Book reviews and notices

The aim of sustainable development is to balance social, economic, and environmental needs. In order to justify the decisions they make, stakeholders must quantify the different impacts found in the operations and developments of companies and/or projects throughout their life cycle. However, as some areas are subjective in nature, the quantification process of the different impacts and the assessment of sustainable development performance become arduous tasks of development, validation, and application of scientific and empirical methods with the intrinsic objective of finding an agreement among the involved parties (i.e., stakeholders). Several environmental and sustainability assessment tools, instruments, processes, and methodologies have been developed; rating systems stand out and have gained attention and credibility, as demonstrated by the vast number of certified projects around the world and the widely-known usefulness and advantages of their application. The Wa-Pa-Su project sustainability rating system presents an integrated approach to sustainability assessment by integrating three distinctive areas of knowledge: (1) sustainable development theory and fundamentals supports the ultimate goal of the rating system, which is to contribute to sustainability, with the aim of finding a path to balance social, economic, and environmental needs; (2) continual performance improvement becomes essential due to the duration of the projects, as it is critical to allow organizations or projects to improve performance over time; and (3) multi-criteria decision analysis assists with the assessment process through stakeholder engagement and participation, and the design and implementation of a criteria weighting system.     

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.     

Book reviews

AUTOMATIC METHODS OF ANALYSIS by M. Valcárcel and M. D. Luque de Castro, Volume 9 in series Techniques and Instrumentation in Analytical Chemistry, Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam (1988), 560 pages, US$ 131.50

SELF‐DIFFUSION IN ELECTROLYTE SOLUTIONS: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF DATA COMPILED FROM THE LITERATURE by R. Mills and V. M. M. Lobo, Volume 36 published in the series Physical Sciences Data, Elsevier, Amsterdam (1988), 354 pages, US$ 134.25     

Book reviews

ESSENTIALS OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY by Duncan McKie and Christine McKie, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1986, 437 pp, £25.00 bound, £12.95 paper.     

Book reviews

ACID RAIN, A REVIEW OF THE PHENOMENON IN THE EEC AND EUROPE, by Environmental Resources Limited for the Commission of the European Communities, 159 pages (including a summary, an introduction, findings and conclusions and 13 pages with newest references), 24 figures and 14 tables, stiff paper cover, format 302×212 mm, EUR 8684, ISBN 0 86010 501 6, Graham & Trotman Limited, Sterling House, 66 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1DE, U.K. (1983), £12.50.

STONE DECAY AND CONSERVATION, Atmospheric Pollution, Cleaning, Consolidation and Protection, MATERIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS 11, by Giovanni G. Amoroso and Vasco Fassina, 453 pages (including 301 figures, 72 tables, and a subject index of five pages; references are added to each of the five parts), linen, format 249×174 mm, ISBN 0 444 42146 7, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam and New York (1983) USS 97.75 or Dfl. 230.‐ or SFr. 170.‐

WEATHERING OF POLYMERS, by Anthony Davies and David Sims, Waltham Abbey, Essex, U.K., 294 pages (including 96 figures, 62 tables, an index of 6 pages; and references (mostly from 1972 to 1979, a few newer ones) added to each chapter), linen, format 230×149 mm, ISBN 0 85334 226 1, Applied Science Publishers, London and New York (1983), £35, (plus £1.75 post/packing).     

Book reviews

PROGRESS IN ENVIRONMENTAL MUTAGENESIS AND CARCINOGENESIS, PROGRESS IN MUTATION RESEARCH, VOLUME 2, by A. Kappas, Biology Department, Nuclear Research Center Democritus, Athens (Greece), 205 pages (including 49 tables, 69 figures, concluding remarks of 3 pages, and a subject index of 3 pages), linen, format 246×171 mm, ISBN 0–444–80334–3, Elsevier/North‐Holland, Biomedical Press, Amsterdam 1981, USS 76.50, hfl. 180.00

CHEMICAL MUTAGENESIS, HUMAN POPULATION MONITORING, AND GENETIC RISK ASSESSMENT, PROGRESS IN MUTATION RESEARCH, VOLUME 3, by K, C. Bora, G. R. Douglas and E. R. Nestmann, Environmental Health Directorate, Ottawa (Canada), 364 pages (including 103 tables, 45 figures, an appendix of seven pages with the Report of the WHO Consultation on Genetic Monitoring for Environmental Effects, and a subject index of 20 pages), linen, format 246 ×171 mm, ISBN 0–444–80352–1, Elsevier/North‐Holland, Biomedical Press, Amsterdam 1982 USS 80.75, hfl. 190.00.

AQUATIC TOXICOLOGY, Volume 1 of a Series, by Lavern J. Weber, Marine Science Center, Oregon State University, Newport, 238 pages (including 35 tables, 18 figures, and a subject index of 13 pages), linen, format 243 × 163 mm, ISBN 0–89004–439–2, Raven Press, New York 1982, US$ 36.72.

CARDIOVASCULAR TOXICOLOGY, TARGET ORGAN TOXICOLOGY SERIES, by Ethard W. van Stee, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA, 400 pages (including 17 tables, 58 figures, and a subject index of 12 pages), linen, format 243 × 163 mm, ISBN 0–89004–576–3, Raven Press, New York 1982, USS 61.20.