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Analytics
Sustainability
Strategy
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Technology Adoption
Advancing Businesses Risk Sensing and Strategic Adaptation to Climate Change
Project lead: Max Chipulu
Problem: Despite the exigency, many businesses remain blind to and are not fully appreciative of their considerable exposure to climate change risk, nor have they begun the necessary strategic adaptation.
How we try to help: Co-create with businesses a software toolkit for sensing context-relevant climate risks and guiding businesses through individual and collective-level (e.g., as a sector) adaptation.
Impact: Businesses can improve knowledge and capability to sense and respond to climate change risks.
Build for Purpose
Project lead: Miles Weaver
Project collaborators: Hock Tan, Kenny Crossan, Andrew Bratton
Problem: The sustainability landscape is complex and messy. What path can SMEs follow to accelerate progress towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including a fair and just transition?
How we try to help: We take a place-based approach to make sense of the mess and offer a pathway to navigate actions towards accelerating progress on the SDGs, embed purpose and amplify impact through building meaningful relationships on common issues of concern and when values are shared.
This is offered as a free to use short online course (a MOOC) in collaboration with Everyone's Edinburgh "Business for Good" programme.
Impact: SMEs engaged, connected and aligned with local and global goals; reflecting on the values to drive transformative change; taking action on climate and making improvements on relevant SDGs and building place-based cross-sector collaboration.
B Corporations – Do Network Ties Matter?
Project lead: Matthew Smith
Project collaborators: Hock Tan, Miles Weaver
Problem: This study examines the interlocking directorates network for UK B Corporations and investigates whether these firm interlock ties are associated with increased sustainably performance, as captured by the B Lab impact scores.
How we try to help: The study will help B Corporations bridge structural holes, connecting otherwise disconnected firms, which will bring about higher sustainability performance levels.
Impact: This suggests that B Corps that bridge structural holes (as captured by the effective size metric), connected otherwise disconnected actors, have access to a wider range of diverse, non-redundant information, ideas, knowledge, and resources, which can be used to enhance the overall sustainability performance.
Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks
Project lead: Paul Wagner
Problem: Why do some countries enact more ambitious climate change policies than others?
How we try to help: Research focussing on meso-level policy networks sheds light on what organizations exert influence on policymaking, what beliefs they carry, what kind of coalitions these organisations form to push for their agenda, how they are connected to state organisations and how their opponents are organised.
Impact: Identifying these actor constellations makes it possible to assess the prospects of change towards less carbon intensive societies.
Learn more about the COMPON Project.
Exploring the resilience of Palestinian SMEs: a collaboration with Oxfam Palestine Problem
Project lead: Sharif Alaydi
Names of collaborators within NABRS: Heba Balatia
Problem: This project explores and investigates organisational and entrepreneur resilience of SMEs within ultra-uncertainty. The main research question is 'What explains the resilience of SMEs within persistent extreme uncertainty?'
Research Objectives: 1- Identify SMEs' organisational characteristics and capabilities of SMEs. 2- Understand how small businesses survive / operate in their extremely hostile institutional environment. 3- Identify individual traits of a resilient entrepreneur. 4- Determine the drivers of resilient economy of SMEs at the external, organisational, and individual levels.
How we try to help: This research adopts a qualitative research design and uses case study as a research strategy with the aim of a practical investigation and an intensive examination of Palestinian SMEs in the highly complex real-life context, and to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Impact: Adopting the research’s findings can help organisations operating in complex, high-uncertainty environments in Palestine and elsewhere become more resilient.
An Exploration of Attitudes and Perceptions of Freight Operators Toward Adopting Bio-methane Fuelled Vehicles
Project lead: Dr Eoin Plant-O’Toole
Project collaborators: Dr Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos (Technological University Dublin)
Problem: The transport sector is Ireland’s second largest source of emissions. Road transport at ≈95%. This can be further broken down into passenger cars (54%), followed by heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) (20%), and light goods vehicle (LGVs) (18%).
Biomethane produced via Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is a mature option to reducing emissions from HGVs and is more advanced than other alternative fuels. However, the uptake of biomethane as CEF remains low.
How we try to help: Eliciting and assessing freight operators’ perception will aid informing government policy alongside greater understanding of factors that influence decision-making among users and organisation.
Impact: Impact Identify potential support mechanisms to aid transition to decarbonising road freight. Influence Government Policy and stakeholders.
Towards a Decarbonisation Roadmap for Road Transport Companies in Ireland: A Gap Analysis of Policy Agenda and Industry Perception
Project lead: Dr Eoin Plant-O’Toole
Project collaborators: In association CILT Ireland
Problem: The Government of Ireland has set out to pursue a climate-resilient economy and become carbon neutral by 2050. Studies on decarbonisation policy have focused on the public stakeholders’ perspective, but there has been little work exploring the Irish industry stakeholders’ experiences of existing decarbonisation measures.
How we try to help: Focusing on transport operators’ attitudes and motives, the findings suggested a significant misalignment between the government’s incentivised decarbonisation direction and the industry’s preferences.
Impact: The study informed policy of CILT Ireland and stakeholder through public engagement.
Using Population Density as a proxy for Demand to Locate Order Fulfilment Centers for Perishable Goods
Project lead: Yapa Mahinda Bandara
Project collaborators: Max Chipulu (Edinburgh Napier), Prem Chhetri (RMIT, Australia), Chamath Ekanayake (UoM, Sri Lanka)
Problem: People are in a habit of buying the perishable products frequently and have a higher consumption rate with a higher frequency of purchase and visit to purchasing points. Yet the distance between the final point of perishable goods chain and the consumer is relatively high. This leads to many issues in terms of product quality due to multiple handling, high intermediation in the distribution and high concentration of buyers in town centers where most of the outlets selling perishables are located.
How we try to help: Developing a methodological framework to locate perishable goods order fulfilment centers (OFC) near to the consumer by taking the population density as a proxy for demand.
Impact: Urban planners and businesses can use the model to determine the location of OFC for perishable products.
Buurtzorg in Scotland
Project lead: Dr Stacey Bushfield
Problem: Health and Social Care (HSC) Moray piloted an alternative model of community care in Forres, involving collaborative working between housing and healthcare and a new nursing model for older people with complex care needs. Following the pilot HSC Moray sought to gain insight into stakeholder experiences and identify key outcome measures.
How we try to help: We conducted in-depth qualitative research with key stakeholders to identify what had went well; any challenges; and opportunities going forward. We then analysed the data in relation to the Buurtzorg principles to identify key areas for development.
Impact: The research findings contributed to an extension of the initiative and informed the Board’s H&SC planning and outcome measures in Forres.
Constant Connectivity and Knowledge Workers’ Motivation and Work-life Conflict: A Mixed Method Approach
Project lead: Melina Doargajudhur
Problem: Employers and employees have conflicting opinions about the effect that constant connectivity (BYOD – Bring Your Own Device) has on them. This trend has heightened its importance during the Covid-19 pandemic and is expected to continue to rise in the future, hence organizations need to identify a manageable compromise to balance the benefits against its desirable impacts.
How we try to help: Proposing and testing a model to show that the resources given to workers outweigh the demands placed on them.
Impact: Organisations can review their policies to accommodate the BYOD implementation within their work practices.