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Investment attractiveness of European oil and gas firms: a triple bottom line perspective
Get PDFThe European energy sector depends heavily on oil and gas (O&G) operations yet faces
an urgent need to unite economic success with environmental protection and social
accountability. The current system of corporate performance evaluation focuses mainly on
financial indicators which creates a deficiency for assessing sustainability performance and
transition readiness of firms. The assessment of this knowledge gap stands essential for all
stakeholders who want to succeed in the low-carbon transition.
The research develops and tests an Investment Attractiveness Model (IAM) for the oil
and gas industry which uses the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework. The research evaluates
European oil and gas firms' investment potential through an assessment of their financial
performance together with their E/S. The research investigates how specific indicators in the
sector reveal transition-related risks and opportunities which standard financial assessments
fail to detect.
The research implements a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The
research combines financial ratio assessments with standardized evaluations of non-financial
disclosure data. The research uses NVivo-coded stakeholder interviews to obtain qualitative
data which strengthens the study's validity through triangulation methods. The research uses
financial statements and sustainability reports and assurance disclosures from 11 multinational
European oil and gas firms spanning from 2015 to 2022.
The research findings indicate that Shell and TotalEnergies and Equinor and Anglo
American maintain their position as leaders because they link their financial stability to strong
environmental and social programs. The research shows that certain businesses maintain solid
financial performance yet fail to integrate sustainability practices properly while other
organizations focus on sustainability but lack sufficient financial stability. The analysis shows
that Fortune Global 500 rankings fail to predict IAM scores effectively because revenue size
alone produces a correlation of approximately 0.5 (Spearman ρ). The leader–laggard structure
maintains its stability when researchers perform sensitivity tests with different weighting
methods.
The research proves that customised TBL models serve as dependable methods for
evaluating investment potential in sectors with high capital requirements and transition risks.
The combination of sustainability metrics with financial performance creates stronger business
stability instead of causing any negative impact. The research supports TBL theory by
confirming balanced weighting methods while providing investors and policymakers and
managers with a practical framework to assess transition readiness and manage stranded assets
and create sustainable investment plans
Extreme context exposure and counterproductive work behaviour: the role of exhaustion, authentic leadership, and spirituality
Get PDFIn recent years, research on extreme contexts has expanded significantly, focussing on management practices in unusual or atypical work environments. However, individual behavioural responses in these settings have received less attention. Our study addresses this gap by using Job-Demand Resources (JD-R) theory to explore how extreme context exposure (i.e. frequent exposure to extreme events) influences counterproductive work behaviour towards the organisation (CWB-O) in high-risk contexts of aviation and shipping. In Study 1, based on data from 297 flight cadre, we found that extreme context exposure is positively linked to CWB-O, with exhaustion linking the two variables. Study 2 replicated these findings with data from 309 seafarers, reinforcing the robustness of our results. Additionally, we identified authentic leadership and spirituality as key job and personal resources that moderate this relationship, reducing the impact of extreme context exposure on CWB-O. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, emphasising the importance of addressing individual behaviours in extreme work environments
Draft genomes of two contemporary strains of Babesia divergens
Get PDFBabesia divergens , a major cause of bovine babesiosis with zoonotic potential, was analyzed through genomes Bdiv23B and Bdiv24B following Illumina sequencing of DNA extracted from PCR-positive cattle blood. The genomes comprised 3888 and 4032 predicted coding sequences, respectively, comparable to the reference genome, Rouen 1987, highlighting genomic consistency across isolates
Professor James Mosley, a memoir
Get PDFJames Mosley, who died on 25 August 2025, was a historian of letterforms, type, typography, and printing. From 1958 until 2000 he was librarian of the St Bride Printing Library in London, and from 1960 until 2021 he taught at University of Reading in what became the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication. Underpinning both roles was Mosley’s peerless scholarship, which was both expansive and distinguished by the particular attention he devoted to cultures of letterforms in Britain and two other countries for which he felt a great affection, Italy and France. As teacher, advisor, and mentor to students and colleagues at Reading, he brought to these roles his knowledge and the exemplary research, writing, and publishing that were features of it. The remarks that follow offer a brief account of Mosley’s work at the place of learning where he taught for more than six decades, with the intention of memorializing his contributions and their lasting value
Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age
Get PDFWith biodiversity loss escalating globally, a step change is needed in our capacity to accurately monitor species populations across ecosystems. Robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) offer technological solutions that may substantially advance terrestrial biodiversity monitoring, but this potential is yet to be considered systematically. We used a modified Delphi technique to synthesize knowledge from 98 biodiversity experts and 31 RAS experts, who identified the major methodological barriers that currently hinder monitoring, and explored the opportunities and challenges that RAS offer in overcoming these barriers. Biodiversity experts identified four barrier categories: site access, species and individual identification, data handling and storage, and power and network availability. Robotics experts highlighted technologies that could overcome these barriers and identified the developments needed to facilitate RAS-based autonomous biodiversity monitoring. Some existing RAS could be optimized relatively easily to survey species but would require development to be suitable for monitoring of more ‘difficult’ taxa and robust enough to work under uncontrolled conditions within ecosystems. Other nascent technologies (for instance, new sensors and biodegradable robots) need accelerated research. Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods. Transdisciplinarity needs to be fostered between biodiversity and RAS experts so that future ideas and technologies can be codeveloped effectively
EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme: a science-policy co-design process
Get PDFResponse to Krahner et al. (2025) Build the EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme on robust evidence. Journal of Pollination Ecology 38(13): 183-185. https://doi.org/10.26786/1920-7603(2025)84
Ethical decision-making: virtues for senior leadership in higher education
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to look at the relevance of virtue ethics to senior executive level HE leadership, though much will be relevant to leaders at faculty or department level. We provide a discussion of HE leadership, followed by a review of ethical approaches that can be used by senior leaders, including virtue ethics. We explore the application of virtue ethics to HE leadership and its value to decision-making. HE leaders can use virtue ethics to think about their own behaviours and decisions, as well as those of others in their organisations, or the HE system in general
Making sense of AI benefits: a mixed-method study in Canadian public administration
Get PDFPublic administrators receive conflicting signals on the transformative benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the counternarratives of AI’s ethical impacts on society and democracy. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the factors that affect the sensemaking of AI benefits in Canadian public administration. A mixed-method research design using PLS-SEM (n=272) and interviews (n=38) tests and explains the effect of institutional and consultant pressures on the perceived benefits of AI use. The quantitative study shows only service coercive pressures have a significant effect on perceived benefits of AI use and consultant pressures are significant in generating all institutional pressures. The qualitative study explains the results and highlights the underlying mechanisms. The key conclusion is that in the earlier stages of AI adoption, demand pull is the main driver rather than technology push. A processual sensemaking model is developed extending the theory on institutions and sensemaking. And several managerial implications are discussed
