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The purpose of this chapter is fivefold. First, it highlights that, despite apparent progress, business in general, and marketing in particular, has made little impact upon environmental sustainability. Second, it offers four explanations for the persistent challenges that contribute to this lack of meaningful progress. Third, it presents two theoretical lenses (i.e., assemblage theory and socio-ecological systems theory) for viewing environmental sustainability from new perspectives. Fourth, it offers a mid-range theory, biomimicry, to bridge the gap between these higher-level theories and managerial decisions on the ground. Finally, it offers implications and ideas for future research based on these persistent challenges and new perspectives.

Our paper is theoretical in focus. We offer a conceptual analysis of persistent challenges facing business efforts in environmental sustainability and suggest useful lenses to integrate marketing decisions more closely with our natural environment.

We present biomimicry as an actionable framework that seeks inspiration from nature and also explicitly grounds marketing decisions in the natural world.

Our paper draws attention to the challenges facing firms seeking to achieve better performance in environmental sustainability. In addition, it offers a set of fresh theoretical perspectives as well as future issues for scholarly research in this domain.

Our work is designed to be provocative; it articulates reasons why business efforts in environmental sustainability do not scale to meaningful impact upon our planet and explores theoretical lenses by which those efforts could be more impactful.

Existing reviews of research on voluntary childlessness generally take the form of narrative summaries, focusing on main topics investigated over time. In this chapter, the authors extend previous literature reviews to conduct a systematic review and content analysis of socio-historical and geopolitical aspects of knowledge production about voluntary childlessness. The dataset comprised 195 peer-reviewed articles that were coded and analysed to explore, inter alia: the main topic under investigation; country location of authors; sample characteristics; theoretical framework and methodology. The findings are discussed in relation to the socio-historical contexts of knowledge production, drawing on theoretical insights concerned with the politics of location, representation and research practice. The shifts in the topics of research from the 1970s, when substantial research first emerged, uphold the view of voluntary childlessness as non-normative. With some regional variation, knowledge is dominated by quantitative, hard science methodologies and mostly generated about privileged, married women living in the global North. The implications of this for future research concerned with reproductive freedom are outlined.

When the devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand on the 22 February 2011 the landscape of the city and its communities were irrevocably changed. The purpose of this paper is to provide case study evidence demonstrating the role of a grassroots organisation in shaping a community defined concept of resilience through self-organised disaster response action.

The case organisation, Project Lyttelton is a community group, located in the suburb of Lyttelton, dedicated to building community and resilience through local projects and action. This case study was conducted through in-depth qualitative interviews with key members of the organisation, as well as key individuals in the broader community.

This research has found that Project Lyttelton played a strong role in providing avenues for citizen participation post disaster. Of particular significance was the role of the timebank in providing an already established network for active participation by citizens in the response and recovery. Other findings outline the importance of pre-disaster community activity for facilitating social support and social learning.

This research contributes to the literature by providing case study evidence for the value of a community led and defined framework of resilience. The findings of this work support the need for further integration and support for local community led preparedness and response initiatives and demonstrate the possible value of pre-disaster community preparedness activities. Consequently, this work is of use to academics interested in the role of community following disasters, as well as emergency management practitioners interested in possible pathways for fostering and encouraging locally focused disaster preparedness activities. The findings may also be of interest to community groups working in the sphere of community building and resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in efforts to conserve biodiversity.

The paper examines a case study of biodiversity conservation efforts to restore a degraded blanket bog habitat. The analysis adopts a social nature perspective, which sees the social and the natural as inseparably intertwined in socio-ecological systems: complexes of relations between (human and non-human) actors, being perpetually produced by fluid interactions. Using a theoretical framework from the geography literature, consisting of four mutually constitutive dimensions of relations – territory, scale, network, and place (TSNP) – the analysis examines various forms of accounting for biodiversity that are centred on this blanket bog.

The analysis finds that various forms of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity have rendered this blanket bog visible and comprehensible in multiple ways, so as to contribute towards making this biodiversity conservation thinkable and possible.

This paper brings theorising from geography, concerning the social nature perspective and the TSNP framework, into the study of accounting for biodiversity. This has enabled a novel analysis that reveals the productive force of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity, and the role of such accounting in organising the world so as to produce socio-ecological systems that aid biodiversity conservation.

The purpose of this research is to explore core contributions from two different approaches to complexity management in organisations aiming to improve their sustainability,: the Viable Systems Model (VSM), and the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It is proposed to perform this by summarising the main insights each approach offers to understanding organisational transformations aiming to improve sustainability; and by presenting examples of applied research on each case and reflecting on the learning emerging from them.

An action science approach was followed: the conceptual framework used in each case was first presented, which then illustrates its application through a case study; at the first one the VSM framework supports an organisational transformation towards sustainability in a community; the second one is a quantitative case study of intended greening of two firms in the supermarket industry, taken from a CAS perspective. The learning from each case study on how they support/explain organisational learning in transformations towards more sustainable organisations was illustrated.

It wase found that the VSM and the CAS approaches offer internally consistent and complementary insights to address issues of self‐organisation and adaptive management for sustainability improvement: while CAS explains empowerment of bottom‐up learning processes in organisations, VSM enables a learning context where self‐organised networks can co‐evolve for improved sustainability.

The main aspects of both theories and examples of their explanatory power to support learning in practical applications in organisations were introduced. The initial findings indicate that it will be worth studying in greater depth the contributions to organisational learning from both conceptual models and more widely comparing their applications and insights.

The paper offers some guidance to both researchers and practitioners interested in using complex systems theories in action research‐oriented projects, regarding the usability and applicability of both approaches.

It is considered that, by better understanding organisational ability to adapt and self‐regulate on crucial issues for sustainability, it may help to develop one path through the ongoing socio‐ecological crisis. While much has been written about sustainability initiatives and governance from conventional perspectives, much less is known about how a complex systems framework may help to address one's pressing sustainability needs. These issues from two innovative complexity approaches as well as the value of using them in action research were illustrated.

The purpose of this paper is to present the gap between conceptualizations of social injustices and the desired social transformation that addresses multiple social subsystems and levels on one hand, and social justice leadership that addresses intra-school efforts on the other. The paper aims to expand the conceptualization of social justice leadership and tie it together with concepts of activism and social change.

The paper adopts a socio-ecological perspective. It reviews works about social justice leadership in education, activism, and social change to present the notion that in light of existing social justice barriers educational leaders should serve as activists in schools and in the community and policy areas.

The paper presents a macro framework, focussing on individual leaders in the field and on the consolidation of intentions, actions, and outcomes in a manner necessary for using social justice as an effective socio-political agenda in a socio-ecological system.

The paper presents a conceptual framework which can enable practitioners and researchers to better understand social justice efforts.

This paper aims to argue that resilience – and its underlying socio-ecological perspective – is a critical concept that could serve to integrate different views on, and approaches to, social marketing. The aim is to inspire social marketers to move away from narrow, issue-based interventions targeting individual behaviours and to consider the impact of social ecologies, particularly the contribution resilience research can make to behaviour change.

This is a conceptual paper; socio-ecological models and the resilience concept are discussed and applied to a current “wicked problem” – obesity.

From a socio-ecological perspective, research findings highlight the impact macro, meso and micro forces have on behaviour and the importance of a child’s micro-system and the influence it has on development and life outcomes. Building resilience requires a relationship-building, person-centred, holistic and long-term developmental approach to behaviour change.

This is a conceptual paper that introduces new concepts to the social marketing field. Future research should focus on understanding how to implement a resilience-building approach in practice – including the interrelationships and interactions between individual, family and community resilience – and how resilience can be integrated within systematic, socio-ecological thinking when addressing “wicked problems”.

Rather than blaming and targeting individuals, the goal should be to create an environment that supports parents, families and communities to build resilience at the micro, meso and macro levels. The findings support the argument that social marketers should adopt an upstream approach to develop interventions that make the environment the primary focus. Social marketers should collaborate with, and learn from, social workers, psychologists and educationalist to further their understanding of resilience. This would have a positive, sustainable impact on a whole range of social and health issues, ultimately helping to address the overarching issue of social inequality.

Building resilience amongst individuals, families and communities offer a means to achieve fundamental positive social change and to reduce social, economic and health inequality.

The paper offers a unique perspective on how and why resilience – and its underlying socio-ecological framework – should be applied within the social marketing field.

Infrastructure development through public-private partnership (PPP) route in India has exhibited concerns about not promoting progress toward sustainable development goals, particularly social and environmental perspectives. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to identify the shortcomings in the Indian PPP procurement process using the key principles of sustainability.

Qualitative research inquiry through grounded theory approach by using the literature and interview source was used to identify the challenges encountered in sustainable infrastructure development of PPP projects. These challenges were, first, reviewed from the perspectives of key sustainability principles and then discussed with the key stakeholders through focused interviews. Furthermore, micro-interlocutor analysis was carried to get an insight on the extent of consensus amongst the experts regarding these identified shortfalls.

The key shortfalls identified from the study that adversely affect progress toward sustainable development include incomprehensive environmental impact assessment and social impact assessment studies; lack of stakeholder and local participation; high bidding and transaction cost; high user charges; improper risk allocation; lack of transparency and accountability; goal conflicts between public and private sector; and lack of skill and knowledge about sustainability.

The study findings will help in devising appropriate strategies for enhancing the mechanisms, policies, and governance structure of PPP process in order to overcome these shortfalls and help in accomplishing the goals of sustainability while developing infrastructure even through PPP route.

The paper presents different insights into PPP from sustainability perspective which has not been the focus of the current studies on PPPs. Sustainability assessment of PPP procurement is an area of research which is in a nascent stage.

This paper aims to present a discursive and evaluative analysis of Energy + Illawarra, an Australian Government Low Income Energy Efficiency Program (LIEEP) funded interdisciplinary social marketing energy efficiency programme. Energy + Illawarra was a community programme working with low-income older people in Australia and involving social marketers, human geographers and engineers. The paper aims to identify how ecological systems theory can inform social marketing, and what practicalities there may be in doing so. The paper also aims to assess whether a social marketing programme that draws on ecological systems theory can have a positive impact on people’s thermal comfort.

First, the paper uses critical discursive analysis to examine the use of various elements of a social marketing energy efficiency programme in relation to the different levels of ecological systems theory. Second, a longitudinal cohort survey study design is used to evaluate the programme’s influence on people’s perceptions of thermal comfort and satisfaction with thermal comfort in their homes.

The study found that ecological systems theory could be an effective framework for social marketing programmes. The evaluation study found that the intervention had a positive impact on participant’s perceptions of thermal comfort, satisfaction with thermal comfort and attitudes towards energy efficiency. However, the paper identifies some potential tensions in using ecological systems theory and suggests that issues of power, representation, agenda setting, the need for reflexive practice and consideration of unintended consequences are important considerations in social marketing programmes.

The work presented here suggests that multi-level social marketing programmes that draw on ecological systems theory can make a useful contribution to social change as demonstrated by the evaluation survey finding positive impacts on thermal comfort and attitudes of participants. However, issues of power, representation, agenda setting, the need for reflexive practice and consideration of unintended consequences should be considered in social marketing programmes.