Achieving environmental excellence through TQEM strategic alliances

Generally speaking, today's TQEM initiatives do not improve a firm's activities beyond the shipping dock and onto consumer and postconsumer use and reuse. Although internal TQEM efforts do improve environmental impacts of a firm's operations, most firms remain focused on the traditional bottom-line objective of increasing throughput. For these reasons, most firms implementing TQEM miss the many opportunities to improve environmental performance (including cost and quality) through asset recovery, resource sharing, and reuse. However, by taking the advantages of teamwork beyond corporate boundaries, firms can close the loop on environmental improvements. Inter-firm teaming for environmental advantage, which we define as TQEM alliancing, initiates a cyclical approach to environmental performance improvement. It does so by forging strategic relationships among firms that can leverage each other's environmental weaknesses. TQEM allying is a round-robin game plan. In this article, the authors show how it allows firms to take their environmental improvement initiatives beyond regulatory compliance (and into proactivity), beyond pollution control (to total pollution avoidance), and beyond profitability (for a quantitative as well as qualitative bottom line), because firms will be integrating external as well as internal functions across different business domains.     

Making sense of public values: Environmental controversies for corporate decision makers

Every year I try to choose the “word of the year”—that is, the word that will be the most topical and overused in the news, politics, and business. Past “words of the year” were leadership, excellence, quality, and so on. This year's, without a doubt, must be values. Just listen to any political speech and you'll be sure to hear it! Magazine article after magazine article makes reference to values—family values, social values, public values, personal values, etc. Business is beginning to experience first-hand the power of this word and the controversy it engenders, especially in the area of environmental issues. Corporations already heavily scrutinized by the public on operational issues like facility expansion, pollution, emissions, product acceptance, etc., are struggling to assess how best to manage competing public values. What do we do when the public has one value and business has another? Or, how can choices be made between two operating needs that compete for the same budget? It is the dilemma posed by values in conflict that this article explores. Once the domain of scholars and philosophers, this timely topic is now demanding the consideration and awareness of everyone in the business world.     

Characterization of Infiltration Rates from Landfills: Supporting Groundwater Modeling Efforts

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature to characterize infiltration rates from landfill liners to support groundwater modeling efforts. The focus of this investigation was on collecting studies that describe the performance of liners 'as installed' or 'as operated'. This document reviews the state of the science and practice on the infiltration rate through compacted clay liner (CCL) for 149 sites and geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) for 1 site. In addition, it reviews the leakage rate through geomembrane (GM) liners and composite liners for 259 sites. For compacted clay liners (CCL), there was limited information on infiltration rates (i.e., only 9 sites reported infiltration rates.), thus, it was difficult to develop a national distribution. The field hydraulic conductivities for natural clay liners range from 1 x 10(-9) cm s(-1) to 1 x 10(-4) cm s(-1), with an average of 6.5 x 10(-8) cm s(-1). There was limited information on geosynthetic clay liner. For composite lined and geomembrane systems, the leak detection system flow rates were utilized. The average monthly flow rate for composite liners ranged from 0-32 lphd for geomembrane and GCL systems to 0 to 1410 lphd for geomembrane and CCL systems. The increased infiltration for the geomembrane and CCL system may be attributed to consolidation water from the clay.     

Effects of different management strategies on long-term trends of Australian threatened and near-threatened mammals

Monitoring is critical to assess management effectiveness, but broadscale systematic assessments of monitoring to evaluate and improve recovery efforts are lacking. We compiled 1808 time series from 71 threatened and near-threatened terrestrial and volant mammal species and subspecies in Australia (48% of all threatened mammal taxa) to compare relative trends of populations subject to different management strategies. We adapted the Living Planet Index to develop the Threatened Species Index for Australian Mammals and track aggregate trends for all sampled threatened mammal populations and for small (<35 g), medium (35–5500 g), and large mammals (>5500 g) from 2000 to 2017. Unmanaged populations (42 taxa) declined by 63% on average; unmanaged small mammals exhibited the greatest declines (96%). Populations of 17 taxa in havens (islands and fenced areas that excluded or eliminated introduced red foxes [Vulpes vulpes] and domestic cats [Felis catus]) increased by 680%. Outside havens, populations undergoing sustained predator baiting initially declined by 75% but subsequently increased to 47% of their abundance in 2000. At sites where predators were not excluded or baited but other actions (e.g., fire management, introduced herbivore control) occurred, populations of small and medium mammals declined faster, but large mammals declined more slowly, than unmanaged populations. Only 13% of taxa had data for both unmanaged and managed populations; index comparisons for this subset showed that taxa with populations increasing inside havens declined outside havens but taxa with populations subject to predator baiting outside havens declined more slowly than populations with no management and then increased, whereas unmanaged populations continued to decline. More comprehensive and improved monitoring (particularly encompassing poorly represented management actions and taxonomic groups like bats and small mammals) is required to understand whether and where management has worked. Improved implementation of management for threats other than predation is critical to recover Australia's threatened mammals.     

Perturbations alter community convergence, divergence, and formation of multiple community states

Environmental perturbations (e.g., disturbance, fertilization) commonly shift communities to a new mean state, but much less is known about their effects on the variability (dispersion) of communities around the mean, particularly when perturbations are combined. Community dispersion may increase or decrease (representing a divergence or convergence among communities) if changing environmental conditions alter species interactions or magnify small initial differences that develop during community assembly. We used data from an experimental study of disturbance and fertilization in a low-productivity grassland to test how these two perturbations affect patterns of species composition and abundance. We found that a one-time biomass reduction decreased community dispersion, which persisted over four growing seasons. Conversely, continuous fertilization increased community dispersion and, when combined with disturbance, led to the formation of three distinct community states. These results illustrate that perturbations can have differing effects on community dispersion. Attention to the variance in community responses to perturbations lends insight into how ecological interactions determine community structure, which may be missed when focusing only on mean responses. Furthermore, multiple perturbations may have complex effects on community dispersion, yielding convergence or divergence patterns that are difficult to predict based on analysis of single factors.     

Dominant species identity, not community evenness, regulates invasion in experimental grassland plant communities

While there has been extensive interest in understanding the relationship between diversity and invasibility of communities, most studies have only focused on one component of diversity: species richness. Although the number of species can affect community invasibility, other aspects of diversity, including species identity and community evenness, may be equally important. While several field studies have examined how invasibility varies with diversity by manipulating species identity or evenness, the results are often confounded by resource heterogeneity, site history, or disturbance. We designed a mesocosm experiment to examine explicitly the role of dominant species identity and evenness on the invasibility of grassland plant communities. We found that the identity of the dominant plant species, but not community evenness, significantly impacted invasibility. Using path analysis, we found that community composition (dominant species identity) reduced invasion by reducing early-season light availability and increasing late-season plant community biomass. Nitrogen availability was an important factor for the survival of invaders in the second year of the experiment. We also found significant direct effects of certain dominant species on invasion, although the mechanisms driving these effects remain unclear. The magnitude of dominant species effects on invasibility we observed are comparable to species richness effects observed in other studies, showing that species composition and dominant species can have strong effects on the invasibility of a community.     

Rangeland Fire Protection Associations as disaster response organisations

Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) are volunteer-based groups of trained private landowners who are authorised to respond to events in partnership with governmental agencies. This study analysed the functioning and structure of RFPAs in Idaho and Oregon in the western United States to characterise this under-researched model of disaster response. RFPAs represent an expanding type of disaster response organisation that interfaces with established fire suppression entities, yet ‘emergent behaviour’ manifested in some RFPA response actions. This appeared to lessen and mediate with time, as well as due to recognition of the issues, increased experience of fires, and training that fostered new mutual understandings. There is a need for continued examination of the effect of repeat experience in developing the characteristics of disaster response organisations. In addition, it is crucial to know how the interface between established and other types of organisations may be enhanced to make cooperative disaster response more effective.     

Satellite tracking reveals a dichotomy in migration strategies among juvenile loggerhead turtles in the Northwest Atlantic

Few data are available on the movements and behavior of immature Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) from their seasonal neritic foraging grounds within the western north Atlantic. These waters provide developmental habitat for loggerheads originating from several western Atlantic nesting stocks. We examined the long-term movements of 23 immature loggerheads (16 wild-caught and seven headstart turtles) characterizing their seasonal distribution, habitat use, site fidelity, and the oceanographic conditions encountered during their migrations. We identified two movement strategies: (1) a seasonal shelf-constrained north–south migratory pattern; and (2) a year-round oceanic dispersal strategy where turtles travel in the Gulf Stream to the North Atlantic and their northern dispersal is limited by the 10–15°C isotherm. When sea surface temperatures dropped below 20°C, neritic turtles began a migration south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (USA) where they established fidelity to the waters between North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the western edge of the Gulf Stream along outer continental shelf. Two turtles traveled as far south as Florida. Several turtles returned to their seasonal foraging grounds during subsequent summers. Northern movements were associated with both increased sea surface temperature (>21°C) and increased primary productivity. Our results indicate strong seasonal and interannual philopatry to the waters of Virginia (summer foraging habitat) and North Carolina (winter habitat). We suggest that the waters of Virginia and North Carolina provide important seasonal habitat and serve as a seasonal migratory pathway for immature loggerhead sea turtles. North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras acts as a seasonal “migratory bottleneck” for this species; special management consideration should be given to this region. Six turtles spent time farther from the continental shelf. Three entered the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras, traveling in the current to the northwest Atlantic. Two of these turtles remained within an oceanic habitat from 1 to 3 years and were associated with mesoscale features and frontal systems. The ability of large benthic subadults to resume an oceanic lifestyle for extended periods indicates plasticity in habitat use and migratory strategies. Therefore, traditional life history models for loggerhead sea turtles should be reevaluated.     

Picophytoplankton responses to changing nutrient and light regimes during a bloom

The spring bloom in seasonally stratified seas is often characterized by a rapid increase in photosynthetic biomass. To clarify how the combined effects of nutrient and light availability influence phytoplankton composition in the oligotrophic Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea, phytoplankton growth and acclimation responses to various nutrient and light regimes were recorded in three independent bioassays and during a naturally-occurring bloom. We show that picoeukaryotes and Synechococcus maintained a “bloomer” growth strategy, which allowed them to grow quickly when nutrient and light limitation were reversed. During the bloom picoeukaryotes and Synechococcus appeared to have higher P requirements relative to N, and were responsible for the majority of photosynthetic biomass accumulation. Following stratification events, populations limited by light showed rapid photoacclimation (based on analysis of cellular fluorescence levels and photosystem II photosynthetic efficiency) and community composition shifts without substantial changes in photosynthetic biomass. The traditional interpretation of “bloom” dynamics (i.e., as an increase in photosynthetic biomass) may therefore be confined to the upper euphotic zone where light is not limiting, while other acclimation processes are more ecologically relevant at depth. Characterizing acclimation processes and growth strategies is important if we are to clarify mechanisms that underlie productivity in oligotrophic regions, which account for approximately half of the global primary production in the ocean. This information is also important for predicting how phytoplankton may respond to global warming-induced oligotrophic ocean expansion.