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Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions: An Urban Metabolism Approach to Los Angeles Pincetl et al. Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions
Summary: This synthesis article presents an overview of an urban metabolism (UM) approach using mixed methods and multiple sources of data for Los Angeles, California. We examine electric energy use in buildings and greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, and calculate embedded infrastructure life cycle effects, water use and solid waste streams in an attempt to better understand the urban flows and sinks in the Los Angeles region (city and county). This quantification is being conducted to help policy-makers better target energy conservation and efficiency programs, pinpoint best locations for distributed solar generation, and support the development of policies for greater environmental sustainability. It provides a framework to which many more UM flows can be added to create greater understanding of the study area's resource dependencies. Going forward, together with policy analysis, UM can help untangle the complex intertwined resource dependencies that cities must address as they attempt to increase their environmental sustainability
A paper waste prediction model
The aim of this paper is to develop a model predicting the collected amount of
waste paper at the regional level of municipalities. Leaming about the factors
that influence the amount of collected paper is a prerequisite for the evaluation
and reorganization of collection systems. We hypothesize that the amount of
collected paper depends on both, the waste potential and factors which influence
the convenience such as the density of collection sites.
For this study, we use a sample of 649 municipalities. The data show a high
variance in terms of the collected waste paper per person and year between the
municipalities. We develop a multivariate regression model providing valuable
insights about the relationship between demographic parameters and the amount
of collected waste paper. Furthermore, in this novel approach we found a
significant positive impact of the convenience of the collection system
EU Integration Mechanisms Affecting Hungarian Public Policies in the Case of Waste Management
The paper reports on a survey taken under the international EU–5 research programme, based on structured interviews
made at 32 institutional actors to do with waste management in the Central Hungary region, including public institutions, private or mixed firms, and civil (voluntary) organizations.
After presenting some concepts of political science
and EU precedents, the authors describe interactive patterns and networks between the local public institutional
structures, the private sector and civil organizations in the context of European integration, especially in legal harmonization and under the ISPA programme
A közpolitikákra ható EU-integrációs mechanizmusok – a hulladékgazdálkodás példáján = EU integration mechanisms affecting public policies in the case of waste management
Az Európai Uniónak a tagállami közpolitikákra irányuló integrációs tevékenysége, kormányzási stílusa az elmúlt másfél évtizedben jelentős tanulási folyamaton ment keresztül. A jogi eszközök használata mellett előtérbe kerültek a koordináció úgynevezett nyílt eszközei, amelyek a kötelező alkalmazkodás mellett – azt kiegészítve – a tapasztalatcserén alapuló ösztönzést is érvényesítik. A környezetvédelem európai mintáinak terjesztése során az Unió sokat tanult a korábbi bővítések tapasztalataiból, és a jogharmonizáció mellett komoly erőforrásokat is rendelt az újonnan csatlakozó országok jogalkalmazási kapacitásának fejlesztéséhez.
Az alkalmazkodási folyamat nem egyenletesen érvényesült a szóban forgó közpolitika vala-mennyi dimenziójában. Míg az eszközök - különösen a jogi eszközök - tekintetében a hazai hulladék-gazdálkodás alaposan hozzáidomult az uniós mintákhoz, addig e részpolitika céljai sok esetben csak szavakban alkalmazkodtak az EU által követendőnek tekintett célokhoz. Ez azt jelenti, hogy a kormányzást erősebben vezérelték az infrastrukturális és az anyagi adottságok és a kormányzati hagyományok, mint a deklarált célok. Eközben a kormányzat környezetvédelmi intézményrendszerének fejlődése olyan pályán haladt, amely nagy valószínűséggel az ország európai integrációja nélkül is hasonlóképpen valósult volna meg. Ez alól kivételt éppen azok az intézményi magatartásminták képeznek, amelyek a többszintű kormányzásra vonatkoznak. Nevezetesen azok a széles eszköztárat megmozgató törekvések, amelyek össze kívánják hangolni a kormányzat különböző szintjei, a gazdasági ágazatok és a civil szféra érdekeit, nagy részben az uniós szabályokra és finanszírozási feltételekre reagálva alakultak ki.
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The European Union’s integration activity and style of governance directed at the public policy of member states has undergone a major learning process over the last fifteen years. Apart from using legal means, so-called open methods of coordination have come to the fore, which, besides – indeed complementing – compulsory adaptation, have asserted incentives based on the exchange of experiences. In the course of the spread of the European pattern of environmental protection, the EU has learnt a great deal from its earlier enlargements, and in addition to legal harmonisation it has allocated substantial resources for the development of the capacity for the enforcement of the Acquis Communautaire in the new acceding countries.
The adaptational process has not been evenly effective in every dimension of the public policy in question. While waste management in Hungary has thoroughly fallen into line with the EU patterns as regards tools – especially legal tools –, the declared objectives of this policy area in many cases only pay lip service to the objectives recommended by the EU . This means that governance has been guided by the infrastructural and material conditions, moreover by governmental traditions more forcefully than by the declared objectives. During the last 15 years the government’s environmental institution building has proceeded along a course which in all probability would have been followed in a similar manner without Hungary’s integration into Europe.
An exception to this is exactly the institutional behaviour patterns which concern multi-level governance. That is to say, those efforts to mobilise a wide range of tools that seek to harmonise the interests of different levels of government, economic sectors and civil society have to a large extent developed in reaction to EU regulations and financing conditions
XXQ FACTORS FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT: A SYSTEMS ECONOMICS VIEW
Modern cities turn increasingly into functional areas seeking for a balance between agglomeration forces and urban quality of life. This paper will address the issue of sustainable urban development from a quality (performance) perspective. It aims to identify the critical access factors for the highest possible quality (XXQ) of the urban economy. A plea is made for a coherent methodological approach based on a systems economic view. In addition to a sketch of recent dynamic trends in urban systems in OECD countries, it pays attention to theories on urban growth and performance. Next, five critical success conditions for a high performance of cities will be presented in a coherent urban systems economics framework. The policy lessons of the analysis will form the last part of the paper.urban development, sustainability, critical access factors, systems economics
The Challenge of Building Proper Urban Indicator System: A Proposal for Croatian Cities
In this paper, urban indicator system is investigated in the context of urban policy processes. Indicators are seen as a tool to enhance urban management and special attention is given to their role in providing assistance in monitoring municipal development and performance. The paper will present desirable features of useful indicators from the city perspective, as well as framework to include these indicators in urban policy and management successfully. Formulation of proper indicator system requires a good understanding of the utilization, diffusion and dissemination of information in policy processes, so the paper will consider basic constraints related to these preconditions such as existing knowledge gaps within the indicator developer community vs. their theoretical limitations, communication concerns, human and technical capacities, policy issues etc. This paper will also elaborate modest Croatian experience in developing urban indicator system and lessons learned will be used as guidelines in making illustrative proposal for Croatian cities. In addition, this paper will try to define particular environmental, economic and governance variables/indices that should be adopted as urban indicators, taking in account Croatian specificities. We conclude this paper by addressing future challenges related to integration of urban indicator system within urban policy in Croatia.
Recent developments in the application of risk analysis to waste technologies.
The European waste sector is undergoing a period of unprecedented change driven
by business consolidation, new legislation and heightened public and government
scrutiny. One feature is the transition of the sector towards a process industry
with increased pre-treatment of wastes prior to the disposal of residues and the
co-location of technologies at single sites, often also for resource recovery
and residuals management. Waste technologies such as in-vessel composting, the
thermal treatment of clinical waste, the stabilisation of hazardous wastes,
biomass gasification, sludge combustion and the use of wastes as fuel, present
operators and regulators with new challenges as to their safe and
environmentally responsible operation. A second feature of recent change is an
increased regulatory emphasis on public and ecosystem health and the need for
assessments of risk to and from waste installations. Public confidence in waste
management, secured in part through enforcement of the planning and permitting
regimes and sound operational performance, is central to establishing the
infrastructure of new waste technologies. Well-informed risk management plays a
critical role. We discuss recent developments in risk analysis within the sector
and the future needs of risk analysis that are required to respond to the new
waste and resource management agenda
Socio-cultural models as an important element of the site selection process in rural waste management
The problem of waste management in rural areas has not been the subject of
detailed specific researches since most of the research has been directed
towards the study of means, mechanisms and procedures of waste elimination in
urban settlements. The reason for the reduced scope of research in this field
lies in the fact that rural settlements cannot be considered as "grateful"
subjects due to usual deficiency of specific data (population number,
fluctuations, amount of waste, waste composition, methods of waste
elimination, etc.). In addition, for several decades the villages have
primarily eliminated waste spontaneously. This has proven difficult to
research because of the variations of methods applied to each specific
locale, as well as different environmental variables. These criteria are
based on patterns of behavior, customs and habits of the local population,
but they also insist on absolute participation of local stakeholders in waste
management. On the other hand, although Serbia has a legislative frame which
is fully harmonized with European laws, there is a problem within unclearly
defined waste management system which is oriented mainly on rural areas. The
reason for this is the fact that waste management in rural areas is the part
of regional waste management, and does not operate independently from the
system in "urban" areas. However, since rural areas require the construction
of recycling yards, this paper will present a new methodology, which equally
valuates techno-economic criteria and social criteria in determining waste
elimination locations. This paper will also point out varieties of actors in
the process of waste elimination in rural areas, as well as the possibility
of their participation
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