Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance


Book Description

Explores the growing role of global civil society and local environmental activism in the management and protection of the environment worldwide.




Urban Sustainability Transitions


Book Description

The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies. This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. With case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.




The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China


Book Description

Though China's economy is projected to become the world's largest within the next twenty years, industrial pollution threatens both the health of the country's citizens and the natural resources on which their economy depends. Capturing the consequences of this reality, Bryan Tilt conducts an in-depth, ethnographic study of Futian Township, a rural community reeling from pollution. The industrial township is located in the populous southwestern province of Sichuan. Three local factories-a zinc smelter, a coking plant, and a coal-washing plant-produce air and water pollution that far exceeds the standards set by the World Health Organization and China's Ministry of Environmental Protection. Interviewing state and company officials, factory workers, farmers, and scientists, Tilt shows how residents cope with this pollution and how they view its effects on health and economic growth. Striking at the heart of the community's environmental values, he explores the intersection between civil society and environmental policy, weighing the tradeoffs between protection and economic growth. Tilt ultimately finds that the residents are quite concerned about pollution, and he investigates the various strategies they use to fight it. His study unravels the complexity of sustainable development within a rapidly changing nation.




Leading Change toward Sustainability


Book Description

As the world struggles to cope with the growing threat of a global carbon crisis, Doppelt has revised one of the best books ever written about change management, leadership and sustainability to focus on de-carbonisation. Doppelt's research, presented in this hugely readable book, demystify the sustainability-change process by providing a theoretical framework and a methodology that managers can use to successfully transform their organisations to embrace sustainable development. Filled with case examples, interviews and checklists on how to move corporate and governmental cultures toward sustainability, the book argues that the key factors that facilitate change appear in the successful efforts at companies such as AstraZeneca, Nike, Starbucks, IKEA, Chiquita, Interface, Swisscom and Norm Thompson and in governmental efforts such as those in the Netherlands and Santa Monica in California. For these and other cutting-edge organisations, leading change is a philosophy for success. Leading Change toward Sustainability has been used by change leaders around the world to guide their internal global warming and sustainability organisational change initiatives. This new edition is essential reading for leaders from all types of organisations.




Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance


Book Description

This book offers insights into the governance of contemporary food systems and their ongoing transformation by social movements. As global food systems face multiple threats and challenges there is an opportunity for social movements and civil society to play a more active role in building social justice and ecological sustainability. Drawing on case studies from Canada, the United States, Europe and New Zealand, this edited collection showcases promising ways forward for civil society actors to engage in governance. The authors address topics including: the variety of forms that governance engagement takes from multi-stakeholderism to co-governance to polycentrism/self-governance; the values and power dynamics that underpin these different types of governance processes; effective approaches for achieving desired values and goals; and, the broader relationships and networks that may be activated to support change. By examining and comparing a variety of governance innovations, at a range of scales, the book offers insights for those considering contemporary food systems and their ongoing transformation. It is suitable for food studies students and researchers within geography, environmental studies, anthropology, policy studies, planning, health sciences and sociology, and will also be of interest to policy makers and civil society organisations with a focus on food systems.




Global Environmental Governance in the Information Age


Book Description

This book examines the impact of current and emerging digital technologies on global environmental governance, and in particular on environmental civil society organizations. Technological innovations are constantly emerging: internet and social media platforms, blockchains, big data, and artificial intelligence are some of the most common or promising digital technologies of our times. Through case studies and the analysis of concrete applications of digital technologies, this book shows how these digital technologies can be deployed to support global environmental governance, and in particular a multi-stakeholder approach to the protection of the environment. It provides an overview of the diverse uses of these digital technologies by civil society organizations (CSOs) in global environmental governance. In this fast-changing context, the capacity of environmental CSOs to manage and benefit from digital technologies, and to produce and distribute information, can strengthen their participation in global environmental governance. Their key roles, including advocacy, monitoring, knowledge production, fundraising, nudging individual behaviors, and project implementation, greatly benefit from the use of these technologies. By examining some of the most-utilized current digital technologies and presenting some of the most prominent emerging ones, this book aims to illustrate how active civil society organizations operate, and how ICTs support some of their roles, and therefore their participation in global environmental governance. This book will appeal to scholars and students of environmental studies and politics, global governance, political sociology, geography and communication studies along with policy makers and communication specialists from the environmental community.




Negotiating the Environment


Book Description

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity. By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people’s actual activities as policy is generated and contested. Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.




Civil Society Sustainability


Book Description

This publication focuses on the challenges faced by civil society to remain sustainable in response to major changes in the global political, economic and social environment. Academics and practitioners from all over the world have contributed original articles, practical notes and viewpoints which critically examine the ways in which civil society organisations are affected by and are responding to political and financial dynamics. These include reductions in traditional external aid for civil society activities, but also the growth of new forms of funding through social enterprise, philanthropy, fundraising and contractual relationships with national government. The operating environment for civil society is a central theme, with authors exploring the legitimacy and credibility of different types of civil society organisation, as well as the effects of legislative and regulatory restrictions on their sustainability. The contributions finally examine new opportunities for civil society and the prospects for organisations to emerge that are less dependent on foreign aid funding, that are more embedded in local communities, and that can bring about lasting and sustained social and economic change. This book was originally published as a special issue of Development in Practice.




Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia


Book Description

Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia offers the latest understanding of complex global problems in the region, including nuclear weapons, urban insecurity, energy, and climate change. Detailed case studies of China, North and South Korea, and Japan demonstrate the importance of civil society and ‘civic diplomacy’ in reaching shared solutions to these problems in East Asia and beyond. Each chapter describes regional civil society initiatives that tackle complex challenges to East Asia’s security. In doing so, the book identifies key pressure points at which civil society can push for constructive changes¯especially ones that reduce the North Korean threat to its neighbors. Unusually, this book is both theoretical and practical. Complexity, Security and Civil Society in East Asia presents strategies that can be led by civil society and negotiated by its diplomats to realize peace, security, and sustainability worldwide. It shows that networked civic diplomacy offers solutions to these urgent issues that official ‘complex diplomacy’ cannot. By providing a new theoretical framework based on empirical observation, this volume is a must read for diplomats, scholars, students, journalists, activists, and individual readers seeking insight into how to solve the crucial issues of our time.




Olympic Games, Mega-Events and Civil Societies


Book Description

This volume explores sporting mega-events, their social, political, and cultural characters, the value systems that they inscribe and draw on, the claims they make on us and the claims the organisers make for them, the spatial and ethical relationships they create, and the responses of civil societies to them.