Search results

A key issue to manage sustainability is to be able to operationalise it. Relevant indicators require an appropriate definition of sustainability and sustainable development for the studied organisation. A common problem is inadequate understanding of what sustainability is from an organisational perspective. The purpose of this paper is to propose how to understand, define and measure diagnosing of sustainability from an outside-in perspective.

The building, health care, education and tourism value chains are studied. Based on interpreted stakeholder sustainability needs the stages of understanding, defining and measuring of diagnosing are reviewed, and interpretations proposed. This is with focus on identifying the vital few sustainability impacts in the studied value chains.

The resulting definitions and proposed performance indicators for the chosen areas indicate that the approach works resulting in proposed definitions and indicators for sustainability and sustainable development based on stakeholders need focus. Having clear definitions and performance indicators will support working effectively with sustainable development.

The resulting definitions and proposed performance indicators for the chosen areas indicate that the approach works. Further, proposed definitions and indicators for sustainability and sustainable development based on stakeholder needs focus is useful. Having clear definitions and performance indicators will help an organisation engage with sustainability and be sustainable within an organisational context.

The proposed approach enables using quality management for sustainable development.

Social sustainability is viewed from a poverty and affordability perspective.

Results indicate that there is a value in using an outside-in approach with focus on stakeholder needs in connection with a process-based approach. The approach is in contrast with the customary way of defining sustainability which mostly is based on an inside-out approach identifying several indicators and then adding these to a measure of sustainability.

Those who work to develop and manage community-based leadership programs have long been concerned with how to sustain them – to keep them healthy and useful. But focusing on how to sustain programs requires exploring what sustainability means. This paper reports on interviews with 41 community-based leadership education program coordinators. In contrast to their definitions of success, which emphasize impacting individuals and communities, interviewees defined program sustainability more as having enough participants, adequate funding, continuity, community support, and alumni involvement in program management. The paper explores the nuances of these definitions, including internal aspects of sustainability over which program managers had significant control, and external conditions over which they had less control. The paper also explores differences in perspectives between coordinators of programs sponsored by Chambers of Commerce and those sponsored by Cooperative Extension and universities or nonprofits.

The concept of materiality is becoming increasingly important for sustainability performance measurement and reporting. It is widely agreed upon that materiality matters, in the sense that companies should identify, prioritize and disclose information on sustainability issues that are considered material. There is, however, a tension at the heart of this consensus, owing to parallel approaches to materiality being used in practice. This paper aims to shed light on how and why the parallel uses of the materiality concept may cause confusion and how this tension could be resolved.

This paper takes as point of departure the tension between two approaches to materiality: based on the Global Reporting Initiative definition, which emphasizes sustainability issues that are important to stakeholders and that have significant impacts and based on the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board definition, which emphasizes sustainability issues that are financially material, i.e. likely to influence the financial performance of the company. This paper discusses the nature and consequences of the tensions between how the two definitions of materiality in sustainability reporting are used in practice, with a particular emphasis on users of information in financial markets. This paper provides empirical insight on these users’ perspectives through a survey (n = 30) and qualitative interviews (n = 6) of financial market professionals.

This study reveals tensions between different approaches to materiality in practice and how this may lead users of sustainability reports to draw unjustified conclusions on the basis of materiality assessments. Specifically, this paper demonstrates the perceived shortcomings in information availability and information quality from the perspectives of different stakeholders in financial markets with different information needs.

The users of sustainability reporting information require clarity in the communication of materiality in non-financial reports. This paper addresses how such clarity can be pursued.

Clarity about materiality in non-financial reporting is important both for investors that pursue financial return on green investments and for society at large, which relies on information about real sustainability impacts.

This paper furthers the understanding of how different materiality concepts may be problematic and how recent and ongoing developments may mitigate the risks of conflating uses of the concept.

The research investigates valuers' understanding of the value of sustainability in property and its consideration in valuation practice. The paper explores the extant research that has examined valuers' perceptions of the relationships between sustainability and market values, sustainability measurement, value relationships and the standards and guidelines released industry bodies.

This paper, part 1 of 2, reports the current state of play of valuation research in the consideration of sustainability in valuation practice and the role of industry bodies in the guidance regarding sustainability consideration in valuation. The second paper provides the next rendition of a longitudinal study examining valuation practice in Australia.

The paper provides an overview of the evolution of the consideration of sustainability in property over the past two decades. Providing insights of how the property sector, its markets and valuation professionals have responded to answering the questions of: what is the value of sustainability? Whilst earlier publications both industry and academic publications alike focussed on the normative aspects of how sustainability should affect value, more recent research starts to ascertain the implications of sustainability on property values. Despite industry bodies providing information, education, guidelines and standards, it would seem that valuers in their practice are still grappling with the challenges of understanding the rapidly evolving area of sustainability, environmental, social and governance and climate risks in valuations.

The paper does not present as an authority on all research that has been conducted to date, it provides an overview of the evolving nature of both academic research and industry consideration of sustainability, particularly in a valuation context. This provides the background for Part 2.

The broader agenda of net zero, climate change, mitigation and carbon requirements, whether driven by market forces or government legislation, are generating substantial changes in property markets, as investors reconsider their positions and model the implications of carbon emissions on their bottom lines. Government policies appear to have a considerable influence over market behaviours, which filters through to stakeholder decision-making. However, despite government policies, clear market signalling and industry body guidance on valuing sustainability, the content and depth of sustainability consideration in valuation are still limited.

The paper provides an overview of the last decade of research into the value of sustainability and the evolving nature of information and guidance for valuers to identify, evaluate and consider sustainability in valuation.

Approaches to solving sustainability problems require a specific problem-solving mode, encompassing the complexity, fuzziness and interdisciplinary nature of the problem. This paper aims to promote a complex systems’ view of addressing sustainability problems, in particular through the tool of network science, and provides an outline of an interdisciplinary training workshop.

The topic of the workshop is the analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a political action plan. The authors are interested in the synergies and trade-offs between the goals, which are investigated through the structure of the underlying network. The authors use a teaching approach aligned with sustainable education and transformative learning.

Methodologies from network science are experienced as valuable tools to familiarise students with complexity and to handle the proposed case study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work which uses network terminology and approaches to teach sustainability problems. This work highlights the potential of network science in sustainability education and contributes to accessible material.

Following the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the main challenge for the agrofood sector is to innovate food production, offering sustainable, smart and safe solutions. The future of food production will be oriented more and more towards sustainable industries with high technological content to guarantee food safety and food security. It implies that a change not only in the way food is conceived, but also in the way it is produced, processed and consumed is needed. The aim of the present study is to investigate the role of innovation, sustainability, smartness and health within the agrofood industry.

A literature review was conducted using 596 academic documents written in English language and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as in conference proceedings. The relevant articles were analyzed using both a bibliometric and a systematic approach.

The results confirm the role of innovation and sustainability as key drivers in the food industry. The main findings concern the benefits deriving from the adoption of digital technologies, the ever-increasing involvement of consumers in health and environmental issues and the introduction of the open innovation concept in the agrofood industry.

This study jointly considers the dimensions of innovation, sustainability, smartness and health in the agrofood sector, demonstrating how they are strongly interdependent.

The purpose of this study is to identify crucial sustainability assessment criteria in the context of international port sector.

Data collection was based on a questionnaire survey from 135 managers and supervisors at major international ports in Taiwan, including Keelung, Taichung and Kaohsiung. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to identify crucial sustainability assessment criteria at ports.

A total of 31 important sustainable assessment criteria were adapted from previous studies in terms of environmental, economic and social issues. Results revealed that social issues with respect to staff job security and safety were ranked as the most important sustainability assessment criteria, followed by environmental protection when handling cargo, facilitation of economic activities, port traffic accidents prevention and cargo handled safely and effectively. In contrary, respondents revealed their less importance in the criteria, namely, mitigating light influence on neighboring residents, considering the arrangement of vehicles when constructing port transportation system, avoiding using unpolluted land in port area and hiring minority groups and consulting interests groups when making port projects. Four sustainability assessment dimensions were identified, namely, environmental material, economic issue, environmental practices and social concerns.

The research findings indicated that economic issue was deemed as the most important dimension of sustainability assessment criteria from a port operator’s perspective, followed by environmental practices, social concerns and environmental material. Practical implications for port sustainability assessment were discussed in this research.

Although a majority of previous studies on sustainability assessment have been discussed, there is still a lack of investigation of sustainability assessment in the context of port sector. This study not only develops sustainability assessment attributes but also highlights the important criteria of sustainability assessment. Further, this study identified four crucial sustainability assessment factors, which provide helpful information for port corporations to identify important criteria and policy of sustainability assessment.

This paper aims to investigate the current state of knowledge in key reporting aspects in relation to sustainability reporting in general and to reflect on their relevance to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in particular. In doing so, the major gaps in that knowledge are identified, and the paper proceeds to suggest further research avenues.

The authors conduct a review of papers published in leading journals concerning sustainability reporting to analyse the progress in the literature regarding three important reporting topics: materiality, comparability and assurance.

The review conducted in this study shows that there is still work to be done to ensure high-quality and consistent sustainability reporting. Key takeaways from the review of the extant literature are as follows: there is ongoing debate about the nature of sustainability reporting materiality, and single versus double materiality. Clearer guidance and better contextualisation are seen as essential for comparability, and, as GRI suggests, there is an important link to materiality that needs to be considered. Finally, assurance has not been mandatory under the GRI, but the current development at EU level might lead to the GRI principles being incorporated in the primary assurance standards.

In this paper, the authors review and synthesise the previous literature on GRI reporting dealing with three key reporting aspects.

The authors extract some takeaways from the literature on materiality, comparability and assurance that will all be key challenges for GRI in the future.

This paper provides an updated review of the literature on GRI reporting dealing with three key reporting aspects.

The young members of Generation Z, who are hyperconnected and addicted to social media, are thought to be particularly sensitive to environmental and social concerns. This study aims to draw on a conceptual model that is based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm. Exposure to sustainability content on social media is considered to be a stimulus that affects the development of sustainability advocacy among GenZers, who modify their lifestyles. Five hypotheses are developed and tested. The goal is to define the antecedents of sustainability advocacy.

A Web survey was distributed to 660 Italian members from Generation Z (aged between 14 and 25) to detect the frequencies of exposure to sustainability content on social media, sustainable habits, sustainable consumption behaviours and actions that are related to sustainability advocacy on social media. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between these factors.

The results show that exposure to sustainability content on social media affects both sustainable habits and sustainable consumption behaviour. These three factors influence the propensity to promote sustainability-related issues on social media and should, therefore, be considered to be antecedents of sustainability advocacy.

The study, which takes the social responsibilities of large companies into account, is conducive to understanding how brands can intervene in the soliciting processes of sustainability advocacy through social media to gain legitimacy and increase brand awareness.

This study is among the first to consider the use of social media for advocating sustainability among Generation Z, thus enriching academic research on this cohort.

Since 2006, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden, should according to the Higher Education Act, promote sustainable development (SD). In 2016, the Swedish Government asked the Swedish higher education authority to evaluate how this study is proceeding. The authority chose to focus on education. This paper aims to produce a report on this evaluation.

All 47 HEIs in Sweden were asked to write a self-evaluation report based on certain evaluation criteria. A panel was appointed consisting of academics and representatives for students and working life. The panel wrote an evaluation of each HEI, a report on general findings and recommendations, and gave an overall judgement of each HEI in two classes as follows: the HEI has well-developed processes for integration of SD in education or the HEI needs to develop their processes.

Overall, a mixed picture developed. Most HEIs could give examples of programmes or courses where SD was integrated. However, less than half of the HEIs had overarching goals for integration of SD in education or had a systematic follow-up of these goals. Even fewer worked specifically with pedagogy and didactics, teaching and learning methods and environments, sustainability competences or other characters of education for SD. Overall, only 12 out of 47 got a higher judgement.

This is a unique study in which all HEIs in a country are evaluated. This provides unique possibilities for identifying success factors and barriers. The importance of the leadership of the HEIs became clear.