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The concept of meaning-making is increasingly identified as a crucial process and an entry point for sustainability transformations in a wide range of contexts and approaches, but it has not yet been studied in this field as an independent concept. In other literature, meaning-making has recently been focused on, yielding valuable information on how to better conceptualize and design events to trigger transformations. Furthermore, that study indicated the presence of underlying mechanisms of meaning-making, which might provide further design insights and theoretical underpinning. Here we investigate those underlying mechanisms, in a case which spans the two literatures. Village leaders in Botswana underwent the specialist shared-values crystallization group process within the WeValue InSitu approach and underwent a sustainability transformation, producing a significantly superior climate change adaptation plan. Using micro-concepts from Personal Knowledge Theory for line-by-line fine-toothed analysis, we reveal mechanisms underlying meaning-making by individuals and the group. The findings show two distinct types of micro-meaningmaking sequences were found: one was assimilative and a rarer one adaptive, involving participants modifying some premises. This distinction allows the micromoment of individual transformation to be identified, allowing ex and ante study to understand better what happened beforehand to cause it, and how it led onward to group and wider transformations. Another finding was that paired cognitive and communicative processes make up iterative meaning-making sequences where individuals take in new stimuli, understand tacitly, articulate the new meaning moreexplicitly, and repeat. Micro-meaning-making thus appears to be micro-integration between aspects of knowledge: tacit/explicit; external/internal. Design implications involve better considerations on assisting participants to access their own tacit spaces; to ensure they have shared experiences which allow intersubjective interactions to trigger and accelerate individual and collective meaning-making; that this space is protected from interruptions such as latecomers, stop–starting the session, and facilitators inserting personal content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research in environmental psychology is conducted in individualistic countries and focuses on factors pertaining to individuals. It is yet unclear whether these findings also apply to more collectivistic countries, in which group factors might play a prominent role. In the current paper, we test the individual-focused value–identity–behaviour pathway, in which personal biospheric values relate to pro-environmental actions via environmental self-identity, in an individualistic and a collectivistic country. Furthermore, we test in both countries whether a new group-focused pathway also exists, in which group values relate to pro-environmental behaviour via environmental group identity, particularly in collectivistic countries. Questionnaire studies were conducted among Dutch (N = 161) and Chinese (N = 168) students. Our results indicated that personal biospheric values, mostly via environmental self-identity, predict pro-environmental behaviour in both countries. We also found initial support for our newly proposed value–identity–behaviour pathway at the group level, particularly in China. Yet, in both countries, the association between group-level variables and pro-environmental behaviour was weaker than for personal-level variables, and partly overlapped with personal-level variables. Our findings show the relevance of personal- and group-level factors in understanding pro-environmental behaviour in both individualistic and collectivistic countries, which has strong theoretical and practical implications, particularly for developing international strategies to promote pro-environmental actions across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organisations are identified as the major anthropogenic sources of climate change, and there are increasing numbers of environmental sustainability initiatives to address the challenge. Their success relies on the active participation of employees through engaging in pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs). Leaders play a crucial role in their responsibility for managing or influencing employees, but research identifies issues of poor leadership, lack of support from leaders, and inability to motivate subordinates as significant barriers to employees' PEBs. Environmental transformational leadership (ETFL) has been identified as the most suitable leadership style for influencing employees' autonomous motivation, and improving PEBs, and there are thus calls to foster or boost leaders' ETFL competencies. This study developed, administered, and evaluated an ETFL training intervention conducted for leaders (managers and supervisors) in two multinational manufacturing companies in the chemical and automobile industries located in China. Nine (9) leaders participated in each company, and their subordinates (chemical company, n = 112; automobile company, n = 104) provided ratings of leaders' ETFL behaviours, and subordinates' autonomous motivation and PEBs, at pre- and post-training stages. Results show that subordinates' ratings of leaders' ETFL behaviours, and their self-reported autonomous motivation and PEBs, all significantly increased after the intervention, with large effects in the chemical company and above-small effects in the automobile company. This study offers theoretical insights on how leaders' ETFL can be developed or boosted, which is beneficial for influencing improvements in employees' PEBs and promoting organisational environmental sustainability initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions have an important role to play in the transition towards a more sustainable global society. In this context, many universities have embarked on a journey towards ‘sustainability’, and there has been increasing research on related processes of organizational change. There is evidence that ‘human’ factors have an important role to play in change processes and numerous case studies capture how these occur, but there is little synthesis of qualitative research in this area. We present a meta-ethnography of 13 qualitative studies from peer reviewed academic publications. Using a grounded approach, we identified nine themes which we then synthesized in order to develop an in-depth understanding of organizational change processes for sustainability. This led to the identification of a number of hidden contradictions and tensions that seem to characterize such processes. These contradictions and tensions lead to recurring barriers to change and issues that can undermine the very sustainability of change processes. These issues are also influenced by the perception of who has power to affect change, networks and institutional structures. We discuss the implications for research and practice and suggest the need to recognize existing tensions and contradictions through reflexive practice and genuine dialogue as well as developing flexible structures and moving towards ‘double loop’ learning within institutions. The meta-ethnography presents a look beyond the surface of what has become an increasingly important area of institutional change in higher education, helps to inform practice, and contributes to emerging research imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been recent calls for a shift to an evidence-based paradigm in environmental management, grounded in systematic monitoring and evaluation, but achieving this will be complex and difficult. Evaluating the educational components of environmental initiatives presents particular challenges, because these programs often have multiple concurrent goals and may value 'human outcomes', such as value change, which are intangible and difficult to quantify. This paper describes a fresh approach based on co-creating an entirely new values-based assessment framework with expert practitioners worldwide. We first discuss the development of a generic framework of 'Proto-Indicators' (reference criteria constituting prototypes for measurable indicators), and then demonstrate its application within a reforestation project in Mexico where indicators and assessment tools were localized to enhance context-relevance. Rigorously derived using unitary validity, with an emphasis on relevance, practicability and logical consistency from user perspectives, this framework represents a step-wise advance in the evaluation of non-formal EE/ESD programs. This article also highlights three important principles with broader implications for evaluation, valuation and assessment processes within environmental management: namely peer-elicitation, localizability, and an explicit focus on ethical values. We discuss these principles in relation to the development of sustainability indicators at local and global levels, especially in relation to post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper argues that the need for a core "fourth pillar" of sustainability/sustainable development, as demanded in multiple arenas, can no longer be ignored on the grounds of intangibility. Different approaches to this vital but missing pillar (cultural-aesthetic, religious-spiritual, and political-institutional) find common ground in the area of ethical values. While values and aspects based on them are widely assumed to be intangible and immeasurable, we illustrate that it is possible to operationalize them in terms of measurable indicators when they are intersubjectively conceptualized within clearly defined practical contexts. The processes require contextual localization of items, which can nonetheless fit into a generalizable framework. This allows useful measurements to be made, and removes barriers to studying, tracking, comparing, evaluating and correlating values-related dimensions of sustainability. It is advocated that those involved in operationalizing sustainability (especially in the context of creating post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals), should explore the potential for developing indicators to capture some of its less tangible aspects, especially those concerned with ethical values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper reports how the use of a new integrated theoretical framework underlain by the concept of sustainability to establish an indicator system for strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can effectively address the quest for urban sustainability of Chinese cities. The usefulness of the new framework was justified by a trial implementation of the framework in an SEA of development in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, in which the indicator system was capable of providing both retrospective and prospective insights of the environmental challenges created by economic and social development in qualitative and highly legible terms. The study affirms the constructive role of SEA on National Economic and Social Development Planning in both the socio-economic and environmental sustainability and underlines the importance of carefully-crafted indicator systems to promote the SEA practices in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Ethical values such as trust, compassion and equality are core to the way many pro-environmental organizations function, whether or not they claim these are key to their success. Mainstream sustainability indicators do not, however, explicitly acknowledge this values dimension. In this paper we describe a replicable approach that has successfully been used to develop values-based indicators and assessment tools within an emancipatory research paradigm, in an EU-funded project characterized by close partnership between civil society organizations (CSOs) and university-based research groups. We outline the methodology used to develop values-based indicators, and then demonstrate how the resulting indicators were used systematically to evaluate a national program of youth leadership within a large Mexican civil society organization promoting reforestation. We reflect on this illustrative example in relation to wider conversations about values and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]