Sustainable operations of industrial symbiosis: an enterprise input-output model integrated by agent-based simulation

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a key for implementing circular economy. Through IS, wastes produced by one company are used as inputs by other companies. The operations of IS suffers from uncertainty barriers since wastes are not produced upon demand but emerge as secondary outputs. Such an uncertainty, triggered by waste supply-demand quantity mismatch, influences IS business dynamics. Accordingly, companies have difficulty to foresee potential costs and benefits of implementing IS. The paper adopts an enterprise input-output model providing a cost–benefit analysis of IS integrated to an agent-based model to simulate how companies share the total economic benefits stemming from IS. The proposed model allows to explore the space of cooperation, defined as the operationally favourable conditions to operate IS in an economically win-win manner. This approach, as a decision-support tool, allows the user to understand whether the IS relationship is created and how should the cost-sharing policy be. The proposed model is applied to a numerical example. Findings show that cost-sharing strategies are dramatically affected by waste supply-demand mismatch and by the relationship between saved and additional costs to run IS. Apart from methodological and theoretical contributions, the paper proposes managerial and practical implications for business strategy development in IS

Stepping Stone or Stumbling Block: Incrementalism and National Climate Change Legislation

This Article examines the effects of incremental domestic legislation on international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change is a global public good, which, ultimately, only an international agreement can provide. The common presumption (justified or not) is that national legislation is a step forward to an international agreement. This Article analyzes how national legislation can create a demand for international action but can also preempt or frustrate international efforts. The crucial issue, which has been largely ignored thus far, is how incremental steps at the domestic level alter international negotiations. This paper identifies four mechanisms that support the intuitive idea that national legislation will have positive effects: (1) allocating economic resources, (2) providing leadership in international negotiations, (3) creating a demand for a uniform standard, and (4) cultivating public opinion. This Article demonstrates that, on closer examination, each of these mechanisms could hinder international efforts to create a comprehensive agreement. This is by no means an argument against all efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions at the national level. Instead, this Article calls for a more careful analysis the dynamic political impact of domestic proposals

Adapting and Mitigating to Climate Change: Balancing the Choice under Uncertainty

Nowadays, as stressed by important strategic documents like for instance the 2009 EU White Paper on Adaptation or the recent 2009 “Copenhagen Accord”, it is amply recognized that both mitigation and adaptation strategies are necessary to combat climate change. This paper enriches the rapidly expanding literature trying to devise normative indications on the optimal combination of the two introducing the role of catastrophic and spatial uncertainty related to climate change damages. Applying a modified version of the Nordhaus’ Regional Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy it is shown that in both cases uncertainty works in the direction to make mitigation a more attractive strategy than adaptation. When catastrophic uncertainty is concerned mitigation becomes relatively more important as, by curbing emissions, it helps to reduce temperature increase and hence the probability of the occurrence of the event. Adaptation on the contrary has no impact on this. It is also shown that optimal mitigation responses are much less sensitive than adaptation responses to spatial uncertainty. Mitigation responds to global damages, while adaptation to local damages. The first, being aggregated, change less than the second in the presence of spatial uncertainty as higher expected losses in some regions are compensated by lower expected losses in other. Accordingly, mitigation changes less than adaptation. Thus if it cannot be really claimed that spatial uncertainty increases the weight of mitigation respect to that of adaptation, however its presence makes mitigation a “safer” or more robust strategy to a policy decision maker than adaptation.Climate Change, Mitigation, Adaptation, Uncertainty, Integrated Assessment Model

Community-based Adaptation: Lessons from the Development Marketplace 2009 on Adaptation to Climate Change

The Development Marketplace 2009 focused on adaptation to climate change. This paper identifies lessons from the Marketplace and assesses their implications for adaptation support. Our findings are based on: statistical tabulation of all proposals; in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 346 semi-finalists; and interviews with finalists and assessors. Proposals were fuelled by deep concerns that ongoing climate change and its impacts undermine development and exacerbate poverty, migration and food insecurity. Proposals addressed both local poverty and climate change challenges, and offered a wide range of approaches to render local development more resilient to current climate variability. Therefore, support to community-based adaptation should: exploit its strong local grounding and synergies with development; help connect local initiatives to higher levels; and use complementary approaches to address policy issues.Community-based Adaptation, Development Marketplace, Adaptation, Climate Change

Scaling Up Climate Action to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UNDP released its first infographic report that presented the breadth and depth of our support on climate change over the past two decades. That report emphasized successes and noted the opportunities that climate action presents for countries as they transition their economies towards zero-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development.This year, as countries begin to take concrete action to deliver on their national climate goals, we are pleased to release an updated report of UNDP's climate change work. New, in this report, is a special focus on the linkages between climate change and sustainable development. Specifically, the report highlights the importance of climate action in delivering on the SDGs and provides examples of UNDP's on-going work on the ground towards this end. The report also presents UNDP's commitment to scale up climate change action in order to deliver on the ambitious agenda that countries agreed to in 2015." – Magdy Martinez-Solima

Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings