Personality and environmental concern

People vary considerably in their attitudes toward environmental issues. Although some individuals view the environment from a purely utilitarian perspective, others are concerned about environmental sustainability and maintaining an ecological balance. The current study examines the relationship between personality characteristics and environmental concern in a community sample of 2690 German adults. Structural equation modeling revealed that greater environmental concern was related to higher levels of Agreeableness and Openness, with smaller positive relationships emerging with Neuroticism and Conscientiousness.     

An empirical study on the driving mechanism of proactive corporate environmental management in China

Environmentalism in China is under transformation from the traditional command and control model to emphasize the advantages of economic tools and encourage the participation of the public. Firms are much more aware of the importance of environmental issues, and some of them have practiced environmental activities beyond compliance. In order to help understand the driving mechanism of proactive corporate environmental behaviors from the firm’s perspective, this paper identifies the drivers affecting the proactive environmental management level (EML_p) based on the institutional theory, and gives an empirical study on the firms based in Changshu city of Jiangsu Province, China. The usable data, collected from the 117 valid respondents in a questionnaire survey, indicates that EML_p is still moderately low currently. Less than 10% of the samples are practicing all the six categorized types of voluntary environmental activities. The econometric exercise confirms a significantly positive effect of the externally mimetic pressure on EML_p, which may attribute to a higher sensitivity of Chinese companies to the market factors. However, the roles of the general public and industrial associations are not significant, showing the marginal power of selected normative pressures. Regarding internal factors, firms, which view environmental issues as opportunities and often arrange internal environmental training, are more likely to adopt proactive environmental activities. More concerns from the general public like neighborhood communities and mass media shall be addressed to enhance the normative power to improve EML_p in China from the future perspective.     

环境规制对城市生态技术扩散效率的影响研究

生态技术扩散是长江经济带生态文明建设的必要环节,也是企业履行环保责任的有效措施。本文以长江经济带110个地级及以上城市为研究对象,采用非径向方向距离函数对城市工业企业生态技术扩散效率进行测算,分别从整体和区域异质性角度实证分析环境规制对城市工业企业生态技术扩散效率的影响及内在机理。结果表明：长江经济带城市环境规制与生态技术扩散效率存在倒“U”形关系,环境规制对生态技术扩散效率还存在多重影响路径,外商直接投资和工业集聚在影响路径中分别起着中介作用,且外商直接投资和工业集聚的链式中介显著。在异质性分析中,发现环境规制、外商直接投资、工业集聚和生态技术扩散效率之间的关系因区域位置不同而存在差异性。为此,依据研究结论及环境规制实施现状提出相应的政策建议,实现长江经济带经济永续绿色发展目标。     

生态文明下的环境法制

生态文明建设的进程受到诸多因素的制约,如生态环境意识、环境立法、行政执法和司法缺陷、法律政策等,同时生态文明建设中面临诸多的难题,如公众参与、生态补偿、环境责任及环境纠纷等,应通过完善立法、执法及司法建设,以及完善公众参与机制、生态补偿机制、环境公益诉讼制度等保障机制来解决这些问题。本文首先通过比较分析生态文明与环境法制的关系,结合我国生态法制建设困境,提出了完善生态文明建设的一系列的环境法治保障措施,即从立法、执法、司法角度,从而实现科学发展观,构建和谐社会,最终实现环境—社会—经济协调发展的任务。     

Environmental Reform,Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process in Hong Kong: An Exploratory Study of Stakeholder Perspectives

A number of social surveys on environmental issues have been conducted in Hong Kong over the past 20 years but none has investigated processes of environmental reform from a stakeholder perspective. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of 120 representatives of eight stakeholder groups conducted in 2003. This exploratory study had two main objectives. First, it investigated stakeholder views on environmental policy making in Hong Kong including policy objectives and priorities, the policy instruments employed, the discourse surrounding environmental policy making and sustainable development, and the effectiveness of local environmental institutions. Second, it explored the extent to which Hong Kong is undergoing environmental reform processes consistent with the principles of ecological modernization.

The results indicate that a conventional command-and-control model focusing on pollution control drives environmental policy making in Hong Kong. Government is seen as a relatively unresponsive, ‘controller’ regime relying heavily on laws and regulation to pursue its policy objectives. Support exists among stakeholders for the use of new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs), particularly those of an economic nature, but there is scepticism about the potential effectiveness of voluntary environmental agreements. Local environmental discourse is characterized by the counter-positioning of economic development and the environment. Most stakeholders share the view that the debate surrounding sustainable development has been poorly informed and that the concept is not well-understood. Stakeholder responses suggest that there is considerable divergence between the potential and actual effectiveness of important local environmental institutions. While there is empirical evidence indicating that some environmental initiatives have produced technical outcomes consistent with ecological modernization, our findings suggest these do not reflect a conscious change in the direction of environmental policy and that the social and institutional transformations that also underpin ecological modernization have yet to become embedded in Hong Kong.     

The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature

Five studies assessed the validity and reliability of the connectedness to nature scale (CNS), a new measure of individuals’ trait levels of feeling emotionally connected to the natural world. Data from two community and three college samples demonstrated that the CNS has good psychometric properties, correlates with related variables (the new environmental paradigm scale, identity as an environmentalist), and is uncorrelated with potential confounds (verbal ability, social desirability). This paper supports ecopsychologists’ contention that connection to nature is an important predictor of ecological behavior and subjective well-being. It also extends social psychological research on self–other overlap, perspective taking, and altruistic behavior to the overlap between self and nature. The CNS promises to be a useful empirical tool for research on the relationship between humans and the natural world.     

Techno-environmental risks and ecological modernisation in “double-risk” societies: reconceptualising Ulrich Beck’s risk society thesis

By utilising a relatively underused framework developed by Maurie J. Cohen (1997. Risk society and ecological modernisation alternative visions for post-industrial nations. Futures, 29 (2), 105–119), this theoretical paper joins two of the most debated theories of environmental politics – ecological modernisation (EM) and Ulrich Beck’s risk society thesis – into a unified framework and problematises some of their implicit assumptions to theoretically introduce the notion of a “double-risk” society. In addition, it explains the differences between the traditional “Risk Society” theorised by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck and the newly introduced concept of a “double-risk” society. The arguments put forward in this paper provide some fresh perspectives facilitating the study of the techno-environmental risks and other ecological problems faced by “double-risk” societies. Theoretically, this paper adds to both EM theory and the risk society thesis as the generalisability of their existing versions is limited precisely because they fail to address some important social changes at the global structural level.     

The relationship between environmental activism,pro-environmental behaviour and social identity

Research on environmental activism remains poorly integrated and ill-defined and to date, there has been little examination of the relationship of environmental activism, pro-environmental behaviour and social identity. 131 students from an Australian University (M = 25.04 years old, SD = 8.17) voluntarily participated by returning an anonymous questionnaire containing an environmental activism scale, a pro-environmental behaviour scale and a social identity scale. The results revealed that while there was a significant relationship between social identity and environmental behaviour, only the citizenship component of environmental behaviour significantly predicted environmental activism. In other words, the relationship between social identity and environmental activism was indirect. This research presents the opportunity for further exploration of these relationships and to further investigate their relationship to inter-group processes.     

城市环境总体规划中的布局问题研究——以北京市丰台区为例

城市环境总体规划是对城市中长期环境管理的综合安排,是环境保护基础性的规划,其核心问题在于规模、结构和布局,即从城市环境、资源与生态约束角度为社会经济发展规划、城市总体规划与土地利用规划提出限制(环境、资源与生态红线),从环境承载力与发展生态适宜性分区角度为城市发展规划提出发展适度规模、结构与布局。在城市"多规融合"的实践过程中,城市环境总体规划,作为政府综合决策的重要支撑之一,可以为其他的规划编制提供约束条件以及土地供给能力测算值,使得各规划间能够相互支撑、相互融合,因此有必要先行。本文以北京市丰台区环境总体规划为例,从布局角度出发,基于区域土地资源供给能力对丰台区进行土地生态适宜性评价,并得到土地生态适宜性区划图,从而提出丰台区城市总体规划与土地利用规划的限制条件,为城市环境总体规划先行提供科学依据。     

山区生态产业及其环境保育的作用研究

山区生态产业是依赖于山区丰富的自然资源按照生态学原理组织形成的生态与经济有机统一的产业发展形式。本文阐述了山区生态产业七个方面的特征：即山区生态产业对自然资源的特殊依赖性、受高度景观带的制约性、结构多样性与复杂性、建设长期性、经济收益级差性、开发水平落后性和开发任务艰巨性。在此基础上,文章从要素调控设计、垂直带幅生态调控设计、产业模式系统生态设计出发探讨了生态产业与垂直地带性的构建关系,并举例说明了山区生态产业开发建设对环境保护的积极作用。得出了山区生态产业的开发就是努力避免产业活动对生态环境干扰的逆向作用,积极引导与实现产业活动对生态环境干扰的正向作用的结论。     

The rise of the eco-preneur and the messy world of environmental innovation

Abstract

Media and academic debates about the environment have increasingly made reference to the so-called ‘eco-preneur’ (‘green entrepreneur’ or ‘environmental entrepreneur’). These discussions encourage us to see the potential of such figures to act as drivers of environmental innovation. Their combination of entrepreneurial zeal and green motivations is seen as providing them with the ability to transcend the usual tensions between business and the environment. In academic circles a new literature is beginning to emerge around this perspective, ‘eco-preneurship’. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of eco-preneurship for understanding environmental innovation. In particular we ask where this literature, supported by popular images in the media, fixes our gaze when we think about environmental innovation in society. And, crucially, what might we be missing by concentrating our attention on these eco-preneurs? The paper concludes by suggesting that environmental innovation is better understood as an inherently messy and complex institutional process, which cannot be reduced to the psychology of entrepreneurial personalities.     

论行政机关提起的生态环境损害赔偿之法律范畴与路径

行政机关提起的生态环境损害赔偿之法律范畴与路径是生态环境损害赔偿立法时需要解决的两个核心问题。我国目前将生态环境损害赔偿定位为民事范畴,该定位一定程度上违背了行政责任与民事责任的界分。本文从生态环境的属性切入,得出在公私法二分语境下,生态环境损害赔偿宜纳入行政法范畴的结论;其次,通过对比美国与欧盟的做法,展开行政法视角下强制性与非强制性二元路径的探讨。本文认为,我国可借鉴美国的做法,在未来立法时采用二元路径:违法排放污染物质需要清除的,行政机关可依法责令清除污染,或采用执法和解方式与责任人达成一致;生态环境服务功能损失的恢复则不宜采用强制性命令,行政机关可与责任人进行和解。     

Sustaining Ecological Integrity with Respect to Climate Change: A Fuzzy Adaptive Management Approach

A fuzzy adaptive management framework is proposed for evaluating the vulnerability of an ecosystem to losing ecological integrity as a result of climate change in an historical period (ex post evaluation) and selecting the best compensatory management action for reducing potential adverse impacts of future climate change on ecological integrity in a future period (ex ante evaluation). The ex post evaluation uses fuzzy logic to test hypotheses about the extent of past ecosystem vulnerability to losing ecological integrity and the ex ante evaluation uses the fuzzy minimax regret criterion to determine the best compensatory management action for alleviating potential adverse impacts of climate change on ecosystem vulnerability to losing ecological integrity in a future period. The framework accounts for uncertainty regarding: (1) the relationship between ecosystem vulnerability to losing ecological integrity and ecosystem resilience; (2) the relationship between ecosystem resilience and the extent to which observed indicators of ecological integrity depart from their thresholds; (3) the extent of future climate change; and (4) the potential impacts of future climate change on ecological integrity and ecosystem resilience. The adaptive management element of the framework involves using the ex post and ex ante evaluations iteratively in consecutive time segments of the future time period to determine if and when it is beneficial to adjust compensatory management actions to climate change. A constructed example is used to demonstrate the framework.     

The effects of social desirability on self-reported environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour

There are several claims in the literature that social desirability concerns affect people’s response to self-reported measures of environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour. However, only a few empirical studies have indirectly evaluated the impact of social desirability on environmental issues measures, and those who did have found only a low impact. This article describes two studies that explicitly address whether socially desirable responding has direct and moderating effects on self-reported environmental attitudes and ecological behaviour. Results from correlational and moderated multiple regression analyses from both studies showed that social desirability had only a weak direct effect on environmental attitudes (but not ecological behaviour), and had no moderating effect on the environmental attitudes–ecological behaviour relationship. Implications of these findings for research on environmental issues are discussed.

德国环境税的经验及其对中国的借鉴意义

随着经济社会的发展,我国环境质量状况形势严峻,环境保护体制及法制滞后、公众环保意识薄弱.目前中国环境税制的改革正在进行,但是面临着税系建设、征收方法、保障措施等方面的系列挑战.本文通过系统调研经济合作与发展组织（OECD）的环境税发展历程及发展现状,重点介绍了德国的环境税收体系,并对其特点及成功经验进行深入分析,进而对比了中国现行的环境政策及税收制度,最后指出了德国环境税的成功经验及其对中国环境税收改革的启示.本研究对于我国环境税制建设与改革、大力推进生态文明建设等方面具有重要借鉴意义.     

The significance of environmental impacts: an exploration of the concept

Since environmental impact assessment (EIA) is concerned primarily withsignificant environmental impacts, the concept of impact significance deserves to be defined and applied rigorously. In this article use of the term over the past 15 years in EIA documentation is reviewed. Some recent attempts at elucidating the concept are summarized. Four perspectives on impact significance that emerged from a series of workshops on the ecological basis for EIA are presented. These perspectives include (a) statistical (related to problems of isolating project-induced changes from natural variation), (b) ecological (related to the importance of project-induced changes from a purely ecological perspective), (c) social (related to the acceptability of project-induced changes in important environmental attributes), and (d) project (related to whether project-induced changes will indeed influence project decision making). The following synthesis is proposed: Any exercise in judging the significance of an environmental impact should thoroughly consider (a) the importance of the environmental attribute in question to project decision makers, (2) the distribution of change in time and space, (c) the magnitude of change, and (d) the reliability with which change has been predicted or measured. The implications of considering these factors are discussed.     

Responding to a Public Health Objection to Vaccinating the Great Apes

Capps and Lederman, in a paper published in this journal in 2015, argued that, at the time, the dismal circumstances of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was an opportunity to revisit public health responses to emergent infectious diseases. Using a One Health lens, they argued for an ecological perspective—one that looked to respond to zoonoses as an environmental as well as public health concern. Using Ebola virus disease as an example, they suggested shared immunity as a strategy to vaccinate both humans and great apes. Since then, vaccination as a conservation strategy in this case has been debated and at least one great ape vaccination trial has been proposed: some, however, are less convinced of the ethical arguments to pursue vaccinating wild animals. Using this opportunity, we review Capps and Lederman’s arguments and directly respond to the plausible objections to them.     

Environmental policy stringency,renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions: Panel cointegration analysis for BRIICTS countries

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between environmental policy stringency and CO₂ emissions in BRIICTS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, Turkey and South Africa) for the period 1993–2014 after controlling for renewable energy, fossil energy, oil prices and income. We believe that this is the first attempt to use the recently OECD-developed environmental policy stringency index to test the effectiveness of environmental stringency policy in reducing CO₂ emission in these countries. Applying the Panel Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive Distributive Lag (PMG-ARDL) estimator, we found an inverted U–shaped relationship between environmental policy stringency and CO₂ emissions. This suggests that initially strict stringent environmental policy does not lead to improvements in the environment but after a certain level or a threshold point, environmental stringency policy leads to improvement in environmental quality. Renewable energy consumption was negatively related to CO₂ emissions while fossil energy consumption and real oil prices and income were positively and significantly related to CO₂. Our findings suggest that strengthening the stringency of environmental policies and promoting renewable energy are effective ways of preventing environmental degradation in BRIICTS countries.     

An Environmental Kuznets Curve for N2O emissions in Germany: an ARDL approach

This paper analyses the relationship between nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, economic growth, agricultural land used and exports in Germany. We use time‐series data between 1970 and 2012 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) methodology to test for cointegration in the long run. Results show that there is a quadratic long run relationship between N₂O emissions and economic growth, confirming the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for Germany. Agricultural land area affects N₂O emissions positively, whereas exports affect emissions negatively. The turning point is $27,880, which is within the sample and implies that Germany is in the decreasing part of the curve of environmental degradation. The paper shows that, contrary to testing the EKC in less developed countries, mitigation of N₂O emissions does not negatively affect growth in Germany. As such, it is feasible to undertake any conservative policy in order to reduce emissions without major consequences on economic sectors.     

Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus

ABSTRACT

Concepts of ecological and environmental democracy seek to reconcile two normative ideals: ensuring environmental sustainability while safeguarding democracy. These ideals are frequently conceived as being in conflict, as democracy is perceived as too slow and cumbersome to deliver the urgent large-scale collective action needed to tackle environmental problems. Theories addressing the democracy-environment nexus can be situated on a spectrum from theories of ecological democracy that are more critical of existing liberal democratic institutions to theories of environmental democracy that call for reforming rather than radically transforming or dismantling those institutions. This article reviews theoretical and empirical scholarship on the democracy-environment nexus. We find continued theoretical and empirical diversity in the field, as well as vibrant debates on democratising global environmental politics, local material practices, and non-human representation. We argue for stronger dialogue between environmental political theory and empirical, policy-oriented research on democracy and sustainability, as well as further exploration of complementarities between ecological and environmental democracy. We identify four main areas of challenge and opportunity for theory and practice: public participation and populism; technocracy and expertise; governance across scales; and ecological rights and limits.