Emerging design strategies in sustainable production and consumption of textiles and clothing

This study contributes to current knowledge of sustainability in textile and clothing production and consumption. When the textile and clothing industry aims to promote sustainability, the main change factors have been linked to eco-materials and ethical issues in production. At present, however, business models are mainly linked with a large volume of sales and production. Although industrial development has moved toward smaller environmental impact, production as well as consumption has increased to levels where the benefits of technological development are reduced. A change is thus needed to reach a systemic transformation, not only in production but also in consumption. The aim of this paper is to open up the discussion on opportunities for radical change in this industry. The paper presents ways to rethink and redesign business in the textile and clothing field by offering an overview on several design strategies that exist today in niche markets. Furthermore we evaluate how interested consumers are in these design strategies and discuss the opportunities these design approaches offer to sustainable development through new value creation.     

水源保护区内环境保护对策研究——以铁岭市南城子水库保护区内莲花镇为例分析

本文以铁岭市南城子水库饮用水源保护区上游村镇莲花镇为研究对象,利用实际调研数据进行分析,侧重研究饮用水源保护区上游村镇环境保护对策,以期为饮用水源保护区污染控制提供参考。     

浙江省印染行业环保综合整治对策研究

文章简要分析了浙江省印染行业在全国的地位、浙江省印染行业的特点、存在问题及与发达国家和其它省份的差距。介绍了印染行业的发展趋势和浙江省印染行业发展的优、劣势。分别从规划"十二五"期间的印染行业污染总量控制和节能减排以及顺应印染行业发展趋势的产业升级、清洁生产两方面提出相应的整治对策。并就整治对策的效果提出相应的保障措施。就环保综合整治的进度作出相应的安排。     

Insurance and flood risk reduction in Ghana: do insurers penalise homeowners who take precautionary measures?

Today, many advocate insurance as a tool for coping with natural disasters. Beyond providing prompt financial relief to victims of disasters, insurance can also incentivise individuals to invest in preventive measures if insurers reward such efforts with reduced premiums. However, insurers might be unable to reward investments in precautionary measures with lower premiums if they are ill-informed about individual-level risks. Here, we explore how Ghanaian home insurers respond to investments in flood risk reduction by asking them to quote premiums for four identical buildings; two had investments in flood risk reduction, while the other two had none. We find that insurers did not reward investments in risk reduction, with some charging higher premiums for elevated buildings, suggesting they have interpreted such preventive measures as a sign of high flood risk. This failure to reward investments in precautionary measures may discourage insured homeowners from investing in risk reduction.     

积极应对气候变化大力推动绿色低碳发展——环境保护部环境发展中心主任唐丁丁就气候变化问题答记者问

气候变化既是环境问题,也是发展问题,事关人类的生存与发展。中国政府高度重视全球气候变化问题,积极探索有中国特色的绿色低碳发展之路。这不仅是中国作为发展中大国肩负的国际责任．也是加快实现国内发展方式转型的内在要求。近三十年来,中国在保护环境和应对气候变化方面付出了巨大努力,总结出一系列行之有效的经验和做法。为了更好地开展有利于应对气候变化的环境保护工作,近日,环境保护部环境发展中心成立了一个跨部门的应对气候变化工作机构,即“环境发展中心环境与气候变化中心”。日前,编辑部就业界人士和社会大众所关心的一些气候变化相关问题专程采访了环境保护部环境发展中心唐丁丁主任。     

Climate change and adoption of sustainable land management practices in the Niger basin of Benin

Due to the important role that the agricultural sector plays in sustaining growth and reducing poverty in developing countries, the adoption of practices that have the potential to simultaneously improve agricultural productivity while minimizing environmental impacts is essential. This paper examines the determinants of farmers’ perceptions of climate change and subsequent adoption of sustainable land management practices in the Niger basin of Benin. Binary and multivariate probit models are applied in a two‐stage regression procedure to cross‐sectional data collected through a survey of 545 randomly selected farm households in 28 villages. The findings indicate that there are substitutabilities among three pairs of sustainable land management practices being used by the farmers. Climate change perception is positively related to land tenure, experience in farming, number of relatives, tractor use, and membership in farmers’ organizations, and negatively related to household size, remoteness, and plough use. Moreover, the findings reveal that the uptake of land management practices is related to assets, land tenure, education level of the household head, remoteness, social network, non‐irrigated land size, having a farm located near a river/lake/stream, tractor and plough use, being a subsistence farmer or not, and memberships in farmers’ organizations. The adoption of sustainable land management practices could be encouraged through improving access to markets, adequate roads, and technologies, as well as by promoting membership in farmers’ organizations.     

Implementing service-based chemical procurement: lessons and results

Chemical use reduction is strongly desirable for environmental and public welfare reasons, and is a critical element of moving towards more sustainable consumption in the business-to-business economy. However, the fundamental economic relationship between chemical supplier and chemical customer creates supply side incentives for increased chemical use. Chemical management services (CMS) is a business model that aligns economic incentives in the chemical supplier–customer relationship towards reduced chemical use by making chemical services rather than chemical volume the basis of supplier compensation. CMS thus ‘servicizes’ the chemical supply chain and is a Product Service System with significant potential environmental benefits. CMS enjoys high penetration in the US auto and semiconductor sectors, and is emergent in other sectors. The paper synthesizes lessons learned from hands-on work with 15 chemical-using firms over 5 years in all aspects of CMS program implementation. Key points are that poor cost accounting and chemical information management form significant barriers to making, understanding and evaluating the CMS business case. The details of contractual compensation mechanisms are critical to achieving in practice the potential environmental benefits of the CMS model.     

基于广义收益—成本分析的农村面源污染治理策略

应用污染排放系数法、技术经济评价方法,统筹考虑农村面源污染治理的环境效益与经济收益、技术成本与交易费用,构建面向一般区域的农村面源污染治理策略的分析框架与方法.研究表明,2011年宜兴市农村面源污染排放总氮2880.94t,总磷501.19t,水环境经济损失为3.38亿元.耕地测土配方施肥、规模化养殖沼气工程、分散养殖沼气工程和农村生活污水净化工程的净现值率分别为55.00、2.54、0.52、-0.15.综合考虑技术可行性、交易费用和政府管理支撑能力,近期应优先治理规模化养殖和种植业面源污染,分散养殖和农村生活污水污染可作为远期治理重点.     

流域管理的形成、特征及发展趋势

流域管理是一门新兴学科,是以流域为尺度,统筹流域资源管理、保护和利用的管理体系,也是为实现科学、可持续发展和生态文明建设而发展出的管理科学的研究方向. 深入剖析了流域管理概念的形成与发展,总结了水资源统一管理、水质目标控制管理和综合统一管理3种管理模式的管理目标、特点和不足,并指出现代流域管理应形成流域-区域-控制单元-污染源多层次一体化的污染控制目标体系;论述了我国流域管理的实践与发展过程,结合辽河流域管理实践,阐述了未来流域管理呈现管理手段的智能化、管理方式的生态化、管理机制的一体化的发展趋势.      

吉林省生物入侵的现状及对策

通过对吉林省通化地区野外实地调查及全省有关外来物种的文献资料分析,依据7种危害性较强的外来入侵种(稻水象甲、日本松干蚧、栗山天牛、菜豆象、美洲斑潜蝇、松针红斑病菌、三裂叶豚草)的生物生态学特性及其被入侵地的特征,总结了吉林省生物入侵的现状.包括:入侵种传播速度快,传播途径以无意引入为主;被人侵地多为人工生物群落,并且聚集在生物多样性较丰富的东部地区;其危害性造成的直接经济损失严重.针对这些现状,提出了相应的防治对策,即要有效防预、有效控制、有效恢复、加紧研究、加强合作、加大宣传,力争最大限度地降低生物入侵给吉林省带来的损失.