Sustainability-related media coverage and socioeconomic development: a regional and North–South perspective

Abstract. With this paper we discuss the differences between sustainability-related media agendas across different countries and regions. Utilising a sample of 115 leading national newspapers covering forty-one countries, we show that typically no homogeneous global trends exist with regard to sustainability-related media agendas. Instead, significant differences exist regarding the national-level prioritisations of sustainability-related issues in the countries under review. To some extent, these observed differences can be attributed to different levels of socioeconomic development as measured by Human Development Index scores and gross domestic product per capita. Here, generic differences can be identified between newspapers from the Global North and South, with a range of issues such as climate change emerging as typically Northern issues, whereas issues such as corruption and poverty show significantly higher levels of coverage across newspapers from the Global South. We conclude with a discussion of the results in the context of global environmental governance.

Environmental and social supply chain management sustainability practices: construct development and measurement

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and operationalise the concept of supply chain management sustainability practices. Based on a multi-stage procedure involving a literature review, expert Q-sort and pre-test process, pilot test and survey of 156 supply chain directors and managers in Ireland, we develop a multidimensional conceptualisation and measure of social and environmental supply chain management sustainability practices. The research findings show theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying sustainable supply chain management practices: monitoring, implementing systems, new product and process development and strategy redefinition. A two-factor model is then identified as the most reliable: comprising process-based and market-based practices.

Integrating Land-use Planning and Transportation in Belfast: A New Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This paper aims to outline and evaluate recent efforts to integrate land use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland. Although considerable progress has been made, this paper underlines the extent of existing car dependency in the metropolitan area and prevailing negative attitudes to public transport, and argues that although there is a rhetorical support for the principles of sustainability and the practice of land-use/transportation integration, this is combined with a selective reluctance to embrace local changes in residential environment or in lifestyle preferences which might facilitate such principles.

The Cost of Sustainability Capital and the Creation of Sustainable Value by Companies

We develop and apply a valuation methodology to calculate the cost of sustainability capital, and, eventually, sustainable value creation of companies. Sustainable development posits that decisions must take into account all forms of capital rather than just economic capital. We develop a methodology that allows calculation of the costs that are associated with the use of different forms of capital. Our methodology borrows the idea from financial economics that the return on capital has to cover the cost of capital. Capital costs are determined as opportunity costs, that is, the forgone returns that would have been created by alternative investments. We apply and extend the logic of opportunity costs to the valuation not only of economic capital but also of other forms of capital. This allows (a) integrated analysis of use of different forms of capital based on a value-based aggregation of different forms of capital, (b) determination of the opportunity cost of a bundle of different forms of capital used in a company, called cost of sustainability capital, (c) calculation of sustainability efficiency of companies, and (d) calculation of sustainable value creation, that is, the value above the cost of sustainability capital. By expanding the well-established logic of the valuation of economic capital in financial markets to cover other forms of capital, we provide a methodology that allows determination of the most efficient allocation of sustainability capital for sustainable value creation in companies. We demonstrate the practicability of the methodology by the valuation of the sustainability performance of British Petroleum (BP).

The Sustainability Balanced Scorecard. Linking Sustainability Management to Business Strategy.

The Balanced Scorecard of Kaplan and Norton is a management tool that supports the successful implementation of corporate strategies. It has been discussed and considered widely in both practice and research. By linking operational and non-financial corporate activities with causal chains to the firm's long-term strategy, the Balanced Scorecard supports the alignment and management of all corporate activities according to their strategic relevance. The Balanced Scorecard makes it possible to take into account non-monetary strategic success factors that significantly impact the economic success of a business. The Balanced Scorecard is thus a promising starting-point to also incorporate environmental and social aspects into the main management system of a firm. Sustainability management with the Balanced Scorecard helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental and social management systems by integrating the three pillars of sustainability into a single and overarching strategic management tool. After a brief discussion of the different possible forms of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard the article takes a closer look at the process and steps of formulating a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for a business unit. Before doing so, the basic conventional approach of the Balanced Scorecard and its suitability for sustainability management will be outlined in brief.

Making sustainability ‘real’: using group-enquiry to promote education

Sustainable development is now widely held as a transcendental ideal of town and country planning, yet the way in which it is taught in planning schools remains problematic. This arises from a range of factors, including the all-persuasive nature of sustainability and the lack of solid examples of success through implementation. The issue of how best to promote learning for sustainable development in planning has arguably intensified in the last two years in the case of the Royal Town Planning Institute- sponsored ‘fast track’ one-year Masters, which has reduced the opportunities for students to engage in wider (and perhaps even deeper) concepts, including that of sustainable development. This paper explores this through discussion of a specific project developed at Queen’s University Belfast, facilitated by a grant from the UK Higher Education Academy. Working with a local community, this entailed a group of students working on their Masters thesis collectively addressing issues of sustainable regeneration in a small Irish market town. The design of the project draws heavily on the concepts of enquiry based learning, experiential learning and action competence, whichare seen as being central to improving education for sustainable development (ESD). The paper explores the benefits of such an approach and discusses the ways in which this experience can help enhance student’s experience of ESD.

What the Papers Say: Trends in Sustainability

This paper presents an overview of the results of a longitudinal analysis of the coverage of sustainability-related concepts in 115 leading national newspapers worldwide between January 1990 and July 2008, covering approximately 20,500,000 articles in 340,000 newspaper issues in 39 countries. On a global level, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility seem to have reached the mainstream public arena, whereas the coverage of corporate citizenship and corporate sustainability remains marginal. The increase in sustainability related media coverage since 1990 largely seems to be of an incremental nature, rather than clearly associated with specific events. Only very few truly global events can be identified that triggered a substantial amount of media coverage globally. Furthermore, marked regional and national differences in the coverage of sustainability related concepts can be identified.

Capital substitutability and weak sustainability revisited: The conditions for capital substitution in the presence of risk

The capital approach is frequently used to model sustainability. A development is deemed to be sustainable when capital is not reduced. There are different definitions of sustainability, based on whether or not they allow that different forms of capital may be substituted for each other. A development that allows for the substitution of different forms of capital is called weakly sustainable. This article shows that in a risky world and a risk-averse society even under the assumptions of weak sustainability the circumstances under which different forms of capital may be substituted are limited. This is due to the risk-reducing effect of diversification. Using Modern Portfolio Theory this article shows under which conditions substitution of different forms of capital increases risk for future generations.

Media coverage of sustainable development issues – attention cycles or punctuated equilibrium?

Over the last two decades there has been a marked change in the way that the public perceives environmental issues and the concepts associated with sustainable development. Few would argue that this has moved into the mainstream of public consciousness. Coverage of sustainability related concepts within the media, as illustrated by a sample of 112 worldwide newspapers, shows a clear upward trajectory. Taking the example of climate change and sustainable development this paper explores this increasing coverage, and arguably awareness of, sustainability concepts and considers parallels with the concepts of punctuated equilibrium and issue-attention cycles.

What Happened to the ‘Development’ in Sustainable Development? Business Guidelines Two Decades After Brundtland

Over twenty years ago ‘Our Common Future’ presented a conceptualization and explanation of the concept of sustainable development. Since then numerous alternative definitions of the concept have been offered, of which at least some are exclusive to each other. At the same time, the role of business in the transition to sustainable development has increasingly received attention. Bringing these two trends in sustainable development together, this paper returns to the Brundtland version of the concept to examine to what extent the original principles of sustainable development are still embedded within key business guidelines, namely the UN Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the ICC Business Charter for Sustainable Development, the CAUX Principles, the Global Sullivan Principles and the CERES Principles. The findings suggest that these business guidelines tend to emphasize environmental rather than social aspects of sustainable development, in particular to the detriment of the original Brundtland prioritization of the needs of the poorest. Furthermore, the attention to environmental aspects stresses win-win situations and has a clear managerialist focus; whereas more conceptual environmental issues concerning systems interdependencies, critical thresholds or systemic limits to growth find little attention. The normative codes and principles targeted at the private sector thus not only add another voice to the multiple discourses on sustainable development but also contribute to a reinterpretation of the original agenda set by Brundtland towards conceptualizations of sustainable development around the needs of industrialised rather than developing countries. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Regenerative Medicine and New Labour Life Science Policy: Rhetorics of Success, Narratives of Sustainability and Survival

Advances in stem cell science and tissue engineering are being turned into applications and products through a novel medical paradigm known as regenerative medicine. This paper begins by examining the vulnerabilities and risks encountered by the regenerative medicine industry during a pivotal moment in its scientific infancy: the 2000s. Under the auspices of New Labour, British medical scientists and life science innovation firms associated with regenerative medicine, received demonstrative rhetorical pledges of support, aligned with the publication of a number of government initiated reports presaged by Bioscience 2015: Improving National Health, Increasing National Wealth. The Department of Health and the Department of Trade and Industry (and its successors) held industry consultations to determine the best means by which innovative bioscience cultures might be promoted and sustained in Britain. Bioscience 2015 encapsulates the first chapter of this sustainability narrative. By 2009, the tone of this storyline had changed to one of survivability. In the second part of the paper, we explore the ministerial interpretation of the ‘bioscience discussion cycle’ that embodies this narrative of expectation, using a computer-aided content analysis programme. Our analysis notes that the ministerial interpretation of these reports has continued to place key emphasis upon the distinctive and exceptional characteristics of the life science industries, such as their ability to perpetuate innovations in regenerative medicine and the optimism this portends – even though many of the economic expectations associated with this industry have remained unfulfilled.

Energy sustainability indicators for urban environments

Sustainable development comprises of three dimensions. The three dimensions are the environment, the social and the economic. There have been many indicators used to measure the three dimensions of sustainability. For example air pollution, consumption of natural resources, quality of open space, noise, equity and opportunities and economic benefits from transport and land use. Urban areas constitute the most crucial factor in the sustainability. Urban systems affect and are affected by natural systems beyond their physical boundaries and in general the interdependence between the urban system and the regional and global environment is not reflected in urban decision making. The use of energy in the urban system constitutes the major element in the construction and function of urban areas. Energy impacts across the boundaries of the three dimensions of sustainability. The objective of this research is to apply energy-use-indicators to the urban system as a measure of sustainability. This methodology is applied to a case study in the United Kingdom.