Cet article analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience et de la capacite d’adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socio-ecologique (socio-ecologigal systems – SES) afin de comprendre et anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme. Une serie de questions est proposee par l’auteur sur la specification de ces termes afin de developper une structure conceptuelle qui inclut les dimensions naturelles et so...

Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity

Sustainable supply chain management practices and dynamic capabilities in the food industry: A critical analysis of the literature

Purpose – The theory of planned behavior (TPB) served as a framework for identifying major antecedents of everyday green purchasing behavior and for determining their relative importance. Design/methodology/approach – The German market research institute GfK provided data (n = 12,113) from their 2012 household panel survey. A two-step structural equation modeling approach was applied to test both the measurement and the structural model. Findings – Willingness to pay (WTP) was the strongest predictor of green purchasing behavior, followed by personal norms. The impact of attitude is insignificant. This implies an attitude – behavior gap. Research limitations/implications – Individuals overestimate their self-reported WTP and behavior, which suggests that the share of explained variance is in reality lower. It has to be doubted whether consumers are objectively able to judge products by their environmental impact. Even if consumers are willing to buy a “greener” product, their subjective evaluation might b...

Thinking green, buying green? Drivers of pro-environmental purchasing behavior

Consumers’ valuation of sustainability labels on meat

Sustainability labels on coffee: Consumer preferences, willingness-to-pay and visual attention to attributes

The use and usefulness of carbon labelling food: A policy perspective from a survey of UK supermarket shoppers

Purpose – Coping with and adjusting to disruptive challenges has always been a characteristic of human development. Formalisation of this has led to the emergence of a number approaches addressing disruptive challenges. Often formalised practice has a narrow focus. Increasingly complex challenges require a refocus of formalised approaches. Drawing from these approaches, the purpose of this paper is to posit that a greater focus on preparedness through pre‐disaster planning is needed for a more holistic approach to disaster management.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the evolution of disaster management thinking and practice and proposes that changes are needed to the dominant disaster management model. These changes are drawn from a number of alternative perspectives. Based on the uncertainties surrounding complex or “wicked” problems, for example, climate change and variability, this paper develops a more holistic approach.Findings – Responding to “wicked problems” requires a greater focus...

Approaching disaster management through social learning

White, Burton and Kates in establishing and developing the natural hazard paradigm have essentially established the base for addressing the problem of the twenty-first century, namely climate change. Accelerated climate change and increasing variability caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the single largest threats to the attainment of international goals of sustainable development and disaster risk reduction. Until recently, the main thrust in tackling this problem was the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. More recently, attention has focused on adaptation techniques to address climate change challenges faced by all countries, especially, poorer nations, as climate driven change and its adverse consequences are inevitable. Responding to that change means that adaptation must no longer be thought of as an add-on or ancillary to existing development programmes. It must be an integral part of our everyday decision-making; a part of a continuum. This paper, conceptually, explores adaptation from a poverty perspective and argues that the thrust of adaptation must be to build resilient communities. The reason for this is straightforward. We argue that the first line of response to adverse conditions is the affected. Building resilience must start at this point. The key message is that resilience building to enhance community capacity to withstand and respond to adverse events must be a normative condition of development.

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From vulnerability to resilience: the adaptation continuum

We were driven initially to write this Commentary by a sense of exhilaration and exasperation. The exhilaration came from the opportunity to address global issues of climate change through adaptation at the local level, an issue that will be addressed in Copenhagen in December 2009. The sense of exasperation came from an increasingly populist but determinist universalising geography that was determinist in both a physical/biological sense but also in a social sense. This produced an email exchange in the early summer of 2009, largely across radicals in Anglo American Geography in which we attempted to summarise a critique in six major points. In late summer we submitted this to Area, when we received strong encouragement but substantial and valuable criticism.

Zaina Gadema

Papers

The use and usefulness of carbon labelling food: A policy perspective from a survey of UK supermarket shoppers

Approaching disaster management through social learning

From vulnerability to resilience: the adaptation continuum

Geographers and geography: making waves for the wrong reasons

Climate change and pesticides