A review of the first ten years of the world's largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative.

Sustainable urbanization has moved to the forefront of political debate and policy agendas for numerous reasons. Among the most important are a growing appreciation both of the implications of rapid urbanization now occurring in China, India, and many other low and middle income countries with historically low urbanization levels and of the related challenges posed to urban areas worldwide by climate and environmental change. Conceptualizing urban sustainability for this new era, this compact book makes a clear contribution to the sustainable urbanization agenda through authoritative interventions that contextualize, assess, and explain the importance of three central characteristics of sustainable towns and cities everywhere: that they should be fair, green, and accessible.

Economic growth and the creation of wealth have cut global poverty rates, yet vulnerability, inequality, exclusion and violence have escalated within and across societies throughout the world. Unsustainable patterns of economic production and consumption promote global warming, environmental degradation and an upsurge in natural disasters. Moreover, while we have strengthened international human rights frameworks over the past several decades, implementing and protecting these norms remains a challenge.These changes signal the emergence of a new global context for learning that has vital implications for education. Rethinking the purpose of education and the organization of learning has never been more urgent. This book is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development, based on respect for life and human dignity, equal rights, social justice, cultural diversity, international solidarity and shared responsibility for a sustainable future. It proposes that we consider education and knowledge as global common goods, in order to reconcile the purpose and organization of education as a collective societal endeavour in a complex world.

Taking as a starting point that hunger results from social exclusion and distributional inequities and that lasting, sustainable and just solutions are to be found in changing the structures that underlie our food systems, this book examines how law shapes global food systems and their ongoing transformations. Using detailed case studies, historical mapping and legal analysis, the contributors show how various actors (farmers, civil society groups, government officials, international bodies) use or could use different legal tools (legislative, jurisprudential, norm-setting) on various scales (local, national, regional, global) to achieve structural changes in food systems. Section 1, Institutionalizing New Approaches, explores the possibility of institutionalizing social change through two alternative visions for change – the right to food and food sovereignty. Individual chapters discuss Vía Campesina’s struggle to implement food sovereignty principles into international trade law, and present case studies on adopting food sovereignty legislation in Nicaragua and right to food legislation in Uganda. The chapters in Section 2, Regulating for Change, explore the extent to which the regulation of actors can or cannot change incentives and produce transformative results in food systems. They look at the role of the state in regulating its own actions as well as the actions of third parties and analyze various means of regulating land grabs. The final section, Governing for Better Food Systems, discusses the fragmentation of international law and the impacts of this fragmentation on the realization of human rights. These chapters trace the underpinnings of the current global food system, explore the challenges of competing regimes of intellectual property, farmers rights and human rights, and suggest new modes of governance for global and local food systems. The stakes for building better food systems are high. Our current path leaves many behind, destroying the environment and entrenching inequality and systemic poverty. While it is commonly understood that legal structures are at the heart of food systems, the legal academy has yet to make a significant contribution to recent discussions on improving food systems - this book aims to fill that gap.

The UN Global Compact is the most renowned corporate social responsibility initiative in the world. The UN Global Compact brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners who have theorized, studied, and articulated critiques against the UN Global Compact's soft approach to corporate regulation. The contributors critically interrogate facets of the UN Global Compact's history, politics, and practices within and beyond the United Nations. This edited book provides theoretically informed and empirically rich perspectives on the UN Global Compact politics and contemporary debates on corporate social responsibility and corporate accountability.

Redefining Success: Integrating Sustainability into Management Education advocates incorporating sustainability concepts that go beyond the financial ‘bottom line’ into management education and business practice. Highlighting the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) and the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), it explores conceptual and practical issues, presents case studies and other empirical evidence, and offers solutions that will both encourage and assist management educators in the incorporation of sustainability into their courses and research. incorporating sustainability into their courses and research. Written by 34 individuals from 17 countries, the book addresses these topics from a variety of theoretical, disciplinary, geographic and organizational perspectives. The authors demonstrate how management educators, collaborating with business and civic organizations, can be change agents for a better world. Written for educators, scholars and business practitioners, the volume concludes with lessons learned, challenges encountered, and implications for responsible management education.