Agricultural application of life cycle iNdeX (LInX) for effective decision making

Mechanisms for evaluating system sustainability should allow for the consideration of three main parameters: social, economic and environmental. While, there are methods for comparing processes, projects or systems on the basis of environmental impact or cost, few incorporate all three parameters into the decision process. Life cycle index (LInX) is an indexing system that is meant to simplify the decision making process by incorporating a life cycle based approach with components of sustainability and safety. Although LInX was designed for large industrial systems, this paper presents the application on a small anaerobic digestion (AD) unit on a dairy farm in Clymer, New York. An AD unit can be used to generate electricity from the combustion of biogas produced from organic waste. From the analysis, the AD unit performed well on environmental and cost parameters, but not as well on risk and social parameters. However, the AD unit performed similar to natural gas and biomass-based production. One recommendation for the method is that consideration be given to modifying parameters and weightings to suit agriculture and location specific needs.     

Towards science in support of decision making: characterizing the supply of carbon cycle science

As concern about climate change grows, so does interest in deliberately managing the carbon cycle to reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Given the scientific and technical nature of knowledge of the carbon cycle, one would expect that carbon science would be directly of use to society in considering this objective. However, carbon science is not currently organized or conducted in such a way that it can be usable to the wide diversity of decision makers who might potentially be involved in managing the carbon cycle. This paper reviews the science policies and actors governing the production or “supply” of carbon cycle science, and suggests alternatives for enabling the supply to better meet demand.     

环境意识对环境与发展综合决策的影响

环境意识对提高环境与发展综合决策水平有很大作用。环境意识高低与综合决策的水平有很大联系。对环境意识的形成、其对综合决策的影响作用以及如何提高环境意识、促进综合决策发展做了研究。     

Environmental impact of packaging and food losses in a life cycle perspective: a comparative analysis of five food items

The environmental concern and development issues regarding packaging has for 20 years to a high extent been on packaging when it has become waste. To reduce the environmental impact from the whole food packaging system it is also important to develop the packaging’s ability to reduce food waste. In some cases it may be necessary to increase the environmental impact of packaging in order to reduce food waste. In this paper, the environmental impact of packaging and food losses and the balance between the two has been examined for five different food items. The results show that packaging’s that reduce food waste can be an important tool to reduce the total environmental impact, even if there is an increase in impact from the packaging itself. This is especially true for food items where the environmental impact of the food is high relative the packaging, for example cheese, and for food items with high losses, for example bread. It is important to analyse the risk of increasing food losses when packaging design changes, for example, when the aim is less packaging material, which is the main intention of the packaging and packaging waste directive of the European Union.     

Ethical aspects of scientific incertitude in environmental analysis and decision making

There have been too many environmental surprises during the last century—too many occasions where decisions relative to the environment were taken in the belief that there was a well-established, scientific basis for the decisions and faith in the expertise that provided the information. The surprises illustrate that the knowledge base and models in some cases do not even come close to reality. The reason may be incertitude, which covers the spectrum from determinism, uncertainty, ignorance and indeterminacy. In relation to risk assessment and sustainability, society, politicians and professionals have to come to terms with the fact that ignorance plays a far greater role than normally acknowledged by natural scientists and engineers.     

我国环境保护规划实施中的问题分析

环境规划是国民经济和社会发展的有机组成部分,本文剖析了当前我国环境保护规划在实施中存在的主要问题,认为现阶段我国环境保护规划存在缺乏法律效力、实施过程中缺乏统一协调、资金难以落实、缺乏有效地实施监管机制和公众参与机制缺乏实质性等问题;总结了国外在环境保护规划实施过程中可以借鉴的经验;结合我国环境保护工作的形势和环境保护规划的发展,提出了完善环境保护规划的法律机制、加强环境规划衔接、建立完善的实施监督机制、加大规划实施的资金投入、加强环境保护规划的公众参与等建议,以保证环境保护规划的可达性和可操作性。     

Material flows in the life cycle of leather

This paper presents a study on the resource and environmental profile of leather for communicating to the consumers about the environmental burdens of leather products. The results indicate that significant environmental impacts were caused during the tanning and finishing of leather as well as the electricity production and transportation required in the life cycle. The use of fossil fuels in the production of energy has greater impact with increased emissions leading to about 15190 kg CO₂ equivalent of global warming and about 73 kg SO₂ equivalent of acidification while producing 100 m² of leather for shoe uppers. Further resource use of 174 kg of coal, 6.5 kg of fuel oil, 17.4 m³ of water and 348 kg of chemicals of which about 204 kg are hazardous are consumed, and wastewater of about 17 m³, BOD of 55 kg, COD of about 146 kg, TDS of 732 kg and solid waste of about 1445 kg are generated during the life cycle for the production of 100 m² of leather. The total solid waste generated is 1317 kg, out of which about 80% is biodegradable contributed by slaughtering, tanning and finishing stage, 14% is non-biodegradable contributed by tanning, finishing and electricity production stages and 6% is hazardous mainly from tanning and finishing stage of leather.     

A comparison of multiple criteria analysis and unaided approaches to environmental decision making

This study compares multiple criteria analysis (MCA) assisted decisions and unaided decisions in an environmental management context. It involved 55 decision makers in Queensland, Australia, who used MCA techniques to evaluate environmental projects alongside their own intuitive approaches under the Australian Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) program. The NHT is Australia's largest environmental program funded over A$ 2.5 billion over 10 years. The study assessed decision maker learning and perceptions of MCA's overall usefulness. It was found that MCA produced markedly different results to unaided evaluations. Feedback from decision makers typically showed that unaided decisions did not make explicit use of evaluation criteria. Even though most decision makers were unwilling to change their choices following the use of MCA, they found it a helpful input to their decision procedure. The majority of decision makers supported the adoption of MCA to make future investment decisions under the NHT program.     

Understanding barriers to decision making in the UK energy-food-water nexus: The added value of interdisciplinary approaches

The nexus represents a multi-dimensional means of scientific enquiry which seeks to describe the complex and non-linear interactions between water, energy, food, with the climate, and further understand wider implications for society. These resources are fundamental for human life but are negatively affected by shocks such as climate change and characterize some of the main challenges for global sustainable development. Given the multidimensional and complex nature of the nexus, a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge development through co-production is needed to timely and effectively inform the decision making processes to build societal resilience to these shocks going beyond the sectorality of current research practice. The paper presents findings from five themed workshops (shocks and hazards, infrastructure, local economy, governance and governments, finance and insurance) with 80 stakeholders from academia, government and industry in the UK to explore the impact of climate and weather shocks across the energy-food-water nexus and barriers to related responses. The research identified key stakeholders’ concerns, opportunities and barriers to better inform decision making centred on four themes: communication and collaboration, decision making processes, social and cultural dimensions, and the nature of responses to nexus shocks. We discuss implications of these barriers and how addressing these can better facilitate constructive dialogue and more efficient decision-making in response to nexus shocks.     

Scale,context, and decision making in agricultural adaptation to climate variability and change

This work presents a framework for viewing agricultural adaptation, emphasizing the multiple spatial and temporal scales on which individuals and institutions process information on changes in their environment. The framework is offered as a means to gain perspective on the role of climate variability and change in agricultural adaptation, and developed for a case study of Australian agriculture. To study adaptation issues at the scale of individual farms we developed a simple modelling framework. The model highlights the decision making element of adaptation in light of uncertainty, and underscores the importance of decision information related to climate variability. Model results show that the assumption of perfect information for farmers systematically overpredicts adaptive performance. The results also suggest that farmers who make tactical planting decisions on the basis of historical climate information are outperformed by those who use even moderately successful seasonal forecast information. Analysis at continental scales highlights the prominent role of the decline in economic operating conditions on Australian agriculture. Examples from segments of the agricultural industry in Australia are given to illustrate the importance of appropriate scale attribution in adapting to environmental changes. In particular, adaptations oriented toward short time scale changes in the farming environment (droughts, market fluctuations) can be limited in their efficacy by constraints imposed by broad changes in the soil/water base and economic environment occuring over longer time scales. The case study also makes the point that adaptation must be defined in reference to some goal, which is ultimately a social and political exercise. Overall, this study highlights the importance of allowing more complexity (limited information, risk aversion, cross-scale interactions, mis-attribution of cause and effect, background context, identification of goals) in representing adaptation processes in climate change studies.     

广东省发展循环经济的现实思考

广东省是全国经济发达省份,在未来几年发展中,面临着保持较高的增长速度与资源供给不足的矛盾.因此,发展循环经济是保持广东省经济持续快速发展,提升产业竞争力的必然抉择.     

Environmental reporting in a developing country: a case study on status and implementation in Malaysia

With the increase in awareness of environmental issues, the level of environmental disclosure and stakeholder demands for environmental information is increasing. New developments in the ISO 14000 standards also make it more evident that a company's environmental performance as well as its environmental reporting should be considered as strategic issues in business strategy. Especially for a developing country like Malaysia, many companies are under external pressures to improve their environmental performance.In this study, a review on the image and environmental disclosure, together with the challenges in environmental information management and a short case study are presented. Subsequently, the paper explores some of the strategic implications of environmental reporting as an important tool for improved environmental management.     

The effect of modelling expert knowledge and uncertainty on multicriteria decision making: a river management case study

To support decision making on complex environmental issues, models are often used to explore the potential impacts of different management alternatives on the environmental system. We explored how different model outcomes affect decision making. Two topics have our particular interest, namely (1) the influence of quantification of qualitative information on decision making, and (2) the influence of reflecting uncertainty in the model outcomes on decision making. We set up a survey, in which we use a case study describing a decision making situation in strategic river management. The survey was disseminated through the Internet. From the results we conclude that the quantification of information in itself does not necessarily change preferences, although the outcomes suggest that preferences converge when based on quantified information. When confronted with uncertainty information, respondents show a preference for the alternative with the smallest chance of negative impacts. The study shows that, whereas the modelling community often strives to provide the policy process with as good, and as detailed information as is possible, their assumption that this will automatically lead to ‘better’ decision making is not self-evident.     

环保:一种渐成主流的生活方式

英国推崇过绿色圣诞 从传统意义上来说,英国绝大多数人都想度过一个白色的圣诞节.然而,现在越来越多的人却倾向于把圣诞节装扮成一个绿色的节日.     

Assessing alternative aquaculture technologies: life cycle assessment of salmonid culture systems in Canada

This study employed life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify and compare the potential environmental impacts of culturing salmonids in a conventional marine net-pen system with those of three reportedly environmentally-friendly alternatives; a marine floating bag system; a land-based saltwater flow-through system; and a land-based freshwater recirculating system. Results of the study indicate that while the use of these closed-containment systems may reduce the local ecological impacts typically associated with net-pen salmon farming, the increase in material and energy demands associated with their use may result in significantly increased contributions to several environmental impacts of global concern, including global warming, non-renewable resource depletion, and acidification. It is recommended that these unanticipated impacts be carefully considered in further assessments of the sustainability of closed-containment systems and in ongoing efforts to develop and employ these technologies on a larger scale.     

Global environmental consequences of increased biodiesel consumption in Switzerland: consequential life cycle assessment

This study assesses the direct and indirect environmental impacts to be expected if Switzerland should replace one percent of its current diesel consumption with imports of A) soybean methyl ester (SME) from Brazil, or B) palm methyl ester (PME) from Malaysia. In order to take into account possible future consequences, what-if scenarios were developed and assessed by means of a consequential LCA. In contrast to attributional LCA, the consequential approach uses system enlargement to include the marginal products affected by a change of the physical flows in the central life cycle. This means that the LCA considers all inputs and outputs which are linked to biodiesel production and that the product system is subsequently expanded to include the marginal products affected. Both future systems are assessed in comparison with the environmental scores of the fossil equivalent to biodiesel, i.e. diesel low in sulphur. The environmental burdens are measured by means of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), land occupation and various non-aggregated and aggregated environmental impact indicators.In sum, the environmental impacts of an increased SME consumption depend on the environmental scores of the marginal replacement products on the world market, rather than on local production factors. In other words, the marginal products assumed to be affected are most important for the results obtained, i.e. in particular the marginal vegetable oil, fodder cake and land areas. In this study it is SME production increased at the expense of the available soybean oil which shifts the impacts associated with soybean oil production to the production of the marginal vegetable oils on the world market. In this perspective, it is not relevant in which country biodiesel production takes place, but rather which vegetable oil is involved. With respect to PME, the most relevant determining factor for the environmental impacts is the land area affected by the increased cultivation of oil palms. Currently, this expansion displaces primarily peat land and rain forest. This causes GHG emissions which are much higher than the emissions of the fossil reference. All in all, both PME from Malaysia and SME from Brazil cause more environmental impact than allowed by the Swiss tax redemption on agro-biofuels (max. 60% GHG emissions and 125% UBP of the fossil reference).     

Reducing life cycle impacts of housing and computers in relation with paper

Product-oriented policies gain more and more attention in environmental policies. In this framework, we studied cases (here presented only housing and computers and paper) in a life cycle perspective in order to determine their environmental impacts (in terms of GHG emissions, resource use and waste production) over the period 1990–2010. We also evaluated their potential for improvement up to 2010 by applying product-oriented strategies. We identified clear technical (theoretical) potential for improvement, especially for housing, packaging and computers and paper in offices. We then carried out a Delphi-based survey among stakeholders in order to investigate potential measures.     

关于实施咸阳市环境保护“十五”计划的思考

咸阳市环境保护“十五”计划是我市环境保护事业进入新世纪的第一个五年计划，怎样在“九五”计划已奠定了较好的基础上，大胆解放思想，严密科学规划，着力重点突破，整体全面推进，扎实有序地实施已制定的计划，是摆在全体环保工作者面前的一项重要任务，一个值得思考的课题，本文意欲在学习陕西省委和咸阳市委《关于制定陕西省咸阳市国民经济和社会发展第十个五年计划的建议》（以下简称《建议》，以及咸阳市相关文件后，结合咸阳实际，理清工作思路，把握工作重点，以便更好地组织实施。