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Background: Social prescribing is gaining traction internationally. It is an approach which seeks to address non-medical and health-related social needs through taking a holistic person-centred and community-based approach. This involves connecting people with and supporting them to access groups and organisations within their local communities. It is hoped that social prescribing might improve health inequities and reduce reliance on healthcare services. In the UK, social prescribing link workers have become core parts of primary care teams. Despite growing literature on the implementation of social prescribing, to date there has been no synthesis that develops a theoretical understanding of the factors that shape link workers' experiences of their role. Methods: We undertook a meta-ethnographic evidence synthesis of qualitative literature to develop a novel conceptual framework that explains how link workers experience their roles. We identified studies using a systematic search of key databases, Google alerts, and through scanning reference lists of included studies. We followed the eMERGe guidance when conducting and reporting this meta-ethnography. Results: Our synthesis included 21 studies and developed a "line of argument" or overarching conceptual framework which highlighted inherent and interacting tensions present at each of the levels that social prescribing operates. These tensions may arise from a mismatch between the policy logic of social prescribing and the material and structural reality, shaped by social, political, and economic forces, into which it is being implemented. Conclusions: The tensions highlighted in our review shape link workers' experiences of their role. They may call into question the sustainability of social prescribing and the link worker role as currently implemented, as well as their ability to deliver desired outcomes such as reducing health inequities or healthcare service utilisation. Greater consideration should be given to how the link worker role is defined, deployed, and trained. Furthermore, thought should be given to ensuring that the infrastructure into which social prescribing is being implemented is sufficient to meet needs. Should social prescribing seek to improve outcomes for those experiencing social and economic disadvantage, it may be necessary for social prescribing models to allow for more intensive and longer-term modes of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.K. food system exhibits strong unsustainability indicators across multiple dimensions, both in terms of food and nutritional insecurity and in terms of adverse climate change, biodiversity, and physical resource impacts. These indices of an unsustainable and inequitable social metabolism are the result of capitalist agriculture and society in general and, more specifically, of neoliberal and austerity policies adopted with vigour since the global financial crisis. The causal, capitalistic, and, latterly, more neoliberal bases of the U.K. food system are delineated in the first section of the paper. These bases are then detailed in terms of their impacts in exacerbating climate change, biodiversity (and resource) decline and loss, and food and nutritional insecurity. The political narratives and policy frameworks available to dissemble, mitigate, or, more rarely, to address (resolve) these impacts are then delineated. It is argued that the only policy framework available that strongly integrates food security (social equity) with ecological sustainability is political agroecology and an accompanying degrowth strategy. The final section of the paper details what political agroecology and degrowth might entail for the U.K. food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research delves into the intricate realm of social housing flat units within tower blocks in Leicester, as a microcosm that serves as a perfect reflection of the larger problem of fuel poverty among social housing systems within the UK. The multifaceted approach intertwines energy efficiency upgrades, indoor comfort, and resident satisfaction. Rooted in a comprehensive methodology, this research seeks to address pressing societal challenges within these architectural projects, from fuel poverty and well-being to environmental sustainability and social justice. Through surveys, interviews, audits, simulations, and detailed analyses of summer and winter thermal performance, this study navigates the complex interplay of factors that influence retrofit success. The findings underscore the transformative potential of comprehensive retrofit measures and the paramount importance of resident engagement while offering a potential holistic checklist for future projects. This research paves the way for future studies encompassing contextual diversity, interdisciplinary collaboration, and long-term impact assessment. As it advances, these findings guide the commitment to fostering positive change, enhancing lives, and contributing to a more sustainable and equitable future in social housing retrofit endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is a response by Philip Powell (co-director of the Justice Conference, UK, and also Theology and Network Engagement Manager with Tearfund, UK) to the five questions Richard Slimbach poses on faith and political economy in his article "Asking Tough Questions About Transformational Development," published in this journal in the summer of 2023 (Slimbach 2023). A follow up comment by Slimbach appears at the end. Both of these contributions were part of a webinar on June 27, 2023 discussing that article; the rest of the webinar content, consisting of two other responses and discussion around them, is published in this issue as well. The full recording of the webinar can be found at https://vimeo.com/844345288/e970fe8826?share=copy. The specific questions to which Philip Powell responds are: 1. In what ways have your family background, theological education, and ideological leanings shaped your perspectives on US foreign policy and the global US American military 'footprint'? 2. Are policy advocacy, community organizing, and other actions that prioritize economic justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights legitimate areas of public engagement for Christian NGOs? 3. What does our theology say about the importance of environmental responsibility? Why must the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor be heard together? What keeps Christian organizations from tackling big environmental issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and resource (oil, gas, and mineral) depletion? What goals might Christian NGOs set for themselves in these areas? 4. Given the realities of global poverty, increasing income/wealth inequality, and excessive levels of consumption and material waste in the Global North, what is expected of Christian organizations committed to the welfare of the poor and dispossessed? 5. Our current economic system works to create immense wealth and to grow economies, but morally, how does it work? What does it do to people and planet, not just for them? Do the internal mechanisms of capitalism act to preserve and protect the earth's ecological processes and biodiversity? Do they enable people to live in caring relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature? Do they encourage people to desire and delight in God? Do they strengthen the world's cultural and religious traditions and identities that provide meaning, direction, and joy in life? In other words, in what ways does advanced capitalism nurture and/or hinder transformational development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation can be a key mechanism to address some of society's greatest challenges, or it can contribute to them. There is extensive conceptual academic literature focused on how policy can be used to create more positive societal and environmental impacts through innovation, however, little empirical evidence exists to understand to what extent innovation policy in particular embeds the principles of social and environmental sustainability into its discourse. We begin to address this lack of evidence by using a critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics approach to explore how UK Innovation Policy embeds the concepts of societal and environmental impact, and how it balances these at times conflicting paradigms into policy documents. We find that although there is some inclusion of key environmental and societal words these are predominately secondary to economic themes, signalling a 'business as usual' approach to innovation policy. • We provide a comprehensive definition of sustainable innovation policy building on types of alternative innovation. • Our methodology contributes a novel way to assess the underlying sustainability paradigms in policy documents. • Social and environmental paradigms are underrepresented in innovation policy and are dominated by the economic paradigm. • We make recommendations for ways in which policymakers can integrate sustainable innovation policy principles further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extensive and burgeoning literature on the productivity of urban farms and gardens is largely focused on measures of crop yield and resource use, with little offered to date on their contribution to social productivity and sustainability. This paper suggests that evaluation of urban agriculture should consider all types of resource consumption and productivity simultaneously. The research reported here used a citizen science approach to collect data from seven community gardens and one community farm in London, UK in the 2019 and 2020 growing seasons. The paper examines the many variables that impact the sites' overall performance, highlighting the complex nature and relationship between the many benefits and outcomes of urban farms and gardens. Data are presented on crop yield, equivalent fruit and vegetable portions, input use (including water and fertilizer), journeys made to the garden by volunteers, social benefits, and social outreach. Results show very mixed levels of crop and social productivity, depending on the organizational structure and agenda of the various sites included in the study. With no clear pattern emerging, this paper suggests that the evaluation of citywide productivity, often based on projections of small data samples, may not be reliable. By ensuring that training opportunities for volunteers are made available, higher resource efficiency as well as higher productivity could be attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business schools face growing institutional pressure to respond to the sustainability agenda, especially since the financial crisis highlighted the need to educate business leaders who engage with issues beyond a profit imperative. Although business schools increasingly signal their engagement with global issues, such as sustainability, there are also suggestions that they decouple their espoused commitments from their practices. Rather than institute actual change and include sustainability in organizational activities, business schools may merely indicate that such change is taking place. We examine the key organizational and strategic conditions under which business schools decouple their sustainability policies from their practices. We draw on interviews with 40 deans of U.K. business schools and analyze the data using fuzzy set (fs) qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA), a method that investigates combinations of individual conditions. We find evidence to suggest that tight coupling is associated with small, prestigious business schools and that decoupling is associated with business schools that are large, wealthy, or lacking in expertise. We discuss the implications of these findings for business school legitimacy and institutional theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting social information disclosure can develop sustainable banking. This paper aims to evaluate the social sustainability of banks by constructing a new interval-based composite indicator using the Thomson Reuters database. In this paper, to measure the social sustainability of European banks, we propose an approach to construct interval-based composite indicators that usefully extends the construction of the composite indicator and allows us to measure the uncertainty generated by the choices made in the construction of the composite indicator. The methodological approach is based on Monte Carlo simulation and allows us to improve the information provided by the composite indicators. Thus, we measure the value of the social indicator and its subcomponents and the uncertainty of the value due to the different possible weightings. The results show that the best international ESG practices in European banks are found in French and British banks, especially in Italian ones. Finally, we analyze innovative perspectives and propose policy recommendations to support sustainable banking ecosystems in light of the increasing attention to ESG indicator disclosure and its correspondence to reality. • The best practices are found in French and U.K. banks. • Skandinavian banks face non-excellent results. • The work is a first attempt to elaborate on a specific social disclosure index. • Results are a valuable baseline to understand the actions to take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Social prescribing (SP) allows health professionals to refer primary care patients toward health and wellbeing interventions and activities in the local community. Now widely implemented across the UK and adopted in other nations, questions arise concerning the modelling of present and future schemes, including challenges to full engagement encountered by stakeholders, which lie beyond the scope of traditional evaluations. Critical Systems Thinking (CST) allows for holistic analysis of fields where multiple stakeholders hold diverse interests and unequal power.Methods: We use CST to (a) critically examine a developing rural social prescribing scheme from multiple stakeholder perspectives and (b) present a relational model for local social prescribing schemes. Our fieldwork included 24 in-depth interviews, regular planning meetings with key stakeholders, and discussions with those involved with national and international SP landscaping. A modified grounded theory approach was used for the analysis, and to consider the core elements of social prescribing sustainability.Results: Our study confirms that local social prescribing schemes must operate with numerous stakeholder interests in mind, seeking to address real life social complexity and offer integrated solutions to multifaceted issues. Three main areas are discussed: holistic vision and boundary judgments; barriers and facilitators; relational issues and "emotional buy in". Problems for staff include selecting suitable clients, feedback and technological issues and funding and evaluation pressures. Barriers for clients include health, transport and expense issues, also lack of prior information and GP involvement. Emotional "buy-in" emerged as essential for all stakeholders, but hard to sustain. Based on our findings we propose a positive relational model comprising shared vision, confidence and commitment; motivation and encouragement, support and wellbeing focus, collaborative relationships, communication and feedback, access to information /resources, learning in and from action, with emotional "buy-in" at its heart.Conclusion: Those implementing social prescribing in different localities inevitably face hard choices about what and whom to include. Research on the sustainability of social prescribing remains limited, studies are required to ascertain which "holistic" models of social prescribing work best for which communities, who are the main beneficiaries of these approaches and how "buy-in" is best sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable Intensification (SI) has been popularised in recent years as an approach seeking to balance the potentially conflicting demands of enhancing agricultural outputs with reducing the negative impacts arising from the current food system. Proponents have argued that SI can benefit from collaboration between farmers, but understanding is limited by a lack of data on current collaborative practices. Questions have also been raised as to whether the SI agenda pays sufficient attention to social sustainability as part of a fully integrated conception of SI. Tackling these issues, this paper reports on mixed methods data collection from seven case areas across the UK, with a particular focus on the experience of upland livestock farmers in north Wales. We evidence: (1) The extent, forms and preferences associated with farmers' collaboration; with findings demonstrating higher levels of collaboration than anticipated and a preference for informal forms of co‐working. (2) The underpinning and mutually reinforcing role of social interconnectedness in the delivery of diverse outcomes from collaboration. (3) How SI is perceived to threaten social sustainability, and thus work against a more integrated model of delivery. The paper concludes by arguing for a genuinely integrative model of SI to secure collaborations going forwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the natural-resource-based view has been an abstract phenomenon, primarily used by academics to explain competitive sustainable operations. This paper attempts to go beyond this, responding to the need for an explanation of the practical existence of the four natural-resource-based view resources in industry. Assuming a critical realist qualitative approach, in-depth interviews with sustainability experts in UK agri-food are undertaken. Findings demonstrate the existence of pollution prevention, product stewardship, and clean technologies and align with Hart's conceptualization of sustainability as competitive resources. Whilst the fourth resource, the base of the pyramid, cannot be empirically verified, the fifth resource of local philanthropy is uncovered and contributes to the growing body of knowledge surrounding competitive social sustainability. Findings also challenge the hierarchal presentation of the natural-resource-based view to implicate a more cyclical uptake. Thus, in offering the first empirical explanation of the natural-resource-based view, this paper overcomes a theory-practice gap to elucidate the feasibility, orchestration, and value of resources in competitive and sustainable operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UK farmers are facing significant uncertainty due to recent post-Brexit policy changes. Upland farmers in England are particularly at risk, due to their high dependence on European subsidy support payments. Farm entrepreneurship strategies may be a viable solution for these farmers to achieve economic sustainability while continuing to make valuable social and environmental contributions via multifunctional enterprises. However, many socio-economic constraints often prevent farmers from implementing these strategies. This paper builds upon existing research on 'constrained entrepreneurship in UK agriculture' by examining the Constrained Institutional Contexts that upland farmers operate within. Using a qualitative approach, the paper explores and theorizes how upland farmers are constrained by exogeneous forces which control access to and dependence on resources. The findings highlight the importance of a supportive rural environment for farm entrepreneurship; however, they also reveal that the success of such strategies is often beyond the control of individual farmers and policy support is often necessary to alleviate these constraints. • Constrained entrepreneurship in UK agricultural sector. • Post-Brexit legislative changes. • Weberian Analysis. • Uncertainty in the UK farming sector. •UK Agricultural policy will have a dramatic effect on the UK farm sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Health and social care facilities are usually complex buildings that require continuous effort to provide resilient and sustainable responses to changes in demographics, technologies, diseases and models of care. Despite resilience and sustainability concepts being frequently used by practitioners and researchers, ambiguities in their definitions often result in a lack of operational solutions to record, monitor and improve the resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities. Although the importance and complexity of the issues are widely acknowledged, there is little strategic guidance as to how they should be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to assess the suitability of developing a roadmap for improving the resilience and sustainability of UK health and social care facilities, and to identify the layers and processes needed to construct such a roadmap. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach was adopted, starting with a literature review of different types of roadmaps and their suitability to support the desired improvement objectives. Layers and processes were thus developed using the key issues identified in three recent research streams, and the roadmap was structured. Findings: The major findings have been captured within a three-layer, four-step process generic roadmap for improving the resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities that can be used to monitor performance, plans future actions and implement response to change. Practical implications: This paper targets decision makers, especially estate managers, but the proposed layers and processes can be modified for other stakeholders. Originality/value: This paper suggests an original approach for the development of a roadmap for resilience and sustainability of health and social care facilities, and specifically of how to structure layers and processes, envisioning a more integrated development of service provision and infrastructure asset management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of ethics and responsibility as drivers of a transition to a more sustainable agri-food system, by drawing on an investigation of the governance of social sustainability in the UK's conventional food supply. The paper investigates how and why various non-state actors in the conventional food supply construe certain social obligations as being part of the remit of the food supply; whether ethics plays a motivating role; and the extent to which their activities are linked to sustainability. The paper uses data collected via two surveys of diverse entities in the conventional food supply, the first a survey of public-facing websites, the second a series of in-depth interviews. The entities ranged from primary producers, manufacturers and food service operators to consultancies, standard-setting organisations and advocacy groups. The study finds that actors view a variety of socially focused or socially beneficial activities as legitimate governance concerns for the conventional food supply, and that ethics plays a role in motivating or justifying these activities. However, the activities are inconsistently associated with sustainability, a finding that may undermine the use of sustainability programmes as tools for driving ethical agendas. Moreover, the dominant business framing of the conventional food supply means that ethical considerations are often expressed in terms of more instrumental priorities. Social sustainability or responsibility actions can be justified on moral grounds as 'the right thing to do' but usually have to be backed up in more pragmatic terms as a way of 'doing well by doing good'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social sustainability is a growing area of debate in the built environment, particularly in relation to housing. Homebuilders in the United Kingdom have responded to organizational and policy drivers by developing expost assessment frameworks to measure the social sustainability of new housing development. In this paper, I offer a critical perspective of these frameworks by: (1) examining the origins of the concept of social sustainability at the neighborhood level; (2) analyzing the critical challenges and research questions about social sustainability that the underlying methodologies raise; and, (3) how such frameworks might be improved and developed further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A green industrial strategy and green quantitative easing could set us on the path towards an environmentally and socially sustainable political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the impact of audio-visual resources in enabling students to develop an understanding of the social aspects of sustainable product design. Building on literature concerning the learning preferences of 'Net Generation' learners, three audio-visual workshops were developed to introduce students to the wider social aspects of sustainability and encourage students to reflect upon the impact of their practice. The workshops were delivered in five universities in Britain and Ireland among undergraduate and postgraduate students. They were designed to encourage students to reflect upon carefully designed audio-visual materials in a group-based environment, seeking to foster the preferences of Net Generation learners through collaborative learning and learning through discovery. It also sought to address the perceived weaknesses of this generation of learners by encouraging critical reflection. The workshops proved to be popular with students and were successful in enabling them to grasp the complexity of the social aspects of sustainable design in a short span of time, as well as in encouraging personal responses and creative problem solving through an exploration of design thinking solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a doctoral study, which investigated effective methods for teaching social sustainability within product design courses in British and Irish universities. This paper explores approaches for encouraging students to explore the social aspects of sustainable product design through workshops specifically designed to foster deep learning through collaboration, discovery and critical reflection. The importance of deep learning is reflected in both the sustainable design education (O'Rafferty et al., 2008, Griffith and Bamford, 2007) and education for sustainability literature (Warburton, 2003) as important to an understanding of the holistic and complex nature of sustainability. Three 'Rethinking Design' workshops were designed and developed as part of the doctoral main study to introduce students to the wider social aspects of sustainability and these were conducted in five universities in Britain and Ireland. The workshops were developed to foster principles that encourage students to adopt deep learning methods, taking into account the specific learning preferences of the current generation of students to enhance motivational factors such as relevance, appropriate teaching materials and opportunities for collaborative learning. The workshops were tested amongst 150 undergraduate and postgraduate students and found to be successful in fostering deep learning by facilitating learning through discovery, critical reflection, peer learning and creativity leading to an exploration of design thinking solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are inherited challenges and barriers the UK government faces in meeting the 80% carbon reduction target by 2050 compared to 1990 baseline. Technically research shows great opportunity to achieve this target through strategic mass-scale plan to include new and retrofit building schemes. This study aims at reviewing the current retrofit schemes and policies UK adopted since committed to reduce carbon emissions, with an emphasis on existing challenges and potential benefits brought to the construction industry. This will help identifying the gap performance between legislations, standards, and actual/anticipated deliverables. The review adopted secondary research method to allocate scientific research data published in journals and reports on building retrofits. Literature indicated insufficient guidance and information on existing UK housing stock to enable the decision-makers to implement realistic and achievable plans for reducing carbon emissions. The study signifies the understanding and dealing with individual cases as generic retrofitting packages will likely fail to address the complexity of the UK context. Great attention should be paid to some other factors such as social sustainability with great emphasis on using low embodied carbon and energy products. The review will be useful for homeowners and other stakeholders involved in decision-making or people interested in building retrofits. • Existing building retrofit schemes have not orientated energy retrofit policy and approach and no clear strategies to address current carbon reduction challenges. • Embodied carbon in materials and systems should be a key indicator for how building retrofit are delivered. • There is no one solution fits all, different policies and standards can be used depending on individual retrofit cases, whilst step by step retrofitting approach urgently needed. • A focus on energy savings and carbon reduction could result in overlooking the indoor health aspects and social suatinability value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: High residential density is an important element of the compact city concept alongside mixed land uses, well-connected urban layouts, and easily accessible public transport networks. However, there is little consensus on how dense ‘high-density’ residential development should be, nor on what are the impacts of such urban environments on residents. This paper attempts to address this gap in knowledge by exploring the concept of density within the context of sustainability, calling on empirical evidence conducted in the UK by the CityForm research project. This research examined the relationship between elements of urban form (including density) and sustainability. This paper specifically makes reference to the relationship between density and aspects of social sustainability, specifically social equity (i.e. access to services and facilities), environmental equity (i.e. access to and use of green/open space) and sustainability of community (including perceptions of safety, social interaction and community stability). An extensive postal questionnaire survey and series of follow-up in-depth focus groups were conducted in a number of neighbourhoods in five UK cities to examine the hypothesis that high-density neighbourhoods were less likely to support socially sustainable behaviour and attitudes than low-density ones. The paper starts with an introductory account of density in the UK to provide the context of the study. It then defines density and the aspects of social sustainability under scrutiny and discusses the claimed relationships as well as the implications that such claims have for policy and practice. The paper then reports on the empirical research findings which examine the extent to which density has any influence on residents’ propensity to engage in socially sustainable activities. The paper concludes by critically reflecting on how the findings fit more broadly into the ‘compact city’ debate in the 21st century, where urban, and not rural, environments are home to ever-increasing populations around the world. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT Business strategy is linked to organisational values and culture, which is determined to some extent by national culture. This can provide a challenge in a global supply chain where culture and values at one end of the chain do not correspond with culture at the other end. This paper contends that shared values contribute to effective sustainability changes in supply chains. Two case studies from the South African-British fresh fruit export chain present two contrasting business strategies for achieving socially sustainable practices: (i) a unilateral, prescriptive approach (pushing), mirroring a paternalistic value system, in which a company prescribes norms of socially responsible behaviour at the ground level (the Tesco case) and; (ii) a bilateral, collaborative approach (sharing) in which business and non-governmental organisations work together to improve working conditions (the Waitrose case). Outcomes of these approaches are observed over a 3-year period. It is concluded that within this specific supply chain a shared value approach is a more successful initiative than paternalistic pushing initiatives. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a working definition of social sustainability and highlights the growing array of social sustainability assessment tools (e.g. SIA, HIA, equality impact assessment, SA). Within EIA the social dimension has been very much the 'poor relation'. However, changes in the UK planning system, the drive for sustainable communities, and for greater public involvement in decision making are raising the profile of the social dimension. This is particularly relevant for urban regeneration projects, which are often mixed use (including housing), and with the potential for development to be shaped by community involvement. The paper includes a review of recent environmental statements (ESs) for regeneration projects in the UK, which provides findings on, for example, the inclusion of social factors in the process; scope of such factors; methodological approaches and impact assessment tools; and role of community involvement. The research raises questions about the extent to which social issues shape outcomes; it also highlights some important challenges, including the key issue of 'integration versus disintegration' in the scope and process of impact assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a renewed focus on labor standards in the supply chain, prompted by legislation that requires firms to provide an account of their efforts to combat modern slavery. However, as a common problem of non-financial disclosure regulation, companies can decide the extent and content of their reporting, which could potentially result in merely symbolic disclosures with little substance. We examine the disclosure of substantive actions in modern slavery statements, defined as those disclosures of corporate actions that can positively affect working conditions in supply chains. We examine the corporate disclosure of these actions over time in order to evaluate whether legally mandated disclosure requirements could lead to progress in combatting modern slavery. For this purpose, we collected modern slavery statements from companies that had issued such statements for at least two different years after the introduction of the regulatory requirement in the United Kingdom and performed a content analysis with a coding instrument that captures substantive actions against modern slavery. Our analysis uncovers extremely heterogeneous reporting practices, especially regarding the disclosure of the effectiveness of actions against modern slavery. Based on our analysis, we identify best practices of substantive disclosures to offer a benchmark for corporate self-reports of modern slavery and inform policymaking on modern slavery reporting. [Display omitted] • First study on substantive content in modern slavery statements over time. • The reporting requirements imposed by the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015 lead to heterogenous disclosure practices. • Analysis reveals improvements needed for the disclosure of concrete actions against modern slavery, especially regarding the effectiveness of actions taken by companies. • Study reveals best practices that can increase transparency in supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented which discusses the author's claim that the health and care system-related Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) in England need funding in order to succeed as of 2017, and it mentions financial problems involving the Great Britain National Health Service (NHS) operations in England (NHS England). Great Britain's Five Year Forward View health and wellbeing improvement initiative is examined, along with capital funding and medical care delivery.

An editorial is presented which addresses a report issued by the Select Committee on the Long-term Sustainability of the British National Health Service (NHS), and it mentions short-term planning and the management of the NHS as of 2017. The NHS England agency's "Five Year Forward View" plan is addressed, along with public health budget cuts in Great Britain, workforce planning, and a call to make the British Department of Health responsible for health and adult social care budgets.

We have discussed previously that a community-based, asset-based approach is required to achieve any sense of how social sustainability can be defined in a community setting within the context of energy developments. Our approach aims to initiate a lasting change within ‘energy’ communities through building social capital; focusing on community assets not deficits to define their social priorities. Through deliberation, we develop an understanding of social sustainability so that a community is well placed to enter discussions with government and industry regarding large energy developments that will directly affect them. We review the 2015 Generic Design Assessment (GDA) Public Dialogue Pilot process for potential new nuclear reactors in the UK. We examine the aims of the dialogue, giving particular attention to a comparison between the national sampling of citizens for the GDA and the local community-based, deliberative approach we have proposed previously. We find an ongoing tension between ‘national’ engagement processes (such as the GDA Public Dialogue Pilot process) and the specific requirements of those energy communities that live adjacent or close to energy infrastructure, manifested here by a conflict between the requirements of the convenor and those of participants regarding priority issues for discussion. We also reveal a paradox; despite participant preference for a remote, internet-based engagement process, they agreed that face to face contact is a priority to encourage trust building between participants and the convenor of the process—a desired outcome of the process. The GDA Public Dialogue Pilot process has demonstrated that stakeholders are willing to engage with and be more directly involved in local energy-related decisions that affect them directly, provided there is opportunity to discuss locally-relevant and site-specific issues in addition to those of a broader nature. There exists a disparity and conflict between ‘national’ engagement processes and the ‘local’ priorities of those energy communities that are adjacent or close to energy infrastructure. In this process and others, we have seen an imbalance between the requirements of the convenor and those of participants regarding priority issues for discussion. This continues to be a persistent challenge for those convening stakeholder engagement events where the scope and context is not primarily site-specific. However, it is encouraging that convenors and participants alike continue to be willing to work towards resolving this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]