The global warming phenomenon and its environmental impacts have seen the emergence of the green consumer who has become more aware of their power of demand through their consumption choices as they express their own attitudes, values, thoughts, feelings and behaviours in this regard. Organisations have taken cognisance of these trends and taken steps to exploit the opportunity by developing goods and services aimed at meeting the demands of the new consumer. This, in spite of the fact that knowledge of the variables, specifically green consumer profiles, awareness, knowledge and trust in influencing purchasing behaviour remains incomplete. The purpose of this treatise was to determine a clearer understanding of the relevance of these variables to enable marketers to craft more effective marketing strategies, thereby unlocking the profit potential of the green consumer. A model for green product purchasing behaviour was proposed based on extant literature and an empirical evaluation. An empirical analysis was conducted on a sample of 597 consumers over the age of 18 within the Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG) sector in South Africa. The main goal was to establish the relationships of the hypothesised model between the independent variables of green consumer profiles, green product trust, green product awareness and green product knowledge with the dependant variable green product purchase behaviour. There was a high prevalence of African and European female respondents in the 26 to 55 age group, living and working in the coastal areas of South Africa, predominantly Port Elizabeth, earning an income between 10 000 and 30 000 rand per month. The sample was consistent with the psychographic profile of the green consumer as described in the literature, which is characterised as a consumer that takes personal responsibility for environmental solutions, who believes they can make a contribution to solving environmental issues, incorporates green living into daily lives, considers environmental issues when making purchasing decisions, is knowledgeable of, deliberately seeks out and is prepared to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products. When analysing the relationships and the significances of the differences of the independent variables to the dependant variable in the hypothesised model, it was established that the independent variables green consumer profiles, green product awareness and green product trust were significantly related to the dependent variable. A MODEL FOR GREEN PRODUCT PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR green product purchase behaviour. This was in line with and supported the reviewed literature in this regard. It was also established that green product knowledge did not reflect any significant relationship to green product purchase behaviour. This finding did not correspond with the literature as significant relationships with green product knowledge and general environmental behaviour including green product purchase behaviours have been established therein. The findings further demonstrated that the independent variable green consumer profiles displayed the most significant relationship to green product purchase behaviour, followed by green product awareness and then green product trust. When considering the significance in the differences in strengths of these relationships it was noted that although green product awareness and trust may influence green product purchase behaviours it was a combination of psychographic variables reflecting a consumer’s general attitudes and beliefs towards the green agenda that displays the most significant relationship to green product purchase behaviour. Despite the fact that the study was limited to the South African FMCG sector, the profile of the green consumer in the literature was dated, the cause and effect relationships between the variables were not tested and the fact that the hypothesised model was limited to only four independent variables, the above findings may, from a marketing perspective, have practical application for marketing strategies aimed at increasing green product purchasing behaviour. The results imply that directing green marketing initiatives to consumers that are most inclined to purchase and consume green goods or services being those that fall within the biographical and psychographic parameters outlined in this treatise will result in the desired outcomes. Furthermore, marketers should also pursue initiatives that are known to support and increase the amount of green product trust that consumers have in green products, green communications and the organisation. Marketers can also benefit from well formulated green awareness campaigns as the success of these campaigns will yield greater green product awareness which could increase green product purchase behaviours and purchases of green products still further.

New Social Movement Theory characterizes post 1960's protest movements such as the peace, environment and women's movement as being distinctively different from older movements such as the workers movement. The salient differences are in the social bases from which the movements draw their participants,the types of issues which are addressed, and the methods used in their protest. New Social Movements are heralded as being the vanguard for social change by some and as a bourgeoise distraction from the "real" project of emancipation by others. The objective of this thesis is to examine the congruence of the environmental movement in British Columbia with this concept of New Social Movements. Using the theoretical formulations of Claus Offe as a base, the thesis examines the social makeup of environmental groups in British Columbia, reviews the types of issues on which they are working, and identifies the methods which they employ in their protests. The results indicate that, while the leadership may be drawn from a more highly educated and service oriented new middle class, the general membership represents a broad social base. The issues addressed by the movement are perceived as being for the "benefit of all" rather than for a specific social class, and the methods of protest employed are primarily of a "working for change within the systems" approach as opposed to overthrowing any established political system. The thesis concludes that, while there may be elements of radicalism within the movement, it is primarily characterized as reformist, with many small fragments working on specific issues, loosely networked, and dedicated to working with government and other sectors of the population to find solutions. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

College campuses, with significant numbers of older facilities, have the opportunity to lead the green building movement while reaping economic, health, environmental, educational, and marketing benefits. This project assessed the current status of green building programs at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the costs and benefits of building green, and the costs and benefits of LEED certification to make the business case for LEED-certified buildings. This project also proposed a strategic plan for green building programs at WPI to promote and measure green building improvements to new and existing facilities. Lastly, this project assessed the feasibility of certifying existing facilities with the LEED Existing Building rating system. By evaluating all of the costs and the major benefits, the results of this project demonstrate that the benefits of building green and LEED certification outweigh the costs and that through strategic planning WPI can become a leader among colleges implementing green building programs.

Bibliography : leaves 107-118.

Many photographs of women published in the Iranian press during the Iran-Iraq War emphasized their roles as supportive and mourning mothers and sisters. By contrast, the often gruesome images that depicted women’s deaths in the war proved more difficult to categorize. The difficulty reflected ambivalence towards attaching the label of shahid, or martyr, to dead women’s images. These photographs, whether gruesomely depicting their bodies or portraits taken prior to death, oscillated between evoking shahadat (martyrdom), consistently applied to men, and depicting their deaths merely as national tragedy. The ambiguous approach to gendered depictions of martyrdom reflected attempts by the Iranian press to negotiate women’s roles during the war in newspaper photographs from the newly-established Islamic Republic. However, in the context of the 2009 Green Movement, Neda Agha-Soltan’s widely viewed death revealed a change in the ambiguity of women’s possible martyr status. In this project, I trace the depictions of women as possible martyrs during the Iran-Iraq War and pose it against the visual experiences during the Green Movement. I argue that while earlier representations reflected tenuousness and ambiguity on the part of Iranian periodicals, such as Ettela’at, Jomhuri-e eslami, and Imposed War, as they sought to grapple with the turmoil of war and a still emergent political system, the Iranian press’s clear denial of female martyrdom during the Green Movement side-by-side with reproductions of Agha-Soltan’s death images reflected a shift in the application of shahid. Although the Iranian press rejected her shahid status, agencies like Fars News attached photographs from Neda’s death video to articles thereby presenting an unclear message about Agha-Soltan’s potential for shahadat. This complicated viewing along with the multitude of examples of her “death” images made her agency in the frame possible, unlike women during the war. Agha-Soltan’s death images presented a possible shift in ownership of shahadat from the state-sponsored press’s hands to that of the people. Thus while the official press had solidified its approach to (not) applying the label of martyr to women, it did so at a moment in which it had lost its monopoly over the declaration and depiction of martyrdom. / text

This work looks at the 2009 Iranian show-trials through modern discourses of biopolitics, sovereignty, and history. I argue that, understood as a theatrical phenomenon, the show trials are situated within the Foucauldian mode of biopower. The latter entails a shift from a politics of death to the preservation of the bios. The show-trials also perform a particularly modern narrative of state sovereignty and teleological history. To consider them in this way requires a rethinking of Michel Foucault’s theory so as to include juridico-philosophical discourse within a biopolitical framework. I propose that, as a performative act, the confessions transform the very thing they are confessing. Through the work of Jean Baudrillard and Jacque Derrida, I argue that the confessions make possible a reconceptualization of the political space of sovereignty as simulacrum and that of the political time of history as hauntology. / Graduate

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Western Australia, 2005. / No abstract supplied.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 63-65).