The diverse European landscape of climate consciousness is shaped by political values, financial constraints, and country-specific point of view. The aim of the study was to unravel age-specific ecological awareness, forms of engagement, and perceptions, contributing to a nuanced understanding of climate dynamics.Selected regions: Germany (Rheinisches Revier), the Netherlands (Amsterdam Metropolitan Area), and Poland (Upper Silesia/Metropolis GZM) present different states regarding recycling/Circular Economy principles, and different environments.The research design incorporates an inductive qualitative approach to investigate environmental awareness and attitudes toward ecologically friendly behaviors. Six FGIs (Focus Group Interviews) were conducted across three European regions, involving participants from diverse age groups (20–39 years and 40–60 years) in each region.The study shows that ecological awareness varies between countries and generations, reflecting distinctive environmental strategies shaped by cultural and developmental factors. Participants in each region and age group exhibit diverse levels of engagement in sustainable activities, and highlight issues such as the need for tailored strategies, concerns related to eco-labelling, greenwashing, and inadequate waste treatment, as well as information gaps.These variations in pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors across age groups and regions underscore the need for tailored strategies and regional policies. Transparency in waste management, eco-labelling, and sustainable transportation alternatives should be prioritized. Educational initiatives addressing information gaps, especially regarding lifestyle choices, are crucial. Collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches are essential for fostering positive change and a sustainable future across the European Union. Transparent communication, regulatory measures, and accessible eco-friendly options encourage widespread adoption of pro-environmental behaviors.
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The study of moral reasoning in relation to sustainable development is an emerging field within environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). The vignette method was used to evaluate the perception of the relationship between environmental and social issues in the Dutch upper elementary school children. This case study is placed within two broad areas of tension, namely between the need to address urgent environmental problems and to promote pluralistic democratic learning; and between the value of environment as an economic asset and deep ecology perspective. Results of this study indicate that the children are able to critically think about the moral dilemmas inherent in sustainable development and distinguish between different values in relation to environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2013.12.004 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This article explores cooperation between a commercial supermarket chain and an environmental non-governmental organization linking it to consumer perception of the “The Super Animals” collectable cards promotion initiative. The case study focuses on one particular joint project involving Animal Cards that was initiated by the supermarket Albert Heijn and the World Wide Fund for Nature in The Netherlands. Based on this case, environmental non-governmental organizations’ strategic choices in the context of contesting discourses of sustainability and consumption, as well as implications for environmental education, are addressed. This article combines three strands of the literature – on sustainable consumption, on strategic cooperation between commercial companies and environmental non-governmental organizations and on environmental education. It is argued that the Animal Cards initiative presents an ambiguous case by both attempting to enhance environmental awareness and promoting consumption, opening up questions about the value of such cooperative ventures to the objectives of environmental education. It is concluded that cross-sector partnerships have the potential to lead to improvements in corporate social responsibility and environmental awareness among consumers but simultaneously pose the danger of undermining the critical stance toward consumption. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540514556170 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This manifesto describes the notion of sustainable development according to its basic appeal for economic, social and environmental value-creation, together with the implications of its meaning at the level of the individual (the manager), the organisation (the business) and society. As sustainable tourism is focused on the long term, foresight is used to develop four scenarios for a sustainable tourism industry in 2040: “back to the seventies”, “captured in fear”, “unique in the world”, and “shoulders to the wheel”. The implications of the scenarios are mapped for four distinct types of organisational DNA: the blue organisation focusing on quality, professionalism and efficiency, the red organisation for whom challenge, vision and change are most important, the yellow organisation addressing energy, optimism and growth, and the green organisation which is led by care, tradition and security. The manifest concludes with strategic propositions for tourism organisations in each of the four business types and each of the four scenarios.
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The shift towards a more sustainable circular economy will require innovations. While SMEs can contribute to this development, financing innovations within SMEs is difficult. Various authors have not ed moreover that the concept of the circular economy has further increased the complexity of investment decisions concerning sustainable innovations, due to the multiple value creation and new business models involved . On the other hand
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There is mounting evidence that efforts to mitigate the adverse effects of human activity on climate and biodiversity have so far been unsuccessful. Explanations for this failure point to a number of factors discussed in this article. While acknowledging cognitive dissonance as a significant contributing factor to continuing unsustainable practices, this article seeks to explore hegemonic rationality of industrial expansion and economic growth and resulting politics of denial. These politics promote the economic rationale for exploitation of the environment, with pursuit of material wealth seen as the most rational goal. Framed this way, this rationality is presented by political and corporate decision-makers as common sense and continuous environmentally destructive behavior is justified under the guise of consumer choices, hampering meaningful action for sustainable change. This article underlines forms of alternative rationality, namely, non-utilitarian and non-hierarchical worldview of environmental and human flourishing, that can advance sustainability. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Demographic changes, such as the ageing of society and the decline of the birth rate, are gradually leading to the loss of valuable knowledge and experience in the Dutch Labour market. This necessitates an explicit focus on workers' sustainable employment so that they can add value to the organisation throughout their career. This study looks into the way in which the workers' motivation might affect their investments into their own sustainable employment. It was conducted in a major industrial service provider, Sitech Services. The conclusion is that intrinsic motivation plays an important role in both younger and older employees, and that the younger workers undertake more action in order to give physical form to their sustainable employment than their older colleagues.
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There are over 1400 age-friendly cities and communities worldwide, and the efforts to create a better quality of life for older people progressively intersect with sustainability goals. The intentions and behaviours concerning sustainability among older are, however, not yet well understood. Therefore, there is a need for assessing these intentions and behaviours through the use of a transparently constructed and validated instrument which can be used to measures the construct of environmental sustainability among older people. The aim of this study is to develop a questionnaire measuring how older people view the theme of environmental sustainability in their daily lives, with a focus on the built environment, providing full transparency and reproducibility. The process of development and validation of the SustainABLE-16 Questionnaire followed the COSMIN protocol, and has been conducted in five phases. This rigorous process has resulted in a valid, psychometrically sound, comprehensive 16-item questionnaire. This instrument can be applied to assess older people's beliefs, behaviours and financial aspects regarding environmental sustainability in their lives. The SustainABLE-16 Questionnaire was created in Dutch and in British English.
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Our paper investigates the microfoundations of sustainable entrepreneurship and aims to shed light on trade-offs made in decisions about social, ecological and economic sustainability. Balancing the three dimensions of sustainability (social, ecological and economic) inherently requires choices in which one dimension or another has less optimal outcomes. There is not much known about the rationale that sustainable entrepreneurs use for making such trade-offs. Thus, we ask how does entrepreneurial orientation affect decisions and trade-offs on sustainability impact? Our study is an exploratory, qualitative study of 24 sustainable entrepreneurs. We collected data about entrepreneurial orientation and sustainability trade-offs and held in-depth interviews with a subsample of six firms. We conducted a cluster analysis based on four entrepreneurial orientations (innovativeness, proactiveness, riskiness and futurity) and three sustainability trade-off dimensions (environmental, social and economic). From the findings, we derive a typology of three types of sustainable entrepreneurs: green-conflicted, humanitarian-oriented and holistically-oriented. We uncover salient characteristics and aspects of entrepreneurial orientation in relation to trade-off decisions. We find that the entrepreneurs accept slower economic growth or lower performance in order to maintain the integrity of their social and ecological principles and values.
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