Industrial Applications of Renewable Plastics: Environmental, Technological, and Economic Advances provides practical information to help engineers and materials scientists deploy renewable plastics in the plastics market. It explores the uses, possibilities, and problems of renewable plastics and composites to assist in material selection and rejection. The designer's main problems are examined, along with basic reminders that deal with structures and processing methods that can help those who are generally familiar with metals understand the unique properties of plastic materials. The book offers a candid overview of main issues, including conservation of fossil resources, geopolitical considerations, greenhouse effects, competition with food crops, deforestation, pollution, and disposal of renewable plastics. In addition, an overview of some tools related to sustainability (Life cycle assessments, CO2 emissions, carbon footprint, and more) is provided. The book is an essential resource for engineers and materials scientists involved in material selection, design, manufacturing, molding, fabrication, and other links in the supply chain of plastics. The material contained is of great relevance to many major industries, including automotive and transport, packaging, aeronautics, shipbuilding, industrial and military equipment, electrical and electronics, energy, and more.

provides the first in-depth investigation of how non-timber forest products are an integral part of local, national, and global bioeconomies. reveals how essential these products are to creating a greener and more sustainable future will be of great interest to students and scholars of forest and natural resource management, bioeconomics, circular economy and ecological economics more widely

Nonpoint-source pollution (NPSP) poses a special challenge to society's ability to manage its collective environmental good - especially surface and groundwater quality. Since there is no point', such as an outfall pipe, from which the pollution is being discharged and can be measured, pollution can reach the ambient environment without being monitored. Since management of air and water polution requires the definition and enforcement of limits on discharges or the imposition of fees on those discharges, inability to measure limits our ability to manage this environmental problem. This book presents a state-of-the-art review and discussion of economists' efforts to resolve this major problem and attempts to provide a way of working around it. The book sets forth the theoretical issues, modeling, and the actual programs set up to confront this issue.

Dynamic Decisions highlights how some managers and policymakers sleepwalk into decision paralysis. Strategically, they partly recognise their world is changing radically as energy systems transition. In deciding what to invest in, they default to rewarding the predictable and proven, often misdiagnosing the ignored risks of innately ambiguous markets. To remedy this, the author frames ambiguity as a source of opportunity. As extant advantages obsolesce, new entrants could disrupt to gain dominance. Some managers could repurpose, reframe, and reconfigure their resources and processes to create tomorrow's profitable niches today. To profit from these emerging business landscapes, managers can PIVOT and BOUnCE to win by transitioning into a dynamic mindset. Endowed with a creative mind to innovate, humans could reshape their firms and their societies. Armed with these capabilities, albeit partial, managers could choose to adapt responsive strategic actions that are tangible, actionable, and achievable, with policy sustaining societal benefits by expanding people's access to opportunities.Dynamic Decisions is written for managers and policymakers that seek to benefit their firms and communities in how they conduct their business and themselves. Connecting theory to practice with actual business cases, this book is organised into four clusters that act as building blocks to structure the reader's decision-making process. Through experimentation, learning, and adaptation, the reader of Dynamic Decisions will redirect their strategic actions that are necessary to nurture tomorrow's profitable niches today.

This book provides an interdisciplinary account of how technological advances - mainly in the domains of energy and transportation - contribute to the transformation towards a more sustainable economic system. Drawing on methods from engineering, the management sciences and economics, which it combines in the framework of a systems sciences approach, the book presents qualitative and quantitative studies on government regulation, resources management and firms' strategy. Topics covered include the state-market dilemma of government CO2 emission targets, implications of the electrification of the economy, incentives and coercion in government transport policies, and innovations in the electric vehicle industry.

In this book, Professor Uzawa modifies and extends the theoretical premises of orthodox economic theory to those broad enough to be capable of analyzing the phenomena related to environmental disequilibrium, particularly global warming, and of finding institutional arrangements and policy measures that may bring about a more optimal state where natural and institutional components are harmoniously blended. He constructs a theoretical framework in which three major problems concerning global environmental issues may effectively be addressed. First, all phenomena involved with global environmental issues exhibit externalities of one kind or another. Secondly, global environmental issues involve international and intergenerational equity and justice. Thirdly, global environmental issues concern the management of the atmosphere, the oceans, water, soil, and other natural resources that have to be decided by a consensus of all affected countries.

Capitalism is criticized as both the cause of, and the main barrier to, effective mitigation of climate change. Yet, from the earliest days of the international negotiations, states have agreed that technological innovation, believed to be a primary strength of capitalism, is crucial to prevention of a dangerous accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Nations prefer to rely on innovative technologies to reduce emissions than to use regulations to constrain markets and limit social choice. The contributors to this volume show that the strengths of the system that creates ever new consumer products and industrial processes actually prevent the generation of technological innovations that would most effectively mitigate climate change. Through comprehensive research of the US innovation system and how companies respond to its supporting institutions, they demonstrate that liberal capitalism's perceived strengths are also its weaknesses. They also show that current theories of technological innovation are incomplete and suggest the institutional changes needed to generate climate innovations.

A global blue economy is an economic arena that depends on the benefits and values realized from the coastal and marine environments. This book explains the "sustainable blue economy" as a marine-based economy that provides social and economic benefits for current and future generations. It restores, protects, and maintains the diversity, productivity, and resilience of marine ecosystems, and is based on clean technologies, renewable energy, and circular material flows.

This book is a guide to how financial steering is designed, measured and implemented with a special focus on the energy industry. The authors offer an overview of and practical insights into the links between financial steering and accounting, and the temporary cycles of investment, divestment, return and loss, market highs and lows that form the framework of the entire energy industry across all value chain stages. The faster and the larger the cash cycles of investments and their returns, the greater not only the value created, but also the potential loss if the financial steering is not properly designed and managed. Value and value generation require an understanding of how value is both defined and measured in both and how the business/project economics model of a company works - financial steering provides this. Further, the book also discusses accounting topics such as impairments, new IFRS standards and the impact of accounting on key performance indicators of financial steering, which are associated with these investment decision valuations. The combination of accounting with the cash flow perspective provides a complete understanding of selected practical topics of financial steering which are explained in detail in a large number of examples and case studies. The book is intended for a wide range of finance/controlling/treasury/accounting professionals and students. It is written in practical and simple terms to outline the financial steering concept and to bring it to life in daily work and in the decision making process for financial steering. All illustrated concepts are in the same manner relevant and applicable to all other asset-intense industry sectors and their financial steering processes.

Renewable energy is rising within an energy system dominated by powerful vested energy interests in fossil fuels, nuclear and electric utilities. Analyzing renewables in six very different countries, the author argues that it is the extent to which states have controlled these vested interests that determines the success or failure of renewables.

This book takes a compelling approach to describing what is needed to create the kind of future that most people on Earth really want. Our global society is hopelessly addicted to a particular vision of the world and a future that has become both unsustainable and undesirable. Addicted to Growth frames our current predicament as a societal addiction to a 'growth at all costs' economic paradigm. While economic growth has produced many benefits, its side effects are now producing existential problems that are rapidly getting worse. Robert Costanza considers lessons from what works at the individual level to overcome addictions and applies them to a societal scale. Costanza recognises that the first step to recovery is recognising the addiction and that it is leading to disaster; however, simply pointing out the dire consequences of our societal addiction is only the first step and can be counterproductive by itself in motivating change. The key next step is creating a truly shared vision of the kind of world we all want, and the book explores creative ways to implement this societal therapy. The final step is using that shared vision to motivate the changes needed to achieve it, including adaptive transformations of our economic systems, property rights regimes, and governance institutions. An exciting contribution from a key thinker in the field, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of public policy and sustainability studies, and anyone interested in understanding and overcoming our societal addiction to growth.

This book shows the push and pull effects between resources, human security and conflicts in Africa. It recognizes the need for resources in Africa to be processed into finished goods in order to influence global market and redefine the pattern of trade relations with powerful countries of Asia, America and Europe in shaping the destiny and future of African countries. The achievement of this laudable objective is plagued by the security challenges which are directly or indirectly linked to resource-related conflicts rocking most of the resource endowed countries in the continent, thereby threatening global peace and security. To deal with this menace in the continent, it requires global co-operation and support of foreign governments, international organizations, international non-government organizations, governments of host countries and its citizens. The book presents the cases and experiences of countries that are endowed with resource, as well as have experienced different forms of human insecurity and have witnessed environmental conflicts in its analysis, which make the discourse interesting and quite educating.

Revised and updated for the 2nd edition, this textbook provides an analysis and investigation of the most essential areas of environmental economic theory and policy, including international environmental problems. The approach is based on standard theoretical tools, in particular equilibrium analysis, and aims to demonstrate how economic principles can help to understand environmental issues and guide policymakers. Current topics including climate change, overfishing and integrated approaches to environmental policies are carefully analyzed in this framework, and a multitude of practical examples from various parts of the world is presented. Addressing undergraduate and graduate students, this book is a must read for everybody interested in a better understanding of environmental economics.

Rapid growth of the global economy has accelerated the degradation of the Earth's most important asset: the environment. Increasing poverty and challenges arising from climate change further threaten the planet's natural systems. With a rising global population, the demand on natural resources to cover even basic human needs is intensifying - supporting businesses that promote the sustainable use of natural resources and help ensure their long-term viability is imperative. As part of a pioneering movement to harness business towards effecting environmental change, The Nature Conservancy launched EcoEnterprises Fund in 2000 to provide investment capital to grow small "eco"-businesses in Latin America. There is a compelling need for financing this niche. Companies of this size truly drive change - creating the engine for economic activity and generating livelihoods for bottom of the pyramid rural peoples which brings about positive social and conservation impacts. EcoEnterprises Fund's portfolio highlights twenty-three cutting-edge companies, in expanding sectors such as organic agriculture, ecotourism, sustainable forestry, and non-timber forest products which include innovative industry first-movers-from organic shrimp to biodynamic flowers, and ready-to-drink smoothies made from the latest Amazonian berry. With a successful ten-year track record, EcoEnterprises Fund has valuable learning to share - from what pitfalls to avoid when structuring investments to what types of assistance entrepreneurs in these emerging environmental sectors need most. Portfolio for the Planet translates a decade of experience into accessible lessons for both veterans and newcomers in the field: for those interested in investing in sustainable businesses, discovering novel approaches to environmental conservation, or seeing entrepreneurs pursue their dreams.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world. Exploring diverse case studies from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the volume discusses the impact that economic development and, recently, COVID-19 has had on the environment, ecology, and economy of these regions. It analyses nature conservation policies aimed at minimizing ecological damage arising from economic development and discusses the policy objectives of sustainable development. It also highlights the significant role that environmental economics networks have played in capacity building, framing of policies using ecological economics tools, and developing a local leadership trained in addressing local sustainability issues. An important contribution to the study of environmental economics of the Global South, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of economics, environment, development studies, development economics, environmental policies, and South Asia studies. It will also be useful for policymakers and NGOs working in this field.

The Low-Carbon Good Life is about how to reverse and repair four interlocking crises arising from modern material consumption: the climate crisis, growing inequality, biodiversity loss and food-related ill-health. Across the world today and throughout history, good lives are characterised by healthy food, connections to nature, being active, togetherness, personal growth, a spiritual framework and sustainable consumption. A low-carbon good life offers opportunities to live in ways that will bring greater happiness and contentment. Slower ways of living await. A global target of no more than one tonne of carbon per person would allow the poorest to consume more and everyone to find our models of low-carbon good lives. But dropping old habits is hard, and large-scale impacts will need fresh forms of public engagement and citizen action. Local to national governments need to act; equally, they need pushing by the power and collective action of citizens. Innovative and engaging and written in a style that combines storytelling with scientific evidence, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, sustainability, environmental economics and sustainable consumption, as well as non-specialist readers concerned about the climate crisis.

This book provides support to academics and researchers, as well as those operating in the management and engineering fields that need to deal with policies and strategies that allow to move towards a more sustainable paradigm, a greener economy that guarantees economic development and the improvement of living and working conditions. Drawing on the latest developments, ideas, research and best practice, this book examines the new advances in the subjects of circular economy.

The blue economy, comprising coastal and marine resources, offers vast benefits for sub-Saharan Africa: of the 53 countries and territories in the region, 32 are coastal states; there are 13 million sq km of maritime zones; more than 90% of the region's exports and imports come by sea; and the African Union hails the blue economy as the 'new frontier of African renaissance'. Despite their importance, the region's coastal and marine resources have been neither fully appreciated nor fully utilized. They are only now being recognized as being key to Africa's potential prosperity. As the region grows, it has, in general, not taken adequate safeguards to protect these valuable resources. That is partly because some of the problems (pollution, for example) are regional and know no borders. All too often, short-term gains are made at the expense of the long term (overfishing, for example). This book provides, for the first time, a study of the constraints and opportunities the blue economy offers for sub-Saharan Africa. It includes an introduction and overview; sectoral analyses (including tourism, fisheries, mineral resources, culture, shipping and maritime safety); country case studies; and analyses of regional and international efforts towards better coastal zone and marine management.

* New chapter specifically on electric vehicles * Increased international focus, with more examples from outside the USA * Pedagogical features including learning objectives at the start of each chapter, in-chapter questions and end-of-chapter suggested online activities * Student companion website material: multiple choice questions and homework exercises * Instructor companion website material: lecture slides, solution files for instructors; suggested questions for discussion forums to increase engagement; and activities to achieve the chapter learning objectives, including quizzes with answers, that instructors can use to assess student attainment

The potential conflict among economic and ecological goals has formed the central fault line of environmental politics in the United States and most other countries since the 1970s. The accepted view is that efforts to protect the environment will detract from economic growth, jobs, and global competitiveness. Conversely, much advocacy on behalf of the environment focuses on the need to control growth and avoid its more damaging effects. This offers a stark choice between prosperity and growth, on the one hand, and ecological degradation on the other. Stopping or reversing growth in most countries is unrealistic, economically risky, politically difficult, and is likely to harm the very groups that should be protected. At the same time, a strategy of unguided "growth above all" would cause ecological catastrophe. Over the last decade, the concept of green growth - the idea that the right mix of policies, investments, and technologies will lead to beneficial growth within ecological limits - has become central to global and national debates and policy due to the financial crisis and climate change. As Daniel J. Fiorino argues, in order for green growth to occur, ecological goals must be incorporated into the structure of the economic and political systems. In this book, he looks at green growth, a vast topic that has heretofore not been systematically covered in the literature on environmental policy and politics. Fiorino looks at its role in global, national, and local policy making; its relationship to sustainable development; controversies surrounding it (both from the left and right); its potential role in ameliorating inequality; and the policy strategies that are linked with it. The book also examines the political feasibility of green growth as a policy framework. While he focuses on the United States, Fiorino will draw comparisons to green growth policy in other countries, including Germany, China, and Brazil.

This open access book analyzes and seeks to consolidate the use of robust quantitative tools and qualitative methods for the design and assessment of energy and climate policies. In particular, it examines energy and climate policy performance and associated risks, as well as public acceptance and portfolio analysis in climate policy, and presents methods for evaluating the costs and benefits of flexible policy implementation as well as new framings for business and market actors. In turn, it discusses the development of alternative policy pathways and the identification of optimal switching points, drawing on concrete examples to do so. Lastly, it discusses climate change mitigation policies' implications for the agricultural, food, building, transportation, service and manufacturing sectors.

This multidisciplinary approach to the Western Balkans addresses topics from responsible business and ethics, innovation, corporate social responsibility, and new technology to human resources management. It is a theoretical and practical guide towards a sustainable future for the Western Balkans, showing drivers and barriers affecting the region in its effort to green its economy, and provides a systematic and holistic overview and critical examination of the situation in the region. Chapters explore a review of the literature and developing theory, and report empirical procedures. If the Western Balkan countries are following the industrialised states of Western Europe-which are now keen to develop in a sustainable manner, combining economic growth with social justice and improved environment-this work fills the growing need for more research and to expand the current knowledge base about environmental and development challenges, as well as the new, efficient and climate-neutral 'Green Economy' of this region.

This book studies the extent to which nuclear safety issues have contributed towards the stagnation of nuclear power development around the world, and accounts for differences in safety regulations in different countries. In order to understand why nuclear development has not met widespread expectations, this book focusses on six key countries with active nuclear power programmes: the USA, China, France, South Korea, the UK, and Russia. The authors integrate cultural theory and theory of regulation, and examine the links between pressures of cultural bias on regulatory outcomes and political pressures which have led to increased safety requirements and subsequent economic costs. They discover that although nuclear safety is an important upward driver of costs in the nuclear power industry, this is influenced by the inherent need to control potentially dangerous reactions rather than stricter nuclear safety standards. The findings reveal that differences in the strictness of nuclear safety regulations between different countries can be understood by understanding differences in cultural contexts and the changes in this over time. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and policymakers working on energy policy and regulation, environmental politics and policy, and environment and sustainability more generally.

Using a philosophical and interdisciplinary approach, this book looks at how accountability can provide solutions to our current environmental and global political problems. When a social system has external elements imposed upon it, or presented to it, political problems are likely to emerge. This book demonstrates that what is needed are connecting social elements with a natural affinity to bring people together despite their differences. This book is different from others in the field. It provides new insights by critiquing the extant understandings of accountability and expands the possibilities by building on Charles Taylor's philosophies. Central to the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity and expressivism which are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world, and a starting point for rethinking the way individuals and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that utilises work from interpretivism, liberalism, and postmodern theory. The book will be of interest to researchers in environmental philosophy, critical perspectives on accounting, corporate governance, corporate social reporting, and environmental accounting.

The book studies the relationship between economic agglomeration and environmental pollution from a spatial perspective through theoretical analyses and empirical discussions. At both microscopic and macroscopic levels, the author first explores the impact mechanism of the agglomeration of economic activities on environmental pollution and proposes research frameworks based on spatial economic theory and output density theory. Drawing on descriptive statistics and explorative spatial data from 283 cities in China, the book investigates the current development, spatial characteristics, influence path, and environmental efficiency of urban economic agglomeration and pollution in the People's Republic. The following empirical sections study spatial spillover effects, simultaneous bias and spatial interaction between agglomeration and pollution. The research findings give insight into interregional economic development, joint pollution control across regions, and the coordination of the two, especially in the context of developing countries. The title will appeal to researchers, students, government officials and policymakers interested in development economics, regional economics, urban economics, and environmental economics.