Illuminating the need for ecological knowledge in economic valuation of mangroves under different management regimes — a critique

This is a commentary on a paper by Gilbert and Janssen (Gilbert, A.J., Janssen, R., 1998. Ecol. Econ. 25, 323–346) that deals with valuation of management alternatives for the Pagbilao mangroves, Philippines. Our main critique focuses on the undervaluation of fisheries as well as the inability to quantify the value of ecological services and internalize aquaculture's environmental costs. In addition, the sustainability criteria set up for the aquaculture management alternatives is open to debate. These weaknesses affect the result of Gilbert and Janssen's analysis so that the value of the unexploited mangrove forest is underestimated, and the value and sustainability of converting the forest into aquaculture ponds are overestimated. If applied to decision-making, the erroneous results from this partial cost–benefit analysis may have dire consequences for the mangroves and coastal communities of Pagbilao.     

基于云模型的基础设施项目可持续性评价

基础设施项目可持续性评价是基础设施项目决策的重要组成部分。在文献研究的基础上,构建了城镇基础设施项目可持续性评价指标体系。在评价过程中,针对基础设施项目可持续性表现出的随机性和模糊性等特点和评价过程中决策者可能存在的属性状态偏好,引入云模型描述基础设施项目可持续性的各属性,实现了基础设施项目可持续性的不确定性度量,并通过惩罚因子对属性值进行修正,提出了基于云模型的基础设施项目可持续性评价方法。     

Exploring local projects for sustainable energy in system transition: local perceptions of success

In the sustainability transitions literature, ‘success’ is conceived as the transition from an unsustainable system to a sustainable one. However, this view hides a more profound complexity in individual projects which can contribute to system transition. This paper focuses instead on local projects as key sites for change. In two case studies of UK sustainable energy projects, success is shown to be characterised by different causative beliefs held by different people about the problems being addressed, which predetermines solutions to those problems; and hence the nature of success. By acknowledging this multiplicity of success, as perceived by ordinary residents and project organisers as well as transition scholars, ‘narratives of success’ can be recognised, enabling future projects to build on success, and continue along the path to transition. This reconceptualisation provides transition scholars with new ways of understanding and effecting transitions; by focusing on the project level, which is useful in contexts with varying commitment to sustainability.     

Institutional Change and American Economic Growth

The environmental sustainability of economic growth has been subject to much debate for many decades. Recently, two alternatives to the growth paradigm have been put forward: namely, "a-growth" and "degrowth." The first proposes to ignore GDP information and focus instead on sound environmental, social, and economic policies independently of their effects on economic growth. The second recommends a downscaling of the economy so as to make it consistent with biophysical boundaries. We compare these approaches in the context of the growth paradigm and examine whether they have any merit. We further consider the potential contribution of institutional economics to further develop such alternatives.     

Sustainability ranking and improvement of countries

Human society is on a collision course with nature, thus its sustainability is seriously questioned nowadays. To understand this problem better it is essential to define and measure sustainability. In this paper a model that uses fuzzy logic, called SAFE, is used to measure sustainability. The sustainability of a country is based on a multitude of basic indicators. In all 75 indicators for 128 countries are used. This work extends SAFE as follows: (a) The model is amended by an imputation procedure to fill in missing data, (b) the rule bases of SAFE are compiled algebraically, and (c) sustainability thresholds are defined so as to reflect expert opinion and international agreements and norms. Countries are ranked according to their sustainability index. Switzerland and Sweden take the first two places and Mauritania and Sudan the two last ones. A sensitivity analysis pinpoints those basic indicators that affect sustainability the most. Decision makers may focus on these indicators to improve sustainability.     

Sustainable energy prices and growth: Comparing macroeconomic and backcasting scenarios

How do results from the sustainability research world of backcasting relate to the macroeconomic scenarios used for policy evaluation and planning? The answer is that they don't, mostly — they come from different scientific traditions and are not used in the same contexts. Yet they often deal with the same issues. We believe that much can be gained by bringing the two systems of thinking together. This paper is a first attempt to do so, by making qualitative comparisons between different scenarios and highlighting benefits and limitations to each of them.Why are the pictures we get of the energy future so different if we use a macroeconomic model from when using a backcasting approach based on sustainable energy use? It is evident that the methods for producing those two kinds of scenarios differ a lot, but the main reason behind the different results are found in the starting points rather than in the methods. Baseline assumptions are quite different, as well as the interpretations and importance attached to signals about the future. In this paper, it is discussed how those two types of scenarios differ and how they approach issues such as energy prices and growth.The discussion is based on a comparison between Swedish economic and sustainability scenarios. The economic scenarios aim at being forecasts of the future and are used as decision support for long-term policies. But are the assumptions in the economic scenarios reasonable? The sustainability scenarios are explicitly normative backcasting scenarios. They do not take the issue of growth and consumption fully into account. Could they be developed in this respect? The comparison between the scenarios is also used to look closer at the issue of energy prices in a society with sustainable energy use. One of the questions raised is if a low energy society calls for high energy prices. Moreover, the effects of tradable permits versus energy taxes is analysed in the context of how energy use could be kept low in a growing economy.     

Significance of environment in the assessment of sustainable development: The case for south west Victoria

The assessment of sustainable development is often based on the three pillars of sustainability model using social, economic and environmental indicators. It is thought that by measuring the performance of each system, information can be gained about the sustainability of the whole system. However it seems there has been no attempt to evaluate if such an assumption is true. During the development of a sustainability assessment framework for south west Victoria, Australia, it has become evident that this approach to sustainability assessment does not provide an accurate assessment of system sustainability. The project found that environmental indicators were considered the most important for assessing regional sustainability. As a consequence, the assessment produced shows that in south west Victoria, sustainability is largely determined by the condition of the environment. This finding highlights the current disconnection between the theory and reality of sustainability. Here, we describe a framework for sustainability assessment that attempts to re-connect theory to practice.     

Assessing ecosystem sustainability and management using fuzzy logic

Concern about the negative impacts of growth and development on protected area ecosystems has drawn attention to methods for assessing ecosystem sustainability and management. Existing non-stochastic and stochastic methods for assessing weak and strong sustainability of ecosystems have several limitations. The non-stochastic method does not account for errors in measuring attributes, stochastic variability in attributes, and uncertainty about the relationship between ecosystem attributes and states (degrees) of ecosystem sustainability. Although the stochastic method better accounts for errors in measuring attributes, and stochastic variability in attributes than the non-stochastic method, it requires information about the probability distributions of attributes for different states of sustainability. Such information is not readily available. The fuzzy logic method overcomes the limitations of the non-stochastic and stochastic methods, but requires fuzzifying an index of sustainability in the case of weak sustainability, fuzzifying individual attributes in the case of strong sustainability, specifying and estimating membership functions for low, medium and high ecosystem sustainability, selecting a rule to determine whether an ecosystem is strongly sustainable based on the conclusions for fuzzy propositions, and specifying fuzzy sets for truth qualifiers when evaluating conditional and qualified propositions. Whether the benefits outweigh the costs of using the fuzzy logic method depends on the knowledge, data, and information available about the ecosystem, the expertise of the persons doing the assessment, and other factors. The non-stochastic, stochastic and fuzzy logic methods can be used to rank management alternatives and select a preferred alternative in cases where the current state of the ecosystem is unsustainable. Ranking management alternatives using a fuzzy logic method requires ordering the fuzzy scores for alternatives. All three methods for ranking management alternatives call for a group preference ordering for management alternatives in cases where individuals in the group have different preferences for alternatives.     

Planting flexibility: Implications for agricultural sustainability

There is a general belief that federal commodity programs restrict adoption of more sustainable production systems. In the 1990 farm legislation, Congress introduced limited planting flexibility to address these concerns and to reduce federal farm program costs. This program estimates the impact of planting flexibility on selected agricultural sustainability indicators and its policy implications. Results show that planting flexibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for implementing more sustainable production systems. Other factors such as the availability of economically viable alternatives, macroeconomic conditions, and local resource and environmental concerns need to be considered. Policy reforms can help in achieving economic and environmental gains only in locations with economically viable alternatives. In other cases, increased research and development of new systems are needed to achieve desired results.     

中国养老金隐性债务、转轨成本、改革方式及其影响——可计算一般均衡分析

中国经济改革所遇到的一个严重障碍就是缺少一个有效的和可持续的养老金体系。在考察了国际经验后 ,本文利用可计算一般均衡模型分析了中国养老金改革的影响 ,并比较了支付隐性养老金债务和转制成本的各种选择方案。通过考察各种改革方案对养老体系自身可持续性和整个经济增长的影响 ,模拟结果表明中国养老金体制的改革虽然任重道远 ,但仍是富有希望的。     

An aggregate resource efficiency perspective on sustainability: A Sustainable Value application to the EU-15 countries

The Sustainable Value approach integrates the efficiency with regard to environmental, social and economic resources into a monetary indicator. It gained significant popularity as evidenced by diverse applications at the corporate level. However, its introduction as a measure adhering to the strong sustainability paradigm sparked an ardent debate. This study explores its validity as a macroeconomic strong sustainability measure by applying the Sustainable Value approach to the EU-15 countries. Concretely, we assessed environmental, social and economic resources in combination with the GDP for all EU-15 countries from 1995 to 2006 for three benchmark alternatives. The results show that several countries manage to adequately delink resource use from GDP growth. Furthermore, the remarkable difference in outcome between the national and EU-15 benchmark indicates a possible inefficiency of the current allocation of national resource ceilings imposed by the European institutions. Additionally, by using an effects model we argue that the service degree of the economy and governmental expenditures on social protection and research and development are important determinants of overall resource efficiency. Finally, we sketch out three necessary conditions to link the Sustainable Value approach to the strong sustainability paradigm.     

PROJECT EVALUATION AND RESOURCE SUSTAINABILITY

This paper outlines a procedure for embodying the principle of resource sustainability in evaluating projects that use significant amounts of natural resources. In this analysis, sustainability requires maintaining the productivity of the resource used over time, either by renewing the resource or by investing its depletion in other capital assets. The basis of a project's evaluation is its net present social value (NPSV), including resource depletion as a social cost. The social cost of depletion is the amount that must be saved and reinvested annually to accumulate a fund that will yield a perpetual annual income equal to the net output lost by resource depletion. By treating resource depletion as a social cost in calculating NPSV, projects causing a high rate of resource depletion receive a relatively low valuation compared with projects causing less resource depletion. Resource depletion includes environmental damage caused by constructing and operating a project, as well as the direct consumption of natural resources.
Several problems arise in reinvesting depletion to preserve the value of a resource base. One major problem relates to the substitutability of man-made capital for natural resources. The conclusion of the analysis here is that society must invest a substantial amount of resource depletion in: (i) replenishing renewable resources, (ii) increasing product output per unit of resource used, or (Hi) increasing the end-use efficiency of resource-intensive products.     

Renewable energy-the path to sustainability

This orticle seeks to address come lingering debates within sustainability studies by revealing the connections between renewable energy consumption and sustainability.Using data from 30 OECD counties,examines the connections via regression and geospattal analysis.Findings from the quantitative analysis indicate that about 50% of the variation in Sustainability is accounted for by the degree of renewables Consumption. The geospatial analysis visuaUv illustrates the intimate connections between the two variables, Theoretically, renewable energy relates to sustainability in three dimensions. The first dimension is economic. Relying on traditional fassil fuels eventually will bring our economy to a stop. Renewable energies, however; are able to secure our energy supply into an indefinite future. The second dimension links to ethics. To leave an intact planet torture generations is a moral responsibity of our generation, The current energy supply system is built on depletion of natural resources, while the sources of renewable energy are vast and constantly replenished. Tire last dimension is ecologic. How to allocate a proper apportionment of the global biosphere between humankind and the other life on the earth is a critical issue related to sustainability. By using renewable energy, we can greatly reduce our impact on biodiversity and therefore strike a balance between humankind and other life. Overall the research suggests that developing renewables can and in many. cases does sustain a nation＇s economic growth while simultaneously protecting the environment. It is a win-win situation. This finding undoubtedly points out a practical and realistic path for sustainable development.     

World natural gas endowment as a bridge towards zero carbon emissions

We use a global energy market (GEM) model to show that natural gas has the potential to help stabilize global carbon emissions in a span of about 50–100 years and pave the way towards low and zero carbon energy.The GEM provides a close fit of the global energy mix between 1850 and 2005. It also matches historical carbon and CO₂ emissions generated by the combustion of fossil fuels. The model is used then to forecast the future energy mix, as well as the carbon and CO₂ emissions, up to the year 2150.Historical data show relative decarbonization and an increase in the amount of hydrogen burned as a percent of fossil fuel use between 1850 and 1970. The GEM indicates that with a larger contribution of natural gas to the future energy market, the burned hydrogen percentage will increase. This decarbonization will help to advance economic and environmental sustainability.     

Renewable enery-the path to sustainability

This article seeks to address some lingering debates within sustainability studies by revealing the connections between renewable energy,consumption and sustainability.Using data from 30 OECD countries,the article amines the connections via regression and geospatial analysis Findings from the quantitative analysis indicate that about 50% of the variation in sustainability is accounted for by the degree of renewables consumption.The geospatial analysis visually illustrates the intimate connections between the two variables.Theoreticallv,renewable energy,relates to sustainability in three dimensions.The first dimension is economic.Relying on traditional fossil fuels eventually will bring our economy to a stop.Renewable energies,however,are able to secure our energy supply into an indefinite future.The second dimension links to ethics.To leave an intact planet to future generations is a moral responsibility of our generation.The current energy supply system is built on depletion of natural resources,while the sources of renewable energy are vast and constantlv replenished The last dimension is ecologic.How to allocate a porper apportionment of the global hiosphere between humankind and the other life on the earth is a critical issue related to sustainability.By using renewable energv,we can greatly reduce our impact on biodiversity and therefore strike a balance between humankind and other life.Overall the research suggests that developing renewables can and in many cases does sustain a nation's economic growth while simultaneously protecting the environment.It is a win-win situation.This finding undoubtedly points out a practical and realistic path for sudtainable development.     

WHAT CAN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS CONTRIBUTE TO THE ‘SUSTAINABILITY’ DEBATE?

Economics generally, and benefit-cost analysis in particular, are not substitutes for values. They are tools of analysis that rest on assumptions about values. The primary role for economics in normative analysis is to provide information about efficiently achieving that which is valued, not to make the decision. The major economic tool for analyzing normative issues is benefit-cost analysis. This paper considers the role of benefit-cost analysis in addressing the sustainability debate. The notion of "sustain-ability" raises concerns about values held by society. The analysis here addresses several issues within the sustainability debate: concerns about intergenerational equity including the appropriate discount rate for projects with environmental consequences; implications for burdens on future generations; and the moral basis for benefit-cost analysis. The authors argue that the correct discount rate for all such projects is the social rate of time preference, and that suggestions for using lower discount rates result from attempting to prevent inequities by adjusting prices. Additionally, the authors argue that economic analysis, especially benefit-cost analysis, can play a useful role in providing information to decision makers, who ultimately will face resource allocation issues as they seek to implement policies promoting sustainability.     

Conserving energy in smallholder agriculture: A multi-objective programming case-study of northwest India

In semi-arid conditions in Northwest India, smallholder agriculture has made increasing use of subsidised mechanisation and energy inputs to reduce short-term risks. However, detrimental environmental consequences have occurred, not least a rapidly falling water table, and energy-intensive production is threatened by the prospect of increasing scarcity and expense of energy supplies, especially as urban demands are forecast to grow rapidly. This paper describes the energy flows through four subsystems of smallholder agricultural villages: the crop system; non-crop land uses; livestock systems; and households. It employs a multi-objective programming model to demonstrate choices available for maximands either of net solar energy capture or financial surpluses. Applied to three villages selected to represent major settlement types in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, the results demonstrate that both energy conservation and financial performance can be improved. Although these results need qualifying because of the reductionist, linear character of the model used, they do provide important insights into the cultural role of mechanisation and the influence of traditional agricultural practices. They also underline the need for local energy conservation strategies as part of an overall approach to improved self-determination in progress towards rural sustainability.     

Sustainability,Social Discount Rates and the Selection of Project Procurement Method

The notion of sustainability has lead to the evaluation of public projects in terms of wider socio-economic and environmental benefits. The Cost Benefit Analysis and its respective, Social Discount Rate (SDR), is of crucial importance, especially when the advantages of private financing are to be demonstrated in comparison with the alternative traditional procurement of works and services. The SDR seen as a measure of a country’s value of future costs and benefits is related to the notion of promoted sustainability. The impact of smaller and declining SDRs on project selection is investigated, and a conceptual formulation concerning the selection of the project procurement method is presented. The modelled formulation will assist central and local governments in assessing projects and the potential benefit of private financing.     

基于可持续发展观的环境会计问题分析

在我国,环境会计是一个新兴的重要研究领域,它与可持续发展战略密不可分。本文在全面梳理可持续发展观基本内涵的基础上,从多个角度探讨了可持续发展观对环境会计的影响,明确了在可持续发展观引导下企业实施环境会计所应该关注的一些主要问题,以实现二者的相互促进与协调运作。