Published in 1999, this volume provides the first thorough analysis of the elements of sustainable public policy in a devolved Scotland. Following the vote for a Scottish Parliament in the 1997 referendum, it explores the immediate and longer-term challenges likely to confront Scotland. The book brings together policy-thinkers and practitioners from academia, business, the voluntary sector and politics to ask: What are the key opportunities and constraints around sustainability? What practical difference will devolution make? What changes within and beyond government will be required to strengthen the roots of sustainable development? It includes the findings from a specially-commissioned opinion poll published in this volume for the first time. Offering a far-sighted analysis, the book poses a series of timely questions and offers policy recommendations for the next decade.

This book presents innovations for sustainable building design and refurbishment developed and tested through feasibility studies undertaken by researchers at Scottish universities in collaboration with small to medium size enterprises in Scotland during the ‘CIC Start Online’ project that ran from September 2009 to February 2013. The project was led by Glasgow Caledonian University in collaboration with Edinburgh Napier University, Glasgow School of Art, Heriot-Watt University, the Robert Gordon University, University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde Glasgow. The book includes chapters on Context and Policies, Planning, Building Design, Technologies, Construction, Refurbishment and Performance. The contents of each chapter are based on 63 completed studies that were initiated by businesses operating in the construction sector or providing services to the sector, indicating the scope of research required to assist the industry to develop more sustainable products and processes. The book informs the reader about the range of innovations that were tested and highlight potential future research areas. Readers can find in-depth information by accessing the project website www.cicstart.org, where full reports on most studies and the video recordings of interactive online seminars that presented the outcomes of the studies are available. Along with the new knowledge on how innovations for sustainable building design and refurbishment can be applied in practice, the book demonstrates how joint projects of several universities can be successfully managed and how an immediate knowledge transfer can be organized by using web tools to reach over 2,200 current members nationally and internationally (in UK and 53 other countries).

This title uses the concept of environmental space to resolve many of the issues facing us in the future and applies the lessons specifically to the UK. Believing that we occupy more environmental space than the world can afford, this book seeks to explain what we can do to live comfortably within what we actually have through efficiency and sufficiency. In addition, it aims to present the sustainable levels of consumption for Britain as targets for government, industry and households, as well as an idea of how to achieve them.

Conducting a systematic and comparative review of energy and environmental issues, especially at the regional and national levels, can improve communication among different disciplines and be helpful for managers, politicians, and stakeholders involved in energy and environmental systems. Sustainable Systems and Energy Management at the Regional Level: Comparative Approaches provides an interdisciplinary look at the possible relationships which exist between energy and the environment. Relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings on the impacts of regulation policies, market-facilitation policies, and communication models and policies are reviewed with the aim of improving understanding and strategy.

Unlike other volumes in the current literature, this book provides insight for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners on what doesn’t work. Documenting detailed case studies of project failure matters, not only as an illustration of experienced challenges but also as projects do not always follow step-by-step protocols of preconceived and theorised processes. Bookended by a framing introduction by the editors and a conclusion written by Julie Thompson Klein, each chapter ends with a reflexive section that synthesizes lessons learned and key take-away points for the reader. Drawing on a wide range of international case studies and with a strong environmental thread throughout, the book reveals a range of failure scenarios for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, including: • Projects that did not get off the ground; • Projects that did not have the correct personnel for specified objectives; • Projects that did not reach their original objectives but met other objectives; • Projects that failed to anticipate important differences among collaborators. Illustrating causal links in real life projects, this volume will be of significant relevance to scholars and practitioners looking to overcome the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

This title was first published in 2000: Providing a review and assessment of a number of the major features evident in regional planning and development in Europe, this volume contains a series of regional case studies, drawn from current research in various European countries. These illustrate a broad range of theoretical views, which offer perspectives on the operation of the EU Structural Funds and regional restructuring, development and key concerns evident in spatial planning an environmental management and lessons from past experience. The editors collate views to arrive at challenging conclusions and suggestions for future policy priorities.

This unique book is about landscape, sustainability and the practices of the professions which plan, design and manage landscapes at many scales and in many locations; urban, suburban and rural. Despite the ubiquity of 'sustainability' as a concept, this is the first book to address the relationship between landscape architecture and sustainability in a comprehensive way. Much in the book is underpinned by landscape ecology, in contrast to the idea of landscape as only appealing to the eye or aspiring cerebrally to be fine art. As this book argues, landscape is and must be much more than this; landscape architecture is about making places which are biologically wholesome, socially just and spiritually rewarding.