Opportunities and constraints for Product-oriented Environmental Management Systems (P-EMS)

Product-oriented Environmental Management Systems (P-EMS) are a logical extension of current, often primarily process- of facility-oriented Environmental Management Systems. The Dutch government promotes P-EMS as part of its product-oriented environmental policies. The idea of P-EMS is to enable producers to make environmentally responsible decisions on product development and product strategies, in collaboration with suppliers and customers. This paper summarises example P-EMS projects in The Netherlands for two segments of industry, namely retail and manufacturing industry. Moreover two other initiatives will be covered that deal with the development of tools to facilitate P-EMS in two other industry sectors (food processing and building). Success factors that emerge from these initial experiences are: focus on partners that have a strong incentive to act, application of screening Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) or user-shells for LCA, and focus on improvements that can be implemented on the short term.     

西藏生态经济系统的能值分析与可持续发展研究

在简要分析西藏的自然、社会经济概况及其在中国的战略地位基础上，运用能值理论与方法，对其主要资源的贮存价值、总能值用量、能值的流入流出情况、人口承载力、能值投入率、能值使用强度、环境负荷等指标进行了系统研究，并与其他国家的有关指标进行了比较研究，提出了进一步开发西藏资源、实现可持续发展目标的政策建议。     

购买审计与生态导向型消费探析

生态导向型消费需要政府采取一些措施来鼓励或强迫消费者在产品消费中符合环保要求。购买审计便是对消费者市场施加影响的手段之一，是内部审计的重要组成部分，它包括评估所有与购买商品和服务相关的组织政策和行为对环境的影响。探讨了地方政府购买行为对环境的影响和如何减少这些影响的方法，以及购买审计对生态导向型消费的影响。包括：购买审计的方法、生态型购买政策的成功实施、购买审计对生态型消费的影响。     

生态工业园区的政策法规建设

论述了生态工业园区政策法规建设中存在的问题,并提出了建立健全生态工业园区政策法规的建议。     

Considering the needs of indigenous and local populations in conservation programs

Local rural and indigenous communities have assumed increasing responsibility for conservation within and between areas buffering the impacts of agricultural or resource‐extraction zones and protected areas. Empowering local communities as central partners in conservation and climate‐change mitigation has allowed many people to gain access to land and citizenship rights but has provided limited improvements in access to social services and economic opportunities even as expectation about their role as environmental stewards grows. These expectations, however, are inconsistent with reality. We conducted multiple field studies in Brazil since the mid‐1980s to illustrate the discrepancies between conservation programs and local conditions and expectations. We suggest that public policies and conservation programs should not delegate responsibility for managing protected areas to local and indigenous communities without considering local needs and expectations and locals’ attitudes toward conservation. In other words, behavior that maintains or improves the environment should not be treated as traditional based on the expectations of outsiders. Framing local populations as traditional environmentalists creates contradictions and frustrations for local populations and for conservation professionals and policy makers.     

浙江省排污权有偿使用和交易政策法规研究

随着中国经济的高速发展和城市化进程的加快,环境资源的消耗进一步加大,环境资源面临枯竭问题已经严重影响到社会经济的可持续发展。建立排污权有偿使用与交易制度对于解决过高的环境治理成本问题具有重要作用。本文从排污权的基本法律理论入手,总结和分析我省排污权有偿使用和交易政策法规存在的问题,进而提出适合我省的政策建议,以期完善我省排污权有偿使用和交易的政策法规体系。     

Integrated strategies to reduce vulnerability and advance adaptation,mitigation, and sustainable development

Determinants of adaptive and mitigative capacities (e.g., availability of technological options, and access to economic resources, social capital and human capital) largely overlap. Several factors underlying or related to these determinants are themselves indicators of sustainable development (e.g., per capita income; and various public health, education and research indices). Moreover, climate change could exacerbate existing climate-sensitive hurdles to sustainable development (e.g., hunger, malaria, water shortage, coastal flooding and threats to biodiversity) faced specifically by many developing countries. Based on these commonalities, the paper identifies integrated approaches to formulating strategies and measures to concurrently advance adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development. These approaches range from broadly moving sustainable development forward (by developing and/or nurturing institutions, policies and infrastructure to stimulate economic development, technological change, human and social capital, and reducing specific barriers to sustainable development) to reducing vulnerabilities to urgent climate-sensitive risks that hinder sustainable development and would worsen with climate change. The resulting sustainable economic development would also help reduce birth rates, which could mitigate climate change and reduce the population exposed to climate change and climate-sensitive risks, thereby reducing impacts, and the demand for adaptation. The paper also offers a portfolio of pro-active strategies and measures consistent with the above approaches, including example measures that would simultaneously reduce pressures on biodiversity, hunger, and carbon sinks. Finally it addresses some common misconceptions that could hamper fuller integration of adaptation and mitigation, including the notions that adaptation may be unsuitable for natural systems, and mitigation should necessarily have primacy over adaptation.

Sustainable consumption in Brazil: Identification of preliminary requirements to guide product development and the definition of public policies

Sustainable product development is closely related to sustainable consumption. The understanding of consumers' purchase, use and discard behaviours may facilitate the identification of requirements to guide manufacturers in the development of sustainable goods and services. The aim of this paper is to investigate consumers' perception about factors that motivate or discourage the consumption of sustainable products to identify demands and convert them into requirements. South Brazilian green and traditional consumers were asked to complete an exploratory qualitative questionnaire. Their answers were organized and compared to identify differences and similarities between the demands of these two groups. Furthermore, demands were converted into requirements for packages, products, manufactures, stores planning and discard systems. The interpretation of factors that motivate or discourage the purchase of sustainable products given by interviewees led to the creation of a list of possible public policies or programmes, aiming to support sustainable consumption. The results demonstrate the necessity of further quantitative investigation between consumer groups, for validation purposes.     

WATER MANAGEMENT IN ONTARIO1

ABSTRACT: The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has based its water quality management approach on a set of guidelines published in 1970. In light of the changing societal and economic background, advancement in technology and scientific knowledge, and philosophical attitudes towards water management, the water management program was recently revised. Factors influencing the revised approach, including federal-provincial interrelationships and international commitments under the Canada-U.S. Agreement, are summarized. The revised program consists of a goal statement, policies to implement this goal, revised water quality objectives, and detailed implementation procedures for field staff use. Rather than promulgating regulations to impose arbitrary effluent or receiving water standards on a province-wide basis, the revised approach involves the imposition of legally enforceable effluent requirements on a case-by-case basis. Although the paper emphasizes the surface water quality program, it also outlines the Ministry's goals, policies, and procedures for the management of surface-water quantity, as well as ground water quality and quantity.     

A policy review of synergies and trade-offs in South African climate change mitigation and air pollution control strategies

Climate change mitigation and air quality management are mostly addressed separately in South African legal acts and policies. This approach is not always coherent, especially in the context of other serious issues South Africa is facing, such as poverty alleviation. Policies implemented to mitigate climate change might increase negative health affects due to unanticipated outcomes (e.g. increased local air pollution), and these indirect consequences must therefore be taken into account when devising mitigation strategies. However, greenhouse gas mitigation policies can also have co-benefits and positive impacts on local air pollution. An evidence-based approach that takes into account greenhouse gas emissions, ambient air pollutants, economic factors (affordability, cost optimisation), social factors (poverty alleviations, public health benefits), and political acceptability is needed tackle these challenges. A proposal is made that use of an integrated climate/air pollution techno-economic optimising model, such as the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Synergies (GAINS) model, may provide a rational decision support tool to guide policy makers into effective strategies for combined Climate Change and Air Quality mitigation measures.