proposal for a methodology to monitor sustainability in the production of soft drinks in ref pet this study proposes a methodology to view and monitor the economic social and environmental impacts of operational and strategic decisions in reverse logistics rl industries factor analysis was conducted to form indexes in these three dimensions of an integrated rl process unlike other research the proposed methodology is oriented towards managers decisions on all aspects of the triple bottom line simultaneously and is adaptable to various industries the methodology was tested in a retail company in brazil that markets the world s largest carbonated soft drink brand in ref pet the results provide a holistic view of the impact of decisions on the use of economic social and environmental resources enabling direct operational decisions and strategies in the search for a better balance of the triple bottom line thus managers can seek improvements in the inputs of the rl process avoiding undesirable outputs this study contributes to the implementation of the concept and the adoption of sustainability practices in the corporate strategy improving the communication flow between operational activities and economic performance regarding the consumption of scarce resources and reducing the negative social and environmental impacts for the benefit of the company the business community society and nature

the price of pollution a dual approach to valuing so2 allowances under the 1990 clean air act amendments a market based scheme to reduce u s sulfur dioxide emissions takes effect in 1995 indications are that participation in the market will be light and allowance prices will be lower than was once expected using an output distance function approach for wisconsin coal burning utility plants we estimate the shadow price of so2abatement which should approximate the allowance price the estimated average shadow price is above the prices at which the few observed allowance trades have occurred wisconsin s stringent state so2legislation may explain a portion of this divergence

sustainable consumption within a sustainable economy beyond green growth and green economies abstract in 1992 one unambiguous result of the unced conference was the need for changing consumption and production patterns with affluent countries taking the lead 20 years later at the 2012 uncsd little is left over and instead the green economy has been the theme pursued by the oecd the eu and other countries so the question needs to be answered if this is finally an attempt to put into practice what was promised 20 years ago or another diversion from what needs to be accomplished sustainable development is still a convincing concept if the original definition is taken avoiding the confusion caused by partisan interests reinterpreting the concept focussing on human needs fulfilment and respecting environmental limits it can still guide strong sustainable consumption green economy green growth on the other hand is a new terminology for what is known since 40 years as ecological modernisation it is indeed overdue but with its focus on efficiency and innovation it cannot guarantee to fulfil the brundtland sustainability criteria a factor analysis based on the i p a t formula demonstrates how optimistic the assumptions regarding future technologies must be to support the green growth concept consequently the authors pledge for a pragmatic risk avoiding approach by slimming the physical size of the economy this requires strong sustainable consumption including production as resource consumption which in turn requires a change of the societies institutional settings formal and informal mechanisms and orientations finally some elements of a strategy towards this end are pointed out with special emphasis on the role of non governmental organisations ngos through networking and advocacy they can both stimulate bottom up action and mobilise the pressure necessary for the institutional changes which are needed to mainstream strong sustainable consumption

decoupling china s carbon emissions increase from economic growth an economic analysis and policy implications as the world s second largest carbon emitter china has long been criticized as a free rider benefiting from other countries efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but not taking responsibility for its own emissions china has been singled out as one of the major targets at the subsequent negotiations after the kyoto meeting bq analyzing the historical contributions of interfuel switching energy conservation economic growth and population expansion to china s co2 emissions during 1980 97 this article clearly demonstrates that the above criticism is unjustified moreover given the fact that the role of china is an issue of perennial concern at the international climate change negotiations the article envisions some efforts and commitments that could be expected from china until its per capita income catches lip with the level of middle developed countries by emphasizing the it win win strategies these efforts and commitments are unlikely to jeopardize china s economic development and at the same time would give the country more leverage at the international climate change negotiations subsequent to the buenos sires meeting c 2000 elsevier science ltd all rights reserved

modeling future vehicle sales and stock in china this article presents an updated and upgraded methodology the fuel economy and environmental impacts feei model http www feeimodel org to project vehicle sales and stock in china on the basis of our previous studies the methodology presented has the following major improvements it simulates private car ownership on an income level basis takes into account car purchase prices separates sales into purchases for fleet growth and for replacements of scrapped vehicles and examines various possible vehicle scrappage patterns for china the results show that the sales of private light duty passenger vehicles in china could reach 23 42 million by 2050 with the share of new growth purchases representing 16 28 the total vehicle stock may be 530 623 million by 2050 we compare this study to other publicly available studies in terms of both projection methodology and results a sensitivity analysis shows that vehicle sales are more affected than levels of vehicle stock by the model parameters which makes projecting sales more difficult owing to the lack of reliable input data for key model parameters because it considers key factors in detail the sales and stock projection module of the feei model offers many advantages over previous models and is capable of simulating various policy scenarios

assessing the sustainability performances of industries business sustainability entails the incorporation of the objectives of sustainable development namely social equity economic efficiency and environmental performance into a company s operational practices companies that compete globally are increasingly required to commit to and report on the overall sustainability performances of operational initiatives the current indicator frameworks that are available to measure overall business sustainability do not effectively address all aspects of sustainability at operational level especially in developing countries such as south africa social criteria specifically do not receive due considerations this article proposes a new framework to assess the sustainability of operations in the manufacturing sector

using portfolio theory to improve resource efficiency of invested capital limited literature provides concrete theory based methods for quantifying the effects of sharing capital this paper describes the potential contribution of portfolio theory to quantify the effects and optimize the employment of capital human tangible financial and service employing capital in a theoretical and quantitative manner in the context of sustainability insights illustrate how portfolio principles can yield benefits including the fulfillment of needs using fewer resources consistent with sustainability in particular pooling assets to meet uncertain demands from different users of an asset pool may yield benefit from diversification effects suggests future research avenues such as the management of high value critical value and expiring resources to support sustainability

power sector reform and co2 abatement costs in korea abstract the current korean administration is driving change in the power sector by gradually phasing out nuclear power plants expanding the use of renewable energy and imposing restrictions on the operation of coal power plants considering these changes the marginal abatement cost mac curve would provide crucial information to determine an appropriate greenhouse gas reduction target especially for 2030 this study derives the mac curves for the korean power sector in 2030 using a bottom up optimization model with three scenarios based on different carbon pricing schedules in addition the carbon price required to achieve the co2 emission targets in the korean power sector in 2030 are estimated the results show that a carbon price of 135 157 us tco2 would be required to achieve the 2030 emission target for the power sector by comparing the mac curves of three different scenarios we can reiterate the fact that early action regarding climate change mitigation is more effective and efficient than delayed action

pollution from the electric power sector in japan and efficient pollution reduction abstract under the scheme of the kyoto protocol there are plans for the efficient reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the electric power sector nuclear power generation which emits no carbon dioxide in the process of generating electricity has come under scrutiny however this energy produces a new environmental issue the disposal of radioactive waste first we derive shadow prices of carbon dioxide and low level waste as marginal abatement costs in the case of the electric power sector in japan employing a directional output distance function it is found that the shadow prices are us 39 per tonne for carbon dioxide and us 1531 per liter for low level waste secondly we calculate the indirect morishima elasticity between carbon dioxide and low level waste in order to identify their substitutability and it is found that the substitution of low level waste for carbon dioxide is easier than the reverse this result suggests that with the amount of generated electricity fixed carbon dioxide can be substituted more easily by low level waste when the relative price of carbon dioxide increases for example as a result of implementation of a carbon dioxide tax or an emissions trading system

when starting with the most expensive option makes sense optimal timing cost and sectoral allocation of abatement investment this paper finds that it is optimal to start a long term emission reduction strategy with significant short term abatement investment even if the optimal carbon price starts low and grows progressively over time moreover optimal marginal abatement investment costs differ across sectors of the economy it may be preferable to spend 25 dollars to avoid the marginal ton of carbon in a sector where abatement capital is expensive such as public transportation or in a sector with large abatement potential such as the power sector than 15 dollars for the marginal ton in a sector with lower cost or lower abatement potential the reason distinct from learning spillovers is that reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires investment in long lived abatement capital such as clean power plants or public transport infrastructure the value of abatement investment comes from avoided emissions but also from the value of abatement capital in the future the optimal levelized cost of conserved carbon can thus be higher than the optimal carbon price it is higher in sectors with higher investment needs those where abatement capital is more expensive or sectors with larger abatement potential we compare our approach to the traditional abatement cost curve model and discuss implications for policy design

estimating the marginal abatement cost curve of co2 emissions in china provincial panel data analysis abstract this paper estimates the marginal abatement cost curve macc of co2 emissions in china based on a provincial panel for the period of 2001 2010 the provincial marginal abatement cost mac of co2 emissions is estimated using a parameterized directional output distance function four types of model specifications are applied to fit the mac carbon intensity pairs the optimal specification controlling for various covariates is identified econometrically a scenario simulation of china s 40 45 carbon intensity reduction based on our macc is illustrated our simulation results show that china would incur a 559 623 yuan t roughly 51 57 increase in marginal abatement cost to achieve a corresponding 40 45 reduction in carbon intensity compared to its 2005 level

going one s own way drivers in developing business models for sustainability business models have received much attention in recent years due to their importance in the fundamental logic of every company this paper is based on a qualitative empirical research study conducted in cooperation with 10 austrian companies in 2014 it aims to investigate business models for sustainability in order to better understand how they operate and what the drivers for developing these business models are this is a cross industry sample covering companies showing notable sustainability activities in fact half of the companies were founded with the intention of complying with sustainability principles the results show that business models incorporating aspects of sustainability do not differ substantially from traditional business models however they do require specific adaptations and extensions furthermore the findings highlight the significance of company leaders in organizing change processes so as to encompass sustainable business practices the findings reveal that business models undergo constant change and that sustainability plays a central role both internally and externally the results gained allow for a deeper understanding of the motivational aspects and drivers needed in developing business models for sustainability and serve as a solid basis for further research in this field

sustainable homeservices toward household services that enhance ecological social and economic sustainability abstract the idea of services replacing products is increasingly offered as a solution to making the production and consumption patterns of the affluent consumers more sustainable however the discussion about sustainable services or sustainable product service systems tends to emphasize the eco efficiency perspective rather than explicitly capture all sustainability aspects social or socioeconomic considerations are often forgotten or by passed without scrutiny this paper argues that there is the need for a concept of sustainable services in which the social sustainability aspect is also recognized with equal attention since a major part of private consumption occurs in the household context living at home and moving to and from it this paper will put forth the concept of sustainable homeservices and will suggest a way to assess sustainability of services directed to households for assessing the sustainability of services directed to households a set of indicators relating to the ecological social and economic dimensions of sustainability is proposed with the aim of giving an idea of how to assess homeservices in practical terms the paper will also exemplify how one could operationalize these indicators on an ordinal rating scale the conclusion is that it is possible to assess the sustainability of a homeservice in a relative fashion using no service or the product alternative as the point of comparison households alone have a limited capacity to influence their consumption choices because other actors set the frame for this reason institutional arrangements for making services easily available to households are outlined it appears that housing organizations have a central role in the alternative option for organizing the supply of service provision they are involved in five of the seven alternative ways of supplying services that could be identified the role of the housing organization can vary from direct supply to lighter forms such as cooperative arrangements with external service providers or resident involvement

optimal path for controlling co2 emissions in china a perspective of efficiency analysis this paper examines the optimal control of co2 emissions from a perspective of efficiency analysis several centralized data envelopment analysis dea models are introduced to study the optimal allocation of co2 emissions under spatial temporal and spatial temporal allocation strategies respectively the models have been used to determine the optimal paths for controlling co2 emissions at provincial and regional levels in china a sensitivity analysis of the optimal path on the emission control coefficient under spatial temporal allocation strategy is further carried out our empirical results show that more developed regions should take emission reduction responsibility earlier than less developed regions in china of the three allocation strategies spatial temporal allocation strategy seems to be a better choice for achieving the optimal control of co2 emissions at country level since it is more encompassing by allowing both timing and spatial substitutions it is also found that there exists an inverted u shape relationship between the aggregate optimal gdp and the emission control coefficient which shows that modest emission reduction policy might be more appropriate for china in order to achieve the joint goals of economic development and co2 emission reduction

a framework for strategic sustainable development the purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive and cohesive description of the most recent version of the framework for strategic sustainable development fssd and also to describe and discuss the overall method for developing the fssd elaborate on the general rational for and general benefits of a framework of this type and validate benefits of the fssd through examples of its application the purpose is also to point to pertinent future work in preparation of this paper we have reviewed previous publications and other documents related to the fssd and reflected on the 25 year learning process between scientists and practitioners we conclude that the fssd has proven to aid organizations in thoroughly understanding and putting themselves in context of the global sustainability challenge and to move themselves strategically towards sustainability i e to stepwise reduce their negative impacts on ecological and social systems at large while strengthening the own organization through capturing of innovation opportunities including new business models exploration of new markets and winning of new market shares and through reduced risks and operation costs specifically we conclude that the fssd aids more effective management of system boundaries and trade offs makes it possible to model and assess sustainable potentials for various materials and practices before investments are made and offers the possibility for more effective collaboration across disciplines and sectors regions value chains and stakeholder groups we also conclude that the fssd makes it possible to prevent damages even from yet unknown problems and not the least to guide selection development and combination of supplementary methods tools and other forms of support which makes it possible to increase their utility for strategic sustainable development finally we have shown that the fssd is useful for structuring transdisciplinary academic education and research several examples of ongoing fssd related research as well as ideas for future work are given

the market for tradable ghg permits under the kyoto protocol a survey of model studies abstract this paper gathers results from 25 models of the market for tradable greenhouse gas ghg emission permits under the kyoto protocol due to diverging projections of emissions growth and different modeling approaches the model results differ substantially the average market volume is approximately 17 and 33 billion usd under global trading and annex b trading respectively including non carbon ghg lowers compliance costs and permit prices in the absence of the us permit demand roughly equals hot air from the former soviet union these countries can increase their revenues from selling permits by restricting supply which raises the permit price

an empirical analysis of the co2 shadow price in chinese thermal power enterprises abstract this paper estimates the shadow price of co2 and explores its determinants for thermal power enterprises in china using a parametric quadratic directional distance function we evaluate the inefficiency and shadow price of co2 for 124 power enterprises in 2004 applying deterministic and econometric methods a regression analysis is undertaken to examine the factors that drive shadow prices our results indicate that there are large inefficiencies in terms of electricity production and co2 emissions the shadow price is a negative function of firm size age and coal share and is positively correlated with the technology level this correlation between shadow prices and its determinants is not sensitive to changing assumptions regarding directional vectors although such changes do alter the distribution of shadow prices the large variation witnessed in shadow prices across power enterprises argues in favor of market based regulation such as an emissions trading system as opposed to the command and control regulation currently used in china to minimize overall abatement cost

eu climate policy up to 2020 an economic impact assessment in its fight against climate change the eu is committed to reducing its overall greenhouse gas emissions to at least 20 below 1990 levels by 2020 to meet this commitment the eu builds on segmented market regulation with an eu wide cap and trade system for emissions from energy intensive installations ets sectors and additional measures by each eu member state covering emission sources outside the cap and trade system the non ets sector furthermore the eu has launched additional policy measures such as renewable energy subsidies in order to promote compliance with the climate policy target basic economic reasoning suggests that emission market segmentation and overlapping regulation can create substantial excess costs if we focus only on the climate policy target in this paper we evaluate the economic impacts of eu climate policy based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model of international trade and energy use our results highlight the importance of initial market distortions and imperfections as well as alternative baseline projections for the appropriate assessment of eu compliance cost

a cautious price adjustment mechanism chaotic behavior abstract it is well known that adjustment processes like tatonnement can show erratic dynamic behavior the prices can make big jumps and vary over a wide range a discrete tatonnement process in a simple two goods economy is studied with only one price adjusted it is shown that the interval in which the price varies can be restricted to a neighborhood of an equilibrium price with big jumps excluded if the relative price adjustment is restricted by a maximal rate of increase or decrease of the price within the interval any type of erratic dynamics remains possible

marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions from european agriculture cost effectiveness and the eu non ets burden sharing agreement abstract we propose a quantitative assessment of the marginal abatement costs mac of greenhouse gas emissions from european agriculture and analyze the implications of the non ets burden sharing agreement bsa for this sector this assessment is based on mac reduced forms the generic specification of which enables simple parameterization and numerical computations such mac curves are parameterized for each member state using the outputs of a detailed model of the european agricultural supply they are then used to compute total and marginal abatement costs involved by the bsa targets as well as the cost effective effort sharing the corresponding emission price and abatement costs the main findings are i flexibility mechanisms such as a cap and trade system for agricultural emissions could reduce the total costs of meeting the 10 eu abatement target by a factor two to three relative to the strict implementation of each country s target ii the corresponding equilibrium emission price is found to be 32 42 tco2eq depending on the assumption regarding business as usual emissions and iii a cap and trade system with allowances based on the bsa targets would involve substantial transfers from eu 15 countries to new member states an important share of which being made of hot air

emergence of green business models the case of algae biofuel for aviation emergent business models seek to take advantage of new market mechanisms driven by technological changes particularly those related to the production and delivery of clean or sustainable energy such business models often function at the intersection of various industries with global views and the resulting systems have distinct social political environmental economic technological and business dimensions such holistic systems are not only difficult to develop but also require support from a broad range of actors with effective regulations and policies in place such that the firm functions within a framework that integrates various factors this study substantiates such a framework by detailing the nascent algae based bio fuel industry that caters to the aviation sector while arguing that businesses in the energy industry can emerge as a next practice platform that drive a sixth wave of innovation the framework begins with three basic enablers innovation flexibility and sustainability and explains how value from renewable energy technologies can be created and captured sustainably and innovatively with new market mechanisms implemented by firms with green business models

a metafrontier approach for measuring an environmentally sensitive productivity growth index this paper presents an alternative environmentally sensitive productivity growth index to incorporate group heterogeneities into a conventional malmquist luenberger productivity growth index the p

co2 emission abatement cost and its decomposition a directional distance function approach accurately estimating carbon dioxide co2 abatement costs and effectively identifying the factors impacting those costs can improve the applicability and effectiveness of policy implementation this paper proposes a new method to estimate co2 abatement costs cac based on the directional distance function the method theoretically decomposes cac into carbon productivity and output elasticity of substitutions this decomposition can identify the types of cac the method also investigates the effects of development mode selection on cac by selecting different directional vectors following the theoretical discussion an empirical study is presented focusing on high energy consumption firms in the united states u s the results were as follows 1 in sustainable development mode changes in the average cac of all firms were caused both by carbon productivity and output elasticity of substitution carbon productivity dominated cac differences among different firm types 2 in general the amelioration potential of firm technology and environmental management was gradually explored by firms during sample period corresponding environmental regulatory strategies are needed for firms with different cac characteristics 3 firms selecting different development modes will realize significant differences in cac firms in the sustainable development mode had the highest cac levels however this mode was best for achieving a win win between economic benefits and environmental protection

marginal co2 abatement costs findings from alternative shadow price estimates for shanghai industrial sectors abstract shanghai one of the most developed cities in china is implementing a pilot regional carbon emission trading scheme estimating the marginal abatement costs of co2 emissions for the industrial sectors covered in shanghai s emission trading scheme provides the government and participating firms useful information for devising compliance policies this paper employs multiple distance function approaches to estimating the shadow prices of co2 emissions for shanghai industrial sectors our empirical results show that the overall weighted average of shadow price estimates by different approaches ranges between 394 5 and 1906 1 yuan ton which indicates that model choice truly has a significant effect on the shadow price estimation we have also identified a negative relationship between the shadow price of co2 emissions and carbon intensity and the heavy industries with higher carbon intensities tend to have lower shadow prices it has been suggested that shanghai municipal government take various measures to improve its carbon market e g using the marginal abatement costs of participating sectors firms as a criterion in the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances

towards a new taxonomy of circular economy business models abstract circular economy has undoubtedly become one of the hot topics in public debates about new and more sustainable industrial paradigms and strategies in this respect the fashion of circular economy is in the fact that it aims at overcoming the dominant linear take make disposal economy model i e a traditional open ended economy model developed with no built in tendency to recycle which is reflected by treating the environment as a waste reservoir su et al 2013 circular economy indeed bases on the establishment of closed production systems where resources are reused and kept in a loop of production and usage allowing generating more value and for a longer period despite the interest for circular economy by politicians and practitioners scholars particularly in the strategic management field are still struggling with a lack of a framework explaining how companies willing to become circular adapt their existing business model or create a new one by extensively reviewing through the lens of business model literature the extant contributions on circular economy we propose a taxonomy of circular economy business models based on the degree of adoption of circularity along two major dimensions i the customer value proposition interface i e the implementation of the circularity concept in proposing value to customers ii the value network i e the ways through which interacting with suppliers and reorganizing the own internal activities the taxonomy is then initially tested through some explorative case studies showing in practice the ability of the framework to properly distinguish different modes of adoption of circular economy

sustainable business model adoption among s p 500 firms a longitudinal content analysis study in this study we examine the diversity of sustainable business models adopted by the largest global corporations those listed in the s p 500 index over the period 2005 2014 we examine press release communications during this period which represent public data about business relevant events we expect that examining this communication can reveal longitudinal patterns in the adoption of sustainable business activities and models empirically we utilize academic and practitioner expert panels to build a set of keywords across nine sustainable business model archetypes and utilize automated content analysis to examine the breadth and nature of a firm s sustainable business activities and practices we find evidence of the increasing prominence of different types of sustainable business models over time in particular the results show that large capitalized firms have mostly adopted the environmentally oriented archetypes and to much lesser extent the societal and organizational ones

sustainable development and the challenge of innovation abstract innovation does not automatically lead to societal progress as is implicitly assumed in technology push oriented policies this assumption is an inheritance of the enlightenment i e the belief that science will automatically lead to a better quality of life the strive for sustainable development needs an approach towards innovation that can be characterised as society pull the society has to decide which balance of economical ecological and social goals are to be met society pull can be organised by developing shared perspectives for the future which are inspiring for public and private policy makers and investors in this paper this is worked out as transition management a process approach directing innovation towards sustainable development a crucial aspect of transition management is that innovation is no longer driven by the past but attracted by the future

plant level productivity efficiency and environmental performance of the container glass industry this paper presents a methodology and empirical results based on themalmquist productivity index we measure productivity while treatingpollution as an undesirable output our estimates show that technicalchange has contributed to productivity and environmental performancegrowth in the container glass industry an energy and pollution intensivesector changes in inter plant efficiency over time have made thisproductivity growth more rapid than otherwise would have occurred withthe underlying technical change the efficiency estimates show that thereare both opportunities to improve productivity and reduce pollution in thisindustry as well as productivity losses associated with the emissionscontrol the shadow prices for nox the undesirable output we analyze is quite high compared to other regulated sectors

technical efficiency shadow price of carbon dioxide emissions and substitutability for energy in the chinese manufacturing industries abstract china is the world s largest co 2 producer and energy consumer in this paper we calculate the maximum technically obtainable co 2 emissions reduction from the efficient use of inputs and estimate the shadow prices of co 2 emissions in order to assess the potential cost savings deriving from trading emissions among industries by measuring the input distance function for 30 chinese manufacturing industries our empirical results indicate that co 2 emissions could be reduced by as much as 680 million tons in the aggregate the shadow prices of co 2 vary from a high of 18 82 to a low of zero across industries with an average of 3 13 per ton additionally the estimated indirect morishima elasticities of substitution of capital for fossil fuels indicate that the substitutabilities of capital for oil gas and coal are higher than the substitutability for labor

understanding the diffusion of sustainable product service systems insights from the sociology of consumption and practice theory the sustainable product service system spss concept highlights that achieving sustainability requires changes in both production and consumption nevertheless attention has focused mainly on production this paper enriches the spss approach with insights from the sociology of consumption and practice theory to provide a deeper understanding of the use of products and services in daily life contexts the paper advances three key insights related to a the internal dynamics of user practices b the strength of linkages of practice elements loose and tight coupling c external linkages to other practices these insights are mobilised to provide a deeper understanding of the uptake and diffusion of innovations such as spss the insights are illustrated with two cases in which interventions designed to stimulate diffusion have had differential success energy efficient light bulbs and low temperature laundry implications for understanding the diffusion of spss are discussed

on the complexities of complex economic dynamics complex economic nonlinear dynamics endogenously do not converge to a point a limit cycle or an explosion their study developed out of earlier studies of cybernetic catastrophic and chaotic systems complexity analysis stresses interactions among dispersed agents without a global controller tangled hierarchies adaptive learning evolution and novelty and out of equilibrium dynamics complexity methods include interacting particle systems self organized criticality and evolutionary game theory to simulate artificial stock markets and other phenomena theoretically bounded rationality replaces rational expectations complexity theory influences empirical methods and restructures policy debates

an analysis of the costs of energy saving and co2 mitigation in rural households in china abstract households may imperfectly implement energy saving measures this study identifies two factors resulting in imperfect use of energy saving technology by households households often continue to use old technologies alongside new ones and the energy saving technologies have shorter actual lifetimes than their designed lifetimes these two factors are considered when computing marginal energy conservation cost and marginal co2 abatement cost using data collected from a survey of rural households in three provinces in china the results show that there are cost reduction for most space heating technologies and their marginal abatement cost under full implementation ranges from 60 to 15 usd t co2 while the marginal abatement cost of cooking technologies ranges from 12 to 85 usd t co2 the marginal abatement costs of the majority of technologies increased after accounting for the two implementation factors the marginal abatement cost in the imperfect implementation scenario is higher with a range of 1 to 15 usd t co2 for space heating and 18 to 165 usd t co2 for cooking assuming implementation factors are constant until 2035 annually achievable co2 abatement by 2035 is estimated to be 57 11 and 10 mt co2 y in hebei guizhou and guangxi provinces

marginal abatement costs of carbon dioxide emissions and its influencing factors a global perspective abstract reducing co 2 emissions has become a major and urgent environmental goal worldwide in this paper we sample the data of 41 regions including 165 countries from 2000 to 2014 and adopt a gravity model to obtain an overview of the global flows of co 2 emissions energy consumption the global economy and capital stock since the beginning of the 21st century we then investigate global technical efficiency reduction potential shadow prices and factors influencing the marginal abatement costs of co 2 emissions based on a quadratic directional output distance function the empirical results show the following 1 the global centres of gravity for co 2 emissions energy consumption and capital stock have accelerated their shift to the asian inland in the 21st century but the global centre of gravity for the economy did not show the same trend 2 global technical inefficiency demonstrates a u shape with a turning point in 2007 average annual total global co 2 emissions could be reduced by 4482 28 mt and the global marginal abatement costs of co 2 emissions are approximately 673 74 697 73 usd t 3 the relationship between economic development and marginal abatement costs is represented by a u shaped curve the world is currently in the climbing phase of this curve implying that controlling co 2 emissions is becoming more costly moreover energy structure industrial structure and co 2 emissions are negatively correlated with marginal abatement costs finally the financial crisis has had a significant effect on marginal abatement costs

energy efficiency and marginal carbon dioxide emission abatement cost in urban china abstract energy efficiency improvement and carbon emission reduction are two important ways to mitigate energy consumptions and global warming this paper aims to examine energy efficiency and carbon dioxide co2 emissions abatement costs of city urban areas in china to this end an improved slacks based measure approach is introduced which considers the linkage between desirable and undesirable outputs then measures of energy efficiency co2 emission abatement cost and comprehensive state index of co2 emissions abatement cost and co2 emissions reduction potential are defined the proposed model is then applied to the dataset of 285 cities in china during 2008 2012 the results show that most city urban areas in china have relatively low energy efficiencies surprisingly there are gradually narrowing gaps regarding mean energy efficiencies between areas during 2008 2012 nevertheless there are great disparities in energy efficiencies between cities within a typical area and even a provincial region it is found that co2 emissions abatement cost in urban china exhibits an increasing trend during the study period also significantly geographic disparities in abatement costs between areas regions and cites are found specifically energy efficiency has significantly positive correlation with the comprehensive state index in china some important findings and useful policy implications are achieved

federalism as a commitment to reserving market incentives the authors advance a new perspective in the study of federalism their approach views federalism as a governance solution of the state to credibly preserving market incentives market incentives are preserved if the state is credibly prevented from compromising on future economic success and from bailing out future failures the salient features of federalism decentralization of information and authority and interjurisdictional competition help provide credible commitment or these purposes in addition the authors suggest that some federalism are self sustaining

a robust rational route to randomness in a simple asset pricing model abstract we investigate asset pricing dynamics in an adaptive evolutionary asset pricing model with fundamentalists trend followers and a market maker agents can choose between a fundamentalist strategy at positive information cost or choose a trend following strategy for free price adjustment is proportional to the excess demand in the asset market agents asynchronously update their strategy according to realized net profits in the recent past as agents become more sensitive to differences in strategy performance the fundamental steady state becomes unstable and multiple steady states may arise as the traders sensitivity to differences in fitness increases a bifurcation route to chaos sets in due to homoclinic bifurcations of stable and unstable manifolds of the fundamental steady state

the value of big data in servitization abstract servitization has become a pervasive business strategy among manufacturers enabling them to undergird their competitive advantage however it has at least one weakness while it is used worldwide also in economies with lower production costs services in manufacturing are slowly becoming commoditized and will become a necessary though not sufficient condition for reaching an above average competitive advantage consequently in this article we propose a new basis for competitive advantage for manufacturing enterprises called a big data strategy in servitization we scrutinize how manufacturers can exploit the opportunity arising from combined big data and servitization therefore the concept of a big data strategy framework in servitization is proposed the findings are benchmarked against established frameworks in the big data and servitization literature its impact on competitive advantage is assessed through three theoretical perspectives that increase the validity of the results the main finding is that through the proposed strategy new revenue streams can be created while opening the possibility to decrease prices for product services through the proposed strategy manufacturers can differentiate themselves from the ones that are already servitizing this article introduces the possibility of influencing the most important of the five vs in big data value in addition to the other four vs volume variety velocity and verification as in regards to servitization the article adds a third layer of added value information beside the two existing ones product and service the results have strategic implications for managers

the role of values in collaborative consumption insights from a product service system for lending and borrowing in the uk abstract collaborative consumption is an emerging socio economic model based on sharing renting gifting bartering swapping lending and borrowing made possible through community interaction and increasingly use of network technologies these alternative and more sustainable ways of consuming have attracted growing attention for their potential to prevent new purchases intensify the use of idle assets and promote reuse of possessions that are no longer wanted nonetheless the uptake of product service systems psss that enable collaborative consumption is still very limited this paper investigates how consumers values can influence the acceptance adoption and diffusion of collaborative consumption it reviews two theoretical frameworks used to understand pro environmental behaviour social psychological models of behaviour and social practice theory coming from contrasting disciplinary perspectives these approaches conceptualise values differently the paper evaluates the possibility of resolving these differences through a mixed methods study it examines values empirically through a case study of ecomodo a uk based online marketplace where people can lend and borrow each other s objects spaces and skills and present the results of a quantitative study which identified and measured value priorities among ecomodo users through schwartz s portrait value questionnaire it concludes with a discussion of the role of values in relation to the introduction and scaling up of psss that enable collaborative consumption

on the disequilibrium dynamics of sequential monetary economies the purpose of this paper is to study the dynamic behavior of a sequential monetary exchange economy transactions take place sequentially against non equilibrium prices there is quantity rationing and credit or cash are the only means of exchange agents have optimistic or pessimistic expectations about quantity constraints that represent their beliefs about future trading opportunities in the credit model the agents incur debts along the transition path towards equilibrium while in the cash in advance model convergence takes place without the occurrence of any debts or claims the credit mechanism is shown to act as a soft correction mechanism on credit fluctuations while the cash in advance constraint acts as a hard negative feedback effect driving the prices back towards a neighborhood of a monetary cash in advance equilibrium

marginal abatement costs of co2 emission reductions geographical flexibility and concrete ceilings an assessment using the poles model abstract the kyoto protocol envisage the setting up of flexibility mechanisms allowing annex b countries to fulfil their commitments to reducing greenhouse gases with respect for the principle of economic efficiency the current negotiations relate in particular to the possibility of setting up a system of tradable emissions permits for annex b countries and also of introducing ceilings to trade this paper analyses the stakes and economic potential of adopting this instrument both for those countries that made commitments in kyoto and for developing countries it is based on a formal approach that allows for a consistent framework of analysis the emission permit market is in fact simulated on the basis of a reference scenario and of marginal abatement cost curves and estimated by the poles model after analysing these marginal abatement cost curves and comparing them with those produced by other models we explore two different configurations for a competitive market a market limited to the annex b countries and a world market the results produced by the model show that widening the market to include developing countries is more effective than the annex b market solution it reduces the cost of implementing kyoto for oecd countries and at the same time allows the countries of the south to benefit from selling the permits this research also shows that introducing restrictions on exchanges for annex b countries could have a counter productive redistribution effect with the ethical argument that underlies that particular measure

decomposition of the environmental inefficiency of the meta frontier with undesirable output abstract in this paper we present an alternative analysis framework to evaluate the effects of technology heterogeneities and undesirable output on environmental efficiency measurement the proposed framework combines the directional distance function and a meta frontier analysis it can be used to measure efficiency improvements brought about by enhanced technical management and technological advances for demonstration purposes we used the framework to measure the environmental efficiency in 90 countries worldwide for the 2003 2007 period the results showed that when the meta technology set is used as the evaluation basis the average environmental efficiency of high competitiveness countries is greater than that of lower middle low and upper middle competitiveness countries the upper middle competitiveness countries perform worse than the lower middle and low competitiveness countries because of the excessive labor force usage and carbon dioxide emissions in these countries we also found that the environmental inefficiency of the meta frontier for high competitiveness countries can be attributed to managerial failure in the production process whereas that for upper middle lower middle and low competitiveness countries can be attributed to technological differences

phase i completed an empirical assessment of the 1990 caaa with the conclusion of phase i trading of so2 allowances the epa declared the allowance trading policy to be a success the time had come to include cap and trade programs in the arsenal of effective policy tools in terms of reducing atmospheric emissions of sulfur dioxide the program appears to be successful it is not clear however whether or not the program has minimized the cost of achieving the emission reductions the measure of the true success of a market based incentive program however has yetto be quantified has the program resulted in converging marginalabatement costs across participant plants in this study i report theshadow prices of phase i power plants from 1994 to 1998 anddetermine that there are more costs to be saved within theambitious public policy experiment

strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization sustainable development refers to an economic environmental and social development that meets the needs of the present and does not prevent future generations from fulfilling their needs in this context businesses play an important role however progress towards sustainable development has been slow indicating the need for more concrete guidance that will allow businesses to act strategically and successfully in a sustainable way this theoretical paper connects three distinct but complementary dimensions of strategic management as viewed from the perspective of sustainability in order to encourage the integration of sustainability issues into corporate activities and strategies these three dimensions are strategy process strategy content and strategy context sixteen propositions related to these dimensions have been developed to explore the contributions of corporate sustainability management to the creation of value for businesses society and nature this theoretical discussion contributes to existing research in that it reveals relationships between strategic management and sustainable development and provides an agenda for further empirical research

water pollution abatement by chinese industry cost estimates and policy implications using factory level data provided by china s national environmental protection agency and the tianjin environmental protection bureau the authors of this report estimate the costs of water pollution abatement for chinese industry using their econometric results they analyze the cost effectiveness of current pollution control policy in china and make the conclusions that follow 1 for each pollutant marginal abatement costs exhibit great differences by sector scale and degree of abatement 2 the benefits of stricter discharge standards should be weighed carefully against the costs 3 emissions charges as low as 1 per ton would be sufficient to induce 80 percent abatement of suspended solids chemical oxygen demand and biological oxygen demand respectively 4 the current regulatory system provides an economic incentive to abate by charging a levy on pollution that exceeds the standard the results of this analysis suggest however that changing to a full emissions charge system would greatly reduce overall abatement costs the approach the authors recommend for measuring the costs of abatement is to use joint abatement cost functions that relate total costs to treatment volume and the simultaneous effect of reductions in suspended solids chemical oxygen demand biological oxygen demand and other pollutants tests of alternative functional forms suggest that a simple constant elasticity model fits the data as well as a complex translog model does permitting sophisticated policy experiments with relatively simple calculations

examining the influencing factors of co2 emissions at city level via panel quantile regression evidence from 102 chinese cities ascertaining the influencing factors of carbon dioxide emissions in chinese cities is an important issue for policy makers this paper investigates the effect of several determinants on carbon emis

statistical dynamics and walras law abstract much interest has been shown on identifying the chaotic behavior generated from t tonnement process recently the aim of this article is to direct the research in exploring its statistical dynamical properties two typical types of ergodic t tonnement processes restricted t tonnement and unrestricted t tonnement have been studied their long run statistical characteristics such as time average of price excess demand and inflation rate are discussed in theory and by computer simulations

on the transition from local regular to global irregular fluctuations abstract we present a general framework for understanding the transition from local regular to global irregular chaotic behaviour of nonlinear dynamical models in discrete time the fundamental mechanism is the unfolding of quadratic tangencies between the stable and the unstable manifolds of periodic saddle points to illustrate the relevance of the presented methods for analysing globally a class of dynamic economic models we apply them to the infinite horizon model of woodford 1988 j economic theory 40 128 137 amended by grandmont et al 1998 j economic theory 80 to account for capital labour substitution so as to explain the appearance of irregular fluctuations through homoclinic bifurcations when parameter values are far away from local bifurcation points

disaggregating energy use cap among china s provinces the 2015 paris climate change negotiations represents the most ambitious worldwide effort to date to combat climate change as the largest energy consumer and carbon emitter china pledges 60 65 cut in carbon intensity below 2005 levels by 2030 to accelerate china s climate efforts china has also committed to cap its primary energy use at 4 8 billion tons of coal equivalent in 2020 this paper proposes an equitable and efficient scheme to disaggregate this national goal among provinces a three step disaggregation procedure is proposed which takes into account the initial allocation national redistribution and inter provincial adjustment first this study allocates the incremental energy quota taking 2010 as the base year second part of the energy quota is set aside by the central government for redistribution purposes while an incremental energy quota index comprising equity and efficiency criteria is used for initial allocation among provinces finally historical efforts and inter provincial energy flows are considered for inter provincial adjustment this disaggregation scheme is flexible and can be easily extended to allocation and management of other resource and environmental targets the empirical findings can assist decision makers in identifying which provinces are likely to over consume the energy quota relative to the proposed allocation and which provinces are likely to perform better in energy conservation moreover the results show that the energy cap set for 2020 is unachievable without further action market based instruments such as an energy allowance trading market are strongly recommended to achieve the energy use target in an equitable and cost effective manner

stability and complex dynamics in a discrete tâtonnement model abstract in this paper we study the dynamics of discrete price adjustment processes we show that gross substitutability leads to a kind of stability of the process it guarantees that all prices converge to some bounded region that contains the unique equilibrium price the dynamics inside this region is by no means trivial we demonstrate that as the speed of adjustment increases the process undergoes several bifurcations and the dynamics may become quite complex our approach differs from other literature on t tonnement processes in that our systems are not necessarily one dimensional

a discrete and symmetric price adjustment process on the simplex abstract we study the t tonnement process in an exchange economy with three commodities and three agents we argue that for the multiplicative t tonnement process the simplex is a natural normalization rule we analyse the influence of symmetry in preferences and endowments on the dynamics of the t tonnement process depending on this symmetry there are different bifurcation routes to chaos in particular coexisting attractors may emerge when the symmetric equilibrium price vector becomes unstable this coexistence of attractors is robust in the sense that it also exists for close by asymmetric t tonnement processes

estimating the effect of urban density on fuel demand much of the empirical literature on fuel demand presents estimates derived from national data which do not permit any explicit consideration of the spatial structure of the economy intuitively we would expect the degree of spatial concentration of activities to have a strong link with transport fuel consumption the present paper addresses this theme by estimating a fuel demand model for urban areas to provide a direct estimate of the elasticity of demand with respect to urban density fuel demand per capita is decomposed into car stock per capita fuel consumption per kilometre and annual distance driven per car per year urban density is found to affect fuel consumption mostly through variations in the car stock and in the distances travelled rather than through fuel consumption per kilometre

the shadow prices of co2 and so2 for chinese coal fired power plants a partial frontier approach abstract shadow prices are widely employed in guiding environmental policies this paper contributes to the literature by developing a novel partial frontier approach for estimating shadow prices the proposed method is advanced in handling outliers and provides a precise estimation of the marginal rate of substitution along the production frontier to cope with the different disposability characteristics of undesirable emissions so2 is treated as an environmental input that is strongly disposable because most different undesirable outputs are jointly reduced this study is the first to use directional derivatives instead of partial derivatives and proposes a new separation method that separates individual directional shadow price from the cost of joint reduction of multiple undesirable outputs we apply the proposed method to a sample of 93 coal fired power plants covering six years the estimated average shadow prices of co2 and so2 are 69 tonne and 2525 tonne under the newly developed partial frontiers when assuming some undesirable output to be strongly disposable both shadow prices fall 20 32 tonne and 1018 23 tonne the present paper suggests the estimated shadow prices will be much different across different levels of disposability the cost of joint reduction is calculated as 91 05 unit given the current production level which leads to a directional shadow price for the two undesirable outputs of 91 32 tonne and 1250 06 tonne the estimated shadow prices for both undesirable outputs dispersed widely under the partial frontiers spatial distribution of estimated shadow prices shows that coastal provinces and municipalities have higher co2 shadow prices but lower so2 shadow prices whereas the northeast provinces are the opposite the co2 shadow price is comparatively stable over the study period while the so2 shadow price fluctuates policy implications are discussed

receptivity to the production of product service systems in the uk construction and manufacturing sectors a comparative analysis abstract trajectories of service innovations emanating from manufacturing sectors have been of particular interest to those wishing to improve resource productivity and promote sustainable development research has focused on product service systems psss which are a category of service innovations deliberately designed to offer superior environmental performance this paper draws on research which explored whether trajectories of pss can be induced on new uk housing developments to satisfy household demand and prevent household waste the research was undertaken with a uk speculative house builder and facilities management service providers from its supplier network qualitative data were collected via interviews and focus groups to enable rich accounts of the range of factors in these firms selection environments which affect receptivity to pss production to be developed these were compared with factors affecting receptivity to pss production identified in a study of uk manufacturers the results show that in contrast to the manufacturing study clear drivers for pss delivery on new housing developments are absent in external selection environments of participating firms and uncertainty associated with the potential of pss concepts to satisfy household demand inhibits development of requisite competence for pss delivery within these thus further research is needed to explore new pss supply arrangements involving a range of household service providers

is the lithuanian economy approaching the goals of sustainable energy and climate change mitigation evidence from dea based environmental performance index abstract even though lithuania has seen extensive social and political transformations there is still a gap in the literature on environmental performance of lithuanian economy specifically the environmental pressures stemming from economic activities have never been analysed in lines with the principles of production economics this paper therefore aims to estimate the environmental performance index epi for lithuanian economic sectors the paper presents the underlying trends in greenhouse gas emissions in lithuania the environmental performance index is estimated by employing the data envelopment analysis in the spirit of the hicks moorsteen indices the present analysis is based on the data from the world input output database specifically the environmental technology is defined in terms of the value added carbon and nitrous oxide emissions labour capital and energy results of the analysis imply that the analysed economic sectors can be grouped into the four clusters with respect to the mean epi and its rate of growth pulp paper and agricultural sectors fall into the best performing group featuring the highest mean epi and the highest growth rate petroleum production and air transport sectors are those featuring the lowest environmental performance therefore the latter sectors should be given an especial importance when developing strategies for increase in sustainability

statistical dynamics and economics abstract it is shown in this paper how complex economic dynamics can be characterized using the statistical or distributional theory of dynamical systems the basic concepts of the latter are summarized then applications to supply and demand adjustments in competitive markets aggregate business fluctuations and economic growth in the very long run are briefly reviewed

equity efficiency trade off in china s energy capping policy abstract as a part of the transition to a sustainable economy china has set a cap on primary energy consumption for the first time of 5 0 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent by 2020 however there is a debate on the cap feasibility and failure to adequately address the underlying equity efficiency trade off which hampers achievement this paper identifies some key challenges ahead including the coal dominant energy mix declining financial support inconsistent central local goals rising costs of energy saving measures and quality of energy statistical data by quantifying the preference of each providence toward equity based or efficiency based allocation schemes the great disparity among provinces is revealed and the equity efficiency trade off relationship is confirmed developing regions primarily located in central and western areas tend to favor equity based disaggregating schemes contrarily developed coastal provinces strongly favor efficiency based schemes the present national disaggregation schemes are mainly based on historical energy consumption but disregard the provincial development gap and efficiency factors we conclude that this ambitious goal is likely within reach but increased efforts and flexible instruments are needed

abatement costs of emissions from burning maize straw in major maize regions of china balancing food security with the environment abstract this paper estimates the shadow price of co2 from burning maize straw in the chinese agricultural sector and explores the related policy implications for decision makers using a quadratic directional distance function we evaluate the production inefficiency and shadow prices of co2 reduction for the seven major maize producing provinces in china for 1996 2014 in general the efficiency improves over time shandong province ranked as the top one with full efficiency considering both economic and environmental impacts as of 2014 the mean shadow price for the co2 emission was 0 45 yuan kg us 75 t whereas the province specific shadow prices varied within the interval bounded by 0 and 0 913 yuan ha us 152 t the marginal abatement cost curve was downward sloped and indicated the need for curbing co2 emission in areas exhibiting the highest pollution rates given the marginal abatement cost patterns the transaction costs associated with implementation of the conservation practices tillage should not exceed 335 yuan ha in order to ensure the welfare gains this government provided payment would compensate farmers for yield reductions in favor of implementing conservation practices that would substantially reduce co2 emissions

integrative re use systems as innovative business models for devising sustainable product service systems re use implies recovering items from the waste stream to use them in identical or similar processes mostly at consumer level currently re use is restricted to niches but by 2020 the european commission wants to mainstream re use as a waste management option to increase resource efficiency ecologically oriented work integration social enterprises focussing on re use re use eco wises might help accomplish as they not only intend to re integrate marginalised people into the labour market but provide comprehensive re use services e g repair and thus constitute a novel kind of sustainable product service system spss this paper contributes to a scientific framework for re use eco wises by linking existing theoretical knowledge on spss to novel knowledge from three cases representing the variety of re use eco wises in austria for analysis we use the so called business model canvas adding a comprehensive stakeholder consideration results show that re use eco wises contribute to all three dimensions of sustainability by helping reduce waste and increasing resource productivity and by providing jobs and affordable goods for disadvantaged people full implementation however will need additional efforts from all stakeholders involved including the eco wises themselves but also public authorities and society at large

product services as a research field past present and future reflections from a decade of research in the last decade many researchers institutes and programs in the eu paid attention to product service systems pss given this massive effort it is time to take stock is pss research a theoretical field in its own right is the pss concept indeed the road to the factor 10 world is it the road to enhanced competitiveness what is needed to really use the potential of the concept this paper discusses these questions summarizing the analysis done in the pss review book new business for old europe various eu sponsored projects and the conceptual approach chosen in a new research network on sustainable consumption and production called score 2006 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the applicability of marginal abatement cost approach a comprehensive review abstract the marginal abatement cost mac methodology is widely used in climate change policies policy makers rely on mac to assess feasible strategies and related costs to achieve emission reduction goals this paper introduces a variety of mac methodologies aiming at solving diverse problems which utilizes various calculable logic thus producing different results and implications this study applies a mind mapping method to capture differentiation of mac methods and systematically classify mac methodologies the applicability path analysis was proposed based on principles such as stakeholder type decision making objectives cost concept strategy mode and information scope our goal is to assess the applicability of different methodologies to reduce misuse by policy makers and to serve as a guide for subsequent research which might prompt and lead to the derivation of more consequential results in future studies the results of this study suggest that the complex method is not always better than the simplified method because policy makers are required to select the appropriate method according to the type of information needed it may even be suggested that mac could be reliable by ranking relative value of options compared with baseline rather than focusing on the absolute value of individual measures

measuring environmental efficiency of industry a case study of thermal power generation in india technical and environmental efficiency of some coal fired thermal power plants in india is estimated using a methodology that accounts for firm s efforts to increase the production of good output and reduce pollution with the given resources and technology the methodology used is directional output distance function estimates of firm specific shadow prices of pollutants bad outputs and elasticity of substitution between good and bad outputs are also obtained the technical and environmental inefficiency of a representative firm is estimated as 0 06 implying that the thermal power generating industry in andhra pradesh state of india could increase production of electricity by 6 while decreasing generation of pollution by 6 this result shows that there are incentives or win win opportunities for the firms to voluntarily comply with the environmental regulation it is found that there is a significant variation in marginal cost of pollution abatement or shadow prices of bad outputs across the firms and an increasing marginal cost of pollution abatement with respect to pollution reduction by the firms this result calls for the use of economic instruments like pollution taxes instead of command and control regulation used currently in india to reduce air pollution

sustainable development in a post brundtland world not yet two decades after the publication of our common future the world s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly nonetheless we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development sd as guiding institutional principle as concrete policy goal and as focus of political struggle remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global order yet how sd is conceptualized and practiced hinges crucially on the willingness of scholars and practitioners to embrace a plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of development and efforts to open up a continuum of local to global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability embracing pluralism provides a way out of the ideological and epistemological straightjackets that deter more cohesive and politically effective interpretations of sd using pluralism as a starting point for the analysis and normative construction of sustainable development we pay particular attention to how an amalgam of ideas from recent work in ecological economics political ecology and the development as freedom literature might advance the sd debate beyond its post brundtland quagmire enhanced levels of ecological degradation vast inequalities in economic opportunities both within and across societies and a fractured set of institutional arrangements for global environmental governance all represent seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a move towards sustainability while these obstacles are significant we suggest how they might be overcome through a reinvigorated set of notions and practices associated with sustainable development one that explicitly examines the linkages between sustainability policies and sustainability politics

demand pull government policies to support product service system activity the case of energy service companies escos in the uk product service systems psss constitute a family of service based business models designed to satisfy our societal needs in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner to date however pss application has remained niche due to a variety of critical barriers this paper explores how demand pull national government policies could support pss activity by addressing these barriers and cultivating market demand lessons are drawn from a case study of how regulatory economic incentive informative and procurement policies have supported energy service company esco activity in the uk a sub set of the pss family focused on energy service provision subsequently five policy recommendations are presented to support pss activity 1 balancing economic incentives and regulatory disincentives 2 promoting indirect policy support 3 redesigning existing market structures 4 promoting locally led pss activity and 5 creating stable policy frameworks the paper warns however that national government policy cannot easily address all pss barriers such as customer preferences international developments technological progress and inherent business model weaknesses pointing to the need for other complementary solutions furthermore other governance actors beside national government could also implement pss supporting policies

the cost of air pollution abatement using data from the u s census bureau the authors have developed comprehensive estimates of pollution abatement costs by industry sector for several major air pollutants their results provide conservative benchmarks for benefit cost analysis of pollution control strategies in developing countries they also provide striking evidence of inefficiency in u s command and control regulation the cost estimates reflect the experience of about 100 000 u s manufacturing facilities under actual operating conditions they are based on a complete accounting of costs including capital labor energy materials and services so they should be more useful for benefit cost analysis than idealized engineering estimates but they also reflect strict pollution control regulation and input prices which are probably somewhat higher on average than those in developing countries they should be interpreted as conservative estimates for environmental planning in developing countries regulatory options that are judged to have high net benefits using these numbers would probably look even better if local abatement cost data were available the estimates in this paper can provide useful information for pollution charges they can also help make targeted regulation more cost effective with scarce resources for monitoring and enforcement new regulatory institutions in developing countries will want to focus initially on industry sectors that are the main sources of locally dangerous pollutants after those sectors are identified targeted regulation should be informed by sectoral differences in abatement cost the estimates suggest for example that cost effective control of suspended particulate emissions will focus on wood pulping rather than steelmaking when both are major sources of suspended particulates the reason average particulate abatement costs are four times higher in steelmaking

estimation and allocation of cost savings from collaborative co2 abatement in china abstract as an increasingly accepted way of relieving global warming collaborative carbon dioxide co2 abatement could improve not only emission performance but also cost effectiveness of abatement in this study we analyze the cost savings and benefits of collaborative abatement in the context of china by using data envelopment analysis dea approach specifically we establish 63 collaborative abatement scenarios by dividing the mainland china into six main regions and then estimate the costs savings in each collaboration abatement scenario through investigating the gains for each region in various scenarios the best collaborative partners for each region are suggested from perspectives of benefit maximization furthermore the contribution of each region to collaborative abatement cost saving is also differentiated with the shapley value approach

the role of policy labels keywords and framing in transitioning waste policy abstract the last decade has seen a new wave of ambitious policies in order to address the mounting ecological damage caused by high levels of consumerism and the depletion of resources to manufacture short life cycle products in this paper zero waste and sustainable materials management are examined as prominent labels of an evolving waste policy discourse towards waste prevention and reduction and material cycles using discourse analysis key documents are comparatively assessed presenting the origins of these two concepts and how they entered the waste policy domain the different framing tactics and governance models are then presented the findings demonstrate that the different discourse paradigms around the concept of waste and materials influences what policy initiatives measurement tools and outcomes are pursued although zero waste and sustainable materials management are gaining popularity as indicators of shifting waste policy towards sustainable production and consumption policy particularly with increasing discussion and application of circular economy governance models in europe and china a distinction still exists between the conceptualisation and implementation within and across the two concepts it is in this transition towards a circular economy that it is valuable to review the role of policy labels keywords and framing context in waste policy and the ability of enhanced waste management to assist in the development of more sustainable and environmentally acceptable economic and social behaviour models

a critical review of distance function based economic research on china s marginal abatement cost of carbon dioxide emissions abstract the last few years have witnessed a rapidly emerging literature estimating the marginal abatement cost or the shadow price of carbon dioxide co2 emissions in china using parametric or non parametric distance function approaches this is largely driven by the fact that china has become the world s largest carbon emitter and thus faced mounting domestic and international pressure to mitigate emissions there is an urgent policy need to model and predict the cost burdens of various mitigation scenarios consistent information about the marginal abatement cost of co2 emissions plays a crucial role in addressing this need however the existing literature has suffered from various issues that have severely weakened the scientific support that these studies could potentially provide for sound policy making this paper provides a thorough and critical review of this rapidly emerging literature and identifies important research directions that need the most attention from scholars

multiple equilibria and chaos in a discrete tâtonnement process the purpose of this note is to demonstrate a sufficient condition for a discrete t tonnement process to lead to chaos in a general equilibrium model with multiple commodities the result indicates that as the speed of price adjustment increases the discrete t tonnement process is complex in a general equilibrium economy in which there are multiple equilibria

marginal abatement cost air pollution and economic growth evidence from chinese cities abstract the directional distance function ddf with multiple bad outputs allows estimation of conditional marginal abatement cost mac that would be more informative than the unconditional mac estimated with a single pollutant applying a multi pollutant parametric output ddf approach we estimate the macs of co2 so2 and nox emissions for 105 chinese cities in 2006 2014 it is found that the period medians of the macs for the three emissions all increase over time while the medians of the macs for different cities tend to vary significantly a goodness of fit criterion is developed and used to evaluate the fit of alternative models which demonstrates the superiority of the multi pollutant model we have also shown that there exists a positive relationship between mac and economic growth finally several policy implications are suggested for reducing the overall emission abatement costs of china

market clearing and price formation abstract considered here is decentralized exchange of privately owned commodity bundles voluntary transactions take the form of repeated bilateral barters under broad and reasonable hypotheses the resulting process converges to competitive equilibrium price taking behavior is not assumed prices emerge over time they need neither be anticipated nor known at any interim stage

will regional economic integration influence carbon dioxide marginal abatement costs evidence from chinese panel data with frequent trade and technology diffusion the barriers between regions are gradually weakening and regions have become more integrated over recent years regional economic integration not only stimulates labour mobility but also achieve scale economy both of which may also influence carbon dioxide co2 marginal abatement costs through affecting energy consumption co2 emissions productivity growth and technical progress nevertheless to the best of our knowledge none of the studies has currently concerned the influence of regional economic integration on co2 marginal abatement costs to fill this research gap this study first theoretically clarifies the influence mechanism of regional economic integration on co2 marginal abatement cost and then empirically attempts to investigate their relationship in the context of china with panel data models to serve this purpose the provincial co2 marginal abatement cost and regional economic integration are estimated by parametric directional distance function and price based approach respectively the results show that china s regional economic integration level indeed gradually improved over 2002 2011 except in 2003 04 and 2006 09 due to the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome sars and the sub prime loan crisis moreover evolution of regional economic integration indeed contributes to the increase of co2 marginal abatement cost at 5 significance level using robust tests it can be found that the results are also reliable and robust to sub samples