This book focuses on CSR in the public sector, in all its manifestations around the world, in order to consider its application in practice and its connections to sustainable objectives. This book is unique in that all chapters were written by members of the Social Responsibility Research Network. Their ideas have been tested and refined through the feedback given after they were presented at the 16th International Conference. The approach used in this book is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network - a worldwide body of scholars that, over its 20-year history, has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and business-relevant. The book examines diverse aspects of how CSR and sustainability apply to, and are applied by, a variety of public bodies in a variety of ways. Thus, the authors focus on the priorities of these organisations, in order to consider the extent to which the focus has changed so much that we need to think about new approaches to our understanding of CSR and sustainability and differing effects in practice. The international mix of authors makes this an original contribution, sharing some of the best ideas from around the world

The book includes empirical research papers and case studies embracing human capital, relational capital and structural capital in context to services and manufacturing sectors. It will highlight on the sustainable business practices manifested in the work culture, values and beliefs in context to rural regions. From a learning and managerial perspective, the book will identify effective business practices in varied service and manufacturing sectors significant for sustaining business performance and competitive advantage.

This book gathers selected papers from the International Conference on Sustainable Design, Engineering, Management and Sciences (ICSDEMS 2019), held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It highlights recent advances in civil engineering and sustainability, bringing together researchers and professionals to address the latest, most relevant issues in these areas.

This book explores the concepts of sustainability and governance in relation to the governance of corporations - hence the ubiquity of the term corporate governance - and other bodies. It examines how these concepts are regularly used by politicians and by the media. The two concepts are however largely treated as being separate and discrete, and given equal coverage. The argument in this book is that the two concepts are inter-related and that good governance is a prerequisite for sustainability. The focus of the book therefore is different from most, as it seeks to integrate these two important issues. The approach used in this book is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network - a worldwide body of scholars that, over its 20-year history, has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and business-relevant. The book examines diverse aspects of the changes to corporate and institutional behaviour that have recently manifested by focusing on these two aspects of sustainable development. Thus, the authors explore engagement and partnership between organisations, in order to consider the extent to which the focus has changed so much that we need to think about new approaches to our understanding of sustainability and differing effects in practice. The international mix of authors makes this an original contribution, sharing some of the best ideas from around the world.

This book studies Australia, a country characterized by the highest concentration of domestic photovoltaic systems. In addition, the high level of solar energy that Australia receives makes these systems a significant part of its energy mix. International electricity system managers take note; your systems are heading this way. The energy transition is an emerging field, and few texts have been published that can help energy planners as this book does. The research presented is sociotechnical in nature, and reveals that the main challenge in the energy transition is its emerging social role. Very few works combine the social and technical fields of energy. Given its scope, the book will appeal to readers interested in policy, regulation, and energy systems, including government employees involved in energy system management all around the world.

This book elaborates on the combined challenges regarding intrapreneurship, sustainability of human resources management (HRM) and digital transformation faced by today's organizations. Representing the first such attempt in current management literature, it explores the sustainable HRM approach, which focuses on connecting internal and external factors so as to achieve positive outcomes not only for the respective organization but also for the society, economy, and environment. It also discusses cases related to HRM's role in establishing a corporate sustainability culture, while also working to promote employee engagement, satisfaction, performance and well-being. In closing, the book discusses the new opportunities provided by digitalization and connectivity in the field of intellectual capital, which make employees the central focus of the organization in order to create sustainable competitive advantages.

The role of big finance and technology in social change is rapidly evolving. This book examines why large financial players are entering the social sector through social finance. Drawing on empirical research, the authors analyse the opportunities this new interest and commitment presents as well as the potential harm that can be done to vulnerable people when beneficiaries are not treated as partners and the social needs of people are not placed at the centre of the investment model. This book introduces a 'Deliberate Leadership' framework to help big finance tackle problems with no easy solutions. The book also analyses how current technologies (including blockchain) are being used and the benefits and drawbacks of different features of these technologies from the standpoint of the beneficiary and investor. The authors derive a series of insights into the model of technology for social finance and impact investing. Written as a practical book for students alongside a field book based on an action learning methodology, this volume will be useful to those in social finance and impact investing.

Today, early-stage investors and entrepreneurs find themselves in a dilemma in which they must choose between profit and impact; between traditional, for-profit-only models on the one hand, and multiple-bottom-line structures with a positive social or environmental impact on the other. At a time in which climate change, exponentially growing technologies, social polarization, and looming pandemics are calling into question humanity's priorities, this Report to the Club of Rome and the World Academy of Art and Science dissolves this dilemma by proposing a new investment paradigm, namely Integral Investing.Integral Investing incorporates and transcends the best practices of both traditional venture capital and impact investing. It provides a seamless integration and shows how technological progress need not be our rival, but can instead be our ally in ensuring the prosperous society we all want. Drawing on her own investments and stellar track record since 1995, the author reveals the mechanism of Integral Investing. At the heart of it is a powerful, 360-degree de-risking tool called the Theta Model, which reveals how to make smart investment decisions based on the comprehensive integration of traditional due-diligence criteria, sustainability metrics, and assessments of the founders' and team culture. But it doesn't stop there. In turn, this handbook demonstrates how to use human-centered AI to scale and digitalize the investment process. The goal here is to accelerate the use of exponential tech, capital, and consciousness leadership to transition to a sustainable global society: a process the author refers to as the Investment Turnaround. The 21 principles of Integral Investing, which she defines using Ken Wilber's Integral Theory, lead to her manifesto on how to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals within Planetary Boundaries by 2050 through early-stage investing and entrepreneurship. Similar to the 15th century, when the Medicis inspired the Renaissance, today humanity is once again at a crucial turning point where pioneering public and private financiers, investors, entrepreneurs, and other committed individuals have the opportunity to leave behind the legacy of a prosperous society. This handbook provides a source of inspiration, and shows how self-actualization, a positive mindset, and a consciousness that is backed by a world-centric desire can become the driving force for solving the global grand challenges.

This book explores China's low-carbon consumption in the context of residential behaviour, corporate practices and policy Implication. It first calculates the carbon and ecological footprints of residential consumption, including both direct and indirect emissions, before discussing Chinese residential behavioural aspects and determinants of electricity saving, low-carbon transportation, low-carbon product purchasing, and e-waste recycling. The authors then investigate the relationship between industrial growth and carbon emissions, using the example of the iron and steel industry to examine the motivation for energy intensive industries to reduce carbon emissions. They also consider energy efficiency and inter-company collaboration on carbon emission reduction. Lastly, the book describes the major low-carbon policies in China and their impact, economic cost and public acceptance.

This edited collection explores the challenges and opportunities presented by the transition to a low carbon economy, and outlines the different approaches taken to ensure the sustainability of such a transition. Chapters explore the nature of the transformation from a 'brown' to 'green' economy, the importance of effective carbon measurement and management methodologies, the use of behaviour economics, and the application of a growth-enabling approach. Offering valuable insights into how various stakeholders respond to the challenges of green growth and focusing in particular on the support of universities, The Low Carbon Economy covers themes of leadership, systems approach, stakeholder management, and collaborative action. This comprehensive study provides readers with constructive ideas for maximising the opportunities of transitioning to a low carbon economy, and will serve as a useful tool for practitioners and academics interested in sustainability.

Today's financial sector faces multiple challenges stemming from ecological, societal, and technological risks such as climate change, political extremism, and cyber-attacks. However, these non-traditional risks are yet to be fully identified and measured, in order to ensure their successful management. This edited collection sheds light on the topic by examining the unique measurement and modelling challenges associated with each of these risks, and their interaction with finance. Offering a comprehensive analysis of non-traditional finance risks, the authors provide the basis for developing appropriate risk management techniques. With new approaches to protect against emerging threats to the financial sector, this edited collection will appeal to academics researching sustainability, development finance, and risk management, as well as policy-makers and practitioners within the banking sector.

This book gathers the best papers presented at the 11th Tourism Outlook Conference, held in Eskisehir, Turkey, from 3 to 5 October 2018. Covering various aspects of heritage and its effects on tourism issues, the contributions provide a multidisciplinary perspective on emerging issues and challenges in the area. The book also analyzes both the tangible and intangible properties of natural, cultural, and historical heritage and how these relate to and influence tourism, and evaluates the importance and role of heritage in tourism destinations and products. By providing a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogues that integrate research and insights from diverse geographical, sectoral and institutional perspectives, the book allows readers to gain a better understanding of heritage tourism.

The term 'overtourism' has come into prominence since 2017 and refers to the fact that, due to various factors such as more sophisticated marketing strategies, a large number of tourists visit the same place at the same time. The consequences are felt by the locals, the tourists themselves as well as the environment. As a result, tourismphobia and anti-tourism movements have emerged as ways for locals to reclaim their lifestyle by refusing to interact with visitors and sometimes discouraging them to visit. This book presents new research on this emerging phenomenon and discusses the main causes and implications before putting forward possible solutions. The authors take an interpretivist approach in order to unveil aspects of overtourism that have not yet been discussed. It provides case studies and explores topics such as tourism education, overtourism of cultural and heritage sites, and the need for sustainable tourism development.

This book provides a solid foundation for a comprehensive, systemic and water-centric approach to water management. Said approach integrates two performance principles essential for sustainable water use systems, namely equity and efficiency. Further, it decreases the policy space for decision-making encountered by water managers and makes it easier to arrive at reasonable solutions because of the bounded rationality inherent in its development. By combining the distributive and aggregative principles, the approach offers a transparent and autonomous structure for gathering water data and enabling stakeholder involvement. Lastly, it employs and promotes a unifying language for all types of water use systems, e.g. urban, agricultural and industrial.

This open access book summarizes research being pursued within the FENIX project, funded by the EU community under the H2020 programme, the goal of which is to design a new product service paradigm able to promote innovative business models, to open added value to the vessels and to create new market segments. It experiments and validates its approach on three new concepts of added-value specialized vessels able to run requested services for several maritime sectors in the most effective, efficient, economic valuable and eco-friendly way. The three vessels share the same lean design methodology, IoT tools and HPC simulation strategy: a lean fact-based design model approach, which combines real operative data at sea with lean methodology, to support the development and implementation of the vessel concepts; IT customized tools to enable the acquisition, processing and usage of on board and local weather data, through an IoT platform, to provide business services to different stakeholders; HPC simulation, providing a virtual towing tank environment, for early vessel design improvement and testing. The book demonstrates that an integrated LCC analysis and LCC strategy to guarantee sustainability to vessels concepts and the proper environmental attention inside the maritime industry.

This book provides an original analysis of the problems of ensuring that oil ports are sustainable in the broadest sense of the concept including environmental, social, technical and resource aspects. Taking China as its frame for analysis, chosen because of the authors' expertise and because it is the largest oil import country in the world, much of it by ship, it presents a detailed investigation of the issues that make up a sustainable port profile, using a variety of established statistical and operational techniques These are examined before an holistic model is derived. Recommendations are provided for future application both in China and elsewhere and also a range of ways suggested for how the framework could be adapted to other types of ports and locations.

Fostering inclusive green growth in Africa means addressing existing and emerging development challenges, while efficiently managing Africa's natural capital and building resilience to environmental, social and economic risks. Although this new paradigm for development has the potential to create tremendous business opportunities, there are also challenges. This book provides empirical evidence on the conditions for the emergence of green businesses in Africa. It includes 13 case studies, which identify the determinants of small and medium-size enterprises' engagement in inclusive and sustainable growth in rural Africa, and the factors that hinder eco-innovation in business and entrepreneurial activities. Furthermore it discusses appropriate regulations and policies to stimulate the development of green business in Africa. Offering insights into the relationship between eco-innovation, labor productivity and business competitiveness in rural Africa, this book appeals to scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested in a green economy for Africa.

This book analyses state-of-the-art techniques in business process management as drivers of advanced entrepreneurship, financial management, supply chain management, and sustainability management. The role of management in a rapidly-changing environment and the use of innovative methods and techniques to address and solve key management problems are also explored.

This book aims to investigate a long-term strategy for sustainable urban logistics. The literature evidence exhibits that considerable research on urban logistics lacks long-term planning and rarely considers the urban spatial development and integration of urban distribution innovations. Currently, 11 distribution innovations can be used for future sustainable urban freight transport. According to a systematic discussion, this book formulates the conceptual model of Sustainable Inner-urban Intermodal Transportation (SIUIT) for future urban logistics. Moreover, a comprehensive analysis illustrates that future integrations of distribution innovations comprise operational and technological integration. To this end, the morphological analysis method is employed to discuss their feasible solutions based on the SIUIT model. After that, combined with the trend exploration of urban spatial development on large- and megacities, this book constructs the 2.x Modula & Sustainable Urban Freight Network to improve the flexibility of the future sustainable logistics transformation. About the AuthorDr. rer. pol. Zhangyuan He graduated from the University of Bremen. He currently undertakes postdoctoral research at the School of Urban Planning and Design, Peking University.

The book provides a holistic and practical approach to lean management throughout the business value chain. The lean management framework and tools demonstrate the optimal design and use of methods, tools and principles for companies and organisations. The author describes comprehensively how lean management enables companies to concentrate on value-adding activities and processes to achieve a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. A wealth of best practices, industry examples and case studies are used to reveal the diversity and opportunities of lean management methodologies, methods and principles. Moreover, the book shows how lean management principles are ultimately applied in industries like automotive, healthcare, education and services industries.

This book aims to cover the multitude of corporate approaches towards mainstreaming biodiversity conservation and ecological management in policies and action plans, and explores the roles of these efforts in achieving national and global targets for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The book addresses various aspects of corporate actions such as corporate environmental responsibility, green businesses, market-based approaches to biodiversity conservation, and biodiversity trade-offs, and includes concept papers, reviews, and case studies presenting qualitative and quantitative research. Additionally, the text compares and assesses examples of positive and negative impacts of corporate involvement in biodiversity conservation in developed and developing countries to identify innovative approaches, and the best practices and models that can be replicated in diverse environmental conditions. The studies included in the book will help those working in the field of corporate involvement in biodiversity conservation, and outline the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches which will be useful for designing new environmental management action plans in the face of climate change. The book will also be of great value to researchers, academicians, policy makers, civil society groups, policy think tanks, and conservation managers.

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the 6th European Lean Educator Conference (ELEC), held in Milan, Italy, on November 11-13, 2019. The conference topics include the following: lean trainings in university and industry collaborations; lean product and process development; lean and people empowerment; emerging contexts for lean applications; measuring lean performance; lean, green and circular; continuous improvement initiatives; lean thinking in practice; organizational culture in lean journeys; and innovative training approaches to teaching lean management. The contributions explore the latest academic and industrial findings on and advances in lean education, and identify innovative methods that allow lean thinking benefits to be achieved in practice. As such, the book presents the outcomes of a fruitful exchange between academia and industry designed to help train the next generation of lean educators.

Sustainable innovation (SI) is considered to be a key driver of societal progress in an era of enormous economic, environmental and societal challenges, and the uncertainties and future consequences that come with them. This book provides evidence, insights and reflections related to specific issues of governance, the management of sustainable innovation and applying a multi-level, multi-stakeholder approach to sustainable innovation analysis. Building on the European Commission (EU) funded research project "Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for the Assessment and Management of Sustainable innovation" (CASI), it presents tools for assessing and managing sustainable innovation, and reflects on SI-related policies as well as citizens' aspirations. The book is intended for scholars in the field of sustainable innovation, as well as to policymakers, innovators, students and citizens.

This book is intended for human resources management academics, researchers, students, organizational leaders and managers, HR Practitioners, and those responsible for helping support employees in the 21st-century workplace. It offers a path forward to create an environment that will not only build a healthier workplace by providing appropriate and effective well-being interventions but also offers solutions to manage multi-generational and 'holistic' employees within the employment relationship. The book describes the factors that promote healthy and WELL organizations and introduces concepts and strategies to reduce workplace stress and mental health issues and improve workplace well-being toward sustained organizational success. Employers that embrace the corporate responsibility of promoting the health and well-being of multi-generational, holistic employees will reap cost savings, employee engagement, and productivity advantages, as well as a healthier and more productive workforce.