410 Romanian Managers’ Opinion Regarding the Place and Role of the Organizational culture in the Sustainable Development Management

In the sustainable development management, the following important elements are present and operate: rules of conduct, values, aspirations and expectations, beliefs, specific myths, learned behavior patterns, habits, visible symbols of the company, motivation / reward systems, rights and obligations, components of the organizational culture. These generate the way the activities of sustainable development are structured. The organizational culture influences the sustainable development at the economic, social and environmental level. It contains sustainable values for change, oriented towards the sustainable development management.organizational culture; sustainable development management; the determinants of the organizational culture; human capital; organizational culture dimensions.

Economic Policy for Sustainable Growth and Development vs. Greedy Growth and Preservationism

Sustainability science emerged from the felt need to employ appropriate science and technology in the pursuit of sustainable development. The existing sustainability science agenda emphasizes the importance of using a systems approach, stressing the many interactions between natural and human systems. Despite its inertia and avowed purpose of being practical and feasible, however, sustainability science has yet to embrace the policy sciences. In pursuit of this objective, we first trace the history of thought of sustainable development, including its definition and operationalization. Sustainable development encompasses sustainable growth and dynamically efficient development patterns. Two promising approaches to sustainable growth are contrasted. Negative sustainability counsels policy makers to offset any decrease in natural capital with at least the same value of net investment in produced capital. This sustainability criterion cannot determine how and how much to conserve natural capital nor how much to build up human and productive capital. Indeed, there is ambiguity regarding what prices to use in summing the values of diverse capital assets. To fill the void, we offer positive sustainability, which maximizes intertemporal welfare while incorporating system linkages, dynamic efficiency, and intertemporal equity. This provides a solid and operational framework for sustainable growth. In addition, sustainable development must include the lessons from development theory, including how optimal patterns of production, consumption, and trade change with standards of living. However, like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, there are many pathways to unsustainable development. We describe two broad causes of unsustainable growth – rent-seeking and preservationism. We also illustrate patterns of unsustainable development by drawing on lessons from the Philippines. While specialization is the engine of growth, fragmentation is the anchor. In addition to natural fragmentation from natural trade barriers in an island archipelago, policy and governance, driven by rentseeking, promote economic stagnation. Low economic growth in turn exacerbates population pressure and environmental degradation—the vicious circle of unsustainable development. We give particular attention to how a resource curse can exacerbate policy distortions and rent-seeking, and how the same phenomenon can be promulgated by foreign aid, foreign direct investments, remittances, and tourism. For sustainable development not to be at odds with policy science, positive sustainability must be combined with projects and policies that promote dynamic comparative advantage and poverty reduction. We emphasize the facilitative role of government especially in transforming the vicious circle into a virtuous circle.Sustainable development and patterns, positive sustainability, specialization, the Philippines

Consumption and production patterns for agricultural sustainable development

Agriculture has always played a key role in feeding the world population and ensuring the development of sustainable food production systems. However, over recent decades, many farmers have over-exploited agricultural ecosystems in order to increase their production and incomes. This has caused a reduction or degradation of environmental sustainability, reducing farmers’ profitability and leading many producers to abandon rural areas. Moreover, currently, over 820 million people in the world are hungry, while a third of the food produced is lost or wasted, with negative implications on economic, social and environmental conditions at a global level, highlighting how different production, educational campaigns and consumption approaches are needed. In this context, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims at eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, by ensuring an economic, environmental and social sustainable development. In particular, every country by 2030 should allocate public and private financial resources to develop and carry out relevant strategies and programs, by means of 17 sustainable development goals. One of them is represented by “ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns” in agriculture that, in addition to feeding the world population, should ensure both the development of sustainable food production systems and promote responsible consumption by consumers. According to the Agenda, in fact, the sustainable cropping systems, on the one hand, have to increase productivity and production, but on the other, they should reduce the negative social and environmental impacts, thanks also to a sustainable changes in consumers’ choices. Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue has been to collect scientific studies worldwide dealing with the two main topics of the “ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns” goal: (1) the adoption of sustainable production patterns in the agriculture sector; (2) the study of consumers’ behavior towards sustainable food products. This Special Issue contains 13 papers that have tried to enrich the literature on agricultural sustainable development, taking into consideration at least one of its three dimensions: the environmental, social and economic dimensions

Promoting sustainable Indian textiles: final report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), London, UK

In 2009, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), through the Sustainable Development Dialogue (SDD) fund, backed the Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) at London College of Fashion and Pearl Academy of Fashion (PAF), New Delhi to run a project to promote Indian sustainable textiles. Improving patterns of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in India and the UK is one of the agreed areas for collaboration under the UK-India Sustainable Development Dialogue. The project is also part of a body of work taking place under the Defra Sustainable Clothing Roadmap, which aims to improve the sustainability of clothing. Defra has identified that ‘while an economic success story (globally worth over £500 billion) the industry has a significant environmental and social footprint across its supply chain.’ The Roadmap aims to improve the sustainability of clothing by gathering a robust evidence base of impacts and working with a wide range of stakeholders, to build on existing interventions. For more details on the roadmap see: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/products/roadmaps/clothing/index.htm This report is only one of the dissemination tools associated with the project. The project film, images and website should be viewed in conjunction with this report

Down-to-earth economy: the discursive contribution of sustainable consumption and production debate

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) is a topical concept as national SCP programmes have been drafted by several countries around Europe. This discourse analysis, based on interviews with Finnish SCP committee members, suggests that sustainable consumption and production can be a useful concept for approaching economy in a down-to-earth manner. It can enrich the environmental policy agenda that has long been dominated by technology-oriented ecological modernization. A critical point is, however, that the SCP depate is more concentrated on the needs of consumers than on the needs of poor, the initial focus of sustainable development. Moreover,ideas on how to really change consumption patterns seem to be scarce, scattered, and also contradictory among the SCP stakeholders

Sustainable development principles for East Baton Rouge Parish

This study examines and analyzes the sustainable development indicator data and determines what improvements and recommendations are needed for East Baton Rouge Parish’s development. This thesis has identified methods and indicators for studying sustainable developments, studied patterns of sustainable developments in the East Baton Rouge Parish to identify trends and developed recommendations that would encourage sustainable development in the East Baton Rouge Parish. It forms fourteen sustainable principles that would encourage sustainable development in East Baton Rouge Parish and a framework for a sound development

Innovation and institutional change : the transition to a sustainable electricity system

The aim of this book is to specify this perspective by analysing patterns of change in the electricity system. Scientifically, the relevance of the book is in its analysis and explanation of fundamental processes of change, a topic relevant for a range of scientific disciplines, from economics, sociology, technology studies, to policy science. Its societal relevance lies mainly in its use for gaining insight in the way systems change can be directed towards the normative goal of sustainable development

Stakeholder engagement: Defining strategic advantage for sustainable construction

This is the accepted version of the following article: Rodriguez-Melo, A. and Mansouri, S. A. (2011), Stakeholder Engagement: Defining Strategic Advantage for Sustainable Construction. Bus. Strat. Env., 20: 539–552, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bse.715/abstract.Although sustainable development is increasingly becoming a part of business plans, it is unclear what makes the economic, social and environmental dynamics strategically compatible. This research examines which of the following in sustainable development – government policy, managerial attitude and stakeholder engagement – is the most influential on the profitability of companies in the UK construction sector. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were rendered through a survey and semi-structured interviews. Patterns of ambiguity in legislation were discovered as an obstacle for changing the sector's mind-set. Stakeholder engagement was identified as the defining factor increasing managers' awareness, helping legislation to be effectively implemented and making sustainability highly appealing to clients. These findings indicate that to gain competitive advantage, companies should embark on long-term strategic alliances which adopt the proposals of environmental non-governmental organisations and closely follow public opinion. This, strengthens brand equity, allows for premium pricing, increases market share and maximizes profit

Education for sustainable development and meat consumption among inhabitants of two Maltese districts - a qualitative study

Malta and Gozo, two small islands forming part of the Maltese archipelago, are so near yet so distinct. As the two islands possess differing geographical features, two districts were selected – the predominantly urban Northern Harbour District (NHD) in Malta and the fertile rural district of Gozo – the main aim being to determine whether there is a relation between the inhabitants’ geographical location, the extent of meat consumption and the possible links of education for sustainable development to a sustainable diet. In fact, global patterns of meat consumption differ between and within countries. In view of this, the role played by the geographical location together with other motivating factors affecting meat consumption were explored, as also the level of awareness related to the environmental impact of meat production. Awareness on how our dietary choices impact our health and the environment is vital and the key vehicle required for citizens to be informed is Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The qualitative data was collected through four focus groups – two for each district – with the data collected being mainly analysed through thematic analysis. Based on the results emerging from the transcribed focus group texts, this study reveals that the absolute majority of participants in both districts are meat eaters although their meat consumption patterns differ. Gozitans are still more inclined to adhere to the traditional way of life, conforming to religious practices by including a variety of non-meat local produce in their menus. While taste and health are the two most determining factors for consuming meat, chicken is the preferred meat of both districts. The absolute majority are unaware of the negative environmental impact of meat production and consumption, although Gozitans are more knowledgeable about current farming systems. This study therefore reveals that geographical location does have an influential role in the dietary patterns of its inhabitants and that environmental attitudes are not a strong deciding factor. This study continues to uphold the vision that culture should be considered as one of the main pillars of ESD.peer-reviewe

The iPOPY project – a research commitment to more sustainable public food

The schooldays of European children and youth tend to get longer, and their eating patterns, especially during school hours, are often unsatisfactory. Healthy school food is a logic response to this situation. Organic food contributes to sustainable nutrition, and hence is an interesting starting point for healthier menus and food education. The research project “innovative Public Organic food Procurement for Youth” (iPOPY) studies efficient ways to implement organic food in public serving outlets for young people. Out of the four iPOPY funding countries, Finland and Italy serve a warm school meal daily for all pupils, whereas Denmark and Norway rely on packed lunch from home. Italy and Denmark have ambitious goals for organic food in schools, whereas Finland and Norway have not (yet). In Germany, different states have very different school meal systems, but the interest for organic food is generally high. We argue that school food served in “captive catering” such as found in Finland, financed by the public and made by organic or otherwise sustainable products, has the largest potential to support a sustainable nutrition and -development