Search results

Describes how environmental training is increasingly being recognized as a crucial element of any corporate, environmental strategy. In turn, corporate strategies will be an essential component to the achievement of sustainable development. But how do companies respond to the need to change the everyday practices of staff at all levels? Introduces a three‐layered approach to environmental training. Also examines the evolution and progress of two very different new training products. First, Expert Training Systems plc joined forces with BTCV Enterprises to create a Developing People Programme using the outdoors and incorporating specified environmental projects. More outdoor development suppliers are now offering such packages and they are selling well. Second, Earthwise, produced in 1995 in collaboration with ICI, Sheffield Hallam University and Sanderson CBT, provides an interactive toolkit approach to exploring the environmental aspects of producing a fictitious plastic, “prolene”. The product requires the user to assume a decision‐making role through a matrix of six main issues and 21 sub‐issues. At each sub‐issue there are over 34 events, 200 pieces of advice on offer, over 200 generic principles and around 122 possible courses of action.

This study aims to examine the library/information issues affecting graduate students, both those on taught courses and those undertaking research. It seeks to focus specifically on their perceptions of the value to them of physical and digital resources and spaces, and how well their needs were being met.

An online questionnaire survey of students was complemented by a series of face‐to‐face interviews with library staff.

This group of students are different from undergraduates, whose information behaviour has more often been studied. They require silent study space, are enthusiastic book borrowers, and have limited interest in social media in the library. They have a strong requirement for digital resources and IT support, and are not inclined to ask for assistance from librarians.

The study is limited to three English universities, although they are sufficiently varied in nature to make the results more widely applicable.

The survey provides evidence for librarians in universities and colleges serving graduate students as to the best form of provision, and for any library seeking to make best use of its space as resources become increasingly digital.

This is one of the few studies to examine the information behaviour and needs of advanced students. It contributes to the debate on the future of the library as place in a digital age.

Explores the evolution of a participative, interdepartmental staff “green team” approach to the solving of environmental problems and a move towards a culture change within one of the largest UK local authorities. Reveals how Kent County Council (KCC), over a period of several years, used the largely voluntary effort of a group of dedicated individuals to help with a corporate move towards sustainability. Explores the management of these people in the process of cultural change and acknowledges that grass‐roots participative environmental change can be slow to break through organisational inertia and can be susceptible to collapse. Shows how efforts can be undermined both by a lack of a clear corporate direction and by events beyond their own control. Also focuses on the role of external trainers, as change agents, and their contribution to the environmental management programme, in supporting the emergence, motivation and maturation of these green teams. Finally, in an attempt to measure the success of green teams, some of the major team outputs are mentioned, and concludes with comments on the future of the teams. The use of green teams is an approach now adopted by a number of organisations but “the connection between environmental teams and the management of change is often overlooked”.

Argues that currently many businesses are looking to reduce the environmental impact of their activities or products but sadly the results are often disappointing. Sustainable development remains elusive. The future clearly demands something different ‐ we need solution focused products that produce an E‐plus effect. These will increasingly dominate future markets and provide the key to a competitive edge. The challenges, and barriers, are, however, likely to be significant ‐ concurrently the environmental lobby is changing tactics, moving from problem/blame campaigning to preventive/solutions campaigning. Campaigners rightly point to the earth bank balance as continually overdrawn and unhealthy, with life support systems threatened and biodiversity declining. No one appears to re‐invest in this global bank balance. Withdrawals are easy, but investing is not so easy. With the E‐plus concept creativity and innovation will require different patterns of thinking from the people that have hitherto used their talent to create existing new products and markets or to survive hard times. Managers need not only promote a climate of innovation and creativity but do so in directions that are fundamentally different. Business talent and enterprise is poised to become a major player as a social force. The talent is out there and some of the new innovative thinking patterns are explained in this article through the description of simple examples from across Europe.

Market forces are often unable to deal with environmental problems due to the inability of the economic system to internalise environmental costs. Telecommunications around the world are “service” companies that are considered to have little impact on the natural environment ‐ and as such were excluded from participation in EMAS. However, new research into European and Asian telecommunications has revealed extensive environmental impact through consumption of considerable quantities of the global resources. Some telecoms use 1 per cent of their nation’s electricity, consume 1 per cent of national paper or 1 per cent of national GDP. But the rate of change in this sector is greater than any other business sector, and telecoms are now reducing their environmental impact as a result of technical developments, the global market forces of liberalisation, privatisation and competition. The global impact of telecommunications developments on travel and lifestyles is also poised to have a significant positive effect on the environment, through changes in working practices as well as impacting on both indoor and outdoor leisure activities.

This article investigates the meaning of experiential learning and relates this to the nature of cognition through the development of an experiential learning model based on information processing. This experiential learning model is then used as the basis for the design of a meta‐model – the learning combination lock (LCL). The LCL model provides for the first time, to our knowledge, a systematic process for the trainer, educator or developer to consider and select from some of the main ingredients of the learning process. It is not intended to be used mechanistically but rather as an aide‐mémoire which may also be added to and developed according to the considerations of the programme designer, the trainer or educator, and the needs of the learner.

Marks and Spencer's Plan A environmental strategy is an ambitious one which addresses economic, social and environmental considerations. As part of this process it recently used a sustainable learning store strategy to develop, capture and disseminate learning before, during and after construction so that learning could be transferred to future projects. Significantly, the strategy did not draw on “traditional” learning organisation concepts; instead it developed its own bottom-up approach to identify the important areas for learning. The practices developed for the learning store were then evaluated against a learning organisation blueprint.

A literature review of learning organisations in construction was complemented by a case study of the prototype Marks and Spencer learning store. The strategies adopted by the company were assessed against Pedler et al.'s blueprint for a learning company.

The systematic learning store strategy developed by Marks and Spencer matched the 11 main criteria described by Pedler et al.'s learning company blueprint and also included managing and leading. The strategies adopted by M&S have the potential to be adopted by other organisations seeking to become environmentally sustainable learning organisations.

This case study was undertaken from the perspective of one retail organisation and did not directly evaluate the other stakeholders. It was also largely cross-sectional in nature and describes the learning which occurred but not its application to any subsequent downstream projects. Its applicability to other industries and organisations therefore needs to be investigated further.

The strategies used during the development of the Marks and Spencer's learning store have the potential to be adopted by other retail, construction and organisations from other sectors and have significant benefits to the environment.

Little has been written about the practical application of sustainability approaches for learning organisations. The scale and scope of the Plan A strategy would not appear to have been achieved by other organisations.