Guidelines for sustainable urban zero pollution community (S.U.Z.C)

The concept of sustainability has been introduced in the 1980s with the focus of environmental protection, where many developed and developing countries were and still are aiming to reach sustainability. Yet, with the increase of urbanization level, the tendency to meet the needs of the rising population is increasing without the focus of the environmental resources that are being abused in return. This leads to increasing the gap and the greed within the community between the rich people who can afford to abuse resources and the poor who can barely access their daily needs. This gap is concluded in an ignorant, negatively diversified and laid back community; in addition to threatening the upcoming generations about finding their needs in terms of natural resources being available for them. Solving this over looked problem is defined under applying sustainability concept for communities. Not only that but also presenting the full image of environmental and occupant’s impacts to prevent the greed behind the need of having a secured, resourceful living. The primary focus in this thesis was first to study novel approaches of zero pollution to implement within the application of sustainability concepts within the community. Starting with the tourism communities which are counted to be the primary income source to Egypt and some countries. The integration of sustainability concept with ecotourism communities via applying a zero waste concept is essential. Moving a step further, studying the effect of zero waste concept on the sustainable urban communities was another focus. This emphasis was considered after the realization of urbanization increase, which means more natural resources being abused. One further step is studying the environmental effect from urban communities was the next and main objective of this thesis topic. Urban communities affected the environment not only by solid wastes but also by water, energy and land usage; by this it is also affecting the sustainability of an urban community. Thus proposing several solutions to conserve water, utilize solid wastes, save energy and optimize land usage was the main focus. These proposed solutions are considered as novel approaches known as Zero Pollution, designed as guidelines to serve the urban community aiming at saving the environment. The proposed Sustainable Urban Zero Pollution Community (S.U.Z.C.) guidelines consists of 100 credits, that are hypothetically identified as a measuring tool, and focuses on three major segments for community guidance and evaluation. These segments are known as sustainable site management (36 credits), environmental management (44 credits) and a new integration of green team/ sustainability champions (20 credits). In addition to proposing guidelines for owners either residential or commercial buildings within the community, so as to ensure that everyone within the community is aware about the main objective and abiding to the sustainable community needs. These guidelines should serve and encourage the investing owners to act sustainably as the proposed community aims at. Two rating systems were also developed in this thesis, one for the community rating and the other is for the buildings’ owners’ evaluation and reward. The reward is reduction in operational cost for encouraged and participated owners towards sustainability as mentioned in Chapter 3 in this thesis. The proposed guidelines were compared with the widely used community rating system, LEED- ND which is more applicable for the developed countries. The comparative analysis was done and discussed in Chapter 4 in this thesis, and it is concluded that there are several advantages of the proposed guidelines for the S.U.Z.C over LEED-ND starting with being simple, focused, understandable and inexpensive to follow with easiness and efficiency points of focus being the main drivers for it. While also being purposeful about energy, water, air, materials and habitat as mentioned in chapter 3 in this thesis under several novel approaches. And this shall serve any developed and developing country, any new or existing community. Last but not least, Madinaty- New Cairo, a promising sustainable future urban community, was considered as the case study in this thesis. It is an application to the proposed guidelines to know how easy, understandable and applicable the guidelines are to users. The case study was evaluated based on the proposed guidelines points and rating system, and the evaluation is presented in Chapter 5 in this thesis. The conclusion of this section shows that Madinaty-New Cairo is in-line with the guidelines pre-requisites in terms of designing for green buildings, weighing the available landscape in rational proportions for infrastructure vs green areas vs corresponding parking spaces. In addition to meeting 54 credits out of the proposed 100 credits which qualifies Madinaty to a Bronze certification as per the proposed S.U.Z.C. rating system

Strategies and Resources for Integrated Community Sustainability Planning in St. Paul’s, NL

Under the Federal Gas Tax Agreement, Canadian municipalities are required to complete an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP) by March, 2010. Integration and sustainability are two key concepts that have become the foundation of recent models for community planning. The purpose of such planning is to provide a broad, long‐term plan for a community that will help it maximize economic and social benefits, without depleting the environmental resources upon which community members depend. Like many coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, St. Paul’s is currently facing many challenges to future sustainability. The town also has opportunities to develop linkages between its many assets in order to build a stronger community. This document discusses some of these challenges and opportunities in the context of integrated community sustainability planning. The document also includes strategies and resources that St. Paul’s, and other, similar coastal communities can use to develop linkages between community assets

Preserve or retreat? Willingness-to-pay for Coastline Protection in New South Wales

Coastal erosion is a global and pervasive phenomenon that predicates a need for a strategic approach to the future management of coastal values and assets (both built and natural), should we invest in protective structures like seawalls that aim to preserve specific coastal features, or allow natural coastline retreat to preserve sandy beaches and other coastal ecosystems. Determining the most suitable management approach in a specific context requires a better understanding of the full suite of economic values the populations holds for coastal assets, including non-market values. In this study, we characterise New South Wales residents willingness to pay to maintain sandy beaches (width and length). We use an innovative application of a Latent Class Binary Logit model to deal with Yea-sayers and Nay-sayers, as well as revealing the latent heterogeneity among sample members. We find that 65% of the population would be willing to pay some amount of levy, dependent on the policy setting. In most cases, there is no effect of degree of beach deterioration characterised as loss of width and length of sandy beaches of between 5% and 100% on respondents willingness to pay for a management levy. This suggests that respondents who agreed to pay a management levy were motivated to preserve sandy beaches in their current state irrespective of the severity of sand loss likely to occur as a result of coastal erosion. Willingness to pay also varies according to beach type (amongst Iconic, Main, Bay and Surf beaches) a finding that can assist with spatial prioritisation of coastal management. Not recognizing the presence of nay-sayers in the data or recognizing them but eliminating them from the estimation will result in biased WTP results and, consequently, biased policy propositions by coastal managers.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1902.0241

Blended Value Investing: Innovations in Real Estate

In March 2006, The World Economic Forum published Blended Value Investing: Capital Opportunities for Social and Environmental Impact. That paper, written by Jed Emerson and Joshua Spitzer, presented and explored the notion that between market-rate financial investments and philanthropy lie investment opportunities that intentionally create both financial returns and environmental and social value. These investment instruments seek not simply to balance extra-financial value with financial value, to avoid doing harm, or to add token social responsibility to financial investing (as is true of many 'double bottom line' funds); rather they pursue a sustained blending of value creation -- in financial, environmental and other dimensions. That paper presented 12 case studies of funds and investment instruments in this blended value investing category with a focus on global economic and social value creation more than environmental value creation.In the autumn of 2006, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funded a new exploration of blended value, this time focused more specifically on the area of environmental and conservation finance. Many innovations are advancing the field of environmental finance, many of these strategies have been well documented in a variety of articles, books and websites. Nevertheless, for many asset owners and managers, creating blended financial and environmental returns still remains a difficult goal to attain. These actors continue to ask questions regarding the types of investment option before them, the degree (if any) to which they carry a financial penalty, and the nature of the environmental value created (among other questions). Accordingly, this paper offers a broad overview of various real estate-based investment instruments and funds that are structured to generate financial returns while simultaneously advancing environmental value. The specific audience for this paper includes foundation executives seeking to move beyond traditional grantmaking, as well as high-net-worth individuals and other asset trustees working to understand options for pursuing full, blended value investments -- namely, those that create a defined level of economic value combined with environmental impact.This inquiry introduces frameworks for approaching blended value investments, and it raises a series of questions potential investors will probably ask. While the authors believe these investments will ultimately prove viable and efficient, this inquiry stops short of comparing these blended value investments to more traditional alternatives. In the absence of further data, the authors cannot assert that these investments are superior to traditional strategies. The inquiry's conclusion suggests future studies that might bring more data to the ongoing discussion

Applying Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Protect Biodiversity of Avian Species in Coastal Communities in the Greater Niagara Region

Communities located in the coastal zone are increasingly vulnerable to climate change. The effects of climate change may push coastal ecosystems to undergo irreversible changes. This is especially true for shorebirds as it results in the loss of biodiversity and resource-rich areas to rest, refuel and breed. To protect these species, it is critical to conduct more research related to nature-based solutions. Through a scoping review of scientific literature, this paper evaluated 85 articles and included a summary of various sustainable ecosystem-based adaptation strategies, including living shorelines and beach nourishment. These strategies were evaluated under the eight core principles of nature-based solutions in order to determine the efficiency of protecting shorebird biodiversity in the Greater Niagara Region. All adaptation strategies were examined through a social, economic and environmental lens and future improvements were suggested to increase the efficiency of these strategies. This research also highlights its contribution to sustainability science

Recreation, tourism and nature in a changing world : proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 2010

Proceedings of the fifth international conference on monitoring and management of visitor flows in recreational and protected areas : Wageningen, the Netherlands, May 30-June 3, 201

Guidelines for Identifying Business Risks and Opportunities Arising From Ecosystem Change

Outlines the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review, a methodology to help businesses develop strategies for managing operational, regulatory, reputational, market, and financing risks and opportunities arising from their dependence and impact on ecosystems

Ecotourism Policy Research Trends in Indonesia, Japan, and Australia

Numerous definitions and concepts regarding ecotourism lead to different implementations in ecotourism policies and systems. Identifying trends between countries provide valuable information for the development of inadequate ecotourism sites. This study aimed to understand the trends in ecotourism policies in Japan, Indonesia, and Australia by examining the bibliographic records of existing ecotourism policy research. These records were retrieved from the Scopus database and processed by using the scientometrics analysis. The results show the significant research trends of ecotourism policy in each country based on the co-occurrence of keywords were "conservation" for Indonesia, "biodiversity" for Japan, and "management" for Australia. Whereas, based on the research field, it revealed a similar priority within ecotourism policy between Australia and Japan in Social Science, while Indonesia in Environmental Science. The pattern of the keyword network analysis results in an anomaly in Indonesia compared to Japan and Australia, which clarifies the overlapping problem in ecotourism policy in Indonesia. It also visualized the shifting trends of research in some timeline intervals and notifies their relation to the emerging of ecotourism policy. This research also included the usefulness of the research results for future study and the recommendation for the ecotourism policy, especially for Indonesia

Shaping Inclusive Markets: How Funders and Intermediaries can Help Markets Move toward Greater Economic Inclusion

Positive progress toward worldwide economic inclusion is not only possible, but can also be made more possible. In Shaping Inclusive Markets, we draw lessons from history on how more inclusive markets have been achieved and highlight ways in which funders and intermediaries can strengthen the conditions for change