Accountability under GRI Standard for Biodiversity Impacts: A comprehensive analysis in the cruise industry

This study investigates the accountability of cruise corporations regarding their impact on marine biodiversity. It examines the linkages between waste management practices on-board cruise ships and marine biodiversity. This study also investigates into the role of new technologies and renewable resources as enablers in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG#14) defined in the United Nations' (UN) 2030 Agenda. Specifically, it deepens biodiversity accounting through the analysis of sustainability reports published by major cruise corporations that aim to gain legitimacy from stakeholders about their behaviors in mitigating climate changes. Therefore, this study analysis the content of the biodiversity disclosure of the major cruise corporations in the cruise industry, i.e. Carnival Corporation Plc, Royal Caribbean Group, Norwegian Cruise Line Holding Ltd., and MSC Cruise. The data collection is composed of over 20 documents published from 2018 to 2022 including sustainability reports and website pages through which the major cruise corporations, which cover over 80% of the cruise market, narrate their commitment to marine biodiversity protection by adopting initiatives, practices and environmental scores according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standard for Biodiversity Impacts. This study highlights interesting results allowing to discuss the of cruise corporations, which may not align with their actual practices

Disability in EU’s Institutional Discourse: An Analysis of Terminology

During the last decades, disability policy has undergone considerable changes at European level, evolving from a disregarded branch of social policy to an essential area centered on equal rights and non-discrimination. In this context, terminology and definitions have proved to be of pivotal importance since they can bear and impose more or less appropriate theoretical perspectives, depending on the prevailing ideologies within society in different historical periods (Priestley 2007). Drawing on the assumption that the way disability is linguistically and discursively construed at institutional level has a crucial effect on how it is experienced, the activities of supra-national institutions appear all the more central to how disability is structured in relation to social policy, change, and politics. Within the context of the EU, the European Commission seems particularly relevant since it plays a major role in policy development. In fact, although the Parliament can amend or veto legislative acts, only the Commission can propose new legislation. This study concentrates on disability-related legislation and strategies – which increasingly shape the lives of about 87 million disabled people estimated to live in Europe – by investigating how disability is framed in the EU’s institutional discourse. Linguistic (qualitative and quantitative) analysis of two of the most recent documents issued by the European Commission (namely the European Disability Strategy 2010–2020 and the European Disability Strategy 2021–2030) is meant to explore the main principles through which disability is theorised and construed in relation to the dominant ideological system of beliefs and values (Drake 1999; Grue 2020). Against the backdrop of previous research (Waldschmidt 2009) which took into account EU disability-related documents over a time-span ranging from 1958 to 2005, this paper seeks to shed light on the way discourses about disability are created and perpetuated, to be then translated into policy outcomes in the last decades and the years to come

Formare all’uso dell’intelligenza. Le nuove tecnologie per il pensiero critico-riflessivo

The innovative aspect of developing educational paths linked to new technologies is not de-termined by their presence, but rather by the reference to the logic and methods used to im-plement them, in line with a precise theory of training expressed in the educational project.The aim of this contribution is to identify strategic visions and areas of work that can inte-grate educational possibilities into a unified training environment for the formation of criticalthinking, starting from the discussion on the impact of technologies on learning processes