Factor analysis of corporate environmental responsibility

Under the current situation of environmental pollution and resources shortage, the research of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is of great importance to promote the sustainable development of society. The article adopts the perspective of the Stakeholder Theory and environmental management to make the empirical analysis of CER. Consequently designed questionnaire investigation is carried out among 30 Shanghai enterprises during 2007 and 2008. Through the correlation analysis, principal component analysis, factor ordering, and variables reappearance of key factors, seven key indexes are identified in the original 35 variables. This article aims to provide reference for enterprise environmental management and forwards the study of Corporate Social Responsibility.     

Social and ecological facets of pest management in Honduran subsistence agriculture: implications for IPM extension and natural resource management

In subsistence farming systems of the developing world, adoption of resource-conserving practices such as integrated pest management (IPM) is often strikingly low. This has partially been ascribed to researchers’ limited understanding of how technologies develop at the interface of the systems’ social and ecological components. In Honduras (Central America), there exists concern about limited adoption and diffusion of IPM technologies in certain smallholder production systems. In this study, we determine social and ecological drivers of IPM adoption in subsistence maize production in the country’s hillside environment. Honduran small-scale maize production is typified by a key insect pest (the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda) being partly kept at bay through action of a diverse natural enemy complex, including ants, social wasps, carabid beetles, and spiders. Local agricultural landscapes, primarily shaped through shifting cultivation, provide key resources to maintain this natural enemy diversity. These local ecological conditions and related natural enemy abundance strongly influence farmers’ agroecological knowledge and pest management practices. In the meantime, farmer practices are also affected by local communication networks, which help validate and spread IPM concepts and technologies. Based on our findings, we advocate a holistic approach to improve IPM extension through mapping of agroecological opportunities, visualization of regional patterns in farmer knowledge, and associated priority setting. Local IPM capacity could be built through institutional strengthening and adaptive comanagement, while IPM training should be linked with natural resource management initiatives. These approaches may eventually improve the way IPM is delivered to small-scale farmers who operate in the ecologically diverse environments of the tropics.     

A detailed look at the three disciplines,environmental ethics,law and education to determine which plays the most critical role in environmental enhancement and protection

Campaigns to mitigate environmental degradation problems have failed in recent years due to not only the inability to identify the actual causes of the problems but also the approach followed in addressing these problems. This study gives a detailed consideration to the roles played by environmental education, ethics and law in environmental enhancement and protection with the aim of identifying the one that has made the most progress toward reducing the impact of environmental problems. Knowledge of this is necessary as it will help determine the starting point of any environmental sustainability campaign and direct efforts toward this. The findings of this study show that the importance of the three disciplines in environmental enhancement and protection cannot be over-looked, and it identifies environmental ethics as both an interconnector of the other two disciplines and the force that propels them into action.     

Bioproduction strategies for rare hexose sugars

A new strategy for the bioproduction of all ketohexoses was developed using hexitols as intermediates. Biocatalysts used to employ the strategy were D-tagatose 3-epimerase, which epimerizes ketohexoses at the C-3 position, and oxidoreductases, which catalyze oxidation-reduction reactions between ketohexoses and the corresponding hexitols. Arranging all the ketohexoses and hexitols in a symmetric ring and connecting them with 20 biochemical reactions, I was able to construct a design for the bioproduction of all the rare ketohexoses. Various aldose isomerases transform ketohexoses into the corresponding aldohexoses, so the strategy is useful for the bioproduction of all the rare hexose sugars. Furthermore, the design revealed that there are four routes to the L-hexose world from the D-hexose one.     

The search for an alternative to piped water and sewer systems in the Alaskan Arctic

Forty-two communities in rural Alaska are considered unserved or underserved with water and sewer infrastructure. Many challenges exist to provide centralized piped water and sewer infrastructure to the homes, and they are exacerbated by decreasing capital funding. Unserved communities in rural Alaska experience higher rates of disease, supporting the recommendation that sanitation infrastructure should be provided. Organizations are pursuing alternative solutions to conventional piped water and sewer in order to maximize water use and reuse for public health. This paper reviews initiatives led by the State of Alaska, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation to identify and develop potential long-term solutions appropriate and acceptable to rural communities. Future developments will likely evolve based on the lessons learned from the initiatives. Recommendations include Alaska-specific research needs, increased end-user participation in the design process, and integrated monitoring, evaluation, and information dissemination in future efforts.     

Contamination of marine fauna by chlordecone in Guadeloupe: evidence of a seaward decreasing gradient

Chlordecone is an organochlorine pesticide, used in the Lesser Antilles from 1972 to 1993 to fight against a banana weevil. That molecule is very persistent in the natural environment and ends up in the sea with runoff waters. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the level of contamination in several trophic groups of marine animals according to their distance from the source of pollution. Samples of suspended matter, macroalgae, herbivorous fishes, detrivorous crustaceans, zooplanktivorous fishes, first- and second-order of carnivorous fishes, and piscivorous fishes have been collected in two sites, located downstream the contaminated sites (Goyave and Petit-Bourg), in three marine habitats (coastal mangroves, seagrass beds located 1.5 km from the shoreline, and coral reefs at 3 km offshore). Animals collected in mangroves were the most contaminated (mean concentrations 193 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 213 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Samples from seagrass beds presented intermediate concentrations of chlordecone (85 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 107 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Finally, samples from coral reefs were the less contaminated (71 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 74 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Reef samples, collected 3 km offshore, were two to three times less contaminated than those collected in mangroves.     

Water quality and health in northern Canada: stored drinking water and acute gastrointestinal illness in Labrador Inuit

One of the highest self-reported incidence rates of acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) in the global peer-reviewed literature occurs in Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic. This high incidence of illness could be due, in part, to the consumption of contaminated water, as many northern communities face challenges related to the quality of municipal drinking water. Furthermore, many Inuit store drinking water in containers in the home, which could increase the risk of contamination between source and point-of-use (i.e., water recontamination during storage). To examine this risk, this research characterized drinking water collection and storage practices, identified potential risk factors for water contamination between source and point-of-use, and examined possible associations between drinking water contamination and self-reported AGI in the Inuit community of Rigolet, Canada. The study included a cross-sectional census survey that captured data on types of drinking water used, household practices related to drinking water (e.g., how it was collected and stored), physical characteristics of water storage containers, and self-reported AGI. Additionally, water samples were collected from all identified drinking water containers in homes and analyzed for presence of Escherichia coli and total coliforms. Despite municipally treated tap water being available in all homes, 77.6% of households had alternative sources of drinking water stored in containers, and of these containers, 25.2% tested positive for total coliforms. The use of transfer devices and water dippers (i.e., smaller bowls or measuring cups) for the collection and retrieval of water from containers were both significantly associated with increased odds of total coliform presence in stored water (OR_{transfer device} = 3.4, 95% CI 1.2–11.7; OR_dipper = 13.4, 95% CI 3.8–47.1). Twenty-eight-day period prevalence of self-reported AGI during the month before the survey was 17.2% (95% CI 13.0–22.5), which yielded an annual incidence rate of 2.4 cases per person per year (95% CI 1.8–3.1); no water-related risk factors were significantly associated with AGI. Considering the high prevalence of, and risk factors associated with, indicator bacteria in drinking water stored in containers, potential exposure to waterborne pathogens may be minimized through interventions at the household level.     

Trace analysis of parabens preservatives in drinking water treatment sludge,treated, and mineral water samples

Parabens have been widely used as antimicrobial agents, mainly in food products, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Although they are known as safe preservatives, they also cause some harm to human health, which has been discussed lately. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of nine parabens (including isomers) in mineral and drinking waters, besides in drinking water treatment sludge (DWTS) samples with determination by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Both methods solid phase extraction (SPE) and QuEChERS were validated. Calibration curves showed a correlation coefficient of 0.99 for all compounds. LOQ values ranged from 0.04 to 4 μg L^?1 in aqueous matrices and from 5 to 500 ng g^?1 in DWTS. Recoveries between 70 and 115% were reached with RSD below 20% for all compounds in SPE whereas recoveries between 62 and 119% were found with RSD below 20% for almost all compounds in QuEChERS. Matrix effect had low values (<?20%); it was only above 20% for methylparaben in the SPE and for pentylparaben in the QuEChERS. Using a quick and simple extraction procedures with SPE, QuEChERS, and LC-MS/MS analyses, these methods proved to be selective and sensitive. They were successfully applied to real samples (treated water, mineral water, and sludge), and methylparaben was detected at concentration levels below 0.242 μg L^?1 in mineral and treated water samples and 10 ng g^?1 in DWTS samples.     

Development and implementation of eco-genomic tools for aquatic ecosystem biomonitoring: the SYNAQUA French-Swiss program

The effectiveness of environmental protection measures is based on the early identification and diagnosis of anthropogenic pressures. Similarly, restoration actions require precise monitoring of changes in the ecological quality of ecosystems, in order to highlight their effectiveness. Monitoring the ecological quality relies on bioindicators, which are organisms revealing the pressures exerted on the environment through the composition of their communities. Their implementation, based on the morphological identification of species, is expensive because it requires time and experts in taxonomy. Recent genomic tools should provide access to reliable and high-throughput environmental monitoring by directly inferring the composition of bioindicators’ communities from their DNA (metabarcoding). The French-Swiss program SYNAQUA (INTERREG France-Switzerland 2017–2019) proposes to use and validate the tools of environmental genomic for biomonitoring and aims ultimately at their implementation in the regulatory bio-surveillance. SYNAQUA will test the metabarcoding approach focusing on two bioindicators, diatoms, and aquatic oligochaetes, which are used in freshwater biomonitoring in France and Switzerland. To go towards the renewal of current biomonitoring practices, SYNAQUA will (1) bring together different actors: scientists, environmental managers, consulting firms, and biotechnological companies, (2) apply this approach on a large scale to demonstrate its relevance, (3) propose robust and reliable tools, and (4) raise public awareness and train the various actors likely to use these new tools. Biomonitoring approaches based on such environmental genomic tools should address the European need for reliable, higher-throughput monitoring to improve the protection of aquatic environments under multiple pressures, guide their restoration, and follow their evolution.