A Study on Sustainable Event Management Practices in Sri Lanka; Event Managers’ Perspective

Sustainably managed music festivals have significant value and can provide a multitude of benefits to a healthy, sustainable and desirable society if their negative impacts are mitigated and positive impacts cultivated. To reach this great potential, sustainable event management of music festivals must become widely adopted and expanded as common practice. To drive this improvement of sustainable event management, there is a need to first understand the barriers and success factors event organizers face moving their music festivals toward sustainability. This study uses a research design of mixed quantitative-qualitative methods: a survey of thirty diverse music festival organizers across the United States and interviews with five selected survey participants. Research draws on pertinent literature from sustainability theory and practice, previous research on sustainable event management, existing strategies of sustainable events, and lessons from organizational change studies. Findings revealed seven key barriers and four success factors associated with sustainable event management of music festivals as well as three specific needs of event organizers to improve sustainable event management. With these findings, seven strategies are presented to help event organizers adopt and improve sustainable event management of music festivals. This study is significant because it fills an important gap in the academic literature on events and sustainability. Additionally, this study is immediately applicable to Untied States music festivals. The findings were drawn directly from the perspectives and experiences of event organizers, and the strategies are designed to be specifically applied to their sustainable event management work. SUSTAINABLE EVENT MANAGEMENT ii Acknowledgments Through the course of the past year and through all the moments of stress and frustration that were a part of this process, I looked forward to writing this page. The opportunity to write this acknowledgements page and give thanks is my reward for completing this challenging and fulfilling project. I‟m very grateful for all of those who helped me accomplish this feat. I couldn‟t have done it without them. My mom gave me the pep talks I needed and always managed to convince me that I could do it. My sister sat on the other side of the phone at all hours listening to me rattle on about my metal blocks. My dad‟s unwavering pride in me motivated me to continue pushing forward. My family is my constant, as they have always been. My advisor, Heather, has been amazing. She helped me develop every step of this project. Most importantly, her skillful guidance as a sustainability education practitioner is the reason why my experience in the LSE program has been a whole sustainability journey rather than a conventional two-year master‟s program. My beautiful LSE cohort is loving, supportive, and courageously passionate. I‟m grateful to have taken this transformational journey through LSE with them. The PSU sustainability community is full of energy and gave me opportunities to turn my ideas into reality. PSU really is blossoming into a fruitful living laboratory, and I‟m grateful to have participated in its budding stages. My Grandma and Grampa have believed in me my entire life and given me more love than a person knows what to do with. I wouldn‟t have had the opportunity to write this thesis without their generosity to support me in my graduate education. They have been a constant joy in my life, and have helped to create the person I am today. SUSTAINABLE EVENT MANAGEMENT iii Lastly, thank you to the music. The music always reminded me why I had embarked on this journey. It is an endless source of inspiration and motivation. SUSTAINABLE EVENT MANAGEMENT iv

Sustainable management practices such as lean and visual management can be directly linked successfully to facilities management practices. This was acknowledged during an exploratory case study that assessed the leanness of a university’s transformation, evaluating their lean and value-added approach to enhancing workflow efficiencies. The research study was limited to one UK university estates and property services lean journey. Design science research methodology with an action research approach was applied. In conjunction with qualitative methods such as interviews, questionnaires, and participatory observations in action that included a workshop. The literature review surmised that there is a lack of data demonstrating the correlation between lean visual management and sustainable management practices especially in facilities management services. Additionally, combining sustainable management and change management methods is also not widely researched. When sustainable management practices that include lean and visual management are implemented in facilities practices customer expectations are improved, waste eliminated, color coding and labelling implemented, and known sustainable practices such as recycling of furniture, fixtures and equipment occur adding value and reallocating financial resources. It is recommended that change management be introduced to better understand workplace culture when executing transformation directives. Subsequently, management will become better equipped at contending with employee’s attitudes, work ethics, and behaviours. The originality of this research exploration illustrates that facilities management departments should embrace sustainable management practices that include lean visual management methods combined with change management. Consequently, improving employee experience, return on investment and acknowledgment from customers, senior leadership, and the C-suite.

BackgroundSustainable land management is considered as one of the useful approaches to combat the threat of various forms of land degradation in Ethiopia. Despite this, there is scant information regarding households’ decision towards the implementation of sustainable land management practices. This paper, therefore, looks into the determinants for the continued use and choice of the sustainable land management practices by smallholder farmers and its productivity effect in three randomly chosen districts in Tigrai region, Ethiopia. The study uses data from household survey and key informant interviews. The paper employs a binary logit to analyze the determinants for the decision of continued use of sustainable land management practices, and a multivariate probit to analyze the simultaneous adoption decision of sustainable land management practices using cross sectional data collected from 230 randomly selected households. The impact of sustainable land management practices was also evaluated using propensity score matching.ResultsFarming techniques, wealth status, agro-ecological variations, and plot level characteristics were found to be associated with the implementation decision of sustainable land management practices by rural households. Besides, institutional supports and access to basic infrastructures influenced the overall continued use of sustainable land management practices and the preference of households toward these practices. The study also finds that the value of crop production of sustainable land management users was on average 77–100% higher than that of non-users.ConclusionsThe results of the current study confirm that the implementation of various sustainable land management practices are influenced by farming technologies deployed by rural households, agro-ecological variations, plot characteristics, and institutional supports. The findings also affirm that most of the sustainable land management practices are complementary to one another, and implementing two or more sustainable land management practices on a given plot is highly associated with higher value of crop production. Such complementarity highlights that the productivity effect of a given sustainable land management practice is enhanced by the use of the other ones.

This study aims to identify the determinants of key forces in the external and internal environment of event management to propose a sustainable environment analysis framework that will help organizers to improve the sustainability of the strategy formulation. The proposed framework incorporates sustainability practices, previous research on sustainable event management, existing strategies of sustainable strategic management, and the results from this study. This framework has adopted PEST Analysis (a framework used to analyse and monitor macro-environmental factors that may have a profound impact on an organization’s performance) in external environment analysis and Mckinsey 7s Framework in internal environment analysis to identify sustainable-related determinants of key forces to propose common sustainable practices to get common acceptance for sustainability. The identified determinants were applied in the proposed framework to guide event organizer when identifying key forces of external and internal environment which can influence to achieve sustainability in the event. On top of this, SWOT Analysis (a strategic planning technique used to help an organization to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat related to business competition) was adopted to help event organizers to identify the opportunities and threats in the external environment and understand the strengths and weakness of the organization to formulate effective sustainable strategies and move their events toward sustainability.

This study aims to identify the determinants of key forces in the external and internal environment of event management to propose a sustainable environment analysis framework that will help organizers to improve the sustainability of the strategy formulation. The proposed framework incorporates sustainability practices, previous research on sustainable event management, existing strategies of sustainable strategic management, and the results from this study. This framework has adopted PEST Analysis (a framework used to analyse and monitor macro-environmental factors that may have a profound impact on an organization’s performance) in external environment analysis and Mckinsey 7s Framework in internal environment analysis to identify sustainable-related determinants of key forces to propose common sustainable practices to get common acceptance for sustainability. The identified determinants were applied in the proposed framework to guide event organizer when identifying key forces of external and internal environment which can influence to achieve sustainability in the event. On top of this, SWOT Analysis (a strategic planning technique used to help an organization to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat related to business competition) was adopted to help event organizers to identify the opportunities and threats in the external environment and understand the strengths and weakness of the organization to formulate effective sustainable strategies and move their events toward sustainability.

This chapter focuses on the planning and implementation of events and critically reviews and discusses whether current planning models explicitly or implicitly allow for the consideration and adoption of sustainable event management practices. It is within this context that generic and specific issues related to event sustainability can be discussed. Suggestions may be made as to how sustainable management and development may be more explicitly applied to current event planning models.

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to assess the impact of adopting sustainable Supply Chain Management practices on the performance of public sector organizations in Zambia. The study was anchored on three objectives: To identify the main drivers of adopting sustainable supply chain management practices in public sector organizations in Zambia, to establish sustainable supply chain management practices adopted by public sector organizations in Zambia and to determine the challenges of implementing sustainability in public sector supply chains in Zambia. Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive (qualitative) survey design to assess the impact of adopting sustainable Supply Chain Management practices on the performance of public sector organizations. The population comprised of fifty (50) Zambia Air Force personnel from Procurement, Operations and Finance departments. Survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews were used for data collection. Data was analysed using Excel and thematic analysis was used were data from questionnaires and interviews was summarized, edited, coded, tabulated and analyzed. Findings: The study concluded that leadership is a significant factor in Sustainable supply chain management practices being implemented by public sector organizations, and if senior managers are supportive of sustainability and incorporate Sustainable supply chain management practices into planning, strategies and goal setting, then the purchasing team will implement Sustainable supply chain management practices. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: The study recommended that Zambia Air Force should make use of identified main drivers of adopting sustainable supply chain management practices, continuously improve sustainable supply chain management practices and should endeavor to overcome the challenges of implementing sustainability in its supply chains.

Adoption of multiple sustainable land management practices and its effects on productivity of smallholder maize farmers in Nigeria

Motivations underlying farmers’ management decisions and willingness to adopt sustainable practices: A case study of the northeastern United States

The study examined the effect of market access on the adoption of sustainable soil management practices by farmers in the study area. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers; identified the sustainable soil management practices adopted by the farmers; determined factors influencing the choice of sustainable soil management practices used; determined the relationship between market access and the adoption intensity of sustainable soil management practices and identified constraints faced in adopting sustainable soil management practices. Multistage sampling procedure was employed to collect data from one hundred and fifty (150) farmers. Thereafter, data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate probit regression. The findings revealed that the mean age of the respondents was 45 years, with a mean household size of about 6 members. Majority (69.6%) of the respondents had formal education and a mean year of experience of about 18. The study also revealed that all the respondents had access to one form of market or the other for purchase of inputs and sales of their products. In addition, the mean distance covered from farm to home was less than 5 kilometres for most of the respondents while the distance from home to major market and farm to major market was between 5 and 10 kilometres. The most popular sustainable soil management practices adopted by the farmers were the use of chemical fertilizers, crop rotation and intercropping. Furthermore, the multivariate probit regression model showed that age of the respondents, educational level, farm size, household size, farming experience, farm income, awareness of sustainable soil management practices, average distance to the input market, average distance to the output market, average price of product, average price of input for each practice, subsidies on input for each practice, significantly influenced the adoption of sustainable soil management practice by farmers. Also, it was found by the study that inadequate fund is the major constraint faced by the respondents in adopting sustainable soil management practices.

The intersection between sustainability and project management has received significant attention as organizations recognize the criticality of incorporating sustainability practices into their projects. However, incorporating sustainability considerations presents some challenges, requiring the development and adoption of methods, tools and techniques tailored to address sustainability at the project level. Against this backdrop, this study endeavors to develop an understanding of the effective incorporation of sustainability within projects through the micro-level perspective of practices. An online survey was developed based on a comprehensive literature review of which a total of 107 valid responses were collected and analyzed. The results show the most useful sustainable project management practices perceived by experienced project professionals, including ‘Sustainability team management’, ‘Lessons learned towards sustainability’ and ‘Sustainability risk register’, among others. However, a data analysis reveals a prevailing trend marked by the limited perceived usefulness of sustainability practices in the context of project management. Furthermore, through exploratory factor analysis, a clear classification of sustainable project management practices was identified, according to the specific phases of the common project management lifecycle: ‘Initiation and planning’, ‘Execution, monitoring, controlling and replanning’ and ‘Closure’. By providing a set of sustainable project management practices and identifying the underlying factors that elucidate the incorporation of sustainable project management practices across the project management lifecycle, this study extends a guiding hand to practitioners in pursuing successful sustainability integration in their projects. It vividly illustrates that sustainability can be readily incorporated into project-management processes, delivering sustainable products and/or services in a sustainable way, combining both the ‘sustainability of the project’ and ‘sustainability by the project’ perspectives.

This study aims to analyze sustainable forest management practices in the Amazon, addressing the environmental, social and economic impacts, as well as the challenges for their implementation. The research was carried out through a systematic review of the literature, using articles from specialized journals on the subject. The analysis revealed that sustainable forest management practices, such as selective logging, the use of non-timber products and agroforestry systems, have shown positive results in terms of biodiversity conservation, soil regeneration and maintenance of the hydrological cycle. However, the adoption of these practices is still limited by barriers such as lack of infrastructure, technical training and the economic pressure of illegal activities such as livestock farming and agriculture. The environmental impacts of sustainable forest management, such as the preservation of biodiversity and the role of the Amazon in climate regulation, are evident, but illegal deforestation and forest fragmentation continue to compromise these advances. The implementation of sustainable forest management depends on effective public policies, institutional support and greater participation of local communities, requiring coordinated action between the different sectors of society to ensure the sustainability of the Amazon. It is concluded that, despite the difficulties, sustainable management is essential for the preservation of the Amazon and global climate balance. Keywords: environmental impacts, sustainable practices, public policies.

Non-technical summary Tourism significantly boosts a nation's economic growth, but unrestrained practices can cause serious environmental damage. As an essential part of the tourism industry, hotels meet the fundamental needs of tourists. This study examines the sustainable environmental management practices of hotels in Malaysia. It finds that hotels prioritize cost-saving and short-term benefits over long-term environmental gains. The study also reveals variations in sustainable practices based on hotel location and star rating. These insights are useful for various stakeholders in developing strategies and initiatives to achieve sustainable development goals. Technical summary Sustainable environmental management practices (SEMP) are essential to pave the way toward achieving a net-zero emission sustainable future. This study explores the level of SEMP among hotels in Malaysia based on distinct categorizations of location and star ranking. The findings show that hotels in Malaysia adopt higher basic SEMPs but less advanced practices. However, the level of basic and advanced SEMPs in hotels differ according to their geographical locations and star ranking. The findings also suggest that hotels in Malaysia prioritize cost-saving practices and short-term benefits over the long-term benefits of sustainable practices. The study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the variations in the sustainable practices among different categories of hotels. Further, the findings are helpful for practitioners and policymakers in designing tools and measures, and promoting initiatives that best suit different types of hotels. Such efforts are crucial to promote and accelerate the engagement of sustainability practices in hotels.

Purpose Sustainable management practices are crucial environmental initiatives implemented by manufacturing organisations to mitigate growing social and ecological problems and progress operational and economic successes. The theory of constraints highlights the essence of adopting sustainability practices, including green management, lean management, top management commitment and reverse logistics, to address production constraints and achieve manufacturing performance. However, more empirical evidence is required to determine whether sustainability practices affect manufacturing performance metrics in economies like Ghana. This research establishes whether adopting sustainable management practices impacts manufacturers’ operational and sustainable performance. Design/methodology/approach This deductive research adopts an explanatory research design. Survey data was administered to 285 managers in 5,329 manufacturing businesses in Ghana. The data was processed and analysed with SmartPLS4.1 and structural equation modelling. Findings Green management and top management commitment positively predict the performance aspects of manufacturing organisations in Ghana. Also, reverse logistics and lean management practices improve firms’ operational, social and environmental performance, except for economic performance. It is concluded that manufacturing businesses that embrace sustainable management practices can improve their performance. Research limitations/implications Although the study’s objectives were primarily achieved, it was geographically restricted to Ghana, a developing country. Also, it was carried out within the boundaries of explanatory design and structural equation modelling. Practical implications It provides comprehensive information to assist owner-managers in prioritising heavy investments in appropriate sustainable management practices. It will also encourage them to develop a sustainability culture within their firms and supply chains to fast-track and sustain the adopted practices. These measures will enable manufacturing organisations to effectively handle growing sustainability problems to leverage their sustainable and operational performance. Originality/value This study analyses the interplay between sustainable management practices and manufacturing performance dimensions in a developing economy. Hence, the outcomes would serve as valuable guidelines for selecting relevant practices to foster sustainable production and meet performance objectives.

This study examines the responsible resource orchestration across product lifecycles management practices in the Agri-palm Industry, with a particular focus on Indofood Agri-palm business in Indonesia. The key goals are to identify and analyse Indofood Agri-palm business’s present sustainable supply chain management practices, as well as determine the potential influence of sustainability practices on overall supply chain performance. Supply Chain Operation Reference theoretical framework was used to map the sustainability of the supply chain processes and operations in the Agri-palm industry. The study examined current supply chain management practices and identified gaps in ideal sustainability standards by employing the Analytic Hierarch Process model. The findings from the study showed significant improvement in sustainability practices over the years. The Indofood Agri-palm business put more effort in sustainable innovation practices such as environmentally aware solutions and practices. Also, there was a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from estate and palm oil mill operations. Additionally, there study identified no traces of child labour along the supply chain of the Indofood Agri-palm industry. This was a result of a robust labour policy which eliminates all forms of child labour across the supply chain. The study recommends the integration and putting more effort into other alternatives that could offer a rounded approach towards fostering sustainability, resilience and innovation. Finally, Indofood-Agri palm business should engage more in afforestation projects outside its jurisdiction as part of its corporate social responsibility to contribute to greenhouse gas reduction in Indonesia as a whole.