Environmental Prosperity Research Articles

Building Bridges: Constructing Social Enterprise Curriculum in the Humanities

Creating an innovative suite of courses within the Bachelor of Arts has required the development of a complex pedagogy, particularly when the needs of the context require an interdisciplinary approach. This paper, which utilises reflection on practice as its methodology, explores the Social Enterprise core stream which has been a significant element of study since 2008. While the paper deals with some of the particular circumstances of introducing practice learning to traditional theoretical disciplines, it is most concerned with the pedagogical strength of combining inquiry based learning with problem based learning, to lead to work integrated learning, and developing reflective practice to integrate all. Since 2008, the School of Humanities at Griffith University has incorporated a Social Enterprise signature experience into the Bachelor of Arts. Broadly, social enterprises are distinguished by their pursuit of community wealth in the marketplace to pursue their aims. They pursue a triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental prosperity. Griffith University is located in South East Queensland, Australia and is well regarded as both a research university and for its development of highly innovative programmes. Approximately 40, 000 students are enrolled over five campuses. In the Bachelor of Arts, we also use the verb form, 'socially enterprising' to invite our students to be innovative, creative and empowered, regardless of the economic sector where they find employment. Thus our work at Griffith University is underpinned by a pedagogical ethic and imperative to excite our students about their own prospects for being a part of change, based on a thorough and ongoing engagement with people and organisations in the 'real world' who are already moving and shaking. This has meant that a curriculum has had to be developed which both presents the underlying issues and the third sector approaches and interpolates these studies into a multi-disciplinary context. This signature experience consists of six semester-long units, presented sequentially, and includes a third year professional placement in the Third Sector. The final semester capstone subject enables students to both reflect upon their experience of the degree and to plan and manage a showcase event. The first year units focus upon the development of communication and critical thinking skills, and the introduction of critical issues relevant to the Third Sector such as human rights and social justice. Alongside an initial exploration of the history and practice of the Third Sector, these first year courses are designed to incite a broader awareness of the reason for choosing a life that contributes to the wider community. The second year units are concerned with the consolidation of an ethical foundation and developing skills required in the workplace in this field.

A Unified Information Framework for Building A Common Vision in Sustainable City Development

Creating sustainable cities requires a stronger collaboration between a range of public and private sector organisations to ensure cities are safer, healthier, intelligent and prosperous places for citizens to experience an enhanced quality of life. Within this context, urban planning and regeneration projects play a major role where stakeholders need to come together to assess the current challenges or the opportunities within a city and implement projects that transform the physical, social and environmental dimensions to create prosperous and sustainable futures. Within these projects, stakeholders need to assess “social data intelligence” collected by individual agencies and also understand how proposed complex agendas such as transport, health, education and employment could lead to a better environment that can bring social, economical and environmental prosperity. This research proposes a novel Urban Information Framework that allows the stakeholders to integrate their datasets (both spatial and non-spatial) together to create a unified 3D virtual prototype of a city that can be used to represent both the current state of a city as well as intended futures. The proposed Urban Information Framework allows the stakeholders to combine different datasets together, whether they be social or physical transformation agendas, to understand the dependencies or to build up narratives that could be communicated visually to others. The overall framework has been developed and validated by working closely with two major regeneration projects in UK.

Management of Greenhouse Gases for Environmental Prosperity: Literature Review and Introduction to IPCC

The topic of interest focus on understanding of components and source for Greenhouse Gas (GHG). It also says about the anthropogenic activities and natural process responsible for GHG generation. Emission inventories of natural and anthropogenic emissions are used by scientists as inputs to air quality models, by policy makers to develop strategies and policies or track progress of standards, and by facilities and regulatory agencies to establish compliance records with allowable emission rates. E-commerce, computer climate models and counter effect properties of sulfur dioxide has also changed the view about manage- ment of GHG. The discovery of new potent GHG, trifluoromethyl sulfur pentafluoride (SF5CF3) is considered the most potent GHG measured till date. The objectives, responsibilities and organizational behavior of intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is of importance to the people involved in the GHG management and reporting of GHG emission inventories.