Towards sustainable airport development

Summary This paper considers the application of the principles of sustainable development to an airport situation. If sustainable development is to be enshrined as the global development pathway which reconciles economic and environmental issues then it must be applicable to a range of spatial scales. Airports will interact at a variety of levels with this multi-level decision making and enactment structure. The requirements imposed upon an airport may differ according to whether decisions are being taken by local, regional or national decision makers. Conflicts and uncertainties will inevitably result. Definitions of sustainable development are considered and policy guidance from the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and the nation State level evaluated for its relevance to airport decision making. An attempt is made to reconcile definitions and interpretations before an idealized representation of a sustainable airport is presented. Mechanisms by which this may be actualized are then suggested. A need for improved theoretical knowledge is identified but research is also necessary on application and localization procedures for sustainable development.Professor James Longhurst is Head of Department of Environmental Health and Science at UWE, Bristol. Until recently he was the Director of the Atmospheric Research and Information Centre. David Gibbs is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Hull, UK. David Raper is Deputy Director and D.E. Conlan Environmental Projects Manager in the Atmospheric Research and Information Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.     

The implications of sustainable development for industry and employment in the 1990s

Summary Sustainable development has increasingly come to be seen as a concept which can reconcile the tensions between economic development and environmental protection. However, the concept is a vague one and little work has been undertaken to examine the practical implications of adopting sustainable development as a guiding principle. This paper examines how sustainable development can be defined, and some of the contradictions involved with the concept. The policy implications of sustainable development are examined, with a particular emphasis on industry and employment.His research interests are in sustainable development and local economic development. The work on which this paper is based was undertaken for the Centre for Local Economic Strategies in Manchester.     

A conceptual model of the role of complex science in local authority consultations about air quality management

There exists a clear imperative across the EU and within the UK towards the enhanced integration of community knowledge in environmental and health decision-making processes. The underlying social force that underpins this dynamic is the drive for a more accountable, transparent and publicly acceptable decision-making arena. However, relatively little research has been undertaken on the evaluation of local air quality management consultation in particular. In this context, the paper presents an evaluation of evidence resulting from questionnaire survey and case study research undertaken in the first round of the statutory process of local air quality management (LAQM), in which local authorities are required to consult on their air quality findings and intentions. We suggest that local authority perceptions of the relative abilities of differing stakeholders' grasp of air quality science, the process that translates that science into policy, and the institutional and organizational status of stakeholders (i.e. whether they are statutory or non-statutory stakeholders) may tend to transitively determine the choice of consultation methods used, the communication strategies chosen and the relative integration of stakeholder feedback into the LAQM decision-making process. In order to interrogate this potentially problematic chain of risk communication events, a preliminary conceptual model has been developed to enable the interrogation of the pathways through, and the obstacles to, the translation of air quality knowledge. The task is to unveil the sequential chains of association that comprise the LAQM risk communication process.     

Biodiversity and rockfish recruitment in sponge gardens and bioherms of southern British Columbia,Canada

In the Strait of Georgia and Howe Sound, British Columbia, colonies of individual cloud sponges, growing on rock (known as sponge gardens) receive resource subsidies from the high biodiversity of epifauna on adjacent rock habitats. Bioherms are reefs of glass sponges living on layers of dead sponges. In the same area as the sponge gardens, newly discovered bioherms in Howe Sound, BC (49.34.67 N, 123.16.26 W) at depths of 28- to 35-m are constructed exclusively by Aphrocallistes vastus, the cloud sponge. The sponge gardens had much higher taxon richness than the bioherms. The sponge garden had 106 species from 10 phyla, whereas the bioherm had only 15 species from 5 phyla. For recruiting juvenile rockfish (quillback, Sebastes maliger), the food subsidy of sponge gardens appears to be missing on bioherms of cloud sponge, where biodiversity is relatively low. While adult and subadult rockfishes (S. maliger, S. ruberrimus, S. proriger, and S. elongatus) were present on bioherms, no evidence for nursery recruitment of inshore rockfishes to bioherms was observed, whereas the sponge gardens supported high densities of newly recruited S. maliger, perhaps owing to the combination of both refuge and feeding opportunities. These results indicate that sponge gardens form a habitat for early stages of inshore S. maliger, whereas A. vastus bioherms are associated only with older juvenile and adult rockfishes.     

The Prospects for Improved Energy Efficiency in the UK Residential Sector

The perceived threat of climate change has become an important global issue of the 1990s, with measures to limit its ramifications now commonly linked to mainstream policy agendas. Reducing carbon intensity can be achieved through both supply and end-use energy strategies, though improvements in end-use efficiency are said to offer the best opportunities both in terms of effective investment and producing results in the short to medium term. UK policy makers have stressed that energy use in the home is a pressing area to be addressed. This paper reviews the myriad of efficiency options available, assessing the effectiveness of national and supra-national strategies in encouraging technical efficiency and stimulating beneficial behaviourial changes. Findings indicate that the range of (and commitment to) current efficiency measures, reinforced by a lack of policy coherence, ensures that future prospects remain ambiguous. Initiatives, though conceived at a variety of spatial scales, tend to be implemented at a localized level and it is the actions (and interactions) of local actors that may well determine the shape and success of sustainability measures.     

Applying the concept of State of Good Repair to the management of ecological infrastructure

At any time, the condition of ecological infrastructure is related to the availability of funds to support operational management programmes. Environmental management outcomes are therefore often coupled to general economic conditions. When general economic conditions are favourable, investment in environmental management is often greater. This implies that environmental management frameworks need to be able to cope with the waxing and waning of economic conditions while still delivering acceptable environmental management and service delivery outcomes. At the onset of budget cuts, environmental managers therefore need effective ways of assessing the near and far future trade-offs of curtailing particular programmes in a defensible and internally consistent manner.

Operators of large civil infrastructure assets face the same problem. In response, the asset management community has developed the State of Good Repair approach. The objective of the preliminary consideration presented here was to determine whether this engineering management approach has any merit in environmental management.     

Best management practices for environmental restoration programs

Based on a review of hundreds of environmental restoration program optimization reviews, this article describes management tools found in successful and efficient remediation programs. Projects that consistently struggled to achieve their objectives were observed to be missing certain, or to have inadequately used, these tools. The tools are articulated as best practices because when they are present and actively used, project shortcomings were minimal. Priority objectives for site owners and project managers include improving efficiency and effectiveness through performance management, reducing resource usage and energy consumption, ensuring protectiveness, and reducing uncertainty in management decision making. Restoring environmental resources damaged by historic waste management practices began in earnest in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the broad recognition of the problems caused by environmental discharges and spills when wastes are not managed appropriately. Under new regulations, soil and groundwater remediation projects could be, and were, conducted within a defined framework. The number and variety of restoration projects that were launched resulted in a slew of projects progressing through the stages of characterization, decision, and cleanup, and more were added to the cleanup process each year. In the 1990s, the Department of Defense noted that many cleanup efforts were projected to incur substantial operational, maintenance, and monitoring costs for decades into the future. This was correctly perceived as an opportunity to optimize those systems and programs, minimize costs, and reduce health and environmental risks. The best practices outlined in this article address management tools that were identified in optimization efforts that led to effective and efficient environmental remediation projects. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Genetically informed captive breeding of hybrids of an extinct species of Galapagos tortoise

Hybridization poses a major challenge for species conservation because it threatens both genetic integrity and adaptive potential. Yet, hybridization can occasionally offer unprecedented opportunity for species recovery if the genome of an extinct taxon is present among living hybrids such that selective breeding could recapture it. We explored the design elements for establishing a captive-breeding program for Galapagos tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) built around individuals with admixed ancestry involving an extinct species. The target individuals were hybrids between the extinct species from Floreana Island, C. niger, and an extant species, C. becki, which were recently found in the endemic range of C. becki, from Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island. We combined genotypic data from 35 tortoises with high ancestry from C. niger with forward-in-time simulations to explore captive breeding strategies that maximized overall genetic diversity and ancestry from C. niger while accommodating resource constraints, species biology, and the urgency to return tortoises to Floreana Island for facilitating ecosystem restoration. Overall genetic diversity was maximized when in the simulation tortoises were organized in relatively small breeding groups. Substantial amounts of the C. niger genome were captured despite limited resources available for selectively breeding tortoises in captivity. Genetic diversity was maximized when captive-bred offspring were released to the wild rather than being used as additional breeders. Our results provide genetic-based and practical guidance on the inclusion of hybrids with genomic representation from extinct taxa into species restoration programs and informs the ongoing debate on the value of hybrids in biodiversity conservation.     

Towards a sustainable economy? Socio-technical transitions in the green building sector

Making the transition to a green economy is a major policy driver in the UK and other countries. Entrepreneurs are suggested as being at the forefront of this transition and as a driving force for sustainability. These “green entrepreneurs” may represent a new type of entrepreneurial behaviour combining economic, environmental and social aims. In this paper, we present empirical work conducted with green entrepreneurs in the UK green building sector. Buildings have significant impacts on the environment, both in terms of materials and post-construction energy demands. Drawing on sustainability transitions theory, we examine the role of green entrepreneurs in affecting change and suggest that green building niches are less consensual than previously theorised. In theorising green entrepreneurs, we also point to the need to consider them within wider networks of activity rather than as lone actors and the implications this has for policy.