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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Applied ecology
Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given
area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject
in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of
travel. They are relevant but also visionary. In a world confronted
with escalating environmental crises, are academics asking the
right questions and advocating the best solutions? This Research
Agenda paves the way for new and established scholars in the field,
identifying the significant gaps in research and emerging issues
for future generations in global environmental politics. From an
analysis of state and non-state environmental governance to the
politics of climate change, food sustainability, forests and
oceans, the preeminent academics and leading researchers take an
important step in establishing an agenda for the future trajectory
of research. Split into three sections - global environmental
governance, the politics of environmental problems, and engaged
research and scholar activism - chapters discuss the most
influential steps in recent environmental and political studies and
offer original perspectives on the future trends. Inspiring the
next generation of academics and activists, this Research Agenda
provides excellent guidance for graduate students and supervisors
looking for the most innovative and pressing research questions in
environmental politics. Contributors include: J. Alger, T.A.
Balag'kutu, J.S. Barkin, H. Bulkeley, J. Clapp, M. Cooper, P.
Dauvergne, E.R. DeSombre, L. Gulbrandsen, M. Hoffmann, S. Klinsky,
J.J. McSparren, K.J. Neville, K. O'Neill, S. Park, F.A. Peck, P.
Stephens, J. Stripple, J. Timmons Roberts, S.D. VanDeveer, E.
Weinthal
"The history of water development . . . offers a particularly fine
post for observing the astonishing and implausible workings of
historical change and, in response, for cultivating an appropriate
level of humility and modesty in our anticipations of our own
unknowable future."
Tracing the origins and growth of the Denver Water Department, this
study of water and its unique role and history in the West, as well
as in the nation, raises questions about the complex relationship
among cities, suburbs, and rural areas, allowing us to consider
this precious resource and its past, present, and future with both
optimism and realism.
Patricia Nelson Limerick is the faculty director and board chair of
the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado,
where she is also a professor of history and environmental studies.
She currently serves as the vice president for the teaching
division of the American Historical Association. Her most widely
read book, "The Legacy of Conquest," is in its twenty-fifth year of
publication.
Jason L. Hanson is a member of the research faculty at the Center
of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
where his work focuses on natural resource use and the environment.
He lives in Denver.
In this book, Chen Gang examines the real-world effectiveness of
China's approach to the promotion of green technologies and
practices, and discusses the political landscape in which it is
situated. Politics of Renewable Energy in China questions the
wisdom of hailing China as a model for authoritarian environmental
governance with an up-to-date examination of the subject. It
provides readers with a thorough and timely account of recent
developments in China's low-carbon energy industries. Disclosing
how energy interest groups are lobbying members of central
government, and shedding light on disputes between pro-development
and pro-environmental groups, this book explores the ideological
and bureaucratic inconsistency and confusion which surrounds
China's environmental policies. Emphasizing China's renewable
energy policies, related enforcement issues and local political
concerns over wind and solar generation, this book examines the
extent to which China's centralised, top down approach has been
effective in ensuring local actors reach policy targets. This
up-to-date account of recent developments in Chinese low-carbon
industries will be useful for readers with an interest in China's
model of renewable energy industries, in particular students of
Chinese and international politics. It will also be a valuable tool
for researchers and professors of public and environmental policy,
Chinese and climate studies.
Sustainable development brings together a series of normative
themes related to negotiating environmental limits, to addressing
equity, needs and development, and to the process of transformation
and transition. To mark the 30th Anniversary of Our Common Future
(1987), that first placed sustainable development on the global
agenda, the editors have brought together a group of international
scholars from a range of social science backgrounds. They have
discussed these same themes ? looking backwards in terms of what
has been achieved, assessing the current situation with respect to
sustainable development, and looking forwards to identify the key
elements of the future agenda. This book presents a series of
critical reflections on these enduring themes. The overriding
concern is with the present and with the future as the editors seek
to explore the question: What next for sustainable development?
How businesses can and are acting to redress social and
environmental issues is a question of growing academic interest.
Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, this
insightful Research Agenda evaluates the current state of the art
of sustainability and business and assesses key challenges for the
field. Multidisciplinary chapters provide instrumental, economic,
network and political perspectives on issues that are crucial in
gaining insight into sustainability challenges facing businesses
today, from socially responsible consumption behaviours and
organisational resilience to climate change and sustainability
transitions in extractive industries. Its diverse contributions
highlight the breadth and depth of analyses and perspectives that
are necessary to set a dynamic agenda for future research on
sustainability and business. Advancing novel research questions and
methodologies, the editors illustrate the path ahead for carrying
out research that impacts the science and practice of business and
sustainability, as well as creating meaningful change for our
species and planet. Offering an advanced yet accessible
introduction to the current state and future direction of
sustainability and business, this incisive Research Agenda will be
an invaluable resource for students and scholars of business,
sustainability studies, and environment studies. Its practical
insights will also benefit MBA students and business executives
moving into sustainability.
Wetlands are vital for human survival. They are among the world's
most productive environments as they are cradles of biological
diversity that provide the water and productivity upon which
countless species of plants and animals depend for survival.
Wetlands provide habitat for thousands of species of aquatic and
terrestrial plants and animals as well as a number of societal
benefits such as food and habitat for fish and wildlife, water
quality improvement, flood storage, shoreline erosion control,
economically beneficial natural products for human use, and
opportunities for recreation, education, and research. According to
the Federal Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Wetlands,
more than one-third of the United States' threatened and endangered
species live only in wetlands, and nearly half use wetlands at some
point in their lives. This book offers a comprehensive look at the
importance of wetland conservation, its challenges, and future
aspects. The book highlights the challenges of wetland conservation
and current scenarios of existing wetlands; the importance of the
inland wetland and its conservation is particularly highlighted as
it is critical and very important in the current existing wetland
scenario. This book is critical for industries, academics, research
scholars, and environmental consultants who are practicing wetland
management.
This book applies ecolinguistics and psychoanalysis to explore how
films fictionalising environmental disasters provide spectacular
warnings against the dangers of environmental apocalypse, while
highlighting that even these apparently environmentally friendly
films can still facilitate problematic real-world changes in how
people treat the environment. Ecological Film Theory and
Psychoanalysis argues that these films exploit cinema’s inherent
Cartesian grammar to construct texts in which not only small groups
of protagonist survivors, but also vicarious spectators,
pleasurably transcend the fictionalised destruction. The
ideological nature of the ‘lifeboats’ on which these survivors
escape, moreover, is accompanied by additional elements that
constitute contemporary Cartesian subjectivity, such as class and
gender binaries, restored nuclear families, individual as opposed
to social responsibilities for disasters, and so on. The book
conducts extensive analyses of these processes, before considering
alternative forms of filmmaking that might avoid the dangers of
this existing form of storytelling. The book’s new ecosophy and
film theory establishes that Cartesian subjectivity is an
environmentally destructive ‘symptom’ that everyday linguistic
activities like watching films reinforce. This book will be of
great interest to students and scholars of film studies, literary
studies (specifically ecocriticism), cultural studies,
ecolinguistics, and ecosophy.
Across the world, companies are trying to create a sustainable
platform through a supply chain to minimize the environmental
impact of their product lines and services on the world's
ecosystem. Enhancing eco-awareness at every operational level of
business operations can positively improve a specific
organization's reputation and legitimize business operation.
Furthermore, sustainable supply chain operations also positively
contribute to financial performance by enhancing productivity and
cost-saving. Emerging Trends in Sustainable Supply Chain Management
and Green Logistics provides relevant practical and theoretical
frameworks and the latest empirical research results in sustainable
supply chain management and considers the strategic role of green
logistics and supply chain management, proper treatment of
end-of-life products recycling, emerging trends, and improvements
in supply chain management and logistics operations. Covering key
topics such as green purchasing, circular economy, and sustainable
development, this reference work is ideal for industry
professionals, business owners, managers, policymakers,
researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors,
and students.
It is not a question whether the world is in transition, rather it
is quite clear to see that the world is transitioning into new
uncharted territories. Digital transformation has taken over the
many facets of management and will create advantages for the
organizations that are innovative with these competitive core
capabilities. From manufacturing to education, every business
sector is shifting their traditional ways of doing business to
reach organizational goals and survive. Innovation takes the lead
here. In this digitalized era, it is obvious that firms and
organizations will not survive if they do not adapt to the changing
demands and business strategies of the new era. New developments in
information technologies provides an essential base for digital
transformation leading to many artificial intelligence
implications. This can lead to time-effectiveness, lowered costs,
better timing, and improved efficiency in personalized products and
services. New forms of work, new performance criteria, new training
and new development programs for employees and new recruitment and
selection procedures will be among the most important issues of new
human resource management systems. This stems from the urgency of
digital transformation in the new World order. All organizations
need to establish new management strategies, policies, and
practices to govern vital transformations in the new age. This will
be achieved by formulating and implementing a digital
transformation strategy which fits to all levels of management in
today's organizations. From supply chain management systems to
human resource management within organizations need to be
transformed accordingly with the digital transformation strategy.
For all these reasons, the latest research on the selected subjects
of leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship will fill a critical
gap in the related literature. This reference book aims to bring
together the emerging topics of digital transformation, information
technologies, new management strategies and digital practices in
human resources and new forms of work. At the same time, it
provides theoretical infrastructure to share the latest empirical
research findings within management, artificial intelligence and
digital business functions and strategies. A tremendous
contribution will be made to the contemporary research on these
subjects by collecting the most up to date research findings and
combining these with the theoretical framework. The most popular
contemporary topics in digitalization in management fields and
information technologies will provide valuable insight for
understanding today's business organizations operating in a global,
dynamic, and complex environment. The chapters of the book will
handle an up-to-date topic, mostly based on technological advances,
and readers will benefit from learning the latest management skills
and techniques. This book will fill a critical gap by providing
digital business strategies and emerging digital human resources
issues from the perspective of innovation.
Climate change and the depletion of resources will have a
long-lasting effect on the globe. Thus, it is essential that
businesses and organizations across the world adopt financial
practices and strategies that allow them to continue their service,
limit emissions, and preserve resources. However, these practices
are only made more difficult to adopt within the context of a
turbulent economy. In this context, it is imperative to research
financial strategies to protect the environment and support
business resilience. Finance for Sustainability in a Turbulent
Economy provides international financial strategies to achieve
sustainable business practices within a turbulent economy. It
highlights the importance of maintaining environmental health in a
cost-effective way. Covering topics such as environmental finance,
renewable energy frameworks, and social responsibility, this
premier reference source is an essential resource for environmental
scientists, government officials, engineers, business executives,
environmentalists, politicians, students and educators of higher
education, researchers, and academicians.
As the importance of corporate social responsibility grows,
especially environmental responsibility, it is imperative to
acknowledge the impact of the individual on a company's
environmental performance. Given that individuals spend much of
their day in the workplace, it is crucial to understand both their
behaviours and the potential impact they can have on the company's
environmental performance and the environment. Bringing together
leading academics from various research fields, this Handbook
examines the features and challenges within the area of employee
pro-environmental behaviour. The Research Handbook on Employee
Pro-Environmental Behaviour brings contributions that consolidate
existing research in the field as well as adding new insights from
organisational psychology, human resource management and social
marketing. Drawing on studies from across the methodological
spectrum, this Handbook covers a broad range of topics from the
antecedents and consequences of employee pro-environmental
behaviour to ways in which employers can encourage
pro-environmental behaviour. This Handbook will be an invaluable
tool for those engaged in research in employee environmental
behaviour and sustainability. It will be especially useful for
postgraduate students of environmental employee behaviour as well
as environmental consultants and practitioners seeking to gain an
understanding of employee behaviour. Contributors include: B.
Asfar, N. Ashkanasy, W. Binney, M. Bissing-Olson, F. Bowen, P.
Bradley, L. Brennan, J. Callewaert, Y.H. Cheung, C. Ciocirlan, M.
Davis, S. Dilchert, C. Dutra, P. Endrejat, S. Fudge, B.
Gatersleben, D. Gregory-Smith, A. Guntner, R. Hahn, S. Kauffeld, R.
Klein, F. Klonek, M. Leach, A. Leung, S. Lockrey, D. Manika, R.
Marans, N. Murtagh, T. Norton, D. Ones, F. Ostertag, P. Paille, S.
Parker, A. Ruepert, S. Russell, I. Shah, A. Shahjahan, W. Staples,
L. Steg, T. Tudor, D. Uzzell, C. Verfuerth, K. Verghese, V. Wells,
B. Wiernik, L. Yang, H. Zacher
The environmental challenges of the twenty-first century have
raised profound questions regarding the suitability of
environmental law to manage the many complex issues at hand. This
insightful book considers how the law has adapted to address these
challenges and considers the ways in which it might be used to cope
with environmental risks and uncertainties, whilst also promoting
resilience and greater equality. The book uses a multi-disciplinary
approach to address the compatibility of law with the notions of
risk and resilience, it scrutinises how capable these approaches
are to effect equitable solutions to environmental risks, and it
raises important questions about multi-level and participatory
governance. Key chapters examine a variety of global experiments in
countries such as China and countries in Latin America, to generate
further governance of the environment, improve the available legal
tools and give a voice to more diverse groups. Students and
scholars across a variety of fields such as environmental studies,
socio-legal studies, law, and risk regulation will find this an
stimulating read. Senior policy-makers in central and local
government, regulators and risk managers will also find this book
imperative in their efforts to manage the dilemmas of environmental
control. Contributors include: F.H. Barnes, D. Curran, C. Holley,
B.M. Hutter, C. Ituarte-Lima, T. Johnson, J. McDonald, L. Patton,
O.W. Pedersen, D. Satterthwaite, E. Sofronova, H. Wang
This innovative book explores the evolution of ecology and how
scientific advances enable the redesign of Protected Areas (PA),
guided by area-specific ecological values and objectives. It argues
that transitions towards science-informed integrated PA systems
could contribute to safeguarding the persistence of biodiversity
and socio-ecological systems. Valentina Dinica proposes a
conceptual framework to integrate the ecological and tourism
aspects of PA regulation, assisting decision-makers to develop
contextually effective regulatory instruments that avoid
over-/under-regulating tourism, given the PA's ecological profiles.
The framework is applied to comparatively evaluate the ecological
representativeness and regulations of PA networks in New Zealand,
Tasmania and Hawaii. The empirical chapters also discuss gaps and
(mis-)alignments between ecology and tourism regulations,
displaying outdated scientific paradigms. The book proposes a new
approach to classifying PAs, to better balance human-nature
relationships. This book will be of interest to students and
academics in public policy, law, ecology, environmental studies,
sustainability sciences, tourism studies, political science and
history of science.
The concept of green business originated recently, but the
phenomenon has a longer history which offers many lessons for today
and the future. This book provides rich new empirical evidence on
green business as it examines its variation between industries and
nations, and over time. It demonstrates the deep historical origins
of endeavors to create for-profit businesses that were more
responsible and sustainable, but also how these strategies have
faced constraints, trade-offs and challenges of legitimacy. Based
on extensive interviews and archives from around the world, the
book asks why green business succeeds more in some contexts than
others and draws lessons from failure as well as success. This book
emphasizes the importance of context for explaining the choices
which explain the varieties of green business. Government policies,
both local and national, cultural and religious values, and
national images, are amongst the contextual factors which are
identified. The book's distinctiveness lies in the use of original
empirical data and the fact that it considers both successful and
unsuccessful cases. An unusually wide geographical scope means that
it covers not only the United States and Europe, but also less
studied settings, including Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand and
Japan. Scholars and students interested in environmental
management; corporate social responsibility; business ethics and
trust; and business and environmental history will find this an
important and fascinating read.
This thought-provoking book introduces a financial economics
perspective to the topic of eco-innovations and, more generally,
sociotechnical transitions. It develops a model that illustrates
how financial constraints can prevent the development of
eco-innovations within companies and hinder the transition process
towards a more sustainable regime. Edgardo Sica presents a review
of the state of the art, as well as new data from original surveys
aimed at testing the impact of financial constraints on
eco-innovative decisions at radical and niche levels. He proposes a
definitive conceptualisation of eco-innovations while stressing the
relevance of the environmental performance of innovations, rather
than the environmental motivation of the innovators. Through the
use of a unique multilevel perspective model, the book critically
analyses the extent to which financial constraints can hinder
eco-innovative decisions, thereby crucially filling a gap in the
current literature on eco-innovations. Firms, Finance and
Sustainable Transitions will prove a stimulating read for
academics, researchers and experts within the fields of
eco-innovations, sustainable development, financial and
environmental economics, and green finance.
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