With the global clean energy transition in focus, one of the most crucial sectors within the energy industry that needs to transform is the power sector. In this paper, we focus on the role Pakistan’s power sector can play in the country’s clean energy transition. The scope of this paper is limited to the role of the residential power sector in Pakistan. First, we understand the current status of the power sector. Second, we understand the policies relevant to the power sector in Pakistan. Third, we focus on the residents of Pakistan and the challenges they face with respect to the structure of centralized top-to-bottom power sector, residential access to electricity, reliance on the centralized authority and unfair billing of consumed electricity. Consequently, it is established that while Pakistan needs to decarbonize its power sector, decentralization can accelerate the process. Since decentralized systems do not have a central authority to manage the system, and there is a lack of trust in the current centralized authorities, a mechanism is required for trusted, secure and tamper-proof transactions in the power sector. Blockchain, which is a digital ledger technology, can facilitate the establishment of trust in the power sector. Therefore, the role of blockchain in the power sector is studied and applications that are relevant to Pakistan are suggested. Finally, requirements to implement blockchain based applications are discussed, which includes facilitating blockchain-based startups in the power sector, empowering prosumers to take an active participatory role in the power sector, developing regulations and building capacity for innovative blockchain implementations.

This blog post argues for a new approach to the inflated UK housing market, inspired by public policy initiatives in Oman. It suggests a major initiative of allocating state and local authority-owned brownfield sites as pre-approved building plots, prioritising the working poor trapped in expensive private rental. This could alleviate the pressure on the housing market, reduce the demand for private rental that exacerbates the market through "buy-to-let". There is also an opportuity to use this self-building boom to implement world-leading environmental standards and develop new types of sustainable housing technologies. The blog also proposes the establishment of a British Housing Bank, offering low interest loans to develop these sites.

A description of the work: This dissertation analysed the positive and negative effects of partnerships and the acquisition of social enterprises by large corporations in need of change, through different case studies. Through an exploratory research of three case studies, primary and secondary data, this study tests the hypothesis the social enterprises can influence the acquiring large corporations’ social impact. The study found that when a social enterprise is combined with a corporation, the social enterprise can influence the corporation to achieve greater social purpose in the following ways: a clear social mission embedded in the corporate culture and protected by contracts, strong social networks and measurement of impacts with stakeholders and finally, procedures to share best practices across the corporation.

Research to date still lacks a practice-based framework to understand how employee-driven innovation (EDI) can be harnessed to support organisations to adopt more sustainable practices. This dissertation will explore how EDI can be harnessed for organisational sustainability transitions.

The main aim for this study is to identify how small holder farmers in Elgeyo Marakwet County, northwest Kenya, are the drivers of innovation for agricultural methods, and how we may harness these processes in collaboration with other institutions in order to promote sustainable intensification of agriculture, as it is the backbone of the economy of many African countries. This is done through analysis of secondary data previously collected by the IGP PROCOL Kenya team and primary quantitative data in the form of semi-structured in-depth interviews with farmer in the Elgeyo Marakwet County.

UNTIL DEBT NO LONGER TEAR US APART: USING CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAMS TO STUDY HOUSEHOLD OVERINDEBTEDNESS AND POSSIBLE INTERVENTIONS

The demand for elderly care will increase significantly with the acceleration of ageing, so the country needs to transform under this demographic structure. The country desire to diversify elder caring, but 90% of the elderly still choose to stay at home. Therefore, it is worth understanding the thoughts of the elderly, including the advantages and disadvantages of home care. This researcher will further promote the prosperity of the elderly care industry and improve the quality of life of the elderly. Welfare pluralism suggests combining multiple resources such as family, community, enterprises, and national governance to tackle challenges brought by the ageing population. This research will specify the actions of those social actors via three key research questions: What reasons make the elderly choose caring services in their home instead of other private caring homes? What do these elder people need and concern about in current practices? How to improve the current practices and provide available alternative solutions for the ageing challenges? This research will use the qualitative method via semi-structured interviews because the qualitative method can collect the results of the subjective feeling of "home care" and observe the multiple reasons. Finally, based on the analysis of results, this research found specific solutions for achieving welfare the pluralism with the cooperation of government, community and individuals.

A description of the work: This dissertation explores the role of educational technology enterprises (ETEs) in improving learning outcomes in developing countries through technology-mediated learning. It aims to contribute to the growing body of literature on the use of EdTech in emerging economies by adopting a novel approach – examining the provision of educational technology by private enterprises, in contrast to much more prominent user-focused research. Qualitative analysis presented in this dissertation leans on primary data gathered in semi-structured interviews with executives of ETEs operating in developing countries and takes form of a case study of five enterprises – Ubongo, EnCube Labs, Gradely, Open Learning Experience and Can’t Wait To Learn. I assess the emerging theories on the vision of learning that ETEs adopt, the prerequisites for implementation of their intervention methods, the role of human educator in those enterprises, ETEs’ coexistence with formal education and, most importantly, the process of ETE sustaining change and scaling up. It was discovered that ETE scalability plays an important role in improving learning outcomes in developing countries and two factor categories are particularly conducive of it – implementation partnerships and financing. Additionally, this dissertation established and formulated the “country-language” principle of ETE scaling.

This study will explore the role of the consumer in achieving sustainable prosperity. It seeks to contribute to the discourse on systems-change and the role of consumer agency within it. Exploring a bottom—up approach it seeks to contribute to the understanding of how consumer agency can be leveraged to transition towards a sustainable future.

The role of digital education platforms such as DingTalk in mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on students or supporting sustainable prosperity.

Mental health has continuously emerged as an issue of concern amongst university students globally (Global Summit on Student Affairs and Services, 2016). The World Health Organization (2020) stated that “mental wellbeing needs to be understood as a state of wellbeing in which every individual realizes his or her own [emotional intelligence] potential and possesses the ability to cope with normal stresses of life”. This paper draws upon the mental health challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic amongst university students in the United Kingdom and proposes that the higher education system should consider embedding emotional intelligence into the university curriculum post-Covid. To investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic has increased mental health challenges, we will conduct secondary research from press, academic literature and academic literature. Additionally, semi-structured interviews with university student support services staff will be conducted to explore how an emotional intelligence-based curriculum combat these mental health challenges post-covid.

Social Enterprises (SEs) are increasingly viewed globally as vehicles for change due to their innovations, experimentations and development of new models, services, and products that can respond to pressing global challenges. Entrepreneurial ecosystems represent the wider context that not only shapes entrepreneurship but also shapes entrepreneurial responses to the grand challenges. Getting ecosystems ‘right’ is therefore imperative. This research sets out to critically examine the budding social enterprise ecosystem in Kenya by addresses the following research questions: 1) How is the ecosystem in Kenya developing? 1a) What is the current landscape of the ecosystem in Kenya? 1b) What type of environment is the ecosystem creating? 1c) How ‘Kenyan’ is the ecosystem? Through the examination of the ecosystems domains, based on a literature review and seven interviews with ecosystem stakeholders I argue that the current Kenyan Social Enterprise Ecosystem (SEE) is geared towards the creation of certain types of enterprises based on the Western models of SE. I will show that there is an alternative model in Kenya that can be found in Homegrown SEs models that have developed from the 1960’s. Using institutional isomorphism theory, I will show how a post-colonial critique can be applied to the development of the Kenyan SEE due to the large presence and direction setting of Western stakeholders. The study will offer missed opportunities in amplifying local knowledge, funding the gaps-new models of tailored support, rethinking scale, and a new African model of businesses. Finally, I maintain that the goals and values underpinning social entrepreneurship are inherent in the Kenyan cultures- and should be harnessed to create a wider movement of good businesses in Africa, and potentially beyond and offer a number of recommendations that could strengthen the ecosystem. Keywords: Social enterprises, social entrepreneurial ecosystem, Kenya, SSA, post-colonial, social entrepreneurs.

A description of the work: The invisibility of natural capital and the top-down development model are not conducive for organizations and enterprises to make decisions that consider ecological and socio-cultural benefits and values, which hinder the realization of inclusive, sustainable, and resilient prosperity. In Kenya, medicine plants cherished by indigenous people face environmental and social challenges such as loss of forest resources and the encroachment of outsiders. Community-based medicine organizations are important actors to solve these challenges and develop indigenous treatments. This research aims to "make nature's value visible" and analyze the short and long-term commercial potential for small-scale community-based medicine organizations to develop a range of KEBS-approved indigenous remedies and treatments. This research would be based on the TEEB conceptual framework and approach, which measures the ecological, socio-cultural, and economic value of medicinal plants in the forests of Kenya. The key research question of this research is how community-based organizations should develop the indigenous medicine economy based on protecting local natural capital and human welfare. This research would review economic and statistical data and literature on indigenous medicines and ecosystem services, do statistics and analysis, and provide suggestions for developing community-based organizations for medicinal plants in the forests of Kenya.

A description of the work: This study focuses on CSR strategy using the programs of corporate-NGO partnerships from FamilyMart, the second-largest convenient store chain brand in Taiwan. In total, nine NGO programs were identified in the 2020 FamilyMart’s CSR report. The qualitative case study research was conducted and combined with documentary analysis. The data was collected from public documentaries, such as academic papers, CSR reports, corporate websites, press articles, and promoting videos online. The study applied resource-based theory to examine the contribution level on forming corporate’s sustained competitive advantages of different types of partnerships. Also, by implementing CSR approach analytical framework, the programs were analysed the intentions and implications of each type of partnership. The analyse showed that there is the possibility of transition from one type of partnership to the other one if the initial cooperation was based on a strategic CSR approach and both sectors were able to leverage and complement each other.