Sustainability and the world's leading ocean cruising companies

The aim of this research note paper is to offer an exploratory review of the extent to which the leading ocean cruise companies are publicly addressing and reporting on their sustainability strategies and achievements and to offer some reflections on sustainability within the cruise industry. The paper begins with an outline of cruising and the cruising industry and a short commentary on the sustainability challenges the industry faces. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading cruise companies' corporate web sites. The findings of the paper reveal a marked variation in the extent to which the leading cruise companies publicly report on their sustainability strategies and achievements. While the two leading cruise companies, namely the Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises, published extensive sustainability reports which covered a number of environmental social and economic issues, the other leading cruise companies published very limited information on sustainability. More critically the authors argued that the cruise companies' commitments to sustainability are driven by the search for efficiency gains and are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth than on maintaining the viability of natural ecosystems and communities. As such the leading UK retailers are, at best, currently pursuing a ‘weak’ rather than a ‘strong’ model of sustainability. The paper provides an accessible exploratory review of sustainability reporting in the cruise industry, and it will interest professional working in the cruise industry and more generally in the hospitality industry as well as academics and students interested in public relations, business studies and hospitality management. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Better Retail,Better World”: A commentary on British retailers and the sustainable development goals

The British Retail Consortium's Better Retail, Better World initiative launched in 2018 and looks to mobilise the retail industry to make a leading contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This short commentary paper outlines the features of this initiative and offers some reflections on some of the challenges British retailers seem likely to face in looking to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. These challenges include the strategic prioritisation of SDGs, issues of measurement and metrics, communicating the retailers' position on the SDGs to consumers and the stakeholders, the retailers' financial commitment to the SDGs within a difficult trading environment, and fundamental tensions between sustainability and economic growth.     

Attitudes to abortion in the era of reform: evidence from the Abortion Law Reform Association correspondence

This article examines letters sent by members of the general public to the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) in the decade immediately before the 1967 Abortion Act. It shows how a voluntary organisation, in their aim of supporting a specific cause of unclear legality, called forth correspondence from those in need. In detailing the personal predicaments of those facing an unwanted pregnancy, this body of correspondence was readily deployed by ALRA in their efforts to mobilise support for abortion law reform, thus exercising a political function. A close examination of the content of the letters and the epistolary strategies adopted by their writers reveals that as much as they were a lobbying tool for changes in abortion law, these letters were discursively shaped by debates surrounding that very reform.     

Still three Wales? Social location and electoral behaviour in contemporary Wales

Wales provides a notable exception to the contemporary academic consensus that electoral behaviour is best studied via choice-based approaches. In Wales, the orthodoxy remains that of the Three-Wales Model, an approach formulated in the 1980s which saw voting behaviour as defined by class, language and national identity. This article submits the Three-Wales Model to detailed scrutiny for the first time. The model is argued to have been constructed on a very narrow theoretical basis, and on flawed measurements. Most importantly, however, the Three-Wales Model is shown to have little empirical leverage on voting behaviour in Wales – either for the period when it was formulated or for more recent elections. Factors associated with ‘valence politics’ theories are shown to provide far greater insight into voting behaviour in contemporary Wales.     

Concentrations of free-morphine in peripheral blood after recent use of heroin in overdose deaths and in apprehended drivers

The concentration of free-morphine was determined in peripheral (femoral) blood from heroin-related deaths and compared with the concentration in venous blood from impaired drivers. The presence of 6-MAM in blood or urine served as a biomarker for recent use of heroin. Males dominated over females (p<0.001) in both the autopsy cases (88%) and the drivers (91%), although their mean age was about the same 33-35 y (p>0.05). Concentrations of free-morphine in blood were not associated with age of heroin users in Sweden (p>0.05). The median concentration of free-morphine was higher in autopsy cases (0.24 mg/L, N=766) compared with apprehended drivers with 6-MAM in blood (0.15 mg/L, N=124, p<0.05), and appreciably higher than in drivers with 6-MAM in urine but not in blood (0.03 mg/L, N=1823, p<0.001). The free-morphine concentration was above 0.20mg/L in 65% of autopsy cases, 36% of drivers with 6-MAM in blood but only 1.4% of drivers with 6-MAM in urine. Poly-drug deaths had about the same concentrations of free-morphine in blood (0.24 mg/L, N=703) as heroin-only deaths (0.25 mg/L, N=63). The concentration of morphine in drug overdose deaths (median 0.25 mg/L, N=669) was about the same as in traumatic deaths among heroin users (0.23 mg/L, N=97). However, the concentration of morphine was lower when the deceased had consumed alcohol (0.18 mg/L, N=104) compared with taking a benzodiazepine (0.32 mg/L, N=94). The concentration distributions of free-morphine in blood in heroin-related deaths overlapped with the concentrations in impaired drivers, which makes the interpretation of toxicology results difficult without knowledge about tolerance to opiates in any individual case.     

Donor-conceived people's views and experiences of their genetic origins: a critical analysis of the research evidence

This article reports on a systematic review of English language, peer-reviewed publications from 13 empirical studies with donor-conceived children and adults regarding their experiences and perceptions of donor conception. A total of 19 articles that met the inclusion criteria were reviewed. These were identified by means of a bibliographic search of four electronic databases for the period 1990-2011 and supplemented by the authors' personal knowledge of work in this field. No reports from such studies appeared prior to 2000, and more than half have been published since 2008, demonstrating the relative novelty of research in this field. Much of the reviewed research evidence concerns individuals conceived through sperm donation conducted under a regime promoting both anonymity and nondisclosure. Consequently, there is little research that pertains to individuals conceived through other forms of collaborative reproduction, nor to those conceived under arrangements and regimes in which early parental disclosure is both advocated and practised and the identity of the donor and of other genetic relatives may be accessible to donor-conceived individuals. The studies consistently report that most donor-conceived people have an interest in securing information about their genetic and biographical heritage - more information than most of them have been able to obtain. Although a number of methodological limitations in the research base are identified, the authors conclude that the evidence is sufficiently robust to promote the implementation of policies and practices that promote transparency and openness in collaborative reproduction, thus reflecting the importance of maximising future choices and opportunities for donor-conceived people.