Making the user more efficient: design for sustainable behaviour

User behaviour is a significant determinant of a product's environmental impact; while engineering advances permit increased efficiency of product operation, the user's decisions and habits ultimately have a major effect on the energy or other resources used by the product. There is thus a need to change users' behaviour. A range of design techniques developed in diverse contexts suggest opportunities for engineers, designers and other stakeholders working in the field of sustainable innovation to affect users' behaviour at the point of interaction with the product or system, in effect ‘making the user more efficient’. Approaches to changing users' behaviour from a number of fields are reviewed and discussed, including: strategic design of affordances and behaviour‐shaping constraints to control or affect energy‐ or other resource‐using interactions; the use of different kinds of feedback and persuasive technology techniques to encourage or guide users to reduce their environmental impact; and context‐based systems which use feedback to adjust their behaviour to run at optimum efficiency and reduce the opportunity for user‐affected inefficiency. Example implementations in the sustainable engineering and ecodesign field are suggested and discussed.     

Positive and negative aspects of GRI reporting as perceived by Brazilian organizations

This paper aims to identify the positive and negative aspects in the sustainability reporting framework proposed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The research was conducted through content analysis of 27 companies’ responses to three questions: “Why does the company where you work prepare a sustainability report?” “What are the positive aspects you identify in the framework for GRI reporting?” and “What are the negative aspects you identify in the framework for GRI reporting?” The questionnaire was sent to all Brazilian companies that published sustainability reports using the GRI guidelines between 2011 and 2013 related to the base year 2010. We found that respondents viewed the GRI guidelines and the reports they created as management tools for sustainability and that they assist in benchmarking sustainability performance and legitimizing the sustainability actions of the organization. Furthermore, some respondents indicated that the reports themselves are marketing tools. On the other hand, the respondents reported difficulties in understanding the proposed GRI guidelines. They considered the guidelines complex, ambiguous, and too flexible, which undermined both the standardization of the reports and the ability to compare reports. Based on these comments, it is recommended that the GRI develop a simpler and less flexible reporting methodology.     

Water and the politics of sustainability transitions: from regime actor conflicts to system governance organizations

This study contributes to the analysis of the politics of sustainability transitions by developing a focus on regime actor conflicts and a processual model for how these conflicts develop and are resolved. In a comparison of water-supply systems in four U.S. cities, we show how conflicts among regime actors and political jurisdictions lead to the formation of system governance organizations (SGOs) that bridge jurisdictional boundaries to manage conflicts over a technological system (TS). SGOs coordinate relations among water utilities and diverse stakeholders to reduce pervasive conflicts, but they can also serve as drivers of improved sustainability. We analyze resistance that can emerge, such as from urban growth coalitions, which limit the capacity of SGOs to drive changes. We develop a four-stage processual model (first-order regime conflicts, SGO formation, sustainability transition expansion, and second-order regime conflicts) that opens research in the politics of transitions to the dynamic of regime actor conflicts and provides the basis for generalizations about the causes of SGO formation and their effects on the governance of TSs such as water-supply infrastructure. Policy implications regarding how to improve political support for SGO sustainability efforts are also discussed.     

Green financing,interrupted. Potential directions for sustainable finance in Luxembourg

ABSTRACT

This paper has a quintessentially explorative character. It aims at identifying existing as well as potential (yet missing) links between the finance industry and local businesses that aspire to more sustainable economic practices. Building on the observation that green investments have been gaining weight in global investors’ strategies, we analyse how sustainable – in the most comprehensive sense of the word – green investments could ultimately be(come), when green assets are still managed according to the logic of “financialised finance”. This latter’s technologies of commodification, securitisation and derivatives-trading allegedly oppose alternative economic practices that pursue economic sustainability through social and environmental gains. In contrast, we investigate how the finance industry relates to alternative financial practices, products and organisations that offer sustainability-oriented financing services, – for example, regional banks, cooperatives and the like, – with a specific focus on green, social and solidarity businesses. Both approaches subscribe to apparently contradictory ideologies. We establish a beneficial dialogue between the opposing models of “green capitalism” and “alternative economies” so as to identify potential points of intersection. The context of Luxembourg’s local/regional economies provides a great opportunity to empirically access three levels of investigation: the private sector, the public sector and an international financial centre, a key facilitator for green finance, thus utilising insights from the concept of bricolage. Whilst supporters of Luxembourg’s emerging green finance profile recognise its positive impact on the small country’s national branding, in combination with economic stimuli, more critical commentators point to pure “green washing” effects.     

黄河流域水质和工业污染源研究

为科学评价黄河流域的水质状况及工业企业污染源现状,根据黄河流域2018—2019年地表水和饮用水水源地水质监测数据,建立了综合反映流域水环境质量和可定量分析排名的城市水质指数;利用大数据技术分析工业企业水污染物排放数据,研究建立了企业环境信用动态评价体系。研究结果表明:2018—2019年,黄河流域城市水环境质量得到一定程度的改善,城市地表水环境质量优和良等级数量从17个增加到19个,饮用水水源地优等级城市数量从7个增加到11个;但黄河流域中游地区水污染问题较为严重,需要重点加强水污染控制。水质污染主要以点源工业污染为主,COD和氨氮排放量较多,COD和氨氮年日均排放浓度平均值分别为51.1、3.1 mg/L,工业废水处理率偏低;山西、陕西、河南等"高"风险企业数量较多,分别达到3 047、1 630、1 442家。建议加强黄河流域上下游、左右岸、干支流协同配合,加大水污染防治工作的深度和力度。     

基于能值方法的甘薯燃料乙醇产业生态系统分析

发展燃料乙醇已成为替代能源战略下的成熟模式,但传统燃料乙醇生产的污染问题严重影响了燃料乙醇的生存和发展,因此建立以燃料乙醇生产为核心企业,包括由原料种植者、乙醇生产者、分解者、资源回收利用者等一系列利益相关者组成的产业生态系统,已成为燃料乙醇可持续发展的有效途径. 根据燃料乙醇生产过程中对废物处理和资源化利用情况,将其划分成传统生产方案(方案Ⅰ)、废物处理生产方案(方案Ⅱ)和产业生态系统方案(方案Ⅲ),并采用改进后的能值分析方法及指标体系对3种生产方案进行比较分析. 结果表明:与方案Ⅰ相比,通过废物处理和中水回用,方案Ⅱ的ε_EYR(能值产出率)提高了59.37%,ε_ELR(环境负荷率)降低了75.39%;延长产业链,增加循环利用方式后,方案Ⅲ比方案Ⅰ的ε_EYR提高了86.19%,ε_ELR降低了82.98%. 3种生产方案的可持续发展能力为方案Ⅰ<方案Ⅱ<方案Ⅲ.      

Irrigation projects in Ethiopia: what can be done to enhance effectiveness under ‘challenging contexts’?

Investment in small scale irrigation (SSI) is crucial to sustain food security and livelihoods of smallholders. In Ethiopia, the government and development partners show a growing interest in developing irrigation projects. The success of irrigation projects is determined by governance and socio-cultural contexts. Yet the lack of thorough understanding of the challenging contexts undermines the efforts to achieve sustainability outcomes in irrigation projects. This article identifies the challenging contexts to irrigation projects, examines how the challenging contexts influence the effectiveness of irrigation projects, and indicates ways of improving the effectiveness of irrigation projects under the existing challenging contexts. Data were collected between April and December 2011 in three regional states of Ethiopia using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The lack of governance capacity and accountability are critical challenges for the sustainability of the irrigation projects. In addition, the poor consideration of local knowledge and the use of top-down approaches in planning and implementing the irrigation projects, and lack of equitable access to the irrigation schemes result in poor ownership of projects among farmers. Improving the funding scheme to support long-term capacity building at national and local levels, and in understanding the socio-cultural contexts of the intervention areas; planning irrigation projects with due consideration of the existing challenging contexts, and with active engagement of the local community, are important for the long-term viability and sustainability of irrigation projects.     

Accessibility and trust: the two dimensions of consumers’ perception on sustainable purchase intention

The aim of this article is to shed new light on which dimensions compose sustainable purchase intention (SPI) with the purpose of understanding what moves consumers to a potentially more sustainable behaviour. Even though several studies have researched which factors influence consumer’s intention to buy in a more sustainable way, no comparable research in consumer behaviour was found studying these dimensions in a triple bottom line perspective (profit, people, and planet) that could also provide future corporate and academic applications. Therefore, this article proposes a new construct – Consumers’ Perception on SPI, defined using the C-OAR-SE procedure and measured using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using two different samples. In-depth interviews and online survey to actual consumers of sustainable products were undertaken in partnership with a sustainable project using its database, guaranteeing that real consumers’ perceptions were gathered for this study. The construct is proposed with two dimensions (measured by nine items): Accessibility (including facets such as product lower pricing, availability in stores, and being sold within a convenient proximity to home) and Trust (including consumers needs such as: to get to know and trust products through understanding the labels; to have had good experiences in the past or simply to have new trial opportunities). Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also discussed.     

Developing indicators for assessing land-use sustainability in a tropical agro-ecosystem: The case of Sakaekrang watershed,Thailand

While the concept of sustainable land management is now widely accepted, there remains considerable scope for developing location-specific land-use indicators for sustainability evaluation. A study was conducted to investigate the indicators of land-use sustainability in the context of tropical agro-ecosystems using the case of Sakaekrang watershed, Thailand. The biophysical data were generated from Geographic Information Systems (GIs) and the socioeconomic data were collected through a field survey. In the light of sustainable land management objectives, a total of 32 criteria were considered in the analysis to determine land-use sustainability and identify indicators that best explain the sustainability level. About one quarter of the agricultural area in the watershed meets the sustainability threshold, indicating a substantial unstable area in the watershed. Among 11 indicators that showed a significant relationship with the computed land-use sustainability, land quality, source of farm income, and evapo transpiration were the most important.