Benchmarking and Self-Assessment in the Wine Industry

ABSTRACT Not all industrial facilities have the staff or the opportunity to perform a detailed audit of their operations. The lack of knowledge of energy efficiency opportunities provides an important barrier to improving efficiency. Benchmarking programs in the U.S. and abroad have shown to improve knowledge of the energy performance of industrial facilities and buildings and to fuel energy management practices. Benchmarking provides a fair way to compare the energy intensity of plants, while accounting for structural differences (e.g. the mix of products produced, climate conditions) between different facilities. In California, the winemaking industry is not only one of the economic pillars of the economy; it is also a large energy consumer, with a considerable potential for energy-efficiency improvement. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fetzer Vineyards developed the first benchmarking tool for the California wine industry called "BEST (Benchmarking and Energy and water Savings Tool) Winery 1 . BEST Winery enables a winery to compare its energy efficiency to a best practice reference winery. Besides overall performance, the tool enables the user to evaluate the impact of implementing efficiency measures. The tool facilitates strategic planning of efficiency measures, based on the estimated impact of the measures, their costs and savings. The tool will raise awareness of current energy intensities and offer an efficient way to evaluate the impact of future efficiency measures

Governing policy evaluation? Towards a new typology

As policy evaluation matures, thoughts are turning to its governance. However, few scholars have combined insights from the evaluation and governance literatures to shed new light on this matter. In order to address this important gap, this article develops a new typology of ways to comprehend and perhaps ultimately govern ex-post policy evaluation activities. The article then explores its validity in the context of climate policy evaluation activities, a vibrant policy area in which the demand for and practices of evaluation have grown fast, particularly in Europe. The analysis reveals that the typology usefully guides new thinking, but also highlights important gaps in our empirical knowledge of the various modes of governing policy evaluation. The article identifies a need for a new research agenda that simultaneously develops a fuller understanding of these evaluation practices and the options for governing them

Industria del cemento: ¿cuál sería el efecto de los impuestos a sus emisiones de carbono?

Este producto forma parte de una serie de infografías de divulgación científica que buscan reseñar algunas de las investigaciones más importantes en las que ha tenido participación la Universidad EAFIT, publicadas en las revistas especializadas más prestigiosas del mund

Managerial Views of Corporate Impacts and Dependencies on Ecosystem Services : A Case of International and Domestic Forestry Companies in China

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: (1) interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; (2) their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; (3) related business risks and opportunities; and (4) viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged.Peer reviewe