Influence of Motivations for Seeking ISO 14001 Certification on Perceptions of EMS Effectiveness in China

This study examines the motivations of mainland Chinese facilities in seeking ISO 14001 certification and examines the linkages between these motivations and self-reports of the effectiveness of major environmental management system (EMS) components. In a sample of 128 facilities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the main drivers for certification were reported to be to ensure regulatory compliance, to enhance the firms reputation, and to improve environmental performance, in that order. Although motivation to achieve cost reductions were least emphasized, a broad range of motivations appears to be considered in the decision to seek certification to ISO 14001. Regression models linking these motivations to the EMS components suggests that internal motivations have an influence on most EMS components. One interesting exception to this, however, is that no significant relationship was observed between internal motivations and the promulgation of environmental objectives and targets. The relationships associated with external motivations for certification (i.e., those in response to customer and other stakeholder pressures) and EMS components, on the other hand, are weaker and tend to occur earlier in the process cycle. No significant relationships were found between motivations to reduce costs and perceptions of the effectiveness of EMS components. Overall, these findings suggest that ISO 14001, as currently being implemented in mainland China, may have a modestly useful role when used in combination with other policy mechanisms to move the Chinese economy toward more sustainable practices. It is asserted that the ISO standard could provide even greater benefits if Chinese registrars were more proactive in developing EMS in conjunction with even more rigorous third-party audits.Published online     

Electron affinity coefficients of nitrogen oxides and biodegradation kinetics in denitrification of contaminated stream water

During the dry season in Korea, rivers become more vulnerable to contamination by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and nitrogen. It is hypothesized that the natural characteristics of the streams in Korea allow the contaminated water to be treated at the tributaries. Down-stream river water quality in Korea may be improved by spraying the contaminated stream water from the tributaries over the surrounding floodplains. The consequent water filtration through the soil could remove the contaminants through aerobic and denitrifying reactions. In this study, the kinetics parameters of the denitrifying reaction in floodplain filtration were determined using contaminated stream water. For the electron donor the Monod kinetics was used, while the competitive Michaelis-Menten model was employed for the electron acceptors. The parameters to the competitive Michaelis-Menten model were found using continuous denitrifying reactions, instead of the batch reactions employed in previous studies, to match the conditions needed to apply the competitive Michaelis-Menten kinetics. From the result, it was found that continuous reactions as well as batch reactions could be used to determine the affinity coefficients in denitrification. The results of this study also showed that the affinity coefficient of NO2, using continuous reactions, was similar to that of other studies in the literature found via batch reactions, whereas the affinity coefficient of N2O was much larger than that acquired with batch reactions. The parameters obtained in this study will be used in future work to simulate the contaminant behaviors during floodplain filtration using a mathematical model.     

Atmospheric Loadings,Concentrations and Visibility Associated with Sandstorms: Satellite and Meteorological Analysis

This Korea-China study monitored the phenomena of sandstorms and significant dustfall (SD) from 1997 to 2000. The analysis of our data included ground measurements of dust concentration, visibility, satellite imagery, aircraft and lidar observations. In addition, an estimation of atmospheric loadings and a studyon the relationship between dust concentrations and visibilitywere carried out. The movement and invasion of dust clouds toKorea were clearly identified with meteorological and satellitedata. The increasing concentrations of TSP and PM₁₀ concurredwell with the satellite information. From case studies, weestimated that atmospheric loadings of a dust cloud were over 1million ton and that the deposition over the Korean Peninsulawas in the range from 46 000 to 86 000 tons. For SD withvisibility of 3 km, we predict TSP 659 g m^-3 and PM₁₀ 493 g m^-3. We recommend the issuance of an SD Watch(advisory) and an SD Warning for the general public.     

Atmospheric lead concentration distribution in Northern Taiwan

Atmospheric lead concentrations were measured randomly, approximately once per week, at five traffic sites in northern Taiwan from September 1994 to May 1995. Three types of theoretical distributions, lognormal, Weibull and gamma were selected to fit the frequency distribution of the measured lead concentration. Four goodness-of-fit criteria were used to judge which theoretical distribution is the most appropriate to represent the frequency distributions of atmospheric lead.The results show that atmospheric lead concentrations in total suspended particulates fit the lognormal distribution reasonably well in northern Taiwan. The intervals of fitted theoretical cumulative frequency distributions (CFDs) can successfully contain the measured data when the population mean is estimated with a 95% confidence interval. In addition, atmospheric lead concentration exceeding a critical concentration is also predicted from the fitted theoretical CFDs.     

Safety related questions for computer-controlled plants: derivation, organisation and application

The use of computers in process control has improved productivity and product quality but has also caused a number of accidents. If we learn from these accidents we may be able to prevent them from happening again. This paper advocates a systematic approach to deriving and organising safety-related questions from past incidents and then applying the questions to consider the safety issues related to the whole life-cycle of computer-controlled plants. Over 170 questions were derived from 300 incident reports provided by two major organisations. The questions are organised into a structured framework so that relevant questions can be located easily when considering different aspects of a computer-controlled plant. Examples illustrating the application of the questions are given. The whole set of questions is listed in the Appendix.     

Environmental design implementation in Taiwan's industries

This study investigated Taiwan's industries to identify the characteristics of companies most advanced in environmental design. Thirty design principles in five categories were used to define advanced environmental design. The five categories are: use of raw materials, use of energy, design for recyclability, product life cycle assessment, and packaging optimization. We found that of the 30 design principles only eight were applied consistently by Taiwanese manufacturers. Most effort was given to the “use of energy” category. The most advanced environmental design was found at large companies—those with over 2000 employees, 3 billion in capital, and/or 3 billion in annual sales.     

Potential Impact of Climate Change on Residential Energy Consumption in Dhaka City

This study aimed to assess the impacts of climate change on residential energy consumption in Dhaka city of Bangladesh. The monthly electricity consumption data for the period 2011–2014 and long-term climate variables namely monthly rainfall and temperature records (1961–2010) were used in the study. An ensemble of six global circulation models (GCMs) of coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) namely, BCCCSM1-1, CanESM2, MIROC5, MIROC-ESM, MIROC-ESM-CHEM, and NorESM1-M under four representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios were used to project future changes in rainfall and temperature. The regression models describing the relationship between historical energy consumption and climate variables were developed to project future changes in energy consumptions. The results revealed that daily energy consumption in Dhaka city increases in the range of 6.46–11.97 and 2.37–6.25 MkWh at 95% level of confidence for every increase of temperature by 1 °C and daily average rainfall by 1 mm, respectively. This study concluded that daily total residential energy demand and peak demand in Dhaka city can increase up to 5.9–15.6 and 5.1–16.7%, respectively, by the end of this century under different climate change scenarios.