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About 25 million tons of food go wasted or lost in Iran which has socio-economic and environmental consequences for both the country and the households. The main objective of this research is to develop a model to examine the relationship between FCM components and the amount of FW of households in Tehran city, with a focus on urban women. By means of a structural model, this study provides a novel approach to exploring relationships between the food-related behavior of urban households and waste control (n = 1197). Besides, this study is the first attempt to quantify food waste in Iran at the household level. According to the adopted self-reporting procedure, in Tehran, every consumer wastes about 27.6 kg of edible food annually. It is found that households with better food consumption management (FCM (have a lower level of food waste. Moreover, the results have proved that other determinants such as demographic factors, economic power, information use, ability, and motivation have direct and indirect significant effects on FCM as well as on the amount of food waste generation. The findings suggest that the above-mentioned determinants are crucial and should be considered when developing a strategically sustainable food waste prevention plan.

It has been suggested that the relationship between income and the associated environmental pressure in terms of derived materials inputs and pollution levels may take an inverted-U shape, indicating a 'delinking' of environmental pressure from economic growth in relation to rising per capita incomes. The likelihood of such a relationship being persistent is discussed in the context of a simple macro model of industrial metabolism, and the possibility of 'relinking' clearly emerges. Data on specific indicators of environmental pressure (i.e., the throughput of materials, energy and the volume of transport) in 19 countries have been used to investigate patterns of delinking. The results suggest that delinking may not be persistent; already some advanced economies may be entering a new period of relinking. The relationships between environmental pressure and welfare in the medium long term may be N-shaped rather than inverted-U-shaped.

Policymakers at global level recognise that household biomass use in developing countries has significant health consequences. However, it is unclear how local-level health professionals perceive and respond to such health effects. This paper which is derived from the findings of a larger study on perceptions and responses to the harmful health effects of carrying heavy firewood loads and to smoke from cooking fires is based on a study conducted in South Africa among managers of health programmes and community nurses of Qaukeni and Mhlontlo municipalities in rural Eastern Cape. Interviews and participant observations were conducted in 2009 using ethnographic grounded theory approaches. In addition to a 10-month period of ethnographic fieldwork, ten programme managers and nurses in two villages were interviewed about health patterns in the villages that they serve, their perceptions of, and responses to the health effects of carrying heavy firewood loads, and inhalation of smoke from wood and dung cooking fires, their professional qualifications and experience, their own household energy use; and observations made as they served clinic clients. Results show that these programme managers and nurses perceive the health effects of carrying heavy loads of firewood and of cooking smoke as minor. Sometimes, nurses give women symptomatic relief for musculoskeletal pain resulting from carrying heavy loads. We posit that their perceptions are derived from customary neglect of work-related health and non-communicable diseases, cultural interpretations of womanhood, limited access to relevant information, and limited interactions between health and energy sector professionals. We conclude that culturally and gender-sensitive awareness programmes are needed for local-level health professionals to effectively address health effects of biomass collection and use. This paper provides new insights into overlooked differences between globally-driven initiatives to address health effects of biomass use and local perceptions.

In recent decades, many societal changes have unfolded, including population ageing, reconfigurations of household structures, labour market transformation, and a secular deceleration of economic growth. These shifts pose considerable challenges to preexisting welfare states, particularly to the efficacy of countries’ pension systems. This dissertation examines the context and trajectory of pension reforms in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Its contribution is to ascertain the viability and political feasibility of reforms that enhance the financial sustainability of their pension systems, while maintaining adequate income and coverage levels. The dissertation builds on political economy approaches and on the institutionalist literature, which highlight how the role of interest groups and structure of institutions and political systems shape policy outcomes. The frameworks of blame avoidance and credit-claiming are also considered, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the complex dynamics surrounding pension systems and reform efforts. This dissertation uses a mixed-methods approach – including public opinion surveys of 3,000+ individuals, semi-structured elite interviews, historical document analyses, and specialized fiscal and actuarial projections of selected pension reforms in the three selected countries. It addresses three core research questions: 1) What is the current context for pension reform in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States given their histories? 2) Is the necessary (for achieving specific minimum levels of sustainability, adequacy, and coverage) pension reform politically feasible? 3) How do the characteristics of each reform affect its political feasibility? Corollary: The modification of which channel (benefits, contributions, retirement age) is perceived as more politically feasible for diverse stakeholders? The methodology chosen provides a timely picture of the context surrounding potential pension reforms in the three case studies. In Mexico, credit-claiming and the interests of private stakeholders explain the success of recent pension reforms, and partisan politics are the key determinants for future fiscal changes. For the United Kingdom, the institutionalist literature helps explain the reasons for the relatively easier reform avenues; the most politically feasible reforms are those in the private sector, while the housing market is of key importance for pensions. In the United States, the institutionalist literature and the framework of blame avoidance also help explain the current legislative gridlock and the reasons why no major reform has been enacted for decades. For Mexico and the United Kingdom there exist politically feasible reforms, notably a modification of the retirement age channel, that can increase the system’s sustainability while maintaining income adequacy and coverage; whereas based on the current context of extreme polarisation and legislative gridlock, there do not seem to exist politically feasible pension reforms that preserve the structure of Social Security in the United States. The dissertation brings the lens of political feasibility to bear on a previously technical literature on the structure of the pension systems in the three countries, and thus on the feasibility of reform to deliver financial sustainability, adequacy of retirement incomes, and adequate coverage of the old age population. It identifies the feasible routes for reform in Mexico and the United Kingdom, but concludes that the political economy context the United States has reached rules out feasible reforms of its current pension structures.

In early 2014, unprecedentedly heavy rainfall led to a flood in northern lowland Bolivia affecting the livelihoods of thousands of people relying on ecosystem services and climate sensitive sectors for their daily livelihood. Based on a case study of 50 households from indigenous forest communities living in the TCO Tacana I, ex-ante and ex-post household data were collected to obtain insights into the economic performance, livelihood strategy changes and role of forest products in the direct aftermath of the extreme weather event. A negative impact on natural resource dependent livelihood strategies was found as an immediate consequence. However, most households had recovered just one year later. There was no increase in the use of forest products to mitigate immediate income shortages. A typical high contribution of forest products to household income from before the flood continued afterwards. This article contributes to understanding of livelihood-based efforts of people living in tropical lowland forests to adapt to weather extremes.

Gender and energy in the North is an under-researched area. Most of the work to date has focused on making the case that a gender dimension in energy exists – with a significant emphasis on promoting women working in the sector. This chapter aims to extend our understanding of gender in energy focusing on energy poverty, also an issue not widely recognised as existing within the Global North. However, it is estimated that more than 54 million people in Europe have difficulty paying their energy bills or have limited access to high quality energy because of low incomes. Even less well recognised is the fact that there is a gender dimension to this issue. Due to their lower average income, women are at a greater risk of energy poverty than men. As part of a growing recognition of this problem, in December 2016, the European Parliament (EP) adopted a resolution on access to energy which called for the EU to include a gender dimension in all its energy policies. The question is: to what extent is gender already taken into account in EU energy law and policy? And where are the gaps in the normative frameworks at the EU and Member-State level? This chapter analyses existing EU energy poverty law and policy related through a gender lens. The methodology used is a mix of literature review, desk review of policy documents (both on EU and national level) combined with mapping and a case study approach of gender and energy poverty in seven EU Member States (Bulgaria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK). The findings are combined with the insights from interviews with key informants conducted in 2017-2018. This chapter will start with insights into energy poverty as experienced by women and men, mediated by social characteristics, within the European Union. One of the challenges of exploring the gender dimension of energy poverty in the EU, is that there is no agreed definition of energy poverty. Furthermore, deriving such a definition is hampered by the limited data available which tend to be qualitative. The chapter summarizes definitions of energy poverty that have been developed by both researchers and public institutions and proposes a metric for assessing the gender dimension of energy poverty. We survey the normative framework in seven Member States with respect to gender and energy services. We examine how existing EU legislation is interpreted and implemented at the national level. Also, any initiatives in the case study countries which provide positive examples of addressing issues related to gender and energy poverty are identified. In this context, the study explores the recommendation of a definition of energy poverty which reflects the context across member states but is suitable for cross-comparison, to define indicators of energy poverty to enable tracking of progress and support measures.We argue that a more gender-aware energy policy is needed to address energy poverty. A starting point for the process of creating a more gender-aware energy policy is raising awareness of the issues. Therefore the next section uses the conceptual map of the drivers, causes and effects of energy poverty developed by Trinomics (2016) to explore these issue and to make recommendations on how energy poverty can be addressed with gender equitable outcomes. Within this conceptual framework, the gender gaps are identified. There are gender dimensions to the drivers, factors and outcomes of energy. Gender and energy poverty in the EU member states, is analysed from three interlinked perspectives: economic: e.g. Women with low incomes are disproportionately found as heads of households either as single parent families or, due to their greater longevity than men, living alone at pensionable age biological/physiological: e.g. Age is a significant factor in dealing with heat and cold stress, with young children and older people being particularly vulnerable. Women are also considered to be more sensitive to ambient temperature than men.socio-cultural: women’s energy needs and consumption patterns differ compare to men but also among women, factors like marital status and employment influence energy consumption. The chapter concludes with recommendations for the EU and member states on the way forward to addressing gender and energy poverty.

Over the last decade Brazil has implemented a new and ambitious biofuel program: the National Program of Production and Use of Biodiesel (PNPB). When launching this program in 2004 the government stated that it wanted to avoid the same kind of geographical concentration, single crop focus, dominance of agribusiness, and exclusion of family farmers that have occurred with bioethanol production through the ProÁlcool policy since 1975. This paper compares the life histories of the bioethanol and the biodiesel policies of Brazil by analyzing their substantive policy content; the power and politics of actors that struggle for the design and implementation of the policies; and the polity in terms the organization and institutionalization of the policies. The paper concludes that both policies have become submerged by and dependent on the polity and politics of primarily the energy and agricultural sectors that operate as the two semi-autonomous governance fields. This submerging has shaped the substantive contents of biofuels policies, and explains why the 2004 biodiesel policy PNPB, in spite of its objectives for social inclusion and rural development, faces similar problems in implementation as its predecessor, the 1975 bioethanol policy ProÁlcool.

Abstract This article reviews the current status of research on urban green and blue infrastructure (GBI) in developing countries. We critically analyzed a total of 283 papers addressing urban GBI in selected developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), published between 2015 and 2019. The review aimed to a) analyze publication trends and typologies of urban GBI; b) identify innovative problem-solving measures using urban GBI, and c) understand priorities, differences and similarities in the deployment of urban GBI between the regions. The article identifies a growing interest in the urban GBI concept in the Global South, with a focus on local sustainable development. Urban GBI aims to address issues of urban greenery, land use policies, food security and poverty alleviation. There is a large variation in the number of articles across regions, with Asia, and particularly China, as the subject having a much larger number of publications when compared to LAC and Africa. We found that the focus of research topics varied between regions, reflecting regional development needs, so that urban agriculture research predominated in Africa, and green spaces and parks in Asia and LAC. GBI is still not implemented as a low-impact development or innovative strategy, except in China, where researchers have examined several cases of systemic GBI use for addressing urban issues. More recently, studies began exploring the linkages between nature and cities in light of global environmental issues such as biodiversity loss and climate change. We conclude with recommendations to further examine empirical evidence of urban GBI deployment and its outcomes in the Global South, that could contribute toward conceptualizing natural resource management in a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional, and multidisciplinary framework.