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The purpose of this study was to find out the current situation in sustainable alternatives energy sources in cruise business and to propose which role a marine cluster company can play in the climate-challenged future. The thesis looks into the marine cluster business on a sector level, and there is no specific case company in this work. The analysis starts with the case studies in the marine cluster business. First, it overviews what existing methods are in use for generating energy in different forms for cruise ships when the ship is visiting at ports. Second, it looks into the existing alternative energy generation methods, and third, into the cases where the created customer value can potentially (in the future) turn into a new development project for a marine cluster company. After the current state analysis, the thesis studies existing knowledge to understand the current state of sustainable alternatives for generating electricity and energy in different forms for cruise ships when the ship is visiting at ports. It requires to create a view what existing methods are in use, and how to improve these methods in energy generation economically and environmentally. In addition to that not forgetting the perspectives of investors, business developers, portfolio managers, technology managers and start-up’s role which constantly consider different strategies and new business cases daily during these times of rapid change. For this part, the thesis used literature, articles, research, and previous studies and also published know-how from different marine cluster companies. The outcome of this thesis were the Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and conclusions to help understand the business opportunities in cruise and port business from the energy economy as well as environmentally wise perspectives, and suggestions about the role that marine cluster companies could play in this business. The conclusions also include a little look to the issue from the economic perspective and also a feasibility perspective. Thus, the proposal points to the opportunities to deliver sustainable energy to cruise ships in today’s markets, which can create different scenarios for future alternative technologies, product and services. Due the COVID-19 pandemic and impact to marine cluster industry at spring 2020 which caused wide joint negotiations in Finland, this thesis has also changed its direction, thus the confidential data and original case company is not mentioned or included in this thesis. The thesis subject was modified to create a general CVP without a specific case company.

Ihmisten arkinen liikkuminen paikasta toiseen on tärkeä palanen laajemmassa kestävyysmurroksessa. Liikenne muodostaa Suomessa 20 % kansallisista kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä ja vaikka päästöt ovat tasaisesti vähentyneet, nykyinen tahti ei ole riittävä tämänhetkisten päästövähennystavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi. Kotitalouksien kulutuksen aiheuttamista kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä liikkuminen on suurin yksittäinen päästöjen aiheuttaja. Aikaisempi tutkimus on keskittynyt suurelta osin teknologisiin ratkaisuihin ja yksilöiden valintoihin syinä ja ratkaisuina kestävään liikkumiseen. Näitä lähestymistapoja on kritisoitu siitä, että ne eivät anna riittävää painoarvoa sosiaalisille tekijöille. Käytäntöteorioita on esitetty vaihtoehtona ja vallitsevien yksilökeskeisten lähestymistapojen haastajana arkisen liikkumisen ymmärtämiseen. Käytännöt ovat rutiininomaisia ihmisten käyttäytymismalleja, jotka koostuvat useista elementeistä: materiaaleista, merkityksistä ja kompetensseista. Tämä tutkielma analysoi ihmisten liikkumista ennen COVID-19-pandemiaa ja sen aikana käytäntöteoreettisesta näkökulmasta. Tavoite on selvittää mitä käytäntöteorioiden avulla voidaan oppia kestävästä liikkumisesta, sekä miten pandemia on vaikuttanut ihmisten liikkumiseen Suomessa. Tutkielmaa varten tehtiin yhdeksän puolistrukturoitua haastattelua, joissa osallistujilta kysyttiin heidän liikkumisestaan ennen pandemiaa ja sen aikana. Tulokset muodostavat kokonaisvaltaisen kuvan osallistujien elämästä liikkumisen näkökulmasta. Tulokset analysoitiin käyttäen kvalitatiivista teorialähtöistä sisällönanalyysia. Tuloksista selvisi, että ihmisten liikkuminen muodostaa monimutkaisen systeemin, johon pandemia vaikutti merkittävästi. Tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin lukuisia elementtejä, jotka joko mahdollistivat tai hankaloittivat eri liikkumismuotojen käyttöä. Käytäntöteorioita on usein käytetty tarkastelemaan yhtä liikkumismuotoa kerrallaan, ja tämän tutkielman laajempaa näkökulmaa voidaan pitää yhtenä sen tärkeimmistä ansioista liikkumisen tutkimukseen. Vaikka tutkielma ei tarjoa valmiita vastauksia siihen, miten ihmisten liikkumisesta saataisiin kestävämpää, se tarjoaa tärkeää uutta tietoa käytäntöteoreettiseen liikkumisen tutkimukseen, joka on Suomessa ollut todella vähäistä. Mobility, the somewhat regular and recurring physical movement of people from place to place, is a very important part of a broader transition to sustainability. In Finland the transport sector accounts for 20 % of total greenhouse gas emissions and while emissions have been steadily declining, the pace is not sufficient to meet current emission cut targets. When looking at household generated greenhouse gas emissions, mobility is the single largest contributor. Previous research has focused a lot on technological advancements and individuals’ choices as causes and solutions to sustainable mobility. These approaches have been criticized for underemphasizing the importance of social conditions. Practice theories have been presented as an alternative way of understanding mobility behaviors, challenging the mainstream individualistic explanations. Practices are routinized human behaviors that are made of several elements of materials, meanings, and competences. This thesis adopts a practice theoretical view in analyzing people’s mobility before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to learn what practice theory can teach us about sustainable mobility, and how the pandemic has affected people’s mobility in Finland. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted, asking the participants about their mobility practices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, forming a comprehensive picture of their daily lives from a mobility point of view. The results were analyzed using qualitative theory-based content analysis. The results indicated that people’s mobility is a complex system which was largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Various elements either enabling or hindering the use of different transport modes were identified, as were important connections between different mobility practices. Practice theory has been often used to research one mobility practice at a time and the broader look of this study, focusing on multiple mobility practices, is potentially the most important contribution this thesis makes to previous mobility research. While not providing direct answers to how people’s mobility could be made more sustainable, this thesis makes an important contribution to practice theoretical mobility research which in a Finnish context is very scarce.

We live in a world where 844 million people lack basic drinking water services, and more than four billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation. Somehow, these people go missing in the process of water and sanitation provision. Reaching these billions requires not only technological innovation but also socio-political ingenuity. This dissertation provides theoretical and on-the-ground insight into key social and political components of technological interventions, or what I call the “invisible infrastructure” of tech-led transformations. I focus on infrastructure in low-income regions and explore how social systems relate to technological systems, particularly in terms of street-level bureaucracy, interdisciplinary research, and pro-poor policy implementation. I employ mixed-methods research approaches, producing social science and spatial datasets as well as rich ethnographic observations and archival work. I conduct analyses through both quantitative and qualitative coding, drawing from and contributing to the scholarship of development studies and practice, city and regional planning, and development engineering—all with the practical hope of one day achieving water and sanitation for all.In the Introduction of this dissertation, I propose an invisible infrastructure framework for tech-led transformations in order to help render missing people and social dynamics more visible. I describe how invisible infrastructure is the conceptual arc of my whole endeavor in research to unlock water and sanitation solutions. Each of the following chapters of my dissertation uncovers various aspects of invisible infrastructure (summaries below). The chapters are quite distinct from one another in that they: focus on various regional contexts, draw from various theories and disciplines, and use different data sources and analytical approaches. However, the common goal is the provision of water and sanitation services with an overarching message that certain stakeholders—in particular from marginalized groups—and social dynamics have been rendered invisible. Hence, I consider the chapters as reports of missing persons in innovation and infrastructure to achieve water and sanitation for all. Chapter 1: Significant development funding flows to informational interventions intended to improve public services. Such “transparency fixes” often depend upon the cooperation of frontline workers who produce and disseminate information for citizens. We study frontline worker compliance with a transparency intervention in Bangalore’s water sector, providing one of the first multi-method companions to a field experiment. We examine why workers exhibited modest overall rates of compliance and why compliance varied across neighborhoods. Drawing on ethnographic observation and an original dataset, we find that it is essential to understand how workers prioritize new responsibilities relative to longstanding ones. Perceptions of “core” jobs can be sticky—especially when reaffirmed through interactions with citizens. When family responsibilities take time away from their positions, new tasks are even more neglected. While the street-level bureaucracy and principal agent literatures suggest attributes such as race and education influence compliance, we highlight the importance of financial and familial circumstances. Chapter 2: Sanitation research focuses primarily on containing human waste and preventing disease; thus, it has traditionally been dominated by the fields of environmental engineering and public health. Over the past 20 years, however, the field has grown broader in scope and deeper in complexity, spanning diverse disciplinary perspectives. In this chapter, we review the current literature in the range of disciplines engaged with sanitation research in low- and middle-income countries. We find that perspectives on what sanitation is, and what sanitation policy should prioritize, vary widely. We show how these diverse perspectives augment the conventional sanitation service chain, a framework describing the flow of waste from capture to disposal. We review how these perspectives can inform progress toward equitable sanitation for all (i.e. Sustainable Development Goal 6). Our key message is that both material and nonmaterial flows—and both technological and social functions—make up a sanitation “system.” The components of the sanitation service chain are embedded within the flows of finance, decision making, and labor that make material flows of waste possible. The functions of capture, storage, transport, treatment, reuse, and disposal are interlinked with those of ensuring equity and affordability. We find that a multilayered understanding of sanitation, with contributions from multiple disciplines, is necessary to facilitate inclusive and robust research toward the goal of sanitation for all.Chapter 3: The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed underlying inequities and inadequacies of infrastructure that require immediate attention. It has underscored the needs of marginalized groups, particularly those who depend on public spaces for their livelihood and on public infrastructure for access to water and sanitation. Throughout Indian history, prominent figures have made the case for accessible and well-maintained sanitation facilities in public spaces such as marketplaces, railways, and low-income areas, but this call has gone largely unheeded. As a result, during the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of migrant workers and their families crowded buses, trains, stations, and streets—or were locked down in low-income areas—with no access to clean sanitation facilities. In this chapter, I trace how distress related to epidemics has been linked to advocacy for public sanitation across India’s history. I show how disease and war constrained but also inspired past advocates to see their visions fulfilled. Informed by these lessons from the past, I recommend concrete actions for Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban in order to improve its effectiveness for the poor by focusing on public sanitation. I argue that we learn from history that pandemics are precisely when we should prioritize sanitation, especially in public spaces and particularly for the poor.

The Annual Report is prepared by the Executive Directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)--collectively known as the World Bank--in accordance with the by-laws of the two institutions. The President of the IBRD and IDA and the Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors submits the Report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.

One of the ways California is addressing issues of mass incarceration and prison over- crowding in the state is through recent reinvestment in education for justice involved students. Using sustainable development (Bruntland and Khalid, 1987) as a guiding framework, this dissertation examines California’s Corrections to Education pipeline. In particular, I explore the potential of the state’s community college system—the largest in the nation with 116 campuses—to help reduce recidivism by being a critical component in a formerly incarcerated student’s reintegration journey. I report on the results of a content analysis I conducted on what programs are available across all 116 campuses, in order to understand how many programs exist, where they exist, and what they look like along the program development spectrum. Informed by the results from the content analysis, I present a portraiture study of a southern California community college to tell the story of how this particular community has been serving these vulnerable students, some of the challenges formerly incarcerated students face, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The need for sustainable program development, policy implications, and future directions for research are discussed.

After its worst economic crisis in 100 years, Latin America and the Caribbean countries are emerging from the COVID‐19 pandemic. The need to recover dynamic, inclusive, and sustainable growth to redress both the legacy of the pandemic and long‐standing social needs has never been more acute. However, despite progress in some areas, the region is facing a weaker recovery than expected given the favorable international tailwinds and is likely return to the low growth rates of the 2010s. Moreover, growth could be further slowed by both internal and external factors: the emergence of a new variant of the virus, a rise in international interest rates to combat global inflation, and high levels of debt in both the private and public sector. Beyond offering the current macroeconomic outlook of the region and the near‐term challenges it faces, this report explores three broad areas where growth‐advancing policies and reforms could be undertaken within a constrained fiscal context: mobilizing sources of revenue that appear to be growth-neutral; improving public spending efficiency to free up resources for other purposes; and reallocating spending to areas with highest growth and social impact.

This paper is part of a series of thematic analyses undertaken by the European Commission to illustrate the impact of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The RRF is the European Union’s largest ever funding instrument and is intended to support European economies and societies to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and build resilience against future shocks. EU Member States commit to implement ambitious reforms and investments and receive funds from the RRF when they achieve these commitments. Skills are one of the foundations of the European economy and society by preparing people to seize opportunities and drive transformations, notably in relation to the green and digital transitions. Despite its central role in addressing prevalent skills shortages and mismatches, adult learning participation is still not widespread across EU Member States: Only 10.8% of adults participated in learning in 2021 in the EU (vs. 9.1% in 2020), and only 4.3% of low-skilled adults took part in learning (vs. 3.4% in 2020).1 Only 54% of adults had at least basic digital skills in 2021, with only limited progress over the last years, and the share of ICT graduates remained unchanged compared to the previous year at only 3.9% in 2020. At the same time, demographic change is reducing the available labour force and requires Europe to fully take advantage of all its talents and diversity. Employers report the lack of staff with appropriate skills as the major obstacle to investment while at the same time, the share of firms investing in training fell during the COVID-19 crisis.

World Bank Group President David Malpass noted that Japan is now one of the largest contributors to IDA, a key partner in achieving development results at the global, regional, and country level. He mentioned that for more than 60 years, IDA has provided concessional development financing totaling more than US$458 billion to 114 countries to boost economic growth, reduce poverty and inequality, and improve people’s living conditions. He highlighted that the World Bank’s crisis response to COVID-19 has been the largest in its history, and IDA responded with speed and scale to the unprecedented economic and health crises and committed US$56.9 billion between April 2020 and November 2021. He expressed his appreciation to the IDA Borrower Representatives who have consistently offered their advice, providing a country lens on how the support can best be tailored to meet the needs and priorities of IDA countries. He spoke about the generous pledges that are matched by the most ambitious IDA policy package. He concluded by saying that cross-cutting issues are the foundational building blocks of this policy framework. These include crisis preparedness, which was introduced in IDA20 to build resilience in a world of more frequent crises with compounded effects, as well as ongoing emphasis on governance and institutions, debt sustainability, and digital infrastructure and interventions to foster economic and social inclusion.

World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed talks with G7 leaders about the World Bank Group’s work on health and preparedness. The World Bank will have approved vaccination programs in over 50 countries by the end of June. He talked about the Bank’s joint work with the African Union’s Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) vaccination program. The Bank is convening a task force with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), and World Health Organization (WHO) to help track supplies, coordinate delivery, and accelerate deployment. He noted he would talk with G7 Leaders about the World Bank Group’s work on climate, nature-based solutions, and biodiversity.

A novel aluminum minichannel-based solar thermal collector is studied, manu- factured, and installed in this study. A mathematical model is used to study the thermal performance of the proposed collector throughout the state of California. Using satellite-derived irradiance a solar resource assessment was performed in junc- tion with the thermal performance to identify the most promising markets for this technology.Open profiles of di erent cross-sectional configurations of minichannel tubes are studied and an optimal profile is identified. The minichannel collectors are manu- factured using a gas tungsten arc welding technique and tested for leaks. Two solar collectors are installed in a single-family home in Northridge, CA and 13 collectors are installed in an apartment complex in Arleta, CA. The performance analysis done on the installed systems show e ciencies of up to 80%. In addition, preliminary estimates show a promising reduction of natural gas consumption’s in the facilities.Lastly, a copper minichannel-based solar collector for applications of medium tem- perature is modeled. The collector includes a compact minichannel heat exchanger in one of the headers, where steam is to be generated. The manufacturing and testing of the copper collector was not able to be completed due to the closing of the campus amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.