Social Responsibility and Sustainability

The purpose of this study is to examine distinctive narratives of stakeholder value creation and discuss how they consider sustainability. Based on an extensive research review spanning over three decades of material, we present four categories of the stakeholder value creation literature: (1) a focal firm orientation with an economic value perspective, (2) a stakeholder orientation with an economic value perspective, (3) a focal firm orientation with a multiple value perspective, and (4) a stakeholder orientation with a multiple value perspective. In each of these categories, we identified several narratives of stakeholders, value creation, and sustainability. This study reveals an increased interest in sustainability issues and their more coherent incorporation into stakeholder research in recent years. We suggest that, with respect to sustainability, future research should consider the dynamic, systemic, and multilevel nature of stakeholder relationships and collaboration. Additionally, a more versatile understanding of value and value creation, as well as a broader comprehension of stakeholders and their needs, should be incorporated into future research. Finally, conceptualising sustainability and the normative core of sustainable business, as well as elaborating on the purpose and role of business regarding sustainability, are interesting focus areas for future research.

Organisational Sustainability (OS) has been one of the key research topics in sustainability debates. Organisational approaches that support pathways towards a more sustainable society, such as environmental management and social responsibility instruments, have been widely adopted. However, there are critical gaps in understanding how companies may design strategic pathways, assess alternatives and implement sustainability transitions. Despite multiple theories and methods on how organisations integrate sustainability into their strategies and operations, their efforts to improve sustainability performance still lack effective and consistent results. The main goal of this study is thus to identify key research challenges related with organisational sustainability and develop a conceptual framework to support the implementation of sustainability transitions in organisations. Departing from an in-depth literature review, the proposed conceptual framework supports analysis and implementation of organisational pathways, bringing insights on the key challenges and enablers of innovative long-term solutions. Preliminary results from such analysis point out that organisational sustainability transitions ought to be built in close collaboration with stakeholders, in order to achieve a shared vision of sustainability for the organisation. The pathways towards this vision should then consider the dynamics of the organisational external context and internal factors, such as organisational capabilities, innovation and participatory and systemic assessments of the organisational performance.

Research organisations are not only contributing to sustainable development but also contribute to scientific findings. As key influencers of innovation; employers and publicly funded research organisations not only have the social mandate to deal with their responsibilities regarding the environment and society, but also drive to understand their social responsibility for their employees and the impact on research and operational processes. Sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), this paper presents the results of the joint research project; LENA—Guidelines for Sustainability Management and describes how 3 of Germany’s biggest research organisations (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Leibniz Association and Helmholtz Association) face current challenges in human resource management of research organisations by the integration of a common understanding of sustainability and a broad-based framework. The empirical basis is built by a qualitative organisational-ethnographical study which reflects the expert knowledge, everyday experiences and the subject-oriented interpretation of sustainability in human resource management. The result derives concrete recommendations for the institutional practice and offers structured and methodologically proven options for action addressing the stakeholders in human resource management in research institutions.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) serve to protect the marine and coastal biodiversity. Education for sustainable development is of utmost importance for a management plan to be effective. Research on MPAs in Gozo is limited. This study aims to shed light on the knowledge, values and attitudes Gozitan people have towards MPAs and the extent to which education can be a vehicle for these aims. Two Gozitan areas with a MPA in their locality (Xagħra and San Lawrenz) and a locality without a MPA (Victoria) were utilised in this study. A mixed method approach was adopted and entailed the collection of data from qualitative and quantitative aspects. This paper focuses on the qualitative part of the research that consisted of fifteen interviews with stakeholders—five interviewees from each locality. The qualitative part included the analysis of the verbatim that was performed through a thematic approach analysis. The study shows that there is lack of knowledge with regards to MPAs and that the value associated with them is mainly ecological. Moreover, results show that there is a general demand for more education and awareness on MPAs. In response to these findings, a number of recommendations and a list of possible activities are drawn up according to the different stakeholders who could contribute towards incorporating ESD principles in marine education and in fostering social responsibility.

Based on studies carried out in São Paulo State, Brazil, it was observed that several municipalities have faced huge environmental changes that can be noticed in places where sustainability of natural resources was not prioritized. It was observed the prevalence of an economic development model supported by technological megaprojects in areas of environmental conservation, which also represent areas prone to social and technological risks. The municipality of Bom Jesus dos Perdões, located in São Paulo State, showed very different average values for some social indicators in a set of municipalities of the region. The analysis of data on violence and crime, between 1996 and 2015, allows us to present a general local diagnosis that shows decreasing social security. Simultaneously, it allowed to identify how it is possible to reflect on social reality through two projects: (1) voluntary social work with children and adolescents at risk, through sports practices and (2) Integrated Management Office [Gabinete de Gestão Integrada]—GGI—a project created by the Brazilian Federal Government, of optional municipal adhesion, where it is proposed the integration of several local institutions aiming a joint management of public security. Both projects seek to improve social reality with sustainability and social responsibility of the population.

The idea behind the social responsibility of organizations is that firms have responsibilities beyond maximizing profit. They are accountable not only to their owners and shareholders but also to stakeholders, such as customers. In recent years, the social responsibility of organizations has become increasingly important. Models and management systems using the term corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been developed. However, the concept of CSR is not uncontroversial. CSR is criticized as a new trend with no content. CSR programmes are often decoupled from the core business, and they are often only marketing and symbolic gestures. In this paper, we argue that an integration of CSR into other management systems such as human resource management or health promotion may have various positive effects. These effects concern both CSR and the other management systems. Using the example of workplace health promotion (WHP), positive reciprocal effects can be explained as follows. On the one hand, by conducting WHP, organizations show responsibility towards their employees, therefore enhancing CSR. CSR can be improved by considering the WHP structure and topic, such as a focus on interventions. On the other hand, the concepts of CSR can contribute to the spread of WHP. Organizations’ influences on WHP can be extended by the inclusion of other organizations in the supply chain and by networking. In this context, the quality of interactions between the organizations must be considered. The development and use of criteria are needed to guarantee positive effects on both CSR and WHP.

Bourdieu (The logic of practice. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989) notes that ‘agents shape their aspirations according to concrete indices of the accessible and the inaccessible, of what is and is not ‘for us’.’ In order to affect positive change on the reproduction of what young learners see around them we require the employment of a critical pedagogy. Aspiration has been classified by some authors (Brown in ACME: Int E-J Critical Geogr 12(3):419–430, 2013) as a neoliberal social hope that detracts from the underlying class anchorage in the educational system. Despite this, a pedagogy that promotes belief and hope followed by informed action is vital in the chain of events and circumstances that can change the life trajectory of individuals. This paper will build on early notions of solidarity and subsidiarity as outlined by E.U. architects Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman. This will be used as a lens to consider the social responsibility that a university has to its local community, in particular with regards to educational achievement and positive destinations of widening participation students. It will look at the transitions & life events that such students from lower socio-economic status backgrounds may experience and how these sit as barriers to engagement, attainment and achievement. It will then consider how we can work with community to address and overcome some of these barriers.

There is a lot of pressure on Indigenous people to conform, to think and act like Europeans. There is an unspoken belief that it would be much easier for all concerned to simply use European models and accepted western ways of doing things. Developing a new standard for the cultural, social and environmental core benefits of carbon projects that uses the Indigenous-to-Indigenous way of working has not been easy. It has involved a lot of thinking, reflection and discussion with many wonderful Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. It also involved more formal consultation and peer review processes as well as presentations at industry forums and community meetings. Ultimately, we do not see a role for non-Aboriginal people in leading this process nor are we ‘massaging’ a western monitoring and evaluation (M&E) model into an Aboriginal context. We can’t tweak existing standards whose soul is fundamentally different. There is, however, a support role for non-Aboriginal people which affords for a generosity of spirit to not dominate or dismiss Indigenous ways of working. The concept of Indigenous people working with Indigenous people using Indigenous expertise to verify core-benefits has been seen by some as an inferior process, a bit soft perhaps, lacking rigour even. The idea that Indigenous people have something to offer challenges the dominate neo-colonial concepts of dependence and is a form of environmental racism that needs to be called out. We are holding fast in our belief that in order to be part of the solution and to recognise Indigenous people’s expertise we cannot build the capacity of NGOs, government agencies and M&E specialists. We are fully aware this approach can be disarming because it requires ‘white experts’ to move aside. There are many intelligent Indigenous people with expertise that did not receive a formal education. On a personal level I have drawn inspiration for this work through my mother, a strong spiritual Badtjala (Butchulla) woman. As a child she was one of the ‘dump house mob’ spending four years of her childhood growing up on a rubbish dump, left school by grade 7, lost all her teeth by 16 years and started work as a domestic servant. Despite all these difficulties she raised four children all going to University, negotiated the first hand back of land on K’gari (Fraser Island) from the infamously conservative Joh Bjelke-Petersen Queensland Government and was instrumental in launching our successful Native Title claim. I have also drawn inspiration from Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Vincent Lingiari, Tony Tjamawa and Eddie Mabo. All of whom challenged the status quo for the benefit of Indigenous people. I would like to thank the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation team and Caritas Australia for their ideas, dedication and patience. I would also like to thank the Queensland Government for funding this innovative work.

Since 2015 exists at EU level the obligation for certain enterprises to prepare a sustainability report. This concerns particularly the DAX 30 organizations, which had to adapt their corporate reporting till 2017, including the adaptation of the existing reporting on social and ecological contents. Siemens, for instance, already presented in 2000 a “Corporate Citizenship Report” (CCR). Beside the CCR there is a wide range of terms for sustainability reporting, such as “CSR-Report”, “Sustainable Value Report” or “Sustainability Report”. Beside the variation of the report titles, also regarding the focal issues an ambivalent interpretation occurs. A large part of the reporting enterprises orientates itself on the reporting standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Also the integration of ecological and social subjects in the annual business report is practiced. The present publication compares the sustainability reports of all DAX 30 enterprises and discusses the content differences. Beside the report titles, it investigates the correlation between titles and content. Scope of the contribution is to find out whether a clear border can be pulled between CSR reports and sustainability report and if so which are the assessment criteria.

The social sustainability challenge is still receiving relatively little attention but in future the social aspects will become a more important as a result of the growing expectations and demands addressed to business enterprises by employees and external stakeholders. Profit- oriented business companies run primarily for economic purposes, therefore environmental and social issues in most cases are confronted with the goals of making profit or at least minimising operating costs. As usual environmental and social aspects from management and organizational point of view are dealt separately. The aim of the research to investigate the integration challenge of ecological and social dimensions in the context of economic activity by implementation of different preventive environmental strategies and programs in the companies. The research method is based on development and implementation of special training and preventive innovations generation methodology for company‘s management and employees. There are many preventive environmental strategies, for instance, pollution prevention, waste minimization, cleaner production, etc. For a particular investigation, the resource efficient and cleaner production (RECP) strategy which applies to industrial processes, products and services was mainly introduced. This is because RECP has a potential to achieve production efficiency through optimization of productive use of natural resources to minimize the adverse impacts on environment and to reduce risks to employees and communities. Sustainable development strategy requires behavioural change by individuals as well. Therefore, the employees engagement is crucial. At the same time, resource efficient and cleaner production concept besides the potential mentioned above provides the possibilities to support their personal development. The methodology for preventive environmental innovations generation and implementation was introduced in more than 150 industrial companies and economic, environmental and social benefits were identified and assessed. Companies, which implemented a successful preventive environmental programs benefitted by significantly lowering operating costs, enhancing the safety of their employees, improving product quality and productivity, reducing environmental liability, improving public image, and chances for broader cooperation. Besides that, companies managed to implement employees‘engagement strategy by (1) communicating the professional impact that employees contribution had on the company, (2) enabling cross-functional communication and idea exchange. From another point of view, these programs helped financiers secure better clients and make more profitable investments and assists government agencies in their pursuit of a safer and healthier environment.

Publicly listed companies nowadays face contradictory expectations from their institutionalised environments concerning social responsibility and sustainability (SRS) on the one hand, and financial performance on the other. From the perspective of the financial logic, the economic performance of social responsibility is uncertain, whereas sustainability views the financial logic as obstructive to achieving long-term regenerative capacity of economic and non-economic resources. Thus, enacting both institutional logics in decision-making and strategy can create goal-conflicts or incomplementarity within organisations. Incomplementarity is an obstacle to the implementation of SRS. Therefore, incomplementarity needs to be resolved and managed in order to ensure organisational reproduction. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the organisational social responsibility strategies dealing with the incomplementary institutional logics in German publicly listed companies. The results are based on 14 qualitative management interviews in three German publicly listed companies (DAX30) and emerge from a current research project granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Organisational strategies as patterns of managing incomplementarity internally are sketched which can be shown to be interwoven with institutional intentions as part of institutional work. Finally, an integrated framework is proposed for analysing the management of incomplementarity as an interplay between social responsibility strategies and institutional intentions that can serve to assess the different outcomes of social responsibility and sustainability.

Organisations appreciate green project management leads to competitive advantage and expect project managers to be effective in this respect. This research emphasizes the identification and evaluation of skills that project managers require to make the activity of project management safe for the environment while also ensuring that it does not contribute negatively to natural surroundings. This should be of interest to executives and project managers working in the construction industry. This paper provides understanding of how project managers react to this requirement and evaluates their skills. The literature indicates that effective green project managers have a strong profile of schedule management skills, stakeholder communication and human resources management. The research approach is based on a survey of 33 project managers in the United Arab Emirates country of Dubai, followed by semi-structured interviews to delve further into the survey responses. Our findings indicate awareness of green project management is in its infancy, the focus is budget compliance. Stakeholder management and communications management skills are not considered as important as problem solving or schedule management. Fluctuating prices of materials and difficulty in sourcing sub-contractors hinder sustainable project management. While some organisations train and develop project managers, helping them acquire green project management skills, many do not and a dearth of industry standards further hampers green project management. Since this exploratory study dealt with a small sample (30+) the biggest limitation of the study was that the sample population was not reflective of the wider population. Though the construction industry in the United Arab Emirates country of Dubai, the location for this fieldwork is a thriving multi-billion dollar industry, the research could benefit from verification across a wider geographical area. A further area for future research is to investigate the differences between project managers in their attitudes to green project management. The initial findings should be of interest to executives and green project managers working in the construction industry wishing to become more involved in green practices and be more environmentally aware. This paper provides some empirical evidence as to how project managers react to this requirement and evaluates their skills.

Social responsibility and sustainable development are concepts of growing interest to the corporate sector, including in the so-called developing world. Although the benefits are manifold and typically include mutual learning, innovation, humanitarian engagement, intercultural exchange, new markets, and effective theory-praxis integration that is aligned with the idea of giving back to the community there is a dearth of research studies featuring the practical outworking of actual cases in a comprehensive, analytical and critical manner. To address this gap in the literature the study employs an exploratory methodological approach examining the Impact Week, a Lufthansa Group CSR program aimed at progressing entrepreneurship, innovation, and intercultural exchange that systematically engages employees as part of an internal qualification program. Data from projects in Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria and Columbia showed long-term local effects both on a program as well as an individual level of analysis. Findings further indicate that engaging employees in CSR practice has the potential of making organizations more meaningful and thus positively impacting organizational culture and attracting new talents. A human centric as opposed to a utilitarian orientation among stakeholders emerged as an important factor for the longevity and sustainability of CSR practice. Results are relevant to stakeholders interested in learning how social responsibility and sustainability may be enhanced in organizational practice.

This overview paper describes the relevance of sustainability governance to traditional crafts communities in developing economies. It highlights the importance of this work, both as a livelihood and as way of life, for millions of people. Some theoretical lenses for thinking about traditional craft communities are presented, as well as the practical challenges such communities face, especially in terms of potentially meeting sustainable development ambitions. The paper also describes a research design, comprising research aims, and the use of case studies, outlining how to address the research needed in this central field.

Rapid urbanization is exerting pressure on various areas, including the industrial sector, to adopt sustainable practices. To be sustainable, a company must be concerned not only with economic growth, but also with environmentally and socially ethical attitudes. This paper describes a local initiative that allies commercial tradition and sustainable development. The economy of Franca, a city in Brazil, is based on the footwear industry, which has gained international recognition. The companies established in Franca have to meet a series of predefined requirements regarding small- and large-scale production and waste management. Compliance allows a company to use a Provenance Indicator (IP) logo together with a code and a QR Code in the shoes it produces. The QR Code directs the consumer to information about the origin of the product and facilities, employees, and social responsibility and environmental care actions of the company. All the data are available as numbers and images that can be consulted before, during, and after the purchase. In addition to promoting environmental preservation, this initiative adds value to the product (shoes) because it can positively change the image of the company. A non-governmental operational entity registers the companies that are interested in the initiative. In an increasingly competitive market, a company having the IP logo on its products attests to its commitment to quality and to social and environmental responsibility, but it is the consumer that controls this responsibility.

Social responsibility (SR) and sustainable development (SD) are dissimilar yet complementary concepts. Over recent decades their increase in popularity has seen the two terms become firmly integrated within international development policy discourse. Nevertheless, even though both terms are intertwined and cannot be meaningfully discussed in isolation, there is a paucity of research that addresses the interrelationships of the two terms in human development and policy discourse. To address this gap in the literature, this research employs an inductive and exploratory methodological approach. Conducting a systematic keyword search and expert literature meta-analysis in all 25 United Nations (UN) Human Development Reports (HDRs) published to date from 1990 to 2016, the study investigates what prioritisation the UN ascribes to ‘economic’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘social’ development. Keyword analysis reveals that ‘economic’ perspectives dominate ‘sustainability’ and ‘social’ perspectives by a factor of 2 and 4.67 respectively. In synthesis, the UN remains espoused to ‘economic’ development as its primordial panacea for poverty reduction, which it increasingly advocates under the guise of ‘sustainable’ development. Relatedly and importantly, UN HDRs continuingly advocate ‘economic growth’ as a solution instead of identifying it as a problem. This study extends previous research by focusing expressly on the intersection of economic development, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility as a fertile space for inquiry. The research proposes a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach as a bridging notion for a more holistic human development agenda.

Although there is an unprecedented need to make the activities of companies more sustainable, many companies still face difficulties in managing sustainability. The paper proposes an integrated management systems approach based on the assumption that is consideration of external requirements such as CSR better succeeds when linked to existing management systems. The main issues addressed in this paper are: the suitability of the high level structure for the integration of CSR aspects and a four-step model that may provide guidance how to integrated CSR. The paper is more theoretical and conceptual rather than an empirical study. It is targeted to an audience of practitioners and SME managers and builds on an extensive literature survey and own experience from hands-on integration projects and consulting to SME.

Currently, in the business context, due to the relevance and necessity of policies aiming socioenvironmental preservation, many organizations have being pressured to invest in new ideals and actions that generate less social and environmental impacts, besides the adoption of sustainable practices in their management. This study seeks to analyze and identify sustainable practices carried out by a Cosmetics Company in two countries: Brazil, where its subsidiary is located and in the United Kingdom, where its head office is based, with more established sustainable practices. In order to carry out the study, examples of sustainable socioenvironmental actions were analyzed and collected in the literature and in websites of recognized institutions as examples of sustainable good practices, to compare later them with practices used by the Cosmetics Company. Thus, this paper presents a comparative analysis between existing environmental policies used in Brazil and England, and how they affect the practice and management of the same company in these two countries. In both cases, socioenvironmental sustainability actions were identified as an effective part of each company organizational culture, but there are also differentiated positions in some areas of action, as well as significant differences in socioenvironmental and business policies of both countries.

Early childhood is a transformative period where attitudes and foundations for life are laid (Siraj-Blatchford et al. Education for sustainable development in the early years, 2010). The principles of education for sustainability reflect a holistic and interconnected approach, similar to the ecological context of early childhood. This interconnectedness is further highlighted with the three pillars of sustainability (economic, environmental and socio/cultural), that they are all interrelated (Brundtland, Our common future: the world commission on environment and development. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987). The ecological context centres the child in their own contextual and cultural environment. Bronfenbrenner (The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979) noted a key element of this environment or community was its “a dynamic entity which is constantly changing” (Keenan and Evans, An introduction to child development. Sage, London, 2010: 35) reflecting flexibility and the bi-relational aspect when the child not only interacts with their environment, but influences it too. The Legacy Intergenerational sustainable skill café is a socially cultural integrated model, bringing generations within communities together, building a more sustainable society, a “community of practice” (Lave and Wenger, Communities of practices: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) researching through a “place of possibilities” (Dahlberg and Moss, Dialogue with Reggio Emilia. Listening, researching and learning. Routledge, London, 2006, p. 12). The elderly willingly share cultural traditions with families and children in disappearing or lost skills that are being ‘divorced’ (Langlands, Craft: an inquiry into the origins and true meaning of traditional crafts. W.W Norton and Company, New York, 2018) from our identity or cultural heritage, reflecting a “collective responsibility” (Dahlberg and Moss, Dialogue with Reggio Emilia. Listening, researching and learning. Routledge, London, 2006: 10) validating the position of the family as a socialising agent’ (Mbebeb 2009, p. 25).

During the last decade, an increasing number of universities have started to play an active role in creating a more sustainable future, with many implementing sustainability initiatives on campus. Following recent studies of other significant initiatives, this paper aims to analyse recent sustainability policies introduced by the University of Milano-Bicocca to examine how these policies have worked and how improvements have been measured. The results of this analysis, based on an evaluation of the sustainability initiatives, indicate that sustainability reporting in Italian universities is still in its infancy but, at the same time, suggests (i) that certain areas of progress and positive results can be identified, with several benefits for the stakeholders and for the local community, and (ii) that the example offered by the university provides a potential pathway to the creation of specific modules in the degree programs. Based on the experience of the University of Milano-Bicocca, we suggest that standardization in sustainability reporting will play a central role in the near future. Standardization is very important, not only in terms of the creation of sustainability reports but also in terms of their interpretation. This paper explains the current work in progress and the efforts of an Italian university to better incorporate and institutionalize sustainability and to become a template for the Italian University System in facilitating the standardization and the implementation of a unique assessment and reporting model capable of adoption across the National University System.

There is an increasing demand from society for more responsibility, transparence, accountability and sustainability from organizations. Organizations are responding to these demands by providing social services and empowering communities. Therefore, this paper aims to understand how energy justice, as a source of social responsibility, is approached in practice. In order to do so, a literature review on energy justice and social responsibility was developed, followed by a review of the case of a community park developed and maintained by a power generation company. According to the literature, studies on energy justice are growing in quantity and relevance, showing the increasing importance of this subject. Thus, case studies may be interesting ways of understanding its application in organizations’ activities and projects.

In Latin-American countries materials such as concrete are still a preferred option in the construction of housing, even though, their exploitation has caused environmental damages, and they are expensive. This situation is affecting the most vulnerable population, especially in developing and not industrialized countries. This paper proposes an ecological and rural housing building innovation: a panel made from natural and low cost materials for the construction of housing in rural areas of developing countries. The study was developed in Ráquira, a rural region located 120 km from Bogota, Colombia. For the purpose of the project, we were studying, about 10 samples and 3 prototypes of the panels were made. Tests were performed by mixing different materials such as sisal, hay, recycled rubber, wood in very small sections, and wire mesh of steel. In addition, the testing provided additional data about the materials that would give the earth more stability and strength.

Towards the end of the 20th century, the world experienced serious deterioration of infrastructure services, thus raising concerns to the global community. Because of that, municipal services delivery, particularly water supply in most cities of the world witnessed institutional reforms and increased participation of non-public actors, including community-based actors. In Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam, community-based water supply schemes have become an important institution through which a number of urban communities get their potable water supply. Although these schemes have established themselves as provider institutions, more knowledge of the extent to which their operations are sustainable is still needed. This paper therefore, discuses strengths and weaknesses of the community-based schemes, in fulfilling their social responsibility of service delivery to the community. The paper is mainly based on primary data together with some document analysis. The data was collected through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and some household interviews. This paper points out that community-based schemes derive their strength for sustainable operations from inter-alia their good organization structures, adherence to the rules, and application of innovative monitoring approaches. Weaknesses are related to outdated system of data storage and processing, and insufficient creativity in competition with other schemes.

As far as climate protection is concerned, the German government has set itself the target of a virtually climate-neutral building stock by the year 2050. Currently, a refurbishment backlog exists especially for homeowner associations (HOA) in Germany: Nearly 70% of condominiums are considered unrefurbished. At the same time, HOA share 22% of the total building stock in Germany. Therefore, these stakeholders are a key success factor for the ongoing implementation of climate protection targets. The decision to implement energetic refurbishment measures is basically the responsibility of the HOA. Within this process, the property manager is eminently important: He plans, controls and monitors tasks and acts as an interface between the owners and other stakeholders (e.g. craftsmen). In order to identify possible strategies for the implementation, and to determine influencing factors of property managers, we conducted eight qualitative expert interviews with selected property managers. As a result of this study, we identified several barriers for the implementation of energy efficient refurbishment as seen from the perspective of property managers (e.g. a lack of remuneration). Thus, recommendations which are bound to enhance the rate of energetic refurbishment within homeowners associations could be formulated.

The impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the company’s performance has become an increasingly important issue among investors, companies and company’s management. Despite the fact, that many studies have been conducted on this topic, the relationship between CSR and financial performance is still unclear regarding the causality and different categories of CSR. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to study if corporate social responsibility (CSR) has an impact on financial performance (FP) and to find out, what the nature of the impact is. This study uses correlation and multiple linear regression models in order to examine the relationship between CSR and the financial variables. The sample consists of 30 publicly listed companies in Finland whose financial data and CSR activities during the years 2013–2016 are analyzed. The accounting based model of Return on Assets (ROA) and the market-based model of Earnings per share (EPS) are selected to measure financial performance and CSRHub rates to estimate the corporate social responsibility (CSR). The control variables: capital structure, risk, size and industry were chosen for this research, because of their tendency to have association with the financial performance.

Community gardening (CG) has been the subject of growing interest, both within and without the realm of academia. The reasons for this increase in interest are straightforward, given that CG typically offers benefits in at least three areas: (1) fostering a sense of community among contributing stakeholders; (2) promoting a sense of social responsibility; and (3) heightening awareness in areas of sustainability. As such CG is typically recognised as having the capacity to conjointly meet core human needs. This paper presents a case study that describes the inception and progressive implementation of a community garden project (“campus greening”), set within the university context of a private higher education (HE) provider in Brisbane, Australia. The paper charts progress made to date, highlights hurdles that have had to be overcome, distils relevant lessons learned, and extrapolates success factors for future similar projects. Capitalising on ‘right timing’ emerges as a critical success factor for incentivising, progressing and implementing CG projects. The case study analysis also culminates in a shortlist of tentative recommendations for different stakeholders: (1) soliciting input from alternative leaders; (2) building supportive interdepartmental coalitions; (3) building a broad stakeholder base; and (4) building momentum and support through unconventional means. Experiences and lessons gathered in this paper will be useful for education stakeholders who are interested to use CG to promote community, social responsibility, and sustainability.