Transformations for sustainable development : promoting environmental sustainability in Asia and the Pacific

Asia and the Pacific is a dynamic region. Regional megatrends, such as urbanization, economic and trade integration and rising incomes and changing consumption patterns, are transforming its societies and economies while multiplying the environmental challenges. These environmental challenges range from growing greenhouse gas emissions, poor air quality, land use change, pressure on marine ecosystems, biodiversity loss and increasing demand for resources, such as energy and water. These megatrends are already shaping the future patterns of resource use and defining who benefits the most and who loses. A basic premise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is that trade-offs between environmental protection, shared prosperity and social progress can no longer be viewed as acceptable. Aligning these trends with sustainable development requires political will and action to reshape the relationships between the economy, society and the environment. This report examines four critical determinants of the relationships between these three dimensions of sustainable development as targets for fundamental transformations—in social justice, resource efficiency, investment flows and economic structures. This report is the product of a combined effort by four institutions: the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations University and the Institute for Global and Environmental Strategies. It is the seventh in a series of reports published every five years since 1985 by ESCAP and partners (formerly known as the State of the Environment in Asia and the Pacific series)

The analytical framework of water and armed conflict: a focus on the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon

This paper develops an analytical framework to investigate the relationship between water and armed conflict, and applies it to the ‘Summer War’ of 2006 between Israel and Lebanon (Hezbollah). The framework broadens and deepens existing classifications by assessing the impact of acts of war as indiscriminate or targeted, and evaluating them in terms of international norms and law, in particular International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In the case at hand, the relationship is characterised by extensive damage in Lebanon to drinking water infrastructure and resources. This is seen as a clear violation of the letter and the spirit of IHL, while the partial destruction of more than 50 public water towers compromises water rights and national development goals. The absence of pre-war environmental baselines makes it difficult to gauge the impact on water resources, suggesting a role for those with first-hand knowledge of the hostilities to develop a more effective response before, during, and after armed conflict

A GIS model-based assessment of the environmental distribution of g-hexachlorocyclohexane in European soils and waters

The MAPPE GIS based multimedia model is used to produce a quantitative description of the behaviour of γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (γ-HCH) in Europe, with emphasis on continental surface waters. The model is found to reasonably reproduce γ-HCH distributions and variations along the years in atmosphere and soil; for continental surface waters, concentrations were reasonably well predicted for year 1995, when lindane was still used in agriculture, while for 2005, assuming severe restrictions in use, yields to substantial underestimation. Much better results were yielded when same mode of release as in 1995 was considered, supporting the conjecture that for γ-HCH, emission data rather that model structure and parameterization can be responsible for wrong estimation of concentrations. Future research should be directed to improve the quality of emission data. Joint interpretation of monitoring and modelling results, highlights that lindane emissions in Europe, despite the marked decreasing trend, persist beyond the provisions of existing legislation. An spatially-explicit multimedia modelling strategy was applied to describe the historical distribution of γ-HCH in European soils and surface waters

Conflicts about water in Lake Chad: are environmental, vulnerability and security issues linked?

This paper builds on the growing literature that explores the relations between environmental change and non-traditional security, defined as non-military threats that challenge the survival and well-being of peoples and states. The Lake Chad basin in Africa is used as a case study for analysis. Focusing on a set of questions that has dominated recent theoretical debates, the paper investigates if conflicts resulting from water scarcity are as much about the broader vulnerability of the Lake Chad region as they are about changes in the Lake system and its environment. It argues that conflict is a probable outcome only in locations that are already challenged by a multitude of other context-specific factors beside resource scarcity. In the Lake Chad context, the likelihood of scarcity-driven conflict depends on whether vulnerability increases or decreases in the face of a declining water supply. The paper provides perspectives for a nuanced understanding of how the receding Lake Chad has led to conflict and outlines an integrated, forward-looking research agenda for linking environmental change, vulnerability and security issues in integrated human-environment systems

Sustainable Consumption Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Conceptual Framework

This paper develops a conceptual framework for investigating the adoption patterns, inhibitors, and facilitators ( PIF ) of sustainable consumption in sub-Sahara African ( SSA ) settings. Literature evidence shows paucity of empirical studies on sustainable consumption from SSA , which partly explains lack of suitable conceptual framework to guide research in this area. Also, the existing frameworks, which were developed outside SSA may not be suitable for constructing sustainable consumption behavior in SSA because of its peculiarities. The key signifi cance of this article is the potential of providing future researchers in this area with a framework to guide and manage their studies. As a conceptual article, insight was drawn from a plethora of scholarly articles in the domain of sustainable consumption and related areas. The framework is built on four key constructs—adoption patterns, inhibitors, facilitators ( PIF ), and intention. As a guide for studies from the SSA , the article includes an empirical section, which provides preliminary empirical validation for the proposed PIF conceptual framework based on a pilot test. The result from the pilot study, using structural equation modeling ( SEM ), led to positing the PIF Sustainable Consumption model, thus giving support for the PIF Conceptual Framework, which this article puts forward. In addition, the proposed PIF conceptual framework is capable of providing insight for crafting sustainability-related policies. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

“Top-Down-Bottom-Up” Methodology as a Common Approach to Defining Bespoke Sets of Sustainability Assessment Criteria for the Built Environment

YesThe top-down-bottom-up (TDBU) methodology for defining bespoke sets of sustainability criteria for specific civil engineering project types is introduced and discussed. The need to define sustainability criteria for specific civil engineering project types occurs mainly in one or both of the following cases: (1) when a more comprehensive and indicative assessment of the sustainability of the project type in question is required; and/or (2) there is no readily available bespoke sustainability assessment tool, or set of criteria, for assessing the sustainability of the project type. The construction of roads, buildings, airports, tunnels, dams, flood banks, bridges, water supply, and sewage systems and their supporting systems are considered to be unique civil engineering/infrastructure project types. The normative definition of sustainable civil engineering/infrastructure projects and the framework for assessing its sustainability is defined and provided by the authors. An example of the TDBU methodology being applied to define sustainability criteria for transport noise reducing devices is presented and discussed. The end result of applying the methodology is a systematically researched and industry validated set of criteria that denotes assessing the sustainability of the civil engineering/infrastructure project type. The paper concludes that the top-down-bottom-up will support stakeholders and managers involved in assessing sustainability to consider all major research methods to define general and unique sustainability criteria to assess and so maximize sustainability

Nutrient density of beverages in relation to climate impact

The food chain contributes to a substantial part of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and growing evidence points to the urgent need to reduce GHGs emissions worldwide. Among suggestions were proposals to alter food consumption patterns by replacing animal foods with more plant-based foods. However, the nutritional dimensions of changing consumption patterns to lower GHG emissions still remains relatively unexplored. This study is the first to estimate the composite nutrient density, expressed as percentage of Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR) for 21 essential nutrients, in relation to cost in GHG emissions of the production from a life cycle perspective, expressed in grams of CO2-equivalents, using an index called the Nutrient Density to Climate Impact (NDCI) index. The NDCI index was calculated for milk, soft drink, orange juice, beer, wine, bottled carbonated water, soy drink, and oat drink. Due to low-nutrient density, the NDCI index was 0 for carbonated water, soft drink, and beer and below 0.1 for red wine and oat drink. The NDCI index was similar for orange juice (0.28) and soy drink (0.25). Due to a very high-nutrient density, the NDCI index for milk was substantially higher (0.54) than for the other beverages. Future discussion on how changes in food consumption patterns might help avert climate change need to take both GHG emission and nutrient density of foods and beverages into account

A systematic quality assessment of Environmental Impact Statements in the oil and gas industry

The global economy relies heavily on oil and gas resources. However, hydrocarbon exploitation projects can cause significant impacts on the environment. But despite the production of numerous Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) to identify/mitigate such impacts, no study has specifically assessed the quality of EISs for both onshore and offshore oil and gas projects, with tested hypotheses. To address this research gap, our paper, for the first time, develops a modified Lee and Colley evaluation model to assess the quality of 19 sampled oil and gas project EISs produced from 1998 to 2008 in Nigeria. Our findings show that Project Description and Communication of Results are the main areas of strength. However, Environmental Impact Prediction, and Project Decommissioning, were among the key areas requiring attention. A key finding, though, is that Mann-Whitney tests suggest that there is no evidence that the quality of EISs for the latter period (2004–2008) is higher than that of the earlier period (1998–2004). We suggest that periodic systematic review of the quality of submitted/approved EISs (c. every 3–5 years) should be established to monitor trends in EIS quality and identify strong and weak areas. This would help to drive continual improvement in both the EIA processes and the resultant EISs of technical engineering projects. Such reviews have the potential to illuminate some of the underlying problems of, and solutions to, oil and gas exploration, production and transportation, and their related environmental impacts. This suggested change would also be useful internationally, including for the burgeoning exploration and production of unconventional hydrocarbon resources.Publisher Statement: NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of The Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of The Total Environment, [572, (2016)] DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.07.083© 2016, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Green economy: Private sectors’ response to climate change

The focus of this paper is to present a discussion of the role of the private sector in response to the need for climate change adaptations. The study, which was conducted through a literature review, investigates the concept of the green economy and climate change, as well as businesses’ commitment to advance climate actions in ways that build resilience in vulnerable communities in developing countries. The paper calls on companies with national, regional, and/or global reach to adopt or develop strategies that improve resource efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the loss of biodiversity. Businesses can accelerate this transition by aligning their investments with climate change adaptation opportunities, and thus, “green” the economy. In addition, green growth could be achieved through tactical public and private investments in mitigating climate change. The paper concludes that the private sector is a key sector in addressing the challenges of vulnerable communities, and it has much to contribute to the planning, development, and implementation of climate adaptation strategies, including sector-specific expertise, technology, efficiency, financing, and entrepreneurship. Finally, some social conditions and environmental boundaries have been highlighted in this paper to attract the attention of business leaders who are trying to build initiatives and advance climate actions that will reduce socio-community risks from climate change. Also, comprehensive initiatives and strategies have been recommended to private companies seeking to address climate vulnerabilities