Farmers’ attitudes about farming and the environment: A survey of conventional and organic farmers

Farmers have been characterized as people whose ties to the land have given them a deep awareness of natural cycles, appreciation for natural beauty and sense of responsibility as stewards. At the same time, their relationship to the land has been characterized as more utilitarian than that of others who are less directly dependent on its bounty. This paper explores this tension by comparing the attitudes and beliefs of a group of conventional farmers to those of a group of organic farmers. It was found that while both groups reject the idea that a farmer’s role is to conquer nature, organic farmers were significantly more supportive of the notion that humans should live in harmony with nature. Organic farmers also reported a greater awareness of and appreciation for nature in their relationship with the land. Both groups view independence as a main benefit of farming and a lack of financial reward as its main drawback. Overall, conventional farmers report more stress in their lives although they also view themselves in a caretaker role for the land more than do the organic farmers. In contrast, organic farmers report more satisfaction with their lives, a greater concern for living ethically, and a stronger perception of community. Finally, both groups are willing to have their rights limited (organic farmers somewhat more so) but they do not trust the government to do so.     

Investor attitudes toward the value of corporate environmentalism: New survey findings

During the past several years, an increasing body of evidence and opinion has formed concerning the relationships between advancements in environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) management and the financial performance of the organization. In recent work,¹ we have described a new theoretical model linking improvements in environmental management systems and environmental performance to corporate risk, stock volatility, and market value, as well as an empirical evaluation that validated our model. A number of other studies² have documented changes in the market value of corporate equity as a function of environmental accidents, incidents, and (conversely) accomplishments. These are in addition to the numerous examples presented in the literature and at EH&S conferences and symposia that suggest that concerted efforts to reduce the organization's environmental “footprint” can yield cost savings, increased market share, reduced time to market, and perhaps other financial benefits. Some have gone so far as to proclaim that a new era has begun, in which environment-friendly corporations will increasingly be recognized and rewarded by financial market participants, and organizations that lag behind will be severely penalized.³ This article documents a new survey undertaken to identify important environmental factors, if any, investors employ in evaluating the quality and worth of equity and debt financing instruments.     

The environmental attitudes inventory: A valid and reliable measure to assess the structure of environmental attitudes

Environmental attitudes (EA), a crucial construct in environmental psychology, are a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating the natural environment with some degree of favour or disfavour. There are hundreds of EA measures available based on different conceptual and theoretical frameworks, and most researchers prefer to generate new measures rather than organize those already available. The present research provides a cumulative and theoretical approach to the measurement of EA, in which the multidimensional and hierarchical nature of EA is considered. Reported are findings from three studies on the development of a psychometrically sound, multidimensional inventory to assess EA cross-culturally, the Environmental Attitudes Inventory (EAI). The EAI has twelve specific scales that capture the main facets measured by previous research. The twelve factors were established through confirmatory factor analyses, and the EAI scales are shown to be unidimensional scales with high internal consistency, homogeneity and high test-retest reliability, and also to be largely free from social desirability.     

Recycling as appropriate behavior: a review of survey data from selected recycling education programs in Michigan

Data from surveys conducted by six separate recycling education programs funded under the Clean Michigan Fund are compared. The findings indicate that a strong pro-recycling attitude exists among the populations sampled with a significant percentage of respondents planning to increase their level of recycling in the future. To aid this increase in participation these data suggest that education efforts should focus on helping people become more familiar with the details of how to recycle. And finally, these data support the idea that efforts to promote waste reduction and recycling behavior should focus on non-monetary motives.     

More than money: how multiple factors influence householder participation in at-source stormwater management

Urban stormwater run-off is a threat to stream ecosystems. New approaches to stormwater management aim to protect urban streams from such impacts, by retaining, treating and using stormwater at its source. As up to ～50% of runoff from urban surfaces comes from private property, fostering stormwater retention requires effective householder engagement. We evaluated householder participation in the Little Stringybark Creek project, a stormwater retrofit programme aimed at waterway protection, using qualitative enquiry through formal and informal interviews to identify factors that influenced participation. Participation was governed by multiple factors, with financial incentives and personal co-benefits of tanks primary motivators, while process complexity and distrust were primary barriers. Results suggest an approach combining education to encourage review of subjective norms and attitudes, with incentives to mitigate behavioural controls can transform public behaviour towards sustainable stormwater management.     

A Lifecycle Assessment and Economic Valuation of Recycling

The financial costs of recycling schemes fail to account for external costs and benefits such as environmental pollution, road congestion and accidents. This paper compares the environmental and social impacts of a kerbside collection scheme for recyclable household waste, with a bring scheme, using lifecycle assessment. Economic valuation is used to assign relative weights to these impacts. A second comparison examines the relative external costs of recycling and landfill disposal of waste. The results show that the kerbside collection scheme has a lower external cost than the bring scheme, but this is of less importance than the benefits to be gained within the manufacturing system by using secondary materials. It is concluded that the combination of lifecycle assessment and economic valuation is an effective means of evaluation to direct the sustainable development of waste management.     

Life-cycle assessment: A survey of current implementation

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an analytical tool that evaluates the environmental consequences of a product, process, or activity across its entire life cycle. LCA is used internationally by government and industry to obtain a comprehensive perspective of the interactions between an activity and the environment and provides a method to systematically identify opportunities for improvement. The framework is integrated into environmental management programs motivated by market awareness, public perception, and cost savings. The use of LCA is driven by external forces such as eco-labels and the recent development of the ISO 14000 standards. However, LCA has many shortcomings that need to be addressed. The concerns of poor data quality, data availability, high implementation costs, subjectivity, and lack of standardization have sent LCA into a state of flux. In light of the recent surge of interest in LCA, the authors of this article have conducted a corporate survey that targets the implementation of LCA. Their goal is to determine the level of activity of LCA among known practitioners and to elucidate common themes. This article presents their findings from responses by 34 companies that were known to be actively involved in LCA or contemplating its future use.     

Ecological land classification: A survey approach

A landscape approach to ecological land mapping, as illustrated in this article, proceeds by pattern recognition based on ecological theory. The unit areas delineated are hypotheses that arise from a knowledge of what is ecologically important in the land. Units formed by the mapper are likely to be inefficient or irrelevant for ecological purposes unless he possesses a sound rationale as to the interactions and controlling influences of the structural components of ecosystems. Here is the central problem with what have been called objective multivariate approaches to mapping based on grid units and the sometimes arbitrary attributes thereof; they tend to conceal the importance of ecological theory and the necessity for theory-based supervision of pattern recognition. Multivariate techniques are best used iteratively to verify and refine map units initially recognized and delineated by theoretical considerations. These ideas are illustrated by an example of a reconnaissance survey in the Northwest Territories of Canada.     

Source separation recycling schemes: A survey

Municipal waste arisings continued to increase during the 1970s in all the industrialized economies. Currently, in the midst of a severe international economic recession, the continuing escalation in the costs of waste disposal poses significant problems for municipal authorities. With the data constraints firmly in mind, this paper estimates the secondary materials supply potential of the municipal waste stream. The calculations suggest that a significant supply potential remains to be utilized despite ‘respectable’ overall recycling rates in most industrial economies. Resource recovery options can be divided into ‘low technology’ source separation schemes and ‘high technology’ mechanical separation schemes. The authors concentrate on the former option and appraise (on the basis of social cost-benefit analysis) a number of schemes that have operated in both Europe and North America.     

A Framework for Geographically Sensitive and Efficient Recycling Networks

This paper has three primary objectives. First, it seeks to demonstrate that recycling is an important component of sustainable human systems, particularly in the case of electronics, where environmental impacts of disposal are potentially severe. Second, it presents a methodology that could be used to estimate the volumes of electronics or other consumer durable goods that are available for recycling. Third and last, it illustrates, through a case study of Atlanta focused on computers, that metropolitan areas may fruitfully be viewed as opportune centres from which to mine, recycle and reuse cast-off electronic goods. From an environmental and economic development policy perspective, doing so presents an important opportunity to provide new economic opportunities in the most distressed portions of metropolitan areas which have been disproportionately impacted by previous environmentally destructive industrialization practices.     

Recycling and the Environmental Debate: A Question of Social Conscience or Scientific Reason?

Social conscience and public opinion have promoted a popular belief that all recycling is good for the environment. Planning policies and environmental legislation have been and continue to be influenced in part by this belief. Economic and political factors have been important especially in terms of developing recovery programmes and systems for collecting waste material. This is particularly true for paper products, for which there is now a whole range of arbitrary set recycling targets in most western countries. Paper products are different from all other major recycled products in that they are made from a renewable resource and, as recovered waste, it has alternative uses such as energy recovery. In the framework of mounting empirical evidence the aim of the paper is to question the validity of social conscience as a raison d'etre for increasing the rate of recycling paper products. Forests, which are the primary renewable resource, have important implications for a whole range of economic, social and climatic issues, especially global warming. There is an urgent need to take stock of these issues for both planning and managing the environment.     

Recycling in the USA : Vision and reality

In 1978 the US Environmental Protection Agency contracted Mathtech Incorporated to identify the impediments to recycling and evaluate their economic effects. The facilities studied represented a cross-section of recycling technologies, ownership types, geographical locations, and recovered products. It was discovered that none of the facilities was economical in the sense of providing the least-cost mode of disposal for municipal solid waste, and all of them suffered net losses in recent operations. Indications were that financial performance would improve slightly. A major deterrent to economical operations was the availability of lower-cost disposal by landfill.     

我国再生资源循环经济的策略研究

在今天全球经济快速发展的同时，环境污染、资源浪费等问题已日益引起人们的关注。提高绿色环保意识，在可持续发展的战略下开发可再生资源，发展循环经济，是促进人与自然和谐的必然选择。我国加入WTO后，再生资源业面临着一系列机遇和挑战，因此，应积极学习和借鉴发达国家的先进理念和先进经验，在推进社会经济发展的同时，通过制度创新和科技进步，积极发展再生资源循环经济。     

A cross-national perspective on youth environmental attitudes

The environmental attitudes of young people are a growing topic of interest for social scientists. Most research that aims to explain differences in (youth) environmental attitudes focuses on the individual as the level of measurement. There is, however, a growing body of evidence that illustrates that the context within which that individual operates can contribute to their environmental attitudes. Based on the PISA 2006 data, and while controlling for individual characteristics, we tested Inglehart’s ‘objective problems, subjective values’ hypothesis. This hypothesis divides the contextual influences on environmental attitudes into (1) objective problems in the individual’s natural environment and (2) subjective values linked to post-materialistic goals in life. We analyzed both the individual and the country level simultaneously, controlling for compositional effects, by performing a multilevel analysis on the 2006 PISA data for youth environmental attitudes (398,750 15 year olds from 56 countries). At the individual level, the results are generally consistent with the literature; at the contextual level, the stage of development of a country (as a proxy for post-materialistic values) is shown to be unrelated to environmental attitudes. Both natural riches of a country and its environmental problems are shown to positively influence the environmental attitudes of that country’s youth. These results are discussed in relation to the ‘objective problems, subjective values’ hypothesis. The results also point towards the necessity of simultaneously assessing the effect of individual- and contextual-level characteristics on environmental attitudes.     

The return of returnable bottles: A study of consumers' and retailers' attitudes and practices concerning returnable bottles

The authors highlight the importance of the trippage of a returnable bottle to the current beverage container debate. Results of recent surveys of consumers and retailers are presented, which show that the reasons for low trippages in the UK are more complex than the conventional diagnosis that ‘consumers cannot be bothered to return bottles’. In many instances consumers thought that the ‘returnable bottle was ‘non- returnable’ and many consumers found it difficult to return bottles to the shops. Making it easier for consumers to return the bottle would appear to be a more effective method of raising trippage than increasing the deposit levels.     

Acidification and recreational fisheries in Finland: A mail survey of potential impacts

In Finland, small forest lakes and rivers in the northern part of the country are more sensitive to acidic deposition than other Finnish waters. In some lakes, acid-sensitive fish populations have declined. A nationwide survey of fishers showed that, at present, the number of fishers whose primary fishing waters are affected by airborne acidification is negligible compared to the estimated total number of adult fishers (1.1 million). The proportion of the fishers who mainly fish in water types sensitive to airborne acidification is considerable, 3% for the rivers in northern Finland and 21% for small forest lakes. There is general concern among fishers about the effects of acidification. Changes in the fishing waters are attributed to acidification by 5–10% of the fishers, although in most cases other information about the fishing waters rules out acidification as an explanation for the changes. Among those who fish in sensitive types of waters, a willingness to mitigate potential damages was reported by approximately one third of all fishers. Clear differences in the willingness to rehabilitate the fishery were observed in relation to the importance of fishing as a spare time activity and the distance between the fishing waters and a home or summer cottage.     

生活垃圾中再生资源的循环利用模式探析

目前我国的生活垃圾中的再生资源回收利用率较高，再利用的过程基本是市场驱动的，但具有负外部性和不可持续性。应通过扩大生产者责任来重构循环利用体系，减少对环境的不利影响。本文在分析总结上海一次性饭盒回收利用经验的基础上，探讨了在我国推行扩大生产者责任制度的对策。     

Recycling of electronic displays: Analysis of pre-processing and potential ecodesign improvements

This article analyses the current and future end-of-life management of electronic displays (flat screen televisions and monitors), and identifies and discusses possible ecodesign recommendations to improve it. Based on an investigation of the treatment of displays in two typical European recycling plants, key aspects and criticalities of the recycling methods (sorting, dismantling and pre-processing) are identified. Disaggregated data concerning on-site measurements of the time needed to manually dismantle different displays are presented. The article also discusses the potential evolution of end-of-life scenarios for electronic displays and suggests possible recommendations for recyclers, producers and policy-makers to promote resource efficiency in the recycling of such waste products. Data on time for dismantling the displays can be used to build measurers for voluntary and mandatory policies, to stimulate design innovations for products improvement, and to assess possible alternative treatments of the waste during the pre-processing at the recycling plants. Some quantitative product measures (based on the time thresholds for dismantling some key components) are also discussed, including an assessment of their economic viability. These measures can potentially be enforced through mandatory and voluntary European product policies, and could also be extended to other product groups.     

Public attitudes to nuclear energy: Salience and anxiety

During the last decade there has been a significant increase in public concern about nuclear energy. This paper presents a brief overview of trends and developments in public opinion since the late 1970s. One possible reason for this increased concern is the public's perception of risks. Research has shown a considerable divergence in public and expert assessment of the risks associated with nuclear energy. It will be argued that qualitative aspects of these risks play a crucial role in the public's perception of nuclear energy, and that reactions such as fear and anxiety are the major determinants of attitudes to the building of new nuclear power stations in one's neighbourhood. It is also clear, however, that differences in the perception of these risks do not embrace all the relevant aspects of public acceptance of nuclear energy. Public reaction is also related to more general values and beliefs, and the issue of nuclear energy is firmly embedded in a much wider moral and political domain.