1) Investigate the extent of Sustainable Development policies found in a geographical region and its governing authority and suggest the need for additional ones
or
2) Investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats of sustaianble development policies or planning strategies found in a geographic region and governing authority where a company is located or has operations.
Option 1: You are hired as a consultant to critique specific Sustainability or Sustainable Development (S.D.) Public Policies of a governing authority in a specific geographic location. The location’s size can be a city, state, country, or federation like the United States, European Union, or Germany. You must use elements found in the Environmental Policy Integration (E.P.I.) analytical framework and other policy analysis instruments where appropriate and available. You would answer questions such as which government organizations are pursuing sustainable development, what are the goals of these organizations, what sorts of data are they collecting, and one suggestion to help the government improve their sustainability efforts.
Description: You are to pick a political jurisdiction of any governing authority in a geographic location of your choosing. It can be an investigation at any scale ranging from a city like Providence to a country. You are to critique the sustainability plan or policies of that area using the EPI as an initial part. Additional information should be researched using sources identified in class or from assistance by the Professor. Companies or nonprofit agencies participating as stakeholders in helping to develop the sustainability policies must be included. In this project you are to provide a summary, policy analysis sections link to EPI headings, additional policy information from additional sources, and future directions for the location’s sustainability or sustainable development vision, plans, goals, objectives, and approach.
Option 2: Take the perspective as a sustainability Vice President of a corporation such as a restaurant, resort, hotel chain, or adventure tourism company interested in strengthening the company’s strategic advantage. The company’s strategic advantage rests upon implementing “green strategies” as a method to increase revenues and take advantage of government incentives. It also seeks to build connections with government officials by directly participating in policy design and implementation of sustainability or sustainable development government decisions. Pick any geographic location your company could be located in and investigate the extent of sustainable policies in the responsible governing authorities at each level of government.
Description: This can be accomplished by influencing laws, garnering resources through government programs and more effective marketing. The content of the research paper provides an summary of the company and a description of the governing authority’s level of sustainability policy infusion using such frameworks as the EPI and other sources. It also must include an analysis of how the company currently interacts or in the past interacted with existing sustainable development policies. For example questions could be: how did the company adjust its energy portfolio to include wind power? Were alternative energy source programs advantageous for business participation? How did development restrictions and increased sustainability taxes affect their business? What should be the company’s goals and their preferred policy options? How does the company interact with policy development and policy discussions?