Support in higher education is an emerging area of great interest to professors, researchers and students in academic institutions. Sustainability in Higher Education provides discussions on the exchange of information between different aspects of sustainability in higher education. This book includes chapter contributions from authors who have provided case studies on various areas of education for sustainability. - Focus on sustainability - Present studies in aspects related with higher education - Explores a variety of educational aspects from an sustainable perspective
Methods in Sustainability Science: Assessment, Prioritization, Improvement, Design and Optimization presents cutting edge, detailed methodologies needed to create sustainable growth in any field or industry, including life cycle assessments, building design, and energy systems. The book utilized a systematic structured approach to each of the methodologies described in an interdisciplinary way to ensure the methodologies are applicable in the real world, including case studies to demonstrate the methods. The chapters are written by a global team of authors in a variety of sustainability related fields. Methods in Sustainability Science: Assessment, Prioritization, Improvement, Design and Optimization will provide academics, researchers and practitioners in sustainability, especially environmental science and environmental engineering, with the most recent methodologies needed to maintain a sustainable future. It is also a necessary read for postgraduates in sustainability, as well as academics and researchers in energy and chemical engineering who need to ensure their industrial methodologies are sustainable. - Provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent methodologies in sustainability assessment, prioritization, improvement, design and optimization - Sections are organized in a systematic and logical way to clearly present the most recent methodologies for sustainability and the chapters utilize an interdisciplinary approach that covers all considerations of sustainability - Includes detailed case studies demonstrating the efficacies of the described methods
The book identifies the specific ethical aspects of sustainability and develops ethical tools to analyze them. It also provides a methodological framework to integrate ethical and scientific analyses of sustainability issues, and explores the notion of a new type of self-reflective inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research. With this, the book aims to strengthen the overall ability of academics to contribute to the analysis and solution of sustainability issues in an inclusive and integrated way.
‘Transdisciplinarity’ is a form of research and practice that synthesises knowledge from a range of academic disciplines and from the community. There is now global interest and a significant body of work on transdisciplinarity and its potential to address the apparently intractable problems of society. This creates the opportunity for a specific focus on its practical application to sustainability issues. Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes examines the role of transdisciplinarity in the transformations needed for a sustainable world. After an historical overview of transdisciplinarity, Part I focuses on tools and frameworks to achieve sustainability outcomes in practice and Part II consolidates work by a number of scholars on supporting transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners. Part III is a series of case studies including several international examples that demonstrate the challenges and rewards of transdisciplinary work. The concluding chapter proposes a future research pathway for understanding the human factors that underpin successful transdisciplinary research. As Emeritus Professor Valerie Brown AO notes in her Preface, this book moves transdisciplinary inquiry into the academic and social mainstream. It will be of great interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainability, qualitative research methods, environmental impact assessment and development studies.
The growing urgency, complexity and "wickedness" of sustainability problems—from climate change and biodiversity loss to ecosystem degradation and persistent poverty and inequality—present fundamental challenges to scientific knowledge production and its use. While there is little doubt that science has a crucial role to play in our ability to pursue sustainability goals, critical questions remain as to how to most effectively organize research and connect it to actions that advance social and natural wellbeing. Drawing on interviews with leading sustainability scientists, this book examines how researchers in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of sustainability science are attempting to define sustainability, establish research agendas, and link the knowledge they produce to societal action. Pairing these insights with case studies of innovative sustainability research centres, the book reformulates the sustainability science research agenda and its relationship to decision-making and social action. It repositions the field as a "science of design" that aims to enrich public reasoning and deliberation while also working to generate social and technological innovations for a more sustainable future. This timely book gives students, researchers and practitioners a valuable and unique analysis of the emergence of sustainability science, and both the opportunities and barriers faced by scientific efforts to contribute to social action.
This edited book presents cutting edge international research in operations management sustainability and topical research themes. As the sustainability agenda gains greater prominence and momentum throughout society, business actors and stakeholders are increasingly concerned with the impact of current business operations. There is a growing need for OM research and practice which reflects these concerns. Based on demands from industry and society at large, universities and schools now develop academic programs which are meant to serve this need – yet there is no clear and manifest research program concerning OM and sustainability. This book is of use to both researchers orientating themselves in this new and exciting field and educators seeking inspiration to develop new courses.
With "Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation," first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowldege - including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.
Environmental sustainability practice and research have advanced over the past decade from novelty to near-mainstream status today. During this environmentally critical time period, sustainability practitioner techniques, such as environmental, energy and social auditing, other sustainability information and related systems, and a wide variety of environmental sustainability approaches have been developed, improved and institutionalised, advancing both the practice and research of environmental sustainability management and policy. However, academics and practitioners in the sustainability field still have widely differing perspectives on what a sustainable organisation is or might be, but seldom take the opportunity to share these respective sustainability visions, let alone the multiple ways to achieve them. New Horizons in Research on Sustainable Organisations is intended to bridge this gap between academics and practitioners with cutting-edge research from both groups on progress towards sustainability. After working on sustainability-related projects involving other academics, both research- and practitioner-oriented graduate students, consultants, managers and activists, the lead co-editors of this volume saw the need to encourage information exchanges among differing networks of sustainability stakeholders to create a pathway for researchers and practitioners in the general area of organisations and the natural environment to address issues of common interest. There are many networks in the general subject area, but the cross-pollination of ideas between academics and practitioners remains sketchy. New Horizons in Research on Sustainable Organisations is intended to present and encourage such cross-pollination. The chapters in this volume are presented in three subsets, generally proceeding from the most "macro" to the most "micro" in terms of perspective and applicability. However, this arbitrary division belies the integration from macro through meso (or mid-range) to micro levels that is apparent in these studies. Macro approaches typically include wider geographic scopes, greater numbers of stakeholders, and more complex explanatory factors than micro approaches. Each chapter adopts one or more particular sustainability world-view and then grounds these and the other chapter elements within actual organisations. Therefore, the reader is advised to envision not a one-dimensional continuum but rather a circle in which the macro view both feeds back and feeds forward to the micro view. This volume addresses a number of intriguing and important sustainable organisation phenomena such as multiple sustainable development perspectives, changing environmental politics, environmental management systems variations, voluntary environmental programme performance, complex adaptive systems, and environmental technology development. Additionally, several models are suggested, such as cultivation, capabilities and business ecology frameworks.
