Tag: Sustainability

Business Models for Sustainability The Barriers and Solutions: Workshop

Author celim | Posted on

Tuesday 28th January saw The Future Economy Network take a wintery trip up to University West of England’s Frenchay Campus. The business breakfast workshop was attended by a diverse range of businesses keen to look at their business models through a sustainability lens. The workshop was kindly hosted by the Economics team at UWE. The network supplied sustainable pastries from their own eco-café, Future Leap.

Katherine Piper, Director of The Future Economy Network welcomed attendees, highlighting the benefits of joining the Network and also sharing exciting updates about The Future Economy Network’s Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap. Katherine also briefly ran through the plans for The Festival of Sustainable Business (check out the video here). We set the groundwork for the workshop by starting with two introductory talks by Ruth Smith, Founder of Sustainable Results Lab, and Peter, Economics professor at UWE.

Ruth set the scene with her history & skills in sustainable business model development, having grown from working as an editor. From her experience, she learned of the continuous battle between a company’s values and the pressure to make profit. Ruth emphasised the importance of values within business planning. She used inspiring quotes from Gary Hanel, Michael Porter and America’s Business Roundtable to explain the triple bottom line theory and modern business’ shift from shareholder to stakeholder value. She mentioned the importance of the new accreditation B-Corp. Learn more about B-Corp at our upcoming event. Many businesses have a 30-40 year timeframe therefore are finally starting to implement the environment as an essential stakeholder. Ruth also mentioned the importance of emerging clean tech. Learn more about Clean Tech at our upcoming event. With her expertise in marketing, Ruth touched on the brilliant tools in the digital and marketing sphere. She did caution however, the need to be aware of the greenhouse gas emissions from digital technologies, which account for 4% of greenhouse gases.

Peter then introduced his workshop by defining the concept of sustainable development by design and introducing the associated toolkit. He discussed the concepts behind sustainable development, business models, and value, emphasising the importance of context and perception changing value. He then discussed the torchlight model in his paper with Glenn Parry and Nicholas O’Regan about developing sustainable business models, and gave an example of the model in practice.

After a quick coffee break, attendees split into 4 groups and worked through their company business models using the torchlight model. After an hour, the teams fed back to the rest of the group on their work.

The event concluded with some 60 second pitches from Garrett Creative, Solar Roofing Specialists & Halcyan Water, and some valuable networking. A huge thank you to the Economics team at UWE for hosting the event and providing refreshments. Without such support we would not be able to do these wonderful inspiring events.

Business Models for Sustainability – A Workshop Collaboration

Author celim | Posted on

The Future Economy Network (FEN) is a Bristol-based organisation born out of a need for sustainable business and better future thinking in response to the climate emergency. And in one of the most creative and environmentally conscious cities in the UK, what better place to meet the growing demand? All over the South West, FEN are seeing more and more active individuals and engaged businesses joining the network to learn about sustainability, meet like-minded others, and increase their sustainable business strength.

In response to the clear need for sustainable business growth, FEN are teaming up with UWE to create an engaging workshop titled “Business Models for Sustainability: The Barriers & Solutions”. There has been a significant growth in purpose before profit; businesses are increasingly seeing their customers demand social responsibility as an integrated part of the offer, not an afterthought or addition. With fantastic initiatives like B-Corp or Science Based Targets, businesses recognise that profit is no longer king, but the future of their growth (and survival) relies on the triple bottom line.

On 28th January, FEN and UWE will co-host a three-hour interactive workshop to better understand your business model. The session will start with two informative, introductory talks and then lead into personalised break out workshops.

What To Expect:

– Tools to develop business models for better understanding;

– Sustainable development and business models;

– Current and future business models.

One of the keynote speakers includes Peter Bradley, a leader in sustainable development at UWE. He is the principal investigator of the ‘Understanding and assessing business models for sustainability’ project, which researches the environmental and economic viability of business models that are intended for sustainable development. Alongside Peter, Ruth Smith from Sustainable Results Lab will be speaking on how Purpose beyond profit is the biggest movement in business right now. Ruth founded the Sustainable Results Lab to bring world class digital marketing to the environmental sector. Both speakers are members of FEN’s sustainability network.

The event will also include the usual elements of FEN’s weekly sustainable events programme that many have come to know and love, such as valuable networking, a friendly and motivational team, exciting 60 second pitches, and professional event delivery.

Grab your ticket here or pop into FEN’s new sustainability hub, Future Leap, to find out more about the diverse range of services available to those wishing to grow on their sustainability journey.

Integrating sustainable development into economics curriculum

Author jmenglishby | Posted on

Dr Peter Bradley, leader of our Sustainability Research cluster, has recently published a new paper in the Journal of Cleaner Production. The full paper can be downloaded here.

Integrating sustainable development into economics curriculum: A case study analysis and sector wide survey of barriers.

Economics is a critical subject in bringing about sustainable development; by its definition it addresses questions of resource allocation. Fundamentally, economics addresses choices about what is produced and consumed in societies. It is these choices and incentives that are central to the root causes of global environmental and social impacts. This paper starts by identifying literature on educating for sustainable development in business and economics and highlights that the integration of sustainable development into mainstream economics curriculum is scant and largely missing based on current evidence.

Highlights

• First department wide intervention study of integrating sustainability in economics.
• First sector wide survey of barriers to integrating sustainability into economics.
• Surveys identify key barriers to integration of sustainability into economics.
• The Research Excellence Framework is a major barrier to integrating sustainability.
• The approach and survey can be applied elsewhere for comparative analysis.

Abstract

Economics is a critical subject for the integration of sustainable development into curriculum given the discipline’s influence in shaping social metabolism of societies, inequality, environmental impacts and wellbeing. There are very few empirical studies of the integration of sustainable development into economics curriculum. The purpose of the paper is to conduct analysis of a department wide intervention to integrate sustainable development into economics at a case study University, the first of its kind. The study makes use of surveys, interviews and key word searches to provide both qualitative and quantitative data and findings. Results indicate integration of sustainable development into curriculum on some modules but not the majority of the sample, evidence of resistance was also found. A range of barriers to integrating sustainable development into curriculum were identified in interviews. A sector wide survey on barriers to integrating sustainable development into economics curriculum was then conducted to provide empirical evidence on the subject. This is the first sector wide study of barriers to integrating sustainable development into economics curriculum. Results from the survey show that the Research Excellence Framework is a substantial barrier to integrating sustainable development into economics curriculum. The survey can be developed and applied elsewhere in the world to enable comparative analysis across countries, to get wider evidence on barriers.

 

Pro-environmental employee and consumer behaviour conference

Join us at UWE Bristol for a one day conference on 29 April 2019 to discuss pro-environmental employee and consumer behaviour. More information and registration online here. Get in touch at bcef@uwe.ac.uk for more information or to submit an abstract for presentation.

Pro-environmental employee and consumer behaviour conference with Dr Peter Bradley

Author jmenglishby | Posted on

Current world population is just over seven billion and expected to reach nine billion before 2050. Increasing affluence in the developing and transition countries where population is growing most is now resulting in a wave of “new consumers”. This is important as in the developed world the main drivers for the level and growth of environmental pressures are said to be final consumption and affluence. Technology on its own will not adequately ensure that society stays within environmental limits. Therefore there is a need for serious consideration and research into consumer, employee and entrepreneur behaviours.

In this vain, the Bristol Centre for Economics and Finance (BCEF) is hosting a one day inter-disciplinary conference, organised by Dr Peter Bradley, leader of BCEF’s Sustainability Research Cluster and an expert in sustainability research. Peter’s research explores environmental and energy challenges and governance using empirical evidence based research as well as conceptual and theory based research. The “Pro-environmental employee and consumer behaviour conference” is taking place on 29 April 2019 and registration to attend is now open. Keynote speakers include Jes Rutter from JRP solutions and Dr Mark Everard (Associate Professor of Ecosystem Services, UWE Bristol). For more information and online registration, please see our event page.

 

Call for papers

We invite abstracts from PhD students, researchers and practitioners across the social and natural sciences to present on topics related to ‘pro-environmental consumer and employee behaviour’. Please send a 500 word abstract about your topic and contribution to bcef@uwe.ac.uk by Wednesday 19 December 2018 to be considered for presentations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Role of Social Norms in Incentivising Energy Reduction in Organisations

Author jmenglishby | Posted on

By Peter Bradley

UWE Economics researcher Peter Bradley, has just published a chapter on “The Role of Social Norms in Incentivising Energy Reduction in Organisations” in collaboration with Matthew Leach and Shane Fudge. This is part of a collaboration by leading international academics to develop a research handbook on employee pro-environmental behaviour. The work stems from the UWE Economics groups sustainability related research.

The Research Handbook on Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour brings contributions that consolidate existing research in the field as well as adding new insights from organisational psychology, human resource management and social marketing.

The whole book is available to download from Edward Elgar Publishing:

Research Handbook on Employee Pro-Environmental Behaviour edited by Victoria K. Wells, Diana Gregory-Smith and Danae Manika.

 

 

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