Matching Items (20)
Description
The goal of this paper is to serve as a case-study of the youth climate movement at the local level, focusing on how young activists and organizers in Arizona perceive their pathways, motivators, and barriers in the climate movement. In order to answer my research question of ‘What are the different experiences of Arizona youth activists’ involvement in climate action?’, I conducted a case-study of 15 interviews with participants between the ages of 18-25 that varied in racial and gender identity, as well as the duration of their involvement. While this paper does not present a comprehensive view of all experiences of youth climate activists and organizers in Arizona, these interviews highlight the upbringing, background, and the degree of involvement of young climate organizers and activists, ultimately revealing their similar yet unique experiences in the climate movement. Even though further research, discussion, and opportunities are needed to better understand the youth climate movement as well as other emerging social movements, these participants represent the heart of the movement here in Arizona. This case-study sheds light on lived-experiences and urges readers to consider young climate activists and organizers’ varying perspectives on how to support, amplify, and implement their requests for a livable, intersectional, diverse, and inclusive future.
ContributorsNguyen, Minh-Tam (Author) / Fischer, Daniel (Thesis director) / Klinsky, Sonja (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor, Contributor, Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
As a cause of negative economic, societal, and environmental effects, food waste is increasingly being seen as a sustainability issue that needs to be addressed. Reduction of food waste is preferred to recycling because it reduces the financial burden and technological innovations needed to address the issue. While there are many different approaches to reduce food waste, this paper investigates dynamic social norms as an avenue for reducing food waste. Recent studies showcased the effectiveness of using dynamic social norms to reduce meat consumption and the use of to-go cups. However, there appears to be a gap in research that investigates the impact of dynamic social norms in U.S. university community dining settings. This study piloted the use of dynamic social norms to intervene in post-consumer food waste behaviors at Arizona State University. Specifically, this study compared food waste amounts in a location with and without an intervention tool as well as conducted interviews to monitor any self-reported behavior change. Results show that dynamic social norms can promote behavior change in terms of food waste when compared to a control location without the intervention. Further, this study advocates for monitoring food habits through both quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to identify potential behavior changes that could not be captured to the same extent by a mono-methodological approach.
ContributorsCampbell, Hailey Paige (Author) / Fischer, Daniel (Thesis director) / Auustin-Behravesh, Shirley-Ann (Committee member) / School of Sustainability (Contributor, Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Over the past decade, corporate social responsibilities and sustainability has become more of a trending topic; not only amongst citizens, but within many private firms as well. Aligning operations with sustainable practices within a for-profit firm or organization has evolved into a critical focus area in order for a company to be more sustainable.
Having sustainable practices in place can be significant, but it is also important to consider employees and their perspectives, as they are the ones who implement them. The majority of the employees that work within an organization, not those that create these policies, are the ones who’s perspectives should be more strongly considered. In order to effectively implement these practices, firms can educate their employees about the initiatives or newly implemented changes to current practices. Sustainability education for employees, covering company-specific policies, improves the likelihood of participation within initiatives. Increased employee education has the potential to raise the probability that companies will see the benefits that come with enacting sustainable practices.
Having sustainable practices in place can be significant, but it is also important to consider employees and their perspectives, as they are the ones who implement them. The majority of the employees that work within an organization, not those that create these policies, are the ones who’s perspectives should be more strongly considered. In order to effectively implement these practices, firms can educate their employees about the initiatives or newly implemented changes to current practices. Sustainability education for employees, covering company-specific policies, improves the likelihood of participation within initiatives. Increased employee education has the potential to raise the probability that companies will see the benefits that come with enacting sustainable practices.
ContributorsCourrier, Leandra Denaye (Co-author) / Campbell, Hannah (Co-author) / Fischer, Daniel (Thesis director) / Molly, Cashion (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
For over a century, it has been commonly observed that the pace-of-life in modern society appears to be significantly faster than in non-modern societies, but exactly what forces drive these differences continue to be both hotly debated and difficult to study. While prior studies on pace-of-life have focused on population-level correlations between these factors and pace-of-life, they provide few details about how changes to pace-of-life associated with modernity actually occur in context. This study addresses the issue from a historical perspective, attempting to identify what factors are relevant to a change of pace-of-life in a non-modern to modern lifestyle transition over a single lifetime. This study performs a historical analysis, examining changes in pace-of-life experienced by students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an Indian residential school operating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as compared to the non-modern lifestyle of the Plains Indian Cultures from the same time period. This study finds that the pace-of-life experienced by students at Carlisle were consistently faster, more intense and more regimented than in non-modern lifestyles. Such changes in pace-of-life were driven in large part by efforts of the school to transform the students behavior into a model the administration considered more suited to life in a modern society, chiefly, time-disciplined, individualistic, future oriented and competitive laborers. This case highlights that the role of individual behavioral manipulation by large-scale institutions is an underappreciated force in changes to pace-of-life in modern society.
ContributorsCoffey, Michael (Author) / Connor, Dylan (Thesis advisor) / Turner, Billie L (Committee member) / DesRoches, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Tools designed to help match people with behaviors they identify as likely to lead to a successful behavioral outcome remain under-researched. This study assessed the effect of a participant-driven behavior-matching intervention on 1) the adoption of a new behavior related to fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption, 2) study attrition, and 3) changes in F&V consumption. In this two-arm randomized controlled trial, 64 adults who did not meet standard F&V recommendations were allocated to an intervention (n=33) or control group (n=31). Participants in the intervention group ranked 20 F&V-related behaviors according to their perceived likelihood of engagement in the behavior and their perception of the behavior’s efficacy in increasing F&V consumption. Participants in the intervention group were subsequently shown the list of 20 behaviors in order of their provided rankings, with the highest-ranked behaviors at the top, and were asked to choose a behavior they would like to perform daily for 4 weeks. The control group chose from a random-order list of the same 20 behaviors to adopt daily for 4 weeks. During the study period, text messages were sent to all participants 90 minutes before their reported bedtime to collect Yes/No data reflecting successful behavior engagement each day. The binary repeated-measures data collected from the text messages was analyzed using mixed-effects logistic regression, differences in attrition were assessed using log-rank analysis, and change scores in F&V consumption were compared between the two groups using the Man-Whitney U test. P<0.05 indicated significance. The rate of successful behavior adoption did not differ significantly between the two groups (b=0.09, 95%CI= -0.81, 0.98, p=0.85). The log rank test results indicated that there was no significant difference in attrition between the two groups (χ2=2.68, df=1, p=0.10). F&V consumption increased significantly over the 4 weeks in the total sample (Z=-5.86, p<0.001), but no differences in F&V change scores were identified between the control and intervention groups (Z=-0.21, p=0.84). The behavior-matching tool assessed in this study did not significantly improve behavior adoption, study attrition, or F&V intake over 4 weeks.
ContributorsCosgrove, Kelly Sarah (Author) / Wharton, Christopher (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Marc (Committee member) / DesRoches, Tyler (Committee member) / Grebitus, Carola (Committee member) / Johnston, Carol (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
City governments have an opportunity to address historic environmental injustices through the management of their urban forests. When applying environmental justice to the management of urban trees, the common approach is to plant new trees in areas with high proportions of underserved residents and low tree canopy. This is the approach taken by many programs, such as the MillionTrees programs in Los Angeles and New York City. However, these initiatives do not always result in just outcomes and, in some cases, exacerbate existing inequities. This suggests the need for a model of urban tree canopy (UTC) justice that encapsulates distributive, procedural, and recognition justice. In this thesis, I suggest such a model of UTC justice that incorporates ecosystem services and disservices to understand resident satisfaction with neighborhood trees. I then apply the model to the case of the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area by assessing local UTC plans for mentions of environmental justice. Finally, I use multiple regression analysis to identify the relationship between neighborhood tree canopy percentage and resident satisfaction with neighborhood trees. Results indicate that tree canopy is a statistically insignificant determinant of resident satisfaction in 23 of 30 models. This supports my model of UTC justice in that it suggests that there is a confounding variable between UTC provisioning and resident satisfaction. This thesis culminates in recommendations for city governments, including the use of longitudinal socioecological surveys to evaluate the need for and success of UTC plans for environmental justice.
ContributorsCrichlow, Timara (Author) / DesRoches, Tyler (Thesis advisor) / Coseo, Paul (Thesis advisor) / Melnick, Rob (Committee member) / Pataki, Diane (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
The learning journey toward sustainability requires the generation of action-oriented knowledge to understand the progress and potential adaptation of strategies to facilitate collective transformation. One integral area where advancing these strategies is essential is higher education. While efforts in the field have identified relevant learning objectives, pedagogies, and broader contributions for sustainability education to make, the sophistication of approaches to evaluating and enhancing collective learning has remained underdeveloped. This dissertation aimed to address this gap by exploring assessment in sustainability education, with the goal of supporting innovations in transdisciplinary practice by developing distinctive approaches for the field through deliberative processes that articulate design frameworks.The first study, Sustainability-Oriented Assessment, applied a formative intervention within an undergraduate course focused on professional skill development to demonstrate how a student-led rubric co-design process that drew from participative, normative, and integrative approaches contributed to student agency, expansive learning, and self-formation. The study demonstrated how students leveraged challenges and changing perspectives towards development as students and sustainability professionals. The second study, Boundary Crossings and Innovations, applied an exploratory action research approach within a community of practice of program leaders and instructors to identify barriers and possibilities for assessment practices, suggesting conceptual, practical, and logistical innovations. The strategies to enable these innovations focused on defining the field and articulating practice characteristics related to interdisciplinary approaches and transdisciplinary strategies, while meeting demands and facilitating innovations across course, program, and institutional levels. The third study, Assessment-Oriented Sustainability, applied a scoping literature review to develop a framework that integrates problem, solution, and learning orientations to sustainability by infusing educational purposes, processes, and principles to strengthen the efficacy of assessment approaches for transdisciplinary strategies.
Insights from the three studies suggest that the practice of assessment plays multifaceted roles as it facilitates the design, implementation, and evaluation of sustainability endeavors. These roles include evaluative and formative functions as it appraises and advances learning, normative and deliberative functions in encouraging discussion and critical reflection, and adaptive and generative functions by indicating, motivating, and enabling dynamic learning and action for sustainability.
ContributorsKing, Jordan (Author) / Fischer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Larson, Kelli (Thesis advisor) / Brundiers, Katja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Societies seeking sustainability are transitioning from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources to mitigate dangerous climate change. Energy transitions involve ethically controversial decisions that affect current and future generations’ well-being. As energy systems in the United States transition towards renewable energy, American Indian reservations with abundant energy sources are some of the most significantly impacted communities. Strikingly, energy ethicists have not yet developed a systematic approach for prescribing ethical action within the context of energy decisions. This dissertation reinvents energy ethics as a distinct sub-discipline of applied ethics, integrating virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism with Sioux, Navajo, and Hopi ethical perspectives. On this new account, applied energy ethics is the analysis of questions of right and wrong using a framework for prescribing action and proper policies within private and public energy decisions. To demonstrate the usefulness of applied energy ethics, this dissertation analyzes two case studies situated on American Indian reservations: the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Navajo Generating Station.
ContributorsBethem, Jacob (Author) / DesRoches, Tyler (Thesis advisor) / Pasqualetti, Martin J (Committee member) / Graffy, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The circular economy is viewed as a solution to many of the environmental and social ills that the linear economy has exacerbated. Whether it is through refill solutions or redesigning a cardboard shipping container, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands are rethinking the way their products are delivered to consumers through business model innovations that promote circularity. The consumer plays the important, often overlooked, role of enabler within circular business models. This study aims to increase broader understanding of what motivates circular consumption of fast-moving consumer goods while analyzing the relationship between motivators and the behaviors required to participate. Semi-structured interviews provide insights from consumers who are currently purchasing household cleansers from brands that operate with a circular business model. Results from this study highlight a group of consumers that are distinguished by their common desire to reduce their personal consumption of plastics. There is clear indication that these consumers are in fact seeking out ways to consume more sustainably. A significant subset of this group expresses concern regarding ingredients used in the products. Health concerns for themselves, their family, or a pet are driving a desire to understand product ingredients. There is evidence to indicate that the concern for personal consumption of plastics is being driven by information distributed via social media and supported by targeted advertisements for brands that address this concern.
ContributorsBrown, Jennifer B (Author) / Dooley, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Fischer, Daniel (Committee member) / Buch, Rajesh (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Studies suggest that graduate students experience higher rates of anxiety and depression than their peers outside of academia. Studies also show exercise is correlated with lower levels of anxiety and depression among graduate students. However, despite this evidence, nearly half of graduate students do not exercise regularly. Accordingly, I suggest universities consider adding an exercise requirement to promote graduate student well-being. One potential objection to this recommendation is that an exercise requirement is objectionably paternalistic. I answer this objection with two possible replies. First, there are reasons why the exercise requirement might not be paternalistic, and there may be sufficient non-paternalistic reasons to justify the policy. Second, there are reasons why even if the policy is paternalistic, it is not objectionably paternalistic, and may still be justified. I will offer reasons to consider paternalism in a positive light and why the exercise requirement may be an example of a good paternalistic policy. Because the exercise requirement might be justified on paternalistic grounds, there are reasons to consider other paternalistic policies to promote graduate student well-being.
ContributorsArthur, Philip (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Portmore, Doug (Committee member) / DesRoches, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020