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Corporate Sustainability And The Role Of The Consumer: Three Essays, Jeffrey Gauthier Nov 2014

Corporate Sustainability And The Role Of The Consumer: Three Essays, Jeffrey Gauthier

Doctoral Dissertations

The challenge of sustainability has become an increasingly important concern for organizations. Sustainability raises new questions of legitimacy for organizations, compelling them to address stakeholder expectations of economic, environmental, and social performance. Although consumer stakeholders act as the ultimate arbiter of legitimacy for many firms, we know little about how consumers may influence corporate sustainability. This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the role of consumers in influencing corporate sustainability. The first essay examines how companies may attempt to manage sustainability ratings assigned by ratings agencies in an attempt to retain consumer stakeholder support. I argue that an understanding …


Preparing Climate Leaders: One Syllabus At A Time, Madeleine K. Charney Oct 2014

Preparing Climate Leaders: One Syllabus At A Time, Madeleine K. Charney

Madeleine K. Charney

Poster presentation at the 2014 Presidential Summit on Climate Leadership which highlighted the Sustainability Curriculum Initiative, a library-funded faculty mini-grant program that provides support for teaching sustainability courses across a wide range of disciplines. The poster illustrated the partnership between faculty members and subject specialist librarians. Also available was the Library’s Sustainability Research Guide, curriculum-building material which integrate library resources, photographs, and a White Paper outlining the history of the program. The Summit, held in Boston October 1-2, 2014 and hosted by Second Nature, was designed by Presidents for Presidents and Sustainability Staff in higher education. The focus of the …


Greening Greenpoint: Investigating Technology And Environment-Based Design, Adam Castelli Aug 2014

Greening Greenpoint: Investigating Technology And Environment-Based Design, Adam Castelli

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates architectural design with a focus on technology and parametric, or computational, design strategies in relation to environmental simulation and sustainability. While numerous studies of new digital and parametric design technologies have been undertaken, few discuss their potential application or synergy with sustainable or environmentally focused design. However, there is increasing interest in bridging the perceived gap between these areas of focus in architectural design, as will be discussed in a section on recent symposia related to performance and design technologies. The research project seeks to apply insight gained from these studies to a design project to be …


New As Renewal: A Framework For Adaptive Reuse In The Sustainable Paradigm, Luke A. Beck Aug 2014

New As Renewal: A Framework For Adaptive Reuse In The Sustainable Paradigm, Luke A. Beck

Masters Theses

The way in which we approach building design is constantly being influenced by evolving economic, environmental and social parameters. These factors have implications on both pragmatic and aesthetic facets of design. The built environment is not autonomous from its immediate site or the ecologies of the region in which it is located, rather, the former must be designed to symbiotically exist within and enhance the latter. The term ecology is defined as “a branch of science that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.” Although this typically relates to biology, the term can …


Redefining America’S Postwar Urban Renewal At The Northgate Of Springfield, Ma, Mohammed Abdelaal, Meilan Chen, Zhuoya Deng, Ericka Duym, Laura Keskula, Joseph Larico, Bin Liu, Shu Liu, Wenjie Liu, Tharyn Nein-Large, Junzhi (Jason) Yu, Zhangkan Zhou Apr 2014

Redefining America’S Postwar Urban Renewal At The Northgate Of Springfield, Ma, Mohammed Abdelaal, Meilan Chen, Zhuoya Deng, Ericka Duym, Laura Keskula, Joseph Larico, Bin Liu, Shu Liu, Wenjie Liu, Tharyn Nein-Large, Junzhi (Jason) Yu, Zhangkan Zhou

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

This project presents visions for an underutilized and overlooked district in Springfield, MA, developed by the Graduate Urban Design Studio in the spring of 2014. The area between downtown and the North End neighborhood has undergone major transformations in the 1950’s and 1960’s during America’s era of postwar urban renewal. Residential blocks were replaced by large office buildings and oversized streets left a ”no-man’s land”. The current rehabilitation of the Springfield’s Union Station into an intermodal transportation hub should draw new attention to the area as the northern gateway to downtown - the “Northgate”. Five visionary design proposals rethink and …


Umass Amherst Campus-Wide Hardscape Condition Assessment 2014, Joseph Wanat Jan 2014

Umass Amherst Campus-Wide Hardscape Condition Assessment 2014, Joseph Wanat

Campus Planning Master Plans

The UMass Amherst Campus-Wide Hardscape Condition Assessment conducted by VHB / Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. assessed the condition of all UMass hardscapes - roads, parking lots and sidewalks – and developed a pavement management database that integrates with GIS and other work management technologies to collect information that can be leveraged for future campus project selection, development, and decision making.


Sustainable Umass Adquad External Review Final Presentation, Bonny Bentzin, Robert Koester, Matt St. Clair Jan 2014

Sustainable Umass Adquad External Review Final Presentation, Bonny Bentzin, Robert Koester, Matt St. Clair

Sustainability Reports & Plans

No abstract provided.


Sustainable Umass Adquad External Review Final Report, Bonny Bentzin, Robert Koester, Matt St. Clair Jan 2014

Sustainable Umass Adquad External Review Final Report, Bonny Bentzin, Robert Koester, Matt St. Clair

Sustainability Reports & Plans

Through the breadth and excellence of its operational and academic activities, the Sustainable UMass program has had considerable success in the past five years; achieving a position of prominence and leadership in the sustainability arena as reflected in national higher education awards. Remarkably, this has been spearheaded by a relatively small group of dedicated people working together as an informal, ad hoc coalition of personnel in Physical Plant, Campus Planning, Auxiliary Services, Transportation Services, the College of Natural Sciences, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the Isenberg School of Management, the Library, and University Relations, among others. However, as …


Fy 2014 Umass Amherst Waste Management Report, Ezra Small Jan 2014

Fy 2014 Umass Amherst Waste Management Report, Ezra Small

Campus Data

Each year the Office of Waste Management publishes this report which totals recycling and refuse data for the campus.


Academic Librarians And The Sustainability Curriculum: Building Alliances To Support A Paradigm Shift, Madeleine K. Charney Jan 2014

Academic Librarians And The Sustainability Curriculum: Building Alliances To Support A Paradigm Shift, Madeleine K. Charney

Madeleine K. Charney

Sustainability is a fast evolving movement in higher education demonstrated by a proliferation of academic programs and co-curricular initiative and projects. After a review of sustainability-related LibGuides (online resource guides) created by academic librarians, a survey was administered to their developers during the spring of 2011 and posted on library listservs. Librarians returned 112 survey responses which reflected active roles in the paradigm shift toward sustainability through the forging of partnerships across campus and development of teaching resources and events. Telephone interviews conducted with 24 of the respondents showed librarians’ wide-ranging personal and professional interest in sustainability, and their initiatives …