Identifying future scenarios and their implications for transport policy

Scenario analysis is a technique that is increasingly being used as a way of identifying future policy options and issues in the long-term. This paper discusses the role of scenario analysis in policy development in relation to future transport policy. It discusses three key stages in scenario analysis: the identification of policy targets; the development of images of the future; and the construction of policy packages.     

Energy transition and its implications for environmentally sustainable development in Africa

SUMMARY

Energy transition is the process whereby there is an increase in the volume and proportion of commercial energy, to the extent that it replaces traditional fuels as the main source of energy and having enormous implications for the physical and biotic environment. This energy-environment process has rarely been the focus of research investigation in Africa. Using cross-national data drawn from the African continent, this paper examines and accounts for intercountry variations in the nature and extent of the energy transition process. The empirical analysis reveals that, for the continent as a whole, the extent to which commercial energy replaces traditional fuels is quite low. It varies between 33% and 39%. However, inter-country variations were found to be as high as 90% in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and South Africa; and less than 15% for such countries as Benin, Burkina Faso, The Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Lesotho and Uganda. The key factors explaining intercounty variations in the energy transition process are the level of urbanization and the extent of forest and woodland resources. Other factors of secondary importance include economic growth, incidence of poverty, affordability of electrical appliances, energy trade status of the country in question and the price of commercial fuel. Finally, the paper shows that the identification of these key energy transition-inducing variables is a necessary prerequisite to an effective energy and environmentally sustainable development policy formulation in Africa.     

The specification of sustainable urban transport strategies

Transport strategies have been developed for nine European cities to achieve optimum performance in terms of a range of objective functions. The functions selected represent economic efficiency, sustainability and a combination of these. The strategies have been based on combinations of a standard set of policy instruments, including public transport infrastructure, frequency and fares, road capacity increases, low cost road pricing and parking charges. The optimisation method is described, and results presented. The reactions of city authorities to the proposed strategies are discussed and implications for transport policy outlined.     

Analysis of the current situation of environmental policy of China and establishment of distributed environmental policy framework

In this study, China’s current macro-environmental policies as well as their implementation and management tools are analyzed. By using the basic economic methodology, detailed studies are conducted focusing on the implementation effect of contemporary China’s typical environmental policy of the total pollutant discharge quantity control type, and also the two types of environmental management tools are compared from the perspective of implementation costs and policy uncertainty. By introduction of distributed management tools into the implementation of environmental policies, market-oriented means and the methods of economic analysis are introduced into environmental policy decision-making mechanisms, which could afford a new method for changing the current relatively low efficiency of environmental policy, solving the problem of “government failure” in environmental policy implementation, and providing a new way to make environmental policy system more flexible and more efficient. It is of great practical significance to solve China's current structural, complex and accumulative environmental problems.     

European Union agricultural policy scenarios' impacts on social sustainability of agricultural holdings

This paper aims to assess the impacts of household behaviour on social sustainability by simulating agricultural policy scenarios of the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). For this purpose a multicriteria model was formulated, at farm household level, in order to study the social impacts of the CAPs using different scenarios. The scenarios were chosen on the basis of the main EU policies affecting farm households, such as the alternative crops scenario, the Water Framework Directive scenario and the agrienvironmental schemes scenario. The data for this analysis resulted from the CAP-IRE project, a European FP7-funded project. The model includes a utility function with several conflicting criteria such as maximization of gross margin and risk and labour minimization. The model is further used to simulate the impacts on social sustainability by estimating main social indicators. The model is applied in two different farm types in Greece. The results show that the CAP scenarios have multiple social impacts on agricultural holdings, and particularly on the farm labour structure. These impacts have negative effect on social sustainability.     

Sustainability indicators for environmental performance and sustainability assessment of the productions of four fine Italian wines

Increased awareness of the importance of environmental protection and the introduction of international standards like ISO 14001 stimulated development of environmental sustainability indicators as a means to measure systems environmental performance. Here, a thermodynamic approach, emergy analysis (Odum, 1988) was used to obtain sustainability indicators able to analyse and quantify the productive and ecological performance of four famous Italian wine productions: Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Nobile di Montepulciano, and Barbera d'hti. The application to agricultural production was motivated by the growing need for productive and environmentally sound development in modern agriculture, in which the resource base, the environment, is preserved. The choice of wines, more precisely, grape production, is due to their importance for Italian agriculture and the economy. All the wines demonstrated a good long-term environmental sustainability, especially in view of their high quality and in comparison with the average Italian wine production. Emergy analysis proved a powerful tool for assessing environmental performance of these systems, and its use could easily be extended to other wine productions to obtain a form of environmental performance classification of this product. Systematic use of emergy analysis to assess environmental performance of different processes and products, not necessarily in agriculture, could be useful for environmental certification.     

Sustainability of Nations

SUMMARY

A method is presented to interrelate the development of economy, environment and social quality in communities. Economy and environment, in initial development stages, oppose each other. Social welfare and economy generally develop simultaneously. To assess overall progress in sustainable development, an integrated and quantifiable framework is presented which defines five levels of sustainability. Increasing sustainability is characterized by growing responsibility for the impacts of man's actions in space and time. Through increased eco-efficiency and changed awareness, nations and companies arrive at a synergistic relationship between environment and economy. It is indicated that social security benefits expenditure increases by a factor 3.5 and carbon dioxide emissions per capita decreases by a factor 3 at each higher level of sustainability. Quantified differences in sustainability levels of 24 nations are shown. Priorities for improving and safeguarding sustainability are indicated.     

绿色食品生产补偿的理论机理与政策设计

制约我国绿色食品发展的重要因素之一是其生态环境成本难以通过市场来兑现。为解决这一问题,文章以生态补偿为突破口,首先从理论上明确绿色食品生产具有正外部性,政府对其生产企业或农户进行补偿具有合理性和必要性,然后进一步探讨其制度构建与政策设计。（1）构建一个包括政府、生产者、消费者三方的博弈模型,着重分析绿色食品供需过程中、政府影响下生产者和消费者的利益动机和博弈行为。模型结果显示,存在能够满足绿色食品供需平衡的1个纯战略纳什均衡解和1个混合战略纳什均衡解,这两个纳什均衡解的实现条件均要求政府对绿色食品生产者提供补偿和对消费者实施优惠政策。（2）利用C-D生产函数建构的利润函数和恢复费用法探讨绿色食品生产补偿标准范围,结果表明最低补偿标准应满足生产者生产绿色食品和生产普通食品利润相等,而最高补偿标准则应对绿色食品生产中创造的环境效益进行支付。（3）文章最后从“建立经济政策支持体系,构筑科技进步支撑体系,完善品牌质量保障体系,培育产业化生产体系”等4方面提出了现阶段我国绿色食品生产补偿的政策建议。     

Assessment of the Sustainability of Bushmeat Hunting Based on Dynamic Bioeconomic Models

Abstract:  Open-access hunting is a dynamic system in which individual hunters respond to changes in system variables such as costs of hunting and prices obtained for their catch. Sustainability indices used by conservationists ignore these human processes and focus only on the biological sustainability of current offtake levels. This focus implicitly assumes that offtake is constant, says little about the actual sustainability of the system, and fails to provide any basis for predicting the impact of most feasible management interventions. A bioeconomic approach overcomes these limitations by explicitly integrating both the biological and human components of the system. We present a graphical representation of a simple bioeconomic model of bushmeat hunting and use it to demonstrate the importance of considering system dynamics when assessing sustainability. Our results show that commonly used static sustainability indices are often misleading. The best method to assess hunting sustainability is situation dependent, but characterizing supply and demand curves, even crudely, has greater potential than current approaches to provide robust predictions in the medium term.     

LEED绿色建筑评价体系视角下的可持续施工管理

LEED绿色建筑评价体系是目前国际上最具权威性的绿色建筑评价标准,由美国绿色建筑委员会制定并推行.在结合国内施工阶段现状的基础上,寻找LEED绿色建筑评价体系中与施工阶段的契合点,针对相关要求采取措施,最终达到节能、环保、可持续的目的.表1,参6.     

Is Current Consumption Excessive? A General Framework and Some Indications for the United States

Abstract:  Many prior studies have explored the implications of human population growth and environmentally problematic technologies for biodiversity loss and other forms of environmental degradation. Relatively few, however, have examined the impacts of the level and composition of consumption. We offer a framework that shows how the level and composition of a society's total consumption relate to the uses of various forms of capital and to the sustainability of natural resources and human well-being. We relate the framework to two main approaches—top–down macro studies and bottom–up computer models—for measuring whether overall consumption in the United States satisfies a sustainability requirement. Existing top–down studies have shortcomings that bias their results toward optimism, and current computer simulation models, although strong on revealing biophysical outcomes, are limited in their ability to evaluate impacts on human well-being. Although some ambiguities arise in determining whether overall consumption in the United States is excessive, our conclusions regarding the composition of U.S. consumption are unambiguous. Distorted consumption patterns and associated production methods lead to excessively rapid natural resource depletion; greater conservation would yield gains to current and future generations that more than compensate for the sacrifices involved. Public policies that deal with the composition problem not only would help conserve natural resources and improve current welfare but also would reduce the costs of meeting the goal of sustainability.     

The activity of Polish non-governmental organisations regarding the implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development

The growing interest of citizens in environmental issues is reflected in the mission statements and actions of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), defined as bodies that are voluntary, non-profit and independent of public authority. The article analyses the activities of Polish NGOs with regard to the environmental dimension of sustainable development. The overarching research question posed in this article refers to the extent to which entities of the third sector adopt, implement and appropriately report the implementation of the principles of sustainable development. The empirical basis for the analysis has been found in the statements made by public benefit organisations, as well as in data concerning the activities of NGOs from publications covering the concept of sustainable development.     

不同农田土壤养分可持续性指数的研究

讨论了不同农田土壤碳、氮、磷、钾养分的可持续性指数。结果表明,不同施肥方式、不同土壤类型对碳、氮养分可持续性指数的影响表现为有机肥配施化肥处理＞有机肥处理＞化肥处理,潮土＞水稻土＞红壤;对磷、钾养分表现为化肥处理＞有机肥配施化肥处理＞有机肥处理,水稻土＞潮土＞红壤。相关分析表明,土壤养分可持续性指数与土壤养分相关或极相关。这表明,土壤养分可持续性指数可以用来评价土壤肥力和指示土壤养分的动态变化。     

基于足迹家族和行星边界的主要国家环境可持续性多维评价

足迹家族和行星边界都是国际可持续发展研究领域新近出现的热点概念。系统回顾了足迹家族和行星边界的概念缘起,首次提出了基于足迹家族和行星边界的环境可持续性概念及其评价框架。其中,足迹家族定义为：人类在自然资源消费和废弃物排放过程中占用的地球生态系统的再生和消纳能力;行星边界定义为：可供人类安全占用的地球生态系统的最大再生和消纳能力。由此,将环境可持续性定量描述为人类环境足迹小于或等于对应行星边界的情形,反之则为环境不可持续性。分析了该环境可持续性概念的6项基本特征：系统性、选择性、交互性、不确定性、尺度依赖性、赤字可权衡性。在此基础上,以全球30个主要国家为例,对提出的足迹家族-行星边界整合框架进行了实证应用。从与人类社会关系重大的环境问题入手,对各国在气候变化（碳排放）、水资源利用和土地利用3方面的环境可持续性进行了多维测度。结果显示：22国的碳排放呈现不可持续性,人均碳赤字最高为美国的26.1 t·a-1（以CO2当量计）;17国的水资源利用呈现不可持续性,人均水赤字最高为西班牙的1497.8 m3·a-1;15国的土地利用呈现不可持续性,人均土地赤字最高为荷兰的2.3 hm2·a-1。研究表明,碳排放的可持续性与社会经济发展水平关系密切,发达国家对气候变化的贡献明显大于发展中国家;水资源利用和土地利用的可持续性则更多地受各国人均资源禀赋制约。本研究对科学量化和比较不同国家的环境可持续性具有参考价值,该评价方法也适用于其他环境问题或国家以下尺度的核算分析。     

Sustainability measurement of product-service systems: Brazilian case studies about electric car-sharing

Modifying the traditional production system and the culture of consumption is necessary to achieve a sustainable society. The product-service system (PSS) business model allows companies to progressively add services to physical products, thus promoting more pro-sustainable business outcomes. The purpose of this work is to verify how a PSS model can contribute to sustainability by analyzing two electric car-sharing projects using a set of five factors. As a methodological strategy, a Systematic Literature Review and a case study of the two projects (VAMO and EMOTIVE) were performed. Findings show benefits generated by both projects as to environmental aspects, mainly related to gases emission. It was also possible to observe social benefits due to income development and environmental awareness. This paper thus contributes to the discussion of the potential of the PSS models and how they can leverage business models toward a more sustainable society. Although the results are applicable only in this case, this article can motivate new projects and contribute to enriching the debate about sustainable solutions, as the literature in this field still provides few case studies showing these types of applications.     

内分泌干扰物壬基酚在环境中迁移转化的研究进展

作为一种内分泌干扰物,壬基酚(Nonylphenol,NP)是壬基酚聚氧乙烯醚(NPnEO)的主要降解产物,具有高亲脂性、难降解性、生物累积性和高毒性.全面了解NP在环境中的迁移转化规律是对其进行科学的风险评价的基础.本文归纳和分析了近几年国内外学者有关NP在环境中的分布情况及其迁移转化的研究动态,从来源、分布及其在环境中主要的迁移转化过程和机理等方面分别论述了内分泌干扰物壬基酚在环境中的行为,重点讨论了NP在沉积物和土壤中的吸附-解吸和生物降解的机理及影响因素,最后指出了今后的主要研究方向.     

冻融作用对土壤磷素迁移转化影响研究进展

磷素是生态系统中重要的生源要素之一,其在土壤中的丰缺变化制约着植物的生长状况,寒冷地区土壤的结构与理化性质常年受到冻结和融化的周期性影响,而冻融作用又强烈的影响着土壤磷的迁移转化途径,磷的生物地球化学行为是生态系统初级生产力的决定因素之一。系统的归纳分析了近年来国内外关于土壤吸附作用、土壤含水率以及土壤生物对磷素迁移转化过程影响的研究报道,主要研究结论认为：（1）冻融循环导致土壤颗粒粒径变小以及铁铝化合物形态改变,进而影响了磷在冻融土壤上的吸附行为;（2）土壤水在冻融作用下的固液相转换改变了土壤浸提液中磷的含量,而土壤含水率的高低与磷在土壤中的汇聚和释放存在密切关系;（3）土壤微生物和植物体内的磷在冻融过程中成为土壤中有机磷的主要来源之一。众多研究结果显示,同一制约因素在冻融作用驱动下对土壤磷的影响效果各不相同,这是因为冻融过程中土壤成分、水分含量、冻融时间、循环次数、植被类型和微生物状况等条件共同影响着磷的迁移转化行为,众多相互关联的因子产生的综合效应导致磷在冻融土壤中的迁移转化行为各异。总结分析当前的研究成果,提出冻融作用对土壤磷的影响应在土壤景观尺度、研究方法和手段、预防和治理措施方面进行深入的研究和探索。     

论环境与发展综合决策的哲学基础及实现途径

本文用马克思主义哲学观点对环发综合决策作了理论方面的探讨,认为它符合“从实际出发、实事求是”的思想路线;符合“发展是硬道理”的科学诊断;符合系统论原则;符合矛盾统一原则,同时提出阵条实现综合决策的建议和对策,即建立环发综合决策体制;建立环发综合决策制度;环保部门主动参与环发综合决策;做好“结合”工作,使环发综合决策落在实处。     

Sustainability and the measurement of future paths in genuine savings: case studies

This paper extrapolates future paths of genuine savings (GS) by using our integrated assessment model. The results with the base case (BC) indicate that both GS without population change (GS) and GS with population change (GSn) are almost positive in OECD countries in the twenty-first century (satisfying the necessary but insufficient condition for sustainability); those numbers are projected to be negative in 2100. Asia (ASIA), the Middle East and Africa (MEAF), the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (FSEE), and the world show upward trends for both values, showing negative signs in 2010 and positive signs after 2050 (in ASIA, MEAF, and the world) and in 2100 (in FSEE). The values in Latin America (LAMR) remain negative throughout. We examine additional following three cases: demand reduction (DR), carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions reduction (CR), and population reduction (PR). The GSn results compared to the BC indicate that (1) GSn in DR is similar to that of BC, (2) GSn in PR is slightly higher than that of BC, and (3) GSn in CR is unexpectedly lower than that of BC. This GSn reduction in the CR case derives from the fact that the term for calculating resource depletion (especially resource rent, which equals the difference between price and cost) in GS and GSn increased, leading to a greater term being subtracted from gross savings. The resource price increases with the marginal price of natural gas, given the energy-source shift in reducing CO₂ emissions, from cheap coal to expensive natural gas.