The responses and prospects of sustainable development for Guangzhou and Hong Kong

The ability to achieve urban sustainability has become an indication of the competence of a municipal government aiming to gain world class status for the city. While both Guangzhou and Hong Kong are Chinese cities having their own formulation of urban sustainability, the implementation details and the actual sustainability blueprints are very different. As a result, the outcomes and prospects for urban sustainability are also different.

Hong Kong has adopted a less integrative and more institutionally-oriented approach for urban sustainability. Guangzhou has used the conventional approach to formulate an integrated sustainability programme for its local Agenda 21. Hong Kong's action plan emphasizes improving coordination, making objective assessments and achieving consistency in policy-making. Guangzhou, on the other hand, emphasizes the meeting of concrete environmental targets. Unfortunately, the new institutional arrangement and monitoring tools adopted by Hong Kong have not been able to achieve the original intent and neither is there the intention to go too far beyond the weak sustainability approach. On the contrary, Guangzhou has planned and attempted to incorporate industrial ecology in its development regime while heavily investing into pollution control programmes and pushing forward a green community programme at the grass-roots level.     

能值理论研究中存在的几个问题探讨

能值理论与研究方法是当前生态经济学研究中的一个热点问题.被认为是连接生态学与经济学的桥梁,具有重大的理论和实践意义.尽管能值分析有效的将自然环境的价值纳入了产品的生产,更能真实地揭示产品的真实价值,从而克服了传统能量分析和经济分析的诸多缺陷.但其在理论和研究方法仍存在一些不足之处.综合国内外有关能值理论与研究方法的相关文献,对当前能值理论研究中能值转化率的计算问题、多产品或复合产品系统的能值流计算问题、能值价值论与市场价值论结合问题、能值与可持续发展研究问题等几个方面进行了探讨.     

区域生态环境演变与经济增长的耦合效应分析——以宁夏回族自治区为例

以宁夏回族自治区为研究案例,基于1985年以来的相关历史统计数据,以能值分析计算结果为基本依据,采用广义脉冲响应函数、结构分解分析等方法,定量研究经济发展对环境压力的影响,以及生态环境对经济增长的反馈影响。研究结果表明：1985—2005年间,经济发展对区域不可更新资源的依赖度越来越高,对环境产生的压力也不断加大;废弃物排放量随着经济增长在不断加大,而且还未出现废弃物排放量有所降低的趋势。无论是以物质投入为表征的环境压力,还是以废弃物排放为表征的环境压力,都呈上升趋势,导致其上升的主要因素都是经济规模效应,经济结构效应在初期表现出对环境压力的抑制作用,但影响程度不大,随着产业结构的进一步演化,经济结构开始表现出增量效应。技术效应对环境压力的增加总体表现出抑制作用,但不足以抵消经济规模的增量效应。因此,转变经济发展方式,完善和重组区域社会经济活动过程显得非常迫切,这种迫切性将是进一步推动区域循环经济发展的重要驱动力来源。     

烟台市生态经济系统的能值分析

利用能值分析方法分析了2013年烟台市生态经济系统的能值流动状况,并提出了相应的能值利用调控对策。2013年烟台市生态经济系统的能值总用量为2.630×1023 sej,人均能值用量为4.044×10^16 sej,能值自给率为22.6%,能值密度为19.14×10^12sej/m^2,能值货币比率为2.848×10^12sej/,电力能值占能值总用量的比例为5.6%,由可更新资源及其产品支持的人口承载力为16.19×10^4人,由可更新资源及其产品、进口产品及技术共同支持的人口承载量为518.6×10^4人,能值可持续指标值为4.986。将上述计算结果与其它国家和地区进行比较表明：虽然目前烟台市经济较发达,能值利用效率和人民生活水平较高,生态经济系统的能值使用总体上符合区域可持续发展的要求,但系统能值自给率较低,生态环境比较脆弱,经济增长对外部输入的能源和资源依赖性较强。据此,提出了调整产业结构、转变经济增长方式、加强电力资源开发、发展科学教育事业等能值利用的调控对策。     

How well is farmers’ social situation captured by sustainability assessment tools? A Swedish case study

Recent research indicates that sustainability assessment tools (SAT) for farms need to be contextually adapted to be acceptable and useful. Focusing specifically on social sustainability, this study sought to identify important aspects of relevance for Swedish (livestock) farmers’ social situation and compare these aspects with social indicators used in three existing SATs (RISE, SAFA, IDEA). A survey revealed that social issues of key importance for the self-reported overall life satisfaction of Swedish livestock farmers are: having a good financial situation, having a similar standard of living as others, not experiencing too much stress, having meaningful work, having decent working hours, and having a desirable family situation. Of the three SATs evaluated, RISE appears best equipped to capture the social situation of Swedish farmers but does not fully address the aspect of finding work meaningful. SAFA and IDEA both fail to capture many aspects of importance for describing the social situation of Swedish farmers. We present a novel method for testing the relevance of social indicators for farmers in a specific context. Applying this method before choosing, applying, and adapting SATs for farm-level sustainability assessments would increase the relevance of the social sustainability dimension, but deeper stakeholder engagement than offered by our survey is needed.     

A regional-scale sustainable development index: the case of Baja California Sur,Mexico

Sustainable development, as a multi-dimensional concept, is difficult to measure. Some efforts using indicators and indices have appeared in recent years, but most were developed on a national scale. Use of sustainability indicators has proven valuable for attaining better management of the environment by minimizing information gaps and maximizing community capabilities in terms of economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability dimensions. However, at least in the case of developing countries, the potential exists that national sustainability measures, based on national level indicators, may mask problems in sub-national zones with highly unsustainable conditions. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate sustainable development at a local level, the use of which could be helpful in comparing different regions within a country or even among different countries. National sustainability indicators should result from a combination (whether additive or proportional) of regional sustainability indicators, as developed in this paper.     

广州与上海城市生态系统能值的分析比较

利用能值分析理论和方法,从自然—社会—经济复合生态观角度对广州和上海的各种生态流进行比较研究。结果表明上海的经济发达程度、居民的能值福利和环境压力都比广州的高,广州在自然可更新资源和人口承载量方面明显优于上海,具有更大的可持续发展潜力。从能值理论和可持续发展角度分析,广州应加强科技力量和提高自然资源的利用效率,上海应在控制人口的基础上探讨更合理的发展模式。     

建立区域ISO 14001环境管理体系技术要点

以区域为范围进行环境管理体系认证是国家环保总局在我国推行ISO 14000标准的一项重要举措,其目的是将环境管理与行政管理充分有效的结合,借助区域管理机构的管理职能将ISO 14000这一科学的管理手段有效的实施,从而达到环境保护全社会参与,推动该区域各类组织积极自觉地实施ISO 14000标准。本文就区域类型环境管理体系建立与实施的有关技术要点,从经验的角度做了一些探讨。     

Capital structures matrix: a model for public access to project interpretation

A growing demand for transparency and accountability in local decision-making has grown substantially in recent years due to an increasing awareness of finite natural resources. Sustainable development captures the interrelatedness of the economy, the environment and social expectations. In addition, transparency in the decision-making process provides the public a method of accountability for public funds. The Capital Structures Model developed in this paper addresses the demand for accountability by focusing on local development projects classified by type of capital (built, human, social and natural) in order to provide information to the average constituent regarding specific county and community development projects. Local assets are initially categorized according to the type of capital to which they most contribute, and then indicators are employed to measure the contribution of a project with respect to increasing the capacity of each type of capital. These indicators are then cross-referenced with local policy to demonstrate how that policy is implemented in local development projects, and which policies contribute to which type of capital. It is the intention of this model to create an informative tool for planners and constituencies that monitors how development projects contribute to communities in terms of each of the four types of capital.