Expectations are high for digital technologies to address sustainability related challenges. While research into such applications and the twin transformation is growing rapidly, insights in the actual daily practices of digital sustainability within organizations is lacking. This is problematic as the contributions of digital tools to sustainability goals gain shape in organizational practices. To bridge this gap, we develop a theoretical perspective on digital sustainability practices based on practice theory, with an emphasis on the concept of sociomateriality. We argue that connecting meanings related to sustainability with digital technologies is essential to establish beneficial practices. Next, we contend that the meaning of sustainability is contextspecific, which calls for a local meaning making process. Based on our theoretical exploration we develop an empirical research agenda.
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This study highlights tensions and challenges experienced by language teachers in CLIL contexts. Using an example from the Netherlands, it explores the pedagogical and collaborative practices of Teachers of English in Bilingual streams (TEBs). The study shows how, using formal and practical theories, pedagogical and collaborative practices were formulated and used to investigate the beliefs and practices of language teachers in bilingual settings. The paper presents the operationalisation of 36 practices for TEBs and reports on an online survey investigating TEBs’ stated beliefs and practices. The findings suggest this set of practices has potential, both as a professional development tool for language teachers in bilingual education settings, and for further research. Results of the online survey revealed that the disciplinary identity of most Dutch TEBs leads to a focus on language, communication, literature, and language arts. TEBs are not necessarily aware of, and do not automatically consider, possibilities for expanding their own pedagogical practices in relation to subject-specific language or supporting and collaborating with their subject teacher colleagues. We suggest that policy guidelines, curricula development and teacher education programmes should pay more attention to the unique position of language teachers in these settings.
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De sector Beschermd Wonen en Maatschappelijke Opvang (BW/MO) heeft te maken met een groeiend aantal forensische cliënten. Er is behoefte aan een overzicht van best practices, do’s en don’ts in het methodisch handelen bij deze doelgroep. De vraag die we met dit onderzoek willen beantwoorden is: Welke best practices zijn er in de BW/MO-sector voor de begeleiding van en zorg aan forensische cliënten? In het huidige onderzoek zijn - na een literatuurverkenning - op systematische wijze de ervaringen van forensisch sociaal werkers en cliënten verzameld en bestudeerd. Dit werd op verschillende manieren gedaan in drie fases: Fase 1: Verkenning: groepsinterviews bij 15 BW/MO-instellingen Fase 2: Verdieping: 11 casuïstiekbesprekingen bij BW/MO-instellingen Fase 3: Uitwisseling: een onlinebijeenkomst (forensisch carrousel) De forensische doelgroep binnen de BW/MO bestaat voornamelijk uit mannen met multiproblematiek, zoals verslaving, agressie en psychiatrische problemen. Ze wonen in verschillende beschermde woonvormen met meer of minder zelfstandigheid en (ambulante) begeleiding. De belangrijkste best practices die professionals tijdens de verkenning noemden zijn: het bieden van een duidelijke structuur en heldere kaders, investeren in de werkalliantie (onder andere vanuit de presentiebenadering), goede samenwerking met ketenpartners met duidelijke afspraken over ieders taken en verantwoordelijkheden, herstelgericht werken aan kleine doelen, werken aan destigmatisering, werken met signaleringsplannen en risicotaxaties, zorgvuldig plaatsen van cliënten en de inzet van vrijwilligers en forensische ervaringsdeskundigen. Een deel van de instellingen plaatst forensische cliënten bij elkaar (geclusterd) omdat forensische expertise dan gerichter kan worden ingezet, andere instellingen plaatsen forensische cliënten bij andere cliënten (gespikkeld) om normalisering in de hand te werken. In de verdiepingsfase kwamen de volgende best practices aan de orde met betrekking tot ketensamenwerking: duidelijkheid scheppen over rollen en verantwoordelijkheden, de cliënt zelf laten beslissen bij uitstroom na detentie met bajes-uit begeleiding, en driegesprekken organiseren met toezichthouder, begeleider en cliënt. Best practices met betrekking tot krachtgericht werken zijn: duidelijke grenzen stellen, zoeken naar datgene waar de cliënt zelf regie op kan voeren en bekrachtigen wat iemand bereikt binnen het kader van de bijzondere voorwaarden. Overige best practices zijn: zorgvuldige matching van cliënt en vrijwilliger en werken aan destigmatisering op verschillende niveaus. Tijdens het forensisch carrousel is de bredere toepasbaarheid van de verzamelde best practices verkend. Werkzame elementen van goede ketensamenwerking, krachtgericht en herstelgericht werken in relatie tot risico’s en probleemgedrag, de inzet van vrijwilligers en ervaringsdeskundigen en werken aan destigmatisering werden breed onderkend, maar er zijn ook uitdagingen. Deskundigheidsbevordering is daarmee zowel een best practice als een aanbeveling.
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Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. In this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating youth on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. The Master Energy for Society, and particularly the course “Society in Transition”, aims at providing a first overview on the urgency and complexities of the energy transition. However, educating on the energy transition brings challenges: it is a complex topic to understand for students, especially when they have diverse backgrounds. In the last years we have seen a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches in higher institutions. While most practices have been related to digital gaming approaches, there is a new trend: escape rooms. The intended output and proposed innovation is therefore the development and application of an escape room on energy transition to increase knowledge and raise motivation among our students by addressing both hard and soft skills in an innovative and original way. This project is interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary due to the complexity of the topic; it consists of three different stages, including evaluation, and requires the involvement of students and colleagues from the master program. We are confident that this proposed innovation can lead to an improvement, based on relevant literature and previous experiences in other institutions, and has the potential to be successfully implemented in other higher education institutions in The Netherlands.
Denim Democracy from the Alliance for Responsible Denim (ARD) is an interactive exhibition that celebrates the journey and learning of ARD members, educates visitors about sustainable denim and highlights how companies collaborate together to achieve results. Through sight, sound and tactile sensations, the visitor experiences and fully engages sustainable denim production. The exhibition launches in October 2018 in Amsterdam and travels to key venues and locations in the Netherlands until April 2019. As consumers, we love denim but the denim industry, like other sub-sectors in the textile, apparel and footwear industries, faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project brought leading denim brands, suppliers and stakeholders together to collectively address these issues and take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production. Sustainability challenges are considered very complex and economically undesirable for individual companies to address alone. In denim, small and medium sized denim firms face specific challenges, such as lower economies of scale and lower buying power to affect change in practices. There is great benefit in combining denim companies' resources and knowledge so that collective experimentation and learning can lift the sustainability standards of the industry and lead to the development of common standards and benchmarks on a scale that matters. If meaningful, transformative industrial change is to be made, then it calls for collaboration between denim industry stakeholders that goes beyond supplier-buyer relations and includes horizontal value chain collaboration of competing large and small denim brands. However collaboration between organizations, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to failure. The research behind the Alliance for Responsible Denim project asked a central research question: how do competitors effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability? To answer this question, we used a mixed-method, action research approach. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project mobilized and facilitated denim brands to collectively identify ways to reduce the use of water and chemicals in denim production and then aided them to implement these practices individually in their respective firms.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
