Svatava Janoušková

The Earth Charter and the ESDinds initiative: developing indicators and assessment tools for Civil Society Organisations to examine the values dimensions of sustainability projects

This descriptive report outlines an innovative project in which Earth Charter International is actively involved. The project aims to develop approaches, indicators and tools for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to be able to measure values-based aspects and impacts of their work at the project level. Many CSOs have an intuitive feeling that their projects are more successful when there is a resonance of values with those involved; this project aims to make such aspects tangible, measurable and transferable to other CSOs. The two year, EU-funded project called ESDinds is characterised by a collaborative partnership between a geographically and culturally diverse consortium consisting of four CSOs (including the Earth Charter International Secretariat) and two universities. The research design takes an iterative, grounded research approach to indicator development.

Environmentální bezpečnost: Návrh koncepčního rámce pro aplikace v České republice

This article aims to provide an integrated overview of the environmental security concept. Moreover, the article frames interpretation of environmental security in the historical context and also provides information regarding current understanding of this concept in environmental security studies. Objective of this article is to propose a conceptual framework of environmental security that cover all relevant environmental security areas and provides comprehensive overview. Conceptual framework of environmental security in the proposed conception contains four main components: energy security, raw material security, ecological and biological security and dimension of traditional security. In addition, purpose of this article is to establish a conceptual framework that can be applied in decision-making processes and assist in design of appropriate strategies concerning environmental security issues.

Values and Sustainable Development: Reflection on Selected Czech Policy Documents 1988–2010

A coherent value system and attitude towards the social and natural environment are considered to be a basic condition for the implementation of sustainable development as implicitly contained in the Rio+20 Declaration ‘The Future We Want’. The importance of human values such as justice, equality, shared responsibility, empowerment, solidarity or tolerance also need to gain appeal anew because of the ongoing economic crises. Although politicians have often taken advantage of the powerful concept of values, extensive research in this field is still lacking. The main goal of the study is to analyse the meaning of values and how their importance has changed over time. The values under scrutiny were identified in selected national policies relating to environmental protection and sustainable development covering the period 1988–2010. The study presents a method for the operationalization of values to understand their meaning and to obtain the first quantitative findings on changes of values in selected policies over the past two decades. The results of the analysis revealed the absence or low representation of sustainable development values (e.g. solidarity or tolerance) which may open up a discussion on the role of values in policy-making and possibly improve new, relevant Czech policies accordingly.

Environmental Security: New and Old Theme of General Education?

Clanek se zabýva environmentalni bezpecnosti z hlediska vzdělavani – konceptem, který stoji v soucasnosti v ohnisku zajmu odborne i laicke veřejnosti, ale který u nas doposud nebyl z pohledu vzdělavani zpracovan. Text se věnuje jednak provazanosti obecneho konceptu environmentalni bezpecnosti se vzdělavacim obsahem vyucovacich předmětů resp. vzdělavacich oborů v kurikulech nižsiho sekundarniho vzdělavani od roku 1948 po soucasnost, a jednak otazce, jak by tato tematika měla být zohledněna v soucasnem kurikulu .

The nature of indicators for sustainable development and education for sustainable development on the international level

Clanek se zaměřuje na přistupy, jimiž jsou monitorovany a vyhodnocovany vzdělavaci aspekty v koncepci udržitelneho rozvoje a vzdělavani pro udržitelný rozvoj na mezinarodni urovni. Na zakladě obsahove analýzy řady dokumentů vztahujicich se jak ke koncepci udržitelneho rozvoje, tak ke koncepci vzdělavani pro udržitelný rozvoj, a sad indikatorů, ktere tyto dokumenty doprovazeji, dochazeji autoři k tomu, že indikatory vzdělavani monitorujici implementaci a dosahovani cilů, ať už strategii udržitelneho rozvoje nebo strategii vzdělavani pro udržitelný rozvoj, převažuji proceduralni indikatory, zpravidla kvantitativniho charakteru. Autoři v textu zdůrazňuji skutecnost, že koncepce udržitelneho rozvoje uzce souviseji s lidskými postoji a hodnotami a jejich proměnami vyvolanými mj. různými formami vzdělavani. V zavěru clanku proto autoři navrhuji, že by bylo velmi žadouci doplnit existujici indikatorove sady o indikatory popisujici pravě proměnu lidských postojů a hodnot.