enhancing the supply capacity of green financial services, and optimizing the supporting environment for green financial development. Finally, this paper analyzes the measures and experiences of the United States in promoting low-carbon development and proposes countermeasures for China's low-carbon development on the basis of the five major relationships that need attention in China's carbon-neutral process. That is, strengthen the top-level design and improve the regulatory policy system; optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy; optimize the industrial structure and reduce energy consumption in key industries; build a complete low-carbon technology system and promote low-carbon technology research and development and demonstration applications, and encourage local conditions to explore low-carbon development paths. The development of green finance can contribute to the advancement of new energy technologies, thus contributing to the achievement of carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world facing catastrophic shocks, there are tremendous opportunities for management scholars to engage and make fundamental contributions to the grand challenges that lie ahead. To do so, our focus must move away from a theory-fetish toward a more applied action orientation that contributes to theory-building but does not make that its main or singular aim. In this paper, we argue, that our field's primary research aim must not be to see how we can build theory out of a crisis, but rather how our organizational and management theories can contribute concretely to helping humanity prepare for and respond to these shocks and build long-term societal resilience. Furthermore, we argue that management scholars need to vigorously embrace a research agenda on sustainability focusing on deep engagement with practitioners to address grand challenges. To do so, we draw on experiences from our deep engagement with practitioners—an ethnographic study and a scientific activism effort. We offer several lessons and identify implications of deep engagement for impact within organization studies such as dedicated space in journals for impact cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we'll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We'll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifty percent of emissions must be cut by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050 to keep global warming below 1.5°C. Transport is a major component of tourism's contribution to climate change. Therefore, encouraging tourists to use less energy intensive public transport is an important strategy in reducing tourism emissions. Despite the crucial role of public transport for sustainable tourism, the area remains substantially under researched and theoretically uninformed. To fill the research gap, an extended-value-belief-norm (EVBN) model was created and assessed, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors, air quality, and climate change, and comparing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) groups of fair distribution, efficient allocation, and sustainable scale. Results revealed that an EVBN model well explains tourist behavior for public transport, showing the significant distinct effect of ESG components and SDG groups in the research model, and providing theoretical and managerial insights with respect to tourist use of public transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and advances in urban technology propel forward the 'smart city'. As decision makers strive to find a technological fix, smart city strategies are often based on technological orthodoxies which are conceptually and empirically shallow. The motivation behind this paper is to address the conceptual adolescence which relates to the wholesale digitisation of the city by pursuing a twin argument about the democratic and environmental consequences. The authors draw on interdisciplinary theory and insights from urban studies, infrastructure, informatics, and the sociology of the Internet to critique the way the 'smart city' is taken forward. It is concluded that private firms market smart city services and solutions based on an ideological legacy of 'ubiquitous computing', 'universal infrastructure', and 'green technology'. Based on evidence from three UK cities--Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow--it is argued that the underlying principle of future city strategies is to expand the market for new technology products and services to support 'green growth' with disregard for their wider impacts. For citizens, becoming a consumer of the technologies is often presented as progressive 'participation' or 'empowerment' with unknown or hidden consequences both political and environmental. The city systems become a digital marketplace where citizen-consumers' participation is increasingly involuntary and the hegemony of global technology firms is infiated. What follows is that the city's 'intelligent systems' are defined through a digital consumer experience that has inherent biases and leaves parts of the city and its population unaccounted for. This renders the city less resilient in the face of future social and climatic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change increases the necessity for mid-latitude cities to tackle urban heat. Climate change adaptation plans are common policy mechanisms to approach the issue. This paper studies the city climate development plan (StEP Klima) of Berlin, Germany, by using Constellation Analysis. We analyzed to what extent StEP Klima might trigger planning and governance processes for the implementation of heat stress measures. Berlin’s plan brought attention to the local risks of urban heat and possible strategies. To translate its aims into decision makers’ everyday governance and planning practice, institutionalized guidance and an activation of policy instruments is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have increasingly been regarded as a new opportunity to maximize the synergies between nature, society, and the economy. In addition, especially for policymakers and practitioners engaged in climate technology transfer activities from developed to developing countries, this concept is promoted as a cost-effective, agile, and innovative way of tackling various climate challenges to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). Thus, in the present work, to enhance NbS as an innovative implement during the climate technology transfer, we first analyze previous NbS cases during the technical assistance activities for some SDGs accomplished by the United Nations Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), such as coastal risk protection (to maximize ecosystems, Type 1), agroforestry (to restore ecosystems, Type 2) and green urban design (to create ecosystems, Type 3). Then, through in-depth interviews with NbS stakeholders, we identify dominant barriers to implementing each NbS Type in terms of innovation element: technology, market, and regulation. Finally, based on our staged innovation model considering the two-sided networks, we propose novel strategy for enhancing NbS by overcoming each barrier during the three stages of the climate technology transfer process: NbS technology assessment in the first eco-maximizing stage, blended finances for market creation in the second eco-restoring stage, and regulation incentivization in the third eco-creating stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managers must make critical disaster preparation decisions to protect firm assets from the threat of wildfire activity. Prior literature stresses the importance of past disaster experience as a key driver of disaster preparation. The article finds that, while experience with disasters is a critical condition, it is insufficient to explain disaster preparation activities by firms. Managerial perceptions including belief in anthropogenic climate change and the perception of increasing wildfires can substitute for direct negative wildfire experience. The article builds configural theory to explain how the psychological "closeness" of wildfire hazards can influence managerial decisions to prepare for disasters in the presence of key organizational characteristics. This study adopts a qualitative comparative analytical approach, drawing on manager surveys and biophysical wildfire data from 20 Canadian mining and resource extraction sites. The article also contrasts manager perceptions of wildfire risk with those of experts and captures a gap in risk perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with the observation that the contemporary eco-building movement in the UK focuses on technology with the principal aim of reducing carbon emissions and so combating climate change. While this focus may translate into justice for future generations, there seems markedly less regard for justice for others in intragenerational space. I analyse the eco-building movement's framings of sustainable development and sustainability, seeking out statements of equity via the criteria used for building materials selection. Closely defining equity as theory and practice, analysis reveals that framings of sustainable development and sustainability in the eco-building movement vary considerably in their engagement with intragenerational equity. This begs the question of whether the movement has a shared political critique. There is a marked tendency to view discourses of environmental sustainability and social justice as distinct rather than mutually constitutive. I propose that the eco-building movement should engage in a politics of the common good (Sandel, 2010), contesting equity in the public domain. Wary of the reach of markets, the eco-building movement should debate not only the right way to distribute building materials and shelter but also the right way to value them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development has always been a compromise formulation that papered over real conflict between environment and development. Twenty years after Rio, the geopolitical climate is far less conducive to easy compromises. Given an embattled North and a rising South, particularly Asia, the language of zero sum conflict rather than positive sum cooperation is likely to prevail. Green growth offers one way to paper over these conflicts yet again, but it would be prudent to resist this temptation. There is incomplete buy-in to the green growth story, and some in the South are also concerned that this narrative will downgrade poverty alleviation and equity considerations from the sustainable development triad of environment, growth and distribution. In this context, Rio+20 can play a positive role by focusing on national and sub-national institutions and embracing a diversity of national political, institutional and legal contexts; seeking to impose uniformity is likely to chafe. Global efforts can play a supporting role by inducing normative change, stimulate national processes, and provide hooks for domestic policy actors. In addition, Rio+20 should ensure that inclusion of the weakest should remain firmly on the agenda. While the conversations may be difficult, Rio+20 will be most productive if it leads to engagement with fraught geopolitical issues than if, once again, these are papered over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst calls for paradigm shifts in environmental scholarship, we track an emergent literature on how environmental values, knowledge and behaviour (EVKB) change (or not) with the migration process. We focus on the role of Majority World migrants to the Minority World. Large-scale survey research into EVKB is beginning to consider both ethnicity and migration history as important variables, but tends to leave the concepts of environment and environmental behaviour unexamined. Western EVKB indicators thus tend to be universalized rather than understood as themselves culturally specific. An emergent literature attempts to improve both quantitative and qualitative research on EVKB by broadening the conceptualization of environmental behaviour to include the practices of Majority World migrants. Those studies throw new light on the process of acculturation as having disruptive or solidifying potential for sustainable practices. We summarize four implications for future research. There is a need to go beyond western logics in research design and method. Straightforward assumptions about the 'pro' in pro-environmental behaviour need to be challenged. Cases of EVKB's persistence post-migration and positive influence on the broader population should be sought out and examined. The migration process provides real-time experiments in enacting alternative worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is undergoing modernization at a scale and speed the world has never witnessed. As climate change increasingly dominates the global agenda, China faces the challenge of shaping a new growth path in a climate-constrained world. The paper argues that China's current climate and energy policy is, at best, a "repackaging" of existing energy and environmental strategies with co-benefits for the mitigation of climate change. Nevertheless, even though policies are not climate-change driven, the quick (rhetorical) endorsement of low-carbon development and the strong momentum of green technologies indicate that political ambitions are in favour of finding a more sustainable development pathway. A new growth path would, however, require a fundamental shift, with development and energy strategies being set within climate security constraints. The eventual success of this new path remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is only one factor driving growing numbers of cities throughout the globe to reconsider conventional approaches to electricity generation and use. In the U.S., this momentum is incorporating a shift away from centralized, supply-side approaches reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear power, toward more distributed, flexible, and cleaner energy systems. In this regard, such systems entail elements of the emerging Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) model enacted by the U.S. state of Delaware in 2007. The potential value of this model can be explored by examining those locales where elements of energy service compatible with an SEU have currently been adopted and implemented. This paper looks to one such community, Austin, Texas, to assess its utilization of an alternative energy pathway and the outcomes observed to date. Considered here are the technical, economic, and environmental dimensions of change, as well as the social dynamics accompanying new imperatives for energy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1980s, power sector liberalization has been embraced at different levels in the East Asian countries of China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The dominant rationale underlying power liberalization has been a quest for efficiency improvements, to be achieved by substituting private market activity for public regulations and by opening a country's electricity system to the global economy and management techniques. However, as the power system is increasingly liberalized, the possibility of establishing a local energy system, which has the great potential to restore sustainable environment-society relations, has been diminished. As an alternative to the power liberalization strategy, this paper proposes a restoration of local energy regimes based on the model of an energy commons and a decentralization paradigm. The innovative energy-policy model of the Sustainable Energy Utility, as applied in the case of Seoul, Korea, is explored as a possible option for a local energy strategy for East Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of papers on city planning published from 2007 to 2008, including "Streets, Sounds and Identity in Inter-war Harlem," by Clare Corbould, "(Re)making the Other, Heterosexualising Everyday Space," by Kath Browne, and "Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds," by Wendy Nelson Espeland and Michael Sauder.

Energy-efficient buildings are seen by climate change experts as one of the least-cost approaches to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper summarizes a study carried out for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change that takes a broader look at the potential role of a climate-friendly built environment including not only considerations of how buildings are constructed and used, but also how they interface with the electric grid and where they are located in terms of urban densities and access to employment and services. In addition to summarizing mechanisms of change (barriers and drivers) the paper reviews a set of policies that could bring carbon emissions in the building sector in 2025 almost back to 2004 levels. By the middle of the century the combination of green buildings and smart growth could deliver the deeper reductions that many believe are needed to mitigate climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the limitations, omissions and value judgements of the application of conventional economic analysis in the evaluation of climate change mitigation policies. It is argued that these have biased the result of the assessment models towards the recommendation of less aggressive mitigation strategies. Consequently, this paper questions whether they provide appropriate policy recommendations. The unequal distribution of rights implicitly assumed in conventional economic analyses applied to climate change is questioned and an alternative approach considering a distribution of rights consistent with sustainable development is put forward. Finally, the points that an analysis consistent with sustainable development should take into account are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines key issues in the nexus of sustainable development and climate change. It describes sustainomics as 'a transdisciplinary, integrative, balanced, heuristic and practical meta-framework for making development more sustainable'. The paper seeks to integrate these concepts through two broad approaches involving optimality and durability, and applies these ideas to climate change analysis. Operationally, it plays this bridging role by helping to map the results of environmental and social impact assessments (EIA and SIA) onto the framework of conventional economic analysis of projects. In addition the approach may help to formulate effective sustainable development policies, by linking and articulating these activities explicitly trough the Action Impact Matrix framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses freedom, work and organisation by problematising Amartya Sen's pluralistic notion of (development as) freedom through a fieldwork study of a Filipino non-governmental organisation that promotes sustainable agriculture. In this context, peasant farmers face increasing threat from intersecting agrarian and climate crises, exacerbated by mainstream economic paradigms for agricultural development. For Sen, development encompasses the process of expanding the 'substantive freedoms' of people (freedom to), and removing sources of 'unfreedom' (freedom from). However, it is not clear in Sen's work how such freedoms are relationally constituted and thus the manner of the 'labour of agential becoming' at the core of Sen's thought. We therefore ask: how do agroecological work and organisational practices of grassroots development promote freedom for small-scale farmers under climate threat in the Global South? Our analysis identifies a novel form of freedom – labelled 'freedom with' – defined as a set of relational, multi-actor capabilities and organising practices that constitute alternative, future-oriented ways of doing and being. 'Freedom with' enables us to better understand how and why the labour of agential becoming works, offering a theoretical extension of Sen's notion of freedom with implications for debates in our field on sustainability and beyond-capitalist organising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, on behalf of The Shadow Places Network, we outline a working manifesto of politics and practice. We mobilise the format of the manifesto to speak to an uncertain and damaged future, to begin to imagine other possible worlds. For feminist philosopher Val Plumwood, whose thinking inspires this network, shadow places are the underside of the capitalist fantasy, 'the multiple disregarded places of economic and ecological support'. In turning towards shadow places, and the unjust and unsustainable processes that produce them, we call for an environmental humanities that reaches beyond abstraction, fosters new responsibilities, considers the uncomfortable, and generates reparative possibilities and alternative futures. We aim to continue to trace out a world of shadow places. We acknowledge that these shadow places cannot be known in full, but through a willingness to engage in careful conversation with the beings and places harmed by (or strategically shielded from) processes of the Anthropocene, we can learn how to relate to each other and these places in more just ways. Recognising that shadow places are impermanent and contingent, this working manifesto does not look to predetermine or prescribe but rather invites conversation, encounter and exchange. In so doing we choose to contribute to making different worlds possible by pursuing new collaborations, new methods and new politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Global Green New Deal (GGND)—that includes Arctic sea ice climate triage and carbon cycle climate restoration, and that, following Eisenberger (2020), would move us toward a renewable energy and materials economy (REME)—is necessary to turn our current civilization and species-threatening climate crises into an opportunity to stabilize our planet's climate and advance to a new, more equitable and prosperous stage of human development. Imminent, potentially catastrophic, global climate impacts of Arctic sea ice loss, the first global climate "tipping point," are reviewed, and practical and efficient potential climate triage methods for avoiding this are summarized. Longer-term carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture, sequestration, and use (CCSU) methods, that would move us toward long-term carbon cycle climate restoration, are presented. A general reframing of climate policy and specific GGND policy proposals—that include Arctic sea ice climate triage and carbon cycle climate restoration that would rapidly move us toward a REME and avoid increasingly catastrophic climate impacts—are proposed. JEL Classification : Q53, Q54, Q55, Q56, Q58 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue presents six articles and two invited editorials that explore the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of regenerative organizing. Together, they draw on a range of disciplines from both organizational and environmental sciences to discover, theorize, and illustrate life-giving intersections between humans and natural ecosystems in Anthropocene. This introduction provides an overview of the reasons for, and especially the possibilities of, regenerative organizing as we stress the limits of planetary boundaries in a post-climate change world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on topics related to history and planning including attitudes towards menstruation in Elizabethan England, sexual fantasy in modern America, and feminism.

We explore how digital technologies are helping address grand challenges to tackle climate change and promote sustainable development. With digital technologies, entrepreneurial organizations have adopted innovative approaches to tackle seemingly intractable societal challenges. We refer to these broadly as digital sustainability activities. By focusing on the digital toolbox employed by pioneering organizations, we propose a research agenda that generates novel questions for entrepreneurship, business models, and ecosystems as well as new ways of thinking about trust and institutional logics. We believe that digital sustainability can spur empirical advances in entrepreneurship, innovation, and strategy with potential for positive impact on society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural sector offers a unique opportunity to examine the topic of climate change because agriculture is more susceptible to climate disruptions than many other industrial sectors. Based on the analysis of the survey data and in-depth interviews with specialty-crop producers in California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, we test the capacity of ecological modernization and treadmill of production perspectives to explain how resource-intensive producers recognize water availability and climate change as threats to their operation's economic viability. We find that producers in capitalist markets recognize natural resource problems; however, they fail to respond to climate change beyond natural resource problems. We also find that local markets play a positive role in raising environmental awareness of producers. Finally, our finding on the association between the perceptions of water availability and climate change goes beyond the treadmill of production dualism that only theorizes the impacts of economic factors on the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the capacity to create the large system change needed to deal with "grand challenges" like the Sustainable Development Goals, sustainability, or climate change can be enhanced by understanding and applying a core set of principles, drawn from multiple sources and levels of analysis that have explored the question of "what gives life." These sources all—albeit in different ways—apply the question, what "gives life" to different types of systems, and how this relates to the (so far as we know) uniquely human capacity for reflection. We identify six principles that "give life" to systems—intentional generativity, permeable containment, emerging novelty, contextual interconnectedness and requisite diversity, mutually enhancing wholeness, and proprioceptive consciousness—then provide guidance for change agents and scholars, as well as an illustrative example of the principles in action. These six principles provide a foundation for thinking about how to create flourishing human systems in organizations, social change, and global sustainability transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of sustainable energy systems is pivotal in addressing climate change, but is also a complex and multifaceted task that should take into consideration a wide range of technological and socio-economic issues. The energy trilemma concept acknowledges this complexity and emphasizes the need to achieve a balance among three main dimensions: energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability. This study provides a systematic treatment of the energy trilemma at the country level. A novel multicriteria assessment framework is employed to evaluate the related performance of countries. Such an evaluation provides useful results for policy making, as it enables the examination of the status of each country and the challenges that it faces in achieving energy sustainability. The obtained empirical results are analyzed over time as well as considering the characteristics of the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction between subsistence emissions and luxury emissions was originally devised in 1992 to guard people so poor as to be able to afford only fossil fuels from being priced out of energy by market mechanisms like cap-and-trade that were proposed to assist with limiting climate change. Non-carbon energy can now be made as affordable and accessible as fossil fuel, but tensions remain between measures to support sustainable development and measures to control climate change. Consequently, the distinction between subsistence energy and luxury energy continues to be surprisingly relevant to current international political struggles. The most fully justified method for normative assessment of Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, the Climate Equity Reference Framework, presupposes the distinction. Normative evaluation of the choice between maximally ambitious ratcheting-up of Nationally Determined Contributions in the immediate future and lazy reliance upon hoped-for carbon dioxide removal in future decades depends on it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate goals can only be realized with a major shift in financing toward low-carbon, climate-resilient assets, notably infrastructure. Progress has been made, but the world is not currently on a viable let alone a just transition pathway. The rules and norms governing the financial system itself are an important factor shaping financial flows. Positively, recent developments highlight a growing receptivity on the part of financial market actors and those governing the financial system to take account of climate and broader sustainable development considerations. Building on such receptivity to reinforce the underlying broader purpose the financial system is a precondition for a just transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unchecked climate change poses a self-inflicted existential risk to humanity as it exacerbates the multiple-crisis syndrome facing global society. In international policy, education for sustainable development is widely flagged as transformative. To realize that transformative potential, sustainability educators are exploring the nexus between their field and that of transformative learning. They particularly call for a stretching of epistemology so that unsustainable practices are challenged, taken-for-granted thinking and assumptions disrupted, root causes of global dysfunction interrogated, values subjected to critical scrutiny, change potential of socio-affective learning unleashed, and paradigm shift thus catalyzed. The problem is the overall lack of consensus about what needs sustaining and what needs transforming. Seeking to address that problem, we call for subversive learning interrogating four key climate change drivers: economic growth, consumerism, denial, and climate injustice. We also call for restorative learning in three important areas: restoring nature intimacy, confronting despair, and reclaiming the good life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency is popular during times of energy surplus. We are living in one such time, and the historic debate about the relative value of improved energy efficiency has been occurring. This paper discusses the theory behind energy efficiency and summarizes that debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical questions concerning global sustainability governance have been widely discussed with respect to the role of civil society in general. Interestingly, faith-based actors (FBAs) have so far attracted scant attention in this context. Yet FBAs actively participate in international political negotiations and public debates on sustainable development. Secularisation theory differentiates between religious and secular actors. To date, however, it remains unclear whether FBAs contribute a distinct faith-based perspective to global sustainable development discourse and, if so, what this perspective is. The present article aims to identify the relevant norms and ideas in FBAs' communications and to contrast them with other existing ideas on sustainable development. On the basis of a content analysis of the submissions by FBAs and non-faith based civil society groups in the context of the UN Rio+20 summit, the article first investigates what visions are contained in current articulations of FBAs with respect to sustainable development. Secondly, it explores in what way FBAs' ideas about sustainable development differ from those of secular civil society. Our analysis establishes a basis for further inquiries into the role of FBAs in global sustainable development discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries has recently received increasing attention, and scholars have pointed to the strong contextuality of CSR in the respective regions. Regarding the latter, however, sub-Saharan Africa has been scrutinized only marginally by academia. Moreover, empirical research on the impact of the institutional context has been scant, despite its attributed importance for CSR. Our article seeks to fill a part of this research gap by investigating CSR website reporting of 211 companies in seven sub-Saharan countries. The study’s aim is twofold: First, we identify to what extent sub-Saharan companies report on CSR and which contents they disclose. Second, by building on institutional theory, we investigate how the socio-economic and political environments influence CSR reporting. For this purpose, we examine the impact of country-level and company-level determinants. We find that the sample African companies’ CSR efforts focus strongly on local philanthropy and therefore differ substantially from Western CSR approaches. Furthermore, we evidence that GDP and level of governance standard positively affect CSR reporting. Our study contributes to the literature by empirically evidencing the contextuality of CSR in Africa and by explaining how specific country- and company-level determinants contribute to or hamper the development of CSR in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the potential of different knowledge stocks to decrease the technological gap between the leader in green technology inventions and its followers in order to identify if wait-and-see is a reasonable option to benefit from knowledge. Our econometric results indicate that it is difficult to decrease the technological gap and remain competitive in the generation of green technologies without timely accumulating green knowledge. Although effects from external green knowledge stocks also contribute to decrease the technological gap, the effects are moderate and they cannot compensate the lack of internal green competences. Non-green knowledge stocks even tend to increase the technological gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the promotion of renewable energy projects in Chile, especially solar energy projects, has become increasingly important, as energy dependence from foreign fossil fuels has increased and concerns regarding climate change continue to grow, posing a significant challenge to the local economy. Even though recent developments toward a more sustainable energy matrix in Chile have significantly increased the investment in the solar energy sector, social and environmental fragilities, combined with the lack of well-functioning institutions and the historical marginalization of indigenous communities who have been affected by several energy projects, result in gradually increasing conflictive situations. Unless proper mechanisms are designed and implemented to rapidly and correctly address these challenges, Chile could miss the opportunities that solar energy projects can provide to the development of its communities and to the economic growth of its regions. This article studies solar photovoltaics planning in Chile, focusing on the recent developments and the main challenges ahead, and proposes policy recommendations for effectively addressing these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological change modelling (TCM) is quietly transforming the landscape of environmental debate. It provides a powerful new basis for technological optimism, which has long been a key battleground. The technique is at the heart of mainstream climate change mitigation policies and greatly strengthens environmentalism over ecologism. It seems to show that technological change can solve the problem. I argue that the models employ a flawed understanding of technological change and that policies based on them are a major gamble. The article aims to begin a wider debate on TCM, offering a defence of ecologism rooted in the history of technology and SCOT literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The ever-increasing demand for natural resources has led to the continuing depletion of resources. Reversing this trend will require knowledge of effective environmental management strategies and adoption of sustainable development practices by society at large. Thus, it is critical that citizens increase their awareness of sustainability and acquire managerial skills required to effect change. Use of decision games for teaching sustainable development is a step in this direction. Games present great opportunities as tools of edutainment (educational entertainment) for teaching and training, with positive effects on learning outcomes.Aim and Method. In this article, we undertake a methodological review of games on sustainable development, analyzing their underlying characteristics, including the stated focus of the games, game availability, number of players and their roles, their target age, game validation and evaluation, stakeholder involvement in game development, learning outcomes, and so on. A total of 49 games are included in this survey.Conclusion. Our findings suggest that the games used for teaching sustainable development have generally increased players’ understanding of issues around sustainability and have enhanced their knowledge of sustainable development strategies. Our classification of the games’ characteristics assists educational instructors and potential learners in identifying games that are best suited for their teaching and learning needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite interest in the importance of social equity to sustainability, there is concern that equity is often left behind in practice relative to environmental and economic imperatives. We analyze recent climate and sustainability action plans from a sample of twenty-eight medium and large U.S. cities, finding that few made social equity a prominent goal of their plans, although there is a discernible trend in this direction. We present case studies of three cities that incorporated social equity goals, concluding that sustainability planning efforts provide strategic opportunities to pursue equity goals, especially where capacity exists among community-based actors to intervene and participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In context of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, developing countries are asked to contribute to greenhouse gas control objectives by proposing so-called Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). Although the concept provides developing countries with complete flexibility to design NAMAs, a majority of proposals seek international support. This article improves our understanding of the matching of NAMA design and international support by exploring (mis-) alignment between support providers' and NAMA developers' prioritization for NAMAs. The article assesses survey responses from support providers in light of records of NAMAs. We conclude that there is a mismatch between support providers' primary emphasis on systems for measuring emissions reductions and the lack of such provisions in existing NAMA proposals. Furthermore, sector preferences may create structural biases in NAMA support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Environmental skepticism, defined as doubt about the authenticity or severity of environmental degradation, is common among the general public. This study attempts to identify its social bases, using a large and recent (2010) dataset that covers 45,119 individuals from 32 countries. Using multilevel modeling, it explores both individual-level and country-level influences on public environmental skepticism. The results support four individual-level perspectives (knowledge deficit, cultural orientation, social trust, and competing priority) and their interplay. Environmental skepticism stems from insufficient education and self-assessed environmental knowledge, religious and conservative values, lack of trust in general society and science, and other concerns competing with environmental concern. Moreover, the skepticism-reducing effect of education and self-assessed knowledge is found to be contingent on individuals’ religiosity and political ideologies. Education and self-assessed knowledge are more effective in reducing skepticism among less religious individuals and left-leaning liberals than among religious people and right-leaning conservatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Traditional justifications for state-to-state development assistance include charity, basic rights and self-interest. Except in unusual cases such as war-reparations agreements, development assistance has typically been justified for reasons such as the above, without reference to any history of injury that holds between the states. We argue that climate change creates relationships of harm that can be cited to supplement and strengthen the traditional claims for development assistance. Finally, to demonstrate the utility of this analysis, we offer a brief application of our reasoning to the emerging conflict in the United Nations over the future post-2015 development agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyze the socioeconomic effects of energy sustainability challenges raised by oil depletion and climate change at the European and global levels. We assess macroeconomic impacts at different period markers from 2010 to 2100 and under different visions of the future of globalization. Fragmented capital markets affect the pace and direction of change and induce additional economic losses in the long term. Regionalized good markets have a positive effect in the long term because less intense international trade moderates the effects of fossil fuel constraints. A sustainable energy future will require implementing policies and measures that are able to (a) provide correct incentives for long-term investments by resorting to other signals than current market prices, (b) incorporate sectoral measures that act complementarily to pricing scheme measures for sectors confronted with biased agents’ behaviors or strong inertias, and (c) foster globalization patterns that are consistent with energy sustainability objectives. The challenge consists in articulating the objectives and the instruments of these different policy and measures triggering the transition toward a sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing international uncertainty - including factors such as ongoing financial crises, climate change and energy scarcity - raises questions about which policy strategies can best solve environmental problems and promote community development. This article describes the functioning of the farmers' market in the Czech city of Brno and analyses how it may contribute to local sustainable development. Theoretically, the article engages the debate over the meaning of sustainability and appropriate policies to achieve sustainability goals. Field observations, interviews, content analysis of government documents, and a survey of vendors reveal how the market functions, indicate the meaning of the market for customers and vendors alike, shed light on the future use of the space and provide data for comparison of market activities with official sustainability policy. The article concludes that a novel approach toward sustainable development is to work with existing traditions like farmers' markets rather than focus efforts exclusively on top-down initiatives and high-tech solutions. While such markets are not automatically ecologically friendly, and farmers' markets alone cannot produce a sustainable society, this research demonstrates the potential of such emergent, bottom-up activities to help transform society-nature relations while improving urban quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Viewpoint article reviews the two approaches to climate change, namely mitigation and adaptation, and examines the complex interrelationships between them, and between climate change and sustainable development. Adaptation is about reducing the effects of climate change on both human and natural systems; and mitigation is about reducing the causes of climate change by decreasing the anthropogenic impact on the climate system. The implications of an apparently warming world clearly mean that there is need for mitigation; but how effective will mitigation be, and how far are we prepared to go, to reconcile conflicting interests and tensions? Despite relatively slow progress, some forms of sustainable development have appeared, and these offer the best hope we have of mitigating human contribution to climate change, and adapting to its consequences. However, it is also necessary to view the issue of climate change as holistically as possible, whereby socio-economic objectives, needs and desires are reconciled with environmental limits, because science and technology are limited in their capacity to solve problems on a planetary scale. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is based on a keynote presentation given at the 18th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association in Recife, Brazil, February 2012. It considers new, and not so new, approaches and practical roles for the emerging field of human factors/ergonomics (HFE) in sustainable development (SD). The material for this article was largely drawn from the literature in the fields of human development, sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and social/environmental impact assessment. Identifying the role of HFE in SD is not a simple one and from the outset is complicated by the widely differing ideas in the sustainability literature about what exactly it is we are hoping to sustain. Is it individual companies, business models, cultures, or the carrying capacity of our planet? Or combinations of these? For the purposes of this article, certain assumptions are made, and various emerging opportunities and responsibilities associated with our changing world of work are introduced. First, there are new versions of traditional tasks for us, such as working with the people and companies in the renewable energy sectors. Beyond this, however, it is suggested that there are emerging roles for HFE professionals in transdisciplinary work where we might play our part, for example, in tackling the twinned issues of climate change and human development in areas of significant poverty. In particular we have the tools and capabilities to help define and measure what groups have reason to value, and wish to sustain. It is suggested, that to do this effectively, however, will require a philosophical shift, or perhaps just a philosophical restatement at a collective level, regarding who and what we ultimately serve. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite increasing interest in corporate environmentalism, less attention has been directed to how corporations justify and defend their initiatives in this area. This is important in understanding how corporate environmentalism is legitimized in the face of crises, such as climate change, and the ongoing criticism of corporations' deleterious impacts upon the environment. Based on qualitative data from Australian corporations, we illustrate how organizations and managers employ a range of justifications for their activities in order to meet criticism and challenges. We identify different discursive legitimation strategies that are used by managers to deal with conflicts between justifications, and argue that this framework has broader implications in understanding the arguments that underpin social conflict over environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While calls are being made to deal with the linkages between climate change and sustainable development to arrive at an integrated policy, concrete steps in this direction have been very limited so far. One of the possible instruments through which both issues may be approached simultaneously is a multistakeholder partnership, a form of governance with the potential to address existing regulatory, participation, resource and learning gaps as it harnesses the strengths of private, public, and nonprofit partners. There is some insight into partnerships for climate change, but largely limited to developed countries, and those in developing countries most often do not involve companies. To help fill this gap, this article explores the role of multistakeholder partnerships in addressing climate change and sustainable development in developing-country settings. It elaborates on the governance function of partnerships, on actor involvement, the gaps addressed, as well as synergies and trade-offs in the climate change-sustainable development nexus and how partnerships may help address them. As the number of such partnerships is still limited, we discuss seven illustrative partnerships and draw conclusions as to further conceptualizations and implications for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]