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By envisioning the learning environment as an eco-social system, this study aims to map interrelated enablers of students’ sustainability-oriented learning (SoL) in the context of a university course at the interface of science and society.

A case-study approach was used to delineate what enables student learning in a university-wide transdisciplinary Master of Science course. A sample of 102 students, university and societal stakeholders participated to this study, by sharing their experiences and views through focus groups and questionnaires.

A main finding is the development of a configuration of six intertwined enablers that through their interplay help to cultivate students’ SoL, in the course under exploration.

This study paves the way for a re-orientation of how to explore learning in complex environments. It shows that adopting a relational, situated and systems approach is not only feasible but is also desirable to understand and guide learning practices in complex environments.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the pressing issues facing health and health systems governance in the Anthropocene – a new geological time period that marks the age of colossal and rapid human impacts on Earth’s systems.

The viewpoint illustrates the extent of various human induced global ecological changes such as climate change and biodiversity loss and explores the social forces behind the new epoch. It draws together current scientific evidence and expert opinion on the Anthropocene’s health and health system impacts and warns that many these are yet unknown and likely to interact and compound each other.

Despite this uncertainty, health systems have four essential roles in the Anthropocene from adapting operations and preparing for future challenges to reducing their own contribution to global ecological changes and an advocacy role for social and economic changes for a healthier and more sustainable future.

To live up to this challenge, health services will need to expand from a focus on health governance to one on governance for health with a purpose of achieving equitable and sustainable human development.

As cities and local governments work to create more healthy, just and sustainable communities in the years ahead, health systems need to join with them as partners in that process, both as advocates and supporters and – through their own action within the health sector – as leading proponents and models of good practice.

The literature on economic forecasting, is showing an increase in criticism, of the inaccuracy of forecasts, with major implications for economic, and fiscal policymaking. Forecasts are subject to the systemic uncertainty of human systems, considerable event-driven uncertainty, and show biases towards optimistic growth paths. The purpose of this study is to consider approaches to improve economic foresight.

This study describes the practice of economic foresight as evolving in two separate, non-overlapping branches, short-term economic forecasting, and long-term scenario analysis of development, the latter found in studies of climate change and sustainability. The unique case of Ireland is considered, a country that has experienced both steep growth and deep troughs, with uncertainty that has confounded forecasting. The challenges facing forecasts are discussed, with brief review of the drivers of growth, and of long-term economic scenarios in the global literature.

Economic forecasting seeks to manage uncertainty by improving the accuracy of quantitative point forecasts, and related models. Yet, systematic forecast failures remain, and the economy defies prediction, even in the near-term. In contrast, long-term scenario analysis eschews forecasts in favour of a set of plausible or possible alternative scenarios. Using alternative scenarios is a response to the irreducible uncertainty of complex systems, with sophisticated approaches employed to integrate qualitative and quantitative insights.

To support economic and fiscal policymaking, it is necessary support advancement in approaches to economic foresight, to improve handling of uncertainty and related risk.

While European Union Regulation (EC) 1466/97 mandates pursuit of improved accuracy, in short-term economic forecasts, there is now a case for implementing advanced foresight approaches, for improved analysis, and more robust decision-making.

Building economic resilience and adaptability, as part of a sustainable future, requires both long-term strategic planning, and short-term policy. A 21st century policymaking process can be better supported by analysis of alternative scenarios.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the article is original in considering the application of scenario foresight approaches, in economic forecasting. The study has value in improving the baseline forecast methods, that are fundamental to contemporary economics, and in bringing the field of economics into the heart of foresight.

The differences of urban and rural as social spaces, their functions in society, as well as their mutual dependence have been a subject of scientific thinking since the antique times. This chapter revisits the topic from a sociological point of view, studying the evolution of the functions of rural in relation to urban, and how this evolution was reflected in the basic streams of rural research. The text ends by discussing rural research in relation to present social, economic and ecological tendencies. It is argued that the post-productionist phase of rural studies is losing its plausibility, because of the return of material functions for the countryside, during such recent trends as the global food crises and the greenhouse effect. This chapter discusses the prognosis made by the three founding fathers of rural sociology, Pitirim Sorokin, Carle C. Zimmerman and Charles J. Galpin (1932) that the society is melting together into a ‘rurban’ society, and takes distance from this prognosis for several reasons, for example because ecological tendencies seem to renew rather than diminish the differences between rural and urban. It is further argued that ecosystems have increasing impacts on societies in the form of adapted ‘greenhouse rationalism’. Such changes place rural research in a crossroads, posing the question whether to pay attention to increasingly important impacts of ecosystems on society, or not.

This research examined correlations between contextual factors: frequency of online teaching (OT) (number of hours per week), Transformational Leadership Style (TLS) and TPACK (TPACK) among Arab and Jewish teachers in Israel after more than a year of teaching online during the Covid-19 crisis.

Quantitative methodology elicited data from 437 questionnaires. An online questionnaire was first sent to Israeli Arab and Jewish teachers studying for M.A degrees in three randomly selected higher education institutes in Israel, and then the questionnaire was sent to other teachers, selected through the snowball method. After data collection common method variance was precluded.

The findings of this research indicated a positive correlation between frequency of OT, TLS and TPACK among Israeli teachers. Major differences were found between Arab and Jewish teachers: Arab teachers (AT) reported more improvement of TPACK, although they taught fewer hours than Jewish teachers (JT). In addition, TLS and sector (Arab/Jewish) moderated the positive correlation between the frequency of OT and TPACK among ATs.

The findings of this research validate the opportunity created by the Covid-19 crisis for cultivation of teachers’ TPACK through OT. This research contributes to extant relevant literature and practice concerning the influence of contextual factors on teachers' improvement of their TPACK while performing OT during the Covid-19 crisis and can inform the design of ecological and culturally appropriate education policies in the post-COVID-19 period. The research was built on the theories of TLS, which is a crucial component supporting the influence of technology integration. The findings strengthen existing knowledge on the unique capacity of TLS to buffer negative external influences imposed on teachers' TPACK and motivate them.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of market development using TQM and identify critical factors that link the two fields to enhance business success of companies in a globalized market.

Seven Deming Prize winner companies from Thailand and India are objectively and empirically studied through unstructured interview and through award winner documents. Specific cases are studied from each company to support the interview responses.

The result reveals that: first, TQM facilitates market development by strategically synchronizing product, process/technology, and marketing dimensions of an organization. Second, TQM characteristically and objectively defines customers to strategically manage different and customer‐specific markets. Third, TQM ensures market success in businesses by enhancing market success of customers.

The main limitation to this research is that along with the Deming Award, there are other quality oriented awards such as MBNQA and EFQM. Hence, additional studies from such awards may be helpful to support the authors’ cause. Moreover, the limit in the number of companies studied is also considerable.

This is an original work of the authors and it is not submitted to any other journal or publisher for publication.

There is no literature that sought the revision and integration of ecological modernization of theory (EMT) and circular economy (CE). This article aims to answer the questions: How have companies developed circular economy practices within their operations? Why have companies invested in circular economy practices? Based on the answers to these questions, it would be possible to understand how the assumptions of EMT explain the adoption of CE practices.

The research method is based on multiple case studies with Brazilian craft brewery companies.

Companies studied have pursed the adoption of circular economy practices, but the full potential of the use of biological cycles within their processes of production has been hampered by the lack of external policies and clear governance toward circular economy. Thus, pollution prevention policies may be an important driver for organizations be able to advance in circular economy practices.

Research limitations are coverage only of organizations located in an emerging country. A second limitation is that the data saturation was partially achieved in some of the analyzed cases, especially by the limitation of the time period surveyed (transversal research). The longitudinal evaluation is timely for circular economy surveys.

The formulation of a regulatory framework through a participative, interactive and decentralized process, capable of delegating responsibilities and incentives to all entities, to contemplate a tax restructuring for the alcoholic beverage sector, could corroborate to create a new standard of action for the sector.

This document highlights how the principles of ecological modernization can contribute to the advancement of the circular economy. The understanding can help in the design of processes that provide circular and sustainable operations as a social good in a effective value.

The principles from EMT, such as the development of an institutional environment towards corporate environmental proactive, could enhance the adoption of circular economy practices within the brewery sector. Despite of the class association of the brewery sector has supported the companies studied to move forward in other matters, a clear governance is necessary to guide organizations towards circular economy practices.

The political discussion about sustainable development had an early start in the Austrian context. The concept of “eco‐social market economy” was introduced at the end of the 1980s and dominated the Austrian approach towards sustainable development for much of the 1990s. This early start had some consequences especially regarding regional approaches towards the implementation of sustainable development. One major feature was the absence of local or regional LA 21 initiatives and a proliferation of diverse regional approach acts to further sustainable development. One approach put into effect in the Feldbach region in the south‐east of Austria was the concept of Islands of Sustainability. The idea of this concept was the realisation of a regional pathway towards sustainable development via conscious management of flows (of matters, products, capital, etc.) into the region as well as increasing the intra‐regional networking of social actors. This concept called for a long term involvement of research in the process of implementation of sustainable development. The experiences showed that existing research institutions, such as universities as well as consultant companies, were not optimally equipped to support this process. As a consequence, a new approach of “regionalised” research centres was adopted. This approach ensured accessibility of research capacity by the important players in the region, as well as efficient application of scientific knowledge to concrete on‐the‐ground decision making within the region.

This paper aims to encourage discourse concerning a “sustainable societal system”, proposing S.E.E.D. (=Secure‐base Earth Equilibrium Development). S.E.E.D. outlines a possible transition to a viable future civilisation, a realistic eco‐social turnaround, a “taming” (i.e. a cultivation) of the market with regard to the changed context (“nature”, ecosystem). Thus, it can become a key point for “sustainable global citizenship”; and all educational efforts in this direction are demanded.

The design/methodology/approach is along the main components of the model of “Synoptics”, i.e. systemic social analyses using so‐called “objective hermeneutic methodology”. This outline is the short version of the complete text of an ESD memorandum on S.E.E.D. (Vienna, 2012), which comprises approx. 200 pages; thus it has had to be very condensed.

For moving towards a sustainable global societal system, a “transitional phase” is needed. One possible transition model is S.E.E.D. Further deliberation about our future social architecture as well as some immediate and critical steps are urgently needed and are to be encouraged; this text merely aims to be an incentive.

Hermeneutics can only deepen the understanding of social systems. It recognizes the difference in relation to “science” – based on the “reproducibility of situations” (replication) and therefore the possibility of a methodology by “replicable experiments”, which are not (yet) possible in the social realm.

This article aims to deepen the understanding of the “whole” of a social structure – as a system – and it outlines an alternative social architecture (S.E.E.D.) for the next (transitional) historic phase. The crucial factors for a “context‐appropriate change” are education (which has to become both more and more multicultural and have a global perspective at its core) and the media (where all its instruments – new and old – are very important).

This social architecture (S.E.E.D.) aims towards intensifying the political discourse for a democratic political transition. It can be first envisaged for European states, respectively, within the EU (and finally worldwide). This outline might be useful for pedagogic purposes as well. If climate knows no boundaries, then why should modern teaching endeavours be limited to national boundaries?

This paper's originality/value lies in promoting the discourses with regard to concrete proposals for a sustainable social “architecture” with some utopian component parts still remaining today.