Greenhushing: the deliberate under communicating of sustainability practices by tourism businesses

Greenhushing selectively communicates fewer pro-sustainability actions by businesses than are practiced; based on a perception of customers’ rights to consumerism. We first studied the gap between the communication of sustainability practices in the audits and websites of 31 small rural tourism businesses in the Peak District National Park (UK). The analysis showed that businesses only communicate 30% of all the sustainability actions practiced. Their websites emphasised customer benefits, using explicit, affective, experiential and active language that legitimises the customers’ hedonistic use of the landscape, while downplaying complex issues and normalising sustainability to reduce customer guilt. Just one website mentioned climate change. We found that greenhushing results from a low moral intensity, masking potentially negative consequences of perceived lower competence, whilst protecting business from more cynical consumers who may interpret their statements as hypocritical. Subsequent textual analysis and interviews were used to understand how communication constitutes these organisations. We propose that greenhushing reshapes and constitutes tourism businesses through their communications. Moreover, greenhushing is a form of public moralisation that adopts communication practices similar to greenwashing, reflecting the social norms expected from a business; however, in this case, located in a moral muteness, rather than moral hypocrisy, that businesses accept but resent

Photoluminescence Polarization of MAPbBr3Perovskite Nanostructures. Can the Dielectric Contrast Effect Explain It?

The dielectric contrast effect is usually evoked to explain anisotropy of optical properties of elongated nanoobjects, for example, semiconductor nanowires. We applied two-dimensional polarization imaging microscopy to measure the polarization of photoluminescence (PL) excitation and PL intensity of nanoaggregates of in-situ formed MAPbBr3perovskite nanoparticles in a stretched polymeric matrix. Scanning electron microscopy images of these objects were also acquired to characterize their sizes and shapes. We find that individual perovskite aggregates with sizes of 100-300 nm often possess a PL excitation polarization degree as high as 0.5-0.9, which is up to three times higher than the polarization degree of absorption predicted by the dielectric contrast effect. Small aggregates of nanoparticles possess an emission polarization degree substantially higher than that of excitation. Computer simulations of many possible scenarios show that the dielectric contrast alone cannot quantitatively explain the polarization properties of the studied objects. We propose energy transfer to localized emitting sites and the dependence of PL yield on excitation power density as possible factors strongly influencing the polarization properties of PL emission and PL excitation, respectively

Extending the limits of powder diffraction analysis: Diffraction parameter space, occupancy defects, and atomic form factors.

Although the determination of site occupancies is often a major goal in Rietveld refinement studies, the accurate refinement of site occupancies is exceptionally challenging due to many correlations and systematic errors that have a hidden impact on the final refined occupancy parameters. Through the comparison of results independently obtained from neutron and synchrotron powder diffraction, improved approaches capable of detecting occupancy defects with an exceptional sensitivity of 0.1% (absolute) in the class of layered NMC (Li[NixMnyCoz]O2) Li-ion battery cathode materials have been developed. A new method of visualizing the diffraction parameter space associated with crystallographic site scattering power through the use of f* diagrams is described, and this method is broadly applicable to ternary compounds. The f* diagrams allow the global minimum fit to be easily identified and also permit a robust determination of the number and types of occupancy defects within a structure. Through a comparison of neutron and X-ray diffraction results, a systematic error in the synchrotron results was identified using f* diagrams for a series of NMC compounds. Using neutron diffraction data as a reference, this error was shown to specifically result from problems associated with the neutral oxygen X-ray atomic form factor and could be eliminated by using the ionic O2- form factor for this anion while retaining the neutral form factors for cationic species. The f* diagram method offers a new opportunity to experimentally assess the quality of atomic form factors through powder diffraction studies on chemically related multi-component compounds