Green financing strategies in a low-carbon e-commerce supply chain under service quality regulation

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Green financing is an effective means to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve environmental efficiency in their operations....     

Part 1: The role of waste data in building knowledge: The South African waste information system

An empirical study was undertaken with 31 organisations submitting data to the South African Waste Information System (SAWIS) in order to explore the relationship between data and resultant waste knowledge generated through a process of learning. The results show that of the three constructs of knowledge (experience, data/information, and theory), experience has the greatest influence on building waste knowledge, nearly twice that of data/information and three times that of theory. Together the three constructs account for 54.1% of the variance in knowledge. Respondents from municipalities and private waste organisations reflect two distinct sub-groups in the data set. While the theoretical model remains the same for the two sub-groups, the way in which knowledge is constructed, and the variance in knowledge explained by the model, differs for the two. A mixed methods research design, combining quantitative statistical analysis and rich qualitative data, contributes to a comprehensive interpretation of the role of waste data in building knowledge in South Africa. While waste data has a minor influence on building knowledge, respondents acknowledge that waste data does have a positive impact on the way their organisations manage waste. However, it is not the data, but rather the resultant waste knowledge and raised level of awareness that causes the operational response. Experience is obtained predominantly through learning from others. Respondents in municipalities, emphasised learning from consultants, landfill site contractors, and colleagues in city-twinning programmes, while respondents in private waste companies, emphasised learning from experienced, senior colleagues.     

Part II – The effect of data on waste behaviour: The South African waste information system

Combining the process of learning and the theory of planned behaviour into a new theoretical framework provides an opportunity to explore the impact of data on waste behaviour, and consequently on waste management, in South Africa. Fitting the data to the theoretical framework shows that there are only three constructs which have a significant effect on behaviour, viz experience, knowledge, and perceived behavioural control (PBC). Knowledge has a significant influence on all three of the antecedents to behavioural intention (attitude, subjective norm and PBC). However, it is PBC, and not intention, that has the greatest influence on waste behaviour. While respondents may have an intention to act, this intention does not always manifest as actual waste behaviour, suggesting limited volitional control. The theoretical framework accounts for 53.7% of the variance in behaviour, suggesting significant external influences on behaviour not accounted for in the framework. While the theoretical model remains the same, respondents in public and private organisations represent two statistically significant sub-groups in the data set. The theoretical framework accounts for 47.8% of the variance in behaviour of respondents in public waste organisations and 57.6% of the variance in behaviour of respondents in private organisations. The results suggest that respondents in public and private waste organisations are subject to different structural forces that shape knowledge, intention, and resultant waste behaviour.     

Effects of development of wind energy and associated changes in land use on bird densities in upland areas

Wind energy development is the most recent of many pressures on upland bird communities and their habitats. Studies of birds in relation to wind energy development have focused on effects of direct mortality, but the importance of indirect effects (e.g., displacement, habitat loss) on avian community diversity and stability is increasingly being recognized. We used a control-impact study in combination with a gradient design to assess the effects of wind farms on upland bird densities and on bird species grouped by habitat association (forest and open-habitat species). We conducted 506 point count surveys at 12 wind-farm and 12 control sites in Ireland during 2 breeding seasons (2012 and 2013). Total bird densities were lower at wind farms than at control sites, and the greatest differences occurred close to turbines. Densities of forest species were significantly lower within 100 m of turbines than at greater distances, and this difference was mediated by habitat modifications associated with wind-farm development. In particular, reductions in forest cover adjacent to turbines was linked to the observed decrease in densities of forest species. Open-habitat species’ densities were lower at wind farms but were not related to distance from turbines and were negatively related to size of the wind farm. This suggests that, for these species, wind-farm effects may occur at a landscape scale. Our findings indicate that the scale and intensity of the displacement effects of wind farms on upland birds depends on bird species’ habitat associations and that the observed effects are mediated by changes in land use associated with wind-farm construction. This highlights the importance of construction effects and siting of turbines, tracks, and other infrastructure in understanding the impacts of wind farms on biodiversity.     

Determining the drivers of population structure in a highly urbanized landscape to inform conservation planning

Understanding the environmental contributors to population structure is of paramount importance for conservation in urbanized environments. We used spatially explicit models to determine genetic population structure under current and future environmental conditions across a highly fragmented, human‐dominated environment in Southern California to assess the effects of natural ecological variation and urbanization. We focused on 7 common species with diverse habitat requirements, home‐range sizes, and dispersal abilities. We quantified the relative roles of potential barriers, including natural environmental characteristics and an anthropogenic barrier created by a major highway, in shaping genetic variation. The ability to predict genetic variation in our models differed among species: 11–81% of intraspecific genetic variation was explained by environmental variables. Although an anthropogenically induced barrier (a major highway) severely restricted gene flow and movement at broad scales for some species, genetic variation seemed to be primarily driven by natural environmental heterogeneity at a local level. Our results show how assessing environmentally associated variation for multiple species under current and future climate conditions can help identify priority regions for maximizing population persistence under environmental change in urbanized regions.     

Assessment of the Conservation Measures Partnership's effort to improve conservation outcomes through adaptive management

Conservation practice has demonstrated an increasing desire for accountability of actions, particularly with respect to effectiveness, efficiency, and impact to clearly identified objectives. This has been accompanied by increased attention to achieving adaptive management. In 2002, practitioners representing several prominent conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) launched a community of practice called the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP). The partnership CMP has worked to establish standards of conservation practice to improve accountability of conservation actions through adaptive management. The focal organizing framework for CMP has been the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (OS). We evaluated, through an online survey and personal interviews, the first decade of CMP and the OS. The CMP has garnered a positive reputation among agencies, NGOs, and funders and has succeeded in developing a large user base of the OS. However, CMP has not fully achieved its goal of making the OS standard operating procedure for the largest NGOs (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund), despite it being widely used within these organizations. This lack of institutionalization is attributable to multiple causes, including an increase in the number of partially overlapping decision‐support frameworks and challenges achieving full‐cycle adaptive management. Users strongly believed the OS fosters better conservation practice and highly valued the OS for improving their practice. A primary objective of the OS is to assist practitioners to achieve full‐cycle adaptive management to better integrate learning into improving the effectiveness and efficiency of actions. However, most practitioners had not yet achieved cycle completion for their projects. To improve the effectiveness of CMP, OS, and conservation practice in general, we recommend collaborative efforts among the proponents of multiple decision‐support frameworks to foster strong institutional adoption of a common set of adaptive‐management standards for conservation accountability.     

Trace-metal contamination in the glacierized Rio Santa watershed,Peru

The objective of this research is to characterize the variability of trace metals in the Rio Santa watershed based on synoptic sampling applied at a large scale. To that end, we propose a combination of methods based on the collection of water, suspended sediments, and riverbed sediments at different points of the watershed within a very limited period. Forty points within the Rio Santa watershed were sampled between June 21 and July 8, 2013. Forty water samples, 36 suspended sediments, and 34 riverbed sediments were analyzed for seven trace metals. The results, which were normalized using the USEPA guideline for water and sediments, show that the Rio Santa water exhibits Mn concentrations higher than the guideline at more than 50% of the sampling points. As is the second highest contaminating element in the water, with approximately 10% of the samples containing concentrations above the guideline. Sediments collected in the Rio Santa riverbed were heavily contaminated by at least four of the tested elements at nearly 85% of the sample points, with As presenting the highest normalized concentration, at more than ten times the guideline. As, Cd, Fe, Pb, and Zn present similar concentration trends in the sediment all along the Rio Santa.The findings indicate that care should be taken in using the Rio Santa water and sediments for purposes that could affect the health of humans or the ecosystem. The situation is worse in some tributaries in the southern part of the watershed that host both active and abandoned mines and ore-processing plants.     

Setting population targets for mammals using body mass as a predictor of population persistence

Conservation planning and biodiversity assessments need quantitative targets to optimize planning options and assess the adequacy of current species protection. However, targets aiming at persistence require population‐specific data, which limit their use in favor of fixed and nonspecific targets, likely leading to unequal distribution of conservation efforts among species. We devised a method to derive equitable population targets; that is, quantitative targets of population size that ensure equal probabilities of persistence across a set of species and that can be easily inferred from species‐specific traits. In our method, we used models of population dynamics across a range of life‐history traits related to species’ body mass to estimate minimum viable population targets. We applied our method to a range of body masses of mammals, from 2 g to 3825 kg. The minimum viable population targets decreased asymptotically with increasing body mass and were on the same order of magnitude as minimum viable population estimates from species‐ and context‐specific studies. Our approach provides a compromise between pragmatic, nonspecific population targets and detailed context‐specific estimates of population viability for which only limited data are available. It enables a first estimation of species‐specific population targets based on a readily available trait and thus allows setting equitable targets for population persistence in large‐scale and multispecies conservation assessments and planning.