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This study aims to explore barriers and pathways to a whole-institution governance of sustainability within the working structures of universities.

This paper draws on multi-year interviews and hierarchical structure analysis of ten universities in Canada, the USA, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, the UK and The Netherlands. The paper addresses existing literature that championed further integration between the two organizational sides of universities (academic and operations) and suggests approaches for better embedding sustainability into four primary domains of activity (education, research, campus operations and community engagement).

This research found that effective sustainability governance needs to recognise and reconcile distinct cultures, diverging accountability structures and contrasting manifestations of central-coordination and distributed-agency approaches characteristic of the university’s operational and academic activities. The positionality of actors appointed to lead institution-wide embedding influenced which domain received most attention. The paper concludes that a whole-institution approach would require significant tailoring and adjustments on both the operational and academic sides to be successful.

Based on a review of sustainability activities at ten universities around the world, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the governance implications of integrating sustainability into the four domains of university activity. It discusses how best to work across the operational/academic divide and suggests principles for adopting a whole institution approach to sustainability.

This case study explores different perspectives on integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in universities to achieve university transformations. This study recognises that university actors think differently about the purpose of universities, hold diverse perspectives on the SDGs, and, thus, prefer specific types of SDG integration.

Using Q methodology, 29 participants from one university expressed their perspectives by sorting 50 statements covering different types of SDG integration. Statements were based on academic and grey literature on SDG integration in universities, and interviews with university actors from a previous study. After the sorting task, participants were interviewed to understand the reasons behind the placement of particular statements.

The study identifies three perspectives held by the study participants. Perspective 1 emphasises the value of the SDGs and supports a deep integration of the Goals in their university. Perspective 1 also advocates for incorporating the SDGs into the university’s identity. Perspective 2 sees the university’s purpose as more comprehensive than the SDGs; thus, the university should develop knowledge regardless of its relevance to the SDGs. This perspective supports a pragmatic integration of the SDGs – favouring actions that benefit the university without introducing significant changes. Finally, Perspective 3 argues that the university should approach the SDGs through social justice and empowerment lenses. This perspective also questions the suitability of the SDGs for universities, arguing that the SDGs fail to challenge current structures underpinning the unsustainability of the world.

Although previous studies have analysed diverse ways of understanding the SDGs in universities, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to treat the SDGs as a governance framework of 17 goals and adopt a whole-institution approach to study universities.

This chapter considers how to, following David Harvey (1973), produce a genuinely humanizing smart urbanism. It does so through utilizing a future-orientated lens to sketch out the kinds of work required to reimagine, reframe, and remake smart cities. I argue that, on the one hand, there is a need to produce an alternative “future present” that shifts the anticipatory logics of smart cities to that of addressing persistent inequalities, prejudice, and discrimination and is rooted in notions of fairness, equity, ethics, and democracy. On the other hand, there is a need to disrupt the “present future” of neoliberal smart urbanism, moving beyond minimal politics to enact sustained strategic, public-led interventions designed to create more-inclusive smart city initiatives. Both tactics require producing a deeply normative vision for smart cities that is rooted in ideas of citizenship, social justice, the public good, and the right to the city that needs to be developed in conjunction with citizens.

Over the last 30 years, a range of different complementary currency models have been developed and diffused across the world. Such currency systems have been researched from a variety of different perspectives, such as policy tools (Williams et al., 2001) and social movements (North, 2006). Many of these have explicit links to sustainability objectives and the green movement (Helleiner, 2000; Longhurst & Seyfang, 2011; North, 2010a; Seyfang, 2009), and some environmental writers argue that monetary reform and the development of multiple currency systems are critical factors in achieving environmental sustainability (Douthwaite, 1999). This chapter explains how such a ‘green’ currency emerged from within the environmentally focused Transition Town social movement. This movement has given rise to a range of locally based grassroots enterprises that deliver local services and goods. However, it is argued here that such enterprises can also act as instigators of radical innovations, such as complementary currencies. As such it conceptualises currencies as a form of technology and uses the empirical case of the Totnes Pound currency as an example of a technology that has emerged from civil society. Adopting this framing, the chapter draws on theory relating to the formation of innovative technological ‘niches’ to provide insights into the challenges that they have to overcome in order to survive and flourish. The chapter therefore argues that exploring complementary currencies through the lens of innovation theory can provide valuable insights into their development, and that such an approach may prove useful where grassroots enterprises are engaged in other forms of innovative activity.

This chapter provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political, and normative questions relating to citizenship, social justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the chapter provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the more troubling ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalized in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussion of social justice and the smart city. In the fifth section, we explore the notion of the “right to the smart city” and how this might be used to recast the smart city in emancipatory and empowering ways. Finally, we set out how the book seeks to answer our questions and extend our initial framing, exploring the extent to which the “right to the city” should be a fundamental principle of smart city endeavors.

The pretty girl with raven hair sings as she works and dreams of wonderful days ahead. The girl's dream is deferred by the wickedly jealous stepmother who sends a trusted guard to commit murder. The man, overwhelmed by the girl's inherent goodness is unable to complete his deed, and warns her to run away and never return. She travels deep into the woods and is helped by friendly forest creatures with big eyes. They take her to a small cottage and she falls asleep, to be awakened by several small men who find it in their hearts to allow her to remain. The miniature men leave for work the next day, warning the girl of the stepmother and her trickery. The nasty woman disguises herself and easily convinces the girl to take a bite of the religiously symbolic apple, after which the girl is induced into a coma. The small men return, chase after the horrible stepmother and cause her to fall to her death, after which they do not bury the beauty-girl, but instead leave her ensconced in a glass tomb for all to see. The gallant prince finally arrives and kisses her, true love breaking the apple's spell and allowing the girl to ride away on the horse with the true hero, leaving behind the woodland creatures and small men forever. Sunlight beaming, girl beaming, small men and creatures beaming. All is right with the world.

Considerable controversy has arisen in recent years over the management of customer‐broker conflict in the securities industry. Attention has been focused on the supposed voluntariness and neutrality of the conflict management processes. Arbitration, which is the standard form of conflict management in the securities industry, has received particularly strong criticism. This article explains the basis for customer‐broker conflicts, the controversy surrounding the use of arbitration as a means of conflict management, and the case law regulating securities disputes.