Post apartheid planning practice aims to resolve the inequality that resulted from the hyperrational comprehensive model of planning executed during apartheid via a participatory, integrated approach. The Integrated Development Planning model was created to manifest the goals of social and spatial equality while taking into account principles set forth in Agenda 21. This thesis attempted to determine the relevance of the present planning model in achieving the stated goals of social equity and environmental sustainability, within the Dwars River Valley, Stellenbosch Municipality, Western Cape, South Africa. Utilizing 54 qualitative-based interviews with key stakeholders, results indicate that historically based realities on the ground and ideals of more equitable and sustainable spatial architecture is profoundly challenging. Despite this, the organic emergence of unique coalitions provides evidence that positive change occurs daily and outcomes can only be measured with time.

Since the late 20th century, people extended to over-consume and over-discharge all kinds of resources and made the resources decreased hugely. The resources in the earth are not unlimited. Emissions and pollutions brought human all kinds of crisis. Social-trended management becomes the main stream of business operation in the 21st century, and it is not countable for the corporations that were incapable to follow this change. The awake of limit of the Earth resources had made the corporations start to respect the importance of resource reclamations as well as resource application, which means, in the recycle society, they started to create the new economical added-value of resources by 3R: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Now, more and more corporations are awaken of the damages environment pollution made to humans, and this is not a ignorable power. To research how the corporations combine their management strategies with the concepts of keeping a sustainable environment is the main target of this study. How do the corporations set up their management strategies by keeping the environment sustainable? In this study, we will discuss this topic by 3 dimensions and procedures: 1¡B Influences on business management made by the direct and indirect benefit parties of the corporations. 2¡B The Corporations¡¦ application of Green Management brings the corporations themselves more Green Values. 3¡B Use the past capability to develop a dynamic ability and create a competitive advantage of the corporation. Normal corporations emphasize on the development of single strategy, and ignore how to set up ¡ustrategic agendas¡v and ¡ustrategic target¡v, and plenty of them are lack of thoughts of integration. According to the point of resource-based view, each corporation shall understand its own value, its special property and its un-imitate resources to create its advantage. In the quick-varying environment, the corporations shall own its ability to increase its advantages by using the point of view of resources to develop a dynamic ability and create its continuing competitive advantage. This study takes 7 corporations which execute sustainable environment effectively in Taiwan by preceding a Qualitative Research, interview and collect every kind of documents and news, to analyze each of their Green Strategies.

<p>The theme of this thesis is environmental research as a tool for change. In the first part of the thesis a “Situation of Opportunity” is studied, i.e. a situation when the opportunities to reduce negative environmental impacts are larger than usual. The maintenance of a multi- family residential area, here called a Small Neighbourhood, is studied as a series of Situations of Opportunity.</p><p>To explore the prerequisites for using maintenance as a Situation of Opportunity, two case studies were carried out and reported as a licentiate thesis. The first one on the rental area Idö-Våldö in Stockholm managed by the association Stockholms Kooperativa Bostadsförening (SKB), and the second one on Järven, a housing cooperative in Malmö that cooperates with the management organisation HSB Malmö. In the study the researcher developed long-term environmental strategies based on the planned maintenance of the areas. Besides exploring the prerequisites for using planned maintenance as a Situation of Opportunity, the intention was that the studies would initiate an environmental practice within the areas studied.</p><p>Results indicated that maintenance, at least in principle, creates many possibilities for reducing negative environmental impacts and that it to some extent also can be used for creating a dialogue between residents and managers. However, the conditions for using maintenance in the cases studied were limited by low interest among the residents as well as the economical and organisational prerequisites of the cases. The studies did not initiate an environmental practice as intended. The reason for that might be the mentioned conditions, but it could also depend on the researcher’s limited knowledge on action-oriented and collaborative research.</p><p>Thus, the second part of the thesis aims at developing a research methodology for such research. Based on empirical experiences from the Idö-Våldö and Järven-studies and a literature study, a methodology for action-oriented research for environmentally sustainable housing (ARESH) is outlined. It is proposed that methods of action research and of case study methodology could be applied in ARESH. However, there are several potential conflicts in ARESH. The researcher has for instance to judge if the study should be led in the first hand by participants or by researchers, or if it should be more oriented towards theory than practice. One conclusion is that a research methodology for such research needs to be further discussed and also further explored in practice. Since there are indications that a collaborative and action-oriented research is evolving in the field of environmental research, it is hoped that the findings of the thesis can contribute to a discussion on how to carry out research as a tool for change</p>

<p>The remote sensing technology is increasingly being used to study land use and vegetation cover changes and identify changes that has occur through different land use activities which may have negative impact on the sustainability of the environment, biodiversity protection and conservation. With increase in population growth rate in Sudan, there has been an increase for food crop production with agriculture playing a prominent role in livelihood security for the increasing population.</p><p> </p><p>The increase use of irrigation and mechanisation has brought about an increase in demand for agricultural land use in Sudan with the conversion of other land use types and vegetation for agricultural land use. This does have effect and impact on the vegetation and environment with the country highly exposed to the incidence of environmental and social hazards and disasters including drought and desertification, deforestations, floods, loss of biodiversity, ethnic conflicts and poverty.</p><p> </p><p>The research study work focused on agricultural land use changes in the country with the aim of investigating the agricultural land use changes that has occurred in the country from 1986 to 2002 using the remote sensing technique. This is important for agricultural land use planning and sustainability monitoring to reduce the negative impact of agricultural land use for crop production and increase long term resource use and environmental sustainability. Two remote sensing methods were used for the classification analysis to identify the land use changes namely the NDVI and the parallelepiped classification techniques. The NDVI method was used to identify the changes in the agricultural land use vegetation cover classes and determine the magnitude of changes in land area use that has occurred from 1986 to 2002 when the former and latter remote sensing images were acquired. The parallelepiped classification technique was however used to identify the aggregate agricultural land use changes in the area of study and conversion to and from other categories of land use. A qualitative analytic technique was also used to identify the possible causes of the changes that have occurred in Sudan in the study period using empirical materials.</p><p> </p><p>The research study result gives information on the role the remote sensing technology can play in analyzing land use cover changes for agricultural land use sustainability monitoring.</p>

Confessions of an American Ginseng Addict uses the Lazy Branch Holler in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky as a setting for a creative nonfiction work, which uses history, confession, remembrances, and digressions to tell the story of a man dealing with loss, mental health issues, environmental sustainability, and the power of ginseng. In the style of Desert Solitaire and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the narrative is a discursive work of raw unadulterated gonzo writing.

The thesis explores the role of Architecture in enhancing a sustainable rural livelihood in Botswana. Moshupa village is analyzed and assessed to create an alternative, self-sustainable model for rural development that can add value to the local economy, by fostering self-reliance, capacity building and empowerment. Through the design of an Integrated Community Hub for Moshupa, the thesis attempts to embrace the changing dynamics of a village. It explores strategies that would inject life into the village making it a desirable place for younger generations and women to live, similar to what is currently achievable in towns and cities. Most importantly, the design principles and guidelines of traditional building techniques are explored through studying spatial habitation and organization. Materiality of built form and study of details are examined in search for an architecture that belongs to a place, by responding to the current economic, cultural, technical and environmental challenges in Botswana.

Climate change is a serious global issue that poses one of the greatest challenges facing human kind (Kazdin, 2009; Stern, 2011; Swim et al., 2011). Given that organizations are often cited as the largest contributors to climate change (Trudeau and Canada West Foundation, 2007), research needs to investigate how organizations can positively affect climate change. Accordingly, the purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how organizations can positively affect climate change through workplace pro-environmental behaviors. To this end, three studies were conducted. The first study investigated the influence of leaders’ environmentally-specific transformational leadership and their own workplace pro-environmental behaviors on employees’ workplace pro-environmental behaviors. The second study examined if environmentally-specific and general transformational leadership are empirically distinct but related, whether environmentally-specific transformational leadership evokes higher levels of workplace pro-environmental behaviors than general transformational leadership, and if so, examined through mediation why this is the case. The third and final study conceptualizes and defines workplace pro-environmental behaviors as a form of organizational citizenship behaviors that are targeted at benefiting the natural environment (OCBE), and subsequently, developed and refined a measure of OCBE and assessed the measure’s psychometric validity. This dissertation concludes with a general discussion and highlights areas for future research. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2014-02-12 16:26:52.658

Companies are under increasing pressure from every category of stakeholder, from government and community to supply chain and consumer, to improve the environmental sustainability of their operations, products and services. To be most successful with environmental sustainability improvement initiatives, a company must have the commitment and effort of its employees. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of the company’s approach to the initiative on the level of employee commitment to the company’s environmental sustainability goals. This research was conducted with a two-factor, factorial experiment. The experimental factors were construal level and small wins framing. Each of these factors had two levels, creating a 2x2 design with four treatment level combinations. A third study factor was environmental concern. Four other variables, goal difficulty, perceived organizational efficacy, gender and age, were included in the model as control variables. The dependent variable was goal commitment. Approximately 150 participants were recruited for the experiment and randomly assigned to one of the four fixed, treatment combinations. Hierarchical regression was used to estimate the factors’ main and interaction effects, as well as the significance of the control variables. Neither of the two manipulated variables, construal level and small wins, was found to have a significant main effect on goal commitment. There were, however, significant interactions between environmental concern and construal level, and between environmental concern and small wins framing, on goal commitment. At high levels of environmental concern, the effects of construal level and small wins were as hypothesized, but at low levels of environmental concern, the effects of construal level and small wins were opposite of what was expected. Additionally, both organizational efficacy and gender were found to significantly affect one’s goal commitment.

Syfte: Ingen kan hävda att de har missat den pågående klimatdebatten med ett fokus på den globala uppvärmningen. En ökad medvetenhet om miljömässig hållbarhet har bidragit till en integration av etisk beslutsfattning in i organisationer. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hypotesen att CSR leder till ett ökat fastighetsvärde. Vi ämnar även få en ökad förståelse för hur motivation påverkar etisk beslutsfattning och CSR. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats inom ramen för en fallstudie. Empiriskt material har samlats in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer med beslutsfattare inom den svenska fastighetsbranschen. En analys av aktuell forskning och litteratur samt en modell av Sekerka &amp; Stimel (2012) har bidragit till den teoretiska referensramen. Slutsats &amp; Resultat: Vi anser att miljömässig hållbarhet och det ekonomiska incitamentet går hand i hand och krävs idag för ekonomisk framgång. Då CSR tillämpas inom en organisation så har vi märkt att det inte är organisationstyperna som sedan påverkar om CSR ger ett ökat fastighetsvärde. Det är snarare organisationens mål med fastigheten. Svaret blir att långsiktiga intressenter anser att kostnaden för miljöinsatser leder till ett motsvarande eller en större värdeökning av fastigheterna. För att detta ska vara sant krävs dock en långsiktighet och långsiktiga mål med fastigheten. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Ett intressant synsätt skulle vara att modifiera och tillämpa Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) modell vid jämförandet mellan olika branscher. Ett intressant ämne är hur miljömässig hållbarhet påverkar organisationers lönsamhet ur det ekonomiska perspektivet. Hur står svenska organisationers miljömässiga hållbarhetsarbete jämfört med utländska? Ett annat intressant område är hur miljömässig hållbarhet påverkas av externa bestämmelser så som lagstiftning och ökad myndighetskontroll. Under studiens gång har vi kommit fram till att Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) modell har brister när den appliceras på den svenska fastighetsbranschen. Ett alternativ kan vara en utveckling och anpassning av Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) modell för att lättare kunna appliceras mot en svensk bransch. Under de genomförda intervjuerna har flera organisationer talat om den sociala hållbarheten. Vi anser att det skulle vara intressant att genomföra en liknande studie inom CSR men med inriktning mot social hållbarhet Studiens bidrag: Studien bidrar till en ökad förståelse hur etisk beslutsfattning påverkar motivation av CSR. Studien bidrar även till ett tydliggörande av hur etisk beslutsfattning och miljömässig hållbarhet tillämpas inom den svenska fastighetsbranschen. Studien ger även svar på den praktiska frågan om CSR kan ge ett ökat fastighetsvärde. / Purpose: No one can argue and say that they have missed the ongoing climate debate which, focuses on global warming. An increased awareness of environmental sustainability has contributed to the integration of ethical decision-making in organizations. The study's purpose is to examine the hypothesis that CSR leads to increased property value we will also try to get a better understanding on how motivation effects ethical decision-making and CSR. Method: The study has been completed with a qualitative approach in the framework of a case study. Empirical material was gathered by semi-structured interviews preformed with decision-makers in the Swedish property industry. An analysis of the current research and literature, as well as a model by Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) has contributed to the theoretical framework. Conclusion &amp; Results: We believe that environmental sustainability and an economic incentive goes hand-in-hand and are required for financial success today. When CSR is applied within an organization, we have noticed that there is not the organizational type which affects whether CSR brings an increase in property value. Rather it is the organization's goals with the property. The answer is that long-term stakeholders believe that the cost of environmental measures leading to an equivalent or greater increase in the value of the properties. For this to be true it requires a long-term approach and long-term goal with the property. Further research: An interesting approach would be to modify and apply Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) model in the comparison between different industries. An interesting topic is how environmental sustainability will affect an organization’s profitability within an economic perspective. How are Swedish organization’s environmental sustainability efforts compared with overseas? Another interesting area is how environmental sustainability are affected by external conditions such as legislation and increased government control. During the study we have come to the conclusion that Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) model has shortcomings when applied to the Swedish property industry. An alternative can be an advancement and adaptation of Sekerka &amp; Stimels (2012) model in order for it to be applied on a Swedish industry. During the interviews, several organizations talked about social. We believe that it would be interesting to conduct a similar study in CSR, but with focus on social sustainability Contribution: The study contributes to a better understanding of how ethical decision-making affects the motivation towards CSR. The study also contribute to a clarification of how ethical decision-making and environmental sustainability are applied in the Swedish property industry. The study will also provide answers to the practical matter: could CSR contribute to an increased property value.

1. The biography of Crawford Munro (1904-76) describes his early life in Toowoomba and Sydney, and his maturation as an engineer, working for Sydney Water, Sydney Technical College and in the production of Cruiser tanks in World War II. He was a large confident man with a big voice and an optimistic, humorous personality. As the Foundation Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South Wales Munro was liberal, fostered humanist studies and developed the School of Engineering with a unique emphasis on water engineering. He recruited excellent staff for research and postgraduate education who led the nation across all phases of hydrology and hydraulics. Munro developed a remarkable, rational solution for flood mitigation at Launceston, and actively promoted research, partly through the Australian Water Research Foundation and the Institution of Engineers, Australia. He was much involved with predicting flood runoff, developing benefit/cost relations for irrigation schemes, which led him into public controversy, and other hydrological projects. Munro’s attempts to raise social consciousness about water problems, his multi-disciplinary approach to the evaluation of water resources and his campaigns for the collection of stream and rainfall data helped provide a better basis for proper planning. In his later years he undertook the first Australian environmental impact study. The concluding chapter outlines a vision for the current management of Australia’s water. Munro posed necessary questions about measuring the supply of water and bringing the demand of water into synchrony with its supply, while providing water security in terms of its availability and quality. He raised the debate about the balance between sustaining environmental flows, utilizing water for agriculture and secondary industry, and maintaining the health of communities. Munro hoped equitable decision making would emerge from public engagement on these issues. 2. Twentieth century science biography in Australia is the province of a group of elite male scientists, whose interests cover wide disciplinary fields; it is focused on popular imagination: health, food and adventure (Antarctica) accounting for fifteen of the seventeen scientists. Empathy for the subject is a significant feature of the nineteen biographers, of whom five are scientists. This small genre is often supported by institutions in small print runs. A key role of biography is to place through science history a more epistemologically plausible version of events. Public discourses of science treated in the essay include conflict about the attribution of scientific discovery, the vocation of the scientist as a contributor to a wider social polity, the light biography sheds on sources of creativity and the evolution of the research and culture of institutions. The biographer attempts to generate a personal portrait of the scientist which conveys authority about the significance and origins of his or her scientific discoveries and their impact in the wider social context. Thomas Söderqvist’s affirmation of the existential approach which ‘emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of the human individual’ resonates with the candidate as expressing characteristics of the lives of many Australian scientists in their passion for intellectual discovery, their motivation to self-empowerment, and their readiness to step outside their social conditioning. This essay extends Söderqvist’s paradigm to the context of Australian science biography and indicates some constraints on its depiction which arise in the practice of writing science biography. Some epistemological issues are raised in the texts, especially when dealing with oral history and family mythology, and thematic, thematic within a chronological framework or chronological structures of the text are compared. The level of detail and context influence the sustainability of the reader’s interest. Case studies of the biographies written by the candidate (Ian Clunies Ross, Samuel Wadham, Allan Callaghan, Victor Trikojus, Raymond Hoffenberg and Crawford Munro) illustrate issues which arise in the writing of science biography. The dominant question is the relationship of the biographer to the subject, and this determines the voice the reader hears. The motivation of the biographer may arise in varying degrees of empathy felt for the subject. The high affinity the candidate had for Clunies Ross and Hoffenberg causes him to offer a defence against the charge of hagiography, and the selectivity and subjectivity of the biographer is evident in the arrangement and presentation of factual material. The motivation of the biographer is additionally directed to the communication of the subject’s research outputs to the wider Australian community, and in the case of Callaghan, Wadham and Clunies Ross there was a specific programmatic function of advancing the status of agricultural science. It is argued that the description of the public life of the subject needs to be complemented from the private life if the biographer is ‘to view the world through the eyes of the subject’.