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Once celebrated as a model development for its progressive social indicators, the southern Indian state of Kerala has earned the new distinction as the nation's suicide capital, with suicide rates soaring to triple the national average since 1990. Rather than an aberration on the path to development and modernity, Keralites understand this crisis to be the bitter fruit borne of these historical struggles and the aspirational dilemmas they have produced in everyday life. Suicide, therefore, offers a powerful lens onto the experiential and affective dimensions of development and global change in the postcolonial world. In the long shadow of fear and uncertainty that suicide casts in Kerala, living acquires new meaning and contours. In this powerful ethnography, Jocelyn Chua draws on years of fieldwork to broaden the field of vision beyond suicide as the termination of life, considering how suicide generates new ways of living in these anxious times.

Recently, there has been much talk of impact investing. Around the world, specialized intermediaries have appeared, mainstream financial players and governments have become involved, renowned universities have included impact investing courses in their curriculum, and a myriad of practitioner contributions have been published. Despite all this activity, conceptual clarity remains an issue: The absence of a uniform definition, the interchangeable use of alternative terms and unclear boundaries to related concepts such as socially responsible investment are being criticized. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of impact investing, which could help foster this specific investment style and guide further academic research. To do so, it investigates a large number of academic and practitioner works, highlighting areas of similarity and inconsistency on three levels: definitional, terminological, and strategic. Our research shows that, on a general level, heterogeneity—especially definitional and strategic—is less pronounced than expected. Yet, our research also reveals critical issues that need to be clarified to advance the field and increase its credibility. First and foremost, this includes the characteristics required of impact investees, notably whether they need to be (social sector) organizations that prioritize their non-financial mission over the business side. Our results indicate that there may be different schools of thoughts concerning this matter.

The combination of physical activity and being in nature is recognized as providing a range of significant benefits. The objective of this literature review was to compile an overview of the social benefits and costs associated with outdoor sports within the academic literature and to reflect on the quality of underlying evidence that supports the relationship. A systematic review was carried out with seven partners from different European countries, including Bulgaria, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. From a total of 17,560 studies identified, 133 studies were selected with relevant data extracted to standardized forms. The selected studies have been analyzed with qualitative research methods. A meta-analysis could not be conducted due to the heterogeneity of the study designs and outcome measures. As a result, the review gives an overview of the social impacts associated with outdoor sports which have been clustered to six broad categories: physical health, mental health and wellbeing, education and lifelong learning, active citizenship, crime reduction, and anti-social behavior, as well as additional benefits. The review furthermore revealed gaps in the evidence base which are especially notable in the long-term effects that outdoor sports can have on personal and social development.

Despite efforts to address societal ills, social enterprises face challenges in increasing their impact. Drawing from the RBV, we argue that a social enterprise's scale of social impact depends on its capabilities to engage stakeholders, attract government support, and generate earned-income. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 171 US-based social enterprises and find support for the hypothesized relationships between these organizational capabilities and scale of social impact. Further, we find that these relationships are contingent upon stewardship culture. Specifically, we show that an entrepreneur-centered stewardship culture increases the effects of the capabilities to attract government support and to generate earned-income, while an employee-centered stewardship culture compensates for low abilities to attract government support and to generate earned-income.

Social impact investing (SII) is transforming the availability of private capital for nonprofits and social enterprises, but demand is not yet meeting supply. This paper analyzes the perceived barriers faced by nonprofits in engaging with SII, arguing the need to assess differences using a policy field framework. Four parameters of a subsector are conceptualized as shaping participation in SII: the scale of investment required, embeddedness in place, the need for radical innovation, and the configuration of intermediaries (such as loan funds and market brokers). Based on 25 interviews with leaders of nonprofits and intermediaries in affordable housing and community economic development in Canada, the study finds that significant barriers are a lack of knowledge of the market, inadequate financial literacy, and the challenges of measuring and valuing social impacts. In addition, nonprofits report that, in spite of the inherent importance of social impact in this form of investing, they currently make limited use of evaluation and impact metrics, and perceive that intermediaries and investors, particularly in affordable housing, still put a greater emphasis on financial over social returns.

Social life cycle assessment (SLCA) systematically assesses the social impacts of the entire life cycle of a product system or service that stretches from extraction and processing of raw material to recycling and final disposal. Most SLCA techniques highlight negative impacts and their reductions, while positive social impacts and their increments have received less attention. Positive social impacts highlight chances for improving human well-being and present a complete picture of a product’s overall social impact. The literature shows that norms for defining positive impacts and methodologies for assessing them are not yet fully established and retain lacunae, which can lead to conflicts in the usage of the term “positive impacts”. Therefore, we develop a novel SLCA methodology that can straightforwardly distinguish between the “good” and “bad” social state at the subcategories in the latest version of methodological sheets for SLCA. Here, we refrain from using the terms “positive” and “negative” as those terms retain scattered consensus; instead, we use the fresh terms “good” and “bad”, which are simpler to understand. To describe the positive changes in good and bad states, we introduce two new terms into SLCA: “more-good” (improvements within the good domain) and “less-bad” (improvements within the bad domain). Good and bad social domains are distinguished using compliance levels (e.g., industry standards), referred to as baseline requirements. Social impacts were evaluated using the social performance index (SPI). The SPI is computed by multiplying social performance levels with working hours at the factory/company level. Social performance levels are evaluated using a decision tree and a systematically proposed set of indicators representing basic requirements and good and bad domains of each subcategory. Working hours were used as an activity variable, estimated using a working hour model. This enables the application of the SPI across the supply chain of a product by linking social impacts to the time spent on each activity.

Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social economic, cultural health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects. Greater attention is needed to incorporating the results of social impact assessments in long-term conservation management to minimize negative social consequences and maximize social benefits. We bring together insights from social impact assessment, adaptive management, social learning, knowledge coproduction, cross-scale governance, and environmental planning to propose a definition and framework for adaptive social impact management (ASIM). We define ASIM as the cyclical process of monitoring and adaptively managing social impacts over the life-span of an initiative through the 4 stages of profiling, learning, planning, and implementing. We outline 14 steps associated with the 4 stages of the ASIM cycle and provide guidance and potential methods for social-indicator development, predictive assessments of social impacts, monitoring and evaluation, communication of results, and identification and prioritization of management responses. Successful ASIM will be aided by engaging with best practices - including local engagement and collaboration in the process, transparent communication of results to stakeholders, collective deliberation on and choice of interventions, documentation of shared learning at the site level, and the scaling up of insights to inform higher-level conservation policiesto increase accountability, trust, and perceived legitimacy among stakeholders. The ASIM process is broadly applicable to conservation, environmental management, and development initiatives at various scales and in different contexts. Las preocupaciones sobre las consecuencias sociales de la conservación han generado un incremento en la atención puesta al monitoreo y a la evaluación de los impactos sociales de los proyectos de conservación. Esto ha resultado en un creciente cuerpo de investigación que demuestra cómo la conservación puede producir consecuencias sociales, económicas, culturales, de salud y gobernanza tanto positivas como negativas para las comunidades locales. A pesar de esto, los resultados de los esfuerzos de monitoreo social rara vez se aplican para manejar adaptativamente los proyectos de conservación. Se necesita de mayor atención para incorporar los resultados de las valoraciones del impacto social en el manejo de la conservación a largo plazo para minimizar las consecuencias sociales negativas y maximizar los beneficios sociales. Juntamos el conocimiento de la valoración del impacto social, el manejo adaptativo, el aprendizaje social, la coproducción del conocimiento, la gobernanza a través de escalas, y laplaneación ambiental para proponer una definición y un marco de trabajo para el manejo adaptativo del impacto social (ASIM). Definimos el ASIM como el proceso cíclico de monitoreo y manejo adaptativo de los impactos sociales a lo largo de la vida de una iniciativa a través de cuatro etapas de evaluación por perfil, aprendizaje, planeación e implementación. Resumimos 14 pasos asociados con las cuatro etapas del ciclo del ASIM y proporcionamos una guía y métodos potenciales para el desarrollo del indicador social, la valoración predictiva de los impactos sociales, el monitoreo y la evaluación, la comunicación de los resultados, y la identificación y priorización de las respuestas del manejo. Los ASIM exitosos serán apoyados al trabajar con las mejores prácticas - incluyendo al compromiso local y la colaboración en el proceso, la comunicación transparente de los resultados a los accionistas, la deliberación colectiva y la elección de intervenciones, la documentación del aprendizaje compartido a nivel de sitio, y el incremento de conocimiento para informar las políticas de conservación de niveles más altos para incrementar la responsabilidad, confianza y la legitimidad percibida entre los accionistas. El proceso del ASIM es aplicable en general a la conservación, el manejo ambiental y a las iniciativas de desarrollo a varias escalas y en diferentes contextos.

Academic and public debates are increasingly concerned with the question whether and how algorithmic decision-making (ADM) may reinforce social inequality. Most previous research on this topic originates from computer science. The social sciences, however, have huge potentials to contribute to research on social consequences of ADM. Based on a process model of ADM systems, we demonstrate how social sciences may advance the literature on the impacts of ADM on social inequality by uncovering and mitigating biases in training data, by understanding data processing and analysis, as well as by studying social contexts of algorithms in practice. Furthermore, we show that fairness notions need to be evaluated with respect to specific outcomes of ADM systems and with respect to concrete social contexts. Social sciences may evaluate how individuals handle algorithmic decisions in practice and how single decisions aggregate to macro social outcomes. In this overview, we highlight how social sciences can apply their knowledge on social stratification and on substantive domains of ADM applications to advance the understanding of social impacts of ADM.

Measuring, analyzing, and evaluating social, environmental, and economic impact is crucial to aligning the sustainable development strategies of international organizations, governments, and businesses. In this sense, society has been a determining factor exerting pressure for urgent solutions. The main objective of this paper is to provide an exhaustive analysis of the literature about the tools for measuring social impact and their evolution over the last 50 years. The search was conducted in the main academic databases (Scopus and Web of Science), where 924 articles were found from 1969 to 2020 related to the topic. The results of the quantitative analysis show that 71% of the publications were in the last ten years and the most productive countries were the USA and the United Kingdom. The relational analysis identifies 4 large clusters that fragment the literature into different subfields. The most used keywords are linked to the term \"Social\" in measurement methods, new concepts, and participants. This article contributes to the literature by giving the researcher an insight into the current state of art, trends, categories within the field, and future lines of research.

The concept of green building has gradually formed with the increase in public awareness of environmental protection, which also covers a wide range of elements. The green building is the fundamental platform of sustainable development. This review paper provides solutions for the multi-dimensional and balanced development of green building. Since green building is the development trend of the construction industry, it presents an opportunity to mitigate global warming and accomplish energy efficiency. However, the problem is that the development of green building’s implementation is restricted by the lack of government policies, imperfect technical abilities and unreasonable economic benefits. One conclusion drawn from the results shows that the benefits of green building implementation include environmental, economic, social, and health and safety aspects. Moreover, it is crucial to improve the awareness of stakeholders to promote the development process of green building. The government should launch campaigns to encourage developers and tenants to embrace green building, which can add value to buildings. The novelty of the paper provides a more systematic review on the sustainable considerations of green building than previous efforts in the literature. Bibliometric analysis is conducted through VOS viewer software. This review paperdiscusses the relevant benefits and challenges of green building through a critical review of existing research knowledge related to green building. The current advancements in green building are highlighted in this paper. Importantly, future recommendations for standards and policy formulation and future research directions are proposed in this review article.