Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

The New Food Safety

A safe food supply is essential for a healthy society. Our food system is replete with different types of risk, yet food safety is often narrowly understood as encompassing only foodborne illness and other risks related directly to food ingestion. This Article argues for a more comprehensive definition of food safety, one that includes not just acute, ingestion-related risks, but also whole-diet cumulative ingestion risks, and cradle-to-grave risks of food production and disposal. This broader definition, which we call “Food System Safety,” draws under the header of food safety a variety of historically siloed, and under-regulated, food system issues including nutrition, environmental protection, and workplace safety. The current narrow approach to food safety is inadequate. First, it contributes to irrational resource allocation among food system risks. Second, it has collateral consequences for other food system risks, and, third, its limited focus can undermine efforts to achieve narrow food safety. A comprehensive understanding of food safety illuminates the complex interactions between narrow food safety and other areas of food system health risks. We argue that such an understanding could facilitate improved allocation of resources and assessment of tradeoffs, and ultimately support better health and safety outcomes for more people. We offer a variety of structural and institutional mechanisms for embedding this approach into federal agency action

The social impact of crowdfunding : PPL and BES crowdfunding

In the last two years we are witnessing a rapid change in how startups and philanthropic projects are fundraising their activities. Institutional donations and individual supporters are becoming scarce and this fact is particularly relevant to projects that need external funds like non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or social enterprises; hence crowdfunding platforms are becoming widely known as a response to those concerns. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how crowdfunding is emerging in Portugal by looking at PPL, the main crowdfunding website in Portugal and BES Crowdfunding, a social platform resulting from a partnership between PPL and BES (Banco Espírito Santo), a national bank. With a case study format, this thesis also aims to analyze how social projects are facing social impact measurement, by presenting the main methodologies and a practical example of how to apply the Expected Return model. Secondary topics such as motivations for the surging of crowdfunding, future trends, the importance of social impact measurement and its interconnection with crowdfunding are also analyzed. We can conclude that crowdfunding is changing the fundraising paradigm in Portugal and social entrepreneurs are increasingly benefiting from it. Also, social impact measurement has become essential for both philanthropists and organizations, who need to convince external investors and achieve a higher internal efficiency

Valuing the Environmental Impacts of Electricity Generation: A Critical Survey

This article provides a critical survey of a large number of studies carried out during the 1980s and 1990s that have focused on valuing the external, primarily environmental, costs associated with electricity generation. It discusses a number of conceptual, policy-related and, in some cases, unresolved questions in economic valuation of these types of impacts. These include: (a) the definition of externalities; (b) the choices of scope, relevant parameter input assumptions, and methodology; (c) the role of 'green' consumer demand in replacing environmental cost assessments; and (d) the behavioral assumptions underlying environmental impact valuation. By analyzing these issues we gain an increased understanding of the reasons for the wide disparity in external cost estimates reported in previous studies. The article also concludes that in cases where the results of electricity externality studies are utilized as a basis for policy purposes, a conflict between the economic efficiency criterion, its theoretical foundations and other - not necessarily less legitimate - goals of policy may exist

Water quality modelling, risk analysis and decision-making: an integrated study

Falling detection limits, the proliferation of chemical contaminants and the rising population densities of the world’s watersheds are erasing the traditional conception of wastewater and drinking water as demarcated academic disciplines. This increased interconnectedness reflects increased awareness of the extent to which human activities impact water resources and to what extent these impacts are felt downstream. This text integrates the candidate’s contributions to the fields of industrial-scale wastewater treatment, municipal-scale wastewater management planning, and drinking water management and regulation made during his postgraduate studies. The collected works constitute a novel civil engineering dissertation that challenges the historic compartmentalization of subfields in water resources management. 1) A new type of wastewater treatment system is modelled with traditional computational fluid dynamics (“CFD”) methods in order to optimize operating conditions and design features and to model its principal hydrodynamic characteristics. 2) Risk analysis techniques are used to build a decision model for municipal-scale management of wastewater discharged to highly transient water bodies. A risk analysis framework uses environmental and economic impact valuations to translate CFD model output into concrete decisions about infrastructure investment. 3) The claim that improved analytical ability leads to stricter regulations than justified by available toxicological data is evaluated with respect to drinking water. The relationships between historical and present maximum contaminant levels and goals are evaluated, and the overall drinking water regulatory apparatus is outlined. Analytical ability is demonstrated to have a weak effect on resulting regulation, and the tightening of regulations is shown to be unlikely in the absence of updates to the underlying toxicological model. 4) Drinking water regulatory structures are compared with respect to their ability to protect public health in light of several widely reported outbreaks in Canada since 2000. Claims of inadequate government intervention and proposed alternative regulatory arrangements are contextualized using principles of risk perception and evaluated using principles of risk analysis. 5) Drinking water regulation in the United States is deconstructed to understand to what extent the landscape of rules and standards reflects the balancing of risks with the costs and benefits of treatment. The research points to risk biases that make low-risk, high-occurrence contaminants more likely to be regulated than high-risk, low-occurrence contaminants. Decentralization along the lines of the Canadian model is shown to have the potential to improve water quality outcomes in a way that is consistent with risk valuations already established

Development of a Sustainable Management System for Rural Road Networks in Developing Countries

Rural roads play a crucial role in the economic and social development of societies, linking rural communities to education, health services and markets. During the last decade, considerable efforts have been made to evaluate the benefits of rural road investment in developing countries. Although outputs of these studies have led to a global rethinking of traditional road appraisal methods, limited attempts have been made to integrate these findings to the rural road management process. For the sustainable management of rural roads, social, institutional, technical, economic and environmental aspects should be considered under a long term perspective. The current practice in developing countries is that only some of these key sustainable aspects are being considered in the management process. In addition, rural roads maintenance management is commonly performed under a short term basis, not considering the life cycle costs and benefits in the economic analysis and project prioritization. Available management tools and studies have essentially focused their efforts on improving technical and economic aspects of low-volume roads. Whereas, the common practice observed in face of limited resources and lack of technical skills is that decisions are made under a political short term perspective. This research is directed at the development of an applied and practical system for the sustainable management of rural road networks in developing countries. The approach considers the development of all components required by the proposed management system and their integration into a practical and easy-to-use computer tool. To achieve this goal a sustainable framework for rural roads management was first developed, where system components and modules were defined. A network level condition evaluation methodology was selected and validated. Long term condition performance models were calibrated from the probabilistic analysis of field data. Optimal maintenance standards were developed under a cost-effectiveness approach. A long term prioritization procedure was developed to account for sustainable aspects of rural roads in the management process. A computer tool was finally developed to integrate the system components and display them in a friendly interface for potential users. The tool was programed in Visual Basic, considering Microsoft Excel interface. The computer tool considers the four system components: Input Data, System Modules, Network Analysis Interface and Output Data. System Modules include Condition Performance Module, Network Maintenance Module and Long Term Prioritization Module. For each of the system components and modules a separate worksheet has been included in the computer tool. The tool is centered on the Network Analysis Interface, which interacts with the other three system components. The user enters network data in the Input Data interface and may adjust information in System Modules considered if the network under study has differences to predefined conditions of. Adjustments to System Modules can be performed by the user, however it is advised that prior calibration is required for the successful analysis of the network. The management system was applied and validated in two rural road networks in developing countries located in Chile and Paraguay. Sensitivity analysis was carried out to assess the impacts of input parameters in the performance of developed system. As a result of the research an adaptable and adoptable sustainable management system for rural networks was developed to assist local road agencies in developing countries.1 yea

Global Burden of Pediatric Surgical Disease

The recognition of surgical care as an essential component of health care has required evidence of its potential impact in health care systems and cost-effectiveness by comparison with other standard interventions. Such evidence, essential for advocacy for resource allocation in LMICs, is very limited in children. Not only are there few outcomes and cost-effectiveness studies in the specialty, but the required disability weights for most common pediatric surgical conditions are missing, and multidisciplinary long-term follow-up is virtually non-existing, even in high-resource countries. The focus of this thesis is therefore two-fold. In part I the theoretical framework for surgical burden of disease measurement is reviewed and critiqued, with several alternative metrics usable in pediatric surgery being offered. Part II includes several empirical studies exploring the implications and applications of the theoretical framework. This includes generating disability weights within pediatric surgery, then establishing the evidence for the burden of surgical disease in children and the cost-effectiveness of its treatment

Life cycle costing and food systems: Concepts, trends, and challenges of impact valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies