Business Commons^™

Identifying Worldviews On Corporate Sustainability: A Content Analysis Of Corporate Sustainability Reports, Nancy E. Landrum, Brian M. Ohsowski

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Companies commonly issue sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. This study seeks to understand worldviews of corporate sustainability, or the corporate message conveyed regarding what sustainability or CSR is and how to enact it. Content analysis of corporate sustainability reports is used to position each company report within stages of corporate sustainability. Results reveal that there are multiple coexisting worldviews of corporate sustainability, but the most dominant worldview is focused on the business case for sustainability, a position anchored in the weak sustainability paradigm. We contend that the business case and weak sustainability advanced in corporate sustainability reports and …

Ethical Business Practice, Accountability, And Quality Assurance: Primary Drivers For Sustainable Tourism Development In Iceland, Abigail Harrison

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The tourism industry in Iceland has grown exponentially in the last decade, causing changes to the natural landscape and drastically shifting revenue streams in the economy. This rapid growth coupled with the recent development of Iceland’s tourism industry makes it the perfect case study for how to effectively mitigate tourism influxes. This unprecedented rate of growth impels the creation of sustainability measures within this industry in order to ensure a lasting vision of Icelandic tourism in the future. Both the government and private sector have already begun to institute sustainability measures in society and in business. The primary aim of …

Russia's Northern Rook: Nord Stream 2 On The European Energy Chessboard, David E. Wilson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline proposes to connect Germany to the world’s largest natural gas reserves in Russia, allowing the state-owned Russian energy behemoth Gazprom to double its export capacity through the ‘Northern Corridor’ transit route to Europe. This project has been the subject of sharp disapproval from Central and Eastern European countries, as well as the United States, which fear the prospect of increasing dependence on gas imports from a Russia perceived as politically aggressive and unreliable. This paper will identify the geopolitical and geoeconomic implications involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 by adopting a geostrategic worldview …

Sustainability Standards And Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons From Carbon Markets, Hans Rawhouser, Michael E. Cummings, Alfred Marcus

Management, Entrepreneurship and Technology Faculty Publications

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder engagement, we use an innovation management theoretical lens to compare stakeholder engagement and standards developed in two carbon markets: the Climate Action Reserve and the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism. We develop and test hypotheses regarding how different processes of stakeholder engagement in standard development affect the number, identity, and age of stakeholders involved, as well as the variation and quality of the resulting standards. In doing so, we contribute to the growing literature on stakeholder …

Fossil Fuel Asset Risk Analysis: Clark University Endowment, Travis A. Dodge, B. Maiwand Akbari

Student Works

The environmental and social risks of climate change are well known and perhaps inevitable. The economic and financial risks are less so. The many financial risks associated with climate change embedded in endowment portfolio fossil fuel holdings are leading many institutional stakeholders to enter into dialogue and take action. Divestment is emerging as an effective strategy for limiting portfolio exposure and tackling climate change itself.

Our team’s goals were to assess whether the Clark University endowment portfolio faces any of these risks and evaluate the impacts on asset values. Our findings show that the Clark endowment does face these same …

Household Informedness And Policy Analytics For The Collection And Recycling Of Household Hazardous Waste In California, Kustini Lim-Wavde, Robert J. Kauffman, Gregory S. Dawson

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Collection and recycling of household hazardous waste (HHW) can vary due to differences in household incomes, demographics, material recyclability, and HHW collection programs. We evaluate the role of household informedness, the degree to which households have the necessary information to make utility-maximizing decisions about the handling of their waste. Household informedness seems to be influenced by HHW public education and environmental quality information. We assess the effects of household informedness on HHW collection and recycling using panel data, community surveys, drinking water compliance reports, and census data in California from 2004 to 2012. The results enable the calculation of …

The Role Of Trade And Renewables In The Nexus Of Economic Growth And Environmental Degradation: Revisiting The Environmental Kuznets Curve (Ekc), Nguyen Thi Ngoc Lan

Undergraduate Research Awards

Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, this study investigates whether there is a revised EKC relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions under the presence of renewable energy and trade for a panel of 35 countries whose trade openness index have remained higher than average global trade index over the period 1980-2012. By addressing similar trade characteristics rather than income levels, this paper applies a panel analysis with random effects and fixed effects to test EKC hypothesis. We use the principal component analysis to explain why CO2 emissions stands as a critical indicator of environmental quality. The results …

Parallel Design Of A Product And Internet Of Things (Iot) Architecture To Minimize The Cost Of Utilizing Big Data (Bd) For Sustainable Value Creation, Ryan Bradley, Ibrahim S. Jawahir, Niko Murrell, Julie Whitney

Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing Faculty Publications

Information has become today's addictive currency; hence, companies are investing billions in the creation of Internet of Things (IoT) frameworks that gamble on finding trends that reveal sustainability and/or efficiency improvements. This approach to “Big Data” can lead to blind, astronomical costs. Therefore, this paper presents a counter approach aimed at minimizing the cost of utilizing “Big Data” for sustainable value creation. The proposed approach leverages domain/expert knowledge of the system in combination with a machine learning algorithm in order to limit the needed infrastructure and cost. A case study of the approach implemented in a consumer electronics company is …

Sustainability Survey, Dayton Regional Green Nonmember Businesses, 2017, Zachary Siefker, Theresa Isemann, Andrew Eckrich

Sustainability and Connectivity

This document is a sustainability and sharing survey intended for businesses that are not already Dayton Regional Green members. This survey includes questions similar to what is in DRG3's survey. It asks questions regarding mentoring, sharing, local sourcing, energy, waste streams, and sustainability.

Hackathon 2017 Project: Resource-Sharing Website, Zachary Siefker, Theresa Isemann, Andrew Eckrich

Sustainability and Connectivity

Our team was given the opportunity to pitch a concept to students attending UD’s Hackathon event on Febraury 22, 2017. One group took on the project and created the framework for a website that could be used for business connectivity and sharing. This document spells out the major takeaways from the project.

Team Meeting Minutes, January-April 2017, Zachary Siefker, Theresa Isemann, Andrew Eckrich

Sustainability and Connectivity

This document provides notes from meetings with several Dayton-area community leaders. Several ideas that make Dayton more community-oriented and material-efficient are discussed.

Dayton's Best 2017 Project: Moving Forward, Zachary Siefker, Theresa Isemann, Andrew Eckrich

Sustainability and Connectivity

This is a summary of work for the Sustainability and Connectivity group in Dr. Kevin Hallinan's 2017 Local Sustainability with Abundance course. It describes our research process over the course of the semester and some final conclusions. Additionally, it discusses how we see the project continuing beyond our work.

Sustainability Survey, Dayton Regional Green Member Businesses, 2017, Zachary Siefker, Theresa Isemann, Andrew Eckrich

Sustainability and Connectivity

This document is a sustainability and sharing survey intended for businesses that are Dayton Regional Green members. Dayton Regional Green already has an extensive survey. This survey tries to avoid redundancy in surveys by asking other questions not included in DRG3's survey. It asks questions regarding mentoring, sharing, local sourcing, and sustainability.

Weather Variability And The Tourism Industry: A Panel Data Analysis, Carmela Coppola

Honors Projects in Economics

Increasing weather variability around the world has led to many researchers examining the impacts of weather variability on vulnerable industries. For example, the tourism industry can make up a large portion of an economy’s growth, with some of the most dependent countries relying on tourism for over 40% of GDP (World Travel & Tourism Council 2014). In an attempt to better understand the relationship between weather variability and the tourism industry at the country level, this study employs a series of fixed effects panel regression models to analyze the impact of rainfall and temperature on tourism levels and growth rates …

Tourism In Raja Ampat: New Chances And Challenges, Chloe King

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study focuses on the ways in which the tourism industry in Raja Ampat has contributed to local livelihoods and encouraged the preservation of marine resources, looking specifically at the case of a dive operator and a volunteer tourism operation. The study illuminates the challenges that these operators face when engaging with the local community to protect the environment, and recommends more effective strategies for improving relations between tourism operators and the communities in which they reside. The study ultimately makes the case that the legacy of colonial rule in Western Papua must be a consideration in tourism planning, as …

Location Matters: Geospatial Policy Analytics Over Time For Household Hazardous Waste Collection In California, Kustini Lim-Wavde, Robert John Kauffman, Tin Seong Kam, Gregory S. Dawson

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

By integrating mapping and geospatial data into a county-level datasetfor exploratory analysis, we will demonstrate how to provide useful insightsfor waste managers and local governments regarding spatial patterns ofhousehold hazardous waste (HHW) collection and how it changes over time. We usemap-based visualization to display patterns of spatial intensity and countylocations for HHW collection in California from 2004 to 2015. We use exploratory spatial data analyticsmethods to characterize the spatial distribution of HHW collected per person.When we considered the spatial relationships, we were able to develop andestimate a geographically-weighted regression to explain how different regionalfactors influence the amount of HHW collected. …

Environmentally Friendly Industries: An Examination Of Ecotourism As The Solution To The Environmental Degradation Caused By The International Tourism Industry, Whitney Michael

Honors Theses – Charlotte Campus

The increasing visibility of ecological alterations due to global climate change have required high-impact industries to reexamine their environmental impact. Transnational organizations such as the United Nations have identified the current management practices of the international tourism industry as a significant contributing factor to global warming. The high volume implications of the large-scale establishments necessary to lodging facilities in the tourism trade are responsible for damages such as resource depletion and pollution. Existing levels of environmental impact show irreparable and imminent damage to the world environment if current methods of the industry are allowed to continue.

New trends in consumer …

Tourism Business Resilience For Coastal Virginia Assessment Report, Lindsay E. Usher, Michelle Covi, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf, Kaitlin Giles, Elizabeth Armistead Andrews, Angela King, Sashenka Brauer, Rebecca Ribley

Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency (CCRFR): Reports

This report summarizes the results of the Tourism Business Resilience Project conducted by the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency and Virginia Sea Grant. This project was a joint effort by faculty and students from the Old Dominion University Resilience Collaborative and the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at the William & Mary Law School.