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The construction of building projects will always result in a degree of interference in the local environment. Legal regulations intended for the most effective protection of natural resources foresee a range of procedures, without which the initation of building projects is not possible. It concerns all investments, but the regulations especially emphasize these, which may negatively affect the environment. A decision on environment-related conditions, which is foressen in the process, requires the preparation of many specialist documents which constitute attachments to the application of its issuance. One of the problems related to this procedure is the time lag associated with an environmental decision, which is difficult to determine or predict. In the article the periods of waiting for issuing a decision for building investments of a different character were analysed. The reason for this situation was also analyzed.

Despite an increasing number of third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) regard environmental sustainability as a key area of management, there is still great uncertainty on how 3PLs implement environmental strategies and on how they translate green efforts into practice. Through a multiple case study analysis, this paper explores the environmental strategies of a sample of medium-sized 3PLs operating in Italy and the UK, in terms of environmental organizational culture, initiatives, and influencing factors. Our analysis shows that, notwithstanding environmental sustainability is generally recognised as a strategic priority, a certain degree of diversity in the deployment of environmental strategies still exists. This paper is original since the extant literature on green strategies of 3PLs provides findings predominantly from a single country perspective and mainly investigates large/multinational organizations. It also provides indications to help managers of medium-sized 3PLs in positioning their business. This is particularly meaningful in the 3PL industry, where medium-sized organizations significantly contribute to the generated turnover and market value.

In the extant literature, manufacturing environmental practices have been attributed to institutional pressures. This study extends this view by observing how different levels of the institutional field (national level vs. regional market level) would have varied effects on manufacturing environmental practices. We empirically investigate, using structural equation modelling, how different types of the manufacturing environmental practices react differently to pressures from a fragmented institutional field. Two distinct types of manufacturing environmental practices occur at the administrative planning operation and technical core operation. Our results confirm such manufacturing environmental practices at different operations lead to different performance benefits – the administrative environmental planning (AEPs) benefit market growth, whereas the technical core environmental practice (TEP) benefit the environment. National-level pressures do not lead to manufacturing environmental practices. Instead, ...

Sustainability is increasingly considered an essential business function, but in Libya, petroleum companies are slow to address operational issues that could reduce environmental concerns. This study aims to evaluate the environmental impacts of upstream petroleum operations. The methods adopted in the study are a literature review, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study and qualitative analyses from, fieldwork trials and 56 semi-structured interviews. The results of the study show that the main environmental impacts are aquatic, terrestrial or atmospheric, with the most significant pollutants linked to the latter category, mainly from engine exhausts, turbine emissions, gas flaring and venting. Major environmental degradations are identified in Libyan upstream operations and a number of recommendations formulated minimising their effect. Particular importance is placed on establishing strict sustainability policies and regulations, and the implementation of an environmental management system.

Emerging infectious disease (EID) events have the potential to cause devastating impacts on human, animal and environmental health. A range of tools exist which can be applied to address EID event detection, preparedness and response. Here we use a case study of rabies in Southeast Asia and Oceania to illustrate, via nearly a decade of research activities, how such tools can be systematically integrated into a framework for EID preparedness. During the past three decades, canine rabies has spread to previously free areas of Southeast Asia, threatening the rabies-free status of countries such as Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The program of research to address rabies preparedness in the Oceanic region has included scanning and surveillance to define the emerging nature of canine rabies within the Southeast Asia region; field studies to collect information on potential reservoir species, their distribution and behaviour; participatory and sociological studies to identify priorities for disease response; and targeted risk assessment and disease modelling studies. Lessons learnt include the need to develop methods to collect data in remote regions, and the need to continuously evaluate and update requirements for preparedness in response to evolving drivers of emerging infectious disease.

The major assumption made in this paper, is that the environment offers at large two distinct services each of different kind. First, the environmental resources may serve as inputs to the production of conventional goods. An example is the exploitation of an oil source from which, one firm extracts the oil which in turn is used as a fossil fuel for an industry. In the worst case, the use of the natural resources for industrial purposes will negatively affect the environment, e.g. the air quality over an industrial area. Nevertheless, saving abatement costs, production cost decreases due to possibility to pollute. Therefore, this first environmental service is evaluated positively by the economic agents (firms and consumers). The second service provided is the environment itself which offers amenities (i.e. clean air, blue coasts, natural creeks, clean rivers and lakes etc.) The crucial difference between the uses of the above services is how environmental quality affected and how much is the environmental degradation. From the pure economic point of view, the uses of the environmental services are consumptive and non-consumptive. Conversely in natural resources means, the environmental stock may be used as a raw material for the industrial production of conventional goods providing simultaneously a positive externality. Hence, the main purpose of this paper is twofold. First it considers the management at which the social planer has to steer emissions in an optimal way, meaning that both environmental quality and stock of pollutants remain optimal. Second it considers the conflict between the representative polluting producer and the representative environmental quality enjoyer which actually abates. In both cases we explore the complex limit cycle equilibrium, but additionally in the second case the analytical expressions of the crucial variables of the model are computed.

Sustainable development calls for holistic environmental performance evaluations, forcing industry to expand its responsibility towards the environment both locally and globally. The aim of this study is to review available methods that can potentially be applied by industries to support the assessment of their environmental sustainability. The paper offers a comprehensive overview of existing methods, discusses their adequacy, identifies critical future directions and provides further guidance to industrialists and researchers who wish to assess and improve the environmental sustainability of an industrial system. Forty eight methods were identified which were further classified into six categories to facilitate their analysis: individual/set of indicators, composite indices, socially responsible investment indices, material and energy flow analysis, life cycle analysis and environmental accounting. Key attributes of every method were extracted whereas five criteria were set to evaluate the selected categories: ability to promote actions of improvement, help decision making, potentiality for benchmarking, applicability and ease of use and integration of wider spatial and temporal characteristics. Results have indicated that there is still noteworthy potential in increasing the efficiency of environmental sustainability assessments of industrial systems. The scope of the evaluation varies considerably among different methods. Over 140 different environmental issues are addressed by the examined methods to assess environmental aspects of sustainability. Energy use, human toxicity, ozone depletion and resource consumption are the most utilized parameters. Composite indices and life cycle analysis based methods, exhibit the highest potential for satisfying all five criteria set. The key conclusion emerged from this study is that there is considerable margin of improvement especially regarding methods' ability to help decision making and ease of use. The most critical future direction in order to enhance the effectiveness of the assessment is the development of commonly accepted sustainability reference targets. The establishment of reference targets will enable the quantification of the distance between the existing situation and the truly environmentally sustainable performance.

Rapid population growth, industrialization, unplanned urbanization, global warming, tourism activities and natural disasters have resulted in environmental issues that have reached global dimensions and started to threaten the life of creatures. For the permanent protection of ecological balance and sustainability, massive national and international regulations are needed. Threatening the life of creatures has not been considered in the system consisting of the establishment of equilibrium between man and nature as required. At this point businesses have important responsibilities. Businesses, for example, in order to prevent environmental pollution waste control systems, filtration systems, recycling methods etc. endured environmental costs in a variety of ways, as these costs are incurred also causes more businesses to see the value of protecting the environment. The result of the activities of environmental impacts of enterprises can be considered, to be taken in the preparation of the necessary data to guide decisions, contacts and presentation of the stages of the environmental accounting system.In this study, we first examine the concepts of environmental accounting, sustainability and environmental costs and then in the cement factories located in Turkey the environmental costs and environmental accounting will be given in the results of a survey made for the calculation of the sensitivity.Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Sustainability; Environmental Costs

One of the main challenges that face Kuwait is the development of environmental indicators for sustainable development. For this purpose, the Kuwait Integrated Environmental Information Network (KIEIN) multi-phase project was initiated in 1994 with the main goal of developing an interactive environmental information platform. The final KIEIN-IV aims at developing the national environmental indicators, which will be embedded in a web service interface. Key issues behind this project are the dissemination of these indicators among society to maximise the societal benefits and foster the synergy and integration between different users to obtain the utmost benefit. The six main thematic areas, atmosphere and climate change, land, coastal and marine environment, fresh water, biodiversity, and waste management, were developed for the KIEIN GeoPortal. These themes are key environmental issues that are broken down into indicators. In this regard, six Themes, 22 Issues and 65 Indicators were listed.

Environmental scanning is a very critical process which must precede the implementation of occupational learning programmes in South Africa. The process could help organisations to enhance their strategic planning effort for occupational learning by reducing environmental uncertainty and improving their anticipatory management. The current study seeks to examine construct validity of an Environmental Scanning (ES) scale for the South African occupational learning context. Data were collected from 552 participants using a non-experimental cross-sectional survey design. The findings show that the ES scale is a valid and reliable measure, and the data fits the model very well (x2 = 24.05; x2/df = 2.67; TLI = .97; IFI = .98; NFI = .97; CFI = .98; SRMR = .02 and RMSEA = .05).

Environmental industry has become one of the world's hottest sunrise industry and there is a big necessity for China to import leading environmental technology from the EU to develop environmental industry and build Sustainable economic development.However,problems such as unsatisfying environmental policy implementation,not advanced environmental technology R&D investment and financing system,lacking of long-term strategic planning and not perfect innovation mechanism and talent management and so on,greatly reduce the efficiency of putting the technology introduced into use and developing the environmental industry.In order to solve that,government have to strengthen the environmental supervision,formulate appropriate R&D investment and financing policy,enact enterprise long-term strategic planning and also improve the personnel management.

Environmental issues are considered increasingly more important, in the field of industrial production, especially in the early stages of the planning processes: Eco-industrial parks seem to be effective planning models to reduce environmental impact and to increase firm competitiveness at the same time. By describing the Raibano industrial area planning process, the article investigates the opportunities offered by Strategic Environmental Assessment as an effective and suitable method in developing real eco-industrial parks. The assessment procedure, also supported by some prediction models, has been implemented by considering the environmental effects generated by the industrial park development and use on every environmental components, and the consequent precondition, mitigation and remediation measures. The illustrated case shows that the application of environmental assessment principles to an early decision-making level enables the enhancement of some key features of eco-industrial parks, such as the high degree of project pre-planning and design and the presence of site management and monitoring mechanisms during its implementation, thus guaranteeing enough flexibility to give birth to spontaneous co-operation and exchanges between the industrial activities.

Environmental assessment has been an important consideration for the nuclear industry since the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The environment, in the broadest sense, encompasses man and his world, comprising both animate and inanimate components. The physical environment includes surface geography, geology, soils, climate, surface water, and groundwater. The biological environment comprises all living organisms, including plants and animals. In examining the environment through various trophic levels, impacts on human health are ultimately considered. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a process in which environmental factors are integrated into project planning and decision making. An environmental impact assessment is comprised of an examination of the local environment around a proposed project, an examination of the proposed project, and a prediction of the potential impacts of the project on the physical, biological and socio-economic environment, with the objective to judge the acceptability of the project and control those impacts to acceptable levels, while maintaining the viability of the project. This paper examines the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment process for nuclear facilities that includes EIA itself, human induced events, defence in depth, Corporate Social Responsibility and acceptance by the public in the development plan of nuclear power plants in Indonesia. The study of the effectiveness environmental impact assessment using flow chart and the environmental priority system in some indicators are expected to minimize the negative impacts that may occur.

This paper analyzes the effect of systems to manage environmental aspects on environmental performance at individual polluting facilities. Regulated polluting facilities are increasingly embracing pollution minimization strategies that involve the adoption of broadly defined systems to manage environmental aspects. Despite a meaningful empirical literature, whether or not these systems lead to better environmental performance remains an open question. This study seeks to assess the possible connection between systems to manage environmental aspects and improved environmental performance. It also seeks to identify the factors determining the extent of the adopted system of management and the factors’ direct effects on environmental performance. For this empirical analysis, the study examines the extent of systems to manage environmental aspects employed by and the level of wastewater discharged by U.S. chemical manufacturing facilities during 2001.

The issues of showing relations between environmental and economic indicators (further - environmental and economic interactions) of coke and by-product process are considered in the article. The purpose of the study is to reveal the regularities of the functioning of the local environmental and economic system on the basis of revealed spectrum of environmental and economic interactions. A simplified scheme of the environmental and economic system “coke and by-product process - the environment” was developed. The forms of the investigated environmental-economic interactions were visualized and the selective interpretation of the tightness of the established connection was made. The main result of the work is modeling system of environmental and economic interactions that allows increasing the efficiency of local ecological and economic system management and optimizing the “interests” of an industrial enterprise - the source of negative impact on the environment. The results of the survey can be recommended to government authorities and industrial enterprises with a wide range of negative impact forms to support the adoption of effective management decisions aimed at sustainable environmental and economic development of the region or individual municipalities.

Despite its good environmental track record, the Finnish forest industry nonetheless causes harmful environmental impacts. This paper studies corporate environmental reports within the Finnish forest industry to determine the environmental performance of the industry at large. Fifteen years of environmental reports from the three biggest Finnish forest industry companies are analysed. The majority of these reports focus on inputs needed for production (especially energy) and unwanted outputs (especially air and water emissions) in the industry. The environmental impacts in areas of the industry taking place outside of mills, however, are less often reported and appear to be less important to the companies. This paper makes five contributions to the literature: First, the forest industry's reporting, as a less researched field, is studied in detail. Second, the forest industry's environmental reporting is diverse, comprised of multiple indicators and units of measurement. Third, the energy indicator reporting is both established and diversified. The diversity makes the reports as a weak source of comparison of environmental performance. Fourth, the case companies seldom report the environmental performance of their supply chains. Fifth, while the prior literature has analysed multiple environmental impacts of the forest industry, the case companies report on very few of them. The paper concludes by stating that future environmental reporting should especially address supply chains and multiple environmental impacts caused by the industry.

The article discusses the concept of a balanced solution of economic tasks and problems of preservation of the environment, research of problems of environmental management, the analysis of existing approaches to environmental-economic environmental management, methodological bases of perfection of system of nature management on the basis of improving environmental and economic security management of environmental decisions and the performance of environmental management in general.

Industries have sought, increasingly, the pollution control, since they are facing a growing process of requesting for a responsible at itude and commitment to the environment. Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of coffee and its production can generate significant environmental impacts, so this study aimed the environmental diagnosis in a coffee industry, defining the industry environmental aspects and impacts and proposing alternatives for minimizing the critical impacts. The main actions to improve the environmental quality involve the adoption of practices relatively simple and inexpensive, such as the monitoring of gaseous emissions and the amount and efficiency of burning wood, and growing environmental awareness of employees and management. These actions can promote socio-environmental and economic benefits to the company, serving as an initiative for the entrepreneurs to seek continuous improvement of its production process. Key words: coffee industry, environmental management, environmental impact.

The maritime industry is widely seen as less permeable to innovation than other industries. However, the industry is now recognizing that demands for increased environment protection can only be achieved by more innovation. This study demonstrates that environmental innovation has played a significant role in changing the industry's innovation paradigm. It has also been transformed over time.

As one of the main contributors to global environmental degradation, mechatronic industry must take the responsibility of improving the environmental performance of its products. Compared with further development of green technology, setting environmental protection willingly and seriously as one of the engineering optimization objectives are also important. This paper analyzes the decision making processes from the viewpoint of product life cycle and serves the purpose of reaching a balance between economic profit and environmental performance for each life cycle participator.

In recent years, environmental awareness has increased: governments, the public and industry now take environmental issues seriously. Railways are no exception. Infrastructure managers have made efforts to systematically manage environmental issues of their assets. Railways have considerable effects on the environment. Because of superior energy efficiency it is easy to forget that there is still huge potential for railways to have a negative environmental impact, largely related to extensive land use and large amounts of materials in use. Recently, infrastructure managers have started introducing environmental management systems into their business processes, based on the ISO 14000 standards, to mitigate environmental risks posed by infrastructure. Infrastructure organisations have developed tools to assist the environmental management, but they have been doing this in isolation from each other, resulting in a lack of compatible language and solutions, such as a lack of common guidelines for environmental procurement. The InfraGuidER Coordinated Action compiled requirements for environmental management processes of European Infrastructure Managers. InfraGuidER compiled understanding of environmental aspects of railway infrastructure and how to minimise the environmental impacts from operation, construction, maintenance, upgrading and disposal. This includes knowledge of significant environmental issues of railway infrastructure material, including system boundaries, stocks and flows, and an overview of applicable management processes, international legislation and standards. A major InfraGuidER delivery is the proposal for an UIC guideline for eco-procurement of railway infrastructure materials and components, similar to already existing UIC leaflet 345 for rolling stock. The tools presented within InfraGuidER can improve the environmental impact of railways by supporting environmental decision making processes for railway infrastructure renewal and planning. A new board within the European Railway Purchasing Conference will further deal with these issues. InfraGuidER also compiled proposals for future research activities addressing identified, significant needs concerning the environmental performance and environmental monitoring of railway soil pollution.

The paper argues that corporate environmental management should be based on significant environmental aspects that result in significant environmental impacts. The Finnish forest industry has substantially reduced its emissions but, being heavy industry, it still causes significant environmental impacts. This paper presents expert views on environmental impacts and their measurement. They were gathered through semi-structured theme interviews. The most frequently mentioned environmental impacts and significant environmental impacts related to water, energy and air. Positive environmental impacts resulted from recycling, forest industry products and use of energy. Traditional emission measurement was considered a well-measured issue. The target subjects of the measurement and especially environmental impact measurement require improvement. The contribution of this research is concerned with the development of measurement and two issues arising from the research are emphasised. First, environmental impact measurement should be further developed. Second, the measurement of the production chain that is physically outside the boundaries of forest industry mills should also be developed.

This paper introduces a comprehensive assessment tool of the built environment of cities, referred to as “CASBEE-City”. The tool supports local governments and other stakeholders in identifying environmental, social and economic characteristics of their cities and to quantify the effectiveness of city-led policies. As for the other CASBEE tools, CASBEE-City also implements the concept of environmental efficiency and allows evaluation of a city from two aspects simultaneously: the aspect of decreasing negative environmental load emitted outside the city, and that of improving environmental quality and activities inside the city. It is expected to contribute to the realization of sustainable cities.

As they make decisions about collective goods, policy makers strive to apply objective standards to complex environmental issues. This challenge requires the use of analytic methods that can include the multiple dimensions of such complex problems. Life-cycle analysis is a physical model that is widely recognised for its utility in investigating and improving the environmental impacts across the supply chain. However, models such as environmental life-cycle analysis are insufficient by themselves for policy-making because they do not formally include the interdependent, dynamic, often socioeconomic choices that influence supply-chain firms, and thus affect environmental outcomes. We show that game theory can be applied to improve environmental policy-making for the end-of-cycle stages of supply chains by strategically considering environmental and economic incentives. These incentives are often dependant on previous life-cycle stages while affecting future life-cycle stages. We demonstrate these techniques with a case study of open-loop (out-of-network) pallet systems for shipping consumer goods while also discussing the remaining challenges.

Over the past few decades market-based instruments have enjoyed increasing use in environmental management. To examine whether market-based instruments are effective tools for environmental management, a range of evaluations from the literature covering point- and non-point-source pollution control, along with biodiversity management, were reviewed. As found in other reviews, the environmental context of the particular issue being addressed is a key determinant of instrument performance. Market-based instruments have been applied most successfully to the management of industrial point-source pollution issues. In these cases, emissions have generally proven to be reasonably easy to measure and have had sufficiently direct relationships with their environmental impacts. In contrast, the diffuse-source environmental problems commonly encountered in rural contexts proved to be less amenable to market-based solutions. In these situations, difficulties in clearly linking management actions with environmental outcomes generally undermined their effectiveness and efficiency.

Eco-control is the application of financial and strategic control methods to environmental management. In this study, we investigate to what extent eco-control influences environmental and economic performance. Using survey-data from a sample of Canadian manufacturing firms, the results suggest that eco-control has no direct effect on economic performance. A mediating effect of environmental performance on the link between eco-control and economic performance is observed in different contexts. More specifically, eco-control indirectly influences economic performance in the context of (i) higher environmental exposure, (ii) higher public visibility, (iii) higher environmental concern, and (iv) larger size. This study contributes to the management accounting literature by providing insight into the roles and contributions of management accounting in the context of sustainable development.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the main environmental impacts of coal mining in China, examine the main institutions and reform factors that failed the control of these damages, and discuss what would be necessary to establish a sustainable and environmentally responsible coal mining sector in the context of market and institutional reforms.Design/methodology/approachReview of existing knowledge, and semi‐structured interviewing with key informants in the policy and industry sectors has been the main method of primary and secondary data collection. Grounded theory was used to analyze original data.FindingsThe large and fast growing coal industry in China has caused significant environmental degradation, including land subsidence and water intrusion, as well as remarkable records of miner's poor safety and health. Market reform was mostly unsuccessful in integrating environmental consideration into production and marketing decisions. Main factors of reform that have been associated with this problem are price deregulation and excessive competition inside the industry. Institutional reform, in fact, enhanced the status of State Environment Protection Agency; however, it impaired environmental governance in the coal industry. It is suggested that market reform as applicable to the China coal industry economic sector in particular should reconsider its approach in light of the numerous problems it has created.Originality/valueThe paper identifies and puts together the condition of the growing coal industry in China after market reform, articulating the huge environmental costs that this development has imposed on the country, while calling for an environmentally sustainable coal industry.

Recent theories of firms' environmental behavior propose that numerous factors influence a firm's environmental decision-making process. Economic considerations play a central role, but interactions between the economic climate, regulatory structure, and social culture in which a firm operates are more important than economic considerations alone. This article investigates the conditions surrounding eight existing pulp and paper mills in Maine that influence the level of compliance. Factors unique to Maine's economy, history, and relationship between people and their environment come together to influence firms' environmental performance and attitude. Such “place-based characteristics” are crucial in designing policies to promote economic development and protect environmental quality.

Climate change will have an impact on biodiversity; most modern zoos are concerned with the conservation of biodiversity and therefore have an obligation to minimize their impact on the environment, particularly their contribution to factors causing climate change. An environmental management system (EMS) is a tool to identify, measure and reduce an organization's impacts on the environment in a systematic way and to continually improve environmental performance through a four-stage cyclical method, Plan–Do–Check–Act. Paignton Zoo Environmental Park began to implement an EMS in 2003 and achieved the international standard ISO14001 for environmental management in 2005. In addition to improving environmental performance and legal compliance, and reducing environmental risk, the main advantages of the EMS have been costs savings on utilities, improved credibility and media coverage, and improved access to grant funding for ‘green’ initiatives. However, there have also been cost implications in terms of staff time, administration, financial costs in setting up the system, capital costs in investment in processes and equipment with the best environmental ratings, and additional constraints on development because environmental issues can no longer be conveniently ignored. Despite these disadvantages, the EMS has been a very effective tool for Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, enabling it to become a recognized leader in this field and truthfully to live up to its name.

Environmental uncertainty provides the context for public relations practices. Arguably, environmental uncertainty leads to greater organizational responsiveness to those environments through strategic planning. This survey of 505 American Public Relations Society of America members indicated, however, that perceived environmental conditions were less important to management decision-making than how those conditions were translated or packaged as decision-making inputs through formal environmental scanning mechanisms. Environmental uncertainty had no impact on decision making, once the mediating influence of formal scanning was controlled.

Owing to the green revolution, environmental problems have now become some of the most important issues worldwide. Environmental knowledge management, which combines the strengths of environmental management and knowledge management, will become a popular tool for businesses in the near future. In this paper, through interviews of staff at different levels and in different departments of the business, i. e. managers and engineers and using the environmental knowledge circulation process, the authors evaluate the success of environmental knowledge management when applied to China Steel Corporation in Taiwan. From the case study, the authors found that China Steel Corporation has applied the environmental knowledge circulation process for over thirty years. The company continually improves its environmental and financial performance through environmental knowledge creation, environmental knowledge accumulation, environmental knowledge sharing, environmental knowledge utilization and environmental knowledge internalization. Water pollution and air emissions have reduced year on year and total energy consumption has reduced by 20 % from 1979 to 2006. On the other hand, China Steel Corporation also makes a profit and reduces cost through energy sold, by-products and recycling. Continuous improvement in environmental knowledge management has rendered China Steel Corporation in the most profitable steel company in Taiwan and the world’s twenty fifth largest steel producing company in 2006.

Towns concentrate around 50% of world-wide population and the trend is oriented to underscore an urban profile of population. In addition, towns have become important for their economic contribution to the Gross Internal Product. The negative side of towns is the environmental and social impacts as a result of productive and domestic activities, besides the lack of available data. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the United Nations has established a project of urban monitoring throughout the Global Network of Urban Observatories; Mexico joined the project in 2005. The Local Urban Observatory of Mexicali has the task to produce information about cities that is useful to design public policies. Some of this information deals with a set of environmental indicators in the United Nations Habitat Agenda, which includes solid wastes. Therefore, this paper deals with two main topics; firstly, from the Habitat Agenda, a comparative urban analysis of waste production and coverage of domestic waste collection services; secondly, from the Local Agenda, the identification and ranking of environmental problems according to public perception coming from people involved in the municipal planning and decision making process. Results will be used to develop local indicators and public environmental policies.

Environment pollution problem is more and more serious currently. Enterprises, as individuals making important contribution to economic growth, also can lead to environmental pollution. In the paper, Environmental cost management of Y enterprise is analyzed, and experience and reference are proposed on the basis of describing the necessity of environmental cost management. I. Necessity of environmental cost management Environmental cost management refers that environmental costs are included into the scope of enterprise operation cost on the basis of traditional cost management, therefore environmental cost produced during product service life process undergoes a series of scientific management work, such as forecasting, decision-making, control, accounting, analysis, assessment and so on organically and systematically. China belongs to a resource-rich country with high consumption of petrochemical energy. It is also a country with serious pollution. Therefore, China must pay attention to synchronous development of economy and environment. Enterprise can achieve durable environment cost leading advance through environmental cost management, thereby achieving efficient utilization of resources, reducing resource loss and waste emission, realizing win-win situation of economic benefit and environment benefit.

This paper investigates the use of the eco-efficiency measurement. It also analyses whether environmental planning, business strategies, operational practices, environmental management system certification and environmental management accounting influence eco-efficiency. The five organisational factors express formal elements of the organisational structure. The research design consists of a mixed method approach with a set of information composed of a survey of 65 companies plus 14 interviews. The results show a poor use of eco-efficiency measurement and the positive influence of just environmental planning and environmental management accounting. What stands out is the urgency to encourage companies to have more articulated measurement and evaluation tools for analyse the interplay between environmental and economic performance (i.e. eco-efficiency). The paper extends empirical studies on environment-related management accounting tools. This study also underlines the importance of analysing the organisational dimension which is fundamental for promoting the integration of environmental issues into management control.

The notion that the construction industry can contribute to environmental sustainability has increased the demand for environmental sustainability in the sector. Research has shown that environmental quality is associated with human behaviour. Therefore, minimising waste generation and energy consumption in construction projects is important. This study investigates the influence of the environmental practice of construction firms on practitioners' environmental behaviour during project implementation. Data for the study are obtained from a sample of 375 architectural, engineering, and contracting firms in Malaysia. The partial least squares technique is used for data analysis. The results indicate that firms' energy efficiency and waste management practices have a positive effect on the environmental behaviour of practitioners during project implementation. The results imply that when construction firms are engaged in energy efficiency or waste management activities, an increase in environmental behaviour will occur in the projects in which these practitioners are involved. This study is one of first attempts to investigate the relationship between the environmental practices of construction firms and the environmental behaviour of professionals during project implementation within the construction industry. The findings are useful for construction practitioners in terms of exerting environmental behaviour in project implementation, which is essential for facilitating environmental sustainability in the construction sector.

The rapid growth of Chinese economy has tremendously stimulated the expansion of energy consumption. The structure of energy consumption in China is featured with the coal domination. Air pollution is becoming increasingly severe. As a result, we are confronted with the extremely arduous task to balance energy consumption and environmental protection. In order to coordinate the relationship between energy consumption and environmental protection in a strategic way, this paper analyzes comprehensively the instruments, effects and perspectives of energy-related environmental management. Meanwhile, this paper illustrates the barriers and challenges facing the energy and energy-related environmental management in China, and suggests a priority strategy of management instrument, mainly composed of energy-saving, optimization of energy structure, promulgation of environmental standards, advance in environmental technologies, internalization of environmental costs, establishment of a public benefit fund and adoption of a Renewable Portfolio System. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The past decade has witnessed an active dismantling of public environmental policy in Russia. At the same time, Russian companies involved in natural resources extraction have adopted standardized environmental management systems. In this way, much of the responsibility of environmental policy in Russia has been transferred to private industries and their environmental management systems. These systems do not, as such, guarantee increased environmental responsibility. This article addresses the privatization of the Russian environmental policy in light of the legitimacy and uncertainty involved in standardized environmental management systems. A case study of the mining industry in the Kola Peninsula, Russia, is used in two ways. First, environmental policy conflicts between public bodies and mining companies in Russia are illustrated with two examples. Second, key drivers for adopting environmental management systems in the Kola Peninsula mining companies are extracted from thematic interviews. These drivers are analyzed for their impact on unit and corporate level decision-making. In addition, the drivers are categorized according to the type of legitimacy and stakeholder salience. It is shown that unit and corporate level applications of environmental management have different societal and environmental implications. On the basis of the case study it is suggested that due to their support of cognitive and moral legitimacy, and a broader view on salient stakeholders, environmental management systems defined on the unit level allow a better alignment of corporate goals with societal goals of sustainability.

An Environmental Management System (EMS) has been widely in use by many companies to manage the environmental effects of their operations. The process has recently gained ground in being adopted at city and municipal levels as well as in institutions such as universities. However, an EMS that is conducted at corporate level has some deficiencies when it is applied at city level. These deficiencies are in evaluating environmental goals and policies carried out to mainly ensure that the policies meet ISO 14001 standard and corporate requirements and neglect of public participation. Urban areas differ from companies due to their size, complexity and environmental challenges, high rate of growth and the dynamic nature of urban systems. Therefore, they need an urban environmental management approach that will assess the formulated urban environment policies and goals in a strategic method before implementation, including social dimensions such as public participation. Therefore, this paper proposes a ...

This article presents the quantitative eco-efficiency method developed for prioritising environmental investments in NOGEPA, The Netherlands Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Association involving all major oil and gas producers in The Netherlands. They are committed to a high level of environmental improvement in a Covenant with Dutch central government. Quantitative assessment of eco-efficiency in terms of cost per unit of environmental improvement requires the quantification of both costs and environmental impacts, each in a single indicator. The present study focuses on the development of a single environmental indicator for that purpose. The overall process for arriving at such an indicator has been structured according to ISO 14042 about the life cycle impact assessment. For the last step in this process, the establishment of weighting factors across environmental themes, a panel method has been chosen, involving as stakeholders the government officials involved, the industry experts and independent experts from scientific institutes.

In a briefly approach, sustainability can be defined as the ability to achieve economic prosperity while protecting the natural systems of the planet, and providing a higher quality of life for its people. Nowadays it is a prime and very active area of research, fundamental for human development. Several concepts based on economics, social and environmental concerns have been considered in the development of sustainability indices. The sustainability concept is, not only but necessarily, dependent on “quantification of the environment health”, necessary to determine its effectiveness in achieving or increasing the environmental capacities of ecosystems, as well as to compare alternative plans and policies, to influence decision-makers. Environmental indices are a very important tool for the analysis of some environmental assessment factors, providing quantitative criteria and synthesizing the available information. A good index should be simple to use, transparent, and expandable across other issues. In particular, environmental indices are a useful tool for several audiences, to aid environmental decision making and to allow the media to keep score of and reduce complex information to a smaller, more easily retained, amount of information [Hardi, P., DeSouza-Huletey, J.A., 2000. Issues in analyzing data and indicators for sustainable development. Ecol. Model. 130, 59–65]. The goal of this work is the development of environmental indices, based on stochastically simulated scenarios, using probabilistic approaches. This study was applied to assess the impact of particulate air contamination on the Setubal Peninsula ecosystems (South of Lisbon, Portugal).

With the increase in awareness of environmental issues, the level of environmental disclosure and stakeholder demands for environmental information is increasing. New developments in the ISO 14000 standards also make it more evident that a company's environmental performance as well as its environmental reporting should be considered as strategic issues in business strategy. Especially for a developing country like Malaysia, many companies are under external pressures to improve their environmental performance. In this study, a review on the image and environmental disclosure, together with the challenges in environmental information management and a short case study are presented. Subsequently, the paper explores some of the strategic implications of environmental reporting as an important tool for improved environmental management.

Land use change may exert a negative impact on environmental quality. A state–impact–state (SIS) model describing a state transform under certain impacts has been integrated into land use planning (LUP) environmental impact assessment (LUPEA). This logical model is intuitive and easy to understand, but the exploration of impact is essential to establish the indicator system and to identify the scope of land use environmental impact when it is applied to a specific region. In this study, we investigated environmental driving forces from land use planning (LUPF), along with the conception, components, scope, and impact of LUPF. This method was illustrated by a case study in Zoucheng, China. Through the results, we concluded that (1) the LUPF on environment are impacts originated from the implementation of LUP on a regional environment, which are characterized by four aspects: magnitude, direction, action point, and its owner; (2) various scopes of LUPF on individual environmental elements based on different standards jointly define the final scope of LUPEA; (3) our case study in Zoucheng demonstrates the practicability of this proposed approach; (4) this method can be embedded into LUPEA with direction, magnitudes, and scopes of the LUPF on individual elements obtained, and the identified indicator system can be directly employed into LUPEA and (5) the assessment helps to identify key indicators and to set up a corresponding strategy to mitigate the negative impact of LUP on the environment, which are two important objectives of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in LUP.

Industries are becoming progressively more aware of the environmental and social liabilities pertaining to their operations and products, with associated financial effects. Uncertainties in measuring these financial effects can be addressed by using environmental evaluation and accounting techniques. Environmental accounting assists in expressing environmental and social liabilities as environmental costs. While environmental accounting systems now form part of industrial decision making in first world countries, there is a lack of similar systems in South Africa. The EEGECOST model was developed to promote environmental accounting in South Africa. Implementation of the model will provide South African industries with the framework for corporate evaluation of alternative investments, projects and processes and for estimating economic and environmental performance at present and especially in the future. The model identifies, records and allocates internal and external environmental costs to five identified cost types, categorised into several environmental media groups. It also assists in the capital budgeting process for alternative investments. Applicability of the model was tested in a case study conducted on the life cycle assessment of a functional unit of one million cigarettes. The model indicated that Type V costs (external costs, with Types I to IV being different internal cost types) contributed 12% of the total production costs of a functional unit of cigarettes. As Type V costs are subjective, it is recommended that further research be conducted to structure an objective framework to evaluate and determine cost factors involved in the development of Type V costs.

The scientific method development on industrial programming will take a decisive role on the correct industrial plan and guarantee the validity of strategic environmental assessment. In this paper, we reveal the current situation, and analyze the environmental impacts of automobile raw materials production stage, automobile production stage, consumer use stage, and disposal stage. On the basis that environmental impacts are discerned, this paper predicts and analyzes the environmental impacts of the auto industry in Shandong.

This paper explores the links between environmental management accounting and measures of eco-efficiency in Japanese business. Environmental management accounting is a relatively new environmental management tool initially designed to trace and track environmental costs and physical environmental flows. In the paper, first, the recent development of environmental management accounting is considered; second, the links between environmental management accounting and eco-efficiency measurement are examined. Recent case studies in environmental management accounting from Japan are used as a basis for the analysis. It is concluded from the analysis that the practice of linking eco-efficiency measurement with environmental management accounting information is underutilised, diverse and in need of further promotion if EMA is to help Japanese business move production processes and consumption of its products towards sustainability.

The development of electricity technology from the environmental aspect has become the key factor for competitiveness, i.e., environmental friendliness is one of the most important considerations for technology development. Under the monopolised electric industry of the past, there was little motivation for individual companies to actually manage their company. However, because of the increasing demand for energy and the concerns for the environment, energy policies are shifting towards a sustainable development, which considers both the economics and environmental protection. According to the paradigm shift of the energy policy, it is necessary to compare two major electricity sources from the view of environmental management issues. It is effective with the common dimensionless unit concerning the various environmental categories including the radiological and non-radiological points of view, which can be realized by the new environmental impact assessment methodology such as the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This study aims at a comparison of the environmental impacts of the nuclear and coal power generation systems using the LCA methodology. These results are very preliminary ones, however, this study will be helpful in making a decision on a long term electricity plan and the energy mix optimization when considering the environmental aspect in Korea and also the power generation companies could enhance their images by showing off their willingness to improve the environmental quality.