Business Commons^™

An Investigation In The Sustainable Economic Practices Of Ecovillages, Oriana Price, Mary Johnsson, Emma Heffernan, Belinda Gibbons

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Ecovillages represent an alternative yet innovative form of residential living that prioritises community and sustainability. However, prior worldwide research suggests that 90% of ecovillages fail to sustain as living communities. This 2019 report represents Phase 2 of a small project investigating practices within one Australian ecovillage. The original focus was on what kinds of economic practices can help to sustain ecovillage viability. The findings that emerged suggest that an integrated learning approach that considers sociocultural, ecological and economic factors might develop a more durable approach to practising and ‘living’ sustainability.

Disclosure And Reporting Against The Sustainable Development Goals: Connecting New Stakeholders To Sustainability Data, Theresa Heithaus, Richard Mills, Stephanie Perkiss

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This case study focuses on the disclosures of thirty seven companies and a unique research approach to making their corporate sustainability performance more open, comparable and engaging. A group of 40 students at the University of Wollongong worked in a structured way to aggregate comparable data on corporate sustainability on a selection of metrics related to the SDGs. This report offers an in depth look at one example of the kind of projects that WikiRate and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) have been running since 2016, involving more than 2,000 students. For this case study, WikiRate staff reviewed …

An Investigation In The Sustainable Economic Practices Of Ecovillages, Belinda Kathlyn Gibbons, Emma Elizabeth Heffernan, Oriana Price, Simon Ville, Mary C. Johnsson

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This 2018 research report represents Phase 1 of a small project investigating economic practices within one Australian ecovillage. Phase 2 of the same project (a longitudinal progress update) was completed in 2019. The 2018 report provides a summary of 'lessons learned' findings from a literature scan on ecovillages including the websites of 14 ecovillages. In addition, the report contains analysis of findings from mixed method research including an online survey, focus group, individual interviews and other qualitative data collection activities generated from interacting with members of the Australian ecovillage.

Sustainability And Intertemporal Equity: A Multicriteria Approach, Cinzia Colapinto, Danilo Liuzzi, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In (macro)economics literature, the need to consider sustainability and intertemporal equity issues leads to propose different criteria (discounted utilitarianism, green golden rule, Chichilnisky criterion) in order to define social welfare. We compare and assess the outcomes associated to such alternative criteria in a simple macroeconomic model with natural resources and environmental concern (Chichilnisky et al. in Econ Lett 49:174-179, 1995), by relying on a multicriteria approach. We show that among these three criteria, the green golden rule (discounted utilitarianism) yields the highest (lowest) welfare level, while the Chichilnisky criterion leads to an intermediate welfare level which turns out to be …

Strategic Marketing Sustainability: From A Marketing Mix To A Marketing Matrix, Alan Pomering

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper proposes a marketing planning framework that will assist managers to address sustainability challenges in their decision making, in line with the American Marketing Association's (AMA) revised (2007) definition of marketing, which calls for a responsibility to society at large, not just individual consumers. At present, marketing's conceptual frameworks lag behind what is a fundamental and significant shift in marketing philosophy. We propose a Sustainability Marketing Model, a simple yet systematic framework that ensures sustainability cascades through the marketing planning process. In developing this, the marketing mix is replaced with a matrix that adds four critical decision fields to …

Educating The Future Of Sustainability, Gillian Bowser, Ulrike Gretzel, Elizabeth Davis, Mark Brown

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The future of global environmental sustainability is contingent upon educating the next generation of environmental stewards. Critical elements of training such an interdisciplinary workforce include mentoring and experiential learning in the areas of science, communication, and leadership. To keep pace with the ever changing and increasingly complex issues of global environmental sustainability, environmental educators must encourage and support the participation and training of a diverse body of students in the environmental sciences. The Rocky Mountain Sustainability and Science Network (RMSSN) is a partnership of over two dozen universities, federal agencies and other organizations designed to help train the next diverse …

Environmental Shocks And Sustainability In A Basic Economy-Environment Model, Fabio Privileggi, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

We study a stochastic, discrete-time, economy-environment integrated model, where human activity affects the evolution of pollution over time. We assume that exogenous i.i.d. environmental shocks determine the rate of pollution transfer. We show that the pollution to capital ratio dynamics can be read as an iterated function system converging to an invariant distribution supported on a (asymmetric) Cantor set, and that human intervention aiming at offsetting the environmental impact of economic activities is needed to ensure sustainability.

Airline Innovation And Sustainability: A Systems Perspective, Peter Critchley, Lee Styger

Sydney Business School - Papers

Air transport has been the scene of remarkable and rapid innovation since man first controlled powered flight in Kitty Hawk in 1903. Significant developments in aviation technology, for example, the onset of the Jet Age, tend to dominate popular perception of aviation innovation. The commercial airline industry is hugely complex and inexorably tied to our economic, social and technological systems. Consequently, it is also on the leading edge of the sustainability debate. Modern air transportation has developed into a hugely complex system in a relatively short time. That rapid development and complexity, however, offers insights into how the industry can …

Economic Growth: Technical Progress, Population Dynamics And Sustainability, Simone Marsiglio

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Economic growth is probably the most important goal of every policy intervention because of its wide consequences on the welfare of current and future generations. Because of the current crisis faced by several industrialized countries, this is probably much clearer today than in the past. In order to determine whether and which kind of public intervention can be taken to restore the growth process, the first step is understanding the relationship between different factors and economic growth. The goal of this brief paper is to shed some light on the mutual implications of growth and some of these factors: demography, …

Sustainability At Home: Policy Measures For Energy-Efficient Appliances, Geoff Kelly

Sydney Business School - Papers

Residential energy consumption is now an important component of total energy consumption and its related emissions. In addition,this consumption has significant potential for growth in both developed and developing countries, as average incomes increase, and domestic appliance numbers rise. Reduction in this energy use may be achieved both through conservation measures, and through increased efficiency in its use. This paper focuses on energy efficiency in appliances-those many devices through which household energy is consumed. The policy instruments available to promote the uptake of more efficient devices, and issues associated with their use, are reviewed, drawing on developed country experiences to …

Implementing A Sustainability Balanced Scorecard 'Dashboard' Approach To Assess Organisational Legitimacy, Tairan (Kevin) Huang, Matthew P. Pepper, Graham D. Bowrey

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify and determine the contributing factors which influence the contents of a firm‟s sustainability reporting through combined social and environmental accounting and management perspectives.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes the disclosed sustainability indicators of a major Australian financial institution, Westpac, through the application of the research method content analysis. The theoretical framework will be shaped by the consideration of legitimacy theory and the Balanced Scorecard approach.

Findings: The results indicate that the four perspectives of a traditional Balanced Scorecard are related to the main sources of influential inputs to Westpac‟s …

An Analysis Of The Sustainability And The Future Of Innovation Readiness Within The Australian Supply Base: A Cross-Sectorial, Cross-Regional Snapshot, Lee E J Styger

Sydney Business School - Papers

Recently, there has been unprecedented disturbance in the core supply base of many Australian organisations. Supply networks that were once considered robust are in many cases vulnerable. Traditional supply chain development methodologies appear to offer little improvement opportunity due to critical gaps developing at core supply nodes and/or within the critical mass of supply. This paper discusses the data derived from a series of novel cross-sectional and cross-regional supply chain focus groups and OEM feedback interviews. This paper highlights the potential embedded risks within the supply base of Australia. Importantly this paper demonstrates a disconnect between supplier and customer, a …

Social Innovation, Sustainable Futures And Commercial Concerns: People, Profits And Social Well-Being, Patrick M. Dawson, L. Daniel

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper draws attention to the growing interest in social innovations as they seek to improve the well being of people, communities and society. Social innovations are recognised as the development of new concepts, strategies and tools that support individuals and groups to achieve improved well-being. We examine here the growing interest in social innovation before turning our attention to more theoretical and conceptual concerns. We examine the link between the social and technical dimensions of innovation and identify how the scope of our definition is important in delineating our phenomena of interest. Some of the earlier academic work on …

In Pursuit Of A Sustainable Supply Chain: Insights From Westpac Banking Corporation, Byron Keating, Ali Quazi, Anton Kriz, Tim Coltman

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to provide clues to industry and academia on how best to approach the challenge of developing a sustainable supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach – A case study was undertaken of the Westpac Banking Corporation – one of the world's most socially responsible banks – to examine how they approached the challenge of managing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their supply chain.

Findings – This paper highlights some of the challenges and opportunities associated with extending corporate governance beyond the firm boundary. Specific attention is given to a discussion of assessment and governance tools.

Research …

Strategic Ambiguity As A Discourse Practice: The Role Of Keywords In The Discourse On ‘Sustainable’ Biotechnology, S. R. Leitch, S. Davenport

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

In this article we examined the ways in which strategic ambiguity (Eisenberg, 1984) in the use of keywords (Williams, 1976/1983) served an enabling function within a discourse marked by conflict and ideological divisions. Our analysis focused on the intertextual relationships between five documents intended by the Government to guide the development of biotechnology in New Zealand. Through our analysis we identified ‘sustainability’ as a keyword and three major roles for the deployment of the discourse strategy of strategic ambiguity in the use of this keyword. First, strategic ambiguity lent an internal and intertextual coherence to the texts (albeit superficial). Second, …

Social And Commercial Sustainability Of Regional Web-Based Communities, A. Connery, Helen M. Hasan

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

New information and communications technologies have disrupted many traditional forms of community but enabled the emergence of new ones. This paper examines pertinent characteristics of communities, before describing three case studies of commercially operated web-based communities. The research demonstrates the social and commercial value of the concept of community.