This book focuses on the social and environmental disclosure practices of socially responsible Chinese firms by constructing a stakeholder-driven, three-dimensional, disclosure index. It is useful for those who want to learn about corporate social responsibilities in the context of Chinese firms.

Blueprint 4 continues the theme of Blueprint 2 in looking at the opportunities for using market forces for environmental ends. It assesses a range of possible imaginative 'global bargains', which give all parties a self-interested incentive to improve the global environment. The book begins by reviewing the principle global issues to be addressed, and then explains the mechanisms of resource degradation: how economic systems fail, the operation of trade on the environment and the effects of population growth and consumption patterns. It then shows how environmental value can be captured, and the basis, means and institutions for doing so.

Originally published in 1995, Analyzing Superfund outlines the key issues of the superfund reauthorization debate in the United States. The Superfund law faced criticism for being wasteful, inefficient and expensive. These papers sought to shed light on this argument in relation to clean-up standards, the liability regime, transaction costs and natural resource damage. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and professionals

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Because cities are such complex systems, creating sustainable urban environments is a challenging goal. No single strategy-or even several strategies-will be enough to achieve tomorrow's healthy and sustainable cities. The challenges resist compartmentalization, because the factors intersect and overlap. The articles in this compendium were chosen to expand the understanding of these complicated issues in a non-linear way. The editor has selected research in the following topics: improving urban air quality; municipal solid waste alternatives; municipal water management; reducing urban energy consumption.

The central problem to which this book, first published in 1984, is addressed is the transformation of agrarian structure as it historically evolved in India. The term 'structure', however, has multiple meanings. The sense in which the term is used refers to the system of production, including the pattern of its composition in terms of micro-units of production, and the social and economic relations by which they are integrated. This concrete analysis and examination of the evidence of Indian agriculture is undertaken from this perspective, and contributes to the theory of agrarian change as well as an interpretation of the development of Indian agriculture.

This book explores the role of national governments during the process of industrialisation in East Asia and examines the relationship between the State and business, clearing up many Western misconceptions. The similarities and differences which exist between nations in this region and the influence of Japan as a role model are also investigated. Government-industry linkages and an overview of economic rationale also studied in this volume are following the establishment of market orientated economies in many Far Eastern countries. This book brings new insight into the business-politics relationship which gives the reader a complete understanding of the East Asian economic 'miracle'.

This book explores the role of national governments during the process of industrialisation in East Asia and examines the relationship between the State and business, clearing up many Western misconceptions. The similarities and differences which exist between nations in this region and the influence of Japan as a role model are also investigated. Government-industry linkages and an overview of economic rationale also studied in this volume are following the establishment of market orientated economies in many Far Eastern countries. This book brings new insight into the business-politics relationship which gives the reader a complete understanding of the East Asian economic 'miracle'.

Frances Cairncross, senior editor of The Economist and author of the best selling Costing the Earth, shows that economic growth does not have to be at the expense of environmental protection. For the poor, growth is essential, to eliminate the threats to health and environmental security that poverty presents. As for the more affluent, they may be unwilling to sacrifice their living standards, even for a cleaner environment. The question is, rather, how can the environmental impact of growth be minimized? Here, the role of business is crucial. New technologies and well-designed policies have to work hand in hand; and the interests of governments, of companies and of the environmental movement lie in making a cleaner environment an opportunity for profitability. All three parties will find this a stimulating survey and an invaluable practical guide.

Written in a way that facilitates understanding of complex concepts, laws, and policy, Production, Growth, and the Environment: An Economic Approach explores how economic growth usually makes people better off, but also asks at what environmental cost? These costs are not often realized until after the fact, when their remediation is more expensive, and sometimes not reversible. Very few books on environmental economics model the joint production of desirable and undesirable outcomes in any depth. This book fills that void. It discusses the demographic transition and the escape from the Malthusian trap. It also covers the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis that examines the relation between polluting outputs and economic welfare. The book integrates environmental valuation methods with the production possibility frontier (PPF) approach. It presents both types of outcomes in a PPF framework that accounts for scarcity and allows the concepts of technical and allocative efficiencies to be introduced and measured. The PPF can then measure technological progress/regress and can be used to measure whether resource use is sustainable over time. It can also be used to determine shadow prices for non-market desirable outputs such as ecological services and non-market undesirable by-products such as SO2, NOx, and CO2 that arise from fossil fuel combustion. The beauty of the PPF framework is that it can be depicted in simple two-dimensional diagrams that make the concepts easy to understand. The author uses this framework to introduce concepts such as technical efficiency, allocative efficiency, technological progress/regress, shadow pricing, externalities, public goods, pollution taxes, and permits. In addition, each chapter has numerous problems and discussion questions that provide examples and practice in using the introduced theories. The book also includes a chapter that shows how the solver routine in Excel can be used to measure technical and allocative efficiency. This gives you the tools to examine all outcomes and therefore make a decision that takes into account the environmental challenges along with any economic benefits.

Within only a few years, global warming has emerged from scientific speculation into an environmental threat of worldwide concern. Yet the scientific community remains uncertain as to the long-term trends and effects of climate change, and this uncertainty has been seized on as justification for inaction by an international community reluctant to bear the costs of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Valuing Climate Change presents concrete, economic evidence of the need for action. Fankhauser assesses the costs of a doubling of GHG emissions to be a significant percentage of gross world product; a figure which he then compares to the costs of reducing emissions. In his comparison, he looks at regional as well as global estimates of damage, and takes account of the non-climate change benefits of GHG reductions, such as a switch in the energy sector to cleaner technologies or renewable fuels, and the impacts on transport, with reduced congestion and improved air quality. It is clear that the stakes are high, and Fankhauser believes that tougher targets may be needed than those set out in the Framework Convention on Climate Change. He assesses the optimum policy responses to GHG reduction, the likely instruments for achieving it and the potential for international cooperation in dealing with the problems. This is a major contribution to the rapidly changing debate on global warming.

The essays in this study contribute to an analysis of the prospects for the world's economy in the face of environmental constraints. The contributors examine the implications of development in both northern and southern hemispheres, and the extreme differences between rich and poor nations in the distribution of income, resource use and consumption. Using extensive case studies from WIDER-sponsored research, the text explores the limits and consequences of further development.

Climbing food, fertiliser and mineral prices as well as the Arab oil embargo in the seventies had severe economic consequences in developing countries. Originally published in 1976, this study explores the effects of these developments in the fourth world and how they can adjust to an international economy with a particular focus on resource availability in terms of energy and agriculture. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies.

The idea and practice of the 'green economy' is gaining momentum, coinciding with financial instability and continued economic woe in the Global North, but generally more positive economic circumstances in the Global South. 'Green economic initiatives' in the Global South are multiplying, and include carbon payments, ecotourism, community-based wildlife management, sustainability certification initiatives, and offsets by mining companies exploiting new resources. These initiatives are reallocating resources, redefining inequalities and redistributing the fortune and misfortune of participants of the green economy and those excluded from it. They have also led to resistance - locally, nationally, and transnationally - and to demands for alternatives to market-driven instruments and solutions, which are generally gaining strength and coherence. The articles included in this volume bring together a multi-disciplinary team of scholars from North and South to provide nuanced analyses of green economy experiences in the Global South - analysing the opportunities they provide, but also the redistributions they entail and the kinds of resistances they face. The ultimate aim of the collection is to provide a critical, but balanced, overview of the emerging green economy in the Global South and point the way to possible adjustments, alternatives or radical resistance, depending on different situations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

This volume explores 25 case studies of fiscal measures that have been adopted successfully by governments in North America and Europe to reduce environmental degradation. Each study lays out the implementation issues and problems faced, and compares the effectiveness of the measure against its expectations. The political implications are also discussed, and the text draws on common themes and lessons to be gained from the measures so far. The volume is divided into sections on energy, agriculture, air and water pollution, and waste management.

While geopolitics has captured global attention, geoeconomics is the often hidden force that governs countries' relationships. It is the economic psyche that shapes the new world order. Geoeconomics refers to the intersection of economic factors, relationships and conditions on global events. A country's political and business alignments have an impact on individuals, companies and on future economic stability. This book assembles leading scholars and experts from around the world to advance current thinking on geoeconomics. It is a thorough and authoritative reference work on world economics that aims to shape strategy formulation in business and government for years to come by expanding understanding on the topic of geoeconomics, analyzing the implications of international geoeconomic events, and providing the reader with theoretical and practical approaches on the management of geoeconomics. Geoeconomic concepts in this book will prove timely and highly insightful to students, academics, executives, entrepreneurs, government officials, consultants and policymakers.

In order to fill a growing need for research into forestry issues, Resources for the future held a symposium in 1977.Orignally published in the same year, all papers in this collection were written specifically for this symposium to highlight the most important forestry issues including pricing policy, supply and demand and the role of the public and private forestry sector. This title will be of interest to Environmental Students and professionals.

Originally published in 1974, Technical Change, Relative Prices, and Environmental Resource Evaluation explores the relationship between natural environmental resources and the differential implications of technological change and relative price appreciation. Smith claims that price is linked to technological progress and comments on the economic issues surrounding this. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and Economics.

Environmental accounts bring together economic and environmental information in a common framework to measure the contribution of the environment to the economy and the impact of the economy on the environment. They enable governments to set priorities, monitor economic policies more precisely, enact more effective environmental regulations and resource management strategies, and design more efficient market instruments for environmental policies. Many industrialized countries compile environmental accounts, but progress in developing countries has been limited - even though the need for environmental accounts is perhaps more acute in these regions. Environmental Accounting in Action studies the experiences of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, the core countries of a unique, regional environmental accounting programme in Southern Africa. Covering minerals, forestry, fisheries and water, each chapter provides important lessons about sustainable resource management. As a whole, the case studies demonstrate how to overcome the many challenges of constructing environmental accounts and the mechanics of successful implementation. By providing a transparent system of information about the relationship between human activities and the environment, the accounts have improved policy dialogue among different stakeholders and have played a significant role in environmental policy design. This book advances a powerful argument for the use of environmental accounts and is a major contribution to the environmental literature on developing countries. Environmental and ecological economists, resource managers, policymakers, NGOs and anyone concerned with sustainable development will find this an informative and valuable read.

Biodiversity loss is one of the major resource problems facing the world, and the policy options available are restricted by inappropriate economic tools which fail to capture the value of species and their variety. This study describes in non-technical terms how cost-benefit analysis techniques can be applied to species and species loss, and how they provide a measure of the efficiency of conservation measures. Only when conservation can be shown to pass such a basic economic test, the authors claim, will it be incorporated into policies.;David Pearce has also written Blueprint for a Green Economy.

Capital is pushing into motion ever larger global material flows. In doing so it has come to depend on massive expenditures of energy, putting to work fossil fuels and the machines they animate to transform the world, accumulate power and grow the economy. The ecological relations and crises of today's societies are driven by the processes of extraction of the elements that come together as a throughput of material and energy flows controlled by capital and shaped by its imperative of valorization. In A Social Ecology of Capital, Eric Pineault proposes an original model of the fossil social metabolism that has sustained the growth of advanced capitalism in the last century. Drawing on ecological economics and critical political economy, the book analyses how the social structures of accumulation, production, consumption and waste determine and regulate the material flow and the accumulation of material artifacts. Showing how social relations shape the ecology of capital, the book highlights the contradictions humanity now faces.

At the beginning of the 1970's, global grain reserves were level and food prices were low however as the decade progressed crop production plummeted leading to a food crisis. Originally published in the aftermath in 1977, Crosson and Frederick set out to explore the ability of agricultural output to meet the global food demands of future generations. This study analyses how resources and environmental factors would affect food production in developing countries and the United States until the end of the 21st Century. The environmental impacts of land levels, fertiliser and pesticide use are explored in relation to the challenges of meeting food demands. This title will be of interest to students of environmental studies.

This book addresses the challenges facing stable democratic states in dealing with oil companies in order to secure general welfare gains. Political stability means that such states should be able to take a longer term perspective. The principal topic considered is petroleum industry regulation but the insights extend to other non-renewable natural resources. A particular issue addressed is the question of tax competition between producing countries. Within the context of company/government relations the book considers such current topics as the challenges of dealing with merged companies and the strategic choices facing tax authorities.

The world is losing species and biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. The causes go deep and the losses are driven by a complex array of social, economic, political and biological factors at different levels. Immediate causes such as over-harvesting, pollution and habitat change have been well studied, but the socioeconomic factors driving people to degrade their environment are less well understood. This book examines the underlying causes. It provides analyses of a range of case studies from Brazil, Cameroon, China, Danube River Basin, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Tanzania and Vietnam, and integrates them into a new and interdisciplinary framework for understanding what is happening. From these results, the editors are able to derive policy conclusions and recommendations for operational and institutional approaches to address the root causes and reverse the current trends. It makes a contribution to the understanding of all those - from ecologists and conservationists to economists and policy makers - working on one of the major challenges we face.

Blueprint 3 is the direct sequel to the ground-breaking Blueprint for a Green Economy. Taking the argument much further, David Pearce and his colleagues show how progress towards sustainability in the UK can be measured. They set out the conditions for sustainable development and the measures of economic progress these imply, before looking in detail at all the main areas of economic activity to which the measures are applicable. The result is a wide-ranging and cogent critique of existing policies which also offers new options - options which will require far-reaching reform of this country's existing political and institutional structure. Blueprint 3 will be a touchstone for future discussions of all the major policy areas.

Instruments of Change examines the use of incentive systems and improved institutional arrangements to protect the environment and conserve natural resources, as a means towards sustainable development.