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This thesis aims to contribute new understandings of community sustainability through a detailed case study of public sector and community relations within Cornwall. The Look Group Network is a multi-layered public sector and community adult informal learning partnership project which sought to connect Tate St Ives, a national art gallery operating in the far west of the UK, with new audiences. The case study situates together informal learning, community and sustainability and explores their interdependence. The study comprised participant observation with the Look Group members, semi-structured partner interviews, contextual research including a review of the social and political theory of community and an evaluation of relevant sustainable community and informal learning policy. The research aims to identify the underlying conditions which contributed to the sustainability of the Look Groups over a four year period and to assess to what extent these conditions could be transferred to other communities. The original contribution of this project to the existing research literature is in the application of Complexity Theory to empirical data to enable an understanding of the systemic dynamics that contribute to sustainability and in the development of method in the consideration of community and group dynamics.

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / John Harrington Jr / Agriculture is vital to the character of Kansas. It is threaded through the social, economic, and environmental systems that operate in Kansas and bring each system into interaction with one another. Loss of agriculture would mean drastic changes to traditional Kansas way of life due to the three pronged nature of agriculture in Kansas. Continuation of agricultural activity then is of great importance. Globalization, climate change, and environmental change pose threats to agricultural futures. This study is a meta-analysis of current literature in an attempt to assess the current state of sustainable agriculture in the state of Kansas. An emphasis was placed on climate as a driver of change and ways in which agricultural producers in Kansas may begin implementing sustainable adaptations. Barriers to implementing sustainable agricultural adaptations were also identified in the literature. Broadly speaking analysis focused on barriers created through policy and barriers created through gaps in knowledge and weak or missing connections, or cognitive barriers. Information gathered in the course of the literature analysis was used to generate two potential future agricultural scenarios for Kansas. Scenarios can be used to aid policy makers in assessing potential impacts of environmental change and interactions between different systems and scales. Two separate scenarios, Business-As-Usual and Sustainable-Adaptive, were developed with distinct characteristics. The Business-As-Usual scenario represents a future that is framed similar to the current situation. Changes built into the scenario stem from the projected changes to climate. The remainder of the narrative describes a future that has pursued developmental pathways driven by current policy and market forces. In contrast, the Sustainable-Adaptive scenario represents a Policy Reform scenario in which there is strong guidance through policy towards a developmental pathway that focuses on sustainable agricultural methods. This scenario describes a future in which environmental degradation is slowed or even reversed. Continued future work may focus on the role of water availability, community level impacts of sustainable adaptations, and the integration of stakeholder values as another layer of complexity in future scenarios.

Nowadays Swedish professional handball clubs carry out extensive sustainability work. In addition to engaging many people through the activities of the associations, they also contribute positively to society through external projects and activities. Despite the work being carried out, the clubs are not that involved in disclosing their work in a sustainability report. Sustainability reporting aims to report the organization's impact on sustainable development and is an expression of social responsibility. The study is based on the legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory's assumptions about expectations and interactions with society. The study is focused on clubs that are active in the top league of Swedish men’s handball, Handbollsligan. The purpose of this study is to understand the reasons why Swedish professional handball clubs do not report sustainability, even though the theories and previous studies point out many benefits to it. The study has been performed in a two steps approach, a document study was performed first and then interviews. The document study of the club’s annual reports has shown a poor disclosure of sustainability information. Subsequently, interviews with representatives of the clubs have been carried out in order to generate an understanding of why the clubs do not report their sustainability work. The study shows that none of the Swedish professional handball clubs have a sustainability report and have a lack of sustainability information in their annual report. The study highlights several reasons why the clubs do not have sustainability reports. It indicates that the clubs instead choose to communicate the sustainability work they perform via social media and through their websites. Other reason is a lack of knowledge of what a sustainability report is and contains, and the deficiency of the resources required for elaborating the report. Further the clubs also experience low expectations and demands from stakeholders regarding sustainability reporting. Norms within the field of activity and the culture within the clubs also form the basis for the lack of sustainability disclosure. The study's contribution is primarily a guidance and an increased understanding for the clubs within Swedish professional handball regarding sustainability reporting.

The manner in which clothing is designed, produced and used is responsible for major negative impacts on the environment as well as major ethical and social issues on a global scale. The increased concern for sustainability issues in the industry is similarly argued to have led to transformations of the business context of apparel companies, that have been shown to increasingly incorporate sustainability in their corporate strategies. This thesis focuses on sustainability strategies of Swedish clothing brands operating in the global apparel and fashion industry, with the aim to explore the topic of sustainability in relation to the Swedish apparel industry. Through qualitative interviews with sustainability managers and consultants working within the industry, it explores the drivers for working with sustainability as well as main challenges for achieving sustainability within the apparel industry. The results show that the concept of sustainability is indeed highly complex and broad in regard to the design, production and use of clothes. Companies are influenced by many factors that drive change towards sustainability. The future of the apparel sector is believed to be increasingly affected by new ideas to produce and indeed also consume clothes that challenge the dominating linear system. In conclusion, the industry faces many challenges concerning sustainability, but the proactive approaches by apparel companies seem to create new opportunities for change. Also, the anticipated further increase in interest for sustainability in society and subsequently among consumers and other actors may stimulate further advancements of the strategic responses among apparel companies.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate how companies address sustainability holistically and compare the practical results to theoretical findings. The holistic approach of sustainability includes four dimensions and five corporate system elements.   Methods: For creating the theoretical framework a literature review was executed. Empirical data was gathered from a multiple case study. In total five case companies have been selected and five interviews have been conducted. Furthermore the interview guideline included a small survey. Empirical data was complemented by information from sustainability reports and companies website.   Main findings: Sustainability is partly executed in differently in practical terms compared to theory research. The differences are mainly explained by the unique use of sustainability initiatives, which are adapted to companies circumstances.   Academic contributions: Previously, only a few researchers investigated the combination of initiatives to provide a holistic sustainability approach. Furthermore a lack of practical research in the field of sustainability has been identified. This thesis contributes to close this gap by investigating five case companies regarding the use of multiple initiatives.   Practical implications: Based on the findings a model was created by the authors. By applying this model and using recommended initiatives companies are able to establish a holistic sustainability approach, involving all sustainability dimensions and corporate system elements.   Limitations: The interviews have been translated from German or Dutch into English, which increases the risk of wrong interpretations. Further the interview involved only one representative per company. Additionally the number of small case study companies and case companies from the service sector might limit the generalization of the results.

A prática de divulgar relatórios de sustentabilidade tem se tornando comum em organizações por todo o mundo; em especial no Brasil, há uma forte tendência de crescimento na adoção desta prática. O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar porque as organizações reportam e os aspectos positivos e negativos no modelo de reporte de sustentabilidade proposto pela Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), na opinião dos funcionários apontados nos relatórios de sustentabilidade como responsáveis por eles; estas informações são importantes porque poucas pesquisas investigam os relatórios de sustentabilidade a partir deste ponto de vista e porque oferece à GRI pontos específicos a serem melhorados. A pesquisa foi realizada por meio da análise de conteúdo, sem a utilização de softwares específicos para o método, das respostas dos funcionários de 27 empresas às questões: Por que elaborar relatório de sustentabilidade? Quais aspectos positivos você identifica no modelo de reporte proposto pela GRI? e quais os negativos? Como resultado, foram obtidas sete categorias sobre por que as organizações emitem relatório de sustentabilidade: apoiar a gestão, acompanhar o mercado, prestar contas, contribuir com outras empresas, abertura do capital, relacionamento com stakeholders e melhorar a imagem da empresa. As categorias de aspectos positivos identificadas foram: melhora a gestão da empresa, proporciona uma ferramenta de marketing, o guia proposto para a elaboração do relatório, possibilidade de legitimação e auxilia no benchmarking. E as categorias de aspectos negativos: dificuldades no processo proposto, dificuldades internas, modelo do relatório final, avaliação dos relatórios, visão externa dos relatórios, indicadores, utilização do relatório como ferramenta de marketing e foco em grandes empresas. Como conclusão, verificou-se que as empresas encontram nas diretrizes da GRI mais do que um modelo de reporte, chegando a representar uma ferramenta de gestão da sustentabilidade; porém, os aspectos negativos identificados colocam em risco a eficácia do projeto de reporte, principalmente devido ao excesso de flexibilidade dos relatórios, o que permite a emissão de diversos formatos de relatórios, muitos dos quais pouco objetivos e com chance de conter informações não confiáveis. Sugerem-se então algumas propostas de melhorias, entre elas a definição de um quadro-resumo que forneça ao leitor uma visão global do desempenho da organização em sustentabilidade, a definição de um modelo específico de relatório final e o desenvolvimento de um novo padrão de classificação dos relatórios. / The practice of disclosing sustainability reporting is becoming common in organizations throughout the world; especially in Brazil, there is a strong upward trend in the adoption of this practice. The objective of this study was to identify positive and negative aspects in the framework for sustainability reporting proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), according to the opinion of the staff responsible for the report; this information is important because few studies investigate the sustainability reports from this point of view and because it offers to GRI specific points to be improved. Held data collection by means of open questions that evaluated: why report sustainability reports; positive aspects in the guidelines; and negative aspects of the proposed guidelines. The investigation of responses obtained was through content analysis, using an exploratory qualitative approach. As a result, there are seven categories on why organizations issue a sustainability report: management support, market monitoring, accountability, contribute to other companies, going public, stakeholder relations and improve the company\'s image. The categories of positive aspects are: improved management of the company, provides a marketing tool, the proposed method for preparing the report tab, possibility of legitimation and helps in benchmarking. And the categories of negative aspects: difficulties in the proposed process, internal difficulties, model of the final report, evaluation reports, external view of the reports, indicators, use the report as a marketing tool and focus on large companies. In conclusion, it was found that companies encounter on the GRI guidelines more than one reporting model, came to represent a management tool for sustainability; However, the negative aspects identified jeopardize the effectiveness of the project reporting, mainly due to excessive flexibility of reporting, which allows the issuance of various types of reports, many of which little goals and likely to contain unreliable information. Then are suggested some proposals for improvements, including propose a summary table that provides the reader with an overview of the organization\'s performance in sustainability, propose a specific model of the final report and develop a new standard for classification od reports.

O maior desafio desse século tem como tema central a sustentabilidade, devido ao crescimento da população mundial e consequentemente ao aumento da demanda por recursos, como água, alimento e energia. A principal dificuldade quando se debate a questão do Desenvolvimento Sustentável está na metodologia de avaliação. Daí a necessidade de criar um instrumento de mensuração que aborde estes recursos de uma maneira holística e que seja capaz de traduzir dados em um resultado passível de interpretação. Existem ferramentas validadas para esse objetivo como DashBoard of Sustainability e outras em desenvolvimento como a Metodologia CLEW pela Agência Internacional de Energia Atômica IAEA. Este estudo tem como objetivo desenvolver um novo modelo de análise de correlação entre as variáveis, energia, água, uso do solo e clima, utilizando Inteligência Artificial, através da Lógica Fuzzy, tendo como base de dados, indicadores que representem um ou mais recursos, considerando uma distribuição temporal relativa e necessária para a investigação de resultados e comportamentos. O resultado será um índice final gerado através do mapeamento destes dados de entrada. Os resultados apresentados utilizando essa metodologia são de indicadores do Brasil, porém pode ser aplicada a qualquer outro país, permitindo uma análise de comparação do comportamento dos índices entre regiões. A contribuição desse projeto será a disponibilidade de uma ferramenta, com recurso computacional poderoso, destinada aos tomadores de decisão para auxiliar no desenvolvimento de estratégias e políticas de desenvolvimento. / The greatest challenge of this century is focused on sustainability, due to world population growth and consequently to the increased demand for resources such as water, food and energy. The main difficulty when discussing the issue of sustainable development is the evaluation methodology. Because of this, there is a need for a measurement tool that addresses these resources in a holistic manner and be able to translate data into results that can be interpreted. There are tools validated for this purpose like, \"Dashboard of Sustainability\" and other developing like the CLEW Nexus by the International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA. This study aims to develop a new model to analyze the correlation between variables, energy, water, land use and climate, using Artificial Intelligence through Fuzzy Logic, having as a data source, indicators that represent one or more resource, considering the relative and temporal distribution required to research results and behaviors. The result is a final index generated by mapping these input data. The results presented using this methodology are indicators of Brazil, but can be applied to any other country, allowing a comparison analysis of the behavior of indices between regions. The contribution of this project will be the availability of a tool with powerful computational resource, aimed at decision makers to assist in developing strategies and development policies.

Sector sustainability strategies can provide industry sectors with a way of managing risks and opportunities, and contributing to sustainable development. The UK Government has encouraged their development in the construction industry. British Precast, as the trade association for the precast concrete industry in the UK, had undertaken to develop a sector sustainability strategy for that industry. However, the development of such strategies is a departure from the traditional role of the trade association and presented British Precast with a number of challenges. This EngD research programme was therefore established in order to address those challenges and facilitate progress towards a more sustainable precast industry. The research programme has followed a mixed method strategy of inquiry based on action research methodology, that is, a series of research cycles have been undertaken with the findings from each cycle being used to inform and guide subsequent cycles; archival analysis, survey and case study were the main research methods used. The requirement of the EngD programme to publish elements of the work in refereed journal and conference papers as the research progresses has allowed the research to be validated as scientifically satisfactory. The strategy development process combined best practice, current and emerging theory, original research, stakeholder engagement, and experience from other sectors and industries. The strategy was produced in the form of an action plan for British Precast. This plan differs from the sustainability strategies produced for other sectors of the construction products industry in that rather than simply promoting action on specific objectives, it provides British Precast with a means of engaging with the industry and its stakeholders, and facilitating progress towards a more sustainable precast industry. The action plan has been well received by the industry and its stakeholders, and there is clear evidence that it is helping to guide the business decisions of companies in the industry, and that progress towards a more sustainable precast industry is being achieved as a result. The research supporting the strategy development process has added to current knowledge and guidance on the development of sector sustainability strategies, but shown that there are limits to the influence trade associations can have over their members' actions. It has also been shown that the development of management systems, particularly environmental management systems to ISO 14001, and continuous performance improvement cultures can assist companies in managing for sustainability, supporting the findings of other studies. However, further work is needed to build support for the action plan within the precast industry, particularly amongst SMEs, to support the downstream supply chain in using precast products to deliver more sustainable construction, and to assist companies in achieving progress towards corporate sustainability. Recommendations are made for this work.

Purpose – The sustainability topic has been receiving a growing importance in the corporate environment in recent years. More and more companies are adopting sustainability practices in all their organisational levels, operations and business process as a whole; however, they have still failed to achieve the anticipated goal. Existing roadmaps, frameworks and systems do not comprehensively support sustainable business transformation. This research proposes a four phases framework, based on BPM, to help organisations to implement sustainability practices in the organisation business processes and has verified it with industry/academic specialists and validated it in a local organisation focused on sustainability initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework has been created, verified and validated. The framework is based on Business Process Management (BPM) principles, which was chosen because due its capability to work in a cross process way while providing the full control of the process performance. It was then verified using a Delphi study held with 21 specialists in Sustainable Operations Management from both academia and industry and validated using an action research study on a biomass company focused in the development of sustainable energy technologies that wished to improve the implementation of sustainability initiatives in its business processes and operations. Findings – It was identified that organisations still struggle to succeed the implementation of sustainability projects. The research outlined that the business process management (BPM) approach can be used as way to implement sustainability practices in an organisation’s business processes by using the conceptual framework. The benefits from this approach are the enablement of continuous process improvement, improvement of process quality; cost reduction; increase in the customer satisfaction; and better control 3 over process performance, which can be directly linked to the improvement of the sustainability improvement. Research limitations/implication – The main limitation of this research is the application of the framework in only one real-life scenario, which was expected due the research method chosen to validate it. Future work aims to apply the framework in different scenarios, in organisations with different sizes, different maturity level, different sector, and different locations. Further research will also investigate the symbiosis of the BPM approach with other management approaches, such as lean/green manufacturing, project management, and green supply chain and carbon footprint. In addition, in a further moment, once companies are familiarised with the project methodology, it is possible to create a centre of excellence (an area within the organisation with the best practices/ processes of the industry) in terms of sustainability bringing even more value, improving continuously and generating more innovation by the form of green reference process models. Practical implications – The proposed framework uses a Business Process Management (BPM) approach, which provides a systemic solution for the organisations adopt sustainability practices in their business processes.