19 pages., via online journal., The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers
starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate
about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study
draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the
coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered
economic model to construct a communication-based framework
through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This
framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers
(and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature
relationships through community, family, heritage, and education.
Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific
practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and
organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as
embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural
parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical
duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in
which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are
imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded
in phenomenological experience of the natural world.
30 pages., via online journal., Faced with the task of communicating their combined social, environmental
and economic impact, water service providers are seeking to report overall performance
in an aggregated way. Such a methodology must be scientifically robust, easily
communicated and allow benchmarking of performance while reflecting a transition
towards sustainability. In this paper the ecological footprint (EF) is calculated for
Sydney Water Corporation (SWC), using input–output analysis and land disturbance in
an innovative approach that overcomes problems identified in the original EF concept.
This pilot study has allowed SWC to gain some valuable insights into its impacts:
SWC’s annual EF is about 73 100 ha in terms of land disturbance. Of this, 54 000 ha
are projected to become disturbed as a consequence of climate change, with the remainder
of 19 100 ha being disturbed on SWC’s premises (2400 ha) and on those of upstream
suppliers (16 700 ha). Total on-site impacts equal 9300 ha, while indirect land disturbance contributes 63 600 ha. The EF appears promising as an educational and communication tool and may have potential as a decision support tool. However, further research
is needed to incorporate downstream impacts into the EF, which would have significant
benefits to SWC in terms of assessing and communicating the organization’s overall
progress towards sustainability.
