Beyond just individual responsibility: Advancing collective agency in environmental sustainability at work research

Individualization trends encouraging young people to focus on their achievements seem to contradict the need for socially and environmentally sustainable behavior, and this requires additional empirical testing. The purpose of this paper is to present and provide basic testing of an original model of responsible behavior. The model is inspired by the theory of planned behavior distinguishing between consciousness, intentions, and behavior. The presented model applies these to an individual as well as to social and environmental responsibility while taking into account the social, technological, and natural environments. The research is based on the presumption that it is crucial to connect the individual dimension of responsibility with the environmental and social dimensions to achieve environmental and social sustainability at the micro-level. Data for the preliminary testing of the model was collected from an online social survey among Slovenian youth and analyzed through partial correlations and path analysis. The results show that individual responsibility is strongly connected to social and environmental responsibilities, but only in terms of behavior, and not values and intentions. Responsibility is also strongly connected to the social and technological environment, especially to the ways how young people are using digital technology.

Responsibility Incorporated

Scaling up urban infrastructure for physical activity in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

This article explores the complex relationship between money and freedom, focusing on how different types of money can promote various forms of freedom while addressing the tensions between individual autonomy and collective responsibilities. It critically examines the concept of modern money as a neutral medium, typically associated with negative freedom, in the context of global challenges. The article attributes the erosion of modern frameworks that enhance negative freedom through money to increasing interdependence and externalities and argues for the development of new types of money that can internalize global interdependencies, thereby effectively addressing contemporary challenges. The article highlights innovative monetary systems, such as Sardex and Twin Money, that support positive freedoms and promote social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and collective well-being.

Introduction: Marine environmental pollution is a global concern today because it has an impact on environmental sustainability and the use of marine resources. This problem not only affects the national interests of coastal countries, but also has implications for the welfare of all mankind.Purposes of the Research: Examine and analyze regulations on the protection of the marine environment from pollution, as well as the responsibility of the state, legal entities, and even individuals for marine pollution.Methods of the Research: This research is a normative research using a legislative approach with the sources of legal materials used are primary, secondary and tertiary legal materials with qualitative analysis.Results of the Research: Pollution of the marine environment is a global challenge that requires international cooperation. UNCLOS 1982 has established rules regarding the responsibilities of states, legal entities, and individuals in efforts to prevent, reduce, and handle marine pollution. Along with the increasing exploitation of marine resources, both in the energy and transportation sectors, the risk of pollution, especially due to oil spills, is getting higher. Therefore, national regulations that are aligned with international standards are needed to ensure the sustainable protection of the marine environment as well as effective accountability and compensation mechanisms for affected parties.

It is not that the public is unwilling to participate in environmental protection, but rather that they lack the appropriate information. The media offers an alternative explanatory pathway to understanding citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental governance, but the existing literature still lacks empirical studies on this topic and the intermediate mechanisms. Adopting an environmental communication perspective, this paper divided the environmental effects of media into two dimensions: knowledge growth and responsibility cultivation, and conducted an empirical analysis on whether, and how, media use affected citizens’ WTP, based on data from the China General Social Survey 2018 (hereafter, CGSS2018). The findings found that the frequency of media use significantly increased citizen’s WTP, in which individual environmental responsibility rather than environmental knowledge played a mediating effect; i.e., media use increased individuals’ WTP by increasing the public’s environmental responsibility. Furthermore, this study discovered that traditional media use had a significant effect on the citizens’ WTP, again verifying the mediating effect of individual environmental responsibility, while new media use did not have such a communication effect. This study extends the theories related to pro-environmental behaviors, and provides practical implications for the government to promote environmental governance and sustainability.

This paper is about Kant’s doctrine of virtue and its applicability in the context of environmental ethics and sustainable development. The analysis starts with the concept of the categorical imperative and the importance of moral action based on reason and individual responsibility. This approach will be compared with philosophers of the Frankfurt School of Critical thought, through the imperative of responsibility contributing to shaping a contemporary ethical framework that integrates virtue, sustainability and intergenerational responsibility in the need for a new ethical paradigm. Environmental ethics and sustainability in the context of virtue and moral law, are based in an ethic that supports the preservation of environment and the sustainable use of natural resources. Changing the ethical paradigm is an essential process to face today’s environmental challenges and requires a redefinition of the virtues and values that guide moral action, making them suitable for the environmental context. In conclusion, this paper highlights the importance of environmental ethics in facing global development challenges and the need for a philosophical approach that integrates with everyday practices to protect the planet.

Why employees of pioneering Internet companies chose to invest their time, energy, hopes, and human capital in start-up ventures. In the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, employees of Internet startups took risks—left well-paying jobs for the chance of striking it rich through stock options (only to end up unemployed a year later), relocated to areas that were epicenters of a booming industry (that shortly went bust), chose the opportunity to be creative over the stability of a set schedule. In Venture Labor, Gina Neff investigates choices like these made by high-tech workers in New York City's “Silicon Alley” in the 1990s. Why did these workers exhibit entrepreneurial behavior in their jobs—investing time, energy, and other personal resources that Neff terms “venture labor”—when they themselves were employees and not entrepreneurs? Neff argues that this behavior was part of a broader shift in society in which economic risk shifted away from collective responsibility toward individual responsibility. In the new economy, risk and reward took the place of job loyalty, and the dot-com boom helped glorify risks. Company flexibility was gained at the expense of employee security. Through extensive interviews, Neff finds not the triumph of the entrepreneurial spirit but a mixture of motivations and strategies, informed variously by bravado, naïveté, and cold calculation. She connects these individual choices with larger social and economic structures, making it clear that understanding venture labor is of paramount importance for encouraging innovation and, even more important, for creating sustainable work environments that support workers.

In the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, employees of Internet startups took risks--left well-paying jobs for the chance of striking it rich through stock options (only to end up unemployed a year later), relocated to areas that were epicenters of a booming industry (that shortly went bust), chose the opportunity to be creative over the stability of a set schedule. In Venture Labor, Gina Neff investigates choices like these made by high-tech workers in New York City's Silicon Alley in the 1990s. Why did these workers exhibit entrepreneurial behavior in their jobs--investing time, energy, and other personal resources that Neff terms labor--when they themselves were employees and not entrepreneurs? Neff argues that this behavior was part of a broader shift in society in which economic risk shifted away from collective responsibility toward individual responsibility. In the new economy, risk and reward took the place of job loyalty, and the dot-com boom helped glorify risks. Company flexibility was gained at the expense of employee security. Through extensive interviews, Neff finds not the triumph of the entrepreneurial spirit but a mixture of motivations and strategies, informed variously by bravado, navet, and cold calculation. She connects these individual choices with larger social and economic structures, making it clear that understanding venture labor is of paramount importance for encouraging innovation and, even more important, for creating sustainable work environments that support workers.

Environmental sustainability is a concept with increasing importance in the way organizations think and outline their cultures, practices, and business strategies to become more attractive. In this sense, the present study aims to understand whether organizations that publish job advertisements regarding sustainable culture and ecological concerns are perceived as more attractive and generate higher intentions to apply. A quantitative study was made with a sample comprising 443 participants. The results suggested that job advertisements with pro-environmental messages generate a higher organizational attractiveness. In addition, organizational attractiveness does not mediate the relationship between the type of advertisement (green vs. non-green) and intentions to apply. Additionally, the results suggested that individuals with greater individual environmental responsibility and intentions of pro-environmental behavior have a greater intention to apply, facing green job advertisements. The role of organizations in adopting green practices to attract and retain the best talent is also discussed, as well as suggestions for future studies.

Coffee and stress management: How does coffee affect the stress response?

The disconnect between the global environmental crisis and individual behavior is becoming increasingly pronounced. This paper focuses on building a hybrid physicaldigital interaction system through interaction design, exploring innovative approaches to guiding individual environmentally friendly behavior. Based on data visualization to reveal individual environmental responsibility, the research integrates gamification mechanisms, narrative design, and mixed-reality technologies to construct a closed-loop system of perceptionactionfeedbackcommunication. Through technological means, it transforms abstract environmental responsibility into tangible, participatory practices. By addressing the problem of unsustainable consumption, this study provides theoretical and methodological support for the large-scale promotion of individual pro-environmental behavior, contributing to environmental sustainability.

The paper is based on the crucial value of food as “a condensed social fact”. The analysis focuses on food narratives, responsible consumption, battles for the food emancipation of subaltern and low-income subjects, and attention to the quality, fairness, and traceability of food products as an expression of individual agency, as well as an expression of public engagement with food democracy/citizenship conflicts and frictions. Preliminarily, the paper moves from a discussion of collective agency on food strategies and representations to a critical approach to food democracy and sustainable society. This public arena for food debates is then confronted with personal behaviors embodying food citizenship in the contemporary scenario of socio-economic and environmental transition. The paper addresses the following sustainable development goals: responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), ending hunger, food security, improved nutrition, sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), and health and well-being (SDG 3). Starting from the democratic/neoliberal dichotomy, the paper will consider food governmentality as a positive alternative to food emancipation and democracy, as well as a personal need and a neo-communitarian political approach opposed to agroindustry and food consumerism and dispossession. Three case studies, all situated in the central–southern Italian region of Molise, will discuss different models of food citizenship and governmentality, as well as the relationship between individual responsibility and desires and collective commitment and perspectives. These issues will be framed within a rural economy paradigm and articulated through an ethnographic methodology: local data collection, emic/ethic representations, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. This long-term observation has been realized in the framework of several projects that were coordinated and developed by the authors, who worked for several years in the regional territory, especially on projects focusing on local/regional/national policies of sustainable rural development and bio-cultural heritage conservation and valorization according to the mission of the research center, which they founded and coordinated over the last seven years. The case studies and discussion allow for some final consideration of the impact of individual and community agencies on the achievement of SDGs, the presence of not exclusively consumeristic and hedonistic behaviors, and the growing attention to ecological concerns being paid food producers and distributors, as well as new forms of rural–urban circularity and entanglements aiming toward greater awareness and democratization of food access, security, and sustainable agriculture.

The Concept of Milieu in Environmental Ethics discusses how we can come together to address current environmental problems at the planetary level, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, transborder pollution and desertification. The book recognises the embedded individual sociocultural and environmental contexts that impact our everyday choices. It asks, in this pluralism of worldviews, how can we build common ground to tackle environmental issues? What is our individual moral responsibility within the larger collaborative challenge? Through philosophical reasoning, this book pragmatically addresses these questions and builds a framework to support sustainable ways of living. At the core of the book, it draws on the concept of milieu (fūdo) inspired by the Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō, which captures how we act within and perceive our surroundings as a web of culturally, historically and geographically situated meanings and values. It argues that the milieu connects us as individuals with community, past and future history, and the natural world, providing us with common ground for global environmental ethics. This book will be an engaging and interesting read for scholars, researchers and students in environmental ethics, philosophy and sustainability.

Explorations of the structure-agency dialectic as a tool for framing equity in science education