The role of dairy company policies in support of farm green infrastructure in the absence of government stewardship payments

Intensive dairy farming has substantial impacts on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Determining how to mitigate them while increasing production is driving the quest for sustainable milk production internationally. Green infrastructure (G.I.) provides private and public ecosystem services, including mitigation of farming environmental impacts. However, there are implementation barriers among farmers. New Zealand government supports farmer self-regulation as long as farmers meet environmental targets. Farmers are neither compensated for reducing environmental impacts, nor for setting aside G.I. in support of nature conservation. Dairy companies are under increasing pressure to ensure socially acceptable milk production practices among farmer suppliers. They may play a role in encouraging farmers to implement G.I. as a way of helping farmers meet regulatory compliance, and best farming practice. Using a content analysis of company policies, the role of dairy companies in encouraging G.I. among farmers is explored. Results indicate companies are concerned about the effects, and perception, of poor environmental farming practices on their profitability, and have developed some riparian G.I. policies, with government and farmer support. However, policies are farm-focused and are limited to one year, and thus lack the capacity to encourage G.I. in support of key ecosystem services, such as water cleansing and support for indigenous biodiversity that require landscape scaled networks and longer periods. Even at the farm scale, a majority of companies lack policies that encourage significant G.I. networks. Policies suggest companies, and by extension farmers, lack sufficient motivation to protect or restore them voluntarily. Under these conditions, significant G.I. is unlikely to develop under self-regulation, unless supplemented through motivating government stewardship payments.     

Driving force from authorities: the evolution of innovation system for biomedical industry in China

Over the past 30 years, China has fully exploited its advantage to steadily foster an innovation system for the biomedical industry with Chinese characteristics, that is, ‘Government-guided, resource-integrated and long-term planning.’ The system originated from historically famous ‘863 program’ in the 1980s, evolved with a series of favourable policies in the different periods, and eventually has taken shape in the industrial clusters across the country. It features with a systematic and integrated R&D infrastructure (or public platform) at different levels. In this study, China’s biomedical innovation system will be examined and the leading role of Chinese authorities will be explored from the perspective of Triple Helix theory. As the ‘highland of innovation’, Shanghai case is highlighted with plentiful information gathered from primary sources in the involved agencies for the first time, including the Shanghai Biopharma Service Platform.     

Emptying the future: On the environmental politics of anticipation

Anticipation may be seen as structured by images and representations, an approach that has informed recent work in science and technology studies on the sociology of expectations. But anticipation, as a capacity or characteristic, is not solely manifested in the form of representations, even where such representations of the ‘not yet’ are performative in nature. It also comprises material capacities, technological, biophysical and affective in nature. The politics of anticipation is shaped by how these symbolic and material capacities, and the forms of agency they make possible, are distributed. As anticipation is an environmentally distributed capacity, it is suggested that the politics of anticipation is also an environmental politics. A conceptual framework for analysing anticipation as comprised of environmental capabilities is introduced, and fleshed out using a case study of energy infrastructure planning from the UK. Key elements of this framework include the concepts of anticipatory assemblages and future horizons or ‘styles’ of anticipation. Working through the case study as an empirical example of a conflict concerning the politics of anticipation and of ‘environments’, it is demonstrated how the relationships between styles of anticipation are materially constitutive of such conflicts.     

The effect of host country Internet infrastructure on foreign expansion of Korean MNCs

This study examines the effect of host country Internet infrastructure on a multinational corporation (MNC) foreign expansion. Using Heckman’s selection model on a sample of 2589 subsidiaries of 487 Korean MNCs between 1990 and 2011, we find that host country Internet infrastructure is important in MNC expansion decisions. In addition, we find that a well-developed Internet infrastructure within a host country leads to more investments from MNCs producing consumer over industrial goods and is more attractive to domestic market followers than market leaders. We find that the host country’s Internet infrastructure is important for an MNC foreign expansion decision, suggesting that efficient communication within an MNC is critical in coordinating globalized MNC subsidiary operations.     

Green infrastructure and public policies: An international review of green roofs and green walls incentives

Worldwide, green infrastructure is increasingly used to mitigate the impacts of dense urban areas, contributing towards the naturalization of the built environment. However, for investors, these systems often emerge as requiring substantial upfront cost (high installation costs) and, depending on the solution, might also have significant maintenance costs. On the other hand, policymakers are placing green infrastructure on the agenda, as a solution to consider in urban planning and design. There is a mismatch between the economic/social/environmental value of green infrastructure and their financial analysis. As the quantified benefits of these solutions may not compensate the high implementation costs, discouraging building owners to invest in them. The alignment of both expectations, public and private agents, regarding the development of green infrastructure, is done through the use of incentives, with distinct configurations and nature, that promote and facilitate the adoption of green infrastructure by private investors. This research aims to identify and analyse the incentive policies used by several municipalities to promote the installation of green roofs and/or green walls. The data set includes 113 cities in 19 countries. The incentive policies were classified into six different categories: tax reductions, financing, construction permit, sustainability certification, obligations by law and agile administrative process. The results show that incentive policies are mainly concentrated in Europe and North America, and most incentive policies focus on the promotion of green roofs, as no exclusive incentive policies for the promotion of green walls were found. From all incentive policies studied, financial subsidies and obligations by law are the most used ways to promote green infrastructure worldwide.     

关于公路与桥梁之间过渡段施工技术初探

本文主要分析了公路桥梁间过渡段出现不均沉降的原因以及公路桥梁间过渡段的施工技术的应用情况,此项技术对降低施工成本,提升桥梁的可靠性与安全性有重要作用。     

浅谈公路沥青路面施工技术管理

随着我国国民经济的迅猛发展,人们对公路路面使用性能的要求也越来越高。为确保路面使用性能能充分发挥,必然要求在工程实施过程中做好质量控制工作。本文就公路路面施工中,如何确保路面使用性能能充分发挥,对工程施工工艺和技术管理进行分析研究,有针对性地提出质量控制措施。