Sustainable investment in Turkey 2010

The main objectives of this report are as follows: 1 To understand and provide a review of the current state of the Sustainable Investment (SI) market in Turkey, 2 To identify the drivers and obstacles for sustainable investments, and assess the commercial feasibility of different approaches and initiatives that may stimulate the SI market in Turkey, 3 To analyze the institutional prerequisites and interventions that will fuel the development of investments, which would, in turn, encourage a betterallocation of local and international capital to sustainable enterprises and hence support sustainable development of the Turkish economy. This study forms part of a series of assessments of Sustainable Investment (SI) in Brazil (2009), India (2009) and China (2009), and draws upon earlier reports published by IFC jointly with the Economist Intelligence Unit: Sustainable Invest ing in Emerging Markets: Unscathed by the Financial Crises (2010) and with Mercer; Gaining Ground, Integrating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Factors into Investment Processes in Emerging Markets (2009)

Competing Dimensions of Energy Security: An International Perspective

How well are industrialized nations doing in terms of their energy security? Without a standardized set of metrics, it is difficult to determine the extent that countries are properly responding to the emerging energy security challenges related to climate change, growing dependence on fossil fuels, population growth and economic development. In response, we propose the creation of an Energy Security Index to inform policymakers, investors and analysts about the status of energy conditions. Using the United States and 21 other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as an example, and looking at energy security from 1970 to 2007, our index shows that only four countries¡ªBelgium, Denmark, Japan, and the United Kingdom¡ªhave made progress on multiple dimensions of the energy security problem. The remaining 18 have either made no improvement or are less secure. To make this argument, the first section of the article surveys the scholarly literature on energy security from 2003 to 2008 and argues that an index should address accessibility, affordability, efficiency, and environmental stewardship. Because each of these four components is multidimensional, the second section discusses ten metrics that comprise an Energy Security Index: oil import dependence, percentage of alternative transport fuels, on-road fuel economy for passenger vehicles, energy intensity, natural gas import dependence, electricity prices, gasoline prices, sulfur dioxide emissions, and carbon dioxide emissions. The third section analyzes the relative performance of four countries: Denmark (the top performer), Japan (which performed well), the United States (which performed poorly), and Spain (the worst performer). The article concludes by offering implications for policy. Conflicts between energy security criteria mean that advancement along any one dimension can undermine progress on another dimension. By focusing on a 10-point index, public policy can better illuminate such tradeoffs and can identify compensating policies

Sustainable Strategic Urban Planning: Methodology for Urban Renovation At District Level

Sustainable urban renovation is characterized by multiple factors (e.g. technical, socio-economic, environmental and ethical perspectives), different spatial scales and a number of administrative structures that should address the evaluation of alternative scenarios or solutions. This defines a complex decision problem that includes different stakeholders where several aspects need to be considered simultaneously. In spite of the knowledge and experiences during the recent years, there is a need of methods that lead the decision-making processes. In response, a methodology based on the global idea and implications of working towards a more sustainable and energy efficient cities as a holistic procedure for urban renovation at district level is proposed in the European Smart City project CITyFiED. The methodology has the energy efficiency as main pillar and the local authorities as client. It is composed of seven phases that ensures an effective dialogue among all the stakeholders, aiming to understand the objectives and needs of the city to define a set of Strategies for Sustainable Urban Renovation and their integration within the Strategic Urban Planning of the cities.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement N° 609129. The authors would like to thank the rest of the partners of the CITyFiED project for their help and support

Tourism carbon Kuznets-curve hypothesis: a systematic literature review and a paradigm shift to a corporation-performance perspective

Since the introduction of the carbon Kuznets-curve hypothesis in the mid-1990s, the inverted U–shaped relationship between economic development and carbon emissions has remained a subject of debate in the social sciences. We engage tourism research in this debate, in a fourfold manner. First, we offer a systematic literature review concerning the role of tourism in the carbon Kuznets-curve hypothesis using a protocol-based reporting process. Second, we present the level of consensus with the carbon Kuznets-curve hypothesis and the conceptual gaps in the identified literature (n = 22). Third, we introduce an emerging concept, offering a novel tourism corporate/performance orientation to the carbon Kuznets-curve hypothesis. Fourth, we provide evidence of empirical validity using different econometric techniques from an international tourism corporation (n = 86) data set (2005–2018). The inverted U–shaped relationship between measures of economic and carbon performance among tourism corporations is a robust result under many different specifications

Energy use and efficiency in selected rice-based cropping systems of the Middle-Indo Gangetic Plains in India

The use and cost of energy in agriculture have increased, making it necessary to make current agricultural practices more energy efficient. To do this, the prevailing systems must be thoroughly analysed. Studies have focused on assessing the energy performance of individual crops, but notably few studies have investigated different cropping systems. This paper aims to assess the energy performance of the two most used cropping systems of the Indo-Gangetic plains in India, namely Paddy rice–Wheat (PW) and Paddy rice–Potato (PP). The PW system was more energy efficient with Energy Use Efficiency (EUE) of 6.87 ± 1.7 compared to 3.61 ± 0.58 for the PP system. Higher Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) (3.94 ± 1.30) and Specific Energy(4.39 ± 2.06) (SE) were reported for the PW system, compared to 2.62 ± 0.47 and 2.15 ± 0.35 respectively for the PP system. Fertiliser use accounted for the highest input energy consumption in both systems, accounting for 58% and 51% of the energy consumed in PW and PP systems respectively, followed by fuel, seeds and electricity. The net income from the PP system (2295.7 ± 457.4 USD.ha−1.yr−1) was higher than that from the PW system (1555.4 ± 856.6 USD.ha1.yr−1). The higher return of PP system was attributed to higher yield and better market price for the potato produce. There were no significant differences reported for various energy and economic parameters within different farm sizes in the PP system. However, for PW system, small farms were energy efficient while larger farms were economically efficient

Sustainable investment in Turkey: issue brief

IFC launched a series of sustainable investment country reports initially covering the largest emerging capital markets attracting global portfolio investors: Brazil, India, and China. Further reports have been added to the series covering Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Turkey. This Issue Brief 's the summary version of the report, “Sustainable Investment in Turkey,

Dynamic Sustainability Assessment: The Case of Russia in the Period of Transition (1985-2007)

Russia has experienced twenty years of economic and social change, which has had a substantial impact on the regional and sectoral patterns of the development of its economy, infrastructure, the quality of the environment, and the well-being of its people. The current economic revival offers new opportunities and presents new challenges for the sustainable development of Russia. The paper employs the UN Sustainable Development Framework of Indicators and assesses the sustainability of Russia using multi-criteria evaluation methods, namely the uncertainty randomization multi-criteria evaluation method "Analysis and Synthesis of Parameters under Information Deficiency" (ASPID). The analysis covers economic, environmental, and social trends in Russia's development between 1985 and 2007 and assesses the sustainability of this development from the point of view of multiple criteria. The results show the potential of multi-criteria methods for sustainability assessment at the macro level and offer useful insights into the multidimensional nature of sustainability and the role of priority setting in the evaluation process. Such an analysis reveals the degree of harmony in sustainable development policy. It shows how different sets of priorities determine the outcome of multidimensional analysis of sustainability and could potentially help in assessing progress and designing new policy instruments. This paper is one of the first to apply multi-criteria methods to macro sustainability analysis in a dynamic setting.

Decomposition of CO2 Emissions over 1980–2003 in Turkey

There is a multi-dimensional need for studying the energy situation in Turkey and to ob-tain insight into the development of CO2 emissions. On the one hand, recent projections of the OECD show that Turkey has a yearly GDP growth potential of over 7%. On the other hand, recent projections of UNDP and World Bank indicate that the level of CO2 emission is going to rise six-fold by 2025 with respect to the level of emissions in 1990. It is a great challenge to both meet the growth target and keep the CO2 under control. Thereupon, this paper tries to unfold factors that explain CO2 emissions by undertaking a complete decomposition analysis for Turkey over the period 1980–2003. The analysis shows, as is common to relatively fast growing economies, that the biggest contributor to the rise in CO2 emissions is the expansion of the economy (scale effect). The carbon intensity and the change in composition of the economy, which nearly move in tandem, also contribute to the rise in CO2 emissions, albeit at a slower rate. The energy intensity of the economy, which is decreasing, is responsible for a modest reduction in CO2 emissions. Hence, in congruence with the scale effect, we do not find a decoupling of carbon emissions and economic growth in Turkey over the period 1980–2003.Decomposition analysis, Turkey, Energy, CO2 emissions, Economic growth

Global Economic Sustainability Indicator: Analysis and Policy Options for the Copenhagen Process

Summary: The traditional discussion about CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases as a source of global warming has been rather static, namely in the sense that innovation dynamics have not been considered much. Given the global nature of the climate problem, it is natural to develop a more dynamic Schumpeterian perspective and to emphasize a broader international analysis, which takes innovation dynamics and green international competitiveness into account: We discuss key issues of developing a consistent global sustainability indicator, which should cover the crucial dimensions of sustainability in a simple and straightforward way. The basic elements presented here concern genuine savings rates – covering not only depreciations on capital, but on the natural capital as well -, the international competitiveness of the respective country in the field of environmental ("green") goods and the share of renewable energy generation. International benchmarking can thus be encouraged and opportunities emphasized - an approach developed here. This new EIIW-vita Global Sustainability Indicator is consistent with the recent OECD requirements on composite indicators and thus, we suggest new options for policymakers. The US and Indonesia have suffered from a decline in their performance in the period 2000-07; Germany has improved its performance as judged by the new composite indicator whose weights are determined from factor analysis. The countries covered stand for roughly 91% of world GDP, 94% of global exports, 82% of global CO2 emissions and 68% of the population.CO2 Emission, Global worming, Sustainability, International country competitiveness

Green Economy Indicators

The chapter is an attempt to answer the question: how is the actual green economy implementation process underway to be measured? The answers were given firstly by the international organizations OECD, UNEP, Word Bank, Global Green Growth Institute, as well as the consulting company Dual Citizen. Also the author of this chapter proposed the Green Economy Index. There is a growing awareness concerning the need for international unification of the indicators used to measure a green economy. Existing indicators represented slightly different approaches and methodologies, based on their own definitions of the subject to be measured. The topic of green economy indicators is going to grow in importance in upcoming years. This will be connected with locating a green economy at the centre of regional and national development strategies.Wydanie współfinansowane ze środków Miasta Łodzi w ramach zadania “Współpraca z wyższymi uczelniami” – umowa 100/03/201