Partnerships are often implemented in various ways, often without considering the impact, process or systemic performance and governance level of the partnership itself. The current bank of knowledge also offers little about complex partnership performance logics and multi-level governance across sectors. Partnership concerns can often be predominately focused on opportunistic business goals and benefits rather than the systemic partnering process itself. But partnerships do not operate in a vacuum. This book leads with the idea that partnerships can drive change. It argues that current partnership practices may impede sustainable business benefits and increase risk through a disregard for excellence, the ethics of care, and consideration for how partnership performance can directly affect corporate value and public value. The book utilizes comprehensive critical analyses and collaborative strategies to help readers learn how to formulate, integrate, implement, and monitor partnership performance. The book concludes that business and global development concerns are not independent of partnership concerns.
The book is a collection of analyses on country-specific and universal efforts, programmes and projects from Africa and beyond, aimed at realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, the chapters focus on the achievements and challenges that can potentially aid countries of the world and the United Nations in achieving the 17 SDGs. The chapters focus more on the challenges, prospects and concrete steps taken in the Global South towards the attainment of these goals.
Long term asset owners and managers, while seeking high risk-adjusted returns and efficiently allocating scarce financial capital to the highest value economic activities, have the essential and formidable role of ensuring the sustainability of return. But generally accepted financial accounting methods are ill-equipped to provide clear signals of the risks and opportunities created by scarce natural and human capital. Hence many investment managers in global financial markets, while performing due diligence on portfolio companies, examine metrics of non-financial performance, especially environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators. Broken into three sections, this book outlines the rationale for and methods used in six areas where financial acumen has been harnessed to the goal of combining monetary return with long run sustainability. The first section offers an introduction to the role of finance in achieving sustainability, and includes an overview of the six areas--sustainable investing, impact investing, decentralized finance, conservation finance, and cleantech finance. The methods section of the book illustrates analytical tools and specialized data sources essential to those interested in increasing the level of social responsibility embedded in economic activity. The applications section describes and differentiates each of the six areas and their roles in advancing specific measures of sustainability.
Many economically developing countries and nations without robust occupational hygiene (OH) educational programs endure a shortage of qualified occupational hygienists, resulting in higher rates of workplace injury, illness, and fatality. Damage to valuable infrastructure, environment, and public health also occurs without adequate support. Improving Global Worker Health and Safety Through Collaborative Capacity Building Initiatives outlines a broad variety of capacity building projects in OH. It also introduces detailed experiences of occupational hygienists working abroad and working on special global topics including a discussion of how global trade agreements influence the practice and policy within OH. It describes the special needs of informal workers who do not have a "typical" employer and special challenges of creating university curricular guidelines for OH, building competency, and increasing capacity. This book also informs experienced professionals in international OH-capacity building initiatives and directions.
Constructing roads in Madagascar; forestry along Canada's Pacific Coast; water and sanitation projects in South Africa; community banking in the United States; constructing a new global system for corporate reporting. These all have something in common. They provide great illustrations of the types of profound and wise changes needed in the way we run our affairs if we are to respond to the scale of environmental and social challenges and opportunities facing us. They are examples of "societal learning and change". Today, this phenomenon is occurring across industries as diverse as resources extraction, infrastructure development, agriculture and information technology at the local, national, regional and global levels. Its essence involves the ability to create rich relationships that bridge large differences. This book describes this phenomenon for practitioners to help them address issues and develop opportunities more effectively.