This book shows how specifically each goal of Sustainable Development Goals could be incorporated in country wise developmental programmes set to transform the world. It highlights how a combination of initiatives on mitigation of disasters and a robust progress could build a resilient society. The book discusses multidimensional processes such as administrative, financial and social challenges which can mitigate disasters and help in an advancement towards SDG Goals. It highlights the embeddedness of SDGs in disaster mitigation as they tend to be linked and interdependent. By linking sustainable development to disaster mitigation one gets a strong justification for investment into preparedness as a guarantee or insurance against loss and damages due to unforeseen disasters.

This book gathers invited top experts on Public-Private partnership (PPP) in China, from both theoretical and practical fields, to present the most comprehensive analyses of PPP's practice in China up to 2017. This timely book offers researchers and practitioners a thorough understanding of the PPP's development in China, including its definition, its modes, its features as well as its many kinds of applications into different industries including medical care, environmental protection, education, public works, park development, etc. It addresses diverse themes in PPP analyses such as quantitative analyses and qualitative analyses; data statistics and case study, theoretical framework modeling and field study verification. The book is an overview of the Chinese PPP development through 2017.

This book tackles the ethical problems of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" (4IR) and offers readers an overview of the ethical challenges connected to Artificial Intelligence (AI), encryption and the finance industry. It specifically focuses on the situation of females in these industries, from women lawyers, judges, attorneys-at-law, investors and bankers, to portfolio managers, solicitors and civil servants. As the 4IR is more than "just" a technology-driven transformation, this book is a call to policymakers and business leaders to harness new technologies in order to create a more inclusive, human-centered future. It offers many practical cases of proactive change agents, and offers solutions to the ethical challenges in connection with implementing revolutionary disruptive products that often eliminate the intermediary. In addition, the book addresses sustainable finance in startups. In this context, education, training, agility and life-long learning in financial literacy are some of the key solutions highlighted here. The respective contributors supply a diverse range of perspectives, so as to promote a multi-stakeholder approach.

This book assesses the construction of security in the context of climate change, with a focus on the Arctic region. It examines and discusses changes in the security premises of the Arctic states, from traditional security to environmental and human security. In particular, the book explores how climate change impacts security discourses and premises as well as theoretically discussing the possibility for another change, from circumpolar stability into peaceful change. Chapters cover topics such as the ethics of climate change in the arctic, China's emerging power and influence on arctic climate security, the discursive transformation of the definition of security and the intersection between urban, climate and Arctic studies. The book concludes with the question of whether a paradigm shift in our understanding of traditional security is possible, and whether it is already occurring in the Arctic.

This book discusses how systems thinking and approaches can aid management consultants in navigating the complexities of client advisory in current realities. It thereby brings to the forefront aspects of holism, flexibility and responsibility - the keys to success in today's world. Management consultants are called in to offer an independent expert view of an organisation/ a situation and are expected to address some of the most pressing problems businesses face. The client does not exist in a silo, but in a complex environment that lies at the intersection of a range of internal and external factors that are often unseen and unpredictable. The organisation itself presents an alien territory that the consultant is expected to acclimatise to within a very short period of time, and come up with solutions that "insiders" would not have been able to visualise. The book presents a range of ideas, concepts and reference cases that are relevant and topical for consultants in their daily work. It argues that systems thinking allows holism and flexibility in management consulting - while holism is about the ability to encompass the environmental and organisational complexity, flexibility is about the ability to think creatively and adopt different approaches to accommodate this complexity. With commentaries, case studies, conceptual models and perspectives that cut across multiple industries, sectors and countries, this book is a valuable resource for academics and professionals alike. The book's inner pages and its page on Springer.com contain additional comments providing perspectives of clients, industry experts and academia.

This book introduces readers to the press release work carried out by China's Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2017. The routine press release work in 2017 was first launched by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). In 2017, 12 directors of the MEP and three directors of the Environmental Protection Department of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Tribune came together to answer citizens' questions on key social issues such as Environmental Quality Monitoring, Prevention of Air Pollution, Ecosystem Protection, Water Pollution Prevention, Environmental Supervision, Legal Enforcement etc. This book will provide readers with an overview of China's environmental protection policy initiatives, help raise public awareness of the environment, and lay the foundation for all citizens to participate in environmental governance.

North and South America share similar human and ecological histories and, increasingly, economic and social linkages. As such, issues of ecosystem functions and disruptions form a common thread among these cultures. This volume synthesizes the perspectives of several disciplines, such as ecology, anthropology, economy, and conservation biology. The chief goal is to gain an understanding of how human and ecological processes interact to affect ecosystem functions and species in the Americas. Throughout the text the emphasis is placed on habitat fragmentation. At the same time, the book provides an overview of current theory, methods, and approaches used in the analysis of ecosystem disruptions and fragmentation.

The history-making, ground-breaking speeches of Greta Thunberg, the young activist who has become the voice of a generation 'Everything needs to change. And it has to start today' In August 2018 a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, decided not to go to school one day. Her actions ended up sparking a global movement for action against the climate crisis, inspiring millions of pupils to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. This book brings you Greta in her own words, for the first time. Collecting her speeches that have made history across Europe, from the UN to mass street protests, No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. Our future depends upon it.

Contends that effective biological conservation and social justice must go hand in hand. How can the international conservation movement protect biological diversity, while at the same time safeguarding the rights and fulfilling the needs of people, particularly the poor? Contested Nature argues that to be successful in the long-term, social justice and biological conservation must go hand in hand. The protection of nature is a complex social enterprise, and much more a process of politics, and of human organization, than ecology. Although this political complexity is recognized by practitioners, it rarely enters into the problem analyses that inform conservation policy. Structured around conceptual chapters and supporting case studies that examine the politics of conservation in specific contexts, the book shows that pursuing social justice enhances biodiversity conservation rather than diminishing it, and that the fate of local peoples and that of conservation are completely intertwined.

The Great Basin, a stark and beautiful desert filled with sagebrush deserts and mountain ranges, is the epicenter for public lands conflicts. Arising out of the multiple, often incompatible uses created throughout the twentieth century, these struggles reveal the tension inherent within the multiple use concept, a management philosophy that promises equitable access to the region's resources and economic gain to those who live there. Multiple use was originally conceived as a way to legitimize the historical use of public lands for grazing without precluding future uses, such as outdoor recreation, weapons development, and wildlife management. It was applied to the Great Basin to bring the region, once seen as worthless, into the national economic fold. Land managers, ranchers, mining interests, wilderness and wildlife advocates, outdoor recreationists, and even the military adopted this ideology to accommodate, promote, and sanction a multitude of activities on public lands, particularly those overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Some of these uses are locally driven and others are nationally mandated, but all have exacted a cost from the region's human and natural environment. In The Size of the Risk, Leisl Carr Childers shows how different constituencies worked to fill the presumed ""empty space"" of the Great Basin with a variety of land-use regimes that overlapped, conflicted, and ultimately harmed the environment and the people who depended on the region for their livelihoods. She looks at the conflicts that arose from the intersection of an ever-increasing number of activities, such as nuclear testing and wild horse preservation, and how Great Basin residents have navigated these conflicts. Carr Childers's study of multiple use in the Great Basin highlights the complex interplay between the state, society, and the environment, allowing us to better understand the ongoing reality of living in the American West.

This book discusses several product development strategies and tools employed by organizations around the world to implement frugal innovations. Over the past decade, frugal innovations have caught the attention of countless management scholars. This book comes at the right time for academics and practitioners alike, as it explores how the concept of frugal innovation has evolved over the past several years and is shifting its focus from merely featuring 'cost' driven innovations to being more 'resourceful' and 'sustainable' at its core. Furthermore, in light of the ongoing digital revolution and emergence of new business models such as sharing economy and circular economy, the book highlights recent and upcoming trends and their impacts on frugal innovation strategies.

These days human beings have a profound influence on aspects of the planetary ecosystem, e.g. on climate change and biodiversity, to name only two. This manual is intended to help practitioners, who are dealing with human-based rural and urban settlement-ecosystems, in the key steps towards their realization (design, implementation, and operation) and helpful for all, who are concerned about ensuring their practical sustainability. The ecosystem-approach is holistic and integrative, encompassing various disciplines like architecture, landscape architecture, environmental engineering, social sciences, life sciences, ecology, and management. It also considers issues such as energy-savings, ecological cycles, reuse, natural resources, socio-cultural background, real participation, and holistic quality management. Thus it not only explains the general concept, the steps of realization and the respective involved stakeholders, but also gives hints and tools for practitioners. The information, recommendations and tools are directed to the following target groups, among others: * Local planning authorities (giving hints for the procedure and the involved stakeholders) * Designers (holistic approach, procedures, tools) * Regulatory bodies, licensing and financing authorities (requirements for approach and procedures) * Construction and implementing firms and institutions (recommendations, tools) * Operating bodies (hints for operation, tools) The experiences are based on a joint German-Ghanaian program at Valley View University, the biggest private university in Ghana, intended to help realize the vision of a truly holistic ecological university. It was financed originally by the German Ministry of Education and Research and recently by the German Ministry for the Environment in the frame of the Climate Change Initiative of the Federal Government of Germany.

This book provides a critical examination of contemporary approaches to environmental regulation in the UK and the European Union. It also explores how regulation has evolved in response to a number of factors, including industrial development and improved scientific knowledge, while considering the radical next steps that need to be taken in response to existing challenges. Developments in Environmental Regulation draws its focus on the effects of risk-based approaches to the environmental regulation of business and industry, including its impact on sustainable economic growth. The book also considers the challenges and potential opportunities that surround the UK's withdrawl, or 'Brexit', from the European Union. This edited collection has been written by a group of highly experienced regulatory specialists whose insightful perspectives on key areas of environmental regulation are situated at the core of this work. This book will appeal to students and academics, policy-makers and environmental practitioners interested in understanding how environmental policy and regulation is applied and how it can be adapted to its political context.

This book discusses current challenges in Japan, focusing on the nation's rapidly aging population and low birth rate, along with persistent public bond issues with heavy interest payments, the potential collapse of social security systems, and income inequality, as well as the global picture. In turn, it examines the accessibility of global fossil fuels and feasibility of large-scale solar energy use. A new theory of money, interest, and capital is put forward, together with a proposal for an alternative system of international monetary cooperation, to promote a more sustainable and equitable world. Specific topics discussed include * the inverted population pyramid, due to the dramatic change in human life spans and declining birth rates; * the rapidly shrinking workforce, aging population, and declining GDP share sourced from industry; * disproportionate debt expansion due to public bond issues and coping with a persistent budget deficit; * the potential collapse of social security systems combined with income inequality; and * how to mitigate these bio-economic predicaments. Global Energy Sources offers an essential guide for policymakers, economists, researchers, and all those concerned with establishing a sustainable and equitable society from both energy and monetary perspectives. Further, it will be of interest to readers around the world, as the lessons learned from Japan are crucial to other developed societies that may eventually face the same types of challenge.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology publishes authoritative reviews on the occurrence, effects, and fate of pesticide residues and other environmental contaminants. It will keep you informed of the latest significant issues by providing in-depth information in the areas of analytical chemistry, agricultural microbiology, biochemistry, human and veterinary medicine, toxicology, and food technology.

This volume applies ecological principles and guidelines to understand past and current land use and land management; and more importantly, endeavors to promote more ecologically sound approaches to future land use and management decisions. The volume incorporates case studies from a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives. The case studies explore past and current land use decisions, on both public and private lands, and include practical approaches and tools for land-use decision-making. Perhaps the most important feature of the book is the linking of ecological theory and principle with applied land use decision-making - the theoretical and empirical are joined through concrete case studies of actual land use decision-making processes. In this volume, readers will find a statement of fundamental ecological principles that are relevant for land use planning and management, coupled with multiple in-depth explorations of the application of these principles in action. In addition, most case studies describe specific tools and approaches for incorporating endeavors to join fundamental ecological knowledge with cutting edge application in order to both educate and provide concrete guidance for decision-making. The intended audience is broad and multidisciplinary, from undergraduate and graduate level courses in environmental studies to professional land use planners. "Read this and Discover. Wisdom lies in these pages, a scarce and powerful attribute." from the Foreword by Richard Foreman.

'A funny and beautifully written welcome to the enigmatic, weird and wonderful world of wasps' DAVE GOULSON, author of SILENT EARTH There may be no insect with a worse reputation than the wasp, and none guarding so many undiscovered wonders. Where bees and ants have long been the darlings of the insect world, wasps are much older, cleverer and more diverse. They are the bee's evolutionary ancestors - flying 100 million years earlier - and today they are just as essential for the survival of our environment. A bee, ecologist Professor Seirian Sumner argues, is just a wasp that has forgotten how to hunt. For readers of Entangled Life, Other Minds and The Gospel of Eels, this is a book to upturn your expectations about one overlooked animal and the wider architecture of our natural world. With endless surprises, this book might teach you about the wasps that spend their entire lives sealed inside a fig, about stinging wasps, about parasitic wasps, about wasps that turn cockroaches into living zombies, about how wasps taught us to make paper. It offers up a maligned insect in all its diverse, unexpected splendour; as both predator and pollinator, the wasp is an essential pest controller worldwide. Inside their sophisticated social worlds is the best model we have for the earth's major evolutionary transitions. In their understudied biology are clues to progressing medicine, including a possible cure for cancer. The closer you look at these spurned, winged insects - both custodians and bouncers of our planet - the more you see. Their secrets have so far gone mostly untapped, but the potential of the wasp is endless.

How, when, and why has the Pacific been a locus for imagining different futures by those living there as well as passing through? What does that tell us about the distinctiveness or otherwise of this "sea of islands"? Foregrounding the work of leading and emerging scholars of Oceania, Pacific Futures brings together a diverse set of approaches to, and examples of, how futures are being conceived in the region and have been imagined in the past. Individual chapters engage the various and sometimes contested futures yearned for, unrealized, and even lost or forgotten, that are particular to the Pacific as a region, ocean, island network, destination, and home. Contributors recuperate the futures hoped for and dreamed up by a vast array of islanders and outlanders-from Indigenous federalists to Lutheran improvers to Cantonese small business owners-making these histories of the future visible. In so doing, the collection intervenes in debates about globalization in the Pacific--and how the region is acted on by outside forces--and postcolonial debates that emphasize the agency and resistance of Pacific peoples in the context of centuries of colonial endeavor. With a view to the effects of the "slow violence" of climate change, the volume also challenges scholars to think about the conditions of possibility for future-thinking at all in the midst of a global crisis that promises cataclysmic effects for the region. Pacific Futures highlights futures conceived in the context of a modernity coproduced by diverse Pacific peoples, taking resistance to categorization as a starting point rather than a conclusion. With its hospitable approach to thinking about history making and future thinking, one that is open to a wide range of methodological, epistemological, and political interests and commitments, the volume will encourage the writing of new histories of the Pacific and new ways of talking about history in this field, the region, and beyond.

EHS auditing has been around since the mid-1970's when the Securities and Exchange Commission launched enforcement actions against three U.S. Fortune 500 companies that the Commission believed were misleading their shareholders about environmental liabilities. Since then the profession has continued to grow and mature with many process issues still not fully resolved. For example, how do we develop a more risk-based approach? How do we measure successful performance? How can we better utilize our auditors who sometimes have skill sets limited to environmental compliance matters or health and safety compliance matters? What kind of messes can our auditors get into and how do we anticipate those? In a companion title to the 9th edition of Environmental Health and Safety Audits, Lawrence Cahill draws from his 35 years' of experience in over 25 countries to address many of these issues. Along the way he uses his personal experiences to add some reality and fun to tell the story. This book provides updated text and puts forward thoughts and trends that were not or were only briefly addressed previously. In addition, it addresses important EHS audit issues that audit program managers and auditors must deal with routinely and when special circumstances arise. The text can help: * To improve the management and execution of an audit program * To make auditors more effective and versatile * Auditors understand the special demands of auditing internationally The 9th Edition of Environmental Health and Safety Audits is recommended by the Board of Environmental Health & safety Auditor Certifications.