Ambiente e Sustentabilidade | Artigos em revistas internacionais / Papers in international journals
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Browsing Ambiente e Sustentabilidade | Artigos em revistas internacionais / Papers in international journals by Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) "08:Trabalho Digno e Crescimento Económico"
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- An open participatory conceptual framework to support state of the environment and sustainability reportsPublication . Ramos, Tomás B.; Martins, Ivone P.; Martinho, Ana Paula; Douglas, Calbert H.; Painho, Marco; Caeiro, SandraIt is fundamental to monitor, evaluate and report the state of the environment at global and local levels, to better implement sustainable development principles and practices. The State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports should be written in an understandable and accessible way for stakeholders and also be developed from the beginning with its involvement and participation. Despite several initiatives that refer public engagement in State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, from the national to the corporate levels, usually the participatory approaches are restricted to consultations of key actors. They do not explore the role that could be played by stakeholders as part of the report staff, from designing to production and reviewing. The aim of this research is to develop a conceptual framework to support open participatory, interactive and adaptive State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports, where the stakeholders’ involvement (non-experts and experts) will effectively contribute to the design, data gath- ering and evaluations produced in the reports. The proposed open participatory approach will support the design and implementation of a collaborative report. The stakeholders’ assessment of the State of the Environment and Sustainability Reports can also be used as an indirect way for formal results evaluation, allowing for cross-validation. The paper analyses and explores two practices of regular and formal State of the Environment reports: the “European Environment e State and Outlook (transnational scale) and the “Portuguese State of the Environment Report” (national scale). In both reporting initiatives, the partici- patory approaches in the design and production of the reports are weak or inexistent and many times merely formal. A set of steps and procedures, embedded in a formal framework, is proposed for adoption in the both initiatives. The proposed framework should be implemented through gradually and prioritised steps to mitigate practical difficulties, due to the complexity of institutional reporting processes. The open participatory State of the Environment and Sustainability Report will represent a joint commitment among stakeholders for active reporting development with new information and knowledge. Rethinking tradi- tional reporting and related participatory approaches can move the State of the Environment and Sus- tainability Reports to a new stage of evolution: a continuous updating of information. In this process, data and information will come from formal and informal sources and, stakeholders can scrutinize each other’s participation and increase the overall content and quality of the collaborative disclosures.
- Co-creating a sustainability performance assessment tool for public sector organisationsPublication . Ramos, Tomás B.; Domingues, Ana Rita; Caeiro, Sandra; Cartaxo, Joana; Painho, Marco; Antunes, Paula; Santos, Rui; Videira, Nuno; Walker, Richard M.; Huisingh, DonaldOrganisations are increasingly being pushed to manage, assess and report their sustainability performance, including public sector organisations (PSO). Several approaches were developed to implement sustainability assessments at the organisation level. However, the majority are still for the private sector and are often not supported by active stakeholder involvement. Several PSO have adapted private-oriented models to assess their sustainability performance, which are often not adequate due to public administration, whose main mission is to provide public services. The present work aims at developing a conceptual framework to support PSO and to assess their sustainability performance. The proposed approach is supported by two sustainability performance assessment systems – Formal and Informal Sustainability Performance Assessment. The Formal Sustainability Performance Assessment system, which is the main focus of this paper, consists of a checklist of objectives and practices and a set of twenty-nine (29) performance indicators. An initial proposal was drawn from the literature review and then assessed through a participatory process involving practitioners and academics in semistructured interviews, questionnaire surveys and a collaborative workshop. The Portuguese central public administration was used as a case study. The developed checklist of objectives and practices and related performance indicators will allow PSO to assess and communicate complex information about organisational sustainability. Reference values support the normalization of indicators’ results, and consequently, the comparison of sustainability-related performance between PSO integrated into the context of the Portuguese central public administration. This research contributes to the debate on organisational sustainability assessment and communication, and the importance of selecting and developing sustainability indicators using co-creation processes with key stakeholders.
- A conceptual model for integrating non-material components in sustainability assessmentPublication . Viégas, Osvaldo; Caeiro, Sandra; Ramos, Tomás B.A adoção do conceito de desenvolvimento sustentável (DS) originou inúmeros sistemas de avaliação da sustentabilidade, para os quais diversos autores têm sugerido a incorporação de componentes não materiais. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo principal o desenvolvimento de um modelo conceitual para a futura integração desses componentes em sistemas de avaliação da sustentabilidade. A revisão da literatura possibilitou construir um modelo conceitual para os componentes não materiais da sustentabilidade e identificar temas associados. Essa proposta foi analisada em escala local-regional, através de entrevistas semiestruturadas dirigidas a atores-chave no estado de Alagoas e na cidade de Maceió, Brasil. A proposta foi considerada pelos atores envolvidos como genericamente adequada, e foram apresentadas propostas de melhoria e ajuste, para facilitar compreensão e aplicação prática. A análise da percepção dos entrevistados permitiu identificar o vínculo preferencial do termo sustentabilidade com a dimensão ambiental e a restrita referência ao compromisso intergeracional.
- Employee-driven sustainability performance assessment in public organisationsPublication . Coutinho, Vera; Domingues, Ana Rita; Caeiro, Sandra; Painho, Marco; Antunes, Paula; Santos, Rui; Videira, Nuno; Walker, Richard M.; Huisingh, Donald; Ramos, Tomás B.Organisations are increasingly adopting sustainability performance assessment tools. However, these formal organisational sustainability assessments are typically managed and prepared by technical staff. There is a lack of research on approaches that enable a stakeholder-driven performance assessment. This paper develops a framework of informal/complementary stakeholder-driven sustainability performance assessment, from the perspective of employee voluntary collaboration. The framework composes a checklist of questions covering the main sustainability domains: perceptions, individual practices, and voluntary monitoring indicators. In an exploratory case study in a public organisation, the checklist was evaluated by employees in a participatory workshop. The evaluation criteria of understanding and usefulness were rated more positively than reliability. This paper shows a novel way of integrating employee inputs for informal sustainability assessment and supports the importance of empowering public organisations, thereby increasing their understanding of sustainability management frameworks.
- How are new sustainable development approaches responding to societal challenges?Publication . Ramos, Tomás B.; Caeiro, Sandra; Pires, Sara Moreno; Videira, Nuno
- Reinvigorating the sustainable development research agenda: the role of the sustainable development goals (SDG)Publication . Leal Filho, Walter; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Alves, Fátima; Pace, Paul; Mifsud, Mark; Brandli, Luciana; Caeiro, Sandra; Disterheft, AntjeThe United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) contain a set of 17 measures to foster sustainable development across many areas. It offers a good opportunity to reinvigorate sustainable development research for two main reasons. First, it comprises many areas of SD research, which have become mainstream thanks to the UN SDGs. Second, the fact that the UN and its member countries have committed to attaining SDGs by 2030 has added a sense of urgency to the need to perform quality research on SD on the one hand, and reiterates the need to use the results of this research on the other. Even though the basic concept of sustainability goes back many centuries, it has only recently appeared on the international political agenda. This is partly due to an awakening of the fact that the human ecological pressure on the planet is still much larger than what nature can renew or compensate for. Based on this state of affairs, this paper presents an outline of the process leading to the agreement on the UN SDGs, and looks at some of the ecological aspects as a result of continued pressure of human activities on natural resources. Furthermore, a set of research needs is proposed – also based holistically on updated research trends – discussing the degree of urgency of some measures and explaining why the UN SDGs need to be accorded greater priority in international sustainable development research efforts.
- Sustainability policies and practices in public sector organisations: the case of the portuguese central public administrationPublication . Figueira, Inês; Domingues, Ana Rita; Caeiro, Sandra; Painho, Marco; Antunes, Paula; Santos, Rui; Videira, Nuno; Walker, Richard M.; Huisingh, Donald; Ramos, Tomás B.The adoption of sustainability policies and practices in organisations is a rising trend, in particular in companies. Public sector organisations are also following this occurrence but with slower signs. Despite a relevant amount of research work on sustainability practices implemented by private organisations and by some public agencies, central public sectors have been left out of the scope of these studies. The main goal of this research is to identify the sustainability profile (including adopted policies and practices) of the public organisations, using the Portuguese Central Public Administration as a case study. A questionnaire survey was developed and submitted to Portuguese public sector organisations that fulfilled the following criteria: (i) to belong to the Portuguese Central Public Administration and (ii) to have the major area of activity at the national level. The statistical population was also defined on the basis of these criteria. Descriptive statistics and frequency analysis were used to explore the results in the organisations surveyed. The overall results demonstrate a low adoption level of integrated sustainability policies and practices, despite the expected positive trends related with the mandatory social and economic practices. This research contributes to new knowledge by characterising the sustainability profile of the Portuguese central public sector and where actions are needed, leading to a better transition to sustainable societies. The developed questionnaire can be used in other geographical, institutional and cultural contexts to define sustainability profile of worldwide public organisations, working also as a benchmarking tool.
- The contribution of up-cycled food waste to a balanced diet of low-income householdsPublication . Nogueira, Anne; Alves, Fátima; Fernandes, Paula VazThis paper focuses on the contribution of an upcycling food organization to a balanced diet, which rescues and redistributes fresh or freshly cooked food to low-income households. To determine the nutritional balance of food hampers provided by our case study organization, according to the Portuguese food guidelines, we have weighed all items of food hampers in three weighing rounds over a period of four months. The results suggest that upcycled foods can contribute to a more balanced diet in terms of “Potato, Cereal and Cereal Products”, “Vegetables”, “Meat, Fish, Seafood and Eggs” and “Fruits”, both according to the Portuguese Food Wheel and compared to that of the general Portuguese population. The novelty of this study is the evaluation of the contribution to the balanced diet of the population in a vulnerable situation, of perishable foods such as freshly cooked, in traditional restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and hotels, or is naturally fresh (fruit and vegetables food aid services) up-cycled by a food aid organization.