The academic literature suggests that precision agriculture (PA) is revolutionizing the agricultural sector, with claims that it can enhance sustainability through technological advancements such as tractors with automated guidance, sensor suites, satellites, and drones. The literature on PA widely asserts PA has sustainability benefits claiming that these emerging agricultural technologies will address food system challenges. These challenges include improving the state of food security in the face of a growing global population and the ongoing threats of climate change and environmental degradation caused by agriculture by enhancing agricultural efficiency, productivity, and profits for farmers. Despite this pervasive notion of an inherent link between PA and sustainability, questions persist regarding the substantiation of these "sustainability" benefits, particularly in the promotion of these technologies. To investigate this link between PA and sustainability, this thesis considers the following research questions: What are the key factors and influences that have contributed to the enduring connection between PA and sustainability within the academic literature and how is the concept of sustainability conceptualized and operationalized within the academic discourse on PA? Employing an inductive constructivist perspective, this research examines academic literature collected through systematic literature review and interview transcripts from semi-structured interviews with key informants from academia, to explore the dominant models of sustainability present in the literature and the factors that have contributed to the formation of this inherent link. Drawing on this constructivist perspective, the research demonstrates that sustainability is not an inherent aspect of PA but rather a construct shaped by the various actors responsible for the promotion of PA. This implies that those actively advocating for or endorsing PA, construct the understanding and portrayal of sustainability in relation to PA, leading to a convergence of sustainability conceptualizations reflective of existing productivist paradigms in agriculture. Considering these findings, this thesis contributes to the greater literature which asserts that PA, although full of promise, may reinforce the issues created by contemporary agriculture.

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Completed as a series of manuscripts, this dissertation reflects four aspects of my research into the intersections of conservation and sustainable development as practiced by conservation land trusts and community landcare groups, as well as by faculty and staff at land grant universities. The first paper included in this dissertation explores "Conservation 2.0" strategies being developed and employed by land trust across the US to integrate social and economic development goals into their conservation missions. The second paper explores one of these Conservation 2.0 strategies in greater detail, in particular the support of ecological entrepreneurship by land trusts and partners they involve in "ecological entrepreneurship support networks". The third piece emerged out of five years of engaged research with Catawba Landcare as one community landcare group in the region. As a means to capture the development path and history of the organization as well as to facilitate its path forward, I developed a dynamic content management system (CMS) based website for the group, which is explained in Chapter 4. The fourth and final piece of this dissertation is a collaboratively written piece that examines the relationship between Catawba Landcare and Virginia Tech using four theoretical lenses for community capacity building, ultimately proposing one engagement strategy for land grant universities to build and strengthen social infrastructure in their neighboring communities. In total, this collection of works chronicles a larger endeavor to explore place-based sustainability and the role of institutions and civil society in constructing a more sustainable future. / Ph. D.

No / This paper presents an overview of generic database of sustainability criteria values for a range of noise reducing devices (NRDs) for surface transport developed as part of the research carried out in the EU project "Quietening the Environment for a Sustainable Surface Transport" (QUIESST) (1) and how these criteria can be used for sustainability assessment of noise barriers standards. The NRD Industry has been involved in this research and NRD's manufacturers have always shown a great interest in sustainability assessment. This is coupled with the new Construction Product Regulation (305/2011/EU -CPR) (2) that came into force in July 2013 that promotes a new approach in products qualification based on the declaration of performance against seven essential requirements. Sustainability has been specifically addressed with the new 7th basic requirement, 'sustainable usage of natural resources'. The method developed within this research is used to define evaluation procedures to meet sustainability as the 7th basic requirement as part of new standards. / EU 7th Framework Programme

This Thesis attempts to question how the built environment affects public and planet health. I am particularly concerned with childhood obesity and how it is related to the affordability of neighborhoods, accessibility to public parks, availability of healthy food, and accountability for sustainability within our cities and suburbs. The architectural design proposal is an Elementary School, in Old Town Alexandria, that promotes learning through activity and play, is a living laboratory for environmental stewardship, and fosters a strong sense of community. / Master of Architecture

No / Based on the liability of origin and the attention-based view of firms, we examine how the international business of emerging economy multinationals (EMNEs) affects their corporate sustainability (CS). We develop a contrasting perspective with respect to the dual impacts of international diversification on CS strengths (“being credited” for sustainability), and CS concerns (“being censured” for sustainability). On the one hand, we contend that international diversification improves CS strengths because the firm managers of EMNEs that rely on foreign sales are highly motivated to adopt CS as a global business norm for overcoming the liability of origin and the legitimacy challenge in foreign markets. On the other hand, we argue that international diversification also increases CS concerns since the firm managers in foreign subsidiaries of EMNEs may be less motivated to internalize CS. The results from a 2SLS instrumental variable approach support our hypotheses. Our results reaffirm that “it is misleading to simply say that international diversification is either good or bad” for corporate social responsibility and sustainability (Strike, Gao, & Bansal, 2006: 859). We contribute to the literature on CS antecedents by empirically showing that firm internationalization is a driver of CS in emerging economies. Our findings present implications for future research on CS and international business.

O aumento significativo da deterioração das condições ambientais e sociais em muitas partes do mundo indicam que a sustentabilidade como um todo pode estar ameaçada. Assim a sustentabilidade empresarial tornou-se um objetivo bastante almejado e de fundamental importância não só para as empresas que sofrem constantes pressões sociais, mas também para toda a humanidade. Por esses motivos, cada vez mais empresas estão adotando relatórios de sustentabilidade para demonstrar seu engajamento com a sustentabilidade empresarial. Para tanto, é preciso utilizar indicadores adequados para a mensuração de desempenho dessas organizações em relação à sustentabilidade. Assim, esta dissertação analisou relatórios de sustentabilidade e identificou que o relatório de sustentabilidade GRI vem sendo utilizado não apenas como um relatório de transparência mas como um certificador, portanto tem como objetivo avaliar se o GRI pode ser analisada como ferramenta adequada para a caracterização de empresas brasileiras enquanto sustentáveis, por meio de revisão bibliográfica, pesquisa em modelos de indicadores de sustentabilidade e análise dos relatórios das seis empresas brasileiras atestadas como A+. Como resultado desta pesquisa verificou-se que o GRI deve ser melhorado em vários e importantes aspectos para que possa ser usado como certificador da Sustentabilidade Empresarial. / The significant increase of deteriorating environmental and social conditions in many parts of the world indicate that sustainability as a whole may be threatened. Thus corporate sustainability has become a very desired objective and of fundamental importance not only for companies that suffer constant social pressures, but also for all mankind. Thus, seek sustainability has come to represent a real need for organizations to be able to survive. For these reasons more and more companies are adopting sustainability reports to demonstrate their commitment to corporate sustainability. Thus, this dissertation examined sustainability reports and identified the GRI sustainability report has been used not only as a transparency report but as a certifier therefore aims to evaluate whether the GRI can be considered as suitable tool for characterizing companies while Brazilian sustainable, through literature review, research on models of sustainability indicators and analysis of the reports of the six Brazilian companies certified as A +. As a result of this research it was found that the GRI should be improved in several important respects so that it can be used as certifier Corporate Sustainability.