Företagsperspektiv på utvärdering av hållbarhet : en interdisciplinär ansats

Today, there is an increasing awareness of problems related to aspects of sustainability in the world. These problems are addressed in various forms, from an economic, environmental and socio-cultural perspective. From a corporate point of view it would be ideal if all of these perspectives were included in assessment that serves as grounds for policies, plans and programs. The existing assessment tools are argued to be inappropriate as they do not cover all of the aspects of sustainability. Thus, there is a need for better sustainability assessment tools to help corporate ex-ante decision-making. This thesis explores sustainability aspects in ex-ante assessment tools for assessing sustainability from the corporate perspective. The approach is based on notion that sustainability objectives require interdisciplinary thinking. These different disciplines and their contribution to sustainability objectives serve as a basis in a discourse analysis. The results of these analyses are then compared to selected assessment tools (Cost-Benefit Analysis, Environmental-Impact Assessment, social-Impact Assessment) and to newer sustainability assessment tools (Sustainability Impact Assessment, Integrated Sustainability Assessment), to evaluate to what degree they cover sustainability objectives. Any of these tools could serve as a starting point for a development of a corporate ex-ante assessment tool box. Over time, a useful 'toolbox' may even become the main stream corporate tool in a standardization process. Findings show that short-term profit-maximization thinking at the expense of other sustainability aspects is a key problem. None of the existing assessment tools alone adequately include all of the aspects of sustainability in their assessments. Newer sustainability assessment tools are found to better ensure a holistic approach for assessing sustainability. These are, however, not well-developed and they are also rather time consuming as well as resource intensive in practical use. As each of the discussed assessment tools provided some positive aspects it might be useful to integrate some of the attributes that these tools provide. In general, corporations should consider economic, environmental, socio-cultural, spatial and temporal aspects of sustainability in their assessment processes.En allmän samhällelig medvetenhet om hållbarhetsfrågor och problem ökar världen över. Problemen och utmaningarna som är relaterade till hållbarhet kan uppfattas från olika vinklar: i ekonomiska, miljörelaterade och sociokulturella aspekter där varje vinkel i sin tur har vokabulärer, modeller och mål för olika verksamheter. Ur ett företagsperspektiv vore det ideal om alla dessa perspektiv utgjorde grunden för strategisk planering och operativ verksamhet. Existerande verktyg som används med hållbarhetsambitioner idag kritiseras för att de inte täcker hela hållbarhetsbegreppet, är komplicerade att använda och att de just inte ger det operativa stöd företagen önskar i ex ante beslutssituationer. I examensarbetet presenteras ett antal vanliga företags-”verktyg”, utvärderingsmetoder som används som ex ante beslutsunderlag (Cost-Benefit Analysis, Environmental-Impact Assessment & social-Impact Assessment). De jämförs med två nya verktyg som är under utveckling (Sustainability Impact Assessment & Integrated Sustainability Assessment). Dessa analyseras med avseende på hur väl de täcker in vedertagna hållbarhetsmål. Av dessa verktyg kan vilket som helst av dem utgöra en startpunkt för en fortsatt standardiseringsprocess, i vilket allt fler företag använder, förväntas använda och till slut avkrävs att använda just det redskapet. Då vill det till att utvecklingen har givit utrymme för öppna jämförelser längs vägen. Resultaten visar att korta tidsperspektiv med vinstmaximeringsmål utgör en motsats till långsiktiga hållbarhetsmål. Ingen av de redskap som företag idag använder i sina ex ante bedömningar inkluderar alla aspekter på hållbarhet. De nyare hållbarhetsredskapen för analys utgör grunder för en lovande utveckling. I skrivande stund är de tyvärr inte utvecklade och anpassade för praktisk användning i företag. De är för tids- och resurskrävande. Var och en av de analyserade redskapen bidrog med värdefull information som är relaterad till hållbarhet. I realiteten är det en fin balansgång för företag att maximera vinst på både lång och kort sikt utan att göra avkall på miljörelaterade, sociala, geografiska och kulturella mål

Holistic assessment of sustainable urban development

Introducing the SUE-MoT (metrics, models and toolkits for whole-life sustainable urban development) series, this paper highlights some of the barriers that need to be addressed if the vision for holistic assessment is to be realised. The complexities of sustainability assessment raised in this paper will be further discussed in detail in the SUE-MoT series of papers that will be published in forthcoming issues of this journal. This paper highlights the priorities to address when assessment tools are presented to decision makers of urban development projects. This discussion is limited to the issues, values and solutions in the UK context

The fables of pity: Rousseau, Mandeville and the animal-fable

Copyright @ 2012 Edinburgh University PressPrompted by Derrida’s work on the animal-fable in eighteenth-century debates about political power, this article examines the role played by the fiction of the animal in thinking of pity as either a natural virtue (in Rousseau’s Second Discourse) or as a natural passion (in Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees). The war of fables between Rousseau and Mandeville – and their hostile reception by Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith – reinforce that the animal-fable illustrates not so much the proper of man as the possibilities and limitations of a moral philosophy that is unable to address the political realities of the state

Comparison of spontaneous with controlled mode of ventilation in tonsillectomy

Methods: This randomized study compares spontaneous versus controlled ventilation in 60 ASA I and II patients undergoing tonsillectomy as regards haemodynamic stability, recovery characteristics, intra- and immediate postoperative complications and surgical impressions.Results: The patients in the balanced anaesthesia (B) group showed less haemodynamic variability compared to baseline after tracheal intubation, mouth gag application and removal and incision. Two patients had dysrhythmias in the B group compared to six in the spontaneous breathing (S) group. Six patients in the S group had a rise in endtidal carbon dioxide concentration above 7.8 kPa (60 mmHg). Recovery scores were higher in the B group at 10 and 20 min into recovery. The surgical impression of bleeding and jaw relaxation was similar with both groups. The incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting and agitation was higher in the S group but did not achieve statistical significance.CONCLUSION: Use of balanced anaesthesia offered more haemodynamic stability and a rapid recovery

Protective Effects of Gabapentin on Allodynia and α2δ1-Subunit of Voltage-dependent Calcium Channel in Spinal Nerve-Ligated Rats

This study was designed to determine whether early gabapentin treatment has a protective analgesic effect on neuropathic pain and compared its effect to the late treatment in a rat neuropathic model, and as the potential mechanism of protective action, the α2δ1-subunit of the voltage-dependent calcium channel (α2δ1-subunit) was evaluated in both sides of the L5 dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Neuropathic pain was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats by a surgical ligation of left L5 nerve. For the early treatment group, rats were injected with gabapentin (100 mg/kg) intraperitoneally 15 min prior to surgery and then every 24 hr during postoperative day (POD) 1-4. For the late treatment group, the same dose of gabapentin was injected every 24 hr during POD 8-12. For the control group, L5 nerve was ligated but no gabapentin was administered. In the early treatment group, the development of allodynia was delayed up to POD 10, whereas allodynia was developed on POD 2 in the control and the late treatment group (p<0.05). The α2δ1-subunit was up-regulated in all groups, however, there was no difference in the level of the α2δ1-subunit among the three groups. These results suggest that early treatment with gabapentin offers some protection against neuropathic pain but it is unlikely that this action is mediated through modulation of the α2δ1-subunit in DRG

Using the nonlinear control of anaesthesia-induced hypersensitivity of EEG at burst suppression level to test the effects of radiofrequency radiation on brain function

Background In this study, investigating the effects of mobile phone radiation on test animals, eleven pigs were anaesthetised to the level where burst-suppression pattern appears in the electroencephalogram (EEG). At this level of anaesthesia both human subjects and animals show high sensitivity to external stimuli which produce EEG bursts during suppression. The burst-suppression phenomenon represents a nonlinear control system, where low-amplitude EEG abruptly switches to very high amplitude bursts. This switching can be triggered by very minor stimuli and the phenomenon has been described as hypersensitivity. To test if also radio frequency (RF) stimulation can trigger this nonlinear control, the animals were exposed to pulse modulated signal of a GSM mobile phone at 890 MHz. In the first phase of the experiment electromagnetic field (EMF) stimulation was randomly switched on and off and the relation between EEG bursts and EMF stimulation onsets and endpoints were studied. In the second phase a continuous RF stimulation at 31 W/kg was applied for 10 minutes. The ECG, the EEG, and the subcutaneous temperature were recorded. Results No correlation between the exposure and the EEG burst occurrences was observed in phase I measurements. No significant changes were observed in the EEG activity of the pigs during phase II measurements although several EEG signal analysis methods were applied. The temperature measured subcutaneously from the pigs' head increased by 1.6°C and the heart rate by 14.2 bpm on the average during the 10 min exposure periods. Conclusion The hypothesis that RF radiation would produce sensory stimulation of somatosensory, auditory or visual system or directly affect the brain so as to produce EEG bursts during suppression was not confirmed.BioMed Central Open acces