Does religion promote environmental sustainability? : exploring the role of religion in local energy transitions

This article explores the role of religion in local energy transition processes. By combining insights from (a) sustainability studies and (b) academic contributions on religion and sustainability, a theoretical approach for describing the role of religion in local energy transitions is developed. Religion is conceived of as a subsystem among other local subsystems that potentially contribute via their competences to energy transition processes. Three potential functions of religion are identified: (1) Campaigning and intermediation in the public sphere; (2) “Materialization” of transitions in the form of participation in projects related to sustainable transitions; and (3) Dissemination of values and worldviews that empower environmental attitudes and action. These functions are studied in the case of the energy transition in Emden, a city in North-Western Germany. Although religion attends, to some degree, each of the three functions, it does not assume a dominant role relative to other local subsystems. Actors from other social subsystems appear to overtake these functions in a more efficient way. As such, in a highly environmentally active region, there are few indications for a specific function of religion. These results shed a critical light on the previously held assumption that religion has a crucial impact on sustainability transitions

Materializing policies for sustainable use and economy-wide management of resources: biophysical perspectives, socio-economic options and a dual approach for the European Union

Policies for Sustainable Use and economy-wide Management of natural Resources (SUMR) throughout the production and consumption system are faced with environmental and socio-economic requirements and regulatory constraints. Based on empirical findings of ongoing trends of resource use, decoupling from economic growth, and transregional problem shifting, the paper outlines a potentially sustainable biophysical basis for production and consumption in the EU. It discusses the main challenges for the major resource groups, describing the specific and the common tasks with regard to biomass, fossil fuels, metals, non-metallic minerals. Adopting a medical metaphor, it suggests that policies for SUMR should follow a dual approach reflecting the long-term need for a main cure of the socio-industrial metabolism in form of a conditioning towards a more mature, resource efficient, and renewables based constitution on the one hand, and a fine tuning of selected material flows (e.g. for optimized recycling and control of hazardous compounds) on the othe hand. Both strategies are deemed complementary and necessary to reduce environmental impact and increase the utility of material use. Action required is exemplified with regard to the three pillars of SUMR, i.e. improved orientation, information and incentives. --Material efficiency,dematerialization,renewables,socio-industrial metabolism,resource use,environmental impacts,sustainable production & consumption,bioeconomy

Negotiating open source software adoption in the UK public sector

Drawing on two case studies in the UK public sector our qualitative study explains how and why open source software has seen such a mixed response. Our narratives indicate that for both cases there was strong goodwill towards open source yet the trajectories of implementation differed widely. Drawing upon ideas of change(ing), mutability and materiality we unpack the process of adoption. The study shows that open source software has certain facets; code, community, coordination mechanisms, license and documentation. Each facet is not stable; indeed, it is changing and mutable. This creates possibilities, potential but also recalcitrance, and barriers. The interesting point of departure of our study is how open source software — a much touted transparent and open phenomenon — is by its nuanced and layered mutability able to make the process and practices surrounding it less visible. It concludes with clear policy recommendations developing from this research that could help to make open source adoption more sustainable in the public sector

Alternative scenarios for Hungary for the year 2025

The paper presents how the Committee on Futures Research, within Section IX. of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), sees the possible futures for Hungary for the year 2025, based on the expertise of Hungarian futurists and social scientists, including the opinions of younger generations. It offers insight to Hungarian society in 18 years from 2007, when the research began. In cooperation with experts coming from diverse scientific backgrounds and with those who feel responsibility for the future and are willing to act upon it, we need to continue discovering our horizon albeit in a different way and to embark on new roads. In summary, we need to change the HOW and the WHAT

Organizing risk: discourse, power, and 'riskification'

Drawing on the work of Foucault, we develop an integrated framework for understanding how risk is organized in three different modes: prospectively, in real time, and retrospectively. We show how these modes are situated in a dominant discourse of risk that leads organizations to normalize risk in particular ways by privileging certain forms of knowledge and authorizing certain risk identities over others. In addition to identifying the common way risk is organized in each mode and showing how it is held in place by the dominant discourse, we propose alternative ways to organize risk that resist this dominant discourse, and we explain why they are difficult to enact. We then extend our analysis by theorizing how, even when it occurs, resistance to the dominant discourse of risk can contribute to “riskification,” with more and more organizing undertaken in the name of risk because of intensification, discipline, and governmentality

A Role for Authority Supervision in Impact Assessment? Examples from Finnish EIA Reviews

With the boom in mining in Fennoscandia, reconciliation of competing land use interests in governance procedures such as impact assessment has come to the fore. One of the functions that has been applied to varying degrees in national frameworks is supervision of the procedure by a responsible authority. This paper examines review statements issued in the context of mining project assessments in northern Finland – one of the countries implementing authority supervision. The study shows that third-party review may play a role in highlighting the importance of competing land use interest such as reindeer herding. Attention to such interests, however, remains limited by the application of spatial planning in the case and by consent processing, up until the end of the period examined. Among the lessons for impact assessment is the need for methodologies for accommodating anticipatory types of (practice-based and non-scientific) information. Unless these types of sources are considered valid, the possibility of substantializing anticipation and finding solutions along those lines will be missed, with the risk of making things on the ground worse before the need for mitigation measures is comprehended in the face of materializing impacts

COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE BORDER. A EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE FROM WESTERN ROMANIA

The present article analyzes the challenges faced by the European Union in its endeavour of implementing and developing cross-border cooperation as a means for reconciliation and regional development. It also presents the context in which Euro regions appeared as a form of institutionalized cross-border cooperation and focuses on the Danube-Kris-Mures-Tisa Euro region, highlighting the opportunities and threats faced by this particular Euro region. Acknowledging that mass-media is a mirror of the society, the paper aims to establish, by analyzing the regional mass-media, if DKMT can be considered a case of good practice.cross-border cooperation, euro regions, DKMT, regional media

Incorporated citizens: multinational high-tech companies and the BoP

In this article, I examine HP’s e-Inclusion program and its implementation in India to show how the high-tech industry’s efforts to alleviate poverty profitably are guided by C. K. Prahalad’s ideas about the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), and are framed as digital corporate citizenship activities. While the BoP highlights the importance of new markets for high-tech companies, the discourse of digital corporate citizenship creates an enabling environment in which transnational high-tech companies can gain political access to new consumers at the BoP. The resulting digital corporate citizenship/BoP nexus leads to the extension of governments’ bureaucratic reach and the formation of electronic entrepreneurs