<p> This thesis addresses the inherent tensions in discourses of sustainable fashion and explores how several individuals in the fashion industry attempt to reconcile these issues. In addition, it looks at the role of discourse in the socialization of ethical perspectives. The study draws on theoretical and methodological perspectives from linguistic and cultural anthropology, sociology, as well as fashion theory to analyze how fashion industry professionals discursively negotiate notions of sustainability and the tensions that emerge between ideals and practices. Data collection for this thesis included semi-structured interviews with fashion professionals in Southern California, along with participant observation within a university-level fashion textile course. Documenting socialization practices and noting the varying discourses of sustainable fashion in use by industry professionals highlight the challenges designers face in bridging eco-sensibilities with design aesthetics, and the complexity of individual agency in being able to participate in the culture of sustainability. The theoretical framework of this thesis demonstrates how linguistic anthropology can contribute to studies of sustainability in fashion design, and, in particular, how language use can be analyzed to better understand the ways in which a new generation can be socialized to new or changing ideas and perspectives.</p>

<p> Implementation of safety management systems (SMS) in small helicopter entities is not widespread and the variation in different types of missions (segments) in the helicopter industry make this situation very complex.&nbsp; In 2005, industry, government and manufacturers identified as the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) set out to reduce the global helicopter accident rates, and SMS implementation was one strategy. What was missing was measuring the effectiveness of SMS as related to incident or accidents (IA), or the relationship of these on operational effectiveness (OE).&nbsp; Small helicopter entities are the most numerous organizations but experience the most IA in this high-risk sector of aviation, and the existence of SMS in these entities is not regulated. Implementing SMS could have a positive effect on OE and IA and this non-experimental study contained a systems theory framework using structural equation modeling (SEM) in a partially mediated model to determine the relationships between three variables.&nbsp; Further, these results support industry initiatives to target the small helicopter segment. This model could also be useful in promoting SMS implementation by justifying the positive effects of SMS integration, and to address the influence of SMS across the industry. Participants included crewmembers of small helicopter entities in the United States. A total of 205 participants were gathered to participate in the study. The findings of the study indicated that (a) safety management systems can predict incidents and accidents; (b) incidents and accidents mediate the relationship between SMS and OE; and (c) incidents and accidents predict operational effectiveness. Future researchers may expand the results of this study by performing aviation-safety-specific research and by identifying operational benefits of the systems approach.</p>

The importance and contribution of healthy ecosystems to human well-being and poverty reduction have gained increasing awareness and attention in recent years. Despite this wide-scale acknowledgement, the majority of the benefits yielded by ecosystem services are currently exogenous to the economic system, so their value is not equally weighted in decisions that directly impact their functioning and welfare. Public understanding of the importance of these contributions and the necessity of healthy ecosystems and sound management is vital for their conservation. However, thorough understanding of what ecosystems are, how they function, and how to manage them on a systems-based level for sustainability, known as ecological literacy (ecoliteracy), is lacking in various publics. In fact, at the nexus of the complex environmental problems facing the world today is the lack of understanding of the impact of individual and aggregate actions, particularly on ecosystems. The emerging field of ecological economics seeks to reconcile the roots for this disconnect. By developing new methods of ecosystem management that simultaneously address complex economic, social and environmental needs, ecological economics seeks to develop a comprehensive, systems-based approach to engender global sustainability. Ecolitercy is a critical component to developing new methods in development and management. This dissertation research examines and applies several ecological economic tools – rapid assessment valuation, payments for ecosystem services and service-learning education – to determine how to best promote ecoliteracy and ecosystem management on individual and collective levels. There are several findings that highlight the importance of and areas of improvement for integrating such tools in a comprehensive sustainable development approach. (1) Ecosystem services valuation, which assigns economic values to the benefits humans derive from natural environments, is a framework that can provide vital insight into the ecological costs of large-scale development projects. It can also be used as a way to incorporate local/traditional knowledge into decision-making. (2) Payments for ecosystem services programs, while effective in conserving and regenerating forests in developing countries, still have significant areas of improvement to be considered for similar future projects. Particularly, it has not been demonstrated that they are effective mechanisms for poverty alleviation, as it has been suggested in the literature. In fact, if not meaningfully supported, poor participants may face serious trade-offs and their involvement in such programs may negatively affect social capital in the community. (3) Service-learning, or working with communities to address real world-problems through a rigorous academic framework, is more effective at developing critical, ecological and civic literacy in students and develop more knowledgeable agents to solve the world‘s complex problems. Overall, these new and other tools must be developed to specifically address the ecological illiteracy that so often guides development decisions and be integrated into a comprehensive, inclusive framework for sustainable development.

Food systems are inherently complex areas of interaction between economic, environmental, and social factors. The local food movement in Vermont presents new opportunities to shape the local and regional food systems according to the values of stakeholders. In order to create the spaces necessary for reflexivity and ethical concerns it is necessary to understand food system stakeholder values. Through coding interviews with 17 stakeholders, the study identified values of producers, processors, chefs, food purchasers, distributors, advocates, state agencies, and other stakeholders. The five most commonly cited, strongly felt stakeholder values in the Vermont-regional food system were: promotion of the local food economy, financial viability, environmental integrity, community wellbeing, and quality of service or product. Understanding these values was central to the second portion of this research, which addressed the need to communicate information about the Vermont-regional food system. Indicators were selected as the most appropriate tool for this task, specifically because indicators have proven to be useful tools for communicating information in complex systems. Indicators also allow information about these systems to be framed by stakeholders, who are often the end users of the information as well. The methodology of this research was designed to integrate stakeholder and expert feedback to produce a robust and defensible indicator set tailored to the environmental, social, and economic context of the Vermont-regional food system. Each of the five most common stakeholder values were assigned three proposed indicators (condition, pressure, policy response) in order to describe critical dimensions of the food system. Finally, data behind the indicators were compiled to show trends in the Vermontregional food system related to sustainability. Areas of missing data were identified to show what information is still needed in the Vermont-regional food system in order for this system to more towards sustainability.

Self-monitoring procedures are commonly used to assess environmentally sustainable behavior. The current experiment evaluated the effects of a self-monitoring procedure on two sustainable behaviors within a university office. A senior assistant was asked to report on light usage and energy-saver use on the copier in an office break room. Her reports were then compared with independent observations. Results showed that her reports were highly correspondent with independent observations although no change in target behaviors occurred. Changes in behavior occurred when she was asked to engage in the target behaviors. Results suggest that although self-monitoring procedures can correctly assess sustainable behaviors, they may not be suitable for behavior change.

<p> Energy is used in buildings, industries, and transportation and has effects on people&rsquo;s lives. These effects are nationwide, worldwide, and varied. The effects comprise the economy of nations, such as the United States&rsquo; dependence on foreign oil. Also, human health and environment can be effected by building energy use. On a larger scale, carbon emissions, which are directly tied to building energy use, affect the planet. </p><p> According to the Energy Information Administration report, commercial buildings consume 40 % of the total energy in the United States. Sustainable building mandates stipulate efficient and alternative uses for the limited supply of energy, but calculations for verification and validation must be achieved in order to maintain accountability and to ensure successful energy conservation strategies over time. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program that is used as a benchmark for sustainable building design. A building must satisfy the minimum number of design requirements identified by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to be awarded a LEED Green Building certification. There are no future changes on certification, but there is an opportunity to recheck how a sustainable building performs during the post-occupancy operation. </p><p> According to the energy consumption data from Student Housing Energy Bill, this research will compare the predicted to actual performance for buildings that meet the LEED platinum mandate. The result of this comparison can be useful in improving the measurement process for expecting building energy consumption and developing support methodologies to help improve post-occupancy building performance.</p>

The link between sustainability and the planning process has been legislated and polices applied but the practical rhetoric and implementation thereof remains problematic (Oranje & Van Huyssteen, 2004 and Owens, 1994). An integral part of that link is the ability of the planning process to provide for public involvement. However within institutionalized planning processes the dominance of “experts” (scientific based) in the process allows for an exclusionary debate with regard to local issues (Eden, 1996). This research explored the ability of the local legislated integrated development planning (IDP) process as a tool through which the implementation of sustainability could be fostered. It specifically explored the discourse of knowledge (scientific, counter scientific and non scientific) as a construct in implementing deliberative public participation for sustainability. The qualitative approach utilized in this study employed multiple research methodologies through the utilization of the Lesedi Local Municipality (LLM) IDP process as a case study. This research report shows that while the IDP is a technical process paying little attention to other knowledge’s, it does have some potential as a framework that can aid in the implementation of sustainable participation through its ability to empower communities and foster community led development through ownership of this local process.

This dissertation looks at themes of identity construction rooted in place. It takes the notion of people and the environment having a reciprocal relationship with architecture being at the interface - facilitating the localised formation of identity and sense of place. I examine current themes of Creole culture and related hybridization, and the important role architecture and place plays in the affirmation of identity. This is done in the context of Mitchells Plain located on the Cape Flats. I critique the original apartheid modernist planning in creating a ‘community’ detached, and with no ‘proper’ social network and basis for identification. In response, I propose a re-establishment of identity and pride in place. Dealing with key social issues, stitching together. ABSTRACT fragmented natural, physical and cultural elements by providing opportunity for experience and expression through concepts of event (active public space), programme, and network. By drawing on cultural and ecological lessons of the vernacular it seeks to create a sustainable, symbiotic place and a platform for individual identity development rooted in contemporary life, uniqueness of place and identity.

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Thesis advisor: Michael Malec / Efforts to create unambiguous measures of sustainable development without compromising the complexity of the concept are continuously frustrated by technical limitations. Determining and quantifying the relationships between socioeconomic and environmental domains is complicated by the need to account for interactions between varied spatial and temporal scales. The resilience perspective has been used as a conceptual framework for unifying these concerns. Indeed, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007) explicitly links sustainable development (spatial scale) and global climate change (temporal scale), and discusses both in terms of resilience. However, conceptual imprecision within the resilience literature persists. This paper outlines the conceptual and methodological complexity of sustainable development; clarifies imprecision that persists within the resilience literature; establishes a conceptual framework for the analysis of socioeconomic development in light of likely impacts of global climate change; and identifies research priorities for the identification and interpretation of sustainable development indicators. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

<p> This thesis connects the lived experience of displacement to the greater paradigm of neoliberalism. The presence of neoliberalism is insidious and ubiquitous and yet even its existence is disputed in the literature. Neoliberalism is not only capitalism on steroids, bigger and in more places, but a new regime of logic that reduces human relations to profit, naturalizes competition and pushes responsibility onto the individual. Urban space in America and especially the process of gentrification, the reshaping of the built environment to facilitate profit, is a powerful space of expression of neoliberal policies in everyday life. Displacement is a violent and dehumanizing realization of the commodification of land. This research follows the lived experience of families displaced from a mobile home park in Flagstaff, Arizona. Residents received a letter of eviction a week before Thanksgiving of 2017 and the mobile home park was boarded up by July of the following year. Through in-depth interviews with the residents and participant observation in the ensuing movement to keep these families in their homes, this research compiles the lived experience of these individuals and provides an analysis of their situation. Paulo Freire argued that every person has the ability to understand and build solutions to their reality in them. This research hopes to illuminate the lived experience of neoliberalism, gentrification, and offer a powerful message of generative solidarity collaboratively distilled from the experience of the displaced residents.</p><p>