Renewable energy lies in the center of the debate on climate change. In order to achieve the energy transition, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to terminate our reliance on fossil fuels, wind energy is one of the world’s biggest bets. However, wind power plants are frequently contested at the local level, where they create discussions regarding fairness as benefits and burdens seem not always to be equally distributed. To better understand ‘energy justice’ in the era of renewable energy, our research qualitatively explores the perceptions of relevant involved stakeholders around wind energy projects in three locations in Germany and Sweden. Our findings add evidence and confirm many previous implications from the growing literature of public acceptance and energy justice. In addition, we highlight the importance of distributive, procedural and recognitional justice, as well as paradoxes arising from wind energy projects such as envy, the transformation of nature and the interpretation of citizens’ duties. The study furthermore sustains the faced complexities on the path towards an energy-just world.

Please read abstract in page X-XI of the document / Dissertation (MAdmin)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / tm2015 / School of Public Management and Administration / MAdmin / Unrestricted

Purpose The purpose of the thesis is to contribute toward establishing the relationship between the concepts of sustainability reporting, sustainability performance, and sustainability reputation.This will be done by investigating the causal relationships between these concepts and whether those relationships are negative or positive. Methodology The study is based on a positivistic philosophy with a deductive approach. By using a quantitative method and a longitudinal design, the causal influences from the independent variables in 2019 to the dependent variables in 2020 could be investigated in a sample of 99 companies. This was done by 297 firm-year observations for measuring sustainability performance, and by 198 firm-year observations for measuring sustainability reputation and sustainability reporting respectively. Secondary data from the agency SB Insight together with primary data from companies’ sustainability reports and annual reports were mainly tested by a multiple linear regression model. Findings The findings show that sustainability reporting is negatively affected by sustainability performance and indicate that the causality is unilateral from sustainability performance tosustainability reporting. Sustainability reputation is positively affected by sustainability reporting, but sustainability reporting is in addition positively affected by sustainability reputation, indicating a bidirectional relationship where the causality remains unsolved. The findings show no significant association between sustainability performance and sustainability reputation. Furthermore, the thesis suggests a new concept to the research field, namely the reporting-reputation-spiral. Theoretical Perspectives The study analyzed the results through the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory, the voluntary disclosure theory, and the signal theory

RQ1: What diversity management practices facilitate gender representation in the workplace? RQ2: Which challenges arise when implementing gender quotas into the work environment?  Purpose: The impact of this research is twofold: it will address a knowledge gap in the academic literature on gender challenges, gender quota application and follow-up in business, as well as contribute to research on practice-based diversity and quotaring. Additionally, this study will have an impact on how issues like this are handled in practice.  Method: Five semi-structured interviews with managers in various positions in a multinational organization, as well as three focus group discussions, were conducted as part of this qualitative study to allow interactions between theories and empirical findings. In addition to the interviews, the theoretical framework allowed for a thematic analysis. Conclusion: The empirical data gathered for this study has provided sufficient evidence to conclude that a firm's acceptance of diversity and diversity management policies and practices, such as gender quotas, is highly valued by stakeholders, but often difficult to admit. When it comes to incorporating efforts like inclusion and diversity into a firm’s plans, diversity has proven to be quite beneficial, however using gender quotas as part of diversity management techniques is frowned upon. We can also conclude that women still face significant challenges solely based on gender in the business world, such as salary differences, pregnancy, attitudes and males’ perceptions, to name a few. Thus, gender equality still has a long way to go.

Climate change is a wicked problem and finding solutions to revert the negative trend of global warming remains one of the dominant global issues. Coffee production contributes to global warming significantly, due to its high greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, Sweden is among the top three coffee consuming countries and Vietnam remains the world’s second biggest coffee producing country. The presented research examines perceptions on sustainability and social responsibility within the global coffee value chain. Further, this paper investigates challenges to increase sustainability and a more common ground within the network of stakeholders. This research consists of three different methods to collect data from three stakeholders amongst the coffee value chain: (i) qualitative interviews with Vietnamese farmers, (ii) a quantitative questionnaire with Swedish consumers, and (iii) a document analysis on Swedish coffee companies’ presentation on their sustainability work. Our findings show the difficulty of finding a consistent definition and views by the stakeholders on what sustainable coffee is, and on the distribution of responsibilities in the field. Due to the complexity of the global value chain network, and despite rising awareness and interest, a knowledge-gap remains between the stakeholders. While sustainability certification standards are one attempt of spreading more knowledge, they have been identified as one of the main challenges. Closing this gap and creating a more common ground is necessary to ensure more sustainability and environmentally friendly practices along the global coffee value chain.

Slums are informal housing settlements commonly found in urban areas of developing countries which are characterised by poor shelter, low service provision and lacking in security of tenure. Slums are growing and new slums are forming. The international development community has been actively working to improve the living conditions of slum-dwellers and to reduce poverty via slum upgrading methods. There are various slum upgrading delivery models and approaches to tackle the urbanisation of poverty in developing countries. Many adaptive and proactive measures have been implemented through a variety of slum upgrading initiatives and partnerships; however there has been limited investigation of the longer term sustainability of such interventions. This research follows a qualitative methodology to investigate the sustainability of differing slum upgrading interventions. Four case studies have been examined; two in Kenya and two in India, demonstrating a range of physical upgrading approaches. Alternative slum upgrading delivery models have been selected covering housing rehabilitation and in-situ water and sanitation upgrading and demonstrating top-down and bottom-up approaches. The case studies are of varying ages and were implemented via partnerships with differing agents including government, NGO, CBO, private developer and donors. The influence and design of the delivery model upon the upgrading sustainability has been assessed via stakeholder perception during extensive fieldwork. The data gathered has been analysed according to four key themes; status of life for slum-dwellers today, perception of upgrading success, institutional reform from external factors and development aspirations. Data was gathered via semi-structured interviews with slum-dwellers and project stakeholders using a ground-level methodology that enabled the capture of personal and honest accounts. Analysis of the data has found that there are many misconceptions around slums which can affect the sustainability of measures to upgrade informal settlements. The way that international development organisations and westerners view slums is often very particular and not always resonant with the way that slum-dwellers view their living situation. Priorities for development are not always consistent across stakeholders. For sustainability, any slum upgrading activity must be sensitive to the situation of an individual community and culture, and not assume that the residents are unhappy living in desperate poverty, as it has been shown, many choose to reside in a slum. Slums may be dirty, poorly serviced and overcrowded but are also places of great human energy, community spirit, kindness, hard-working, creative and happy places that many consider home.