Leaders of the Pack: An analysis of the Canadian 'Sustainable Communities' 2000 municipal competition

The first annual Sustainable Community competition, co-sponsored by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and CH2M Hill in 2000, received 52 submissions from municipalities across Canada. These submissions were systematically analysed to identify common characteristics shared by competition entrants, including what differentiates competition participants from other Canadian municipalities, what kinds of sustainability projecs municipalities have been most likely to undertake and what motivating and success factors are most commonly cited. Urban municipalities were more likely than rural municipalities to undertake sustainability projects. Stakeholder involvement was found to be the most important factor in determining the success of a project. Many projects in the competition had not identified clear holistic visions and benchmarks, and these were noted as areas where improvement could be made. The impact of higher levels of government in setting benchmarks and providing support was also noteworthy.     

铅酸起动蓄电池组IEC60095:2006与2000版标准差异

本文主要介绍了IEC 60095-1铅酸起动蓄电池组-第一部分:一般要求和测试方法2006年版与2000年版试验方法和要求的差异比照.     

Environmental performance indicators: an empirical study of Canadian manufacturing firms

The aim of this exploratory study is to examine the importance of measurement and use of environmental performance indicators (EPIs) within manufacturing firms. Two research questions are investigated: (i) To what extent are firm characteristics associated with the importance of measurement of various categories of EPIs? (ii) To what extent are firm characteristics associated with global and specific uses of EPIs? More specifically, this paper examines four uses of EPIs (i.e. to monitor compliance, to motivate continuous improvement, to support decision making, and to provide data for external reporting) as well as four characteristics of firms, namely environmental strategy, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 compliance, size, and ownership. This study contributes to the environmental management accounting literature by collecting and analyzing empirical evidence that provides a better understanding of the associations among firm characteristics and EPIs.     

Analysis of uncertainty consideration in environmental assessment: an empirical study of Canadian EA practice

Identifying and communicating uncertainty is core to effective environmental assessment (EA). This study evaluates the extent to which uncertainties are considered and addressed in Canadian EA practice. We reviewed the environmental protection plans, follow-up programs, and panel reports (where applicable) of 12 EAs between 1995 and 2012. The types of uncertainties and levels of disclosure varied greatly. When uncertainties were acknowledged, practitioners adopted five different approaches to address them. However, uncertainties were never discussed or addressed in depth. We found a lack of suitable terminology and consistency in how uncertainties are disclosed, reflecting the need for explicit guidance, and we present recommendations for improvement. Canadian Environmental Impact Statements are not as transparent with respect to uncertainties as they should be, and uncertainties in EA need to be better considered and communicated.     

An analysis of the Canadian Research and Development System for Agriculture/Food

The report entitled An Analysis of the Canadian Research and Development System for Agriculture/Food which was presented to the Science Council of Canada in July, 1991 contains many far-reaching recommendations for revisions of the research and educational components of the Agriculture/Food System in Canada. The report calls for research of holistic and interdisciplinary nature. It calls for determination of research priorities by broadly constituted committees which would include reporesentaitves heretofore not included in the process of decisionmaking regarding scientific research. In addition, it calls for restructuring of the agricultural education system. The Co-editors of this Journal, believe that these recommendations should be wildely discussed and, therefore, requested publication of the Executive Summary of this Report.     

Policy quandary: the Canadian nickel industry in recession

The world nickel industry has been in an almost continuous state of recession since 1975. Major Canadian nickel producers have reported losses in recent years, although these have largely been due to losses from lateritic operations and other ventures, and detrimental pricing policies that have been adopted in recent years. Despite this slump, however, Canada's rich sources of nickel put the country in a good position to profit from an upturn in the nickel industry. With certain safeguards a nickel study group is seen as a useful approach to the difficult situation faced by policymakers.     

Emergy analysis of municipal wastewater treatment and generation of electricity by digestion of sewage sludge

This study examines and evaluates, by using emergy analysis, the use of environmental resources for wastewater treatment in a Swedish town. Emergy analysis was applied, while it facilitates the comparison of resource use of substantially different kind. In the emergy analysis, all resources are assessed on the basis of the amount of direct and indirect solar energy required in their generation. The study also includes an evaluation of the amount of emergy associated with the production of wastewater. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest that the large amount of emergy that wastewater contains are in proportion to the amount of resources employed for wastewater treatment and the extensive effects on surrounding ecosystems of discharge of untreated wastewater. The use of local renewable natural resources in Swedish municipal wastewater treatment systems is negligible compared with the use of purchased inputs, processed largely with the support of fossil energy. A drastic shift of this order would demand that extensive land areas surrounding human settlements be (indirectly or directly) devoted to wastewater treatment. These areas are not accessible today. Our analysis also indicates that resource requirements from the economy in the production of electricity by the digestion of sewage sludge is about two times the total resource use for generation of the average mix of electricity used in the town. We, therefore, conclude that if the only reason to digest the sludge were to produce electricity, it would be more resource-efficient to purchase the electricity on the Swedish distribution net. Accordingly, there is no resource economy in producing biomass to digest just to increase the energy production at the wastewater treatment plant.     

The influence of institutions and organizations on urban waste collection systems: an analysis of waste collection system in Accra, Ghana (1985-2000)

Urban waste collection system is a pivotal component of all waste management schemes around the world. Therefore, the efficient performance and the success of these schemes in urban pollution control rest on the ability of the collection systems to fully adapt to the prevailing cultural and social contexts within which they operate. Conceptually, institutions being the rules guiding the conduct of public service provision and routine social interactions, waste collection systems embedded in institutions can only realize their potentials if they fully evolve continuously to reflect evolving social and technical matrices underlying the cultures, organizations, institutions and social conditions they are designed to address. This paper is a product of an analysis of waste collection performance in Ghana under two different institutional and/or organizational regimes; from an initial entirely public sector dependence to a current mix of public-private sector participation drawing on actual planning data from 1985 to 2000. The analysis found that the overall performance of waste collection services in Ghana increased under the coupled system, with efficiency (in terms of total waste clearance and coverage of service provision) increasing rapidly with increased private-sector controls and levels of involvement, e.g. for solid waste, collection rate and disposal improved from 51% in 1998 to about 91% in the year 2000. However, such an increase in performance could not be sustained beyond 10 years of public-private partnerships. This analysis argues that the sustainability of improved waste collection efficiency is a function of the franchise and lease arrangements between private sector group on the one hand and public sector group (local authorities) on the other hand. The analysis therefore concludes that if such franchise and lease arrangements are not conceived out of an initial transparent process, such a provision could undermine the overall sustainability of private sector initiatives in collection services delivery in the long term, as in the case of the Accra example.     

SADCC: Energy and Development to the Year 2000

Book revewed in this article:
SADCC: Energy and Development to the Year 2000 Editors : Jorge Tavares de Carvalho Simoaes     

Environmental quality and sustainability in the province of Reggio Emilia (Italy): using multi-criteria analysis to assess and compare municipal performance.

Sustainability has become an increasingly significant issue, although practical implementation remains difficult. In Italy, promoting sustainability is particularly problematic at the provincial and municipal level, where the lack of resources and expertise, and the effects of uncoordinated policies make it difficult to achieve minimum requirements to make sustainable policies operational. One essential requirement is knowledge of baseline environmental conditions in each municipality. In the province of Reggio Emilia (Northern Italy) Legambiente, an environmental association, launched an initiative called 'Ecopaese' aimed at gathering data on environmental conditions and stimulating local administrations to implement sustainable policies. To this end, the state of the environment in the 45 municipalities within the province has been monitored using 25 indicators. Their values have been used to rank the municipalities by multiple criteria analysis (MCA). The results of this comparative approach provide information about the level of sustainability attained in the province as a whole as well as in the single municipalities. It is hoped that it will provide the basis for direct action plans at the provincial level by identifying areas for remedial action, as recommended by Agenda 21, the declaration adopted by many countries attending the Rio Summit in 1992.     

Controlling Rhododendron ponticum in the British Isles: an economic analysis

What resources should be committed to the control of invasive species? This study is based on a survey of nature conservation and forestry authorities, wildlife trusts and private landowners which investigated the extent of the ecological and economic impacts of the invasive non-native plant Rhododendron ponticum in the British Isles. There are data on 52,000 ha of land affected by R. ponticum, more than 30,000 ha of it in nature reserves. For nearly all nature reserves, displacement of native species and habitat changes were both reported. In 2001, respondents controlled 1275 ha of R. ponticum at a cost of pound 670,924. To test the optimality of this, we apply a model of social expenditure. The external costs of R. ponticum control are estimated from the probability that it will spread to contiguous sites and the damage done on invaded sites. These are then used to calculate the socially optimal level of expenditure on R. ponticum control, and the funding gap it identified by comparing the result with current levels of expenditure. The results suggest that a socially optimal level of control effort requires a significant increase in social funding for R. ponticum control, although the size of the increase varies between landholders.     

Salt enrichment of municipal sewage: New prevention approaches in Israel

Wastewater irrigation is an environmentally sound wastewater disposal practice, but sewage is more saline than the supplied fresh water and the salts are recycled together with the water. Salts have negative environmental effects on crops, soils, and groundwater. There are no inexpensive ways to remove the salts once they enter sewage, and the prevention of sewage salt enrichment is the most immediately available solution. The body of initiatives presently structured by the Ministry of the Environment of Israel are herein described, with the aim to contribute to the search for a long-term solution of salinity problems in arid countries. The new initiatives are based on: (1) search for new technologies to reduce salt consumption and discharge into sewage; (2) different technologies to cope with different situations; (3) raising the awareness of the public and industry on the environmental implications of salinity pollution; and (4) an elastic legal approach expressed through new state-of-the-art regulations. The main contributor to the salinity of sewage in Israel is the watersoftening process followed by the meat koshering process. Some of the adopted technical solutions are: the discharge of the brine into the sea, the substitution of sodium by potassium salts in the ion-exchangers, the construction of centralized systems for the supply of soft water in industrial areas, the precipitation of Ca and Mg in the effluents from ion-exchangers and recycling of the NaCI solution, a reduction of the discharge of salts by the meat koshering process, and new membrane technology for salt recovery.     

The evolution of the Canadian mining industry: The role of regulatory punctuation

In this study, we analyze the evolution of Canada's mining industry from 1929 to 2006, focussing on the determinants of the number of firms in the industry and why this number changed over that period. Most empirical studies of industry evolution have focused on manufacturing industries that share similar structural characteristics. Perhaps because of this, extant models of industry evolution tend to ignore industry-specific and national-specific factors that can cause atypical trajectories, that is, heterogeneous industry evolution. Initial inspection of the Canadian mining industry shows that it is atypical in that it exhibits “negative skew” over time in the number of firms rather than the typical “positive skew.” We review two dominant theoretical approaches to industry evolution: the density-dependence theory and variants of industrial organization economics. We also consider possible sources of industry evolution heterogeneity, focussing particularly on “regulatory punctuation”. Using Canadian mining data, we find that the traditional models do not fully explain the changes in population size in Canada's mining industry. As a result, we introduce a number of hybrid models. The results from these hybrid models suggest that Canadian-specific regulatory punctuations, particularly the introduction of significant new taxes, environmental legislation, and incentives have shaped the trajectory of mining firm participation.     

Assessment of risk in a minerals industry: Canadian nickel

The level of rents attributable to natural resource producers depends on the risk faced by those producers. This paper argues that estimates of risk in mining should control for characteristics of firms such as diversification and debt financing. The capital asset pricing model is applied to securities of three Canadian nickel mining firms over the period 1961–1974. It is concluded that the level of risk was not unusually high.     

Industry Response to the Challenge of Sustainability: The Case of the Canadian Nonferrous Mining Sector

/ The paper investigates how the Canadian nonferrous sector is tackling the challenge of sustainable development. Although there is no consensus as to what sustainable development means in practice for management in the sector, at least three dimensions must be taken into account: (1) metals are recyclable, the availability of this resource is not a concern for the foreseeable future; (2) the need to minimize environmental impacts of metals exploration, extraction, transformation, consumption, and recycling; and (3) production activities should not be socially or culturally disruptive. The nonferrous mining industry faces several environmental problems. Some of the most significant are acid mine drainage, sulfur emissions, recycling, and metals toxicity. The industry has developed a number of responses to address these specific concerns as well as other more general challenges. Six strategies are described and analyzed: (1) research and development, (2) an effort of consensus building among stakeholders known as the Whitehorse Mining Initiative, (3) international networking, (4) active involvement in the development of environmental management standards, (5) management reorganization and (6) voluntary agreements. The importance of external factors in the shaping of corporate environmental management practices is discussed, in particular the role of government. Progress has been achieved in three areas: (1) managerial practices and organization, (2) reducing the impacts of ongoing operations and (3) minimizing future liabilities, but two significant fields of conflict remain, namely mining in wilderness areas and projects on aboriginal lands.KEY WORDS: Canada; Environmental management; Minerals industry; Nonferrous metals; Sustainable development; Whitehorse Mining Initiative     

Assessing stock and change in land cover and biodiversity in GB: an introduction to Countryside Survey 2000

Countryside Survey 2000 (CS2000) is the latest in a series of surveys designed to measure and evaluate stock and change of land cover, landscape features, freshwaters, habitats and the vegetation of Great Britain. The ideas behind CS2000 developed during the 1960s and 1970s and culminated in the first survey of vegetation and land cover in 1978. One kilometer sample squares were selected at random using an environmental stratification. Subsequent surveys took place in 1984, 1990 and 1998, revisiting the original sample locations, whilst progressively expanding in scope and sample size; CS2000 included soils, breeding birds, remotely sensed imagery, freshwater biota and hydromorphology. Countryside Survey data may be interpreted using the pressure-state-response model, by selecting indicators of process and quality, and by identifying models of expected responses to different pressures. Thus, results showing losses of hedgerows between 1984 and 1990 stimulated new protection for these features. Ideally, CS2000 data should be used to stimulate experiments to distinguish between different pressures, in order to ensure that policy and management responses are both appropriate and achievable.The experience from CS2000 may prove helpful for the design and management of other large scale monitoring programmes of ecosystems. In particular, the scope of the survey, and the use to which the data are applied, have evolved through time, and yet continuity was essential for change to be detected efficiently. These objectives were reconciled by collecting the data in a disaggregated form, allowing a high degree of flexibility in both analysis and reporting.