The United Nations member states adopted and signed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, establishing a framework for global discussion on sustainable development. The inclusion of 'Economic Growth' in these goals begs the question of what constitutes sustainable economic growth in the eyes of the UN. This insight, in conjunction with the ongoing debate about the growth paradigm, growthism, and the limits to growth, is, to put it mildly, fascinating and worth examining. Numerous studies conducted on this issue reveal that conventional economic growth is unsustainable and that alternative strategies must be used to bring about a paradigm shift. The purpose of this research is to determine whether traits of a competing discourse known as 'Degrowth' may be detected in the United Nations' discourse of sustainable economic growth. Whilst sustainable development has been a prominent topic for decades, Degrowth can be perceived as a more recent, less mainstream, and even radical discourse. The discourse emphasizes the limits to growth and advocates for democratically-led shrinking in production and consumption with the goal of achieving equality, justice and ecological sustainability. In order to accomplish the research project’s objective, the discourse and key characteristics of Degrowth are explored.  The study was conducted as a qualitative case study (design) using document analysis as the method. The analysis was guided by the theoretical lens combining Dryzek’s discourse analysis approach and Cosme et al.’s framework. By examining solely documents produced by the UN itself, this analysis concluded that while there are some parallels between the UN’s discourse of sustainable economic growth and Degrowth, there is a distinct difference between the two. The SDGs represent the traditional understanding of sustainable development, a discourse in which it is believed that economic growth can and will be decoupled from ecological degradation and that growth, in fact, is the key to poverty eradication, whereas Degrowth represents a school of thought in which the capitalistic system is viewed as the culprit to a majority of issues at hand and that decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation has been declared as debunked.

The aim of this thesis is to warn of possible problem of erosion of sustainable development concept. The study combines content and frequency analysis as well as hermeneutics and its framework builds on three essential UN documents. By the scope of these documents along with the use of secondary literature is then possible to search and analyze various conceptions of sustainable development in important documents of organizations or institutions of global level, european regional level and local level of Czech republic. With the research at the place we can say that sustainable development erodes in particular organizations, across these organizations, generally through time and space and that the erosion is caused in two ways, with the specific purpose or unconsciously. The most common was the erosion stemming from leaning on traditional neoliberal paradigm of economic growth. Except the erosion, the research can be used to examine how organizations understand the concept of sustainable development.

Published Article / The study presents the results from a project that was aimed at determining the level of awareness and understanding of sustainable development at Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) among staff and students at the time of the commencement of the institutional Sustainable Development Project. The objectives of the study was twofold, firstly to assess the level of students' knowledge and understanding of sustainable development; and secondly to find out whether staff and students are interested in sustainable development and if they find it relevant to the university's mission. In achieving the objectives of the survey a pilot study was undertaken to test the understanding and awareness of sustainable development at CUT.

Published Article / Any effort to build up an educational framework needs an adequate structure and a formal basis. This is especially true whenever complex multifaceted issues like Sustainable Development, ethics, or project management have to be integrated in the existing setting of a university and its educational system. In this paper, we present models for integrating Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainable Development into the university agenda. Based on the experience of the authors gained in Germany and South Africa we derive various representations for the sustainability activities and models for implementing Sustainable Development that can be used for planning, implementation and communication purposes.

This thesis argues for the significance of urban resilience in sustainable urban development as well as for the necessity for practitioners to engage with this new emerging concept. It does so with a theoretical contribution to the definition of urban resilience, and with case studies analysis that help develop practical pathways to its attainment. For this purpose, the author has used a particular existing method (the Urban Futures method) developed within the EPSRC-funded four-year Urban Futures research programme. The author, as a member of the inter-disciplinary research team and of the sub-team of the ‘Surface Built Environment and Open Spaces’ work package, was instrumental to the development of that method, particularly for those aspects that pertain specifically to urban design and planning. In the section 5.3.3 the personal contribution of the author is described in detail. Moreover, interviews with practitioners presented in the chapter four, which constitute an essential part of the thesis, were conducted together with Dr. Maria Caserio, another team member of the work package mentioned above. She contributed to select interviewees, carry out the interviews, draft the transcripts, and discuss findings. However, the principal input in all these phases of the research comes exclusively from the author. The case studies presented in chapter six were also developed by the author throughout the course of the research programme. The chapter is based on papers that have been published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals (Caputo et al, 2012; Caputo et al (forthcoming)), and on conference papers accepted for oral presentation (Caputo and Gaterell, 2011; Caputo and Gaterell, 2012) in two important international conferences: the Sustainable buildings conference - Helsinki, 2011; and the 1st International Conference on Urban Sustainability and Resilience - London, 2012. Likewise, chapter five introducing the Urban Futures method as well as the process of selection and modification of the future scenarios that are at its heart, is based on papers published in peer-reviewed journals, and on a book dedicated to the Urban Futures method printed by the Building Research Establishment, which the author has co-authored (Hunt et al, 2012; Boyko et al, 2012; Lombardi et al, 2012). Finally, chapter three and four presenting the literature review and the interviews to practitioners are based on an article submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, which the author has revised in response to reviewers’ comments and that is in the course of resubmission (Caputo, et al - Designing a resilient urban system. Submitted to Journal of Urbanism).

The importance of modern energy services to development is well established and it extends to deploying renewable energy for electricity to address current global challenges such as lack of access to electricity, poverty, environmental degradation and climate change. No doubt, electricity from renewable energy has negative impacts, but it also has benefits over other energy sources, particularly coal, oil and gas. These benefits have included that it is generally environmentally benign, it is vast, free, and supports standalone technologies. Thus avoiding costs associated with expanding the grid network. Hence, the idea that enhanced deployment of renewable energy for electricity can drive sustainable development in countries such as Nigeria, where amidst global concerns about climate change, modern access to electricity is low and energy supply for basic tasks such as cooking and cooling are from energy sources harnessed unsustainably or is itself not sustainable. In addition, other problems in Nigeria include high poverty and unemployment rates, environment degradation, destruction of biodiversity and natural ecosystem, corruption, lack of infrastructure, and dwindling government revenue profiles. Yet, the country has significant energy resources, renewables and non-renewables through which it can presumably meet all its energy needs. Nigeria enacted the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) in March 2005 to give statutory support to its National Electric Power Policy, (NEPP) which, inter alia, sought to promote expanded access to electricity, with minimum adverse impact on the environment. Given the benefits of renewable electricity, and the policy objectives on electricity development in Nigeria, this thesis examines the ability of Nigeria's Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) 2005 to enhance the deployment of renewable energy for electricity and thereby foster sustainable development in the country.

Western Samoa is one of the most vulnerable countries from climate changes due to its geographic location, and as agriculture is a main industry on the island, this sector is vulnerable to different risks such as tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall or droughts. Samoa could in theory be self-sufficient, but imports large quantities of processed foods which is affecting the health of the population in a negative way. The purpose of the thesis is to create an understanding of how the development of indigenous agriculture in Samoa can lead to increasing efficiency and sustainability and a decrease of the need for development aid and economical support from family members abroad. The thesis uses a deductive approach and data collection is performed by using semistructured interviews as well as observations. Secondary data has been gathered from databases, previous research and modern media. Through the study it has been explored that the resilience towards climate shocks has to improve in order to maintain a long-term sustainable development. Increased resilience is achieved by reducing the amount of vulnerabilities. Western Samoa is on a good path of keeping their way of being organic and sustainable regarding the agriculture sector. The upcoming years with prognosis of increased tourism will be a healthy addition to the economic growth of Samoa. Looking towards remittances, it becomes clear that current high rate of remittances is a problem in Samoa, as some families could rely on nothing but remittances and skip farming their land.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of knowledge management (KM) in integrating sustainability into business strategy in companies applying the framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD).Corporations have the potential to be key players in moving society towards sustainability, but they lack clear definitions and guidelines around strategic sustainable development (SSD). The authors focus on the benefits of KM in organisations applying the FSSD, which offers general strategic guidelines, but does not refer to the complexity of managing the new sustainability knowledge.This study first examines the scientific literature around KM and FSSD and compares it with the results of expert interviews to develop a State of the Art Model of KM for SSD. Then the model is compared to current practices of corporations applying the FSSD and the gap is examined.The results of the analysis show that the concept of KM is widely discussed in the literature, yet it does not have much presence in the business world. The value of knowledge is recognised, but KM is not much used and no structured practices were identified. It was concluded that companies would benefit from a strategic KM system when integrating sustainability.

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