Search results

This paper aims to propose an integrated urban planning framework to achieve sustainable urban development (SUD) in the Malaysian context.

In the course of developing this framework, this paper reviews the related literature and Malaysian policies, programs and plans.

The findings highlight the importance of developing an integrated urban planning framework with respect to the processes, content and outcomes to achieve SUD in the Malaysian context. Successful SUD planning should be participatory and based on building consensus. Moreover, the content of the plan should include economic growth, social inclusion and development and environmental protection components.

This study makes a valuable theoretical contribution to the SUD and urban planning literature by proposing an urban planning framework for the promotion of SUD. In addition, this study has a number of practical implications for the Government of Malaysia and local authorities aiming to facilitate SUD.

In this chapter the authors describe the development of an interdisciplinary graduate program focusing on sustainable urban development at Chicago’s DePaul University. Locating the curriculum both in the administrative institutional context and the historical geography of a racially and economically segregated urban area, the authors discuss the process of program formation and adjustment over its first five years of operation, 2013–2018. The chapter highlights some of the challenges encountered by program faculty, from internal curricular competition to external classification of the program under federal educational designation, and notes some of the interdisciplinary innovations, such as requiring courses in Geographic Information Systems to aid spatial data analysis and visualizations. In the second part of the chapter, to assess the impact of the graduate program on students, the authors review and draw from reflection essays written by students who, while completing their studies, pursued internships with nonprofit organizations in Chicago. The chapter concludes by discussing the employment status of recent alumni to suggest how these former students are pursuing jobs that may come to impact sustainability policy and practice. The authors maintain it is necessary to push the understanding of “sustainability” beyond solely environmental concerns to incorporate understandings of how economic development and community engagement must be included to deliver a sustainable city. The interdisciplinary curriculum described challenges students to become leaders in local efforts to make urban areas not only more environmentally sustainable, but also more economically and socially sustainable for all residents.

The purpose of this study is to examine the stadiums in Turkey within the scope of sustainability and evaluate their impact on sustainable urban development.

In the study, at first, the “Sustainable Stadium Assessment Tool”, where the final score ranges from 0 to 100 and the evaluation is made as bronze, silver, gold and platinum according to the score ranges, is developed. With this assessment tool, a total of 20 stadiums built or renovated/restored between 2008 and 2018 in Turkey is examined in social, environmental, economic dimensions within the scope of sustainability, and the current situation is revealed within the frame of sustainable urban development.

As a result of the study, it was determined that among the stadiums evaluated, only two stadiums have sustainability properties at platinum level, three stadiums at gold level while the remaining stadiums mainly at silver level.

To date, no assessment tool has been created in the field of sports management that can assess the sustainable properties of stadiums. Therefore, the “Sustainable Stadium Assessment Tool” created within the scope of the study is the foremost in the field of sports sciences and sports management with its different qualities in national and international terms. In addition, the examination of the stadiums in the social, environmental, economic dimensions within the scope of sustainability and revealed the current situation is also the first, and it contains information that will make very significant scientific contributions to the relevant field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore graduate students’ perception of how soft skills are developed at a transnational university in Vietnam, and how these soft skills contribute to their perceived employability.

This study utilized a qualitative case study method. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 graduate students at Vietnamese–German University.

Findings suggest that faculty utilized classroom-based practices to provide students the opportunity to enhance soft skills that are perceived to contribute to employability, such as skills related to independent work, interpersonal relationships and the ability to work in global contexts. In addition, interacting with international faculty played a large part in providing students the opportunity to develop their independent skills, critical thinking, communication and cultural competence.

Implications include multiple approaches, including faculty training, curriculum development and learner preparation. Institutions must consider how their curriculum contributes to the development of soft skills and how international faculty are prepared to engage meaningfully with students, particularly within specific global and political contexts. In addition, graduate students must also be prepared to engage in a classroom that promotes group work, class presentations and independent work.

This study provides insight on how a transnational institution can foster soft skills for employability in graduate students in Vietnam. Considering the growth of collaborative transnational institutions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, findings and implications from this study provide recommendations on how to better prepare graduates for employability within a global economy.

Ports and port cities play a pivotal role toward the sustainable development of coastal ecosystems. These ecosystems provide their natural capital by offering favorable locations for industry and accessibility to world markets. While port industrial activities have been reactive to pressure from stakeholders, in more recent years ports have adapted inclusive strategies and seek to align their strategic intentions with stakeholders. Around the world, port authorities are aligning their ambitions toward their contribution to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), such as the World Port Sustainability Program (WPSP) for port authorities and AIVP2030 for port cities. The aim of this chapter is to assess to what extent ports have contributed to the implementation of the SDGs. The analysis is based on a content analysis on a portfolio of 212 projects in which port authorities demonstrate leadership in sustainable development. The results indicate that the contributions of port and port city authorities are generally motivated to “do no harm.” Port authorities also have “do good” intentions for their ecosystems, which are mainly focused on reenforcing connections with communities and less to restore their impact on the biosphere. Furthermore, the findings show that linkages between WPSP projects with the SDGs are rather ambiguous. Directions are given toward a methodology for port authorities (PAs) to establish a stronger link between (monitoring) business strategies with the implementation of inclusive port development strategies to prevent using SDG reporting for greenwashing purposes.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to causing a very serious economic crisis, has slowed the path taken toward achieving gender equality. For example, the closure of third sector activities by governments has meant the loss of many jobs in this female-dominated sector (ILO, 2020; UN, 2020) slowing and hindering the professional careers of many women (Carli, 2020).

The objective of this work is to identify gender differences by analyzing the levels of sustainable development achieved by Italian regions. The Italian case in fact is very peculiar due to its historical territorial gap between the regions of the North (among the most developed) and those of the Center-South, which still show high gender inequalities. A Gender Sustainable Development Index (GSDI) will be constructed through the use of 50 indicators from the Benessere Equo e Sostenibile survey of Istat. The technique used is the stacking method (Landi, Ivaldi, & Testi, 2017; Norman, 2010), which was chosen for its high replicability of results. The results show that only 40% of Italian regions have higher levels of female sustainable development than male sustainable development. Moreover, the regions with the worst levels of both female and male sustainable development are located in the Center-South of the country, confirming the strong territorial gap present within the Italian Peninsula.

Sparse attention has been paid to the inevitable processes of change that enable progress in today's globalizing urban centres, but also threaten their unique identity, historic memory, and cultural heritage. The aims of this work are to understand the urban dynamics that trigger these change processes, uncover their effects, and discuss how these changes can be utilized to achieve sustainable development. The case study, which uses a comparative mixed method strategy consisting of archival research, fieldwork, and semi-structured interviews, is the Kosuyolu Housing Settlement, a project dating to the 1950s that represents one of Istanbul's best examples of urban development and housing culture. Displaying the architectural and urban planning ideals of the Modern period, this settlement is a concrete example that reflects the period's considerations regarding social housing. Through this case, change in housing has been evaluated in terms of sustainability indicators. The derived evidences show the significant role of governance and the maintained land use pattern for the achievement of the sustainable development and these evidences are used to suggest the development of an adaption guide that will assist in sustainable development in the short term, and the creation of alternative scenarios that are flexible and easy to adapt, active, and based on participatory processes for the long term.

Commonly, supermarkets are perceived as more sustainable than discount stores, which are accused of following an aggressive price and no-frills approach. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether supermarkets and discounters differ substantially in their sustainability communication.

Sustainability reports and in-store communication are two important channels for retailers’ sustainability communication. To analyze both communication channels, the authors use a multi-method approach with data triangulation, analyzing sustainability reports and store observations of eight German retailers (two supermarket chains, six discount chains).

The study reveals no major differences between supermarkets and discounters regarding the readability of sustainability reports and the number of key figures on sustainability presented. However, supermarkets perform significantly better in translating sustainability to the store level than discounters. Furthermore, the results indicate that poor quality in the readability analysis is reflected in fewer concrete data provided in the sustainability reports and poorer translation of sustainability to the retail store.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of how well German retailers communicate about sustainability on both the report and the store level for the interest of academia and retail managers. It reveals different performance qualities among retail chains and retail formats and identifies the shortcomings within current reporting legislation with a clear indication toward policy makers.