A new market instrument for sustainable economic and environmental development

The regenerative capacity of ecosystems provides a regulatory basis for sustainable economic growth and development. A natural valuation of an ecosystem's services will arise in a market for developmental rights in the ecosystem using a unit of tradable 'right': E-Scrip. The amount of e-scrip needed for a development may be set by Environmental Assessment. The capacity of the ecosystem to regenerate with developmental pressure may be represented by an independent trader or Factor Proxy for the Environment who provides e-scrip to the market.     

Land quality,sustainable development and environmental degradation in agricultural districts: A computational approach based on entropy indexes

Land Degradation (LD) in socio-environmental systems negatively impacts sustainable development paths. This study proposes a framework to LD evaluation based on indicators of diversification in the spatial distribution of sensitive land. We hypothesize that conditions for spatial heterogeneity in a composite index of land sensitivity are more frequently associated to areas prone to LD than spatial homogeneity. Spatial heterogeneity is supposed to be associated with degraded areas that act as hotspots for future degradation processes. A diachronic analysis (1960–2010) was performed at the Italian agricultural district scale to identify environmental factors associated with spatial heterogeneity in the degree of land sensitivity to degradation based on the Environmentally Sensitive Area Index (ESAI). In 1960, diversification in the level of land sensitivity measured using two common indexes of entropy (Shannon's diversity and Pielou's evenness) increased significantly with the ESAI, indicating a high level of land sensitivity to degradation. In 2010, surface area classified as “critical” to LD was the highest in districts with diversification in the spatial distribution of ESAI values, confirming the hypothesis formulated above. Entropy indexes, based on observed alignment with the concept of LD, constitute a valuable base to inform mitigation strategies against desertification.     

A study of assessment indicators for environmental sustainable development of science parks in Taiwan

This study adopted the ecological footprint calculation structure to calculate the ecological footprints of the three major science parks in Taiwan from 2008 to 2010. The result shows that the ecological footprints of the Hsinchu Science Park, the Central Taiwan Science Park, and the Southern Taiwan Science Park were about 3.964, 2.970, and 4.165 ha per capita. The ecological footprint (EF) of the Central Taiwan Science Park was the lowest, meaning that the influence of the daily operations in the Central Taiwan Science Park on the environment was rather low. Secondly, the population density was relatively high, and the EF was not the highest of the Hsinchu Science Park, meaning that, while consuming ecological resources, the environmental management done was effective. In addition, the population density in Southern Taiwan Science Park is 82.8 units, lower than that of Hsinchu Science Park, but its ecological footprint per capita is 0.201 units, higher than Hsinchu, implying its indicator management has space for improvement. According to the analysis result above, in the science parks, the percentages of high-energy-consuming industries were rather high. It was necessary to encourage development of green industries with low energy consumption and low pollution through industry transformation.     

The mutualism of strategic environmental assessment and sustainable development goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set a universal agenda intended to stimulate social, economic and environmental action. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has the potential to assist in the implementation of actions supporting the SDGs by providing a systematic framework to incorporate them into policies, plans and programmes; and the SDGs in turn, could substantiate SEA's contribution to sustainable development. Therefore, the partnering of both policy instruments fosters a mutualistic relationship, benefiting both. In this paper, we review current engagement of SEA with the SDGs both in the academic literature and in practice. The findings reveal a recognisable subtle shift towards the adoption of a new paradigm in plan-making, particularly supported by governments' growingly proactive embracement of SDGs, albeit through different approaches, initiatives and commitments. This sets a robust foundation for spatial planning and, by extension, a reference framework for SEA. Nevertheless, operationalising the SDGs is difficult. The extent to which SDG objectives and targets are embedded in SEA and, indeed, integrated into plans/programmes seems to be hampered by the broad scope of both sustainability and SEA, and a general lack of awareness and know-how. This suggest a need to clarify SEA's mandate for engaging with the SDGs, as well as to provide training for a more proactive integration of the objectives and targets. Through initiatives such as these, there are opportunities to optimise mutual gains for both policy instruments.     

Economic development and environmental protection: an ecological economics perspective

This paper argues on both theoretical and empirical grounds that, beyond a certain point, there is an unavoidable conflictbetween economic development (generally taken to mean 'materialeconomic growth') and environmental protection. Think for a moment of natural forests, grasslands, marine estuaries, salt marshes, and coral reefs; and of arable soils, aquifers, mineraldeposits, petroleum, and coal. These are all forms of 'natural capital' that represent highly-ordered self-producing ecosystemsor rich accumulations of energy/matter with high use potential (low entropy). Now contemplate despoiled landscapes, eroding farmlands, depleted fisheries, anthropogenic greenhouse gases,acid rain, poisonous mine tailings and toxic synthetic compounds.These all represent disordered systems or degraded forms of energy and matter with little use potential (high entropy). The main thing connecting these two states is human economic activity. Ecological economics interprets the environment-economyrelationship in terms of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law sees economic activity as a dissipative process. Fromthis perspective, the production of economic goods andservices invariably requires the consumption of available energy and matter. To grow and develop, the economynecessarily 'feeds' on sources of high-quality energy/matter first produced by nature. This tends to disorder and homogenizethe ecosphere, The ascendance of humankind has consistently been accompanied by an accelerating rate of ecological degradation, particularly biodiversity loss, the simplificationof natural systems and pollution. In short, contemporary political rhetoric to the contrary, the prevailing growth-oriented global development paradigm is fundamentally incompatible with long-term ecological and social sustainability. Unsustainability is not a technical nor economic problem as usually conceived, but rather a state of systemic incompatibilitybetween a economy that is a fully-contained, growing, dependent sub-system of a non-growing ecosphere. Potential solutions fly inthe face of contemporary development trends and cultural values.     

Microsystems technology for remote monitoring and control in sustainable agricultural practices

The future development of advanced sensor and microsystems technologies for use in agriculture is briefly discussed, within a general appraisal of the industrial requirements and the potential economic and ecological benefits to be derived from the employment of novel sensing systems in sustainable agricultural practices, such as precision farming. It is proposed that these technologies are potentially important monitoring tools for farmers and growers, and that a concerted programme of research and development is required to satisfy the future requirements of the agricultural industry.     

Ecological indicator organisms for environmental protection policy

Environmental protection policy strives to maintain an environment favourable to human health, agriculture, and the preservation of natural heritage. Infringements upon the environment have been either by sudden deliberate action of man (construction, land reclamation, dams, etc.) or by gradual, insipid stress of chemical and physical agents (chemical substances, heat, noise, radiation, etc.). Indeliberate unwanted stress upon the environment may be measured either by observing biological effects on indicator organisms or by chemically analyzing contaminants in these organisms. In this respect the author pleads for modest, cost-efficient monitoring programmes of limited duration and providing policy related information in a direct way. Biological effect monitoring programmes show limited prospects at this moment.     

Regulators' perceptions of environmental impact assessment (EIA) benefits in a sustainable development context

The costs of conducting Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are well known. Yet the benefits of EIA are much more intangible, leading to a situation where some question its value as the tool of choice for informing decision makers of the sustainability consequences of their actions. Exponents of EIA have thus called for more research on the benefits of EIA in order to provide better evidence on its costs versus benefits, and therefore its value as a decision-making tool. This paper contributes to this evidence by exploring the perceived potential benefits and perceived realised benefits of EIA from a regulators' perspective in the context of sustainable development. Using South Africa as a case study, one third of all the officials responsible for EIA review and decision-making (referred to in this paper as the “regulator”) were surveyed to identify their perceptions of the benefits of EIA, and their ideas on how to bridge the gap between potential benefits and realised benefits. The paper contributes suggestions for the analysis of benefits in a sustainable development context, and identifies some additional benefits currently missing from the literature. In a South African context, the key potential and realised benefits as perceived by regulators are the protection of biodiversity, public participation, access to information, mitigation of environmental impacts, and legal compliance and enforcement.     

Deriving indicators of sustainable development

Assessments of current and future development paths require comprehensive sets of indicators covering all essential aspects. From a holistic systems point of view, most currently proposed indicator sets are incomplete and deficient. Assessments of sustainable development require a full representation of the satisfaction states of the “basic orientors” (=fundamental interests) of constituent sector systems, and of their contribution to basic orientor satisfaction of the total system. Basic orientors are value dimensions (existence, effectiveness, freedom of action, security, adaptability, coexistence) emerging from a self-organizing system's interaction with its environment, and its fundamental properties (normal environmental state, scarce resources, variety, variability, change, other systems). Basic orientors are also reflected in human emotions, societal punishment, psychological and social needs, life styles, and values emerging in self-organization of artificial life. The relative weight assigned to basic orientors of partner systems is a question of ethics. Based on these concepts, a general scheme for finding a “complete” set of indicators of viability and sustainability is derived, and it is applied to deriving a comprehensive set of indicators of sustainable development for society and its sector systems (infrastructure, economic system, social system, individual development, government, environment and resource system). The method can be applied at different levels of complexity and regional resolution. A full set of regional indicators for sustainable development is presented, a method for compact assessment of development paths using orientor stars is described, and the approach for application at the community level is outlined.     

Advances in analytical technologies for environmental protection and public safety

Due to the increased threats of chemical and biological agents of injury by terrorist organizations, a significant effort is underway to develop tools that can be used to detect and effectively combat chemical and biochemical toxins. In addition to the right mix of policies and training of medical personnel on how to recognize symptoms of biochemical warfare agents, the major success in combating terrorism still lies in the prevention, early detection and the efficient and timely response using reliable analytical technologies and powerful therapies for minimizing the effects in the event of an attack. The public and regulatory agencies expect reliable methodologies and devices for public security. Today's systems are too bulky or slow to meet the "detect-to-warn" needs for first responders such as soldiers and medical personnel. This paper presents the challenges in monitoring technologies for warfare agents and other toxins. It provides an overview of how advances in environmental analytical methodologies could be adapted to design reliable sensors for public safety and environmental surveillance. The paths to designing sensors that meet the needs of today's measurement challenges are analyzed using examples of novel sensors, autonomous cell-based toxicity monitoring, 'Lab-on-a-Chip' devices and conventional environmental analytical techniques. Finally, in order to ensure that the public and legal authorities are provided with quality data to make informed decisions, guidelines are provided for assessing data quality and quality assurance using the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) methodologies.     

Evaluating the level of coordinated development of fisheries economic growth and environmental quality in selected Chinese regions

In recent years, China's fisheries economy has expanded dramatically. As a result, environmental pollution caused at least partially by such an expansion has endangered human health and the sustainable development of fisheries in some coastal regions. This paper establishes an indicator system for fisheries economic growth and environmental quality and evaluates the coordinated level of the two systems in 12 regions in China. Results show that i) it is necessary to expand the relative scale of fisheries economy, optimize the structure of fisheries industry, and improve the utilization capacity of pollutants; ii) the selected regions are evaluated as half each the fisheries economic lagging type and the environmental lagging type; iii) most of the selected regions exhibit a high coupling coordination degree, and the highest of those is Shandong. In the last section, the policy implications and further research directions are discussed.     

MUPOM: A multi-criteria multi-period outranking method for decision-making in sustainable development context

This article aims to support decision-making in sustainable development context, which must guarantee a long-term balance between environmental integrity, social equality and economic efficiency. It proposes a temporal outranking method, named MUPOM (MUlti-criteria multi-Period Outranking Method), which accommodates the requirements of sustainable development and demonstrates how the paradigm behind outranking methods can be of use in processing temporal impacts of decisions. The proposed method is structured in four phases: multi-criteria aggregation, temporal aggregation, exploitation and follow-up. MUPOM considers conflicting and incommensurable criteria, is based on pairwise comparison, is semi-compensatory, and makes use of thresholds. It provides valuable contributions for researchers and practitioners dealing with decision-making in SD context. The proposed method was applied on a case study to select the best compromise sustainable forest management option, while considering the environmental impacts, the economic benefits and decision-maker preferences. Results show the applicability of the method for real-world problems and its valuable outcomes.     

A novel approach to rapid detection of acute water toxicity and its policy implications for grassroots sustainable environmental monitoring

Unknown chemicals, emerging contaminants, and the resulting reactions among them make early detection and warning of acute water toxicity extremely challenging. The conventional approach using small fish for toxicity monitoring normally requires a designated species of fish and over a week's time to complete, including dilution of the wastewater, a pre-test, and a full test. It often increases chances for error and delays emergency management. This paper reports a novel approach, based on grassroots knowledge and field and lab experience in Jilin, China. This approach uses a combination of different species of aquarium fish to achieve fast and reliable monitoring. It tests the original source water directly without going through the dilution procedure, while paying attention to the time factor. The approach does not require a pre-test and may shorten the time needed for detecting acute toxicity to a few minutes, using a new classification of aquatic toxicity levels. It is inexpensive to use and may be easily adopted by grassroots organizations. The approach is "greener" and more financially and socially sustainable than traditional approaches. The wide use of the approach has the potential to encourage policy innovations for making toxicity monitoring grassroots based and more effective in reducing acute contamination emergencies.     

Bridging the divide between theory and guidance in strategic environmental assessment: A path for Italian regions

Clear and effective legislation is a requisite to bring sustainable development from theory into practice. This paper develops a methodology to investigate how Italian regional legislation disciplines the use of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), the procedure used in the European Union (EU) to pursue sustainable development of policies, plans, and programs (PPPs). Our case study is the Italian regional level, examined to identify eventual flaws and areas for improvement for each regional legislative framework. For this purpose, this study refers to a selection of analytical criteria recurring in the international debate on sustainability assessments. Statistical multi-dimensional analysis is used to identify Italian regions with similar SEA legislation. We recognize four taxonomies, depending on the way regional legislation provides information about i) legislation and guidelines, ii) integration between SEA and PPPs, iii) sustainability goals, iv) technical organization, v) participatory organization, and vi) monitoring. The results suggest that Italian administrators should cooperate to improve legislation at the regional level. Acknowledging the institution-centred nature of SEA, this methodology could drive the EU to better support SEA development in countries with diversified traditions.     

Green Lean Six Sigma for sustainable development: Integration and framework

The sustainable oriented demand, globalized competition, and governmental policies on climate change have enforced the industries to adopt sustainable practices. Green Lean Six Sigma (GLS) is an eco-friendly approach that mitigates carbon footprints and produces high specifications products. But to implement the GLS program, it is indispensable to integrate individual Green, Lean, and Six Sigma approaches in unique GLS methodology. Moreover, there exists no GLS framework that can be applied irrespective of the size, type, and culture of the organization. So, the present work deals with the integration and development of the GLS framework. The integration of the GLS was proposed based on theoretical elements, and the framework was developed based on DMAIC approach. It has found that enablers, toolset, and implementation methods supplement the integration of GLS. The proposed framework provides a path for GLS implementation through an appropriate selection of the project. Besides, it has identified that unique GLS indices and toolset are required to estimate various sustainability measures and execute selected GLS projects. The present study will facilitate the organizations to have readiness for the implementation of a sustainable GLS approach through a detailed understanding of integration and GLS framework.     

Towards sustainable settlement growth: A new multi-criteria assessment for implementing environmental targets into strategic urban planning

For nearly one decade, the German political and research-agenda has been to a large extent determined by the ongoing question of how to limit the expansion of settlement areas around cities in order to preserve natural resources, make settlement growth more sustainable and to strengthen the re-use of existing inner-urban areas (see a.o. Kötter et al. 2009a, 2010; Schetke et al. 2009, 2010b). What is already under discussion within the international literature are the recommendations of the German Council for Sustainability to quantitatively reduce the daily greenfield consumption from the current rate of over 100 ha per day to a rate of 30 ha per day in 2020 and to bring urban infill development up to a ratio of 3:1 with greenfield development (German Council for Sustainability, 2004).). This paper addresses the added value beyond those abstract political targets and presents an innovative, multi-criteria assessment (MCA) of greenfield and infill sites to evaluate their sustainability and resource efficiency. MCA development and its incorporation into a Decision Support System (DSS) were accomplished by utilising a stakeholder-driven approach. The resulting tool can be applied in preparing and revising land-use plans. The paper presents the concept and the development process of the MCA-DSS. Test runs with planners prove that the evaluation of potential housing sites using individually weighted environmental indicators helps to identify those strategies of housing development that accord most closely with sustainability goals. The tests further show that the development of greenfield sites generally exhibits less sustainability than that of infill sites.     

Evaluation and assessment of environmental protection alternatives for the Jeddah cement company plant

An environmental impact assessment is conducted by utilizing monitoring, meteorological, and physical modeling data. This information serves as input to a decision analysis of the environmental protection alternatives for the cement plant in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Utility theory provides the methodology underlying the Evaluation and Sensivity Analysis Program (ESAP) with which the alternatives are evaluated. Recommendation include: (1) installation of electrostatic precipitators of at least 99% efficiency, (2) institution of a 1.6 km nonresidential zone given the present 60 m chimneys, and (3) substitution of low sulphur fuel for the crude oil now consumed. By illustration this study suggests the general relevance of the ESAP program to environmental assessment and management.