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The purpose of this paper is to propose a new ecological-issues-centered accounting research agenda, at the crossroads of accounting research and conservation science.

Based on a case study of the Natural Capital Project, the research examines the efforts and challenges of conservation practitioners regarding the use of evaluative information systems for conservation (EISC) in complex social and ecological contexts. It discusses why and how, to address these challenges, EISC promoters would benefit from theoretical and empirical insights coming from accounting research.

The paper suggests that the use of new information systems centered on organized collective action for biodiversity conservation should be regarded as a new type of accounting for the management of ecosystems, complementary to organization-centered biodiversity accounting and to ecosystem accounting at the national scale. A research agenda inspired by critical accounting should be developed for EISC design and use by: critically analyzing the organizational models currently underlying the use of new calculative practices for ecosystems; and developing new analytical and practical avenues on the basis of more explicit and powerful theories adapted to collective action for conservation perimeters.

The paper shows the importance of combining three domains of research and practice that are usually disconnected: the design and use of innovative information systems in biodiversity conservation research and practice; accounting research; and theories and conceptual models of collective action to resolve ecological challenges.

Although a very poor country, Nepal has established an extensive protected area system. Many visitors are attracted by some of these parks, helping to make tourism the top foreign exchange earner. Landmark events for wildlife conservation during recent Nepalese history are identified, especially the 1961‐90 rule of the monarchy and the present decentralized democratic system which succeeded it. Although many problems remain, Nepal has gone further than most countries towards reconciling: the needs and aspirations of local people with protected area management, and the economic opportunities offered by nature tourism with its ecological threats. Innovative projects have emphasized the socio‐economic aspects of conservation and legislation has recently been passed to formalize the status of park buffer zones. The future of Nepal’s protected areas may depend on how effectively these initiatives can be implemented and how effectively their lessons can be applied on a broader front.

Biodiversity loss now ranks as one of the most significant global drivers of environmental change. In an increasingly urbanized world, there is enormous potential to address this problem through conservation, restoration, and creation of new urban ecosystems. This chapter explores how nature-based solutions (NBS) can contribute to addressing the urgent problem of biodiversity loss in a way that goes beyond just greening gray environments. It then explores the alignment (and misalignment) between the ways in which NBS is framed as a nature conservation tool globally and the ways in which biodiversity is considered in urban approaches to NBS. Finally, the chapter explores the ways in which NBS might become an essential part of the solution to biodiversity and ecosystem decline. It discusses how NBS can be effectively leveraged to address the biodiversity crisis in urban areas, through conservation, restoration, and efforts to create thriving places for both people and nature. Although the concept of NBS in urban areas is fairly divorced from its nature conservation origins, reconnecting with those ecological roots is important for creating biodiverse, resilient cities. In so doing, NBS could offer a unified concept for environmental management in urban areas that integrates the ecological benefits of nature conservation with an innovative focus on confronting major societal challenges. Though this is a demanding task, it could provide a fit-for-purpose approach for conserving biodiversity and supporting functional ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

There are some environmentally critical areas (ECAs) in cities such as flood flow areas, agricultural land, canals, rivers, water bodies, forests and hills that need to be conserved from land transformation. The purpose of this paper is to review the compliance, challenges and significance of urban planning, and to develop a contextual framework of urban planning for environmental area conservation to improve the urban environment in case study city Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

This research is based on a qualitative thematic analysis of the available relevant literature.

This research identified non-compliance of the contemporary urban plans such as indiscriminate land conversion activities in the ECAs. Conflicting interests between the urban plans concerning protection of the conservation areas and business interests of the community people and the real estate development companies are identified as the major challenges. Dhaka faces several environmental problems such as loss of biodiversity and ecosystem, waterlogging, flooding, pollution, reduction of vegetation, groundwater depletion, temperature increase and a reduction in agriculture and fishing because of land conversion in the ECAs.

Urban planning with effective conservation area management, conflict resolution through communication and participation, creation of economic opportunity to generate income from the ECAs and assessment of the conservation strategies and interventions might ensure environmental conservation in Dhaka.

The conceptual framework of urban planning for environmental conservation is innovative as this could be a basis for other cities in Bangladesh and in other developing countries.

Water conservationists have been promoting a hierarchy of measures to preserve water resources in the face of decreasing freshwater availability in the world. However, applicability of water hierarchy to the construction industry is yet to be investigated. To fill this knowledge gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate water usage, water use efficiency, and conservation measures relevant to the construction operations.

A triangulation-based mixed-methods approach was adopted for the collection and analysis of data. First, four case studies were carried out to explore the current practices and the possibilities of applying the water hierarchy to the construction operations. This was followed by a questionnaire survey, administered among construction professionals to obtain their views and to verify the findings of case studies.

Strategies such as reuse and recycling were found to be less applicable and least preferred by the construction professionals compared to reduce, replace, and eliminate. Based on the research findings, three enabling measures, namely, regulation, responsibility, and reward, were found to enhance the effectiveness of these conservation strategies.

Knowledge on preferences of different water conservation measures among the construction professionals and their effectiveness on construction site could help the construction companies to device strategies to mitigate water wastage and enhance water use efficiency. It could also help policy-makers to develop guidelines that would have higher probability of acceptance among construction stakeholders.

The study proposes an extended water hierarchy (3R.6R) by integrating three enabling measures discussed above for the construction project sites.

For more than three decades, researchers have been searching for evidence of corporate economic, social and environmental sustainability, the holy grail of corporate success in a socially and environmentally conscious world of the future. The vast majority of entities that researchers have investigated have focussed on the primary goal of profit maximisation, with only vaguely articulated (if any) social and environmental targets. Very little research has been undertaken to expose the inner workings of organisations that are striving primarily to improve environmental outcomes within a commercial setting. The purpose of this paper is to expose the inside details of an organisation that tried but failed, and highlights the role of power and politics in its demise.

The “processual” or “contextualist” (Burns, 2000, p. 568) methodology adopted in this investigation has facilitated the interpretation and understanding of complex inter-relationships existing amongst key management personnel. The method steps undertaken included observation and documentation of organisational strategic and operational decision-making practices over a period of 22 months and the examination and analysis of over 800 documents prepared either by or about the organisation.

Examining the inter-relationships of power and politics amongst key players during a period of significant change revealed an intense struggle for corporate survival between two management groups: the original “environmentalist” managers who prepared the entity for listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX); and, the introduced “economic rationalist” managers who guided it through the post listing phase. A failure to effectively transition the power held over resources, decision-making and meanings from the old to the new managers proved to significantly challenge the organisation and possibly contributed to its ultimate demise. Some important lessons were highlighted, particularly the need to develop and establish shared understandings. It is suggested that for a business to move closer to being sustainable, rather than allowing one of the existing paradigms to dominate, a new business model needs to emerge.

The practical implementation of conservation activities on a large commercial scale is a controversial notion. The investigation of this unique case through a period of significant change represents an important experiment in the quest for sustainability and reveals valuable lessons that may guide other organisations that follow in its wake.

This study aims to examine the link between leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee innovative work behavior (IWB) by using employee job crafting as a mediator.

The study uses multilevel, multisource and multiwave data collected from 284 employees working in the banking sector of Pakistan.

The study findings suggest a significant positive relationship between (i) LMX and job crafting dimensions and (ii) job crafting dimensions and employee IWB. Job crafting dimensions mediated the impact of LMX on IWB, except for relational crafting, which was not significant. Multilevel analysis demonstrated significant individual-level job crafting and IWB.

This study undertakes a multilevel mediational analysis to examine the relationship between LMX and IWB, which is rarely applied in the existing literature. Moreover, this study contributes to understanding how LMX influences IWB using the conservation of resources theory.

This chapter examines the role of the central bank digital currency (CBDC) in achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs). Digitalisation is transforming the sustainable development landscape, and there is a need for central banks to play a major role in digital transformation for sustainable development. This topic is important to policymakers interested in how central bank innovation can help support SDGs’ realisation. This study is also relevant to researchers researching how a CBDC can be used to achieve SDGs. The author argued that a CBDC could unlock financing for each SDG, provide convenient access to capital and increase payment efficiency. CBDC can also increase the speed of transaction chains and provide greater capital efficiency for investment in sustainable development activities and projects. A CBDC can support realising the United Nations’ SDGs. Policymakers should ensure that the CBDC in their respective countries is designed to incorporate features that consider sustainable development concerns for attaining the United Nations’ SDGs. There has yet to be an attempt to assess how a CBDC can contribute to realising the United Nations’ SDGs. The literature needs to examine the opportunities CBDC presents for achieving SDGs.

This paper investigates the adaptive capacity expressed by an agricultural region in response to changing conditions as a mean to address the future of cultural landscapes in a time of extreme uncertainty. Through the conceptual framework of biocultural diversity, the work assesses regimes shifts and persistence as a dialectic between natural and anthropogenic components of the landscape.

Specifically, the mechanisms of progressive landscape adaptation are explored by using an integrated method to align manifestations of biological and cultural diversity. Through a multidimensional approach applied to spatial analysis, the study determines a relationship between the footprint of past and modern landscape regimes and contemporary rural management practices in McLaren Vale, South Australia.

The biological and cultural diversity patterns along riparian corridors, or “biocultural corridors” are indicators of past and current adaptive capacity, which are able to convey novel trajectories of sustainable management in the landscape system.

Understanding the positive feedback loops between nature and human interactions as represented by their interrelationships in the landscape can inform planning decisions for sustainable agricultural development and enable effective regional long-term trajectories of resilience.

Nobel laureate Ronald Coase (1937) was one of the first modern economists to focus attention on the ways in which firms reduce transaction costs by supplanting market contracts with hierarchical, internal management decisions. Coase and later Cheung (1983) explain that firms save on the costs of discovering prices and on the costs of measuring and monitoring the contribution of inputs to the production process. Still, however, their explanations of why a firm exists beg the question of where the entrepreneur fits into the firm.