The role of environmental activity integration into the R&D department to obtain competitive advantage

The objective of this work is to examine to what degree the integration between R&D and environmental departments facilitates the achievement of an environmental practice-derived competitive advantage. With this aim, we surveyed 110 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 certified factories. The results reveal that the integration of environmental action into the R&D department enhances a company's reputation through the product quality and image. Moreover, the said integration positively influences the company's overall innovative capability and, hence, its ability to penetrate international markets.     

An environmental tax-shift with indirect desirable effects

Imposing environmental taxation on external costs of energy will not only affect the environmental impact of the energy sector itself, but it will tend to decrease environmental damage from other sectors of the economy as well. We have assessed the effects of a shift of taxation from taxing labour to taxation of external costs caused in the energy sector. Several examples give results compatible with the hypothesis that the changing price relation between labour and energy resulting from such a tax shift will make re-use, repairs and recycling increasingly competitive and thus tend to decrease mining as well as waste production. Likewise, less energy-intensive commodities and services in general would become increasingly competitive, and would tend to decrease the environmental load further. These environmentally desirable effects are beyond the taxed external effects of the energy sector itself and occur as an indirect effect of the increased relative price of energy.     

A decomposition analysis of CO2 emissions: evidence from Malaysia’s tourism industry

The most important question raised from issues of environmental degradation is how economic activities bring about changes that will result in pollution. In the pursuit of tourism economy, contrary to popular interest, the travel and tourism (T&T) industry may cause environmental damages through the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from energy consumption in areas such as transportation and delivery of amenities. Given this major concern, this paper attempts to investigate the linkage between tourism and CO₂ emissions in Malaysia between 1981 and 2011. In particular, this study fills the knowledge gap by taking a closer look at the impact of international tourist arrivals on CO₂ emissions by sector – electricity and heat generation and transport. Results from the bound test method suggest that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables under consideration when CO₂ emissions become the dependent variable. The original result is similarly robust to alternatives, which are CO₂ emissions from sectors of electricity and heat generation and transport. Furthermore, the vector error correction model causality analysis indicates a causal relationship between tourism and CO₂ emissions by transport and electricity and heat generation. Subsequently, several tourism-related policies are drawn from these findings.     

Cointegration and causality: considering Iberian economic activity sectors to test the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis

Few studies have attempted to study the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis at the individual sector level using more than one sector at once. This paper investigates the existence of the EKC hypothesis in the Iberian countries (Portugal and Spain) using thirteen economic activity sectors for each, analyzing each individual sector’s cointegration and causality relationships considering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, sector gross value added and energy consumption. The findings of this paper using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach only validate cointegration in six Portuguese sectors and in five of the Spanish sectors. Results confirm both short- and long-run bi-directional and unidirectional causality between economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions, using the error correction model (ECM) and Toda and Yamamoto’s causality approaches. Moreover, results for Portuguese and Spanish sectors indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship only for one sector each. In some sectors there was evidence of a U-shaped relationship and in others the EKC hypothesis could be verified but no statistical significance was obtained. The study has significant contributions for sector policy, including implications to curtail energy pollutants by implementing environmental friendly regulations to sustain economic development at the sector level in the Iberian market. It also allows inferences to be made about the existence of different behaviors in comparative terms for the same economic activity sectors of the individual countries.     

Environmental Policy and International Trade when Governments and Producers Act Strategically

Some environmentalists express concern that trade liberalization may damage the environment by giving governments incentives to relax environmental policies to give domestic producers a competitive advantage. Support for such concern may be given by models of imperfectly competitive trade where there may be “rent-shifting” incentives for governments to relax environmental policies. But there are also incentives for producers to act strategically, e.g., through their investment in R&D, and in this paper I extend the literature on strategic environmental policy by allowing for strategic behavior by producers as well as governments. I show that (i) allowing for producers to act strategically on balance reduces the incentive for governments to act strategically; (ii) allowing governments to act strategically increases the incentive for producers to act strategically; (iii) welfare is lower when both parties act strategically; and (iv) strategic behavior by producers and governments is greater when governments use emission taxes than when they use emission standards.     

Development of environmental management system in China’s financial sector

The establishment of the environmental management system in the financial sector can be effectively promoted through the introduction of the environmental protection concept and its implementation by the financial sector. The impact of a sustainable development system on the sector is analyzed in this article from three aspects: environmental risk assessment, financing support for environmental protection projects, and financial services to environmentally friendly corporations and individuals. Influential factors on the development of the environmental management system in China’s financial sector are discussed from the perspective of various entities such as financial institutions, financial regulation authorities, environmental protection departments, corporations, and the public. It is pointed out that China’s financial sector is now in the transitional phase from a defensive attitude to a preventive attitude. Strengthening governmental guidance, the supervision of regulators as well as public awareness of environmental protection should be used to enhance the initiative in the development of the environmental management system in the Chinese financial sector.     

Blood lead levels and nutrition in an urban community in Venezuela

Previous lead (Pb) exposure studies identified the Michelena sector in Valencia as a ‘critical’ area for Pb contamination. An analytical-ecological study was designed to evaluate the association of environmental and nutritional variables with blood lead (BPb) in children attending two schools located in this sector. A questionnaire was administered and the findings were correlated with BPb and serum-calcium (S-Ca) levels. The total population examined included 60 children (4–9 years old). The mean BPb values was 10.5?±?3?ug/dL (61.7%?≥?10?ug/dL) and the mean S-Ca was 8.9?±?0.7?mg/dL. A significant difference (p?=?0.042) was found between BPbs in males (11.1?±?3.1?ug/dL) when compared with females (9.6?±?2.8?ug/dL). Child age, school, schedule at school, parents' occupational exposure, habits, and socioeconomic status had no significant association with BPbs. The relationship between BPb levels (dependent variable) and the S-Ca and daily Ca intake levels (independent variables) was analysed through multiple regression analysis. The results show an inverse relationship between BPb and both variables (β?=??0.073, and β?=??0.001) respectively, with the daily Ca intake being the only significant variable in the model (p?=?0.04). Although average BPbs was not very high, the percentage of children with BPbs higher than the US-CDC intervention level was greater than those found in other studies. Since detailed information is generally unavailable for these children in Venezuela, this study provides insights for future research.     

Offspring size effects mediate competitive interactions in a colonial marine invertebrate

Over the past 30 years, numerous attempts to understand the relationship between offspring size and fitness have been made, and it has become clear that this critical relationship is strongly affected by environmental heterogeneity. For marine invertebrates, there has been a long-standing interest in the evolution of offspring size, but there have been very few empirical and theoretical examinations of post-metamorphic offspring size effects, and almost none have considered the effect of environmental heterogeneity on the offspring size/fitness relationship. We investigated the post-metamorphic effects of offspring size in the field for the colonial marine invertebrate Botrylloides violaceus. We also examined how the relationship between offspring size and performance was affected by three different types of intraspecific competition. We found strong and persistent effects of offspring size on survival and growth, but these effects depended on the level and type of intraspecific competition. Generally, competition strengthened the advantages of increasing maternal investment. Interestingly, we found that offspring size determined the outcome of competitive interaction: juveniles that had more maternal investment were more likely to encroach on another juvenile's territory. This suggests that mothers have the previously unrecognized potential to influence the outcome of competitive interactions in benthic marine invertebrates. We created a simple optimality model, which utilized the data generated from our field experiments, and found that increasing intraspecific competition resulted in an increase in predicted optimal size. Our results suggest that the relationship between offspring size and fitness is highly variable in the marine environment and strongly dependent on the density of conspecifics.     

Common and Conflicting Interests in the Engagements between Conservation Organizations and Corporations

The conservation community increasingly views the corporate sector as a positive force for conservation. Collaborations between corporations and nongovernmental conservation organizations (NGOs) seek to mitigate the negative effects of corporate activities and augment positive conservation outcomes. I reviewed the establishment of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies by corporations; the emerging focus on environmental practices and sustainability; and the history of engagement between corporations and nongovernmental organizations. I considered the ethical and reputation vulnerabilities of these collaborations, which depend especially on the financial nature of the relationship and reviewed how CSR approaches have influenced corporate practices. I concluded that whereas CSR practices can act to mitigate negative environmental impact, to date they have had limited positive effect on biodiversity conservation. Intereses Comunes y Conflictivos en los Compromisos entre Organizaciones y Corporaciones de Conservación     

Landscape disturbance caused by non-renewable energy production in a semi-arid region: a case study on the Russian steppe

Exploration and development of oil and gas (O&G) energy resources can create large-scale and permanent landscape effects that are best measured and understood via fieldwork and geospatial technologies. In this article, we examine O&G surface disturbance in the Orenburg steppe region of southwestern Russia for the year 2015. Utilizing field surveys, remote-sensing data and geographic information system (GIS) techniques, we apply a two-pronged approach. First, we map and measure the landscape infrastructure footprint (LIF) to determine the pattern and extent of direct surface disturbance created by O&G facilities and access roads. Second, we conduct a site suitability analysis to identify specific O&G production locations that are most vulnerable to environmental degradation. The approach considers both the particular properties of hydrocarbon production and specific natural features of steppe zones. Suitability patterns represent three indicators: two morphometric parameters (slope and aspect) and one spatial (the remoteness of O&G objects from water bodies). Our findings suggest that O&G production disturbs just over 3% of soil-vegetation cover in our study plot, while more than 13% of O&G objects are located in unsuitable zones based on topographic aspect, and about 11% lie in unsuitable zones regarding distance to water.     

The Determinants of an Environmentally Responsive Firm: An Empirical Approach

Our empirical results indicate that a firm's formulation of an environmental plan is positively influenced by customer pressure, shareholder pressure, government regulatory pressure, and neighborhood and community group pressure but negatively influenced by other lobby group pressure sources and a firm's sales-to-asset ratio. Firms which view environmental issues as important in the next 5 years are also more likely to have a plan. Relative to the manufacturing sector, firms in the natural resource sector are more likely to formulate environmental plans while firms in the service sector are less likely to have plans. Our results provide insight into how firms react to environmental issues. They also offer policymakers a list of determinants which can be used either as an alternative or complement to environmental regulation.     

基于ELISA的受体竞争结合法检测环境雌激素(Competitive Estrogen Receptor Binding Based ELISA for Detection of Estrogen in Environment)

为建立环境雌激素的体外快速筛选方法,采用免疫测定介导受体竞争结合试验定量检测环境雌激素.将17β-雌二醇-BSA固定在微孔板上,环境雌激素与微孔板上的17β-雌二醇-BSA竞争性地与雌激素受体结合,与微孔板上17β-雌二醇-BSA结合的受体与雌激素受体的抗体、雌激素受体抗体的二抗形成一个三明治形式的复合物,通过显色剂显色,最后用比色法对试验结果进行定量.结果表明,环境雌激素的浓度与溶液吸光度值成负相关.定量研究可以得到环境雌激素剂量-效应关系曲线,在一定浓度范围内(10ng·L-1～100μg·L-1),溶液的吸光度值与环境雌激素的浓度直接呈现良好的线性关系(R2=0.9583).利用这种方法能检测到的标准品雌二醇的最低浓度为10ng·L-1.以上结果表明,本方法检测环境雌激素操作简便,具有广泛的应用前景.     

Development of environmental policy,objectives, and targets

This paper describes a process to develop and establish an environmental policy and its associated environmental targets, objectives, and management programmes. The environmental policy is defined in a statement which addresses the company expectations for programmes that are important to assure adequate environmental protection and define its future commitment towards preventing pollution and continuously improving the effectiveness of its environmental protection programmes. A set of environmental objectives, derived from the policy, define the overall goals which will ensure that the company's environmental performance will remain consistent with the commitment identified in its policy when its environmental management system (EMS) is implemented, Environmental targets reflect the requirements and standards that the company must strive to achieve each objective and minimize any harmful environmental impacts from its production and manufacturing processes or other activities. In addition to defining specific targets, environmental management programmes are also used to guide EMS implementation. These programmes, however, must provide the company with the necessary flexibility to select the most appropriate technologies to enhance its own processes and prudently allocate its available financial resources in areas that return the greatest overall environmental benefit.Though they are expected to allow some discretion in the allocation of resources targeted towards environmental protection, EMS programmes must also provide assurance that the corporation environmental policy, objectives, targets, and management programmes do not result in a facility failure to adhere to all of its certification requirements. The principle and factors described in this article should be considered to the extent that they are necessary and practical.     

Behavioral response to predators reverses the outcome of competition between prey species

Summary In a laboratory experiment it was shown that piscivorous predators reversed the outcome of competitive interactions between two fish prey species, juveniles of roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluviatilis), by behaviorally affecting their use of two available habitats, an open water habitat and a structurally complex refuge. The shift in the competitive relationship was the result of predators forcing the juvenile fishes into a prey refuge with high structural complexity. While roach was competitively superior in the unstructured habitat, perch was superior in the structurally complex prey refuge. The reversal in competitive relationship was demonstrated both with respect to foraging rate and growth rate and resulted from the high structural complexity in the prey refuge interfering with the roach's swimming performance. Because survival and growth patterns through the juvenile stages have profound effects on the population/community dynamics of size-structured populations such as those of fish, behaviorally induced changes in competitive ability should have significant implications also at the population and community levels.     

Comparative quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) study on acute toxicity of triazole fungicides to zebrafish

We employed two-dimensional quantitative structure–activity relationship (2D-QSAR) and hologram QSAR (HQSAR) methods to quantitatively investigate the mechanism and active site of toxicity for Danio rerio exposed to triazole fungicides. Our results showed that 2D-QSAR models constructed using the energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbit, the net C atom charges, the octanol–water partition coefficient and the molecular shape factor had higher predictive abilities. HQSAR models containing the fragment distinctions atoms (As), bonds (Bs), chirality (Ch) and donors and acceptors (D&A) had higher reliability. It was found that 2D-QSAR results explaining the toxicity mechanism were consistent with HQSAR. In summary, the hydrophobicity and shape/size of the molecule were the important factors influencing the toxic effect of these chemicals against D. rerio. In addition, electron exchange may occur between these fungicides and the target. The study provided a method to evaluate the environmental risk of chemicals with a similar structure, based on the QSAR models obtained.     

Potential,constrains and solutions for marine aquaculture in Kiel Bay & Fjord

Marine aquaculture is facing a variety of competing uses in densely populated coastal areas such as the coast of Kiel Bay. Thus, a major barrier for extending the marine aquaculture business could be the lack of suitable space for “offshore farming”. Moreover, in public opinion the aquaculture sector is often associated with a negative image derived from environmental concerns. It might therefore be expected that planning aquaculture installations in Kiel Bay & Fjord would face resistance both from other offshore stakeholders and the public. This study therefore addressed the question whether arguments and criteria can be found that may contribute to a greater support and positive image of local aquaculture enterprise, thus fostering political support for this sector as well. Indeed, a widespread regional survey showed less public reservation towards aqua-cultural business in Kiel Fjord than initially expected. However, expanding the entrepreneurship in the regional aqua-cultural sector will only be successful if the installations can avoid a significant deterioration of the water quality in Kiel Fjord, e.g. through excessive emissions of nutrients from net cages. An important step forward toward this goal is the concept of IMTA = Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture. The IMTA concept spatially integrates nutrient emitting installations such as fish net cages with installations of nutrient extracting organisms, e.g. mussels and algae. Based on spatial analyses of marine environmental parameters and through modelling of nutrient mass balances (emitted versus extracted nutrient quantities) possible locations, types and sizes of aquaculture installations can be determined.     

Book reviews and notices

This study aims to examine the mediating role of the customer environmental satisfaction in the effect of environmental friendliness of products and the company on customer loyalty in using green products in Malaysia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis is performed to test the proposed hypotheses among 200 full time university students with purchasing experience at least once a week green products like organic vegetables. SEM results showed that customer environmental satisfaction significantly affected customer loyalty. This pair of relationships has the highest standardized beta coefficients, signifying the most important aspect of consideration by respondents among the rest of the proposed hypotheses. Next, customer environmental satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between environmental friendliness of products and customer loyalty in using green products. The results confirmed that customers are satisfied with their decision to purchase green products as they consume the least amount of resources and energy which results in minimum environmental damage and are also easy to recycle, disassemble, decompose, and reuse. Marketers should focus on creating effective marketing strategies and green promotional activities to attract customers for their green products. Marketers should control and enhance the quality of green products, as well as emphasizing their environmental satisfaction and increasing customer loyalty levels. This empirical study advanced marketers’ and policy makers’ understanding of the identification of customer environmental satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between environmental friendliness of products and customer loyalty has been inspected in Malaysian context.     

State versus private sector provision of water services in Armenia

Despite increasing advocacy and adaptation of public-private model of water governance worldwide since the 1990s, today only 5% of the world??s population is served by water utilities with private involvement. The present article examines the experience of the water sector in Armenia with private sector participation. The study describes the process of the introduction of public-private partnerships in the water sector and focuses on analyzing the impact of privatization on water utility performance. The analysis employs the partial indicator method for evaluating the impacts in relation to operational, finance, and environmental performance, done by drawing on the database for the five water companies in Armenia. The empirical evidence shows that private participation in general led to improved overall performance. In particular, private involvement resulted in increased operational efficiency in terms of labor productivity, water metering, continuity of service, and revenue collection efficiency. There were mixed improvements in the operating cost coverage ratio. As for environmental performance, there were gains in the reduction of residential water consumption, accompanied, however, by an increase in nonrevenue water.     

Measurement and spatial statistical analysis of green science and technology innovation efficiency among Chinese Provinces

This paper measured the efficiency of green science and technology (S&T) innovation in 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2017 by constructing a three-stage super-efficiency DEA model that contains undesired output and then analyzed the spatial performance for these provinces. The purpose is to calculate exactly the extent to which S&T innovation in different regions of China has contributed to economic development, excluding negative impacts on the ecological environment and any spatial differences that have emerged in the past decade. The results show that the overall performance of green S&T innovation efficiency in Chinese regions was poor in the past decade, and there is still much room for improvement. In addition, China's investment in S&T innovation and environmental management is inefficient and wasteful. From the temporal perspective, efficiency in green innovation shows a slowly increasing trend. From the spatial perspective, the efficiency shows a strict correlation with economic development, that is, an obvious three-level spatial distribution pattern of "east, middle, and west".

     

Ecological network determination of sectoral linkages, utility relations and structural characteristics on urban ecological economic system

Analyzing the structure and functioning of the urban system revealed ways to optimize its structure by adjusting the relationships among compartments, thereby demonstrating how ecological network analysis can be used in urban system research. Based on the account of the extended exergy utilization in the sector of urban socio-economic system, which is considered as the composition of extraction (Ex), conversion (Co), agriculture (Ag), industry (In), transportation (Tr), tertiary (Te) and households (Do) sectors, an urban ecological network model is constructed to gain insights into the economic processes oriented to sustainable urban development. Taking Beijing city as the case, the network accounting and related ecological evaluation of a practical urban economy are carried out in this study in the light of flux, efficiency, utility and structure analysis. The results showed that a large quantity of energy and resources have to be consumed to maintain the structure and function of a city. The thermodynamic efficiencies of individual sector in Beijing remain at a low level. The social system in Beijing is a highly competitive network, and there are 8 competitive relations and only two mutualistic ones. The Domestic and Agricultural sector are the major controlling factors of the system. Moreover, the assessment results of Beijing are compared with the other three socio-economic systems, Norway, UK and Italy, and the ecological network function and structure comparisons are correspondingly illuminated and discussed. The conclusions indicate that the exergy-based network analysis can be refined to become an integrative tool for evaluation, policy-making and regulation for urban socio-economic system management concerning structure and efficiency at urban levels.