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The purpose of this paper is to present alternative ways of addressing inequality in age-friendly work by drawing attention to the limitations of place-based approaches in meeting the needs of dispersed communities.

A case study of the age-friendly programme Ambition for Ageing (AfA) is used to explore three examples of working with minority communities.

Place-based age-friendly development risks further marginalising older people belonging to dispersed communities of identity or experience; therefore, we need to adopt adopt an intersectional approach to inequality in later life.

Three ways that age-friendly programmes may become more inclusive of minority groups who are geographically dispersed are identified: bringing community members together; co-production; and supporting visibility in mainstream settings.

This paper brings together insights from the AfA programme, critically assessing place-based approaches in relation to working with dispersed communities of identity. It offers some ways to mitigate limitations through adopting tailored equality approaches.

This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation.

The paper first reviews the role of place and neighbourhood in later life; second, it examines the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and the impact of COVID-19; and, third, it outlines the basis for an “age-friendly” recovery strategy.

The paper argues that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, which have already been affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. It highlights the need for community-based interventions to be developed as an essential part of future policies designed to tackle the effects of COVID-19.

The paper contributes to debates about developing COVID-19 recovery strategies in the context of growing inequalities affecting urban neighbourhoods.

Recent works by organisational anthropologists have identified bureaucracy as a major challenge for unskilled workers in the global economy. Daily encounters with bureaucratic processes only enhance general feelings of inadequacy, frustration and insecurity experienced by social groups who have to rely on precarious work. However, a focus on people’s homespun strategies and on the role of the non-profit sector in helping them to navigate bureaucracy is still incipient. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research, ethnographic in its approach, unveils some of these challenges by drawing on 29 interviews with migrant workers in a third sector organisation in Manchester, UK. It explores migrants’ work experiences and aspirations, and the strategies used to navigate the bureaucracy embedded in the organisation of their lives. Informed by the different roles the researcher performed at the centre and by the inter-disciplinary nature of the projects, the methodology includes interviews, participative observation, analysis of life story narratives and drawings, and participation in community workshops.

While acknowledging that bureaucracy can keep people in liminal spaces and enhance their sense of insecurity, this paper reveals how personal aspirations and the ability to make connections across different social networks provide the much needed drive that enables migrants to acquire language skills, a tool that helps them to learn the ropes of bureaucratic processes, become culturally savvy, and leave the stage of quasi-citizenship.

Responses highlight the significance of recent welfare reforms and reveal adaptive mechanisms to deal with resulting uncertainties, which include the use of a variety of social networks, learning hew digital and language skills, and seeking specialized knowledge found in organisations in the third sector. The study also questions the taken-for-granted rationality of bureaucracy, unveiling its messy and ambiguous logic.

There is a widely held belief that sustainable development (SD) policies are essential for universities to successfully engage in matters related to sustainability, and are an indicator of the extent to which they are active in this field. This paper aims to examine the evidence which currently exists to support this assumption. It surveys a sample of universities in Brazil, Germany, Greece, Portugal, South Africa and the UK and the USA to ascertain the extent to which universities that are active in the field of sustainable development have formal policies on sustainable development, and whether such policies are a pre-condition for successful sustainability efforts.

The study involved 35 universities in seven countries (five universities respectively). A mixed-methods approach has been used, ranging from document analysis, website analysis, questionnaires and interviewing.

Although only 60 per cent of the sampled universities had a policy that specifically addressed SD, this cannot be regarded as an indicator that the remaining 40 per cent are not engaged with substantial actions that address SD. Indeed, all of the universities in the sample, regardless of the existence of a SD formal policy, demonstrated engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in some form or another. This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Despite this, it is one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities.

The findings provide some valuable insights into the connections between SD policies on the one hand and the practice of sustainable development in higher education institutions on the other.

Universities with SD policies can contribute to models of economic growth consistent with sustainable development.

The study is the one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

Bioelectricity from sugarcane presents possibilities of gaining prominence as an energy source in the coming years, contributing to sustainable development and being a relevant pillar of Brazil’s energy matrix, based on its advantages and the measures that can stimulate it. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a new framework for improving the regulatory framework for Brazilian sugarcane bioelectricity that facilitates the governance of its stakeholders and their respective relationships.

Exploratory and qualitative research, adopting, in addition to theoretical and practical research, consultations with experts, combined with analysis of documents relating to sustainability reports released by companies in the sector.

In the observed reports of 23 companies, it was found that 14 give full relevance to bagasse energy, and it can be attested that sugar-energy bioelectricity includes social, economic and environmental dimensions. In addition, the work presented elements that can benefit cogeneration, such as reduction or exemption of the distribution system use tariff for energy generation from bagasse; freedom for full commercialization in the free energy market, including small consumers; contractual simplification and solidification of financial compensation for clean energy production.

The work contributes to the advancement of theoretical references of business economics and competitiveness for practical application in competitive sustainability environments.

The repercussions of Portugal's colonialism are not widely discussed. The marks of colonialism in the public space are still present in the urban landscape of Portuguese cities. Despite the growing activity of the Black movement's in the country, they are still not being systematically considered in the design of public policies. Moreover, the Portuguese census does not include any data collection on ethnic belonging. Therefore, it is difficult to deepen the knowledge of the Black communities. The Black community has been growing in Porto, the second-largest city in Portugal and it remains highly invisible. Starting from a collaborative project between Portuguese and American professionals, acting in the fields of sociology and socially engaged curatorial and contemporary art practices, an experimental approach was developed to map and cocreate with the Black community in Porto. By using digital tools while collecting, analyzing, and sharing data, and by applying an ethnographic approach and techniques of exploration from documentary photography, the team developed a collaborative project side by side with the community. An exchange between disciplinary knowledge and “various subject positions,” with all participants engaging in an exploration of how to begin decolonizing the city through those tools took place at the project TRAVESSIA. This chapter explores how the Black nonelite is expressing and questioning race and ethnic inequalities in Porto by discussing the results of this collaborative project.

Despite the growing research into luxury symbolism and its influence on consumer behavior, few studies have investigated the underlying psychological processes that occur in different cultural contexts. This study investigates the relationships among luxury symbolism, psychological underpinnings of self-congruity, self-affirmation and customer loyalty, especially regarding how these relationships differ between consumers in China and those in the US.

Sample data were collected through surveys administered to 653 participants (327 in China and 326 in the US). A multi-group structural equation model was adopted to examine the conceptual model and proposed hypotheses.

The results show that luxury symbolism positively influences self-consistency, social consistency, social approval and self-esteem, and subsequently impacts self-affirmation and customer loyalty. However, for US consumers, self-esteem and social approval have significantly negative impacts on self-affirmation, while for Chinese consumers, social approval has no significant impact on self-affirmation. The authors also find that interdependent self-construal positively moderates the relationship between luxury symbolism, and social approval and social consistency. Independent self-construal positively moderates the relationship between luxury symbolism and self-consistency, and negatively influences the relationship between luxury symbolism and self-esteem.

Based on the theory of self-congruity and self-affirmation, this study fills a literature gap by revealing the psychological underpinnings regarding luxury symbolism and customer loyalty. It extends extant studies in luxury consumption by introducing self-construal (independent self vs interdependent self) as an important cultural moderator in luxury symbolism. This paper provides insights for luxury practitioners to create efficient marketing strategies by satisfying consumers' psychological needs in different cultures.

This paper aims to assess how cocoa supply chain companies disclose sustainable development goals (SDGs) information in their sustainability reports. This assessment highlights strategic aspects of sustainable supply chain management and reveals leveraging sustainability points in the cocoa industry.

The two-step qualitative approach relies on text-mining company reports and subsequent content analysis that identifies the topics disclosed and relates them to SDG targets.

This study distinguishes 18 SDG targets connected to cocoa traders and 30 SDG targets to chocolate manufacturers. The following topics represent the main nexuses of connections: decent labour promotion and gender equity (social), empowering local communities and supply chain monitoring (economic) and agroforestry and climate action (environmental).

By highlighting the interconnections between the SDGs targeted by companies in the cocoa supply chain, this paper sheds light on the strategic SDGs for this industry and their relationships, which can help to improve sustainability disclosure and transparency. One interesting input for companies is the improvement of climate crisis prevention, focusing on non-renewable sources minimisation, carbon footprint and clear indicators of ecologic materiality.

This study contributes to policymakers to enhance governance and accountability of global supply chains that are submitted to different regulation regimes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has framed the cocoa industry from a broader SDG perspective. The interconnections identified reveal the key goals of the cocoa supply chain and point to strategic sustainability choices for companies in an important global industry.

This study aims to investigate the main areas in which researchers are focusing their efforts in terms of sustainability in higher education (curriculum, campus greening, research, governance or outreach), the format in which this research is performed (in terms of individual or combined efforts) and the primary research focus (in terms of local or global issues).

Trends on sustainability research were investigated by means of an online survey – the World Survey on Sustainability Publishing and Research in Higher Education, which was disseminated among members of the European School of Sustainability Science and Research and the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme.

The survey collected responses from 103 researchers across over 40 countries. Three trends emerged: in spite of the intrinsic value of sustainability research in higher education, this area is not as mature as one could expect; the range of themes covered is wide and addresses a variety of areas; and individuals working alone is the most common means of doing research, whereas research at the university, department and faculty level appears to be less common.

The paper outlines some measures via which higher education institutions may be able to take more advantage of the many opportunities sustainability research offers to them.