<p> The focus of this mixed-methods study was to identify waste reduction strategies that reduced the impact of California jails and prisons on the environment through waste diversion and reduction. This study also sought to identify barriers that hindered jail and prison personnel from developing such strategies, and pursued recommendations on how those barriers could be overcome.</p><p> Traditionally, California county jails and state prisons are resource intensive, overcrowded housing locations for about 200,000 adult men and women (Glaze &amp; Herberman, 2013). California jails and prisons operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and utilize resources such as electricity, personnel, food, and other products. Accordingly, they generated significant waste (California Department of Resources and Recovery [CalRecycle], 2012). The prisoners alone generated about four pounds of waste per person each day, consistent with societal averages (CalRecycle, 2012; Corrections Corporation of America, 2007; Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2012a). Because of this, jails and prison must do more to reduce waste.</p><p> This study provided examples of organizations currently reducing waste through strategic initiatives and highlighted areas where jails and prisons could begin or further improve waste diversion practices. The study utilized archival data, a web-based survey, and interviews for data collection and analysis. The data from California jails and prisons were analyzed to identify strategies, barriers, and ways to eliminate or reduce barriers to waste reduction programs in California jails and prisons.</p><p> The findings conclude, California state-operated prisons and sheriff-operated county jails are using two primary strategies to divert waste from landfills. The number one strategy is recycling. The second strategy being used is waste prevention and material reuse. The barriers identified by California state-operated prisons and sheriff-operated county jails include finding vendors to collect certain materials as well as finding vendors to travel to remote locations. Other barriers include a lack of personnel and in some instances a lack of knowledge. Sheriff-operated jails and state-operated prisons in California identified waste management program support from leadership as a primary method to eliminate or reduce barriers to implementing a waste reduction program. Implications for action and future research are also discussed as part of this study.</p>

<p> How do firms adapt to the intensity of adverse conditions stemming from the natural environment (ecological adversity intensity)? In this dissertation, I develop several lines of inquiry in exploring this question. First, I seek to contribute to generally diverging perspectives on organizational adaptation, which view firms as either inherently constrained or capable of continuous adaptation to fit their environment. To do this, I examine the conditions under which firms are more likely to adapt to different levels of ecological adversity intensity. My findings from a 13-year longitudinal analysis of western U.S. ski resorts&rsquo; adaptation to temperature conditions indicate that firms facing moderate ecological adversity intensity appear more likely to engage in higher adaptation levels while those experiencing low and high ecological adversity intensity show a tendency for lower adaptation levels. That is, both diverging perspectives may predict part of firms&rsquo; adaptive responses to ecological adversity intensity. My findings also suggest firms may encounter limits to adaptation when facing increasing ecological adversity intensity. I also undertake a post hoc exploration of firm and institutional environment level factors that may moderate the relationship between ecological adversity intensity and firm adaptation. Second, I use an interdisciplinary approach that draws from resilience theory in socioecology to suggest that the existing conceptualization of organizational resilience could be expanded to include transformative change, which may allow firms to mitigate the operational impacts of reaching adaptation limits. Third, I also consider the resilience implications of the interdependency between firms and the broader ecosystems in which they operate. I conclude with potential avenues for future research in this area.</p><p>

The golf industry is an important sector of the recreation and tourism economy in Canada. In 2009, the Canadian golf industry generated an estimated total direct economic activity of CND$29.4 billion dollars and created over 300,000 jobs for Canadian residents. Within Canada, Ontario is the dominant province with regards to golf’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2009, the 848 golf courses in Ontario generated $11.5 billion, which equates to 38.7% of Canada’s golf GDP (Strategic Networks Group, 2009). Due to the economic and employment benefits of the Ontario golf industry and its sizeable land use, it is important to fully understand the environmental impacts of golf courses. While concerns have been raised regarding water consumption by the Ontario golf industry, the golf industry in Ontario has never responded to these criticisms with actual water taking data to support their claims of environmental sustainability. Water withdrawals and water use efficiency among golf courses have yet to be quantified by the Province, the golf industry or its critics. This study uses daily water withdrawal data, self reported by 129 golf courses, to the Ministry of Environment (MOE) from 2007 to 2012. The water taking data is used to examine biophysical golf course characteristics that influence water use, to estimate annual water use by golf courses in Ontario, to identify the potential for water use reductions through best management practices (BMPs) and to explore how climate change may influence future golf course water use in Ontario. This study provides a first approximation of water use by irrigation for golf courses in Ontario. The analyses that examined the biophysical characteristics of golf courses indicated that soil type and golf course type influenced water use. During a dry season, golf courses composed of sand and silt dominated soils were found to require more water than they did during a climatically normal season. With regards to golf course type, premier private and private golf courses were found to use a greater quantity of water during both normal and dry seasons when compared to public and semi-private golf courses. The provincial water use analysis revealed that during a climatically normal season, 50.5 billion L of water is used to irrigate Ontario golf courses. Irrigation increased (58%) to 79.9 billion L during a season that was 1.2°C warmer and 29% dryer than normal. This finding indicates that under anticipated climate change by the 2050s, water use on golf courses in southern Ontario could increase by 151% current levels. The analysis for potential water savings for Ontario golf courses revealed that water use reductions of 35% are possible if golf courses adopt similar maintenance and irrigation practices to more efficient golf courses (80th percentile) in Ontario. Further research regarding maintenance practices on golf courses should be carried out to understand what best management practices result in water efficiency among courses. Also, due to the self-reporting nature of the water taking program with the MOE, it has been recommended that a more strict and automated monitoring system be implemented. Lastly, it is strongly believed that in order for the province wide water savings to be achieved, collaboration between the government and the golf industry will be needed. This study is the first approximate of water use for Ontario golf courses, however, more research is needed to examine the MOE’s water taking data in detail to better understand the determinants of water use among similar golf courses.

The continuous operation of civil and marine structures is essential for maintaining the flow of people and goods. However, structures are exposed to extreme or progressive events during their service time. The uncertainties associated with the occurrence and the magnitude of extreme events (e.g. flooding and scour) may change, leading to unprecedented loading conditions, while the progressive events (e.g. corrosion and fatigue) may jeopardize the structural capacity to resist loads. In order to maintain or improve the structural capacity, repair and maintenance actions need to be applied to structures. However, the determination of these actions may be challenging for decision makers due to (a) limited financial resources to be allocated for a group of structures, (b) uncertainties associated with current structure conditions and future loading conditions, and (c) various decision-making factors (e.g. reliability threshold, decision time, and risk attitude). In order to address these issues, the focus of the research in this dissertation is to enhance the development of management strategies with the application in (a) management of bridge networks under hydraulic events and climate changes, (b) service life extension of ships considering financial feasibility and decision-making factors, and (c) determination of reliability threshold in the decision-making process. The management of bridge networks involves the quantification of regional hazards imposed on the network, performance assessment of structures, and consequence evaluation of potential bridge failure. Regional hazards such as floods may be affected by the changes in the intensity of precipitation due to anticipated climate changes. These hazards may cause extensive damage to bridges, and failure may cause significant costs to bridge managers and result in inconvenience on the daily traffic commute. This research focuses on enhancing the assessment and management of bridges networks vulnerable to regional hydraulic events and climate changes. The integration of transportation network analysis, which reflects the redistribution of traffic flow in the event of bridge failure, is shown to be essential when determining the risk level of bridges. Furthermore, this work includes proposed methodologies for determining optimal management strategies that account for the connection between global climate predictions and regional hydrologic conditions. The crux of determining management strategies, especially for extending ship service lives, is to ensure an adequate safety margin within and beyond the design life. In addition to the loading effect and structural capacity, the safety margin of ships is related to the deterioration acting on the structure. During ship operation, in-service condition surveys are conducted on ship details to assess structural conditions and to inform maintenance actions. This research focuses on the integration of condition surveys of ship details, as well as the timing of conducting surveys, to improve the service life extension for ship structures. While decision makers strive to maintain the safe operation of ships, they should also identify the management strategy that can deliver the best return given the limited budget. This research, from the perspective of cost-effectiveness and profitability, proposes optimization frameworks to clarify the financially feasible life expectancy of different management strategies as well as identify the optimal duration of extended service life for different categories of commercial ships. The last focus of this research emanates from the reliability threshold when determining management strategies. In addition to facilitating decision-making on the management of civil and marine structures, the reliability threshold in terms of target reliability index has been extensively used in design guidelines to ensure adequate safety margin for structures. The level of safety is typically related to the failure mode and severity of failure consequences (e.g. number of potential fatalities). Driven by the emerging application of unmanned ships where there are fewer or no crew members on board, this research specifically focuses on the integration of different acceptance criteria for human safety into the determination of the target reliability index.

Various forms of resistance are emerging in Human Geography in response to human caused environmental degradation and climate change. One such example is the Natural Change (NC) project, a World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) initiative about social change through a facilitated wilderness experience. Wilderness is seen as an affective quality, acting as a catalyst for an empirical embodied experience of the integral human connectivity to Nature. This connectivity is seen to inform the subject's framing of distanciated environmental issues and intends to re-territorialise their positionality as an ecological Self. The NC seeks to create an embodied connectivity with Nature, which desires immunising others as a form of self-protection. The WWF NC project began by selecting influential individuals from large organisations in Scotland. After two groups completed the NC, the project was deemed highly successful by the WWF and was then terminated by a change of leadership at the WWF. The creators of the NC went on to create the Natural Change Foundation (NCF) and offer the program to eco-facilitators so that they might integrate the NC experience into their work. This research explicates the changing positionality of individuals, before, during and after the NC course. The research showed that two spaces emerged after the NC course. In one space the subjects attempt to structure a diffluence of feelings and ideas and struggle to act, while in another space the subjects combine influence and agency with a grounding element of experiential connectivity, to move to a confluence of feelings that result in action. The research identified that a specific type of efficacy and agency is needed to empower individuals after the NC course, to enact social change through action. The research highlights the importance of access to, or the creation of situations, which are supportive of efficacy and agency. These findings have profound implications for Human Geographers interested in enacting policy in relation to climate change and environmental degradation, that results in social action for an ecologically sustainable future.

This thesis describes a systematic research enquiry into influencing more sustainable behaviour through design, which has produced communicable new knowledge in the form of a design pattern toolkit, called Design with Intent, developed and evaluated through an action research process. The toolkit aims to help designers create products, services and environments which in_uence the way people use them, primarily for environmental and social bene_t; it brings together techniques for understanding and changing human behaviour from a range of psychological and technical disciplines, illustrated with examples, with the aim of enabling designers to explore and apply relevant strategies to problems. `Design for behaviour change' has grown signi_cantly as a _eld in the past few years, to a large extent due to recognition of the contributions that user behaviour makes to the environmental and social impact of technology_and designed systems in general. People's behaviour is inevitably in_uenced by the design of the systems which they use, and it is not a great leap to consider that design could be used intentionally to in_uence behaviour where some benet would result. This thesis starts by identifying the need for a guide for designers working on behaviour change. It extracts insights from reviews of perspectives on in_uencing behaviour from di_erent disciplines, inside and outside of `design', which could be usefully applied in a design context. Through an action research process of iterative development and workshops with design practitioners and students, these insights are incorporated into a toolkit for designers, which is applied mainly to environmental and social behaviour change briefs. Versions of the toolkit are made publicly available, and feedback from early users in different contexts is analysed and implications for continuing development discussed.

This thesis is based in the research area of Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB), a field which seeks to reduce the social and environmental impact of products in the use phase of their life cycle. There has been significant theoretical development in this area in recent years, leading to a proliferation of intervention strategies and design methodologies. However, there has been a recognised lack of a reliable means of selecting which intervention strategy to use in a given situation, and a lack of real world intervention case studies generating measurable medium-to-long term reductions in energy consumption. Addressing these gaps was a central focus of this research. This thesis documents four distinct research phases; an extensive literature review, an in-depth user study of existing energy consuming behaviours and motivations, the development and trialling of design interventions, and the evaluation of the generated theories as a tool for designers. Literature on domestic energy consumption, human behaviour, and approaches to changing behaviour was reviewed to establish the current level of thinking and to identify opportunities for further research. This guided the undertaking of the user study with a number of families in the East Midlands of the UK, which illuminated the relevant motivational goals, and highly routinized nature, displayed in many energy consuming behaviours. Over the course of this phase of the research journey a new conceptual model of behaviour in context was developed, and refined to create the Behavioural Intervention Selection Axis (BISA). These theoretical developments were then applied to the generation of DfSB intervention concepts, one of which was selected and developed to a functional prototype stage. These prototypes were trialled in situ in family homes for an extended period, and achieved a significant change in behaviour and related energy consumption. Further evaluation of the BISA as a tool to guide designers was performed through a series of workshops with design students, which ascertained its usefulness in this respect. Both the intervention development and trialling and the design workshops showed the conceptual model and BISA to be successful in providing designers with a reliable and useful means of selecting appropriate intervention strategies to change behaviour. In addition the intervention trial provided a wealth of qualitative insight into the way in which DfSB can effect behaviour, and the range of new motivational goals it can engender.

This research investigates opportunities for Service Design in Education. The focus is on a particular type of change happening within education that of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) where Service Design has little presence and limited knowledge. This research has been carried out through grounded theory and contextualised in English institutions of primary education. As a result it identified Service Design as an approach to enable transformational change within educational institutions that seek to move towards ESD. To establish the basis for the research, a literature review has been carried out on Service Design, the vision of ESD and its application in the context of English schools. As a result, Service Design capability to re-design services at organisational level was linked to the gap in normative re-educative change processes towards ESD in English schools. The rest of the research sought to build on these findings. In-depth case studies with five primary schools and a cross-case analysis have been carried out to establish an understanding of ESD change at organisational level. It focused on elements relevant to normative re-educative change processes, which included social and personal norms and values residing within organisational systems. From the case studies, principles, concepts and processes were identified that enabled schools to engage with ESD at the deepest level. The knowledge derived from the case studies was further developed in order to relate the ESD phenomenon to Service Design. Service thinking and organisational change theory were applied to develop a Sustainable Education as a Service Model (SES MODEL) to understand ESD as a phenomenon in a service system. A SES Model was presented back to Service Design community. The sense-making of ESD was undertaken with seven service design practitioners by conducting semi-structured interviews during which they explored the SES Model. The outcome of the interviews showed the model to build service designer s capacity to engage with ESD, while the use of the model showed that designers could envision using it at a normative re-educative change level. The research shows that ESD is a new concept, which is relevant to Service Design. It therefore offers opportunities for further service design research and practical applications.

Vast progress has been made in detecting rates of tropical deforestation, yet the relationship between visible patterns of forest change, multi-scalar human processes and the underlying drivers associated with them is poorly understood. Building on satellite imagery, a household livelihood survey and semi-structured interviews, this research scrutinised changes of forest cover from the mid-1990s to 2015 in a municipality located in southeastern Mexico and investigated the proximate causes and underlying drivers of change at the household and community levels. Emerging evidence indicated that, contrary to the persistent narrative of deforestation for the region, forest cover change is highly dynamic including periods of deforestation and forest recovery. Moreover, a close examination of 24 communities showed forest cover gained terrain, while the agricultural frontier retracted. Drawing on a comparison between the household survey and previous analyses, it could be inferred that forest resurgence was produced by the decrease in the farming area and the increase in the abandonment of farming activities by some communities. Associated with the adaptation of households was the development of formal and informal institutions at the community level in response to macro-global forces linked to the implementation of forest conservation strategies, environmental degradation, market liberalization and increased urbanization. Overall, this research adds not only to our understanding of the complexity of land-use and cover change in emerging globalized economies but also exemplifies the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of tropical forest systems, which challenges partial models of deforestation and policies designed to reduce it. The research may be focused on a narrow region of the globe, nevertheless, the insights and recommendation provided may be useful to further forest conservation schemes in other tropical regions.

Förändring och förbättring utgör komplex materia, och det finns många aspekter som kan påverka om resultaten blir hållbara över tid. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vad som krävdes för en förbättring, som ett resultat av en större organisatorisk förändring, att bli hållbara över tid i ett verkligt sammanhang. Studien hade en induktiv ansats och den valda metoden var en litteraturstudie. Systematiska sökningar gjordes i databaserna Academic Search Elite, Business Source Complete och SCOPUS för artiklar publicerade under åren 2010–2021, vilket resulterade i 39 artiklar för analys. En tematisk analys genomfördes med hjälp av ett släktskapsdiagram, genom vilket åtta teman framkom. Dessa var: Kollektiva visioner och mål, Kommunikation, Ledarskap, Personlig utveckling, Positiv organisationskultur, Minska variation, Resurser, och Systemtänkande. Dessa åtta teman innehöll relaterade subteman, element och faktorer. Studiens slutsatser var att hållbar förändring är ett komplext område. Även om denna studie påvisade åtta teman, innebär detta inte per automatik att alla teman måste ges samma uppmärksamhet; förbättringens kontextuella behov kan avgöra vad som ska prioriteras.  Begränsningar i studien omfattade att nära nog alla 39 artiklar ägde rum i västerländska länder och i en vårdkontext. Dessa båda aspekter begränsade studiens generaliserbarhet till viss del / Change and improvement are complex matters, and there are many aspects that can impact if the results are sustainable over time. The aim of this study was to investigate what was required for an improvement, as a result of a major organisational change, to become sustainable over time in a real-world setting. The study used an inductive approach and the chosen method was a literature review. Systematic searches were carried out in the databases Academic Search Elite, Business Source Complete, and SCOPUS for articles published between the years 2010–2021, which yielded 39 articles for analysis. A thematic analysis was carried out using an affinity diagram, through which eight themes emerged. These were: Collective visions and goals, Communication, Leadership, Personal growth, Positive organisational culture, Reduce variability, Resources, and System thinking. The eight themes contained related sub-themes, elements and factors. The conclusions of the study were that change sustainability is a complex field. While this study revealed eight themes to consider, it does not automatically mean that they must be given equal attention; contextual needs of the improvement could determine what to prioritise. Limitations of the study included that nearly all of the 39 articles were set in western countries and in a healthcare setting, both of which somewhat limit the generalisability of the study. / <p>2021-06-06</p>