美国日益重视纳米技术的环境、健康和安全风险研究

随着纳米技术产品市场的不断扩大,纳米技术潜在的环境、健康和安全风险日益突出。旱在2000年美国便设立“国家纳米技术计划”,开始关注纳米技术引发的环境、健康和安全问题。目前美国在此研究领域已处于世界领先地住。美国的五大机构：国立卫生研究院、国家职业安全与健康研究所、国家标准和技术研究院、环保署、食品和药品管理局等担负起对相关研究进行协调与评估的责任。不断完善相关法规,保证负责任地研发和应用纳米技术。     

Reprint of: Sewage Pollution and Institutional and Technological Change in the United States, 1830-1915

This article examines institutions for water pollution control and their interaction with water supply and sanitation technologies in the United States before the First World War. The article discusses how growth of settlements polluted waters and created pressure to adopt local institutional responses and networked water supply and sewerage technologies in the mid-19th century. However, the new urban technologies undermined local institutional responses and expanded the scale of water pollution problems they were expected to resolve. Water companies, households and local governments litigated their water pollution conflicts in the courts in the absence of other alternatives. In the end of the 19th century, many states adopted water pollution policies. At first, public health authorities enforced the new policies to protect public water supplies from sewage contamination. However, when the effectiveness of filtration and chlorination of drinking water was demonstrated in the early 20th century, public health authorities ceased to enforce discharge prohibitions and instead pressured water companies to adopt the new technological measures to protect public health.     

Stakeholder engagement is evolving: Do investors play a main role?

Stakeholder engagement, an essential component of the sustainability reporting strategy, is changing, as is the position of the different stakeholders in this evolving scenario. In this paper, we explore the effect of the pressure that a specific group of stakeholders, investors, exerts on the quality of the sustainability information disclosed. We intend to analyze if there has been a change in the role that investors play in sustainability reporting. By focusing on investors, we are paying attention to one of the less studied groups within the sustainability stakeholders. To this aim, we carry out a content analysis of the sustainability information disclosed by U.S. (shareholder-oriented country) and Spanish (stakeholder-oriented country) listed companies during the years 2013 to 2016. Our findings confirm the key role that investors play in the companies' sustainability strategies, demanding more and better sustainability information. We also find a reduction in the quality of sustainability disclosures in Spanish companies in the last year of our sample, showing a relevant change in this country that has been leading the sustainability rankings until now. The results of this paper are useful to investors and companies, as they reflect the changes on the information they demand, and for regulators, in order to create the adequate legal framework that will improve the quality of reporting. Regulators and financial agents should acknowledge this new scenario to adapt norms and actions accordingly.