Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Environmental sustainability conducts and corporate performance in extractive sector

The subject of environmental sustainability transcends geographical zones, it attracts attention at the top-most business, governmental and civil society levels because of its current visible impacts. Despite the growing concern for a sustainable ecosystem, few applied studies have been conducted to establish the relationship between environmental sustainability and corporate performance in the extractive sector (one of the most profitable of all business sectors, yet arguably the worst culprit in environmental degradation). Therefore, this research seeks to explore the relationship between environmental sustainability and corporate performance in the extractive sector. This relationship was investigated using data from 68 companies within the extractive sector in both Europe and the Americas by the technique of multiple linear regression and event studies by one-way ANOVA. Our results show a negative relationship between environmental sustainability and profit while mixed results were obtained for relationship between environmental sustainability and firm value. In the short horizon, there is a positive relationship between environmental sustainability and firm value while a negative result was obtained in a long-horizon. The pattern of the results is most likely due to the unique nature of the sector where the demand for product exceeds supply. There is monopoly power in the form of cartels, and substitutes for the sector’s products (e.g. oil, gas, and cement) are either unavailable or inadequate. Therefore, poor attention to environmental responsibilities may not necessarily affect the profit but impact negatively on corporate value of the companies within the sector in a short-term. However, in the long-term, poor sensitivity to the environment may not be sustainable

Are non-use values distance-independent? Identifying the market area using a choice modelling experiment

This article tests for the effect of distance on non-use values using a Choice Modelling (CM) experiment. Estimating a distance decay relationship for non-use values (NUVs) is important because it would define the market area for an environmental good, i.e. identify the limits for aggregating individual benefit estimates. In contrast to the common definition of NUVs as non-usersÕ values, the CM experiment designs the environmental attributes so that NUV changes can be disentangled from Use Value (UV) changes. The experiment also allows for testing different specification of the distance covariates. Data are obtained from a geographically representative sample. Results show that NUVs do not depend on distance. Aggregation of NUVs is based on income and individualsÕ environmental attitudes.choice modelling, non-use values, aggregation, distance, geographical sampling.

A practitioner's guide to nudging

Supporting documentatio

Actors and factors - bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling

Recent uneven land use dynamics in urban areas resulting from demographic change, economic pressure and the cities’ mutual competition in a globalising world challenge both scientists and practitioners, among them social scientists, modellers and spatial planners. Processes of growth and decline specifically affect the urban environment, the requirements of the residents on social and natural resources. Social and environmental research is interested in a better understanding and ways of explaining the interactions between society and landscape in urban areas. And it is also needed for making life in cities attractive, secure and affordable within or despite of uneven dynamics.\ud The position paper upon “Actors and factors – bridging social science findings and urban land use change modeling” presents approaches and ideas on how social science findings on the interaction of the social system (actors) and the land use (factors) are taken up and formalised using modelling and gaming techniques. It should be understood as a first sketch compiling major challenges and proposing exemplary solutions in the field of interest

Environmental Education in the Public Sphere: Comparing Practice with Psychosocial Determinants of Behavior and Societal Change

Environmental education of the general public is widely practiced by a variety of types of organizations. Dedicated environmental groups, nature centers, zoos, parks, and other entities work on issues ranging from local threats to air, water, and habitat to global problems such as climate change and deforestation. A great deal of those efforts focus largely on providing information and raising awareness. Behavioral research and change models, however, suggest other factors are important in order to effect change on an individual, regional, or societal level. An analysis of environmental education in practice, examining methods and materials in use, showed the degree to which there were alignments between the content and psychosocial determinants of change, as well as how actions related to change theories. This mixed-methods study of groups doing environmental education in the public sphere compared their practices with the factors shown to help predict pro-environmental behavior, why people change their actions and habits. Through this survey research and multiple case study, increased knowledge and understanding can help inform future efforts at change on critical local, national, and world environmental problems. It can also lead to further research into environmental education, using behavior and change theories

Overview of project appraisal

This paper is the outcome of Australian, state and territory governments agreeing to consult to develop a more sophisticated and consistent framework to assess and evaluate major infrastructure projects. Introduction A project appraisal process helps a government make good choices in terms of its goals. It starts with a clear understanding of the role of the project in addressing the key problems preventing achievement of goals specified in a broader integrated transport and land use plan. Projects should ideally be targeted at addressing the most important problems identified in broader transport plans. Good project appraisal also requires the full exploration of reform and investment options to address the key problems to ensure that the project solution provides the best return for society’s scarce resources. Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is the primary appraisal tool at the options assessment and project prioritisation stages of the appraisal process It is a rigorous, transparent, quantitative method that measures the degree to which individual projects generate net benefits (benefits minus costs) across Australia, and allows comparison and ranking of options and projects. CBA sits within a broader planning and appraisal framework designed to ensure that projects: Flow from good strategic-level planning and assessment Are closely aligned with high-level national, state and territory goals Are aimed at addressing priority problems that are preventing goals from being achieved, and Adopt the best solution, based on a sound assessment of a wide range of potential options for solving the identified problems. The best practice transport planning and appraisal framework in Australia is defined jointly by the National guidelines for transport system management in Australia (NGTSM 2006) and Infrastructure Australia’s Better infrastructure decision-making (IA 2013a). The NGTSM is currently being updated and revised to: Align with Infrastructure Australia’s framework and guidelines Incorporate the complementary Austroads Guide to Project Evaluation and Guide to Road Transport Planning Provide guidance on important recent developments in tools and techniques that have significant implications for future approaches to transport planning and project appraisal. These include: wider economic benefits (WEBs), productivity metrics, real options analysis, use of computable general equilibrium models, and CBA of active travel, climate change adaptation, maintenance and non-infrastructure initiatives. Non-infrastructure initiatives covers regulatory changes, intelligent transport system projects, and travel behaviour change programs, and be published as website. The NGTSM covers all land transport modes. It sets out a comprehensive framework for integrated transport and land use planning and analytical approaches to transport project appraisal (mostly CBA). The NGTSM update will build on the non-CBA aspects of transport appraisal contained in the current guidelines, particularly the upfront integrated transport and land use aspects of the framework. This paper outlines first the broader appraisal process in which CBA sits, and second CBA itself with the recent developments of wider economic benefits and productivity metrics. &nbsp

Ethics as a risk management strategy: the Australian experience

This article addresses the connection of ethics to risk management, and argues that there are compelling reasons to consider good ethical practice to be an essential part of such risk management. That connection has significant commercial outcomes, which include identifying potential problems, preventing fraud, the preservation of corporate reputation, and the mitigation of court penalties should any transgression arise. Information about the legal position, examples of cases, and arguments about the potential benefits of ethics are canvassed. The orientation of this article is essentially Australian. It is hoped that it may provide some insights of value to other countries

Quantifying fisher responses to environmental and regulatory dynamics in marine systems

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017Commercial fisheries are part of an inherently complicated cycle. As fishers have adopted new technologies and larger vessels to compete for resources, fisheries managers have adapted regulatory structures to sustain stocks and to mitigate unintended impacts of fishing (e.g., bycatch). Meanwhile, the ecosystems that are targeted by fishers are affected by a changing climate, which in turn forces fishers to further adapt, and subsequently, will require regulations to be updated. From the management side, one of the great limitations for understanding how changes in fishery environments or regulations impact fishers has been a lack of sufficient data for resolving their behaviors. In some fisheries, observer programs have provided sufficient data for monitoring the dynamics of fishing fleets, but these programs are expensive and often do not cover every trip or vessel. In the last two decades however, vessel monitoring systems (VMS) have begun to provide vessel location data at regular intervals such that fishing effort and behavioral decisions can be resolved across time and space for many fisheries. I demonstrate the utility of such data by examining the responses of two disparate fishing fleets to environmental and regulatory changes. This study was one of "big data" and required the development of nuanced approaches to process and model millions of records from multiple datasets. I thus present the work in three components: (1) How can we extract the information that we need? I present a detailed characterization of the types of data and an algorithm used to derive relevant behavioral aspects of fishing, like the duration and distances traveled during fishing trips; (2) How do fishers' spatial behaviors in the Bering Sea pollock fishery change in response to environmental variability; and (3) How were fisher behaviors and economic performances affected by a series of regulatory changes in the Gulf of Mexico grouper-tilefish longline fishery? I found a high degree of heterogeneity among vessel behaviors within the pollock fishery, underscoring the role that markets and processor-level decisions play in facilitating fisher responses to environmental change. In the Gulf of Mexico, my VMS-based approach estimated unobserved fishing effort with a high degree of accuracy and confirmed that the regulatory shift (e.g., the longline endorsement program and catch share program) yielded the intended impacts of reducing effort and improving both the economic performance and the overall harvest efficiency for the fleet. Overall, this work provides broadly applicable approaches for testing hypotheses regarding the dynamics of spatial behaviors in response to regulatory and environmental changes in a diversity of fisheries around the world.General introduction -- Chapter 1 Using vessel monitoring system data to identify and characterize trips made by fishing vessels in the United States North Pacific -- Chapter 2 Paths to resilience: Alaska pollock fleet uses multiple fishing strategies to buffer against environmental change in the Bering Sea -- Chapter 3 Vessel monitoring systems (VMS) reveal increased fishing efficiency following regulatory change in a bottom longline fishery -- General Conclusions

Antecedents and outcomes of consumer environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour

With the intensification of problems relating to the environment, a growing number of consumers are becoming more ecologically conscious in their preferences and purchases of goods. This paper presents the results of a study conducted among 500 Cypriot consumers, focusing on the factors that shape consumer environmental attitudes and behaviour, as well as on the resulting outcomes. The findings confirmed that both the inward and outward environmental attitudes of a consumer are positively influenced by his/her degree of collectivism, long-term orientation, political involvement, deontology, and law obedience, but have no connection with liberalism. The adoption of an inward environmental attitude was also found to be conducive to green purchasing behaviour that ultimately leads to high product satisfaction. On the other hand, an outward environmental attitude facilitates the adoption of a general environmental behaviour, which is responsible for greater satisfaction with life. The findings of the study have important implications for shaping effective company offerings to consumers in target markets, as well as formulating appropriate policies at the governmental level to enhance environmental sensitivity among citizens