Sustainability reporting by Australian local government authorities

This qualitative study investigates the Western Australian (WA) local government authorities’ sustainability reporting practices, in the absence of mandatory reporting guidelines, through content analysis of their websites. Calculations from comparing the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s disclosures with those of 140 local council websites were used to develop a sustainability reporting disclosure index. The findings indicate that sustainability reporting remains moderately practised by local government authorities, despite stakeholder demand for proactive disclosures. The discourse analysis shows that Western Australia’s strategic planning for sustainable development is the key force propelling councils towards sustainability reporting practices. The findings also suggest that WA local government authorities are increasing sustainability disclosures to legitimate their social and environmental initiatives. The findings have policy implications for regulators and/or government in Western Australia, with practical implications for local council authorities and/or managers in developing awareness of sustainable operations. The study also contributes to local government authorities’ growing awareness of sustainable service operations.     

Advancing Knowledge through Grassroots Experiments: Connecting Culture and Sustainability

Since 2006, hundreds of communities in Canada have produced Integrated Community Sustainability Plans, based on a four-pillar model of sustainability and developed in consultation with residents and stakeholders. These community-based experiments have developed models, knowledge, and insights about the place of culture in local sustainability. Both conceptual thinking and planning practices regarding the role of culture in sustainable communities were at an embryonic stage when these initiatives took place. The discussions, plans, and implementation processes have advanced both theory and “leading edge” practices with regard to culture and community sustainability, illustrating the importance of a robust relationship between research and practice.     

Materiality in corporate sustainability reporting within UK retailing

The concept of materiality is attracting increasing attention in corporate sustainability reporting. This paper offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are currently addressing materiality in their sustainability reports and offers some wider reflections on the ways retailers are embracing materiality. The paper begins with a short discussion of the concept of materiality and on its determination and the paper draws its empirical material from the most recent sustainability reports posted on the Internet by the UK's top ten retailers. The findings reveal that there are significant variations in the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are embracing materiality and that there is no evidence of a sector specific approach to materiality within the UK retail community. More generally the authors argue that the methods currently being used to determine materiality are flawed and that retailers seem likely to continue to face challenges in looking to reconcile the relationships between executive management teams, investors and a wide range of stakeholders in operationalising the concept of materiality. The paper provides an accessible review of the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are currently embracing materiality as part of the sustainability reporting process and as such it will interest academics, students and practitioners interested in retailing and corporate sustainability. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“O me! O me! How i love the earth”: William Morris’s News from Nowhere and the birth of sustainable society

Arguing from an ecocritical perspective, in this article I seek to show that Morris, in his ‘green’ utopia News from Nowhere, envisaged a new social order in which communities are socially just, participatory, independent, economically viable and environmentally sustainable. I will argue that Morris, by stressing the need for a decentralized and polycentric country and by showing how co‐operation, as opposed to competition, can form a symbiosis between the members of the society, effectively linked the local with the global. I will show that Morris, turning against systematized globalization as portrayed in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, gives an example of a ‘sustainable’ globalization that shares much common ground with the current politics of bioregionalism. I will finally suggest that Morris’s vision of London as an ecological city, where waste has been abolished and human beings live in harmony with nature while respecting social justice, is more urgent than ever and can be instrumental as a vision for our future life.     

Blue Economy:以丽水世界博览会的成功举办为契机

丽水世界博览会是第一个以海洋为主题的博览会活动,目的是希望传播实现海洋、环境、发展三者之间协调的"Blue economy"(蓝色经济)概念。Blue economy是进一步发展关于绿色增长和可持续发展的国际协定的概念。为了治愈面临增长极限的生态危机、资源危机和增长的不平衡,我们需要通过构筑增进生态、经济效率和海洋型经济社会体制,实现文明的可持续发展的视点。本文将按照领域考察海洋产业实现blue economy的可能性,探讨通过此次博览会实现blue economy的方案。作为以实现blue economy为目的的日后课题,本文还将提出以实现海洋科学技术的革新发展,可持续发展为目的的环境构筑,以公共—民间(public-private)合作为基础的政策、制度的构筑等提案。     

演化范式下中国地方政府创新可持续性研究

地方政府创新不仅是世界范围内政治经济发展的一种普遍现象和趋势,也是推动我国政治-行政改革的主要手段。本文在梳理地方政府创新相关文献、分析中国地方政府创新案例的基础上,基于演化范式对中国地方政府创新可持续性进行了理论探讨。首先,本文重新界定了地方政府创新可持续性的内涵;其次,研究了其演化路径与内容,指出了地方政府创新可持续性的四条演化路径和三个方面的内容;然后,分析了其内外部决定因素,总结出地方政府的适应性学习、"政治企业家"精神、知识累积、创新的路径依赖、多样性选择主体的内生需求、知识外溢与竞合、创新嵌套的行政文化和技术创新等八个决定因素;最后,构建了地方政府创新可持续性的分析模型。     

哲学视野下的异化消费探析

以消费主导的经济发展方式,是实现经济增长可持续发展的必由之路。但消费异化,使消费者迷失,所带来的后果是自然、劳动、科技、人性和消费的异化,造成人类难以承受的生态危机。消费异化的特征是消费至上的享乐主义,消费成为人生的目的。因此,有必要运用马克思主义的消费理论,通过消费文化引导,大力提倡生态消费,扭转消费异化,形成全社会的消费自觉,奠定合理消费的基础,促进生态文明建设,实现可持续的经济发展。     

Data protection by design and technology neutral law

This article argues that to achieve a technology neutral law, technology specific law is sometimes required. To explain this we discriminate between three objectives, often implied in the literature on technological neutrality of law. The first we call the compensation objective, which refers to the need to have technology specific law in place whenever specific technological designs threated the substance of human rights. The second we call the innovation objective, referring to the need to prevent legal rules from privileging or discriminating specific technological designs in ways that would stifle innovation. The third we call the sustainability objective, which refers to the need to enact legislation at the right level of abstraction, to prevent the law from becoming out of date all too soon. The argument that technology neutral law requires compensation in the form of technology specific law is built on a relational conception of technology, and we explain that though technology in itself is neither good nor bad, it is never neutral. We illustrate the relevance of the three objectives with a discussion of the EU cookie Directive of 2009. Finally we explain the salience of the legal obligation of Data Protection by Design in the proposed General Data Protection Regulation and test this against the compensation, innovation and sustainability objectives.     

Sustainable Fiscal Policy in a Federal State: The Swiss Example

Using a small theoretical model it is first shown that it is reasonable to limit public deficit and debt in relation to GDP in the long‐run. Then we describe fiscal institutions called ‘debt brakes’ which are designed to prevent public deficit and debt from going off course. We present some models which have been applied in some Swiss cantons, especially in the canton St. Gallen, and the respective institution recently introduced at the federal level. Altogether, the models in the different cantons are quite successful. At the federal level we still have to wait before we can evaluate the results. Finally, we describe how the problem of a possible bail out of cantons and local communities is solved in Switzerland. Taking all results together, we come to the conclusion that by choosing appropriate institutions federal countries are rather more able to perform a sustainable fiscal policy than unitary states. In this process, budgetary restrictions and/or fiscal referenda play prominent roles at all levels. On the other hand, a special stability pact between the different governmental levels does not seem to be necessary.     

国债政策的可持续性

本文提出衡量国债政策可持续性的首要标准就是国债政策是否能够根据宏观经济的变化适时进行力度及方式的调整 ,使经济不至于偏离潜在经济增长水平太远 ;只要经济增长率高于国债利率 ,国债负担率将会逐步收敛。经济增长率高于利率水平是实现国债可持续性的核心问题 ;对扩张性财政政策可持续性的判断不是挤出了多少私人投资 ,而是财政支出效率的本身等观点。并提出了实现国债政策可持续性的基本策略。