The art of recontextualisation: How firms make sense of the European ecolabel

 The globalisation of markets and gradual depletion of natural resources not only gave rise to fiercer competition, but also emphasised the need for sustainable production processes and business solutions (Golden, 2010, p. 10). Initially, legislators sought to tackle environmental issues by directly regulating the market through command-and-control instruments such as hard law, albeit with mixed success (Jordan et al., 2003, p. 562). The main criticism of command-and-control mechanisms lies in the fact that these often undermine a firm’s competitive advantage (p. 564). As a response, legislative instruments have taken on a more market-based character, developed as a result of negotiations between policy makers, scientific experts, non-governmental organisations (NGO) and firms. The soft-law approach is considered more effective as it better reflects the interest of a firm; however, its environmental benefits remain a matter of debate (Iraldo, Testa, Melis & Frey, 2011, p. 213). The European Union (EU), one of the leading economies in the world, adopted such a market-based policy instrument in shape of the EU ecolabel. The ecolabel was created as a voluntary scheme motivating firms to produce environmentally friendlier products and services (European Commission, 2011b). The label is awarded to a wide array of products, however, only if – after careful examination – they have met the ecological criteria agreed upon at the EU level (Locret & de Roo, 2004, p. 3). Besides the protection of the environment, ideally this approach also creates trust for the consumers and a competitive advantage for the firm (European Commission, 2011b). While at the EU level various stakeholders standardise criteria to ensure their widespread applicability for many economic sectors and products, the national competent authorities (NCAs) have to interpret the legislation in such a way as to ensure their practical use at the local level. Subsequently, firms that apply for the ecolabel have to re-interpret the legislation and adapt their resource selection, production, and distribution accordingly. This process – in this chapter referred to as the recontextualisation of standards – creates a tension between the European and the local level

Greening the Car? Conflict Dynamics within the German Platform for Electric Mobility

The environmental crisis due to air pollution, high CO2 emissions, noise from traffic and soil ceiling requires profound changes to the car-dependent transport system. This article examines the political dynamics of German transport politics, focusing on the National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE), a high-level political forum that aimed to accelerate the run-up of the electric mobility market in Germany. The NPE provides an interesting case to study the strategies of stakeholders in influencing policy-making and shaping alternative pathways to the car-centered transport system. The paper focusses on actor constellations and the conflicts that arise within the NPE, as well as the temporal dynamics within the electric mobility debate. The findings suggest that the NPE contributed to a narrow understanding of mobility transformation based on road transport and electric cars, but that it is better described as ecological modernization. Within this narrow framework, a fundamental conflict unfolds between strong advocates versus those slowing down the ecological modernization of the car. A third group demands at least a partial departure from the automobile-centered model but remains marginalized within the NPE. Aside from this core conflict, members of the NPE struggled over the location for battery cell production, the introduction of a purchase grant known as the environmental bonus, and the expansion of battery recharging infrastructure. These issues illustrate that discussions within the NPE relate to the political debates about the future of mobility, which have intensified in Germany in recent years. However, the case of the NPE shows that high-level stakeholder platforms are not an adequate forum to legitimately deliberate and to practically contribute to a wider and more fundamental rethink of future mobility concepts. View Full-Tex

Media exposure and preschoolers' social-cognitive development

Exposure to narratives may have beneficial effects on children's social-cognitive development because narratives provide information about the social world and often require social understanding for story comprehension. In the current study, we examined the influence of narratives presented via different media (books, audiobooks, TV/films) on theory-of-mind performance and mental verb comprehension in a sample of 114 three- to six-year-old preschool children. Parents' reports on the number of (children's) books at home, the overall duration of TV/film and audio media exposure, the frequency of shared book reading, watching children's TV/films and audiobook listening, and parent–child discussions about media content were collected. Children's theory-of-mind performance and mental verb comprehension were measured as dependent variables. When gender, age, language skills and parental education were controlled, only the number of children's books, shared book reading frequency, audio-media exposure and audiobook usage significantly predicted children's theory-of-mind scores. None of the media exposure or the parent–child discussion variables had significant incremental effects above the family and child characteristics on mental verb comprehension

Optimal Exploitation of the Sentinel-2 Spectral Capabilities for Crop Leaf Area Index Mapping

The continuously increasing demand of accurate quantitative high quality information on land surface properties will be faced by a new generation of environmental Earth observation (EO) missions. One current example, associated with a high potential to contribute to those demands, is the multi-spectral ESA Sentinel-2 (S2) system. The present study focuses on the evaluation of spectral information content needed for crop leaf area index (LAI) mapping in view of the future sensors. Data from a field campaign were used to determine the optimal spectral sampling from available S2 bands applying inversion of a radiative transfer model (PROSAIL) with look-up table (LUT) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches. Overall LAI estimation performance of the proposed LUT approach (LUTN₅₀) was comparable in terms of retrieval performances with a tested and approved ANN method. Employing seven- and eight-band combinations, the LUTN₅₀ approach obtained LAI RMSE of 0.53 and normalized LAI RMSE of 0.12, which was comparable to the results of the ANN. However, the LUTN50 method showed a higher robustness and insensitivity to different band settings. Most frequently selected wavebands were located in near infrared and red edge spectral regions. In conclusion, our results emphasize the potential benefits of the Sentinel-2 mission for agricultural applications

Ukraine – mehr als eine Biokornkammer Europas

In der Ukraine gibt es circa 300 zertifizierte Bio-Betriebe, die eine Fläche von 289.000 Hektar bewirtschaften. Dies entspricht – bezogen auf die gesamte landwirtschaftliche Nutzfläche der Ukraine – einem Anteil von weniger als einem Prozent. Obwohl der biologische Landbau in der Ukraine bei Betrachtung der prozentualen Anbaufläche von verschwindender Bedeutung ist, entwickelt er sich mit Fokus auf Export und angesichts eines wachsenden einheimischen Markts zunehmend dynamisch. Könnte die Ukraine in den kommenden Jahren zur Biokornkammer Europas aufsteigen