Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Palestine has seen complicated changes in its political circumstances, most notably the creation of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 war, where Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These events have created catastrophic political, economic and social facts which deeply affected the life of the Palestinian people. In this context, tourism became a political tool in the supremacy and domination of the Israeli establishment over land, and people, and an instrument for preventing the Palestinians from enjoying the benefits and the fruits of cultural and human interaction on which tourism thrives. Israel controls all access to Palestine (land and sea borders), most of the Palestinian water resources and all movements of people and goods from, to and within Palestine. This article assesses the role that tourism may play in promoting peace by presenting the Palestinian Initiative for Responsible Tourism - code of conduct - and its contribution to peace. In addition, issues of sustainability and the triple bottom line will be evaluated which could go a long way towards healing some of the divisions in the Palestinian/Israeli society.
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This article will discuss social, environmental, and ecological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG). The concept of sustainable development and, by extension, the ESD, places heavy emphasis on the economic and social aspects of sustainability. However, the ESD falls short of recognizing ecological justice, or recognition that nonhumans also have a right to exist and flourish. An intervention in the form of an undergraduate course titled Politics, Business, and Environment (PBE) will be discussed. As part of this course, students were asked to reflect on the three pillars of sustainable development: society, economy, and environment, linking these to the fourth concept, ecological justice or biospheric egalitarianism. Biospheric egalitarianism is characterized by the recognition of intrinsic value in the environment and is defined as concern about justice for the environment. Some of the resulting exam answers are analyzed, demonstrating students’ ability to recognize the moral and pragmatic limitations of the anthropocentric approach to justice. This analysis presents ways forward in thinking about the role of “ecological justice” as the ultimate bottom line upon which both society and economy are based. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10100261 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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In BOP ventures the notion of “selling to the poor” has steadily been replaced by business approaches that suggest sustainable value creation. This has certain implications, in particular the development of strategies that serve triple bottom-line goals. These include economic, social and environmental benefits, in other words, the well known goals of people-planet-profit. However to optimise value-creation one ideally needs to follow a strategy that is based on some form of conceptual model that can serve as a frame of reference. This paper proposes such a conceptual model. The research was undertaken in 8 BOP projects involving multinational information and communication technology companies in Africa. ICT is relevant here because of frequently high expectations that it contributes positively to development goals. A study of the BOP literature reveals that several elements need consideration when trying to create value in developing areas. In addition it emerges that these elements are somehow interdependent. Using information found in the literature as guide a study of 8 cases was undertaken. The research approach was the case study method and the data was analysed for emerging patterns. Primary and secondary data was collected through interviews as well as a close study of archival and other sources. The analysis revealed three high level factors that may need to be aligned in order to ensure optimised value creation of BOP ventures. These three factors are BOP strategy, partnerships, and products & services development. It is also confirmed that neither BOP strategy nor partnerships nor products/service development can be synthesised independently from the rest. There is a delicate balance and interaction between the three where all three are interdependent and mutually influence each other.
In the Netherlands the business community is pretty active in the biobased economy because it offers plenty of economic opportunities. Innovation and chain development are stimulated towards the development of the bi-obased economy, bioenergy and to biobased materials. The Netherlands is strongly investing on improving inno-vative business and development, developing business cases and removing obstacles of non-technical origin. Importantly, the Dutch business community have recognised that many activities will depend on biomass imports as domestic production is mostly limited. In the Netherlands there is a large demand for biobased biomass, and it is estimated that in the year 2030 about 60-70% of the required biomass will have to be imported. The Dutch Platform Biobased Raw Materials has emphasised the importance of the imports of biomass, and has focused on developing guidelines for transition paths, where international cooperation with biomass-producing countries is essential. The Netherlands has identified Spain as an important provider of biomass resources (19 million ktoe), Spain holds the third position in European ranking of biomass potential. The autonomous community Galicia is the most important forest region in Spain, where the agroforestry sector has been considered as an alternative to yield economic benefits as well as to bring ecological advantages. However, the potential of Galicia as a pro-ducer and supplier of (waste flow) biomass is underdeveloped and underutilised. There is a need for a better un-derstanding of the potential business models that Dutch companies and Spanish stakeholders can apply to devel-op a biobased value chains that lead to the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit. To realise this goal, our project focuses on identifying the linkages between the Galicia agroforestry sector and the Dutch biobased industries, and explore the potential business opportunities towards the strengthening of both the local and the Dutch biobased markets. To achieve the latter we centred on the following questions: I. What are the potential new business models that can be applied for a profitable and sustainable biobased chain from the waste flows of the agroforestry sector of Galicia for a steady production and supply to the local and the Dutch markets, leading to a sustainable transition path? II. What are the institutional frameworks required to develop new and profitable biobased value chains within the agroforestry sector in Galicia?
