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Large organizations play a key role in sustainability transitions through their systems of production and consumption and their influence on wider society. Recognizing the uniqueness and complexity of structure-agency relations in organizations, this paper uses the example of food provisioning to compare the sustainability potential of eight national and multinational organizations located in Ireland. By introducing the novel concept of ‘alteration spaces’ to describe specific intra-organizational structure-agency constellations and their dynamics over time, we question existing interventionist views of organizational change. We argue these tend to overstate extra-organizational impulses for change while paying insufficient attention to organizational culture and committed individuals as potential sustainability advocates within organizations. This, in turn, facilitates a reconceptualization of individual agency as embedded within an organizational context, thereby challenging dominant understandings that disregard the potential of established organizations to initiate intra-organizational changes that shape and reflect sustainability transitions. peer-reviewed

Social-scientific investigations into the changing dynamics of mobility practices across the life course hold considerable potential for understanding how the growing dominance of an unsustainable, largely car-based mobility culture manifests itself within individuals' biographies. Moreover, capturing the interplay between structure and agency that unfolds within these mobility biographies can shed light on both opportunities and drawbacks for sustainability transitions in the transport sector. Mobility biographies research has thus gained considerable momentum internationally. To date, much of this work has deployed quantitative approaches to record and analyse broader life-course related trends. Moreover, there has been a strong focus on the impact of specific life events such as childbirth or residential relocation on mobility practices of individuals and households. Examples of qualitative investigations of individuals' mobility biographies have frequently deployed cross-case comparisons that rest upon linear and realist conceptualisations of the life course. In contrast, narrative-interpretative inquiries into the meaning and complexity of mobility biographies remain scarce. This paper examines key conceptual and methodological aspects of a qualitative inquiry into voluntary carlessness across the life course. This is supplemented with an analysis of biographical interviews from the Vienna region in Austria that shows how individuals attach meaning to their deliberate departure from the dominant car culture. Building on these research experiences, the paper argues for a novel reconstructive approach to qualitative mobility biographies research that allows a deeper understanding of the biographical embeddedness of mobility practices.

The concept of mobility biographies has recently gained considerable currency in social-scientific transport research, reflecting increasing awareness of the long-term development of mobility practices. To complement existing work on the effects of major life events on mobility practices, we introduce the novel concept of ‘mobility milestones’, that is, mobility-related events across the life course that show a very high dependence on (infra)structural factors. Overall, the paper explicitly recognises the centrality of interactions between structural factors and human agency, thereby moving beyond a sole focus on individual travel behaviour. Initially, this paper reviews social and interdisciplinary research on mobility biographies, especially studies that use retrospective survey methodologies. Building on this review, we present an innovative online survey tool that has been deployed on the island of Ireland (n = 324) to record changes in individuals' mobility biographies and their connections with both life events and mobility milestones. This is followed by a discussion of key findings regarding the impact of starting college, residential relocation and changing employment, as well as buying a car or bicycle or getting a driving licence on individuals' modal choice.

Food consumption outside home is a growing phenomenon that is rapidly gaining in importance in terms of its impact on both consumers and the food system. This paper presents an innovative tool for measuring the sustainability of food intended for public consumption in organizations such as schools, hospitals and workplaces. Drawing on an in-depth review of the food sustainability literature, the FOODSCALE method quantifies 11 sustainability categories which together cover 36 food sustainability indicators. A number of characteristics distinguish the FOODSCALE method from other food sustainability assessment tools. First, it covers the three dimensions of sustainability society, economy, environment treating these as interdependent and coexisting. Secondly, it considers the entire food system, thus incorporating aspects of production, distribution, procurement, consumption and waste disposal. Cross-cutting themes of health and human agency complement the 11 specified categories to present a holistic assessment of food sustainability. The tool helps to identify both good practice and areas for improvement and points towards specific measures for increasing food sustainability. Following a detailed discussion of the tool, the paper presents results of a comparative study of 8 cases across 5 organizations in the Republic of Ireland.(2) Results show significant differences in sustainability performance across cases and within organizations. The role of key decision makers in organizations and possible points of intervention are highlighted in the discussion. The research demonstrates the potential of the FOODSCALE method for assessing the (un)sustainability of food intended for public consumption. Building on theoretical insights from the alternative food systems literature, the paper emphasizes the central role of organizations in supporting (un)sustainable food systems and highlights potential pathways toward more sustainable food procurement and provision. The paper makes a major contribution to the advancement of empirical research on the social, economic and environmental impacts of food provision in large-scale organizations. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of individuals and organizations who participated in the testing of the assessment tool. We also wish to thank Dr Frances Fahy at NUI Galway as well as two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments on an earlier draft. This paper was developed within the PhD research project ‘Public food consumption and the role of organizations in supporting sustainable food systems’ funded by the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, NUI Galway, and the Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship Scheme, whose support is also gratefully acknowledged. peer-reviewed

This paper argues for a disaggregation of pro-environmental behavior into habitual and occasional behavior. The former captures routine everyday activities such as regularly buying organic food or habitually conserving water. The latter describes occasional or once-off activities such as installing insulation and purchasing energy-efficient household appliances. Drawing on a survey of 1500 households in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that developed both behavioral and attitudinal indices to investigate household consumption, we group respondents according to their scoring on each index. Results show that the socio-demographic and attitudinal profiles of households that report habitual pro-environmental behavior differ significantly from those that engage in once-off actions. This clearly impacts on environmental and sustainability policy, most notably the financial incentivization of sustainable consumption. Moreover, significant social sustainability issues arise, with rewards for once-off activities disproportionately benefiting better-off households while those who engage in routine pro-environmental behavior tend to face higher costs.

In an increasingly globalised economic system, company relocations are common and occur at different scales, ranging from international moves to relocations within a relatively small geographical area such as a city. Regarding changes in commuting following relocation, transport studies have already provided valuable insights into changing trip characteristics such as mode choice and duration of the journey. However, wider impacts of relocations on mobility practices such as shifts in trip chaining, changes in employees' social practices and networks, their satisfaction with the new commute as well as adaptation strategies (e.g. residential relocation and increased car ownership) remain under-researched, especially whenever these changes are mainly local in scale and impact everyday life. Building on and extending previous research on relocations, we explicitly adopt a mobility biographies perspective that reconceptualises workplace relocation as an incisive life event that reshapes employee's mobility practices in complex ways. We use quasi-longitudinal survey data based on retrospection to reveal major mobility-related consequences of a company's decision to move their production facilities within the German city of Munich. This paper aptly demonstrates how even a short-distance, intra-city company relocation can disrupt employees' daily routines and reshape their own and other people's mobility. It provides novel insights into changes in satisfaction with the commute itself as well as with reduced opportunities for trip chaining. Regarding adaptation to workplace relocation, moving house or buying a (second) car emerged as important responses. Furthermore, it was possible to demonstrate the wider effects of relocation on employees' social environment such as weakened social ties among workers due to reduced opportunities for after-work activities and negative post-relocation impacts on neighbourhoods and small businesses in the old company location. Many respondents viewed these changes as undesirable reductions in quality of life. The concluding part of the paper outlines some opportunities for future social research in this area.