Bouncing Back from Extreme Weather Events: Some Preliminary Findings on Resilience Barriers Facing Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises

Extreme weather events (EWEs) pose unprecedented threats to modern societies and represent a much‐debated issue strongly interlinked with current development policies. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute a driving force of economic growth, employment and total value added, remain highly vulnerable to and ill prepared for such environmental perturbations. This study investigates barriers to SMEs’ resilience to EWEs in an attempt to shed light on enabling factors that can define effective organizational responses to non‐linear environmental stimuli. Relying on structural equation modeling and data gathered from 109 SMEs that recently experienced EWE impacts, we link the general concept of SMEs’ resilience barriers to EWEs with a series of elements to determine specific internal and external factors that contribute the most to EWE resilience. In particular, external barriers of institutional conditions and mechanisms of support and guidance as well as internal barriers of resources and managerial perceptions are found to be the most critical ones in determining resilience. The assessment offers essential research evidence for practitioners on SME management and sets forth linkages with current mechanisms for policy interventions towards an appropriate resilience agenda for SMEs. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Environmental Policy,Sustainable Development,Governance Mechanisms and Environmental Performance

We investigate the effects of environmental policy (Climate Change Act – CCA), sustainable development frameworks (Global Reporting Initiative – GRI; UN Global Compact – UNGC) and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms on environmental performance (carbon reduction initiatives – CRIs; actual carbon performance – GHG emissions) of UK listed firms. We use the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyse data consisting of 2245 UK firm‐year observations over the 2002–2014 period. First, we find that the CCA has a positive effect on CRIs, and this effect is stronger in better‐governed firms. Second, we find that the GRI‐based framework is positively associated with CRIs. Third, we find that firms with poor CG structures have lower actual carbon performance compared with their better‐governed counterparts. Overall, our evidence suggests that firms can symbolically conform to environmental policy (CCA) and sustainable development frameworks (GRI, UNGC) by engaging in CRIs without necessarily improving actual environmental performance (GHG emissions) substantively. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Coping with coopetition—Facing dilemmas in cooperation for sustainable development: The case of the Dutch smart grid industry

This paper is amongst the first to examine coopetition strategy for sustainable development at the network level. Companies who want to successfully implement complex innovative technologies that support sustainable development need to collaborate with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, including their competitors, so that they can develop standards, interoperable products, pool knowledge, and resources and bundle forces to compete against other technologies. Collaboration with competitors brings benefits, but also many risks. We investigated how firms cope with these risks when establishing an innovation ecosystem to implement a new technology in society. We conducted research in the Dutch smart grids sector and explored how these firms minimize inherent risks of coopetition. We found that system‐building actors in the Dutch smart grid field not only minimize inherent risks, but from the start of their collaboration they implement so‐called enablers to prevent these risks upfront.     

河南省农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价研究

[目的]河南农业生态旅游作为一种可持续发展的旅游形式,为河南的经济发展作为了重要贡献。对河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展进行评价研究,是促进农业生态旅游可持续健康发展的重要保证。[方法]文章通过实地调研构建河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价指标体系,运用层次分析法,确定指标权重,结合专家评分法,对各项评价指标打分,并计算河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展的综合得分,结合农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价标准,得出目前河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展水平。[结果]河南农业生态旅游产业可持续发展评价得分为72.45,处于基本可持续发展阶段,并对当前河南农业生态旅游发展现状和存在的农业生态旅游意识淡薄、旅游产品特色不明显、缺少政府资金扶持和缺乏经营管理人才等问题进行了分析。[结论]基于上述问题,提出了提高环保意识、走可持续发展之路;开发特色原生态旅游产品;加强政府支持和引导;加强专业培训,打造专业队伍等对策。     

基于经济新常态的长春市水资源开发利用潜力评价

以长春市为研究对象,基于未来经济处于新常态的发展态势,构建包含水资源、社会、经济、生态环境4个子系统的评价指标体系,并确定各指标的评价等级标准;基于模糊数学理论以及层次分析法构建包括目标层、准则层、指标层的3层模糊综合评价模型,以2015年为现状水平年,应用模型对长春市水资源开发利用潜力进行综合评价。结果表明:长春市水资源开发利用程度处于中等偏上水平,各辖区水资源开发利用规模不平衡,可通过产业结构调整提高全市用水效率,为经济持续增长提供保障。     

Advancing environmental productivity: Organizational mindfulness and strategies

This study investigates the importance of mindfulness‐based organization systems and policies on the organization's continuous efforts to become a greener company. The study is devised as a pooled cross‐sectional time series analysis of productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling of U.S. companies. The data set taken from U.S. Newsweek 500 recorded 600 companies dispersed into 63 industries during the period of 2012–2014 and provided 1,498 company–industry–year observations. The study found that systems and policies (e.g., deployment of third‐party auditors for its environmental metrics report; linkage of the remuneration of company's senior executive team with the achievement of environmental performance targets; and establishment of a committee at the Board of Directors' level whose mandate includes sustainability of the company in environment‐ and resource‐related matters) connect the company's mindfulness to its effort in improving the environmental quality through the company's productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling. The relationships are positive and significant. Also, systems and policies serve as a motivator for the firm to continue to improve upon the current achievements. The study emphasizes the importance of translating organizational and individual mindfulness into organization policies and systems in order to motivate the organization to continuously improve its productivity in energy consumption, water utilization, and waste generation and recycling leading to improvements in environmental quality.     

The Impact of Sustainability Aspects in the Meat Sector: A Cluster Analysis Based on Consumer Attitudes and Store Format Choice

Several consumer studies have shown considerable market potential for sustainable meat products, however, their markets shares are still marginal. In Germany, the sustainable aspects “organic,” “local origin,” and “animal welfare” are of special interest. To obtain a precise overview of potential target groups for these meat categories and their choice of store format, 620 German consumers were surveyed on their attitudes toward sustainable meat production and their shopping behavior. First, target groups based on consumers’ attitudes were identified by cluster analysis, taking into account possible overlaps. Consumers were also clustered by their store format choice and their preferred type of meat packaging. A cross tabulation of the results then provided insights into which store format and type of meat packaging is preferred by the target groups for sustainable meat products. Due to overlaps found in the target groups, the existence of important subgroups was shown. Amongst the target groups, only a slight preference for unpackaged meat products was found. Basically, the offer of sustainable meat products appears of interest for all store formats, with particular emphasis on supermarkets. The results of this study can support producers and retailers developing new and tailored marketing strategies for sustainable meat products.     

The impact of traffic sign deficit on road traffic accidents in Nigeria

This study assesses the impact of traffic sign deficit on road traffic accidents in Nigeria. The participants were 720 commercial vehicle drivers. While simple random sampling was used to select 6 out of 137 federal highways, stratified random sampling was used to select six categories of commercial vehicle drivers. The study used qual-dominant mixed methods approach comprising key informant interviews; group interviews; field observation; policy appraisal and secondary literature on traffic signs. Result shows that the failure of government to provide and maintain traffic signs in order to guide road users through the numerous accident black spots on the highways is the major cause of road accidents in Nigeria. The study argues that provision and maintenance of traffic signs present opportunity to promoting safety on the highways and achieving the sustainable development goals.     

Sharing versus collaborative economy: how to align ICT developments and the SDGs in tourism?

Great hopes have been placed in the sharing economy to provide a new business model based on peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges of underutilized assets. As a model, the sharing economy has been expected to make significant contributions to sustainability, providing new opportunities for entrepreneurship, more sustainable use of resources, and consumer co-operation in tight economic networks. However, in recent years, digital platforms have turned into the most important actors in the global sharing economy, turning global corporations, such as AirBnB, Booking, or TripAdvisor into intermediaries controlling and profiting from most transactions. Focused on accommodation, this paper conceptualizes the sharing economy in comparison to the wider collaborative economy, and discusses its social, economic, environmental, and political impacts in comparison to the sustainable development goals. It concludes that the sharing economy has great potential to make very significant contributions to sustainability, though the model is increasingly being replaced by the collaborative economy, which performs as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal economic practices.     

铬渣的无害化处理和综合利用

铬渣产量大、毒性剧烈,是严重污染生态环境和危害人类健康的危险废物.本文介绍了铬渣各种无害化处理方法的解毒机理、工艺过程和应用实践,阐述了对铬渣进行综合利用的途径,并就铬渣的防治措施提出了建议.