绿色风尚标:生产者责任延伸

"生产者延伸责任"一词是最早由Thomas Lindhqvist在1988年提交给瑞典环境部的报告中最早提出的,报告认为生产者的责任应该延伸到整个产品的生命周期.欧盟把生产者延伸责任定义为生产者必须承担产品使用完毕后的回收、再生和处理的责任,其策略是将产品废弃阶段的责任完全归于生产者,目前大多数国家采用欧盟的定义.     

延伸生产者责任制度的本质和特征

本文通过对延伸生产者责任制度的提出背景及研究进展的阐述分析,指出该制度的本质是法律价值由"人类利益为中心"向"生态利益为中心"的转变,该制度以法律形式实现对产品的环境影响全过程控制,它是一项新的具有强制性、综合性和特殊公益性的环境管理制度.     

Environmentally benign manufacturing: Observations from Japan,Europe and the United States

A recent international panel study (Gutowski T, Murphy C, Allen D, Bauer D, Bras B, Piwonka T, Sheng P, Sutherland J, Thurston D, Wolff E. WTEC Panel Report on: Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM), 2000 on the web at; http://itri.loyola.edu/ebm/ and http://www.wtec.org/ebm/) finds Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM) emerging as a significant competitive dimension between companies. With differing views on future developments, companies, especially large international companies, are positioning themselves to take advantage of emerging environmental trends. Among Japanese companies visited, the panel observed an acute interest in using the environmental advantages of their products and processes to enhance their competitive position in the market. In the northern European countries visited, the panel saw what could be interpreted as primarily a protectionist posture; that is, the development of practices and policies to enhance the well-being of EU countries, that could act as barriers to outsiders. In the U.S., the panel found a high degree of environmental awareness among the large international companies, most recently in response to offshore initiatives, mixed with skepticism. In this article, we survey EBM practices at leading firms, rate the competitiveness of the three regions visited, and close with observations of change since the study. Based upon these results, major research questions are then posed. In sum, the study found evidence that U.S. firms may be at a disadvantage due in part to a lack of coherent national goals in such areas as waste management, global warming, energy efficiency and product take back.     

美欧日国家电子工业水污染物排放标准之探析

美国环境保护局、德国按工业行业分类制定水污染物排放标准,日本不分工业行业实施国家统一的水污染物排放标准.本文在介绍美国水污染物排放标准体系的基础上,立足于电子工业,介绍美国、世行集团、德国、日本的相关水污染物排放标准限值,并对照我国情况进行美国水污染物排放标准特点分析.     

美日欧PRTR制度比较研究及对我国的启示

污染物释放与转移申报制度(PRTR制度)作为一种化学品环境安全管理中的重要制度,已经得到国际社会的肯定,成为各国政府化学品管理整体政策框架内不可或缺的内容之一。PRTR制度的核心是通过有毒有害化学物质环境释放与转移信息的登记与公开,掌握环境中有毒有害化学物质的基本状况,提高政府化学品管理的行政效率,促进化学品经营企业主动污染减排,提升公众参与化学品管理的意识,充分发挥公众在化学品管理中的监督作用。目前,我国已经建立起化学品管理的PRTR制度雏形框架,但在制度体系的诸多方面不健全,亟需进一步完善。文章系统分析美、日、欧实施多年的PRTR制度,借鉴各国成熟的经验,提出从制度基础、制度氛围、技术体系、信息公开机制等方面完善我国PRTR制度,为推进PRTR制度的实施提供参考。     

Ecosystem services for water policy: Insights across Europe

In this research we explored how the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services are currently used in water management in Europe, in the application of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) developed for the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). Five case studies have been considered, located in the River Basin Districts of the Po river (Italy), Scotland (United Kingdom), Scheldt river (Belgium), Danube river (Romania), Sado and Mira rivers and Ribeiras do Algarve (Portugal). These cases represent different regional contexts of application of this EU water policy, with specific socio-economic drivers and environmental issues. Each case study has developed an operational framework to analyse ecosystem services in practice together with a group of local stakeholders. In each regional case, we examined how EU water policy and RBMPs are implemented, considered legal and planning instruments from the national to the local scale, and we analysed the use of ecosystem service terms and concepts in the relevant planning instruments. In parallel, we explored the view of local stakeholders and water managers on the topic, collecting their opinion on three major aspects: the usefulness of the concepts and approaches of ecosystem services for WFD river basin management plans, the risks and benefits of their use, and the knowledge needs to put the concepts into practice. The major drawback of the ecosystem service approach seems to be the challenge for practitioners of understanding new concepts and methodologies, while the major advantages are that it highlights all the hidden benefits of a water body in good health and promotes multi-functionality and sustainability in water management. The results of this study provide a picture across Europe of the current use of the concepts of ecosystem services in the RBMP and relevant insight on the opinion of local stakeholders and water managers.     

Air quality and climate change: Designing new win-win policies for Europe

Anthropogenic activities are responsible for the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants that modify atmospheric composition. Such changes are, in turn, responsible for the degradation of air quality at the regional/local scale as well as for changes of climate. Air pollution and climate change are two intimately connected environmental issues. However, these two environmental challenges are still viewed as separate issues, which are dealt with by different science communities and within different policy frameworks. Indeed, many mitigation options offer the possibility to both improve air quality and mitigate climate change but, at the same time, mitigation options that may provide benefits to one aspect, are worsening the situation in the other. Therefore, coordinated actions taking into account the air quality-climate linkages are required. These actions need to be based on strong scientific grounds, as recognised by the European Commission that in the past few years has promoted consultation processes among the science community, the policy makers and the relevant stakeholders. Here, the main fields in which such coordinated actions are needed are examined from a policy perspective.     

Atmospheric sulfur and nitrogen budgets for southeast Europe

This paper presents atmospheric sulfur and nitrogen budgets for the region of southeast Europe, including Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, the western part of th Anthropogenic and natural emission fluxes are estimated from information in the literature; wet and dry deposition fluxes are determined from both EMEP measurements and modelling results and the input and output terms are based on EMEP modelling results. For sulfur, the total inputs and outputs for the region range from 3.8 to 4.4 and 4.0 to 7.2 Tg Sy⁻¹, respectively; for nitrogen, the inputs and outputs are 2.1 to 3.8 and 2.0 to 6.6 TgNy⁻¹, respectively. On average, the nitrogen fluxes consist of approximately equal parts of oxidized and reduced forms. Despite the presence of strong upwind sources, anthropogenic emission within the region dominate the inputs, accounting for approximately 70% of the total inputs for both S and N. The three output terms, outflow, wet and dry de'position, are of similar magnitude for both species, but all have considerable uncertainties (ca 50%). The cycling of S and N in the atmosphere of southeast Europe has common features with that in eastern North America and west-central Europe, in that anthropogenic S and N dominate the natural cycles of these substances, anthropogenic emissions within the region significantly exceed inflows to the region, and the region is a net exporter of S and N species.     

The challenge of sustainability: incentives for brownfield regeneration in Europe

Brownfields are often not economically competitive for regeneration compared with greenfield sites without public intervention. The economic, environmental and social barriers present at the site frequently hinder returning brownfields to beneficial use. The European Union and its member states provide different public incentives to make brownfield regeneration more attractive but rarely consider their sustainability. Deciding how to regenerate brownfields should involve more than redeveloping the site to meet regulations or to meet a predetermined site use. Member states, policy makers, land owners and developers need to understand all aspects of brownfield regeneration and how sustainability issues need to be paramount in choosing alternative site uses. This paper presents the existing incentives on a European Union level, in Germany, the UK, and France; it discusses the effects and gaps; and makes suggestions for more effective instruments for the promotion of sustainable brownfield regeneration.     

Ecological networks and greenways in Europe: reasoning and concepts

The paper gives an overview of approaches towards ecological networks throughout Europe.It does not intend to present a complete picture,but to highlight comon developments within countries and regions and show common principles and differences between countries and regions that have to be taken into account when developing a joint European intiative,Countries or regions that have not been included can be active in the same way ,but information was not accessible to be authors for different reasons.This overview shows the comparable trends in decline of landscapes and the diversity in approaches to biodiversity conservation and nature conservation planning.Understanding the differences and common issues are of utmost imprtance to generalise common principles and to understand the way neighbours and other European partners approach problems.     

Production systems aligned with distributed economies: Examples from energy and biomass sectors

This article builds on the introduction to the concept of distributed economies (DE) by Johansson et al. [Johansson A, Kisch P, Mirata M. Distributed economies – a new engine for innovation. Journal of Cleaner Production, this issue] and takes the discussion further by reviewing examples of production systems that, due to certain characteristics, can be seen as illustrative DE elements. Through selected cases from energy production and biomass products sectors, the environmental and business benefits provided by local, small-scale, flexible production units that increase value addition to local assets are exemplified. The factors supporting the development of such systems are also reviewed. The lessons extracted from these cases are designed to guide the development of other production and product systems aligned with DE.