What improves environmental performance? evidence from Mexican industry

Using new survey evidence, the authors analyze the effects of regulation, plant-level management policies, and plant and firm characteristics on environmental performance in Mexican factories. They focus especially on management policies: the degree of effort to improve environmental performance and the type of management strategy adopted. They index effort with two variables: adoption of ISO 14000-type procedures for pollution management and use of plant personnel for environmental inspection and control. Proxies for strategic orientation are two indices of mainstreaming: assigning environmental responsibilities to general managers instead of specialized environmental managers, and providing environmental training for all plant employees, not just specialists. Detailed survey data let them test the performance impact of such factors as ownership, scale, sector, trade and other business relationships, local regulatory enforcement, local community pressure, management education and experience, and workers'general education. Their findings are: 1) Process is important. Plants that institute ISO 14000-type internal management procedures show superior environmental performance. 2) Mainstreaming works. Environmental training for all plant personnel is more effective than developing a cadre of environmental specialists, and assigning environmental tasks to general managers is more effective than using special environmental managers. 3) Regulatory pressure works. Plants that have experienced regulatory inspections and enforcement are significantly cleaner than those that have not. 4) Public scrutiny promotes stronger environmental policies. Publicly traded Mexican firms are significantly cleaner than privately held firms. 5) Size matters. Large plants in multiplant firms are much more likely to adopt policies that improve environmental performance. 6) OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) influences do not matter. It is generally assumed that plants linked to OECD economies show superior environmental performance, but they find no evidence that OECD links--including multinational ownership, trade, management training, or management experience--affect environmental performance. 7) New technology is not significantly cleaner. They find no evidence that plants with newer equipment perform better environmentally (once other factors are accounted for). 8) Education promotes clean production. Plants with more highly educated workers show significantly better environmental management efforts and performance.Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Water and Industry,Environmental Governance,Water and Industry,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Carbon Footprint and Accounting and Environmental Management Systems: A Conceptual Overview

For the purpose of sustainability accounting and reporting, organizations need to manage their carbon footprint, energy use, and other operations with an environmental impact. Green information systems and environmental management information systems thus become necessary for monitoring and controlling activities and procedures regarding environmental concerns. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge and practices has become the hurdle of adoption to many organizations. In the IS research community, scholars have not yet given full attention to carbon management and reporting and environmental management information systems, despite our increasing efforts in working on green information systems issues. In this poster session we aim to introduce the concepts of carbon footprint, carbon accounting, and environmental management information systems by discussing their characteristics, usage, standardization, and governance issues. We provide an overview of a collection of green and sustainable information systems and share thoughts on directions for conducting IS research on these topics

The implications of stakeholders' perceptions of land for sustainable land use management in NE Ghana

There are negative implications of changes in stakeholders traditional land perceptions for sustainable land use and management in north-east Ghana. In African tenurial systems, land use was based on a local mystical view of the environment and stakeholders broad-based knowledge of the local environments. These led to sustainable resource use and management. However, in the context of current political ecology of north-east Ghana as induced by increased population growth, urbanisation, the market economy, changes in religious beliefs, and government land policies, stakeholders understandings of land have acquired even greater importance in issues of sustainable land resource use and management. A mixed methodological approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data gathering techniques for information on stakeholders land perceptions, was used to analyse their implications for sustainable land use and management. Changes in the dynamics of stakeholders perceptions of land are partly responsible for the current state of land and environmental degradation in north-east Ghana. Policies aimed at ensuring sustainable land use and environmental management must focus on those traditional land perceptions, which encourage environmental sustainabilit

THE ROLE OF COLLABORATIVE SOFTWARE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS IN THE SMARTER CITIES

The transition from the traditional city to the smart city is made by supported efforts regarding the achievement of a more steady, more efficient, more responsible city, through convergent strategies that deal with Smart Transportation Systems, Energy and Utilities Management, Water Management, Smart Public Safety, Healthcare Systems, Environmental Management, Educational Systems, Telecommunications (ITC Support),etc. and Positive Thinking. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) meets the customers’ needs and the administration, the management of data, information, knowledge and decisions through Collaborative Systems and Decision Support Systems have a major impact both at the level of the smart city and the level of subsystems/services, and the information technology within smart cities becomes a major direction of research in the field of ITC.Smart City, Collaborative Systems, Decision Support Systems (DSS), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Portal technology

Environmental management in development : the evolution of paradigms

In the past quarter century, environmental management has increasingly become a concern of governments. More recently, the traditional split between developers and conservationists has begun to break down. Conceptions of what is economically and technologically practical, ecologically necessary, and politically feasible are rapidly changing. This report discusses the implications of five paradigms of environmental management in development. The author notes that the remedial legalistic approach of environmental management is breaking down. Instead, interest in the more economically integrated approach of resource management has recently taken hold. Several interdependent forces indicate that improving the economic management of pollution and resources may be a necessary but insufficient measure to create the conditions for sustainable development. The perception of tradeoffs between development and environmental quality persists in the present debate, but its necessity is greatly exaggerated, according to this paper. Finally, it is noted that paradigms may be impervious to evidence, and institutions and societies too difficult to change. Whether, when and how these issues are resolved may be modern civilization's most significant test.Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Natural Resources Management,Agricultural Research

Conceptual Research Model of Factors that Influence Environmental Knowledge Management at Organizational Level

Accelerated development of humanity in recent decades generated a double effect as a result: (a) the development of economies, creating social welfare, on the one hand, and (b) a enormous pressure on the environment, causing pollution, on the other hand. Therefore the organizations need efficient management systems - which can be considered - to give them a plus on the competitive market; environmental management system with environmental knowledge management subsystem (EKMS) can be considered as the key to success of industrial organization. Low efficienty level of environmental knowledge management, operated by decisional agents (simple employee or manager in the position they hold) in the Romanian organizations (mainly the industrial organizations) is the main problem approached by this paper (MP). This paper intends to resolve the problem covered above (MP) designing a quality analysis model for environmental knowledge management and sinecvanon identifying the important factors that influence it (collecting data / information from: a. analysis of different documents (environmental documentation / job descriptions / organization and operation regulations) from the 10 industrial organizations of NE Region of Romania and beyond; b. analysis of the specialized literature (focusing on previous studies conducted))

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE BAIA MARE AREA METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS IN THE LAST 5 YEARS WITH HELP OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATICS

Ever since “the environment” gained its place in the public international agenda (environmental legislation, sustainable development or disaster and hazard management) it has been bundled with data, information, knowledge and information systems. Environmental Monitoring Systems (EMSs), Environmental Monitoring and Analyzing Systems (EMASs) and especially Environmental Information Systems (EISs) are integrated part of what we call Environmental Informatics (EI) platform.In this context, as we speak, the are of EI is becoming more complex due to the current context and trend of making the EISs available to the public and end-users access; this phenomena is based on the assumption that public and environmental information end-users awareness, participation and acting is improved by the rate of access to the environmental information to solve the complex problematic covered by the research, engineering and environmental protection fields. The aim of the present paper is to introduce and describe an innovative possibilities of forecasting and monitoring the environment meteorological specific conditions in Baia Mare urban area using a specialized EISs software

Deregulating technology transfer in agriculture : reform's impact on turkey in the 1980s

Turkey is one of a handful of developing countries that have liberalized regulation of agricultural inputs and welcome private firms delivering technology and inputs. The authors show that Turkish regulatory reform affecting seeds and other inputs in the 1980s: 1) Greatly increased private technology transfer into Turkey. 2) Encouraged market entry for more foreign and domestic companies involved in production and trade in Turkey. 3) Allowed private firms to increase their share of input markets. 4) Where inputs brought new technology, allowed farmers to significantly increase yields and production. The authors recommend that the World Bank and other donors involved with agriculture pay more attention to the regulation of inputs in developing countries. They also recommend that developing country governments revise regulations to leave choices about technology performance to farmers and markets - and to focus instead on externalities, removing unnecessary obstacles to provide technology transfer through the production and trade of inputs. Other countries that have similarly reformed the regulation of agricultural inputs include Chile (in the 1970s), Bangladesh and India (at the end of the 1980s), Malawi (in 1995-96), and Romania (in 1997).Knowledge Economy,Agricultural Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Economic Theory&Research,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agricultural Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems

Do farmers chooseto be inefficient? evidence from Bicol, Philippines

Farming households that differ in their ability, or willingness to take on risks are likely to make different decisions when allocating resources, and effort among income-producing activities, with consequences for productivity. The authors measure voluntary, and involuntary departures from efficiency for rice-producing households in Bicol, Philippines. They take advantage of a panel of household observations from 1978, 1983, and 1994. The unusually long-time span of the panel provides ample opportunities for the surveyed households to learn, and apply successful available technologies. The authors find evidence that diversification, and technology choices do effect outcomes among farmers, although these effects are not dominant. Accumulated wealth, past decisions to invest in education, favorable market conditions, and propitious weather are also important determinants of efficiency outcomes among Bicol rice farmers.Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Economic Theory&Research,Climate Change,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Crops&Crop Management Systems,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Climate Change