How environmental management driving forces affect environmental and economic performance of SMEs: a study in the Northern China district

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the core of societal and economic development. However, most people query on the implementation and performance of environmental management. In this paper, the manufacturing SMEs in Northern China with different pollution levels are studied to explore the main forces (e.g., government, society, market, and enterprise itself) driving SMEs for promoting environmental management. It focuses on the correlation between environmental management and economic performance for SMEs at different pollution levels. The results show that SMEs of different pollution levels have significant differences in the relationship of driving forces and performance. First, for SMEs with high-pollution levels, social and market driving forces and government incentives are revealed having a significant effect on their environmental performance. Driving forces from within the enterprise itself and the market provide a positive effect on the economic performance, while social forces have a negative effect. Second, for SMEs with light pollution, social and market driving forces, and government assistance play a supporting role on corporate environmental performance improvement. It is also found that the driving force of the enterprise itself does not have a significant effect on the environmental performance for SMEs with different pollution levels. In addition, the environmental performance and economic performance for SMEs with high or light-pollution levels are positively correlated. Further, it shows that the environmental performance is moderately correlated with financial indices, but not significantly with the non-financial indices.     

Design of policy mechanism to promote cleaner production in China

ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＣｌｅａｎｅｒｐｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎ (ＣＰ)ｈｏｌｄｓｇｒｅａｔｐｒｏｍｉｓｅａｓａｎｅｆｆｅｃｔｉｖｅｓｔｒａｔｅｇｙｉｎｔｈｅｆａｃｅｏｆｄｏｕｂｌｅｃｈａｌｌｅｎｇｅｓｏｆｅｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔａｌｐｒｏｔｅｃｔｉｏｎａｎｄｅｃｏｎｏｍｉｃｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔ.Ｉｎ 1993,ａｄｅｍｏｎｓｔｒａｔｉｏｎｐｒｏｊｅｃｔ (Ｂ 4ｐｒｏｊｅｃｔ) ,ｄｅｓｉｇｎｅｄａｎｄｅｘｅｃｕｔｅｄｂｙｔｈｅＳｔａｔｅＥｎｖｉｒｏｎｍｅｎｔａｌＰｒｏｔｅｃｔｉｏｎＡｄｍｉｎｉｓｔｒａｔｉｏｎ (…     

Improving cleaner production through the application of environmental management tools in China

Cleaner Production (CP) as a strategy for reducing negative environmental impacts throughout the production processes avoids and decreases pollution at its source and increases the competitiveness of enterprises. Since the establishment of China's goal for quadrupling its gross domestic product between 2000 and 2020, while improving its environmental performance and maintaining social stability, ‘win-win’ concepts such as CP are playing an increasingly prominent role in the country's development plans. Consequently, China's efforts to create a favourable policy and institutional framework for the promotion of CP that includes its unique national “CP Promotion Law” which governs the implementation of all CP activities in the country are encouraging. However, China has encountered significant challenges in improving, on a large scale, the environmental performance of its industries. Factors such as the difficulty in mainstreaming CP in industries, limited institutional resources as well as constraints in financial and technical resources of small and medium-sized enterprises have hindered the widespread adoption of CP. In addition, due to local peculiarities and disparities, different regional approaches for its implementation have evolved. This paper describes and analyses how the application of an environmental management tool in Zhejiang Province has enhanced the environmental, economic and organisational benefits of CP in enterprises.     

Energy service company and financial market development: experiences of the Global Environment Facility

Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) and the energy market for ESCO financing have been developing since 1976 when oil prices increased dramatically. ESCOs’ services cover projects in many energy areas, including energy extraction, power generation, energy conversion, transportation, power transmission, energy consumption, project financing, energy project audits, monitoring, and energy savings verification. In developing countries, there are many barriers in the energy market that are preventing ESCOs from developing. These barriers include lack of appropriate policy, financial mechanisms, and local capacities for ESCO development and management. Over the past 20 years, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) financed 39 ESCO projects in 25 countries and regions to remove these barriers. The results of these projects show that some countries, such as China, are very successful in ESCO development, but others are not. Different models of ESCOs in different financial markets in various countries are analyzed; and case studies are undertaken for China, India, Ukraine, and Brazil. This article concludes that, while developing financial markets for ESCOs, countries need to consider (1) initiating national government policy to stop energy subsidies and to reform energy pricing, (2) establishing a real, market based financial mechanism for ESCOs, (3) involving the private sector in project co-financing, (4) creating incentives to ESCOs in the market by investing part of government revenue from energy tax, and (5) incentivizing ESCOs by government corporate tax exemption.     

Recent experiences and challenges in promoting cleaner production investments in developing countries

The paper presents on the experience of the first year of implementation of the UNEP project ‘Strategies and mechanisms for promoting cleaner production (CP) investments in developing countries’. An insight into the experience gained in two developing countries, Guatemala and Zimbabwe is given in separate cases.The paper attempts a preliminary—by no means exhaustive—analysis of the current status of CP awareness among the financial community in selected developing countries and the main barriers to funding CP from a financial sector perspective. The experience gained in five developing countries allows to better investigate the ways whereby the financial community could, and perhaps should, more effectively promote financing of CP, thus contributing to the spread of the CP concept and measures at the macro (government), medium (industry associations, chambers of commerce) and micro (enterprises) levels. In doing so, the paper indirectly emphasises the role of other key stakeholders.Suggestions and recommendations expressed in the paper have to be taken clearly with a pinch of salt, as each country in the developing world has its distinct economic, political, social and cultural features.     

Drivers and barriers to engage enterprises in environmental management initiatives in Suzhou Industrial Park, China

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in sustainable development not only for their significant contribution to China’s economy, but also for their large share of total discharged pollutants. Therefore, this research takes the enterprises in Suzhou Industrial Park, China as the case study to investigate the environmental management practices of SMEs, and identify drivers and barriers to engaging businesses in environmental management initiatives. It is shown that, as in other countries, SMEs are less active in adopting environmental management initiatives than larger companies. Legislation remains the key driver to engage SMEs in environmental management initiatives. Based on the analysis, policy recommendations are also presented.     

Projected impacts to the production of outdoor recreation opportunities across US state park systems due to the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy

Numerous empirical and simulation-based studies have documented or estimated variable impacts to the economic growth of nation states due to the adoption of domestic climate change mitigation policies. However, few studies have been able to empirically link projected changes in economic growth to the provision of public goods and services. In this research, we couple projected changes in economic growth to US states brought about by the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy with a longitudinal panel dataset detailing the production of outdoor recreation opportunities on lands managed in the public interest. Joining empirical data and simulation-based estimates allow us to better understand how the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy would affect the provision of public goods in the future. We first employ a technical efficiency model and metrics to provide decision makers with evidence of specific areas where operational efficiencies within the nation's state park systems can be improved. We then augment the empirical analysis with simulation-based changes in gross state product (GSP) to estimate changes to the states’ ability to provide outdoor recreation opportunities from 2014 to 2020; the results reveal substantial variability across states. Finally, we explore two potential solutions (increasing GSP or increasing technical efficiency) for addressing the negative impacts on the states’ park systems operating budgets brought about by the adoption of a domestic climate change mitigation policy; the analyses suggest increasing technical efficiency would be the most viable solution if/when the US adopts a greenhouse gas reduction policy.     

Policy and operational constraints for the implementation of cleaner production in Zambia

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted to identify the appropriate policy strategies for cleaner production in Zambia. Through direct consultation with industry and other stakeholders, it was observed that the major constraints that hindered implementation of cleaner production in the industry were financial problems, poor/weak enforcement of environmental laws, lack of knowledge, lack of awareness and lack of technical competence. Similarly, potential motivators for cleaner production in industry were identified and included the macro-economic climate, economic reforms and policies, economic incentives, regulation and environmental leadership. In conclusion, the low levels of cleaner production adoption were mainly due to the lack of environmental standards in some industries, low levels of cleaner production awareness, limited understanding of commercial and economic benefits of utilisation of cleaner production approaches, inadequate institutional arrangements for the promotion and implementation of cleaner production and the lacklustre enforcement of existing environmental laws.     

Assessment of cleaner production uptake: method development and trial with small businesses in Western Australia

This paper reports on the development of an innovative semi-quantitative assessment method to estimate the level of uptake of cleaner production (CP) in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the basis of three component ratings: awareness of CP ideas and benefits; presence of management features and/or system components conducive to CP; and CP content of recent innovations and operational improvements. The assessment method was designed for application through a telephone survey and was deliberately structured to minimise intentional socially preferable responses. It was trialled on 140 SMEs in four sectors, mostly from Western Australia: printing and book making; dry-cleaning; food processing and metal products. The trial showed that the assessment tool can judge the business’ capacity to implement CP. The levels of CP uptake found in the trial reflect well on the experience of CP practitioners, albeit much lower than reported from previous mail surveys. In the trial the drycleaners performed significantly better than the other businesses, with food processing, metal processing and printing businesses being ranked second, third, and fourth respectively. The higher uptake by drycleaners was expected given that a sector specific CP program was conducted in that sector. Overall, the results suggest that generic (non-industry specific) semi-quantitative proxy indicators can be used for estimating the level of CP uptake in SMEs. Although further verification with quantitative environmental and economic performance data would in principle be desirable, this would be impractical due to the general lack of monitoring and recordkeeping of environmental data in many SMEs, and would also face the common conceptual, methodological and fundamental challenges for CP quantification. The tool may therefore be more useful to target CP promotion efforts, and measure their effectiveness.     

Promotion of cleaner production investments: international experience

Cleaner Production (CP) should be an essential part of any comprehensive environmental management system at an enterprise or national level. In many cases the adoption of CP improvements can reduce or even eliminate the need for end-of-pipe investments and therefore can have both environmental and economic benefits. Experience shows, that often companies having identified cost-effective and technically-feasible CP options, may still not be able to make necessary CP investment to realise the financial benefits and environmental advantages. Financing of CP projects varies among countries and types of the projects. Domestic and international efforts to strengthen environmental financing still face a number of serious obstacles, many of which are related to profound economic, political and social problems. The detailed evaluation of revolving fund establishment possibilities based on personal experience of the authors in Lithuania, Zimbabwe and Vietnam is presented in the paper.     

The evaluation of Cleaner Production performance in Lithuanian industries

The analysis of the Cleaner Production (CP)/pollution prevention concept application in Lithuanian companies demonstrates a number of opportunities in waste minimization and pollution prevention areas aimed at sustainable development.To compare the efficiency of various CP methods and to identify the preventive methods with the highest energy saving possibilities in different Lithuanian sectors of the economy the database “The implementation of Cleaner Production in Lithuania” was used. This database was developed in line with CP implementation methodology and contains technical, environmental, economic and financial information on implemented CP innovations in Lithuanian companies during the last decade. In addition, several applicable CP innovations are described in case studies.     

Waste management policies for industrial symbiosis development: case studies in European countries

Industrial symbiosis (IS) emerged as a self-organizing business strategy among firms that are willing to cooperate to improve their economic and environmental performance. The adoption of such cooperative strategies relates to increasing costs of waste management, most of which are driven by policy and legislative requirements.Development of IS depends on an enabling context of social, informational, technological, economical and political factors. The power to influence this context varies among the agents involved such as the government, businesses or coordinating entities. Governmental intervention, as manifested through policies, could influence a wider range of factors; and we believe this is an area which is under-researched.This paper aims to critically appraise the waste policy interventions from supra-national to sub-national levels of government. A case study methodology has been applied to four European countries i.e. Denmark, the UK, Portugal and Switzerland, in which IS emerged or is being fostered.The findings suggest that there are commonalities in policy instruments that may have led to an IS enabling context. The paper concludes with lessons learnt and recommendations on shaping the policy context for IS development.     

自然资源与经济增长——基于金融发展门槛效应

“资源诅咒”是经济学中的一个经典假说,但金融发展水平对“资源诅咒”产生的影响却容易被忽视。论文通过使用1996—2012年中国31个省市区域的面板数据,利用Hansen门槛模型发现：“资源诅咒”确实存在于中国省际;金融发展水平对经济增长存在门槛临界,即金融业的发展情况在门槛值1.635 2的前后,自然资源对经济增长的影响程度显著不同;居民消费和政府支出可以显著影响金融业的发展;物质资本投入水平仍然是影响中国经济增长的重要因素。因此拉动地方消费、提高政府支出和物质资本投入,进而提高地区金融业发展水平,可以有效缓解“资源诅咒”现象,促进经济增长。     

Fuzzy AHP-based study of cleaner production implementation in Taiwan PWB manufacturer

In recent years, many electronic manufacturing firms have looked upon Cleaner Production (CP) as the means by which they could maintain environmental practice and competitive advantages. CP has been adopted by companies as an important factor in enhancing industrial productivity. Sustainable projects that deal appropriately with environmental and social factors are also more likely to be the most profitable.This paper investigated the criteria and attributes that determine a successful adoption and implementation of CP in reference to PWB manufacture in Taiwan. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) methodology is used to discuss the different decision criteria that include Organizing, Systems and Technologies, Measurement and Feedback, Working environment and Worker's Culture which are all vital factors in an effective CP implementation. AHP is an efficient tool in controlling the fuzziness of the data involved in choosing the most preferred decision variables. The linguistic level of comparisons produced by the manufacturers and experts are tapped and constructed in a form of triangular fuzzy numbers in order to construct fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices. The implementation of the system is demonstrated by a problem involving three stages of hierarchy which contains different criteria and attributes at a wider perspective within an environmental uncertainty. The findings advocate that these enterprises would need to setup the priorities of the CP implementation. The results suggest a generic hierarchical model of organizations of which the highest level is to be prioritized among the CP implementation factors.     

工业废水处理技术的效益模型建立

水资源已成为制约我国经济发展的主要因素。因而需要对工业废水加强净化处理,以便于节约用水,减少对水的需求量。本文就采取分层分析法(AHP方法)与模糊数学相结合的方法,建立了工业废水处理技术的效益模型,并举例进行解析,目的在于探索出合理可行的工业废水处理效益评价方法。     

Eco-efficiency in the SMEs of Venezuela. Current status and future perspectives

This paper presents a comparison analysis of eco-efficiency in the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) of Venezuela. The research can be divided into three parts: the first part reviews similar studies in the literature on the level of eco-efficiency exhibited by the companies of Venezuela and other countries. In the second place, the findings of a survey conducted on Venezuelan SMEs allowed the definition of 54 eco-efficiency profiles. Thirdly, six national experts in cleaner production and eco-efficiency were interviewed. The interview was based on a questionnaire similar to that used in the survey of the Venezuelan SMEs. At a second meeting, the experts were asked to discuss on the similarities and differences between their answers and those of the company's managers.The findings of the survey allow us to conclude that Venezuelan SMEs understand the legal environmental regulations that affect them but they do not perceive the influence of external driving forces like customers demand for green products or institutional incentives. The adoption of eco-efficiency practices is not perceived as an incentive to improve competitiveness so that the environmental strategies adopted generally aim at reducing costs or avoiding non-compliance sanctions and negative effects on the company image. Materials recycling and reuse, especially packaging materials, are common practices; however, other environmental tools or practices have not been implemented yet, e.g. environmental management systems (EMS), process, product and services design tools based on the product life cycle, renewable energy resources or green marketing. There are also differences among the eight industrial sectors analyzed, food and chemical industries having the higher index of eco-efficiency practices, and plastic and wood industries the lower.     

Water policy implementation in the state of São Paulo,Brazil: Key challenges and opportunities

Challenges in implementing water planning and management are common, and the effective implementation of integrated water policies is yet to occur. In Brazil, the state of São Paulo enacted a Water Act in 1991 to ensure water availability for current and future generations based on the principles of decentralization, participation and integration. This research addresses water policy implementation issues by conducting an exploratory case study in the state of São Paulo. Factors affecting the water policy implementation process were analyzed, together with some water resources management practices. The findings indicate four dimensions of key challenges: institutional and governance, political, financial and technical. The stakeholders believe the political and the institutional and governance challenges are more important than the technical and financial ones. Additionally, the results show different levels of involvement in the areas of water policy strategy, the planning and decision-making process, and implementation by the different stakeholders groups. Stakeholders external to the water sector and from local government were considered to be less involved in water-related issues, when compared with stakeholders from the water sector. The study recommends a change in current institutional and governance arrangements in order to influence decisions and investments in different levels and sectors.     

Developing biofuels industry in small economies: Policy experiences and lessons from the caribbean basin initiative

With increasing concerns about rising energy demand and cost, diminishing oil reserves, and climate change, Central American and Caribbean (CAC) nations have the opportunity to become producers of low-carbon sustainable biofuels for domestic consumption and foreign exchange earnings. While the region has a number of comparative advantages for developing a vibrant biofuels sector, including favorable climate and significant agricultural experience, the experience under the favorable Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) has exposed significant technical and non-technical barriers that must be overcome. Using information compiled through interviews with industry executives, government policy makers and civil society stakeholders, we provide a critical analysis of this experience focusing on non-technical barriers to investment. Survey results suggest that political uncertainty, poor regulatory frameworks, and lack of institutional commitment and business incentives are the main non-technical barriers. Having laid out the challenges, we propose potential policy positions to stimulate growth of the regional biofuels sector. Results point to the need to prioritize enhancing national legislation, developing risk prevention plans, creating supply and demand side incentives and increasing multilateral collaboration. While these findings are derived from the Caribbean Basin experience, they may also be applicable to small economies in other regions that are considering policies for biofuels industry development.     

清洁生产的宏观管理与推进

目前,我国清洁生产的实施主要是以企业为单位来开展的。以企业为单位实施清洁生产存在内在动力不足、难以从更广泛和更系统性的方面考虑问题、难以承担费用较高的改善、成果难以进行复制和推广等问题。针对这些问题,提出了管理部门应从宏观上对清洁生产进行更多的管理与推进,管理部门应制定和推行相关法律法规和管理制度,推行清洁生产认证制度,推进产业和区域清洁生产,对企业提供政策、资金、技术和管理支持,加强清洁生产成果的总结和推广,建立和维护清洁生产的信息渠道。通过管理部门这些必要的规范、管理、扶持、鼓励,保障和促进企业清洁生产的开展及全社会清洁生产的顺利推进。     

Urban garbage disposal and management in China

This paper, probing into the present situation of urban domestic garbage by analyzing its growing trend, compositional change and regional difference, reveals the problems existing in its disposul and management in China. Meanwhile, a questionnaire was conducted in five big cities around China for surveying urban residents‘ attitudes towards garbage disposal and management policies and measures. Results showed the outlmt of urban domestic garbage in Chinese cities is ever increasing, and the recoverable materials and energy in garbage composition are also increasing. The population growth, economic development, and increase of residents‘ expenditure level are the main factors influencing the growing output and changing composition of the garbage. Information acquired from the questionnaire showed that majority of the urban residentsare in favor d the garbage reduction policies and managerial measures and are willing to collaborate with municipal government in battling against gadbage. Based on the analysis and questionnaire, some policymaking-oriented suggestions such as operating the garbage disposal from a social welfare service to a sector of profit-gaining enterprises, transferring the garbage management from passive end control to active source control,promoting the classified garbage collection in cities around China, and charging garbage fees for its cleanup and disposal, have also been put forward in the paper.