Mangrove conservation in relation to overall environmental considerations

The role of mangroves, as nursery and feeding areas, in the enrichment of coastal waters, in the stabilization of the shoreline, and in trapping silt and wastes from upland runoff, is repeatedly being threatened by suggestions for reclamation, whether for aquaculture, agriculture, or development projects. Proposals for such alternatives should only be judged after taking into account the environmental subsidies involved, and possible losses in energy transformation steps. Assurance is needed that renewable resources and other environmental capital will not be sacrificed.Postal address: P.O. Box 1056, St. Michaels, MD 21663, USA     

Corporate environmental performance,environmental information disclosure,and financial performance: Evidence from China

As pollution emitters and energy users, firms are important causes of environmental problems, making it increasingly vital for them to strengthen their environmental management and information disclosure policies. However, firms doubt whether it pays to be green and whether it is worthwhile to disclose their environmental information, and there are hot debates on these questions in the literature. This paper analyzes the relationships among corporate environmental performance, environmental information disclosure, and financial performance in China, which witnessed rapid growth at the price of environmental degradation. With 950 observations from 475 Chinese listed companies between 2013 and 2014, we find a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental disclosure, an insignificant relationship between environmental performance and financial performance, and a negative relationship between environmental disclosure and financial performance, which is different from most findings in developed countries. The aforementioned results imply that Chinese firms have few motivations to disclose environmental information or improve environmental performance; therefore, mandatory disclosure of environmental information is necessary, and proper environmental policy should be made to punish environmental violations and encourage better environmental performance.     

中国生态工业园区发展的环境绩效指数构建方法

运用多目标排序方法构建了中国生态工业园区发展环境绩效指数,以量化比较生态工业园区间的环境绩效。首先基于《综合类生态工业园区标准》筛选构建环境绩效评价指标体系,包括经济发展、资源能源消耗、污染排放3个准则层;其次应用标准化方法和正态分布的累积分布函数NORMDIST依次对各项指标原始数据进行2次数据处理;最后准则层、指标层均等权重进行归一化得到环境绩效指数。应用所构建的环境绩效指数方法以2010年为基准年,分析了24家综合类国家生态工业示范园区的绩效,并将《综合类生态工业园区标准》作为虚拟的\"标准园区\"进行比较。分析了环境绩效指数的影响因素,并基于环境绩效指数方法对中国生态工业示范园区发展的管理决策提出了建议。     

城市绿地供需的差异与联系研究进展

作为连接城市绿地与居民需求的重要概念,绿地供需是城市绿地研究和规划决策的重要内容.识别城市绿地供给与需求的区别和关联,有助于城市绿地合理配置、人类福祉提升和城市的可持续发展.本文梳理2016-2020年城市绿地供需研究的主要议题和研究模式,探讨不同议题的差异与联系,并对未来城市绿地供需关系研究提出建议.综述发现,多数研...     

Relationship Between Top Executives’ Characteristics and Corporate Environmental Responsibility: Evidence from China

This article examines the relationship between biographical characteristics of top executives and the level of corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) for Chinese-listed companies based on the upper echelons theory. Some interesting findings appear. Using a sample of 871 manufacturing companies having data of EID, we find that under the current situations such as the lack of external pressures on environmental protection, especially from the government, top executives may have the same attitude toward EID, focusing companies on economic goals rather than taking environmental responsibility seriously. This suggests that strengthening environmental supervision and stricter and more specific environmental controls for disclosure are in urgent need in China.     

生态创新的最新研究进展与述评

生态创新是实现可持续发展的重要方式.它具有“知识溢出”和“环保溢出”双重正外部性,受到了理论和实践界的广泛关注.为了系统把握生态创新的研究现状,本研究梳理了国外近10年生态创新的相关文献,对生态创新的内涵、特性与维度构成进行了系统的回顾,围绕制度理论、利益相关者理论、资源基础观理论等剖析了生态创新的驱动因素;重点探究了生态创新对企业财务绩效的正向和负向影响,以及生态创新影响财务绩效的中介和调节机理.最后,结合现有研究的不足,提出了未来研究展望.     

Human rights and the environment

This issue of Human Ecologyfocuses on the interrelated nature of crisis in human and environmental systems and argues that the right to a healthy environment is a fundamental human right. In this article I present a conceptual framework for the human rights and environment special issue, followed by a brief review of significant insights offered by each contributor. Collectively the cases presented in this issue explore connections between international and national policy, government action or sanctioned action, and human environmental crises. Cultural notions are seen to play a key role in influencing social relations, legitimizing power relations, and justifying the production and reproduction of human environmental crises. And finally, these cases explore the ways in which political, economic, and cultural forces influence and at times inhibit efforts to respond to human environmental crises.     

Using BEES to select cost-effective green products

The BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) software brings to your fingertips a powerful technique for balancing the environmental and economic performance of building products. The tool is based on consensus standards and designed to be practical, flexible, and transparent. Version 2.0 of the Windows™-based decision support software, aimed at designers, builders, and product manufacturers, includes actual environmental and economic performance data for 65 building products. The purpose is to support purchasing decisions by providing key science-based information often lacking in ‘green’ product selection. The intended result is a cost-effective reduction in building-related contributions to environmental problems. Contribution of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and not subject to copyright in the United States. NIST does not endorse any particular brand, product, or service.     

Does civil environmental protection force the growth of China's industrial green productivity? Evidence from the perspective of rent-seeking

Based on the decision analysis of heterogeneous enterprise between green technology innovation and rent-seeking, this paper formulates the Hybrid-Luenberger index considering undesirable outputs and studies difference in the response of regional industrial green productivity to civil environmental protection. Empirical study on China's regional industrial data from 1997 to 2011 shows that: (1) Compared with the intensity of environmental pollution and other passive environmental protection incentives, the public are more sensitive to per capita income level, education quality, health concern and other rational environmental protection incentives. (2) The increase in the civil environmental protection effect promotes the industrial green technology innovation, while the rent-seeking activities have a significant negative effect on green productivity. (3) The civil environmental protection of the eastern coastal area has more significant effect on the industrial green productivity compared with that of the central and western inland area. (4) As the quantile of the industrial green productivity increases from the low point to high level, the positive effects of the civil environmental protection on the industrial green productivity turn to be more significant, and the rational environmental protection have positive and negative effects on high and low quantile of the industrial green productivity, respectively, which proves that the “Potter Hypothesis” can only be established on the condition that producers are approaching to the technology frontier.     

Methodological Reflections on the Use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science in Human Ecological Research

Environmental analysts increasingly utilize remote sensing (RS) and geographic information science (GIS) techniques to study the relationship between human societies and their biophysical environment. This paper considers the influence these techniques have had on environmental research. Using the case of the Sahel, the paper first relates contemporary applications of RS/GIS to the history of the environmental scientific practice in the region. While facilitating an expansion of spatiotemporal scales, applications of these new techniques continue the methodological failings of the past by relying on visual measures of environmental change and problematic indicators of human land-use pressures. The human ecology fields (human, cultural, and political ecologies), by emphasizing the causal connections between local management and environmental change, can address the problems inherent with the spatial analytical turn in environmental science. Using the author's experience with the use of GIS in a political ecology study of grazing management in western Niger, ways of more closely integrating RS/GIS techniques into human ecological research are discussed.     

绿色基础设施研究进展

综述了绿色基础设施的起源发展,总结了推动其概念形成的发展脉络,分别是人居环境视角、生态保护视角和绿色技术视角。提出了绿色基础设施在空间、功能、要素上的内涵,阐述了它与生态系统服务的外延关系。通过文献研究,综述了绿色基础设施在气候变化、人体健康、空气质量、雨洪管理、公众认知和社区参与、评价研究等领域的国际研究进展。结合我国绿色基础设施的研究现状和问题进行评述,并对未来发展提出展望。