Environmental Policy Challenges Research Articles

Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) in Construction: A Holistic Review of Current Trends and Future Directions

The construction industry, despite its anticipated significant growth, has struggled with low productivity over the past two decades. Design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA), a methodology with a history of success in other industries, presents a promising solution to enhancing efficiency in construction. This article reviews the current state of DfMA in the construction industry, identifies the most recent research themes in the field of DfMA, and provides recommendations for future DfMA research based on the existing research gaps. The paper employs a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative bibliometric analysis and qualitative thematic analysis. Using Scopus as the literature database, the study identified 43 relevant articles published between 2013 and 2023. The bibliometric analysis reveals a growing interest in DfMA research, with an upward trend in publications over the years. The thematic analysis categorizes DfMA research topics into six main themes: Innovation and Technology Trends, Sustainability and Environmental Impact, Regulatory and Policy Considerations, Collaborative Approach, Applications, Benefits, and Challenges, and Project Lifecycle. Each theme is explored in-depth, providing insights into the transformative impact of technology, environmental considerations in DfMA, regulatory challenges, collaborative strategies, varied applications, and the project lifecycle phases influenced by DfMA. The article concludes by presenting identified research gaps and offering recommendations for future DfMA research. It emphasizes the need for a holistic approach, continued collaboration, and a focus on unexplored aspects of regulatory frameworks and the entire project lifecycle. This study sets a new benchmark in DfMA research by employing a novel mixed-method approach and providing unprecedented insights into the multifaceted role of DfMA in advancing construction industry practices. It serves as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders in the construction industry by offering a comprehensive understanding of DfMA’s current state and guiding future research endeavors.

Humanitarian vs Pandemic Responses: Vulnerable Groups among Rohingyas in Bangladesh

The Rohingya diaspora is a politically sensitive humanitarian crisis for Bangladesh. The current Covid-19 pandemic poses a range of governance, demographic, and environmental policy challenges in an already fragile context. The ongoing situation combined with the pandemic requires a rethinking of humanitarian strategies to tackle the double burden of crises – humanitarian and pandemic. Drawing together evidence and experience from a mixed method participatory action research conducted among Rohingya refugees and the host community in Bangladesh, this article highlights the importance of the institutional readiness of research organisations to produce contextual interventions and targeted approaches in pandemic and humanitarian response for diverse communities. The article also reflects on the strategies researchers applied to create a knowledge network between researchers and implementers, which not only informed the study design and its selection of most vulnerable groups but also worked towards producing knowledge fit for purpose, where critical evidence was shared with key decision makers and policymakers.

Designing effective environmental policy mixes in the UN Decade on ecosystem restoration

The 2020s are starting under challenging circumstances. The impact of COVID-19 recovery plans and the realignment of geopolitics with energy provisioning will be crucial for meeting global environmental policy targets, such as those exemplified by the recently launched United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. How to build a more ecologically viable society, however, remains a contested issue. Several scholars are also highlighting the importance of complexifying environmental policy beyond individual instruments centred on the limiting paradigm of economic growth. Drawing on these considerations, we make a case for Environmental Policy Mixes (EPMs), which can better accommodate a diversity of institutional arrangements, contextual power dynamics, and a multiplicity of environmental targets. In this paper, we first present a database of 146 environmental policy instruments (provided in the annexe) that we collected through a survey of the literature. Second, we develop an EPM framework based on a set of 14 criteria that we then test with a selected group of experts in the field, both academics and business practitioners, through structured interviews and card sorting. Following, we present an adjusted final version of the framework and conclude with two illustrative examples of how to apply it. The first one is a case study of the environmental trade-offs in a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the other investigates how to align COVID-19 stimulus packages with the objectives of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The decade ahead is going to be critical for reaching global environmental targets. The EPM framework can facilitate policy discussions and guide decision-makers in tackling the environmental policy challenges of the 2020s and beyond.

The importance of relationality: A note on co-determinism, multispecies relationships and implications for COVID-19.

The paper aims to highlight the importance of subjective, objective and intersubjective domains when engaging in public education and research on wicked problems such as violence, poverty, climate change, loss of habitat and pandemics. The case is made that critical systemic thinking and practice—underpinned by a meta Design of Inquiring Systems—could help to foster a more relational response to the convergent social, economic and environmental policy challenges that pose ‘existential risks’. This paper explores the implications of ‘mismeasuring our lives’ by not understanding relationality. It reflects on the factors that are linked with the ‘unravelling’ of well‐being, in order to prevent and restore the multispecies relationships that have been forgotten. This requires a bio‐political approach to reframing not only economics but our relationships with one another and with nature. ‘Power and knowledge are linked’ and nowhere is Foucault's linkage more marked than in the biopolitical determination of what species are valued and why. Taxonomies are constructs based on values that need to be carefully considered in terms of the consequences of policy decisions.

Environmental politics and policy adaptation in China: the case of water sector reform

AbstractMuch of the literature on China's successful adaptation to the policy challenges posed by economic development credits two principle approaches, gradualism and local experimentation. However, the extent to which these approaches aid policy adaptation to environmental policy challenges is less well explored. This article examines how these approaches have shaped policy adaptation in water resources management by presenting data on ambitious water policy reforms that are, to our knowledge, new to the English-language scholarly literature. While gradualism and local experimentation have aided in the adoption of economic mechanisms like water pricing reform and water rights trading to regulate water use, institutional reforms have been undermined by an over-reliance on central control and direction. This phenomenon, which we call hierarchy, constrains China's ability to address diffuse, inter-jurisdictional and multi-sectoral water management challenges like nonpoint source pollution, and may inhibit its ability to address similarly complex sustainable development challenges into the future.

Indigenous Ecohumanist Architecture for Health in Canada's Far North.

Circumpolar nations are experiencing unprecedented environmental and public health policy challenges due to global climate change, exploitation of nonrenewable natural resources, the endangerment of myriad wildlife species, and growing sovereignty disputes. In a call to action, the Arctic states' health ministers recently signed a declaration identifying shared priorities for mutual international cooperation. Among agreed-upon collaborations, an enhancement of intercultural understanding and promotion of culturally appropriate healthcare delivery systems is to be of high priority going forward. In far north Canada, health policies perpetuated for generations upon indigenous communities have, traditionally, often had adverse consequences for the medically underserved inhabitants of these communities. This discussion addresses the cultural disconnect between the colonial era and current indigenous, decolonialist health and healing design strategies. In response, two architectural design case studies are presented that synthesize ecological site planning precepts with salutogenic architectural design attributes-a behavioral health and substance abuse residential treatment center and three elderhousing prototypes for construction in Canada's Northwest Territories. This conceptual synthesis is practicable, transferable, and adaptable to varied, extreme climatic conditions, as reflective of best practices in the delivery of healthcare facilities that express a synthesis of ecohumanist and salutogenic values and methodologies. The discussion concludes with a call for empathic, evidence-based collaboration and research that further examines the blending together of prefabricated off-site construction with on-site construction approaches.

ECOLOGICAL TURN-AROUND – TRENDS AND PERSPECTIVES

The current threatening environmental trends point to enormous environmental policy challenges at the national, regional and global levels. To improve this situation, it is necessary to begin fundamental economic and social transformations. Such processes create enormous political problems. The article analyses in detail four historical studies that explain the need for a global environmental shift, and explores the possibility of transformational processes. Transformation as a radical transformation is a valueoriented process.

Change will be the constant – future environmental policy and governance challenges in Svalbard

ABSTRACTSvalbard will gain increased strategic importance in the future development of the Norwegian Arctic. We argue from a perspective of international relations that the current Svalbard policies inadequately reflects the environmental, economic, social and political changes facing the archipelago. We ask what will be the paramount environmental management challenges facing Svalbard in the future, and how the governance system can deal with these? With the backdrop of climate change, developments throughout the Circumpolar Arctic suggest that the Polar region as such will experience increasing exploration and exploitation for natural resources, growth in marine traffic, different forms of tourism and militarization. Due to the structure of the Svalbard treaty, all policy measures and management interventions must be carefully balanced in the context of global geopolitics. Changing public values, climate change, oil- and gas exploration, marine harvesting, securitization, and expanding infrastructure and logistics will characterize the future. There is a need to develop expanded emergency response systems, an improved knowledge base for management including social science data, and better mechanisms for integrating science in policy- and decision-making. Environmental policy goals should also be revised to reflect the dynamic and uncertain state of social and environmental drivers of change already impacting Svalbard.

Highly decentralized solar geoengineering

ABSTRACT Nonstate actors appear to have increasing power, in part due to new technologies that alter actors’ capacities and incentives. Although solar geoengineering is typically conceived of as centralized and state-deployed, we explore highly decentralized solar geoengineering. Done perhaps through numerous small high-altitude balloons, it could be provided by nonstate actors such as environmentally motivated nongovernmental organizations or individuals. Conceivably tolerated or even covertly sponsored by states, highly decentralized solar geoengineering could move presumed action from the state arena to that of direct intervention by nonstate actors, which could in turn, disrupt international politics and pose novel challenges for technology and environmental policy. We conclude that this method appears technically possible, economically feasible, and potentially politically disruptive. Decentralization could, in principle, make control by states difficult, perhaps even rendering such control prohibitively costly and complex.

The spatial extent of renewable and non-renewable power generation: A review and meta-analysis of power densities and their application in the U.S.

Energy systems are undergoing a significant shift to renewable energy (RE). To date, the surface area required for RE systems is greater than that for non-RE systems, exacerbating existing environmental policy challenges, from increasing land competition, to visual impacts. A suitable metric for comparing the extent of systems is the power density of electricity production, that is, the electrical power produced per horizontal m2 of surface area. This study systematically reviews power densities for 9 energy-types (wind, solar etc.) and multiple sub-types (e.g., for solar power: PV, solar thermal) in the United States. Median, mean, and uncertainty estimates are provided for 177 different densities from the literature. Non-renewable power densities are found to be three orders of magnitude larger than renewable densities. Natural gas and solar energy yield the highest median density per non-RE, and RE system respectively. Solar energy was the only system to experience a significant, positive relationship in power density over time. We apply these density estimates to NREL scenarios of future energy systems for state-specific assessments, and find that the largest growth in land use is in the southern United States.

The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018)

A decade ago, scientists and practitioners working in environmental water management crystallized the progress and direction of environmental flows science, practice, and policy in The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (2007), during the 10th International Riversymposium and International Environmental Flows Conference held in Brisbane, Australia. The 2007 Declaration highlights the significance of environmental water allocations for humans and freshwater-dependent ecosystems, and sets out a nine-point global action agenda. This was the first consensus document that bought together the diverse experiences across regions and disciplines, and was significant in setting a common vision and direction for environmental flows internationally. After a decade of uptake and innovation in environmental flows, the 2007 declaration and action agenda was revisited at the 20th International Riversymposium and Environmental Flows Conference, held in Brisbane, Australia, in 2017. The objective was to publicize achievements since 2007 and update the declaration and action agenda to reflect collective progress, innovation, and emerging challenges for environmental flows policy, practice and science worldwide. This paper on The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018) describes the inclusive consultation processes that guided the review of the 2007 document. The 2018 Declaration presents an urgent call for action to protect and restore environmental flows and aquatic ecosystems for their biodiversity, intrinsic values, and ecosystem services, as a central element of integrated water resources management, and as a foundation for achievement of water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Global Action Agenda (2018) makes 35 actionable recommendations to guide and support implementation of environmental flows through legislation and regulation, water management programs, and research, linked by partnership arrangements involving diverse stakeholders. An important new element of the Declaration and Action Agenda is the emphasis given to full and equal participation for people of all cultures, and respect for their rights, responsibilities and systems of governance in environmental water decisions. These social and cultural dimensions of e-flow management warrant far more attention. Actionable recommendations present a pathway forward for a new era of scientific research and innovation, shared visions, collaborative implementation programs, and adaptive governance of environmental flows, suited to new social, and environmental contexts driven by planetary pressures, such as human population growth and climate change.

Hotspots of biodiversity and ecosystem services: the Outermost Regions and Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union

The obligations of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 create a need for mapping and assessment of the state of biodiversity, ecosystems and their services in all European member states. Europe’s nine Outermost Regions (ORs) and 25 Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) are mainly islands, scattered around the globe. These territories contain unique flora and fauna and encompass diverse ecosystems, from coral reefs to rainforests. These highly diverse ecosystems provide multiple relevant ecosystem services from local to global scale. To date, the ecosystem services concept has so far received little attention in European ORs and OCTs. Therefore, our aims were (1) to analyse the current state of ecosystem services mapping and assessment in Europe’s overseas territories, (2) to identify knowledge gaps in the context of ecosystem service research and application and (3) to provide recommendations for future research and policy directions to fill these gaps. We conducted a systematic review of scientific literature for each of the ORs and OCTs, screening 1030 publications. The analysis resulted in 161 publications referring to ES mapping and assessment, of which most were conducted in the European Caribbean (31%) and Pacific (21%) territories. Results show that many ORs and OCTs are still blank spots in terms of ecosystem service mapping and assessment and that, despite many biodiversity studies referring to species’ abundance, little has been published on ecosystem services. Our systematic review highlights theknowledge lacking on dealing with invasive species, which pose major threats to native island biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services. Further, it discusses knowledge gaps in (1) translation of information on island biodiversity and ecosystem functions into ES; (2) geographical coverage of mapping studies in most ORs and OCTs; (3) the lack of standardised approaches and integrated assessments to map, assess and value ecosystem services. Based on these results, future research and policy priorities could be adapted in order to focus on filling these gaps. To overcome current environmental policy challenges, it is crucial to address the ongoing decline in biodiversity, rising climatic and anthropogenic pressures on ecosystems and to maintain a sustainable ES flow to safeguard human well-being. Ultimately, ES mapping and assessment efforts will form the knowledge base for well-informed decision-making to protect Europe’s vulnerable overseas areas.

Investment strategies in the Latin American agri-business sub-sectors of agricultural commodities, biofuels and meat chains

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review and examine the recent investment trends of firms operating in the food, feed and biofuel production and processing sectors in Latin America. The inter-related nature of these three sub-sectors and the great expansion they have gone through in the last decade showcases a series of socioeconomic and environmental policy challenges thus making it relevant to identify their different business models through a typology.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first presents an unprecedented literature review based on field observations and media coverage of agri-business strategies of the food, feed and biofuel production in the region. It then moves to an in-depth analysis of investment operations that serve to classify such firms into a business model typology considering degree of internationalization and integration. The typology is a useful mechanism to enhance public policy analysis and uncover market or government incentives behind business decisions.FindingsBy focusing on investment strategies, the paper illustrates how both market and government incentives shape and affect the performance and consolidation of different players in the food, feed and biofuel sub-sectors in Latin America. The resulting effects have strong economic as well as social and environmental implications because such economic activities have an impact on global food and energy security.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include a reliance on largely qualitative evidence and research methods due to unavailability of consistent numerical data in these specific agri-business sub-sectors.Originality/valueThis paper is unique in its focus on business models in a particularly relevant set of agri-business sub-sectors in Latin America and its implications to promote investment and innovation in value chain development while considering regional-specific challenges.

Vulnerability to fuel price increases in the UK: A household level analysis

In highly motorised countries, some sectors of the population own and use cars despite struggling to afford their running costs, and so may be particularly vulnerable to motor fuel prices increases, whether market-led or policy-driven. This paper proposes a novel, disaggregated approach to investigating vulnerability to such increases at the household level. We propose a set of indicators of ‘car-related economic stress’ (CRES), based on individual household level expenditure data for the UK, to identify which low-income households spend disproportionately on running motor vehicles, and to assess the depth of their economic stress. By subsequently linking the dataset to local fuel price data, we are able to model the disaggregated price elasticities of car fuel demand. This provides us with an indicator of each household’s adaptive capacity to fuel price increases. The findings show that ‘Low Income, High Cost’ households (LIHC) account for 9% of UK households and have distinct socio-demographic characteristics. Interestingly, they are characterised by very low responses to fuel price increases, which may cause them to compromise on other important areas of their household expenditures. Simulations suggest that a 20% increase in fuel prices would substantially increase the depth, but not the incidence of CRES. Overall, the study sheds light on a sector of the population with high levels of vulnerability to fuel price increases, owing to high exposure, high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity. This raises challenges for social, environmental and resilience policy in the transport sector.

Governance of Highly Decentralized Nonstate Actors: The Case of Solar Geoengineering

Nonstate actors appear to have increasing power, in part due to new technologies that alter actors’ capacities and incentives. Although solar geoengineering is typically conceived of as centralized and state-deployed, we explore highly decentralized solar geoengineering. Done perhaps through numerous small high-altitude balloons, it could be provided by nonstate actors such as environmentally motivated nongovernmental organizations or individuals. Conceivably tolerated or even covertly sponsored by states, highly decentralized solar geoengineering could move presumed action from the state arena to that of direct intervention by nonstate actors, which could in turn, disrupt international politics and pose novel challenges for technology and environmental policy. We conclude that this method appears technically possible, economically feasible, and potentially politically disruptive. Decentralization could, in principle, make control by states difficult, perhaps even rendering such control prohibitively costly and complex.

Characteristics and performance of small and medium wastewater treatment plants in Greece

Wastewater management in Greece is being regulated by the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) and as a result many wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been constructed during the last 30 years and are in operation. The present work aims to outline the progress regarding the implementation of the specific environmental policy, present deficiencies and future challenges, while an evaluation of the performance is conducted for small-medium and large WWTPs focusing on the influent and effluent quality characteristics. In Greece the existing level of treatment provided is related to secondary treatment for the removal of organic load, which in most cases is supplemented by nitrogen removal (for more than 85% of the WWTPs) and phosphorus removal. With respect to the characteristics of the raw municipal wastewater these correspond to typical low to medium strength sewage. Compliance to the UWWTD effluent standards for BOD5, COD and SS is achieved in more than 90% of the WWTPs, while in terms of nutrients, 80% of the WWTPs efficiently remove nitrogen and approximately 45% of the WWTPs remove phosphorus.

Human interest meets biodiversity hotspots: A new systematic approach for urban ecosystem conservation.

Creating a win-win relationship between biodiversity and human well-being is one of the major current challenges for environmental policy. One way to approach this challenge is to identify sites with both high biodiversity and high human interest in urban areas. Here, we propose a new systematic approach to identify such sites by using land prices and biodiversity indexes for butterflies and birds from a nationwide perspective. As a result, we found sites that are valuable to humans and to other organisms, including national red-list species, and they are located in sites with cultural heritages and near seaside. By referencing the habitat features and landscape characteristics of these sites, we can establish high quality environments that provide a benefit to both humans and biodiversity in urban landscapes.

Considering agro-ecosystems as ecological funds for collective design: New perspectives for environmental policy

Enhancing agro-ecosystem sustainability raises difficult challenges for environmental policy: it requires both increasing knowledge on these complex systems to design effective solutions and coordinating stakeholders with diverging interests. However, most existing environmental policies consider ecosystems’ desirable properties as given, leading ecosystem managers to favor “turnkey” solutions. How could public policy better support local collective initiatives aiming at reconciling agriculture and the environment? This paper presents an empirical case study from western France, in which a partnership between an agricultural cooperative and an ecological research center resulted in a collective design initiative. We conceptually model this initiative drawing upon recent design theories and Georgescu-Roegen’s ‘fund-flow’ model, defining ‘ecological funds’ as the starting point of a collective design process. The results highlight the importance of developing policy instruments that can better support local innovation processes through greater democratization. Adopting a design approach to sustainable agricultural landscape management could be particularly fruitful in situations where collective action is necessary but where there is no common good recognized as such, and no existing community identified.

Sustainable Development as Governance Reform Agenda: An Aggregation of Distinguished Challenges for Policy-Making

Abstract Sustainable development (SD) is commonly defined as development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations. This paper addresses the concept not with regard to economic, social or environmental policy challenges, but regarding its key implications for public governance. It shows that in terms of governance, SD requires horizontal integration of sectoral policies, closer co-operation between different tiers of government (vertical integration), integrating different stakeholders in decision-making (participation), considering different types of knowledge throughout the policy-making process (reflexivity), and balancing short- and long-term time scales (intergenerational equity). This paper contributes to the SD as well as the governance discourse in basic ways by aggregating these widely accepted normative SD principles to a comprehensive governance reform agenda. By doing so, it also highlights the considerable yet rarely noticed overlap between the discourses on SD and (good) governance.

VOLUNTARY AGREEMENTS AS A WAY TO STIMULATE INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT AND THEIR CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS

Numerous governments have adopted innovative policy instruments to deal with important environmental policy challenges. Various forms of negotiated instruments may offer the potential to improve on environmental performance beyond what regulation alone can accomplish. Dutch covenants, which represent negotiated agreements with sectors of industry as targets of behavioral change in terms of mitigation of pollution, waste minimization and sustainable products and processes, provide a useful sample from which evidence can be drawn regarding the determinants of success. In broad terms, our study presents a generally positive assessment of the negotiated agreement as an instrument of government. Our findings indicate positive environmental results in terms of stated ambition, compliance, goal attainment and environmental behavioural change. Interesting is that high ambitions do not relate to lower compliance, and instead contribute to the degree of ultimate behavioural change. On the minimization of total costs opinions are mixed, but a large majority acknowledged the efficiency advantages of flexibility in phasing of the measures. They are, however, somewhat less positive on the minimization of transaction costs, due to the continuous consultation processes. Finally, the vast majority of respondents had a positive view on the side-effects that develop resources for further steps forward, such as improved mutual understanding, improved knowledge base, and more. We have identified various factors that relate to these successes. One of the most important ones concerns the representative organization of a sector, i.e. the branch organization. In cases where a strong representative organization exists that is also willing and able to act on behalf of its members, chances for success are much higher. This is also true when the target group’s environmental image is sensitive. For the policy objective of improving environmental performance, certain features of the policy setting explain much of the variance in ambitions and outcomes: attitudes of decision makers in the affected businesses, attention to cost minimization, and possibly the degree of ambition built into the agreement. Additional modeling to explain the extent of ambition and also compliance offers further insights. Some research in Mexico and China suggests that while some lessons from the Dutch experience may be restricted to more corporatist policy settings, others may help improve the effectiveness of negotiated agreements in a variety of other national settings.