CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta pesquisa objetivou produzir, em bases preliminares, documentaÃÃo organizada sobre o lugar denominado CaÃa e Pesca â que abrange praia, estuÃrio de um rio que atravessa boa parte da RegiÃo Metropolitana de Fortaleza, capital do Estado do Cearà e ainda manguezal, campo de dunas e matas de transiÃÃo em uma Ãrea do litoral Leste da cidade â, dada a escassez de informaÃÃes atualizadas a respeito. à desejÃvel que o corpo de conhecimentos aqui representado possa instrumentar a concretizaÃÃo de iniciativas destinadas a integrar relaÃÃes sustentÃveis entre a comunidade assentada naquela Ãrea, o meio ambiente e a dinÃmica urbana da capital cearense. Seus resultados sÃo de ordem a permitir, à administraÃÃo pÃblica competente, o planejamento de aÃÃes de educaÃÃo ambiental e o adequado monitoramento, recomendavelmente pela prÃpria comunidade, da conservaÃÃo dos ecossistemas presentes na Ãrea de estudo, tanto devido à urgente necessidade de sua preservaÃÃo, como da premÃncia pela definiÃÃo, na Ãrea, de parÃmetros capazes de balizar um turismo de carÃter sustentÃvel. Para tanto, a elaboraÃÃo do Zoneamento sÃcio-ambiental participativo, caracterizando a evoluÃÃo espaÃo-temporal da ocupaÃÃo do lugar, inclui a realizaÃÃo de um diagnÃstico geoambiental que destaca as unidades ambientais a partir dos seus aspectos sÃcio-econÃmicos, sÃcio-ambientais, geomorfolÃgicos, hidrogeolÃgicos e de cobertura vegetal. Este conjunto de informaÃÃes tambÃm originou a ediÃÃo de uma cartilha, dirigida primariamente à comunidade local. / This research aimed the production of organized information, in an elementary level, concerning the CaÃa e Pesca neighbourhood â which comprehends ocean beaches, the estuary of a river crossing a considerably large area within the Metropolitan Area of the capital of the State of CearÃ, in Northeast Brazil, and also a vast mangrove camp, dune fields and a stretch of transition forest â, located in the Eastern coast of the city of Fortaleza, due to the lack of organized relevant and updated data. Nonetheless, it constitutes a body of knowledge that can operate as a tool to promote initiatives destined to ensue a sustainable relationship between the local people, the environment and the urban development dynamics verified. The results shall provide the public administration with some essential data to subsidize environmental education actions and the adequate monitoring, desirably performed by the community itself, of the existing ecosystems, in relation to the urgent need of their preservation and, also imperative, the definition of sustainable tourism standards specially designed to fit the wholeness characterized by that area. The construction of a participative socioenvironmental diagnosis thus detaches the human occupation of that neighbourhood in space and time, complemented by a mapping approach of the geomorphological, hydrogeological and vegetal covering specificities of the region, in close relationship with the current socio-economic and socio-environmental aspects. A booklet following these results was published, in order to display basic data to the local community involved.

Organisations exist. An organisation is not just a group of people, a workplace, a structure or system; it is a combination of these and many other aspects involved in its operation. In recent years, the nature and needs of organisations have changed dramatically, challenging them to rethinking how they organise themselves and accomplish their goals in a sustainable manner. This is an important, but not easy, task. The research presented in this thesis aims to contribute to organisational development theory and practice, in terms of how to articulate collective organisational values, and upon which to establish a sustainable workplace framework to govern and improve organisational performance. The research was undertaken in two phases. Phase 1 focused on researching organisational values, which is considered as a critical step towards the development of sustainable workplaces. A values and behaviours study was conducted in the UK offices of the sponsoring company. Schwartz's values survey instrument and values theory are, for the first time, applied extensively in an organisational context, as opposed to the comparative intercultural research conducted at the national/cultural level. The study used a structured, mixed methods approach which Involved virtually all employees, whose values profiles were collected and analysed through an organisation-wide survey. Follow-up workshops and post workshop activities with a company Values Group faCilitated the sharing of common values; they then helped staff representatives develop their own organisational values statements, independent of senior management, before a final stage of negotiation. Meanwhile, a set of core-values-related workplace behaviours and relevant mechanisms were identified and communicated across the whole organisation. The core organisational values are fundamental in governing the workplace behaviours, and the mechanisms represented desirable work practices. This values-based approach facilitated the identification of the grassroots demand for continuous improvement of workplace environmental, social and economic performances, hence formed a foundation for the development of sustainable workplaces. The findings from the first phase revealed the core values of the organisation, highlighted the importance of applying the principles of sustainable development to the workplace context, which prompted further research into the nature of a sustainable workplace (phase 2). Although there is an increasing interest in sustainable workplace development, as an emerging and fast developing area, the body of research is still fragmented and unbalanced. In order to establish a holistic and balanced approach to the development of sustainable workplaces, available guidance documents were systematically categorised, compared and synthesised within a clear framework, to facilitate easy understanding and practice. This revealed that, at present, emphasis tends to be placed on environmental impacts arising from workplace activities, and hence the promotion of environmental awareness among the workforce. Whilst this may be appropriate in itself, it is of concern that other key aspects of sustainable development (Le. social and economic aspects) have been overlooked to a significant extent. A sustainable workplace framework was therefore established which provides a balanced approach for governing all aspects of the workplace development. The data obtained from phase 1 not only highlighted the need for such a balanced approach, but also inform the identification and prioritisation of the indicators within the framework, which offer useful measures for organisational behaviours. Meanwhile, the framework can be used as a tool to facilitate the integration of values into workplace development. The research concludes that to develop an organisation in a sustainable manner, a set of collective organisational values must be articulated, which will serve as guiding principles of work place behaviours and practices, and therefore dictate workplace performance. The shaping of collective organisational values should be based on a clear understanding and communication of employees' personal values, and that Schwartz's circumplex model of human values and associated survey instrument are helpful neutral framing devices to initiate and structure such a debate. As all the elements of sustainability are rooted in values, the identification of the collective organisational values could be considered as a critical step towards the development of sustainable workplaces. Furthermore, the research highlighted that the sustainable workplace is a multidimensional concept which requires holistic thinking. The conceptual framework developed in this research joins together the key aspects/criteria of sustainable workplaces, with the aim to balance the workplace environmental, social and economic performances. By linking the organisational values and related key business issues to workplace sustainable development criteria, the development towards sustainable workplaces could consequently enhance organisational values, therefore improving organisational perfonnance as well as employees' quality of life at work.

The concept of sustainable development is receiving a great deal of attention in industry. However, the operational processes for industrial environmental management are still at an early stage of development and despite the best efforts of operations management and environmental specialists a great many products and services continue to be unsustainable. This presents threats to society and risks for survival to manufacturers. The purpose of the Thesis is to accelerate environmental improvements through the uptake of Cleaner Production concepts by developing a methodology for guiding manufacturing enterprises. The tenets of the proposed methodology include: o oo Reliance on a strategic approach ooo Development of an implementation path similar to those used in introducing other major culture and technology changes ooo Culture and policy change are strategically generated from within manufacturing organisations Specifically, the main objectives of the Project are: 1. to invent a relatively easily implementable methodology for planning for sustainability for manufacturing enterprises of all sizes 2. to address the major industrial environmental management issues at all levels within the enterprise as one seamless process 3. to configure the methodology so that it may be incorporated into an existing body of knowledge, e.g., manufacturing management/manufacturing engineering 4. to minimise complexities by standardising key concepts and terminology The Thesis integrates Sustainability and Cleaner Production concepts, systems and technologies and performance indicators with a planning model to arrive at what has been termed as &quot the Strategy Development and Implementation with Cleaner Production&quot process. This solution addresses the key point of integrating Cleaner Production concepts ii with the manufacturing planning processes, but just as importantly, it also establishes the links between the steps from strategy initiation through to implementation, from the boardroom down to the factory floor. The main modules of the work are: o oo establishing relationships between strategic, business and manufacturing plans using the concepts of Sustainability, Eco-efficiency and Cleaner Production ooo development of links between planning and operations using the concepts of Industrial Ecology and Life Cycle Management ooo development of a classification system, referred to as a Cleaner Production toolkit, to promote optimum selection of hard and soft systems and technologies ooo development of appropriate Cleaner Production Indicators to complete the loop.

Presently, the more or less global political consensus is that the primary task of government is to perpetually maximise a quantity called 'economic growth'. Given the decline of 'socialist' models of industrialisation, the economic consensus is that economic growth is best achieved through the deregulation of markets, industry and trade, as free markets are self-regulating institutions that automatically and efficiently optimise growth through their tendency to reach 'equilibrium.' Another word for this consensus might be 'neoliberalism'. This cosy situation, however, is increasingly under challenge from the recent transformation of global warming from a deniable proposition to a clear and present danger. As ecologists and earth scientists have long argued, global warming (an unforeseen side effect of what was called the 'energy crisis' in the 1970s) is just one of many aspects of a generalised global ecological crisis. The biosphere, environmentalists tell us, is radically 'out of balance'. Given this impasse, it appears that the science of social systems (economics) and the science of living systems (ecology) are incommensurable. This incommensurability is the starting point of the thesis, which seeks to provide a genealogy of the concepts of equilibrium and growth as they appear in the claims of both disciplines to represent 'hard' science. Drawing from debates in the philosophy of science, studies in the history of ideas, the anthropology of technology, and political economy, the thesis charts the mutual exchange of metaphors and analogies between the natural and the social sciences, and traces a surprisingly parallel trajectory in the separate histories of economics and ecology. Beginning with early historicist and organicist conceptual frameworks, both sciences embraced 'mechanism' in their bid to attain the mantle of Science. For both sciences, the attainment of this status was associated with the incorporation of the language of energetics and an insistent identification of 'equilibrium' with the central scientific object of inquiry, 'the market' and 'the ecosystem' respectively. What is ironic in these claims is that the acceptance of the machine metaphor effecti vely screened out the study of actual machinery from the pure states of nature called 'the market' or 'the economy.' This history is taken up to the climactic moment of the early 1970s, when, it is argued, the ontological foundations of ecology and economics collided. This is the moment from which the political discourses of neoliberal globalisation and global environmental crisis both date, and since then we see the rise of hybrid discourses that attempt to address and overcome the deep contradictions of disciplinary specialisation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this conceptual legacy, and in analysing the interactions of the 'new ecology' and the 'new economy', offers suggestions as to why what appeared in 1971 as a fundamental and obvious contradiction between 'growth' and 'equilibrium', no longer attracts debate.

It has long been recognised that environmental matters are important to the survival of the construction industry. Yet, in general, the construction industry continues to degrade the environment, exploiting resources and generating waste, and is reluctant to change its conventional practices to incorporate environmental matters as part of the decisionmaking process. Building development involves complex decisions and the increased significance of external effects has further complicated the situation. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) is one of the conventional tools used widely by public and private sectors when appraising projects. It sets out to measure and compare the total costs and benefits of different projects that are competing for scarce resources in monetary terms. However, there are growing concerns that the values of environmental goods and services are often ignored or underestimated in the CBA approach which has led to the overuse and depletion of environmental assets. Consequently, CBA's usefulness and relevance in this respect is increasingly controversial. Project development is not just concerned with financial return, but is also conscious of the long-term impacts on living standards for both present and future generations. Sustainable development is an important issue in project decision-making and environmental effects need to be incorporated into the evaluation process. A multi- dimensional evaluation approach attracts increasing attention around the world as the way to incorporate environmental issues in the decision-making process. This approach uses the conventional market approach to monetarise economic aspects of a development, whilst using a non-monetary approach to evaluate the environmental matters. The purpose of this thesis is to critically examine the impact of construction activities on the environment and methods of quantifying environmental matters. This thesis also evaluates the principal sustainable development determinants for modelling, and evaluating long-term environmental performance of buildings during the project appraisal stage. Projects can be assessed using an index system that combines the principal determinants of sustainable development. The four criteria as identified in this research are financial return, energy consumption, external benefits and environmental impact. The derived sustainability index combines the four identified attributes into a single decision-making tool. The attributes are each expressed in units that are best suited to their quantitative assessment. The development of a sustainability index is a way of combining economic and environmental criteria into the decision-making framework. The sustainability index has also been developed into computer software called SINDEX to be used as a benchmarking tool to aid design and the sustainability assessment of projects. SINDEX is a sustainability modelling tool used to calculate and benchmark sustainable performance of proposed buildings, new and existing facilities. Conventional project appraisal techniques measure net social gain to select a project, whilst the sustainability index measures the relative ranking of projects from a sustainable development view. Buildings have a long life, so any improvement in appraisal techniques for choosing the best option amongst the alternatives will significantly reduce their future environmental impact. As such, a methodology that embraces various criteria in relation to project development is crucial in this respect. The development of a sustainability index is a way to combine multiple criteria measured using different units. Using the sustainability index will greatly assist the construction industry to realise sustainable development goals, and thereby make a positive contribution to identifying optimum design solutions.

This research examines ways to assess the built environment (BE) for its impacts on the ecosystems and its sustainability in terms of social, economic and environmental aspects on an urban scale. The examination is based on the argument, acknowledged in the literature, that urbanisation is one of the leading causes of unsustainable development, and that the BE makes a significant contribution to this. In order to accomplish this, urban dynamics are identified and mapped with respect to the built environment, and the relationship between urbanisation, the built environment, and the ecosystem is closely examined. The thesis argues that the common denominator in all efforts to move closer to sustainability is an effective assessment method, which not only quantifies the impacts but also informs and educates. The current methods used for assessment of the impacts of BE are found to be inadequate. An appraisal of contemporary assessment methods addressing sustainability and environmental issues at micro (individual building) and macro (urban system) levels is conducted to understand the mechanics of assessment theories. Based on this, a framework for a new assessment system which has the potential to overcome some of the observed weaknesses of the existing ones is proposed. Using multi-criteria analysis principles, this system uses ecological footprint and spatial analysis as its operational engine. It is then applied to a part of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) for an integrated sustainability assessment. The ecological footprint of the building stock, transport, roads, waste disposal and water supply is calculated as a measure of the environmental impact of the built environment. In addition to this, ???return on investment??? (rental return on construction costs) as a measure of the economic aspect, embodied energy as a measure of material consumption, and ???proximity to facilities??? as a measure of the social benefit of the building stock, are calculated to assess the study area performance on these aspects. These are used to compute an integrated sustainability index for the study area. Various attributes of the built environment, such as total constructed area, height of building, road density etc., are analysed against the ecological footprint to understand the patterns of relationships between urban morphology and the state of sustainability.

Presently, the more or less global political consensus is that the primary task of government is to perpetually maximise a quantity called 'economic growth'. Given the decline of 'socialist' models of industrialisation, the economic consensus is that economic growth is best achieved through the deregulation of markets, industry and trade, as free markets are self-regulating institutions that automatically and efficiently optimise growth through their tendency to reach 'equilibrium.' Another word for this consensus might be 'neoliberalism'. This cosy situation, however, is increasingly under challenge from the recent transformation of global warming from a deniable proposition to a clear and present danger. As ecologists and earth scientists have long argued, global warming (an unforeseen side effect of what was called the 'energy crisis' in the 1970s) is just one of many aspects of a generalised global ecological crisis. The biosphere, environmentalists tell us, is radically 'out of balance'. Given this impasse, it appears that the science of social systems (economics) and the science of living systems (ecology) are incommensurable. This incommensurability is the starting point of the thesis, which seeks to provide a genealogy of the concepts of equilibrium and growth as they appear in the claims of both disciplines to represent 'hard' science. Drawing from debates in the philosophy of science, studies in the history of ideas, the anthropology of technology, and political economy, the thesis charts the mutual exchange of metaphors and analogies between the natural and the social sciences, and traces a surprisingly parallel trajectory in the separate histories of economics and ecology. Beginning with early historicist and organicist conceptual frameworks, both sciences embraced 'mechanism' in their bid to attain the mantle of Science. For both sciences, the attainment of this status was associated with the incorporation of the language of energetics and an insistent identification of 'equilibrium' with the central scientific object of inquiry, 'the market' and 'the ecosystem' respectively. What is ironic in these claims is that the acceptance of the machine metaphor effecti vely screened out the study of actual machinery from the pure states of nature called 'the market' or 'the economy.' This history is taken up to the climactic moment of the early 1970s, when, it is argued, the ontological foundations of ecology and economics collided. This is the moment from which the political discourses of neoliberal globalisation and global environmental crisis both date, and since then we see the rise of hybrid discourses that attempt to address and overcome the deep contradictions of disciplinary specialisation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this conceptual legacy, and in analysing the interactions of the 'new ecology' and the 'new economy', offers suggestions as to why what appeared in 1971 as a fundamental and obvious contradiction between 'growth' and 'equilibrium', no longer attracts debate.

<p><strong>Date:             </strong>2009 – 05 – 28 <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Level:            </strong>Master thesis in Industrial Management with specialization in Sustainable Development, 30 hp</p><p><strong>Authors:</strong>       Nominchuluun Nyamdavaa                      Sam Amirebrahimi</p><p>                      Engerbrektsgatan 19                         Centrallasarettet Ing.21</p><p>                      72216 Västerås                                         72189 Västerås</p><p>                      073 – 696 93 69                                       073 – 907 74 91</p><p><strong>Tutor:</strong>           Magnus Linderström</p><p><strong>Title:</strong>             Organizational interactions in the energy sector regarding environment and growth – case study of Mälarenergi AB</p><p><strong>Problem:</strong>       Energy sector has been much debated regarding growth and environmental issues. Energy situation in 2020 sets an emergency that a New Energy Policy has to be made immediately in order to meet the growing energy demand without compromising the environment. Thus the energy sector is strictly regulated by national and international level policies. It is interesting to investigate how organizations interact with each other in the sector regarding growth and environment.   </p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong>       Aim of this thesis is to describe the inter-organizational relationships in the Swedish energy sector and analyze how organizations interact with each other depending on their attitude towards sustainable development. The research involves a case study of a local energy company Mälarenergi AB and different actors in its institutional field and how the company acts according to its interests in forming relationships with others.</p><p><strong>Method:        </strong>This thesis is an interpretive case study which aims to research the link between understanding and action. Organizational and institutional theories are used as theoretical framework. Empirical data will be collected through qualitative semi-structured interview with organizational members as well as secondary data that are collected through literature, documentation, archival records and previous researches.  </p><p><strong>Result:          </strong>The Swedish energy sector is a complex field that consists of different actors and complicated relationships. The sector is mainly affected by national and EU-level decisions thus a local energy company is regulated by national and EU-level environmental policies. Interactions with other actors are fundamental in Mälarenergi’s institutional field. Organizations form co-operations and collaborations in order to achieve environmental goals as well as to conduct joint R&D activities. The environment pressure made it clear that the organizations have to work together in order to maintain a sustainable growth in the energy sector.</p>

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to test a combination of tools and theory to identify corporate sustainable development as part of organizational performance. Nowadays, in global business, the concept and application of sustainable development has become an important factor in the daily operations and strategies for the companies. The policies and practices of the companies are more aware of environmental, social and financial aspects. The publication of sustainability and environmental reports is becoming more popular within business. The media and stakeholders as customers, investors or government offices are more interested in the company’s position towards social and environmental issues. Therefore, the above purpose could be a potential asset for businesses and researchers to relate corporate sustainable development with organizational performance. We will not try to generalize, but test the usability of the theory combined in one model, which can be an asset to test corporate sustainability within a company’s organizational performance. This research will have a deductive approach, and could possibly encourage inductive research for further study. The theoretical framework consists of three sections including two theories, which uniquely identify corporate sustainable development (CSD) and organizational performance (OP). Finally, a combination of these two theories is shown as a practical model that we will try to test in a case.<em> </em>Our thesis will have a qualitative approach. Interviews are the main data collection tool as secondary data (company documents etc.). Secondary data is used as a supporting collection method. The personal interviews, conducted through video conferencing, have been recorded and transcribed for usage in the empirical method. The interview guide can be found in the appendix. The outcome of this research shows that many aspects are entangled within the phenomenon known as “corporate sustainable development”. We have found that economic prosperity has a strong presence (in both cases) within the environmental performance, just as social equity showed within learning and development performance, and social equity has a strong link with social performance. Looking at the case companies, and determining the focus on every dimension, we therefore found measurable relations between OP variables and CSD dimensions. We can also conclude that, when performing the second case analysis (Sveaskog), the results of the measures found were not always similar which asks for more case studies. An overall conclusion on the usability of the measurement tool leans towards positive, for practical usage. However, before using this combination of tools, more research is necessary, especially in the area of multiple case studies. Due to time restrictions, we could compare two case companies, whilst more cases could enhance the general application and usability of these tools.</p>

<p>After the Rio United Nations Conference on Enviroment and Development, the need of sustainable development obtained recognition from the vast majority of countries and organization. Human society entered a new development period. More and more people know about sustainable  development. Education for sustainable development is a concern for the world where university can make a  contribution. Students who are the majority in a university, their knowledge, awarenss and action will play an important role to promote sustainable development.  </p><p>The purpose if this thsis is to study if there is any difference in students' knowledge and awareness on sustainable development in university, based on the comparison betweet freshmen and seniors. Through the comparison, this will explore if students' knowledge and awareness is influence  to their action. This thesis does a literature review to understand deeply about sustainable development and explores students' knowledge, awareness and actions of sustainable development through questionnaire. </p><p>The analysis of data from the questionnaire indicates that their knowledge and awareness influences their actions. The freshmen and seniors have difference in knowledge and awareness. Knowledge of students on sustainable development appears to have increased slightly during years study. However, as the knowledge increased, there is not much difference in their knowledge and awareness of sustainable development. Based on the different degree of knowledge and awareness, seniors appear to do better than freshmen in their actions.</p>