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This paper examines how issues of environmental citizenship play out in the context of an industrial waste facility siting controversy in Taipei, Taiwan, and the implications of this complex predicament for justice and sustainable development generally. It shows the ways in which local activists perceive the adverse effects of a development project that generates industrial waste and incinerator ash in their hometown. Local activists feel excluded from decision-making and frustrated by the lack of recognition by authorities. They complain that their local, contextualized knowledge and experiences are ignored. Local activists are concerned about ecological devastation and feel responsible for future generations. Instead of a NIMBY protest of selfish residents, local activists imagine themselves as active citizens fighting for justice and sustainability on a scale beyond their neighborhood. The case highlights the needs for institutional transparency, the recognition of multiple ways of knowing and new conceptions of the good life. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between corporate sustainability and organizational culture seems to be underestimated within the discussion of sustainable development. The research presented in this paper is based on a case study conducted in the mining industry. The hypothesis is that ambitious corporate sustainability activities and strategies have to be embedded in the organizational culture in order to be successful. If aspects of sustainable development are not part of the mindset of leaders and members of the organization, corporate sustainability activities will not affect the core business efficiently and are more likely to fail. The model of Schein for organizational culture is used to characterize corporate sustainability strategies: introverted, extroverted, conservative and visionary strategies are distinguished. Each strategy is assessed regarding the relation and the integration in the levels of organizational culture according to the model of Schein. The model consists of three levels, i.e. artifacts, values and basic assumptions. This framework is used for a case-study to identify the organizational culture of a global leading mining company. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 15 years have witnessed the rise of post-development theory as a means of understanding the development discourse since the 1940s. Post-development argues that intentional development (as distinct from immanent development – what people are doing anyway) is a construct of Western hegemony. Sustainable development, they argue, is no different and indeed is perhaps worse, given that most of the global environmental degradation has been driven by consumerism and industrialization in the West. Critics of post-development counter by stating that it only provides destruction by tearing apart what is currently practiced in ‘development’ without providing an alternative. When post-developmentalists do offer an alternative it typically amouints to little more than a call for more grassroots involvement in development and disengagement from a Western agenda. Post-sustainable development analysis and counter-analysis has received remarkably little attention within the sustainable development literature, yet this paper argues that it can make a positive contributrion by calling for an analysis of discourse rather than a hiding of power differentials and an assumption that consensus must exist within a community. A case is made for a post-sustainable development that acknowledges that diversity will exist and consensus may not be achievable, but at the same time participation can help with learning. The role of the expert within sustainable development is also discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes a new approach for sustainability appraisal in development projects in Serbia by using the analytic hierarchy process as a group decision-making framework. Selection of the most acceptable location for pumping stations in the Galovica drainage area is chosen for the case study. Three experts (an ecologist, a hydro-engineer and a local authority representative) evaluated three alternative locations regarding technical, economical, environmental and social criteria. Sensitivity analysis shows that the group decision will remain stable unless the importance weight of the hydro-engineer is set to 0.9 or higher. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research studies firms' sustainable development in term of economic, environmental and social dimensions and their financial performance, which includes a broader coverage of stakeholder engagement of both sustainability and profitability in a structural equation model (SEM). The secondary data of 311 firms' sustainability scores are analyzed and our observations reveal that (1) the better sustainability performers may have a tendency of positive influence on firm profitability in the same and later periods, (2) a positive reciprocal causality may exist between sustainability and profitability among the better sustainability group, (3) profitability affects corporate sustainability positively in both higher and lower sustainability groups and (4) sustainability influences firm profitability negatively in the lower sustainability group. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its fuzziness, the model of sustainable development has to be particularized and contextualized before it can be used as a yardstick. A local indicator system for two German cities has been developed to meet these requirements using a new conceptualization of sustainability. Initially, local problem areas were identified in a bottom-up approach by local authority personnel. These problem areas were contrasted with a set of sustainability rules, which had been systematically derived from a basic sustainability norm that gives minimum requirements for sustainable development. Indicators were specified at the interface between local problem areas and sustainability rules. The indicators are expected to provide information on whether the city is over time becoming closer to or farther removed from the respective sustainability goals in its problem areas. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]