AN ENVIRONMENTAL/INPUT–OUTPUT LINEAR PROGRAMMING MODEL TO REACH THE TARGETS FOR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS SET BY THE KYOTO PROTOCOL

The Kyoto Protocol contains legally binding targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for industrialized countries. The importance of this agreement and the elaboration of a climate change policy make it necessary to define and establish national policy measures and to bring into force environmental regulations that will reduce GHG emissions. Extending our knowledge of the economic-ecologic relationships that exist within the production sphere can assist in defining and implementing successful environmental policies. In this paper, an Environmental/Input–Output linear programming model is proposed. To develop the model we consider the input–output model as a linear programming problem combining two types of restrictions: environmental restrictions establishing GHG emission targets, and economic restrictions. The model shows how targets for the emissions of GHGs may be reached and can affect production activity composition.     

Business strategies and the transition to low‐carbon cities

Cities are key drivers of global climate change, with the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions being tied to urban life. Local actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change are essential for stabilization of the global climate and can also help to address other urban ecological problems such as pollution, decreasing biodiversity, etc. Companies are important urban actors in the development of low‐carbon cities because they provide a multitude of goods and services to city populations and directly influence urban carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. This is a new area of research. While studies on corporate sustainability are numerous, there is little, if any, existing research that examines the role of companies in climate change adaptation and mitigation within specific urban areas. Urban ecologists also have not examined how corporate activity affects urban systems. Taking a multi‐disciplinary systems approach, we present a conceptual model of the role of companies in managing urban interactions with the climate system. We also present empirical findings illustrating how one company ‘partners’ with the city of Rotterdam to test electric vehicles as a pilot project for urban climate adaptation and mitigation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Reducing Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions: scenario simulations of targets and policies

This paper aims to evaluate the economic impacts of greenhouse gas emission reduction on the Brazilian economy. To this end, we developed an integrated input–output linear programming model for 2009 using the Supply and Use Tables and emissions data of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation. We simulated emissions targets for various potential scenarios in which the adopted policy design took account of sectoral composition in terms of emissions and available production technology. The results were directly affected by the high level of livestock emissions, counterbalancing this sector’s economic importance for Brazil. In the short term, sectoral emissions targets associated with taxation policy or emission permits could be developed in order to create private incentives to mitigate emissions. In this sense, the results also show that different sectoral targets may be able to balance environmental benefits with the possible economic losses incurred by such policies.     

Including the Feedback of Local Health Improvement in Assessing Costs and Benefits of GHG Reduction

Ancillary benefits of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation refer to benefits from GHG mitigation in addition to lowered adverse impacts of global climate change. A major ancillary benefit of GHG mitigation is reduced local air toxins, which improves health. The purpose of the study is not to determine whether ancillary benefits of GHG mitigation can or cannot justify GHG mitigation. Rather, we discuss how an important benefit of addressing GHG emission — the local health effects — should and can be incorporated using the approaches put forth. A CGE model is used for simulating a carbon tax policy. A health effects submodel takes the local air emissions output from the CGE model and assesses the implications for ambient air concentration, health, and labor supply. Labor and medical expenditure changes are fed back into the economy. Applying this approach to Thailand, when health feedback is included we find that: (1) negative impact on GDP under a carbon tax drops by 45%, and (2) welfare improves for households and cleaner producers.     

Climate Change and Mandatory Carbon Reporting: Impacts on Business Process and Performance

As part of their annual directors' report, UK‐listed companies are now required to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and account publicly for their contributions to climate change. This paper uses this mandatory carbon reporting to explore wider debates about corporate social responsibility and the purpose, practice, and impacts of such non‐financial reporting. Empirically, it combines documentary analysis of the carbon reporting practices of 176 large firms listed in the FTSE100 and/or subject to the UK government's adaptation reporting power with 60 interviews with stakeholders involved in carbon reporting. Firms disclose their emissions in response to financial incentives, social pressure and/or regulatory compulsion. In turn, rationales shape whether and how carbon reporting influences internal business processes and performance. The importance of reporting to the bottom line varies by sector depending on two variables – energy intensity and economic regulator status – yet there is limited evidence that carbon reporting is driving substantial reductions in emissions. Findings suggest reasons for caution about hopes for ‘nudging’ firms to improve their environmental performance and social responsibility through disclosure requirements.     

Purchasing's contribution to supply chain emission reduction

Does environmental purchasing and supplier management (EPSM) help to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the supply chain and, thereby, mitigate climate change? And, if so, under which conditions? Taking these two questions as a starting point, we hypothesize that heightened environmental protection efforts targeting the upstream value chain should lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the buying companies' supply chain. We continue to delineate three contingency factors that might affect the relationship between EPSM and supply chain GHG emissions: The power of the buying firm over supply chain partners, prior experience in EPSM, and materiality of environmental supply chain management in a certain industry. We collect longitudinal data from 260 companies and analyze them using hybrid panel data analysis. We find that the increase of EPSM leads to a significant reduction of the GHG emission intensity of buying firms’ supply chains and that this reduction is stronger for companies operating in industries where emission management is more material.     

Exploring the enablers and inhibitors of electric vehicle adoption intention from sellers' perspective in India: A view of the dual‐factor model

The electric vehicle (EV) is a crucial innovation with the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions and help reduce the causes of climate change. Despite their multiple benefits, EVs are selling lower numbers than would be expected, seeming to require more positive intent from their sellers to increase the pace of EV adoption. Hence, this study explores the enablers and inhibitors of EV adoption intention from the sellers' perspective using a dual‐factor model. The extended theory of planned behavior has been used to explore the enablers, whereas the status quo bias theory has been used to explore the inhibitors of EV adoption. The results indicate that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, environmental concern, and perceived corporate social responsibility obligation have significant positive impacts on intention to adopt EVs. However, regret avoidance, inertia, perceived threat, and perceived value have significant impacts on the resistance to adopt EVs. This study enriches the literature related to intention and resistance to adopt green technology and also provides several suggestions to marketers for increasing the pace of EV adoption.     

Climate Change and Financial Performance in Times of Crisis

Over the past years there has been a debate on the relationship between the environmental and financial performance of businesses, but researchers have not reached any agreement. This research attempts to explore this relationship, especially as in recent years there has been controversy about how this relationship has been affected by the global economic crisis. Taking into account that successfully limiting global climate change to safe levels in the long term is likely to require connecting climate change policies to sustainable development strategies, this paper focuses on the performance of environmental policies. We used a sample of 855 international companies in sectors of intensive greenhouse gas/CO₂ emissions. Specifically, we used data from the Forbes Global 2000 Index and Carbon Disclosure Project data from 2006 to 2009. The data analysis was performed using panel data methodology. The results obtained show that in times of economic crisis, the synergy between environmental and financial performance is higher, meaning that companies must continue to invest in sustainable projects in order to enhance relations with their stakeholders, leading to higher economic profits. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Decision analysis of auto emission control

In response to public pressure to reduce air pollution, governments are forced to consider alternate means to limit auto emissions. This paper addresses the problem of evaluating these regulatory policies and choosing the one that is best for society.Economic tradeoffs play an important role in the analysis of emission control policies. Cleaner air comes only at a price, and the judgments as to “How clean?” At what price?” and “At who's expense?” are crucial. Once these value issues are resolved, questions of implementation remain. “How do regulatory policies such as mandatory emission standards for cars compare with a system of emission taxes?” “Are there ways to collect a fee from drivers to compensate those who breathe their pollution, without taxing emissions directly?”Our approach is first to describe a decision-focused analytical procedure for evaluating various policy alternatives. This procedure is then demonstrated with a preliminary analysis of representative emission control plans for the Los Angeles air basin. Both emission standards and market or “pricing” alternatives are considered. These plans include: present (1975) emission standards; an emission tax; an increase in the gasoline tax; a policy of no government control.The preliminary analysis shows market mechanisms to be superior to present emission standards. Many significant advantages of market mechanisms are discussed, though this conclusion is due primarily to—in our opinion—inappropriate value judgments that are implicit in the present standards.The analytical framework is very general, and it can be applied to a wide variety of social decisions involving externalities. The quantitative models developed, though preliminary, can be used by organizations such as regional planning agencies or pollution control boards. However, these models must not be viewed as formulas for answers to social problems. Rather, they are intended as aids for the policy maker that will help him or her balance the many factors that influence the decision and provide insight to the wisest social course of action.     

Conditional Probabilistic Population Projections: An Application to Climate Change

Future changes in population size, composition, and spatial distribution are key factors in the analysis of climate change, and their future evolution is highly uncertain. In climate change analyses, population uncertainty has traditionally been accounted for by using alternative scenarios spanning a range of outcomes. This paper illustrates how conditional probabilistic projections offer a means of combining probabilistic approaches with the scenario-based approach typically employed in the development of greenhouse gas emissions projections. The illustration combines a set of emissions scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with existing probabilistic population projections from IIASA. Results demonstrate that conditional probabilistic projections have the potential to account more fully for uncertainty in emissions within conditional storylines about future development patterns, to provide a context for judging the consistency of individual scenarios with a given storyline, and to provide insight into relative likelihoods across storylines, at least from a demographic perspective. They may also serve as a step toward more comprehensive quantification of uncertainty in emissions projections.     

Examining the effect of managing GHG emissions on business performance

Unprecedented climate changes menace not only the planetary ecosystem, but also the stability of the global economy. The European Union has for years promoted the transition of the economy towards a model of sustainable development, stimulating companies to adopt a strategic approach based on quality and environmental efficiency, rather than on quantity and reduction of costs. The aim of this study is to analyze how greater attention to the environmental effects of a company's activities (environmental management) and monitoring and reduction of CO₂ emissions (emission management) can improve the company's economic performance. We analyze the financial data and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission figures for a sample of large Italian companies, searching for potential relations between increasing returns on capital invested and the reduction of pollutants. The results show that the companies examined are ever more attentive to environmental policies, and that those with a green vision achieve better operating performance. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

CLIMATE POLITICS,STRATEGIC BEHAVIOUR,HOLD‐OUTS,FREE RIDERS AND RENT‐SEEKERS

This paper examines recent developments in US climate change policy from a public choice perspective. Policies such as ‘cap and trade’ threaten to impose substantial costs on individuals and businesses, yet their effectiveness at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is questionable. Support for legislation that restricts emissions can partly be explained by the strategic behaviour of various special interests.     

Modeling the Impacts of Corporate Commitment on Climate Change

The aim of this paper is to propose an integrative framework for understanding the determinants of business strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impact of these determinants on performance. The proposed structural equation model is based on a survey of 319 Canadian manufacturing firms. The study calls into question the traditionally positive relationship between a firm's environmental commitment and its economic motivations. However, the results also show a win–win relationship between the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and financial performance. This study contributes to the understanding of the motivations underlying the efforts manufacturers make to tackle climate change and their economic benefits. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

信息化助推节能减排的思考与实践

低碳经济是减缓温室气体排放,应对全球气候变化的根本出路。南阳卷烟厂利用信息化手段推进节能减排技术创新、制度创新,抓好重点领域节能,强化重点污染源监管,推行清洁生产,建设资源节约型,环境友好型烟草企业。     

Impact of CO2 Emission Variation on Firm Performance

The quantifying and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most important tools for monitoring and auditing proposed to mitigate climate change, and it also directly affects business. It is thus vital that at this time we learn in detail whether firms actually report on greenhouse gas emissions and make the account entries that must be included within it. This research is twofold: first to analyse the reports on greenhouse gas emissions of international firms in the 2007 and 2008 period and to see what kind of variation occurs in CO₂ emissions between 2006–2007 and 2007–2008, and second to determine the impact that this variation (2006–2007) can have on firm performance in four time periods (t, t + 1, t + 2 and t + 3) that correspond to 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, taking two variables as a measure of firm performance, ROE and ROA, and considering a time period affected by a financial crisis. The results obtained show that there was a reduction in CO₂ emissions in the 2006–2007 period, and also in the 2007–2008 period. As regards the impact that the variation in CO₂ emissions has on ROE and ROA, CO₂ emission variation is a significant but negative variable only for ROA_2007 and for the rest of the years it is not statistically significant either for ROE or ROA. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Do city climate plans reduce emissions?

More than 600 local governments in the US are developing climate action plans that lay out specific measures to reduce emissions from municipal operations, households and firms. To date, however, it is unclear whether these plans are being implemented or have any causal effects on emissions. Using data from California, I provide the first quantitative analysis of the impacts of climate plans. I find that cities with climate plans have had far greater success in implementing strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than their counterparts without such plans. For example, they have more green buildings, spend more on pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and have implemented more programs to divert waste from methane-generating landfills. I find little evidence, however, that climate plans play any causal role in this success. Rather, citizens’ environmental preferences appear to be a more important driver of both the adoption of climate plans and the pursuit of specific emission reduction measures. Thus, climate plans are largely codifying outcomes that would have been achieved in any case.     

STRUCTURAL DECOMPOSITION ANALYSIS OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN NORWAY 1990–2002

The goal of this study is twofold: first, to quantify the economic factors driving greenhouse gas emissions in Norway, and second, to assess if random variations in the data affect the results. We use structural decomposition analysis (SDA) with chained constant price input–output tables and environmental extensions. We construct three sets of constant-price data using a smoothing algorithm to remove random variations from the data, and find that the results of the SDA are relatively robust to these variations. The production of exports was responsible for around 70% of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2002, household consumption of domestically produced products for about 15%, government 10%, with the remainder due to gross capital formation. The dominance of exports in the emissions growth may make future greenhouse gas mitigation challenging in Norway, particularly considering that the exports are dominated by oil and gas production.     

我国天气保险业应对气象灾害的长远发展策略研究

依据我国近年来气象灾害状况的数据统计显示,长期的异常气候事件将更频繁发生且损失程度增加,这将直接考验保险业的风险承担及应变能力。为应对气候变迁所致影响,保险业可投入资源研究气候变迁及碳排放权、后期清洁技术、可再生能源和其它温室气体缓解的技术相关保险项目,以协助个人及企业进行气候风险管理。     

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE IN URUGUAY

Using input–output analysis, we identify the key sectors in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the Uruguayan economy. The responsibilities of each sector in terms of its emissions are decomposed into an own component, generated during the activities of the sector, and an indirect component, generated by the induced activities in other sectors. This has important implications for the design of mitigation polices, as the appropriate policy measures are contingent on the nature of the pollution. Technical improvements and best practices are effective only when applied to directly polluting sectors, while demand policies may be more appropriate for indirectly polluting sectors. In addition, we analyze pollution generated during the production of exports. The results show that demand policies are going to be effective in the Building, the Hotel and restaurants, and the Wholesale and retail trade; and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sectors. These policies complement GHG emissions’ mitigation policies in directly polluting sectors (mainly the Cattle farming and the transport-related sectors). Finally, methane and nitrous oxide emissions are mainly the consequence of production for exports, while carbon dioxide emissions are mainly driven by production for domestic consumption.     

Arcs of carbon awareness in the value chain and their antecedents

This study examines the patterns and antecedents of firms' value chain greenhouse gas emissions (VCGGE) awareness. Drawing on a sample of 1,322 firms from multiple countries and industries, we use cluster analysis to first evaluate how well firms' VCGGE awareness patterns match traditional value chain integration patterns, identified by prior literature. We then examine how well internal indicators of greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) management predict advanced VCGGE awareness. Our study indicates that VCGGE patterns partially match traditional value chain integration patterns and that firms' VCGGE awareness is much higher for their upstream than downstream activities. Moreover, our findings show that the internal adoption of GGE management is a significant predictor of advanced awareness of VCGGE. Overall, we find that most firms have limited awareness about the magnitude of their VCGGE, suggesting that many opportunities to reduce these emissions, especially in the downstream value chain, remain unexplored.