The concept of transformation in relation to climate and other global change is increasingly receiving attention. The concept provides important opportunities to help examine how rapid and fundamental change to address contemporary global challenges can be facilitated. This paper contributes to discussions about transformation by providing a social science, arts and humanities perspective to open up discussion and set out a research agenda about what it means to transform and the dimensions, limitations and possibilities for transformation. Key focal areas include: (1) change theories, (2) knowing whether transformation has occurred or is occurring; (3) knowledge production and use; (4), governance; (5) how dimensions of social justice inform transformation; (6) the limits of human nature; (7) the role of the utopian impulse; (8) working with the present to create new futures; and (9) human consciousness. In addition to presenting a set of research questions around these themes the paper highlights that much deeper engagement with complex social processes is required; that there are vast opportunities for social science, humanities and the arts to engage more directly with the climate challenge; that there is a need for a massive upscaling of efforts to understand and shape desired forms of change; and that, in addition to helping answer important questions about how to facilitate change, a key role of the social sciences, humanities and the arts in addressing climate change is to critique current societal patterns and to open up new thinking. Through such critique and by being more explicit about what is meant by transformation, greater opportunities will be provided for opening up a dialogue about change, possible futures and about what it means to reshape the way in which people live.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractCurrent received wisdom would seem to suggest that a simple deployment of web-based technologies will provide the platform for competitive differentiation in the dynamic and agile world of mass customisation. It is argued here that technology is but one element of infrastructural renovation required to support intranet applications. An emerging pattern in these applications is support for the soft networks which exist within all organisations and which embody the key raw asset for competitive advantage: knowledge.The discussion reviews the emergence of Knowledge Management as a discipline, presents a model for the flow of commercial knowledge through an organisation (Knowledge Economies), and looks at the cultural and organisational ramifications of knowledge programs (Knowledge Cultures). On this basis the technological superstructure is discussed in the context of one intranet application: Corporate Digital Library.The principal assertion of this paper is that applications of this type can only be said to be commercially successful when they are deployed in support of knowledge-based initiatives where first order benefits can be realised, improved market performance in particular. A proto-typical benefit statement is provided.

Background: As the reduction of food wastage remains one of our most critical challenges, we quantified the environmental impacts of food losses in the food-service sector in Germany, with a particular focus on the subsectors of business, healthcare and hospitality. Methods: Using the food-waste data of 7 catering companies, 1545 measurement days and 489,185 served meals during two 4–6 week monitoring periods, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO standard 14040/44 was conducted. Within the LCA, the carbon, water (blue) and land footprints, and the ecological scarcity in terms of eco-points, were calculated. Results: We show that the waste generated in the food-service sector in Germany is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions of 4.9 million tons CO2-equivalents (CO2e), a water use of 103,057 m3 and a land demand of 322,838 ha, equating to a total of 278 billion eco-points per year. Subsector-specifically, in hospitality catering: 1 kg of food waste accounts for 3.4 kg CO2e, 61.1 L water and 2.6 m2 land (208 eco-points); in healthcare: 2.9 kg CO2e, 48.4 L and 1.9 m2 land (150 eco-points); and in business: 2.3 kg CO2e, 72 L water and 1.0–1.4 m2 land (109–141 eco-points). Meal-specifically, the environmental footprints vary between 1.5 and 8.0 kg CO2e, 23.2–226.1 L water and 0.3–7.1 m2 per kg food waste. Conclusions: If robust food waste management schemes are implemented in the near future and take the waste-reduction potential in the food-service sector into account, Target 12.3 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals—which calls for halving food waste by 2030—is within reach.

In March 2012 the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed a motion ‘strongly endors[ing] the opportunity for Scotland to champion climate justice’. To date, discussions around climate justice within Scottish policy have largely focussed on international dimensions. Questions remain as to what climate justice means at home in Scotland. This article aims to engage with such questions. It begins with an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of climate justice discourses and discusses the various ways that climate justice is framed and understood. We then introduce a categorisation of three broad approaches to climate justice which are being seen globally: conceptual, pragmatic and transformative. We discuss how climate justice has been pursued in practice to illustrate the different forms that can occur under a climate justice banner, and the implications of different understandings of the concept. Using the human rights based approach to climate change as an illustration of the malleable nature of climate justice, we categorise and critique the dominant approach to climate justice used in Scotland. We find that climate justice is a label which can be applied to a range of practices, with differing results. It is hoped that this article encourages further reflection and debate on the particular flavour of climate justice which has been chosen in Scotland and its implications.