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- 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.
- 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.
- 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.