Search results

This article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.

The 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research – document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork – an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.

The youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.

Focus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.

Decision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.

The article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.

This article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.

The purpose of this study is to assess how intergovernmental panel on climate change’s (IPCC’s) sixth assessment report of Working Group I (WGI), a Summary for Policymakers (SPM), has evaluated the current climate change situation. The author uses the qualitative content analysis (QCA) method (i.e. summative content analysis [SCA]) to identify critical points of the SPM.

To better understand the WGI report and its SPM, the author uses the thematic analysis, often called the QCA method. This study takes more steps and uses one of the main qualitative content analysis approaches (i.e. SCA). Therefore, QCA (SCA) can help the author count the occurrence of certain words using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software that quantifies the words in the data. This process helps the author to understand codes and patterns (e.g. the concept in the results section).

Interestingly, the AR6 says more about adaptation for policy makers in sections C (Climate information for risk assessment) and D (Mitigation of future climate change) than in sections A and D. Finally, this study concludes that the IPCC WGI SPM has addressed evidence on global climate change policymaking for SPMa, SPMd (mitigation-based strategies and mitigation policy [MP]) and SPMb, SPMc (adaptation policy and adaptation-based strategy).

First, this study refers only to the contribution of WGI, a SPM. The findings of this study do not necessarily provide a full understanding of what the AR6 WGI SPM says about climate change. It points out that the QDA Miner software and Voyant tool do not include all variables and examples where mitigation and adaptation-based strategies are discussed. The guidance for coding is based on the approved version of IPCC AR6 WGI SPM. The final limitation is that the relatedness of key words (e.g. confidence, high and warming) is sometimes ambiguous; even experts may disagree on how the words are linked to form a concept. Thus, this method works at the keyword level. A more intelligent method would use more meaningful information than keywords.

This study used qualitative data analysis (SCA) to explore what was said about climate change in four sections of the IPCC AR6 WGI SPM, which may influence current and future global climate change policymaking.

International climate politics are gradually changing in terms of new and ground-breaking policies and decision-making spearheaded by national governments. The growing global demand to combat climate change reflects the current challenges the world is facing. India’s negotiations at United Nations Conference on Climate Change are based on “equity,” “historical responsibility” and the “polluter pays” agenda, until a shift in the voluntary reduction of carbon emissions takes place. The purpose of this study is to understand why India, a “deal breaker”, is seen as a “deal maker” in climate governance?

For a state like India, domestic preferences are equally important in introducing climate policies alongside its concerns over poverty reduction and economic development, which also stand with its sustainable development goals. This paper explains India’s decision-making using a two-level approach focusing on “domestic preferences.” This rationale is based on India’s historical background as well as new upcoming challenges.

This paper shows that India has both the domestic needs and long-term benefits of combating climate change to cut carbon emissions, which gives the responsibility primarily to domestic audiences and international societies.

This paper uses an international political lens to critically analyze India’s climate positions and politics from both domestic and international levels, demonstrating the importance of considering both short- and long-term goals. The outcome benefits not only the policymakers in India but also stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

This paper aims to investigate the role of field-configuring events (FCEs) and situational context in the institutionalisation of sustainability reporting (SR) in Pakistan.

This paper uses insights from the institutional logics perspective and qualitative research design to analyse the interplay of the institutional logics, FCEs, situational context and social actors’ agency for the institutionalisation of SR among leading corporations in Pakistan. A total of 28 semi-structured interviews were carried out and were supplemented by analysis of secondary data including reports, newspaper articles and books.

The emerging field of SR in Pakistan is shaped by societal institutions, where key social actors (regulators, enablers and reporters) were involved in the institutionalisation of SR through FCEs. FCEs provided space for agency and were intentionally designed by key social actors to promote SR in Pakistan. The situational context connected the case organisations with FCEs and field-level institutional logics that shaped their decision to initiate SR. Overall, intricate interplay of institutional logics, FCEs, situational context and social actors’ agency has contributed to the institutionalisation of SR in Pakistan. Corporate managers navigated institutional logics based on situational context and initiated SR that is aligned with corporate goals and stakeholder expectations.

For corporate managers, this paper highlights the role of active agency in navigating and integrating institutional logics and stakeholders’ expectations in their decision-making process. For practitioners and policymakers, this paper highlights the importance of FCEs and situational context in the emergence and institutionalisation of SR in developing countries. From a societal point of view, dominance of business actors in FCEs highlights the need for non-business actors to participate in FCEs to shape logics and practice of SR for wider societal benefits.

From a societal point of view, dominance of business actors in FCEs highlights the need for non-business actors to participate in FCEs to shape logics and practice of SR for wider societal benefits.

This paper focuses on the role of FCEs and situational context as key social mechanisms for explaining the institutionalisation of SR.

As Australians experience more fierce and frequent natural disasters, there are urgent calls for businesses to meaningfully respond to climate change. Australian financial and professional services employees occupy an ambiguous space as climate mitigation measures have different economic implications for their clients. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Australian professionals experience climate change and respond to the issue within their workplace.

This mixed methods study applies a systems thinking framework to investigate: how do professionals’ experiences of the issue of climate change and the workplace influence their cognitions, emotions and behaviour? And in particular, what psychosocial antecedents precede voicing climate concern?

Firstly, a survey of professionals (N = 206) found social norms, perceived behavioural control and biospheric values, but not attitudes, significantly predicted prohibitive green voice. Middle managers were significantly likely to voice climate concern, whereas senior managers were significantly likely to express climate scepticism. Ten professionals were then interviewed to gain a contextualised understanding of these trends. Interpretive phenomenological analysis identified five interrelated themes: (1) active identity management, (2) understanding climate change is escalating, (3) workplace shapes climate change response, (4) frustration and alienation and (5) belief that corporations prioritise profit.

Findings are discussed in relation to how employees may both embody and adapt their organisations. These results have implications for understandings of workplace meaningfulness and organisational risk governance.

This paper aims to define a proposal of a theoretical–methodological framework aimed at supporting researchers in conducting studies on the topic of environmental mobility.

The complexity of environmental change and the frequent subsequent human mobility raises challenges in the research process. The variety of theoretical and methodological approaches that can be applied to each of the phenomena contributes to different layers of analysis when focusing on the decision-making process of migration due to environmental factors. Drawing from the theoretical and methodological frameworks used by scholars, this paper includes an analysis of how they are applied in empirical studies that focus on environmental change and mobility in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Empirical studies in this field for the MENA region are focused on collecting and analyzing data but are not linking it with wider human mobility theoretical and methodological frameworks. The proposal included in this study privileges the use of a qualitative methodology, aimed at obtaining an overview of the individuals’ experience.

This study adds to existing overviews of empirical studies of environmentally induced mobility by analyzing in detail the dimensions used to frame the methodological and theoretical research approaches in the empirical studies used in different disciplines that study the environment and/or human mobility. The studies analyzed focus on the different countries in the MENA region, which has the highest level of forced migratory movements in the world while facing challenges in terms of environmental degradation.

Sustainability is increasingly at the forefront of the public debate in Europe and the world. However, despite this increased interest, research seems to have partially ignored the importance of its social dimension and the issues related to social equity, people care, protection and personal development at all stages of society and, consequently, of business. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the “soft” dimensions of sustainability, integrating its mainstream “technical storyline” with a “human/social storyline”.

In this paper a taxonomy of the main key drivers of the soft dimension of sustainability is proposed and tested on a sample of Italian companies. Through interviews with their managers, actions and needs in terms of sustainability soft drivers are identified.

The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated the soft dimensions of sustainability within their companies. All the sample companies are aware of the role of social sustainability. According to the proposed taxonomy, the systemic drivers of soft sustainability are the main shared ones.

The paper provides new insights into the essence of the organizational soft dimensions and their centrality in the overall achievement of sustainability for companies. It also offers managerial insights into how to effectively manage these dimensions and policy implications about the need for clearer consideration.

This article explores the concept of “heritage futures”, the role of heritage in managing relations between present and future societies. It assesses how thinking strategically about the future changes, complicates and contextualises practices of heritage. What might an attention to the future bring to work in heritage, and simultaneously, what challenges—both practical and ethical—arise?

This article takes the form of a conversation about the nature of heritage futures and how such a project may be implemented in both heritage practice and field research in heritage studies. The two authors are heritage scholars who integrate heritage futures questions into their research in different ways, and their conversation uncovers potentialities and difficulties in the heritage futures project.

The discussion covers the particular ethical issues that arise when the dimension of time is added to heritage research and practice, including questions of continuism, presentism and specificity. The conversation argues for the importance of considering the future in heritage studies and heritage practice and that this forms a key part of understanding how heritage may be part of building a sustainable present and future.

The future is an under-examined concept within heritage studies, even as heritage is often framed as something to be preserved “for future generations”. But what impact might it have on heritage practice to really consider what this means, beyond the platitude? This article suggests that heritage scholars and practitioners direct their attention to this often-neglected facet of heritage.

This paper analyzes the role that the climate change concern (CCC_i) has on the willingness to accept an environmental tax. The author aims to grasp how individual general tax preferences can differ with respect to the specific (environmental) tax. He focuses attention to the Italian case since it has been argued that the potential acceptability of a carbon tax in Italy is relatively high, and this topic has been scarcely explored so far among Italian citizens (Rotaris and Danielis, 2019).

The author conducted an online survey among 514 Italian economics students.

The CCC_i positively influences the environmental tax morale (ETM_i). The general tax morale (TM_i) positively affects the specific (environmental) TM_i. The CCC_i alters individual tax preferences. The author evidenced that also subjects with low TM_i turned out to be willing to pay an environmental tax if aware of the environmental issues.

Although the author used a common methodology in this strand of research, he is aware that in an online survey individuals can be influenced by the self-reporting and hypothetical choice bias (see Swamy et al., 2001), that in turn can characterize their reported preferences. Moreover, even if economics university students are commonly used as a subject pool in experimental economics settings, and although several studies showed that the behavioral responses of students are largely the same as those of nonstudents in identical experiments (for a discussion see Alm, 2012; Choo et al., 2016), there is awareness that in this case, they are not taxpayers yet (Barabas and Jerit, 2010).

The author’s results remark the importance of increasing climate change awareness among people to let them be more willing to pay the environmental tax, for instance through investments in sensibilization campaigns on the importance of energy source usage and climate-related topic. Then, an increase in the general TM_i leads to an increase in the specific (environmental) TM_i. The author’s evidence showed that people with high tax morale logically recognize the positive impact of paying an environmental tax when the CCC_i increases, since the more the theme becomes important, the larger the willingness to pay the specific tax. For this reason, policymakers should carry on campaigns to increase the general level of TM_i to increase the overall tax compliance level and the relative tax revenues, following the guidelines given by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019) to support taxpayer education programs, such as including TM_i research and analysis into education programs, improving the ease of paying taxes or strengthening revenue–expenditure links to build the social contract.

It should be paramount to increase awareness about environmental topics among people in general and among those who are relatively tax immoral. The author’s results remark on the importance of targeting energy and environmental tax policies to groups rather than to individuals. According to this evidence, we support the use of nonmonetary tools to nudge people in the environmental transition by changing their behavior in energy use, for instance through the taxation on fuel and other nonrenewable energy resources.

It is the first empirical study that analyzes the impact of CCC_i on the environmental TM_i in Italy, in particular controlling for the role of the general willingness to pay taxes (TM_i). To obtain individual attitudes toward tax payment, most of the empirical studies in behavioral economics employ international surveys. For studies across citizens living in European countries, the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS) represent the most used ones (see, for instance, Martinez-Vazquez and Torgler (2009) in Spain; Torgler and Werner (2005) in Germany; Nemore and Morone (2019) in Italy). However, these surveys do not allow to study the relationship between the environmental and general TM_i across the same subject pool. In fact, despite the ESS (2016) provides individual responses about the willingness to pay an environmental tax, it does not provide information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment (this information is contained only in the ESS wave of 2004, hence referring to a different subject pool). On the contrary, each wave of the EVS (i.e. 2008, 2017) provides information about the general individual attitude toward tax payment, but this survey does not provide a question regarding the willingness to pay an environmental tax. Therefore, to obtain information about the willingness to pay both general and environmental taxes, across the same subject pool, it is needed to carry out a survey.

The paper aims to contribute to the broader literature on just transition by examining the intersection of technology and justice, and identifying opportunities for bridging the gap between theory and practice. The work seeks to emphasize the importance of transformative change, which ensures that no individual, community or sector is left behind in the transition towards a sustainable future, both on a global and local scale.

The paper explores the potential for linking justice to the ongoing technological transition, focusing on its impacts on climate and sustainability. Drawing on various sociological, environmental and technological studies, this work examines the intersections between justice and technological change. Through a qualitative analysis of case studies and a review of literature, the article offers insights and recommendations for policymakers, practitioners and scholars involved in the pursuit of a sustainable and equitable future.

The paper concludes that balancing environmental, social and economic goals is necessary on a large scale within the framework of a “just transition”, in order to ensure that no individual, community or sector is left behind in the path to a sustainable future. This involves reflecting on sensitive issues such as competition, intellectual property, market openness, liability and fighting against inequalities. Additionally, it requires considering smart and welfare policies from a multilevel perspective.

The originality of this work lies in its contribution to advancing the understanding of the limitations of a technology-centric approach to climate action and the need for systemic changes. The paper emphasizes the importance of addressing social equity, policy reform and collective action in conjunction with technological transition to achieve a sustainable future. It highlights the risks of overlooking the systemic drivers of the climate crisis, such as unsustainable consumption patterns and reliance on fossil fuels, while pursuing technological solutions. Furthermore, the work emphasizes the relevance of the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030 in guiding a just transition towards sustainability.