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26Bestandstype
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14Publicaties met bestand / URL
2Projectstatus
3Een kennisclip over de Sustainable Development Goals
VIDEO
The rapid growth of FinTech (financial technology) companies has brought significant transformation in the global financial landscape (Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), 2021). This disruption is intensifying after the COVID-19 pandemic (International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2022). The decentralized finance (DeFi), as a sub-area of FinTech, can have the ability to transform the structure of contemporary finance and to foster a new environment for innovation and entrepreneurship (Chen & Bellavitis, 2019; Mhlanga, 2023). Many scholars have highlighted the fact that DeFi is a fast-developing field that challenges the traditional financial system by offering financial services without the support of centralized intermediaries (Jensen, 2021; Schueffel, 2021). As technological innovations continue to influence the financial industry, it is becoming increasingly crucial to analyze their impact on sustainable development or contribution to meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs). With regards to Fintech, many recent scientific studies explicate the role of FinTech companies in achieving SDGs, in both developed as well as developing economies (see, Hinson et al., 2019; Hudaefi, 2020; Hoang et al., 2022; Carè et al., 2023). More precisely, various scholars highlighted the major challenges addressing by FinTech companies, such as the reduction of poverty, the advancement of financial inclusion, the facilitation of easy access to healthcare, gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability (see Arner et al., 2020; Moro-Visconti et al., 2020), which ultimately contributes to several SDGs (Carè et al., 2023). While, DeFi has the potential to improve the accessibility, transparency, and efficiency of the financial infrastructure (Schär, 2021). Specifically, Lucian et al. (2022) stated that if DeFi is developed in a safe manner, it can significantly enhance competition and financial inclusion, hence having positive implications for overall financial stability. Despite the fact that many studies have been published, a review of the existing literature shows that the literature on FinTech and DeFi's role in sustainable development is still fragmented. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of the literature on FinTech and DeFi's role in achieving the SDGs, identifying key authors, articles, journals, authors, prominent research streams, and major research fronts for future advancement. To do this, the research study will apply a bibliometric analysis (Zupic & Čater, 2015; Donthu et al., 2021), which includes performance analysis, science mapping, as well as content analysis (van Eck & Waltman, 2010, 2014). The findings aim to enhance academic knowledge and provide valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners navigating the dynamic intersection of FinTech, DeFi, and SDGs.
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Financial technologies (FinTech) and decentralized finance (DeFi) are revolutionizing traditional banking services, a trend that has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding their impact on sustainable development goals (SDGs) is essential as these technologies influence core financial services. Research indicates FinTech companies in developed and developing countries play crucial roles in addressing challenges like poverty, financial inclusion, and environmental sustainability, contributing significantly to SDGs. This chapter offers a comprehensive bibliometric review of FinTech, DeFi, and SDGs, mapping the research evolution, identifying key contributors, and underscoring emerging trends. It fills a gap in the literature by systematically analyzing FinTech and DeFi's role in achieving SDGs, providing insights for stakeholders navigating these intersecting domains.
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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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Sustainable development has become the driving force for research and higher learning. Intergration of the sustainable development goals into the academic curriculum demands a transdiciplinary approach involving different disciplines and the stakeholdes. This study combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to assess the impact of interdisciplinary learning for the Masters program in Environmental Design. The study has followed up on the success of previous experiments in the institution involving undergraduate students. The results of the study established the effectiveness of the transdisciplinary project based approach and provided valuable insights towards improving the current methodolgy.
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Environmental unsustainability is due to both structural features and historically specific characteristics of industrial capitalism resulting in specific patterns of production and consumption, as well as population growth. Sustainability literature criticises the established corporate and political power hegemonies, interested in maintaining economic growth, as well as inability or unwillingness of citizen-consumers to counteract these hegemonic tendencies. Yet, official policies are still targeted at social and economic ‘development’ as a panacea for unsustainability challenges. Instead, renewed accent on social and economic objectives are outlined by a set of sustainable development goals (SDG) that include objectives of fighting poverty, promoting better health, reducing mortality, and stimulating equitable economic growth. What is less commonly critiqued is the underlying morality of unsustainability and ethical questions concerned with the ‘victims of unsustainability’ outside of socioeconomic discourse. The achievement of SDG goals, as will be further elaborated on in this article, is unlikely to lead to greater social equality and economic prosperity, but to a greater spread of unsustainable production and consumption, continuous economic as well as population growth that has caused environmental problems in the first place and further objectification of environment and its elements. This article argues that an invocation of ethical duty toward environment and its elements is required in order to move beyond the current status quo. Such ethical approach to unsustainability can effectively address the shortcomings of the mainstream sustainability discourse that is mainly anthropocentric and therefore fails to identify the correct locus of unsustainability. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International "Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology" on 2015 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2015.1111269 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Anthropocentrism is the belief that value is human-centered and that all other beings are means to human ends. The Oxford English Dictionary defines anthropocentrism as “regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence”. Anthropocentrism focuses on humanistic values as opposed to values found in non-human beings or ecosystems. With the popularization of the concept of ecosystem services, the idea of protecting the environment for the sake of human welfare is reflected in the SDGs. Within the SDGs, the instrumental use of the environment for the sake of alleviating poverty, combatting climate change, and addressing a range of other social and economic issues is promoted. Since the conception of the SDGs, there has been a discussion about anthropocentrism in ‘sustainable development’ (e.g., Kopnina 2016a and 2017, Strang 2017, Adelman 2018; Kotzé and French 2018) and how the SDGs can be antithetical to effective responses to sustainability challenges. The SDGs’ accent on economic growth and social equality as well as environmental protection actually result in ethical as well as practical paradoxes. While central to the SDG’s is ‘sustained and inclusive economic growth’ (UN 2015), the prioritization is on the economy, NOT the planet that nurtures both social and economic systems. Anthropocentrism, in this case, refers to the exclusive focus on short-term human benefits, whereas biodiversity loss is not considered a great moral wrong (Cafaro and Primack 2014). The three overarching anthropocentric SDG goals, economic growth, resilience, and inclusion, will be critically examined below and ways forward will be proposed. “This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in 'Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Life on Land'. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71065-5_105-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are our plan for a futureproof world in which every person can live in peace and prosperity. The power of this vision is even more relevant today than it was when the Goals were adopted in 2015. The 17 Goals provide the basis to make our societies and economies resilient against crises, both in the present and in the future.
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Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainable Development Goals, critical scholars have pointed out that the very enterprise of sustainable development is not without its contradictions. Therefore, any education that engages with sustainable development needs to be carefully reviewed, rather than supported, in its ambition to promote the supposedly universally desirable aims. The rhetoric of sustainable development as meeting the needs of present and future generations is largely anthropocentric in failing to take nonhuman species into account when setting up pragmatic and ethical objectives. Similarly to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have helped to raise living standards across the world, but have largely failed to address environmental sustainability challenges, the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) tend to prioritize “inclusive economic growth” at the expense of ecological integrity, which is very likely to negatively affect not only nonhuman species but also future generations and their quality of life. Thus, as this chapter will argue, universally applicable Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDGs) is problematic in the context of addressing the long-term sustainability for both human and nonhuman inhabitants of the planet. Given escalating climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and depletion of natural resources, this chapter questions whether ESDGs can qualify as a desirable “quality education”. The paradoxes of sustainable development and ways forward that seem a better alternative for ESDG include indigenous/traditional learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, and education for degrowth, steady-state, and Cradle-to-Cradle and circular economy. Advantages of universal education are also highlighted, as any education that supports basic literacy, numeracy, and values attributed to the intrinsic rights of humans and nonhumans can help students to be equipped to deal with social and environmental challenges. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03897-893-0-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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