The key stakeholders to the Tsilitwa Project in Mhlontlo Local Municipality have a consistent understanding of what a sustainable community is and their understanding is generally consistent with the widely used and acceptable definition of sustainable community, except that the stakeholders to this project do not seem to attach any value to ecological integrity. They all believe that central to the development of a sustainable community is an active participation of the community itself in determining their destiny. However, there seems to be a disagreement on whether the project was implemented in accordance with their understanding, with others blaming the implementing agent on one side and others believing that the original budget was not sufficient on the other. Even though some stakeholders are optimistic about the sustainability of the project, they all seem to agree that for the project to be revived and become a sustainable initiative some funding from either government or other partners is necessary. The participation and/or involvement of other partners such as other government departments, development finance institutions, etc is also seen as one thing that would boost the project further. The current state of the project and the associated facilities is not a good sight and there is clear evidence of deterioration of the cooperative, guesthouse and other facilities. The provision of water has been a challenge to the whole community due to non-payment of an electricity bill for the water supply facility, and this has led to ESKOM cutting the power supply. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / Unrestricted

Locally oriented food has recently gained considerable popularity as an alternative to the industrial food system. Current scholarship on local food has typically focused on direct-to-consumer (DTC) arrangements, such as farmers' markets or CSAs. Yet other players besides producers and consumers engage with locally-oriented food. Food vendors (restaurants, retailers and grocers, and value-added food processors) have recently entered the scene and locally-oriented farm-to-vendor arrangements constitute one of the cutting edges of the development of local food systems. This dissertation studies one such local food system in southern New England. Utilizing a mixed methods approach entailing social network analysis, in-depth interviews, fieldwork observations, and GIS analysis, this study interrogates how direct-to-vendor (DTV) local food systems operate. I show through the literature review that though local food systems hold considerable promise, they are not inherent mechanisms of sustainability. Next I turn to the question of what "counts" as local, examining the range of distances farms and vendors within this region travel to sell or purchase food, and asking what are the forces and conditions that influence this range of travel? The greatest influences are number of ties to other local food entities, what type of farm or food-vendor they are, size, and urban proximity. I then focus on key participants in the area of study. What are the challenges and constraints around developing a vibrant locally-based food system? These participants face continual pressure to expand their size and markets, emulating the dominant food system and thereby undercutting their sustainable potential. However, these participants also find ways to overcome what are sometimes contradictory interests to forge a functional locally-based food system based on reciprocity and trust. Due in part to price premiums on local food many local food participants tend to be white and have high incomes and levels of education. In the final empirical chapter I ask: in what ways do these inequalities manifest systematically? By geospatially mapping the locations of local food outlets against census data on race, income, and education, I show that racial and class advantages are perpetuated in terms of people's proximal access to these local food outlets.

Ammonia production with offshore wind power has the potential to transform energy and fertilizer markets within the United States. The vast offshore wind resource can be converted directly into liquid ammonia using existing technologies. The liquid ammonia can then be transported around the country via rail, truck, barge or pipeline and used as either a fertilizer or a fuel. This thesis reviews the technologies required for all-electric, wind-powered ammonia production and offers a simple design of such a system. Cost models based on the physical equipment necessary to produce ammonia with wind power are developed; offshore wind farm cost models are also developed for near-shore, shallow, wind farms in the United States. The cost models are capable of calculating the capital costs of small industrial-sized ammonia plants coupled with an offshore wind farm. A case study for a utility-tied, all-electric ammonia plant in the Gulf of Maine is used to assess the lifetime economics of such a system. Actual utility grid prices and offshore wind are incorporated into a systems-level simulation of the ammonia plant. The results show that significant utility grid backup is required for an all-electric ammonia plant built with present-day technologies. The levelized cost of one metric ton of ammonia is high relative to ammonia produced with natural gas or coal, but is not as susceptible to spikes in ammonia feedstock prices. A sensitivity analysis shows that the total levelized cost of ammonia is driven in large part by the cost of producing electricity with offshore wind. Major cost reductions are possible for systems that have long lifetimes, low operations and maintenance costs, or for systems that qualify for Renewable Energy Credits.

Approximately 2.5 billion people in the world currently lack access to adequate sanitation facilities. Improving sanitation access in the developing world is vitally important to public health, economies, and the environment. Non-governmental organizations and the private sector have played a significant role in increasing sanitation access through the construction of sanitation and hygiene systems. However, these projects have been plagued with sustainability problems with the rate of non-functional systems remaining consistently at 30 to 40 percent since the 1980s. Studies have found that meaningful community engagement and the consideration of community capacity during project development are vitally important to long-term project sustainability. However, development practitioners frequently undervalue the importance of these factors and fail to adequately employ them when developing sanitation projects. This thesis examines the dominance and impact of one key influence that leads development practitioners to overlook community context and engagement – the prioritization and overvaluation of technological solutions to development problems. Through a case study of the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) Latrine built by three University of Massachusetts Amherst engineers in Nyakrom Ghana I demonstrate an example of the impact that a technocratic focus can have on the operation and maintenance sustainability of a sanitation project. In this thesis I maintain that the technocratic focus of this project is not unique but is part of a larger trend toward technocracy among water, sanitation, and hygiene development donors and practitioners. These technological approaches can neglect the important role that political, social, economic, and cultural factors play in increasing sanitation access. This thesis reviews three frameworks that the MFC Latrine engineers and other practitioners could use to better understand and incorporate community capacity and participation into sanitation projects – Asset Based Community Development, the appropriate technology framework by the World Health Organization and IRC Water and Sanitation Centre, and the WASHTech Technology Applicability Framework.

0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

While the Twentieth Century largely saw the flight of the middle and upper classes to suburban communities, the past twenty-five years have seen a renewed interest in urban living. As the more economically stable classes return to city centers, poorer communities are being displaced. Gentrification, often championed as urban renewal, is promoted by politicians as a social-mixing tactic, but often the infiltration of the wealthy into poor neighborhoods pushes the poor community to the fringes. An extreme case of gentrification can be seen in the juxtaposition of Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in London and the City of London, whose square mile is bursting at the seams with financial institutions. With significantly lower property values, Tower Hamlets Council is wary of City expansion eroding away the largely low-income immigrant communities that reside there. Even with relatively lower property values, the prohibitively high cost of housing in the UK, especially in London means living in the city center is almost impossible for even the middle classes, a fact that further illustrates the threat posed by the City to the mostly residential Hamlets. Peabody, one of the most prominent social housing associations in London found that when polled, 30% of their residents listed location of foremost importance above both "security of tenure" and the "right amount of space." 1 Unfortunately, recent political events in the United Kingdom have made it more difficult for the poor to remain in city centers. The recent lowering of the benefits cap by Parliament means that approximately 17,000 low-income families will be forced to move out of inner London.2 In addition, Parliament is also in the midst of changing housing laws to make it more difficult for immigrants to qualify for social housing.3 Given that the residents of housing estates chiefly value location and current policy is making living in the city center difficult for all but the wealthy, how can the poor and middle-class residents of urban communities resist the push of increasing urban property value towards the suburbs? This thesis will explore how architecture and planning can help these communities adapt to the changing economically-driven urban fabric without banishing their poorer residents to the suburbs. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Corporate social and environmental disclosure, later redefined as sustainability disclosure in order to include the third pillar of sustainability (economic), has been the subject or significant research over the past four decades. A major branch of empirical research has specifically focussed on the determinants of disclosure; those factors which correspond with greater breadth and depth of disclosure. Research has traditionally been focussed on the developed world, specifically North America and Western Europe and either addressed social or environmental disclosure in isolation or various hybrids of the two.This research has two aims. Firstly it is an attempt to provide a view of disclosure in Africa, and specifically South Africa, where only minor empirical research has been undertaken. Secondly and crucially, this research attempts to address shortcomings in the existing body of research in that factors have traditionally been analysed for significance with regards to individual sustainability pillars alone, or at the aggregate level. A content analysis technique was employed to score sustainability reports for social, environmental and economic disclosures. An analytical model was then developed and a number of internal and external factors analysed to establish which were significant determinants of the level or extend of disclosure at both the individual pillar level and then compared to the aggregate or overall disclosure. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

We have chosen to study the sustainability policy for two famous hotels that located in the middle of Norrkoping. The hotels are The Lamp and the Best Western Princess Hotel, they have different standards about foodservice, but they have common goals about environmental requirements that should be implemented. The environmental requirements imply that the hotels should work with sustainability policy to become environmental certificated for example about food, cleaning and waste management. The purpose with this essay is to see if the chosen hotels work with the sustainability policy and environmental aspects that leads to the sustainability tourism in the hotel sector. To be able to study these described environmental aspects and to also get answers on our question formulations, we have interviewed persons that work in the hotels within the area that we have chosen to focus on. With the help of our informants’ knowledge and our theory connection to sustainability tourism, we have analyzed the hotels work with environmental performance standards and sustainability tourism. We have also discussed how the hotels see themselves as environmental-friendly from without the touristy perspective. The results we got on this essay were: Both the hotels have daily routines for cleaning and waste management. The interviewed persons are aware about the environmental work and the requests that refer to restrain the negative environmental effect. The food products and service that the hotels use are environmental-friendly.

The purpose of the present study was to use the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to increase environmentally sustainable behavior among seven college-aged students. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy involves increasing mindfulness and psychological flexibility. All participants filled out a daily survey that ranked how much they had participated in environmentally sustainable behavior or if they had the opportunity to participate in it at all. Four participants then received three individual, brief ACT sessions with the researcher and three of these participants showed an average of a 20% increase overall in self-reported sustainable behaviors after the brief intervention in both phases, while only one participant had an increase in phase 2 alone at 22.3%. The three participants that did not receive the ACT remained in baseline throughout the study and had minimal changes in responding on the survey. These results suggest that the ACT intervention may have some effect on improvements in sustainable behaviors.

The author’s intent in this dissertation is to follow a design process in order to arrive at a cohesive architectural solution. This process includes the formation of guidelines as a response to the pressing issues of urbanisation, environmental sustainability, and the need for housing. In addition, a development framework for the entire area of Salvokop will be proposed together with supporting analysis which too will contribute to the establishment of these guidelines. Existing local and international theories have also been considered in order to strengthen the foundation of the argument as is appropriate for this level of post-graduate study.Once the guidelines had been established they were individually tested against a variety of existing local and international precedents. This testing validated the inclusion of each guideline in the entire process, thus justifying their application to the design.The core idea of the thesis (Germinate: Architecture of Growth) provides the creative impetus, and along with the site, the program (or function), and the client, act as a set of catalysts for the arrival at the architectural product.The product presents the practical element of the suggested solution, and concludes the exploration of the housing and wider land-use options with the proposal of a mixed-use housing development (applying the previously mentioned guidelines) to create a relevant intervention in the suburb of Salvokop. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Architecture / unrestricted