The affordability of sustainable entrepreneurship certification for SMEs

Sustainable entrepreneurship is a spin-off concept from sustainable development that can be defined as the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce, their families, local communities, society and the world at large, as well as future generations. This is an approach that is applied mostly by large, often industrial companies. In their wake, a whole range of sustainability certificates have come about. Because of the proliferation of complex and costly procedures to obtain them, SMEs have almost unanimously ignored and repudiated the idea of sustainable entrepreneurship. Although the gains can be substantial in terms of risk control, business relationships with large companies and positive reputation, the question is raised whether SMEs can actually afford to do business in a sustainable manner.

The case study provides the preconditions for implementation of sustainable business practices by SMEs. First, the smaller financial resources of SMEs are not a prohibitive determinant. Lack of time, however, is. When preconditions are solved, SMEs should select a simple, pragmatic and effective format that is tailored to their needs. The case study offers some convincing examples. Finally, SMEs should look at the return and the opportunity costs of a sustainability strategy rather than simply examining the financial costs.     

Urban forest in China: Development patterns,influencing factors and research prospects

Urban forest is a very important part of urban ecosystems and provides significant ecosystem services. It benefits urban communities environmentally, aesthetically, recreationally and economically. This article reviews the development status, development patterns and influencing factors of urban forest in China. There are four typical development patterns of urban forest in China: the forest city, garden city, ecological economics and forest greenbelt. Social, climatic, economic and other factors influence urban forest development in China. Social factors include government behaviour, laws and regulations, science and technology, education and culture, public awareness and participation, ecological planning and management. Climatic factors include rainfall, temperature and sunlight. Economic factors include urban economic level and funding for urban forest. In future, government, NGOs and the private sector should be considered more in the planning and management of urban forest. The social, climatic and economic factors should be taken into account when improving urban forest management. Research on urban forest from the academic and the management viewpoint should be strengthened. This can improve the development and management of urban forest in China and in other developing countries.     

Urban planning and sustainable development under transitional economy: a case study of Guangzhou

There are always conflicts between the need for conservation and economic growth in the developing countries. Planning plays a primary role in balancing these conflicts. This is particularly obvious in Chinese cities since China adopted its open door policy in 1978. Foreign investment has been a major driving force for rapid growth of the Chinese economy. Planners in China have been facing the dilemma of protecting the natural environment on the one hand while, on the other hand, supporting the overall national goal of attracting foreign investment to maintain continuous economic growth. The planning system in China, which has been largely based on a planned economy, soon found itself handicapped in safeguarding the environment from rapid industrialization and urbanization fostered by market forces. This paper takes Guangzhou as an example to study challenges to the planning system in Chinese cities in the past two decades of rapid economic growth and urbanization. By means of a case study on an industrial development within a protected orchard area in Guangzhou, this study illustrates the conflict between the need for rural conservation and the pressure for economic development in the Chinese cities. In particular, it analyzes the pressures on the present urban planning system in China in terms of the following categories: the emergence of private investors in urban development; the goal of pursuing a high economic growth rate; the implications of a transitional economy for urban planning; and the weakness of the present urban planning system. It concludes that the role of urban planning in China should change from simply providing guidelines on board land-use strategy, to a combination of a strategic plan with specific development control laws at the operational level. Finally, some recommendations are suggested as to how to improve the planning system in China.     

Contrasting visions of food and farming sustainability: NGOs versus the UK Labour government

In a previous issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology I described how competing visions of sustainable agriculture are currently battling for hegemonic status (Johnson 2006). One vision seeks to break the hegemony of productionism and the other seeks to continue down its path with a greater emphasis on biotechnology. In this paper, I wish to explore these visions further as they apply to actual existing strategies for sustainable farming and food in the UK. This paper uses discourse analysis to compare the UK government's vision for sustainable farming and food sectors with that of two NGOs: Friends of the Earth and Corporate Watch. The language and discourse in the government's and NGOs' strategy documents is examined for evidence indicating their ideological conception of agricultural sustainability. The paper concludes that, whilst the NGOs are pursuing a strong vision of sustainability, seeking to break productionism's hegemony, the UK government is pursuing an ideologically weak-tomoderate conceptualisation of sustainability, pursuing the high-technology modified version of agricultural productionism.     

Status and trends in research and development projects in the mountains: A situational analysis in the Indian Himalaya

The mountains hold the key to global ecological and social stability by virtue of being centres of biological and cultural diversity and the storehouse for water and other resources. However, they are becoming unable to sustain the demands of the changing life style of the growing number of inhabitants as well as the population in the plains and, therefore, the resources are depleting rapidly. Inadequacy of research and development (R&D) projects undertaken in mountain ecosystems is, perhaps, a major factor that has not enabled us to evolve and introduce suitable interventions to replenish and restore the health of the degraded mountains. In this article, taking the Indian Himalayan region as a case study, an effort has been made to understand the adequacy and appropriateness of R&D projects in mountain ecosystems by analysing the research and development projects implemented in this region from 1985–86 to1998–99. The analysis revealed inadequacy in the number and budgets of R&D projects implemented in this mountain ecosystem as a whole as well as in specific subject areas; the number of R&D projects implemented during this period was only 5.28% of the total projects, with a fund allocation of 4.45% of the total R&D budget of India, which appears to be inadequate considering the geophysical and bio-social importance of the Himalaya. The finding suggests that national funding agencies of mountain nations need to increase the number of R&D projects in mountain regions as a priority, with the intention of developing scientific packages capable of restoring the degraded ecosystem of the mountains and ensuring their sustainable development.     

A GIS-based model for rating natural protection areas according to natural protection priorities

There has been a major urban shift of population in Turkey over the last century. Most people lived in rural areas until 1960, but now more than half live in urban areas. This trend has continued over the last 20 years, as families moved further away from city centres to find houses in the country, and this has caused land use to change rapidly. In decision-making studies to protect nature areas, rating and assessment of ecological data by scientific verification is difficult due to the huge volume and diversity of data. Therefore, the search for the most suitable and applicable method to achieve physical planning based on ecological understanding has been sought. The necessity for numerous parameters to be taken into account has stimulated the use of geographic information systems (GIS). This study assesses the usefulness of a GIS-based model in the protected area of Kaynaklar County, to the south of the city of Izmir. Existing cultural and natural land-use types, as well as soil, hydrologic, geologic and geomorphologic data layers (future classes) were gathered from field observation and using Landsat and IKONOS satellite images, and transferred to a database according to GIS rules. Index values were determined by taking impact on attributes of natural protection as a priority and these were attached to each feature class. Layers of data were merged by spatial intersection methods and new polygons were created for both cultural and natural features. A three-grade final map of the study area was generated using total index values of each new polygon.     

A sceptical vision of the environmental Kuznets curve: The case of sulfur dioxide

The aim of this paper is to check the hypothesis for the environmental Kuznets curve for sulfur dioxide. This involved analysis of: 1. the theoretical basis of the model; 2. the technical problem of SO2 generation; 3 the kind of information used in the estimations; 4. changes in the structure of electric energy production; 5. improvements in energy efficiency; and 6. the recent introduction of cleaning mechanisms in a favourable political context. The conclusion is that, if it is possible to prove the existence of environmental Kuznets curve models, their utility as instruments of economic policy is debatable.     

Strategic Environmental Assessment and the World Bank Group

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is mandated by an increasing number of countries and agencies. SEA has become a reliable and useful tool in reducing environmental and social impacts of plans, policies and programmes. The main elements of SEA are outlined with examples. The status of SEA in the World Bank is discussed. The case is presented that the World Bank should apply SEA to country lending strategies, programme lending, technical assistance, and to its budget.     

Some approaches to the construction of a sustainable development index for the Philippines

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a convenient tool used in aggregating the indicators of sustainable development and providing indices where different weights are assigned to the various indicators. There are, however, problems in interpreting of indices, especially if time series data are used. This study explores the feasibility of applying recent developments in PCA of time series using Philippine data. We present the comparative advantages of SPCA (Sparse Principal Component Analysis) relative to averaging of an adequacy/inadequacy index and PCA in index construction from various indicators of sustainable development in the Philippines in terms of usefulness and validity of indices being developed. SPCA can attain sparse and non-overlapping loadings without losing a large amount of explained variance compared to PCA. Because of the non-overlapping contribution of variables in SPCA components, indices can have clear and mutually exclusive meanings, facilitating interpretation. Even with a more complicated algorithm, reduced dimensions and simpler interpretation of indices justify the advantages of SPCA over PCA in index construction. The indices are interpreted in terms of the milestone of sustainability in the Philippines. The resulting indices provide an adequate summary of the sustainable indicators and evidence of the importance of leadership and political will in sustainable development.     

Living with living systems: The co-evolution of values and valuation

This article explores features of the environmental valuation process through a co-evolutionary approach. Based on established works concerning complexity, living systems, and social, economic, evolutionary and hierarchy theories, it is argued that a special form of recursive co-evolution takes place between articulated values and methods of value articulation, within the environmental valuation system. It is proposed that this co-evolutionary approach provides new insights into (1) the process of environmental preference formation and (2) the phenomenon of value incommensurability. Finally, it is suggested that this approach also reveals that monetary unit-based environmental valuation methods are counter-productive to their own purpose of 'taking the economic worth of un-priced environmental goods and service into account.' This constitutes a new critique of monetary valuation, which is not addressed by a pragmatic defence of the practice. It is suggested that, in lieu of monetary valuation, taking the economic worth of these phenomena into account may be better served by focusing efforts on the design of new value articulation methods that are capable of expressing their priceless economic worth.