Creating integrated business and environmental value within the context of China’s circular economy and ecological modernization

This paper investigates the challenges and opportunities of how firms and organizations can and will be able to strike a better balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship in the context of China’s emerging ‘circular economy’ policy paradigm and based on ecological modernization theoretic approaches.Based on three company case studies in the information technology and electronic industries in China, we identify and demonstrate how a blended business and environmental value can be created from adopting a sustainable supply chain management approach. The adoption of a sustainable supply chain management approach is rapidly becoming a key business challenge and opportunity in China and other large emerging economies around the world, where our greatest environmental management challenges currently reside and will continue to exist for many years to come. The value creation framework proposed in research focuses on evaluating three case study companies who appear in various stages of an electronic industry supply chain. Value creation within a supply chain can provide the impetus for organizations to adopt circular economy, sustainable supply chain practices, for competitive reasons.In addition, we describe how a value proposition can be evaluated at two levels of analysis, a more specific micro-level and a more general meso-level of analysis. The four major business value dimensions include cost reduction, revenue generation, resiliency, and legitimacy and image.The initial findings are that a variety of opportunities exist for electronic firms in emerging and developing countries, while results from this study provide an important scholarly foundation to develop and refine sustainable supply chain management practices in emerging and developing economies.     

中国能源分区情景分析及可持续发展功能定位

论文在综合运用基于IPAT方程的情景分析法,借助ArcGIS空间分析技术的基础上,初步构建了中国能源可持续发展分区技术,基于该技术开展了中国能源分区及可持续发展功能定位研究。得到以下结论:①持续到21世纪中叶,能源消费仍集中分布于中国东部沿海地区,而能源供给则集中分布在"三北"(东北、华北与西北)地区;②中国能源对外依存度最高的区域集中分布于东部沿海京津冀、长三角与珠三角地区,具体包括上海、浙江、北京、江苏、广东与海南,而能源对外依存度最小的省份则主要分布于"三北"地区;③按能源可持续利用情况把中国划分为五大区,即能源强不可持续区(I)、能源不可持续区(II)、能源弱可持续区(III)、能源可持续区(IV)与能源强可持续区(V)。最大幅度地挖掘能源资源潜力,实现能源资源的本地化、多元化及来源的多元化是强输入区(I区)、次强输入区(II区)实现能源可持续发展的必然选择;不断提升可再生能源对非可再生能源的替代力度,优化能源结构是自给自足区(III区)的核心所在;作为周边区域能源安全缓冲区是次强输出区(IV区)的主要职责;作为国家能源安全保障区和能源基地是强输出区(V区)的功能所在。     

Sustainable development and the water–energy–food nexus: A perspective on livelihoods

The water–energy–food nexus is being promoted as a conceptual tool for achieving sustainable development. Frameworks for implementing nexus thinking, however, have failed to explicitly or adequately incorporate sustainable livelihoods perspectives. This is counterintuitive given that livelihoods are key to achieving sustainable development. In this paper we present a critical review of nexus approaches and identify potential linkages with sustainable livelihoods theory and practice, to deepen our understanding of the interrelated dynamics between human populations and the natural environment. Building upon this review, we explore the concept of ‘environmental livelihood security’ – which encompasses a balance between natural resource supply and human demand on the environment to promote sustainability – and develop an integrated nexus-livelihoods framework for examining the environmental livelihood security of a system. The outcome is an integrated framework with the capacity to measure and monitor environmental livelihood security of whole systems by accounting for the water, energy and food requisites for livelihoods at multiple spatial scales and institutional levels. We anticipate this holistic approach will not only provide a significant contribution to achieving national and regional sustainable development targets, but will also be effective for promoting equity amongst individuals and communities in local and global development agendas.     

Developing sustainable products and services

In light of increasing pressures to adopt a more sustainable approach to product design and manufacture, the requirement to develop sustainable products is one of the key challenges facing industry in the 21st century. Hence, the concept of developing sustainable products as well as services is evolving as a key element of Cleaner Production. Sustainable product development initiatives (mainly through eco-design) have been evolving for some time to support companies develop more sustainable products. Ireland has been running the highly successful Environmentally Superior Products (ESP) initiative that supports industrial companies to incorporate a more sustainable approach to the development of products and/or services. The lessons learned from the ESP and other global Sustainable Product and Service Developments in industry and research, are being used to develop a method for effective sustainable product and/or service development (SPSD) in industry. The method is designed to provide pragmatic guidance to business and industry for developing sustainable products and services as well as incorporating this approach within existing corporate strategy, cleaner production and product development systems. This method is being developed by the authors at the Environmental Policy and Management Group (EPMG), Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Imperial College London, UK in conjunction with industry and practitioners. The method provides a framework for implementing SPSD throughout the entire lifecycle of a product and/or service. It can be used to identify, assess and implement the options for optimum sustainability in the design and development of a product and/or service. This paper describes the key features of this method.     

Wasting collaboration potential: A study in urban green space governance in a post-transition country

Most accounts of urban green space governance originate in cities where such initiatives have been successful. Meanwhile, there is too little information on cities where such initiatives develop with more difficulty. In order to overcome the problems that such cities face, their situations need to be studied more carefully to facilitate peer comparisons. This article provides an account of urban green space governance in three cities in Poland (Krakow, Lodz, Poznan), where environmental protection is still quite far down on the list of political priorities. With the use of a social network analysis we looked at the extent of relationships between different stakeholders and the roles of different actors within the network. The results indicate that the network's collaboration potential is barely used and that cross-sectoral collaboration is especially deficient. In particular, public institutions hold a relatively strong position and downplay the role of other actors. More collaboration is necessary and the potential bridging role of NGOs should be used to a larger extent. However, this requires more openness and trust within the network.     

Sustainability in higher education: what is happening?

This special issue focuses upon diverse facets of Education for Sustainability. The 33 documents within it are from authors in institutions of higher education from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, Central America and North America. Some authors use discipline-specific foci to foster inclusion of sustainable development (SD) within their educational programs. Many other authors report on their experiences in working within interdisciplinary teams to re-focus education, research and outreach to help accelerate the rate at which educational institutions foster and underpin the values, knowledge and actions to help their students transform society from unsustainable to sustainable patterns.The authors of these articles underscore the importance of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development that began on January 2005 to be an important framework and a catalyst for increasing SD educational, research and outreach efforts within all academic institutions, worldwide.The developers of this special issue hope that the lessons learned by the authors of these articles will help all in envisioning the way forward and in overcoming the resistance to change within and outside of academia as we work together on our joint journey toward sustainable societies.     

Creating and implementing a model for sustainable development in tourism enterprises

The quest for sustainable tourism presents a challenge to integrate economic, social and environmental issues in tourism planning and—in order to implement this—to change attitudes and traditions among the different stakeholders within tourism. This calls for involvement of the different stakeholders in the change processes towards sustainable tourism and, accordingly, the creation of new patterns of interaction and collaboration between the stakeholders. This paper analyses how a project on sustainable tourism development in Mid- and North Jutland, Denmark, has engaged 26 small and medium sized tourism enterprises in an incremental change process towards sustainable tourism.Using the theory of collaboration, the paper analyses the process of identifying the common interests, defining the problems, setting the directions, and developing and starting the implementation of a four-step model for sustainable development in tourism enterprises. The question addressed is how to create a change process in the enterprises that is at the same time realistic and innovative.     

The 10-tenets of adaptive management and sustainability: An holistic framework for understanding and managing the socio-ecological system

The three basic principles of sustainable development, relating to ecology, economy and society, have long been embedded within national and international strategies. In recent years we have augmented these principles by a further seven considerations giving rise to the so-called 10-tenets of sustainable management. Whilst theoretically appealing, discussion of the tenets to date has been largely generic and qualitative and, until the present paper, there has been no formal and quantitative application of these tenets to an actual example. To promote the concept of successful and sustainable environmental management there is the need to develop a robust and practical framework to accommodate value judgements relating to each of the tenets. Although, as originally presented, the tenets relate specifically to management measures, they may also be applied directly to a specific development or activity. This paper examines the application of the tenets in both of these contexts, and considers their incorporation into an assessment tool to help visualise and quantify issues of sustainability.     

Implementing service-based chemical procurement: lessons and results

Chemical use reduction is strongly desirable for environmental and public welfare reasons, and is a critical element of moving towards more sustainable consumption in the business-to-business economy. However, the fundamental economic relationship between chemical supplier and chemical customer creates supply side incentives for increased chemical use. Chemical management services (CMS) is a business model that aligns economic incentives in the chemical supplier–customer relationship towards reduced chemical use by making chemical services rather than chemical volume the basis of supplier compensation. CMS thus ‘servicizes’ the chemical supply chain and is a Product Service System with significant potential environmental benefits. CMS enjoys high penetration in the US auto and semiconductor sectors, and is emergent in other sectors. The paper synthesizes lessons learned from hands-on work with 15 chemical-using firms over 5 years in all aspects of CMS program implementation. Key points are that poor cost accounting and chemical information management form significant barriers to making, understanding and evaluating the CMS business case. The details of contractual compensation mechanisms are critical to achieving in practice the potential environmental benefits of the CMS model.     

The sustainable innovation design diamond for micro-sized enterprises in tourism

This paper suggests a method for supporting sustainable innovation processes within micro-sized enterprises (MsE) in the tourism industry. Based on the sustainable innovation design diamond model, it underlines the main steps in the process of developing successful sustainable innovation on such a small scale, solitary or within a network. A brainstorming tool is the pivot of the method, supporting the creative processes that are needed for new or joint idea generation and at the same time creating awareness about the potential MsE have and the possibilities for collaboration. First tests with the brainstorm tool indicated there is a need and use for the design diamond.     

移液管和移液枪在化学分析中对检测结果影响的比较

本文通过分别使用移液管和移液枪对标准溶液样品进行稀释，然后对稀释后样品进行检测和结果的比较，验证了移液管和移液枪对检测结果准确度的影响。结果表明，使用移液管稀释的样品，其检测结果与标准值之差都在标准值的不确定度范围（1%）以内；使用移液枪稀释的样品，其检测结果与标准值之差都远高于标准值的不确定度范围（1%）。这表明，在正确使用移液器具的前提下，用移液管稀释的样品的检测结果准确度远远高于用移液枪稀释的样品。建议在化学分析检测工作中，尤其在稀释或定容的过程中，尽可能使用移液管。     

Fitting together the building blocks for sustainability: a revised model for integrating ecological,social, and financial factors into business decision-making

Companies committed to integrating sustainability concerns into product decisions are confronted with the daunting task of assessing hundreds, or thousands, of materials and goods. Further complicating efforts have been the rapid growth of environmental and social assessment principles, strategies, actions, and tools. The lack of clarity on how existing approaches are complementary or distinct has resulted in ambiguities about pathways forward for companies. This current state of the field highlights the need to draw out interconnections between the wide range of current work on integrating environmental and social issues into material, product, and other business decisions.This article—developed through collaboration among several environmental, social, and sustainability-oriented researchers and practitioners—addresses this need through building upon pre-existing work [J. Cleaner Prod. 10(3) (2002) 197; J. Cleaner Prod. 8(3) (2000) 243]. It proposes adaptations on a framework for organizing the assessment field, including development of exemplary sustainable product characteristics and their inclusion in a “strategic sustainable development” decision-making model and process [J. Cleaner Prod. 10(3) (2002) 197]. The article also argues for an expansion of analytical approaches within this previously developed framework in order to highlight social aspects of sustainability and landscape-level issues. Finally, the article puts these elements together to describe a pathway forward for companies. In the conclusion, areas for future research are highlighted.     

Fostering collaboration between universities regarding regional sustainability initiatives – the University of Maribor

This paper presents the current position and role of the University of Maribor (UM) in linking stakeholders, in order to achieve sustainable regional development. A strategic approach is proposed for facilitating collaboration of the UM with regional development agencies, the local community and industry, based on collaborative learning and development. Furthermore, elements contributing to a successful learning partnership are identified together with the barriers. The results show that regional stakeholders (university, municipality, NGOs, and companies) are commonly engaged in a sustainable regional development, but their activities are not sufficiently linked. The strategic approach, and collaborative learning have led to many on-going SD projects within the University of Maribor. Room for improvement exists, regarding external university collaboration, especially in the fields of research, knowledge transfer, technological development, dissemination of information, education, and innovations.     

An occupational chemical priority list for future life cycle assessments

A chemical priority list is presented to screen and identify relevant chemicals, for which more detailed and industrial-sector specific quantitative exposure, risk and life-cycle assessments should be completed. A list of 38 solvents were ranked according to the framework of the LCA toxicity model, USEtox, and according to the framework proposed by the UNEP/SETAC working group on Indoor Exposure Assessment in LCA. An additional method, based on a risk assessment (RA) framework, was used to examine the robustness of the priority rank. Under both schemes dichloromethane, ethanol, formaldehyde, hexane and toluene all rank in the top ten positions. These chemicals are currently relevant with regard to health effects on a population level. Some of these chemicals are known as hazardous, while others, such as ethanol, have a low toxicity but were prioritized because of their extensive use and high exposure levels. This study attempts to combine the knowledge and methods of the LCA and occupational hygiene communities in assessing health impacts. It provides a consistent and transparent method for rapid comparative assessments of different chemicals and identifies the chemicals and workplaces that will require more thorough investigations.     

Technology-based industrial environmental management: a case study of electroplating in Shenzhen,China

Severe industrial pollution has largely hindered the sustainable development of China. Taking Shenzhen’s electroplating industry as a case, this article investigates the current status of the industry and proposes a specialized policy framework to push its environmental innovation. There is a relatively complete environmental management system in Shenzhen’s government, but it does not work well when dealing with the electroplating industry, mainly because it lacks regulation aiming at production technology, which is the underlying decisive factor of the environmental performance of the industry. So, we first develop an evaluation criterion, which incorporates a technological index about whether enterprises engage identified obsolete technologies. With this evaluation criterion, enterprises are classified into “advanced” and “obsolete”. Then, we propose specific policy suggestions for different types of enterprises, including command and control mixed with economic tools, voluntary agreements, establishing electroplating parks, and improving current management system. Finally, we assess the impact of the policy proposal and prove it to be conducive to the sustainable development of the industry and conclude it from a more general perspective.     

Environmental decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts: applicability of life cycle thinking in development planning and implementation

According to the targets set for sustainability, integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs is one of the main goals for development projects. A major challenge in the development field is cross-sectoral integrated planning and achieving multi-stakeholder consensus for collaborative joint projects, especially when sustainability is a goal. This increases the complexity of the multi-stakeholder interaction in decision making and requires enhanced mechanisms for stakeholder participation, coordination, and commitment beyond narrow self-interest. A critical aspect in the decision making process is to enable stakeholders to not only interpret and make decisions based on expert judgments, but also to appropriately involve the relevant parties in the research and decision making process. Therefore, scientific analyses in multi-stakeholder contexts have to be more transparent, participatory, and stakeholder-based in order to provide useful information to assist responsible decision making.This paper presents an outline of a stakeholder-based life cycle assessment approach that can be used to support sustainable decision making in multi-stakeholder contexts. The framework is discussed and compared to other common methods used to support environmental decision making in development projects. We argue that the fundamental concept of life cycle thinking can be effectively used to incorporate stakeholders in the research and decision making process, which can lead to more comprehensive, yet achievable assessments in collaboration with stakeholders. Life cycle thinking is not just a way to examine environmental impacts of activities, but also a way to comprehend and visualize a broader set of upstream and downstream consequences of decisions in development planning and implementation. A life cycle framework including the mapping of stakeholder involvement at each activity in upstream and downstream stages would give stakeholders a holistic view that they otherwise may not have.     

土地资源承载力在规划环评中的应用研究

土地资源是人类社会发展的基础,开展土地资源承载力研究,并将其引入规划环评中,对于完善规划环评技术方法,更好的发挥其战略指导作用,协调土地资源开发与经济发展和环境保护之间的关系具有重要的意义。本文对土地资源系统进行分析,重新框定土地资源承载力的概念和内涵;建立规划环评土地资源承载力分析的理论模型,并基于DSR模式,构建出一套可操作性强的规划环评土地资源承载力分析指标体系;开展广州南沙区规划环评土地资源承载力分析的应用研究,提出规划调整建议。     

土地利用系统对区域可持续发展的支撑力评价：方法与实证

土地利用系统作为人类与自然界交互的关键载体,在区域可持续发展过程中占据重要地位。为分析其与联合国可持续发展目标（SDGs）的关联特征,解释其对SDGs的支撑能力,构建土地利用系统内涵解析框架,探索其对SDGs的支撑机制并构建可持续发展支撑力评价体系,以山东省为例进行实证分析。研究结果表明：（1）以土地利用系统为核心,在人地关系视角下解析其与社会、经济、生态系统的交互作用,分析其在人地耦合系统中的运行机制,揭示其与可持续发展的相关关系,可为确定土地利用系统可持续发展目标提供理论解析。（2）山东省土地利用系统支撑力呈“省域西低东高、市域中心低周围高”分布,研究期内,66%的区域实现了支撑能力的提升,支撑力变化呈现“西北部提升、中部及东部下降”现象。具有农业优势的西部平原区对SDGs的直接支撑及自身稳定力提升,但间接支撑力有所下降,东部经济发达区自身稳定力有所提高,但直接及间接支撑力下降。（3）各类型支撑力变化空间相关性显著。显著区域多分布在市辖区,菏泽市农业发展能力的辐射带动作用较强,东营市土地经济产出及社会供应能力呈高—高集聚,土地自身稳定力呈低—低集聚。研究提出了土地利用系统支撑可持续发展的新视角,可为后续研究提供借鉴,实证分析为山东省可持续发展战略提供决策建议,为国土空间规划背景下的政策调控提供参考。     

Increasing significance of advanced physical/chemical processes in the development and application of sustainable wastewater treatment systems

The awareness of the problem of the scarcity of water of high quality has strongly changed the approach of wastewater treatment. Currently, there is an increasing need for the beneficial reuse of treated wastewater and to recover valuable products and energy from the wastewater. Because microbiological treatment methods are, only to a limited part, able to satisfy these needs, the role and significance of physical/chemical processes in wastewater treatment are gaining more and more interest. The specific future role and aim of the various physical/chemical treatment processes can be categorized in five groups: improvement of the performance of microbiological treatment processes, achievement of the high quality required for reuse of the effluent, recovery of valuable components and energy from the wastewater for beneficial reuse, desalination of brackish water and seawater, and treatment of concentrated liquid or solid waste residues produced in a wastewater treatment process. Development of more environmentally sustainable wastewater treatment chains in which physical/chemical processes play a crucial role, also requires application of process control and modeling strategies. This is briefly introduced by the elaboration of treatment scenarios for three specific wastewaters.