Bio-Drying of Biodegradable Waste for Use as Solid Fuel: A Sustainable Approach for Green Waste Management

The potential for thermal recovery of waste is increasingly gaining impetus among researchers and industries across the globe especially in many developed countries. However, in processing waste for energy recovery, the type and nature of input waste materials particularly those with high moisture content have a significant impact in determining the quality, environmental profile of the waste as well as the thermal properties of the final product. Bio-drying, as a waste to energy conversion technology, tends to reduce moisture content of waste while maintaining the energy content of the processed waste. The current study investigates the effect of input materials (biogenic and non-biogenic materials) on the energy and biogenic contents of waste material by bio-drying process. The results indicated a positive correlation between biogenic and energy contents of the input materials with some variations observed. Further analysis showed that, high proportion of food waste in the waste mix indicated a slight difference in biogenic and energy contents. Conversely, the same proportion of paper in the waste mix showed similar biogenic content with slight variation in energy content

Mercury in Aquatic Systems of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, Southeastern USA

This study reports on levels and speciation of mercury (Hg) in different environmental compartments of selected park units in the Gulf Islands National Seashore (USA), and on potential rates of methyl-Hg (MMHg) formation and degradation in sediments. In the aqueous phase, total (THg) and MMHg concentrations ranged from 0.19 to 14.26 ng/L (n=32) an

Assessment of the Impact of Solid Waste Disposal on the Portability of Surface Water and Groundwater Using Water Quality Index (WQI) in Kpassa, Nkwanta North District of Ghana

The emergence of the Water Quality Index (WQI) has helped to convey vital water quality information to stakeholders and the general public at certain locations and times based on water quality parameters. The present study was carried out to assess how improper solid waste disposal impacts on the potability of surface and ground water at Kpassa in the Nkwanta North District of the Volta Region in Ghana. Water samples were collected at different locations on the River Kpassa and from boreholes within Kpassa in the Nkwanta North District of Ghana. The quality of the water was assessed by testing various physicochemical parameters such as pH, EC, Total Dissolved Solid (TDS), Total Hardness (TH), Calcium, Magnesium, Nitrate, Sulphate, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD). Apart from turbidity that was observed to be high in the samples during the period of study (indicating the presence of organic matter pollution, domestic effluents and runoffs from agricultural fields), all the other water quality parameters in both surface and groundwater were lower compared to WHO/ICMR/BIS standards.  The WQI for the surface water and the borehole water were 56.50 and 94.82 respectively. The study shows that the samples within the study area had poor water quality and therefore unsuitable for drinking and for domestic use. Regular water monitoring should be carried out especially with reference to the microbial analysis to give a better view of the water quality at Kpassa. Keywords: Kpassa, Index, pollution, agriculture fields, Leachat

Combined assurance, firm reporting and market consequences: The mediating roles of Board monitoring intensity and integrated reporting quality

There have been changes in corporate reporting practice to meet the changing needs of the business environment and stakeholders, which aimed to improve corporate reporting and capital market performance of firms. Integrated reporting (IR) has evolved as the current corporate reporting framework to overcome the existing limitations of corporate reporting and to promote the disclosure of forward-looking information. However, there are heightened concerns about the reliability of IR and appropriateness of existing assurance mechanisms for current trends in corporate reporting practice. Therefore, the combined assurance (CA) model has been introduced. However, the suitability and consequences (i.e., economic and reporting) of the CA model in the current reporting environment and the role of IR quality and board monitoring intensity (BMI) are rarely examined in the literature. Thus, this study relies on agency and stakeholder theories to empirically assess the economic (i.e., capital market liquidity performance) and reporting (i.e., reporting performance of sustainability [ESG] and financial reporting [FR] quality) consequences of CA quality and the mediating roles of BMI and IR quality. This study observed a sample of 85 firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa between 2011 and 2017. The sample firms provided 595 firm-year observations. South Africa was selected for this study, as it is the only country that mandates IR and encourages the CA model. CA and IR quality were assessed using content analysis. The least-square dummy variable (LSDV) variant of fixed effect (FE) estimating technique with PROCESS macro based on bootstrap confidence intervals was used to estimate the models. The study finds that CA quality is an appropriate assurance mechanism for forward-looking and narrative in nature reports (i.e., IR and ESG). Further, CA quality can reduce firms’ operational disruptions that support real earnings management and is an essential tool to improve capital market liquidity performance of firms. IR is also found to be a superior reporting mechanism to the existing standalone reporting frameworks (i.e., ESG and FR). Moreover, firms’ capital market liquidity and reporting performance are beneficiaries of IR quality. However, the study indicates that CA quality is not ideal for accrual earnings management, and BMI does not directly influence firms’ capital market liquidity performance. The findings generally reveal that BMI and IR quality mediates the relationship between firms’ reporting performance, capital market liquidity performance and CA quality. The study findings make significant contributions to the ongoing debate of IR’s superiority and the suitability of the CA model in current corporate reporting practice. The finding that IR and CA are relevant to capital market liquidity and firm reporting performance supports the increasing interest in IR and CA globally. Hence, countries, regulatory bodies and standard setters will find the findings helpful in considering the mandatory adoption of IR and the CA model

Assurance and integrated reporting quality: a research framework development

Quality assurance is key if integrated reporting (IR) wishes to become the corporate reporting norm. However, current assurance standards seem unsuitable for an integrated IR assurance. This paper develops and proposes a research framework to evaluate the trends in IR assurance, the nature of IR assurance, the level of IR assurance engagement and the quality of IR assurance. Additionally, the framework proposes to test the impact of quality IR assurance on the quality of IR reports

Impacts of combined assurance on integrated, sustainability and financial reporting qualities: Evidence from listed companies in South Africa

This study assesses the impacts of combined assurance (CA) quality on external reporting qualities (i.e., integrated, sustainability and financial reports). Data from listed firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in South Africa are used in this study. JSE is the largest stock exchange in Africa and, currently, the only capital market that mandates integrated reporting (IR) practice. This study uses content analysis to produce IR and CA quality data from IR reports and collects financial and sustainability quality data from the Bloomberg database. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression is used to test the models, together with a set of robustness tests. The findings show strong associations between CA quality and both IR and sustainability reporting qualities, indicating that CA effectively enhances the credibility of sustainability-exhaustive reporting practices. However, for financial reporting quality, CA impacts differently the two financial measures used in this study (i.e., real and accrual earnings management)

Board gender diversity and integrated reporting quality: Evidence from South Africa

As the demand for more females on boards increases amidst concerns of female board tokenism, this study examines the board gender diversity (BGD) and reporting quality premise from the perspective of integrated reporting (IR), an innovative reporting mechanism that incorporates financial and sustainability reports. Using static (OLS and fixed effect) and well-developed dynamic panel generalised method of moments (GMM) estimators, for firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) for the period of 2011 to 2017, the findings of the study reveal a significant positive relationship between BGD and IR quality. The findings remain robust with different measures of BGD and different estimation techniques. The results are essential for the global push for more females on boards and provide more basis for policy debate on the need to increase females on boards to lift the sustainability agenda