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The concept of sustainable livelihoods – commonly understood as managing of means of living without undermining natural resources – has gained momentum in international development discourse. This review focuses on broadening of conceptualisation of policy intervention process for sustainable livelihoods approach and synthesis of evidence to track development in their knowledge structure.

Evidence available in the literature systematically reviewed with the established methods and themes of interest are curated, to assess the characteristics, mechanisms and caveats arising in policy and practice.

The authors found seventy-five independent studies that fit into the pre-specified research protocol and objectives. The authors classify these studies into six major themes: Economic wellbeing; Opportunities and capabilities; Climate and natural resources; Policy design; Formal-informal institutional environment; and Labour, entrepreneurship and exports. Various research gaps and directions for future research are also discussed.

The study provides a typology of reviewed literature examining the profile dynamics. Thematic analysis resulted into identifying complementarities and trade-offs and results demonstrate multiple heterogeneity in structures, processes and outcomes.

The definitive areas of interventions are discussed to broaden the utility of the concept in a structured way. This review paper brings a comprehensive view of livelihood intervention system and contribute in enriching the social policy perspective.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2022-0402

This empirical research intends to examine factors influencing the adoption of renewable energy (RE) using a conceptual model of the consumer decision-making process.

This study uses a primary response-based survey to collect data from 668 respondents interested in adopting RE for their daily usage. The sample respondents were chosen through a multi-stage random stratified technique. The responses were analyzed through structural equation-based modeling techniques to discuss the findings and suggest further implications.

The findings suggest that factors like knowledge, policy incentives, sustainable development goals (SDGs-7, 11 and 13), socio-economic benefits and risk perception significantly impact the adoption of RE. Besides, risk perception mediates between environmental concerns and the adoption of RE. Also, age has a significant role in RE adoption.

The study finds the critical role of government in introducing financial incentives to reduce the initial cost of renewable adoption. Doing so will also promote clean and equitable energy access to society leading to further fulfillment of SDGs. Additionally, steps like knowledge enrichment, designing suitable policies for a manufacturer and public-friendly renewable market development will further facilitate renewable adoption in society.

With an objective to study the public perception and attitude towards renewable adoption, this empirical research is the first of its kind to carry out a real-time survey of the Indian population and suggest policy implications which would benefit all the concerned stakeholders.

Deterioration of integrity is featured in public service across the globe, including Tanzania. Local government authorities (LGAs) are among the areas where such practices have been reported. However, factors compromising integrity in LGAs receives less attention from the literature. Citing 19 LGAs from Tanzania, this study aims to examine contributes to this debate.

A sequential explanatory research design was applied. Data were collected from 54 respondents through survey questionnaires, interviews and a documentary review. The study was guided by Hoekstra theoretical framework for assessing integrity practices in LGAs.

The findings revealed that maintaining integrity in Tanzania's LGAs is still challenging. Poor institutionalization processes, institutional unpreparedness, insufficient integrity policy execution and being less informed of moral development of recruited public servants are said to compromise integrity in Tanzania LGAs. This qualifies to conclude that institutional pathologies and moral history of public servants are the major factors contributing to integrity deterioration in Tanzania LGAs. This has resulted in subpar service delivery and the waste of public funds.

This study confined itself to Tanzania LGAs. More studies could be conducted to LGAs in other countries struggling with the same problem. On the same ground, moral development should be studied more to ensure that the public service receives ethical public servants in the future.

The theoretical framework for assessing integrity systems in LGAs as proposed by Hoekstra (2022) could be applied by other countries struggling with the same challenge.

LGAs must implement an integrity-based self-reflection technique that will allow them to assess their current condition and come up with solutions. Furthermore, institutional policies must be strengthened to govern ethical behavior in LGAs.

The fifth IPCC report on climate change concluded current progress to mitigate anthropocentric climate change is not making any impact. As the built environment emits 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating climate change through sustainable construction and adaptation is a priority. Although many new buildings have sustainability ratings, they comprise a minute amount of the total stock. Meanwhile policy makers are adopting strategies to become carbon neutral with targets that require measurement. The purpose of this paper is to propose a means of quantifying the uptake of sustainability across all stock over time using existing policy frameworks.

Given that this is a scoping study to explore the potential to adapt existing frameworks to facilitate the quantification of the uptake of sustainability measures over time, the research adopted a focus group technique with experienced stakeholders in Australia and England. Qualitative research is inductive and hypothesis generating. That is; as the research assimilates knowledge and information contained in the literature ideas and questions are formed, which are put to research participants and from this process conclusions are drawn.

It is technologically feasible to collect data on sustainability measures within the building approvals systems in Victoria and NSW Australia and England and Wales and a conceptual model is proposed. Economically, costs need to be covered, and it is unclear which group should pay. Socially, the benefits would be to determine how society is progressing towards goals. The benefits of achieving reduced carbon emissions would be mitigation of the predicted changes to climate and informing society of progress. Politically, it is unlikely there is a will to make provisions for this proposal in existing regulatory systems.

The key limitations of the research were that the views expressed are those of a select group of experienced practitioners and may not represent the consensus view of the professions and industry as a whole. The limitations and criticisms of focus group data collection are that the sessions may be dominated by individuals holding strong views.

The findings show that adaptation of the existing data collected by building control authorities could allow some quantification of the uptake of sustainability measures over time. A simple initial system could be implemented with relative ease to ascertain the value of the data. Over time the system could be extended to collect more data that could facilitate more precise quantification of sustainability. Significantly policy makers would have a tool that would allow them to measure the success or otherwise of mandatory and voluntary measures introduced to increase the uptake of sustainability.

To date, no one has considered the practicality or potential utility of adapting existing information gathered for building approval purposes for the quantification of the up-take of sustainability across the whole stock over time. The value of using building approval data are that all building types are required to have building approvals prior to work being undertaken.

The rise of CSR followed a demand for CSR standards and guidelines. In a sector already characterized by a large number of standards, the authors seek to ask what CSR schemes apply to agribusiness, and how they can be systematically compared and analysed.

Following a deductive‐inductive approach the authors develop a model to compare and analyse CSR schemes based on existing studies and on coding qualitative data on 216 CSR schemes.

The authors confirm that CSR standards and guidelines have entered agribusiness and identify a complex landscape of schemes that can be categorized on focus areas, scales, mechanisms, origins, types and commitment levels.

The findings contribute to conceptual and empirical research on existing models to compare and analyse CSR standards. Sampling technique and depth of analysis limit this research, but the authors offer insights into patterns of CSR standard development in agribusiness and point to important research avenues.

These findings can help agribusiness managers to select and analyse CSR standards and other forms of CSR guidance.

Standard and guidance setting activities can be expected to have real‐life effects on CSR outcomes. These effects need to be better understood by policy makers and stakeholders. The authors' meta‐analysis contributes to further research on who or what influences standard development.

Models to compare CSR schemes are rare and often focus on a small number of cases. The authors provide decision makers and researchers with insights into structural conditions through a meta‐analysis of a larger number of CSR schemes.

This paper aims to propose future public policy guidelines (FPPG) in sustainable regional development for Guaviare (Colombia) – a territory affected by environmental and social distress – for the year 2035.

Following collective action theory and sustainable regional development literature, a foresight exercise was conducted using site focus groups and semi-structured interviews with local participants to identify future strategic change drivers and the most relevant social actors for the attainment of economic, social and environmental development in the Guaviare through FPPG.

The findings suggest that the development of public policies regarding building consensus around Guaviare’s economic, environmental and social issues, reducing conflict between the region’s cultural and environmental ways, decreasing isolation from the centers of decision-making, increasing the transparency of public institutions and reducing insecurity to attract investments are all crucial to attaining sustainable regional development.

Interdisciplinarity is implicit in the local perspectives on the problem that impedes sustainable development in San José del Guaviare. The paper’s main contribution is the long-term vision that breaks away from the traditional short-termism in public policy guidelines in a Latin American context. Methodologically, the significant contribution is the convergent alignment of specific foresight methods toward public policy guidelines’ analysis and design processes.

This paper aims to suggest the structure of a platform for education and capacity building for Future Earth, which is an intensive program open to the eight stakeholders and which utilizes existing research programs/facilities associated with Future Earth. An intention of this paper is to facilitate a policy brief for projects associated with Future Earth.

This paper reviewed backgrounds and necessary items for education and capacity buildings in Future Earth projects by implementing three main priorities in Future Earth and current surrounding environments.

This paper then suggested a possible structure, competencies, contents and human resources for education and capacity building and education for Future Earth.

The suggestions can be implemented in capacity building and education programs associated with Future Earth.

The purpose of this study is firm value management through corporate finance policy design and scenario analysis to maximize the firm value.

The study develops a system dynamics model for an oil firm and incorporates the financial and physical processes to perform the firm valuation. The model is simulated under the current and alternative investment, capital structure and dividend policies of the case firm, assuming different oil and gas price and tax rate scenarios to identify which combination of policies maximizes the firm value.

The simulation results suggest that lowering the volume of investments, increasing the debt ratio and reducing the dividend payments from the current level increases the share price, given increased oil and gas price expectations and lower tax rates. However, the total firm value outperforms with increased investments toward the end of the simulation period. In case of decreased oil and gas price expectations, lower volume of investments, lower debt ratio and lower dividend payments increase the share prices, given lower taxes.

This study entails significance as it provides a comprehensive financial planning model for an oil firm, which incorporates the complex interactions of key financial and physical processes of the firm. The study contributes to debates on corporate finance policies by integrating multiple theories, accounting for accumulation processes and feedback loops and their non-linear interactions. The study proposes the consideration of combined impact of policies for firm value management.

The sustainable development of the energy–economy–environment (3E) needs to ensure the balanced interplay between the energy–economy and the environment. Likewise, creating such balance has become a critical policy issue among countries worldwide. However, in the past, studies have ignored to create a balanced interplay of the energy–economy and environment. Therefore, to address said research gap, this paper aims to develop a graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR)-based strategy for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality.

To develop a strategic framework for the balanced interplay between the energy–economy and the environment, the study used the GMCR approach and designed a mechanism for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality in the context of Pakistan.

The results from the GMCR indicate that sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality is possible when government focuses on the sustainable growth of the economy through environmental policies and the use of renewable energy.

By solving the 3E conflict, this study provides policy insights for the government of Pakistan for the sustainable development of the energy economy and the environment to ensure better environmental quality in the country.

For the first time, this paper tried to put forward a way through which conflicting objectives can be achieved together for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality.

Security and safety have remained important concerns for mankind since ancient times. In the context of railways, however, the threat perceptions to safety and security have increased significantly lately. In view of this, the Indian Railways requires an effective and efficient security management system. The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated approach to help develop the Indian railway security system (IRSS) by successively reducing the complexity of the system through a series of studies.

The relevant elements of the complex system of Indian Railways have been identified. The framework in which the elements exist and interact with each other has been clearly established using the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique. The output of ISM is further reduced in complexity by having different policy option profiles. A comparison of different option profiles has been done by a multi-criteria decision-making technique, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), by choosing suitable criteria for comparison.

The following elements need to be pursued as the key objectives for making IRSS: protection of passengers, protection of property, modernisation, manpower enhancement, multi-skilling of staff, latest technology and enhanced legal powers.

The present research can be extended in many important ways. Interpretive structural models for different contextual relationships can be developed and used for formulating and implementing customised security policy. Policy elements and the ISM structure obtained in this research can be utilised for the system dynamic modelling of IRSS. A pilot study can be done to implement the recommendations made in this study.

The ISM model developed can be implemented as a policy tool in enhancing the railway’s security. Some of the policy elements proposed appear to be consistent with the strategic direction being undertaken in the railway security in the country.

Security is an important concern for mankind and social civilisations. The results have significant welfare implications in India and the rest of the world.

The present study is one of the first approaches in a series of studies in railway security in India. The results of this study can be extended to other security scenarios with similar needs.