Good Environmental Performance Research Articles

Properties and application of thixotropic cement paste backfill with molybdenum tailings

Backfilling is considered worldwide as an effective treatment method for coal mining subsidence and mineral tailing disposal. A green thixotropic cement paste backfill with molybdenum tailing (MoT) sand was prepared which can rapidly accumulate in the coal mining cavity. A thixotropic coefficient method was also proposed to evaluate the thixotropy of the paste based on the correlation between shear stress and time. Through an orthogonal test regarding the optimal proportion design, the thixotropy, water separation rate and stone compressive strength of the thixotropic MoT-cement paste were tested. The range analysis showed that the optimal proportion of the paste was 6% mixed metal hydroxide (MMH), 0.8 water-cement ratio, and 6:4 MoT-cement ratio. The analysis in the rheological properties of the proposed paste indicated that the relationships of shear rate-shear stress of the optimal proportion conformed to the power rate rheological model. The influences of the addition amount of MMH, water-cement ratio and MoT-cement ratio on the mechanical property of the stone body of the proposed paste were tested and predicted theoretically. Through a simulated accumulation test, the relationships among the flowing distance, accumulation height and time of the thixotropic MoT-cement paste in the process of filling coal mining cavity were obtained. The cost of the thixotropic cement paste with MoT is 30–50% better economy than that with natural river sand and recycled fine aggregate whilst the thixotropic cement paste with MoT also shows good environmental performance by considering the depletion of stocked mineral tailing in coal mining cavity treatment.

Prospective life cycle assessment of a novel building system with improved foam glass incorporating high recycled content

This article presents a prospective life cycle assessment of the novel building system incorporating an improved foam glass with high recycled content, considering alternative shells (clay and concrete bricks) and construction site locations. The improved foam glass (λ = 0.037 W/m K; ρ = 100 kg/m3) outperforms the commercial foam glass in most environmental impact categories. A fully electric production process is only beneficial with a high share of renewable energy sources in the electricity mix. The use of the improved foam glass can lead to a reduction of climate change impacts by 64 % and resource use - fossil by 66 % in the European foam glass market. The novel building system can have good environmental performance even when assuming long-distance distribution. This article advances in proposing future scenario analyses by identifying life cycle hotspots (e.g. energy intensity, cullet availability), including changes in production, suppliers and market demand. A prospective life cycle assessment allows to anticipate critical issues and provide recommendations for improvement.

Research on the development status and countermeasures of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry in China

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is an important direction of global automotive power transformation and upgrading. It has advantages such as good environmental performance, high conversion efficiency, short filling time and long driving distance. It is one of the important directions for the sustainable development of the future automobile industry, but also an important part of the construction of low-carbon transportation system, and a key field of hydrogen energy utilization.

Thymol Induces Cell Death of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum via Triggering Superoxide Radical Accumulation and Oxidative Injury In Vitro

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum (FON) causes watermelon wilt that is one of the major disease-causing yield losses of watermelon. Sustainable development of agriculture requires controlling watermelon wilt disease with good environmental performance. One important approach is to identify environmental-friendly compounds with inhibitory activity against FON. Thymol is a plant-derived compound that is safe for ecology. Little is known about the application of thymol in agriculture. In this study, we studied the inhibitory activity of thymol against FON by using morphological, physiological, and histochemical approaches. Thymol significantly inhibited colony diameter of FON in a dose-dependent manner, with EC50 at 21 µg/mL. Thymol at 10, 21, and 35 µg/mL decreased the fresh weight of FON mycelia by 29.0%, 50.6%, and 69.5%, respectively. Microscopic observation revealed irregular damage and loss of shape of mycelia upon thymol exposure. Thymol induced the accumulation of superoxide radical in mycelial cells and accompanied increased activity of antioxidative enzymes (SOD, superoxide dismutase; CAT, catalase). Thymol induced membrane permeability was indicated by lipid peroxidation and electrolyte leakage (increased by 29–58%) in mycelial cells. These results suggested that thymol induced oxidative damage in mycelia, which may be one of the possible reasons for thymol-induced mycelial cell death observed with fluorescent detection. Thymol decreased the production of conidia and inhibited the germination of conidia. Thymol induced superoxide radical accumulation, lipid peroxidation, and cell death in conidia as well. All of these results revealed the inhibitory activity of thymol against FON, which may have resulted from the superoxide radical-induced oxidative injury in both conidia and mycelia of FON.

Sustainability of transport and logistics companies: an empirical evidence from a developing country

PurposeTransport and logistics companies (TLCs) are vital to the world's economies but they account for one-third of the world's CO2 emissions which damage the environment, economy and society. For managers and policymakers to help improve the environmental performance of TLCs, using dynamic capability (DC) theory as the lens, a theoretical model was developed to show how environmental performance affects the TLCs' support requirements and economic and social outcomes. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned theoretical model.Design/methodology/approachAll registered TLCs operating in the Philippines were sent an invitation and survey questionnaire, and 218 responded with complete and useable answers. From the collected data, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) served to evaluate the study's scale and model accuracies. Comprehensive CFA marker technique helped detect and correct for common method bias (CMB). Covariance-based structural equation modeling using AMOS 26 was implemented to test the model and hypotheses.FindingsUsing data from 218 participating TLCs operating in the Philippines, this study found that good environmental performance advances TLCs' economic and social performances, as well as their support infrastructure requirements. However, further financial support assistance from the government and non-government development organizations that can help save the environment are not required by eco performing firms.Research limitations/implicationsThis research has provided some theoretical contributions to the knowledge on the greening TLCs. It uses the DC theory as the lens to understand how environmental performance relates to economic and social performance of TLCs and how it affects their demand for eco-enabling mechanisms and support infrastructure if they are to remain competitive, socially responsible and eco-friendly. By providing an epistemology on environmental performance and how it affects the support requirements, and economic and social outcomes of TLCs, it offers the literature and industry a tool/framework to better understand the dynamics of eco-performing TLCs operating in a developing country.Practical implicationsThe results of this study, together with the extant operations management principles, can be used by TLC managers, policymakers and other stakeholders in crafting strategies, mechanisms and support systems that can help TLCs maintain sustainability for future generations.Social implicationsThe environmentally sound practices of TLCs such as waste and emission reductions improve the health and welfare of people in and around where they operate. Health is wealth for the populace because healthy people are more productive, have more time and energy to work and are less likely to pay hefty medical expenses. Hence, realization of environmental performance by TLCs does not only do justice to the environment but also the quality of life of people.Originality/valueResearch on the sustainability of TLCs in developing countries especially in Southeast Asia is sparse. The literature has shown how various support systems affect the “greening” of firms, but what is not yet explored, is understanding how environmental performance affects the support requirements of TLCs so that their eco-endeavors are sustained and meaningful. As well, knowledge on how the environmental performance of TLCs affects their economic and social outcomes are under-investigated. This paper aims to fill these gaps in research by examining the sustainability of TLCs operating in the Philippines.

Peningkatan Earning Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) melalui Penerapan Green Accounting

This study aims to analyze the increase in eco efficiency with the application of green accounting. Data collection techniques using literature study, observation, interviews and documentation. Checking the validity of the data through extension of participation, persistence of observation, and triangulation of data. The results showed that Lumintu farm’s had implemented green accounting through the stages of identifying costs for handling the impact of negative externalities on production, the recognition stage, the measurement stage, the presentation stage through the income statement and the stage of disclosing the costs or costs incurred by the company for environmental management. The good environmental performance of the entity also has an impact on the positive response of consumers so that it can increase profits or EBIT..

Projektowanie zrównoważone w aspekcie zastosowania materiałów proekologicznych

The paper presents the problem of sustainable design in terms of multi-criteria evaluation methods focusing on the selection and use of building materials in the design. Based on the guidelines and procedures of such assessment methods as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), BREAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), and others, environmentally friendly building materials were selected for the design of specific building structures was made. For the construction of low-rise single-family homes, products made from waste were used. For the construction of a multipurpose, highrise building, the material chosen was cross-laminated timber (CLT), which is characterized by good environmental performance. The design of a multipurpose urban complex used environmentally friendly concrete, the manufacturing process of which has a dramatically reduced carbon footprint. An analysis of the properties of the building materials, their selection in terms of sustainability, and their use in designs provide tangible benefits in terms of the quality of formation of the built environment.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Agricultural Residues (Cocoa Cortex, Sugarcane Bagasse and Oil Palm Fiber) for Power Generation in Boilers through Fuel Combustion

Abstract Among the renewable energy resources available is biomass from agricultural waste. Herein, we propose 3 agricultural waste products (cocoa cortex, oil palm fiber and sugarcane bagasse. The environmental and energy performance of agr icultural waste used as fuel to produce 1 kWh of electr icity each in Ivory Coast was studied using the Life Cycle Assessment method. LAM is a method of environmental evaluation. It evaluates the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle, the life cycle of each of these 3 agricultural wastes is made up of collection, transport to the electricity production site and combustion of these biomasses hi the boilers of the cogeneration units. The results are as follows: In terms of global wanning impacts, for these 3 waste products (cocoa cortex, oil palm fiber and sugarcane bagasse) respectively (0.12; 0.16 and 0.19) kg CO2 eq. / kWh. hi terms of impacts on the depletion of non-renewable resources for these 3 wastes (cocoa cortex, oil palm fiber and sugarcane bagasse) respectively (0.007; 0.010 and 0.012) MJ / kWh. hi terms of eutrophication-related impacts on global warming for these 3 wastes (cocoa cortex, oil palm fiber and sugarcane bagasse) respectively (0.38; 0.4 and 0.91) g PO43-/ kWh. According to the results of the 3 impacts taken into account hi tins LCA study, it is desirable to use these 3 agricultural wastes to produce electricity with very good energy and environmental performance, instead of fossil fuels (diesel, oil and coal). Finally, the objective of this research will be to provide credible information to decision-makers (governments, private and public companies, national and international organizations and the general public) in order to promote the installation of energy production units (heat and/or electricity) based on the combustion of these 3 agricultural residues hi rural and industrial areas.

The relationship between corporate social responsibility, external orientation, and environmental performance

Firms in an open economy with stronger external orientation have been under pressure from customers and other stakeholders to implement global corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities since the 2000s. However, does it pay to be green for an open economy? Attempts to address this question have yielded a key and contentious debate, with mixed evidence from studies on two different relations between the external orientation level and environmental performance, and the status of CSR disclosures and ecological performance. Accordingly, this study extends the debate, reconciling the divergent views by modeling and proposing the relationships between CSR, the level of external orientation, and environmental performance, such as pollution reduction. It employs an empirical methodology using available data from a small open economy. The results testify to the negative (positive) relationship between CSR (external orientation) and pollution. Moreover, CSR exerts a moderating effect on pollution. Indeed, the two viewpoints may be complementary, and open-economy firms and industries with more substantial external CSR exposure likely yield good environmental performance.

Corporate Sustainable Development, Corporate Environmental Performance and Cost of Debt

High environmental performance of enterprises may reduce financing costs, while good environmental performance can promote sustainable development of enterprises. Therefore, this paper examines the impact mechanism of China’s corporate environmental performance on financing costs, and whether corporate sustainable development plays a regulatory role in the research of heavy pollution industries. This study is conducted through the Breusch and Pagan Lagrange multiplier test for random effects and the Hausman test to determine whether to adopt Fixed-effects regression or Random-effects GLS regression as an estimation method to control individual effects and endogenous problems brought by time. By collecting the samples of listed companies in China from 2010 to 2021, the empirical results show that corporate environmental performance is negatively related to financing costs. Sustainable development, as a moderator variable, is negatively related to financing costs and has weakened the inhibition of corporate environmental performance on financing costs. Although the existing literature shows that environmental performance will lead to changes in debt costs, this study has made contributions to the literature by revealing the sustainable development mechanism in the relationship between corporate environmental performance and financing costs and has verified that sustainable development is one of the important factors affecting financing costs.

Pengaruh Eco-control, Ukuran Perusahaan, dan Environmental Performance Terhadap Pengungkapan Corporate Social Responsibility (Pada Perusahaan Manufaktur Sub Sektor Makanan dan Minuman Yang Terdaftar Di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2016-2021)

very company has an obligation to be responsibility for the environment as a form of social care. But in reality, currently many companies in carrying out their activities are not in accordance with the guidelines for corporate social responsibility. Therefore, through environmental control efforts, the size of the company’s total assets, and good environmental performance, it is hoped that the company will be able to increase the tangible form of its obligations from the impact of ongoing operations. This study aims to examine and analyze the effect of eco-control, company size, and environmental performance on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility.The research method uses explanatory research, data collection techniques use secondary data obtained from the annual report. The research sample consisted of 22 manufacturing companies in the food and beverage sub-sector for the 2016-2021 period, the sampling method used was purposive sampling.
 The results show that eco-control has a positive effect on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility, the size of the company has a negative effect on the disclosure of corporate social responsibility, and environmental performance has a positive effect on the disclosure of corporate social resonsibility. This means that only the eco-control and environmental performance hypotheses are accepted. The ability of eco-control, company size, and environmental performance as independent variables can affect the disclosure of corporate social responsibility by 9.12% and the rest is explained by other factors outside the study.
 

Hindsight Intermediate Targets for Mapless Navigation With Deep Reinforcement Learning

Autonomous mapless navigation is very challenging since it is difficult to effectively find the way without a map. In this article, we address a problem encountered when realizing reinforcement learning (RL)-based autonomous mapless navigation of a mobile vehicle with depth sensors when only local depth images and relative target positions are available. This study aims to determine the velocity of the mobile vehicle to avoid collisions and reach the final destination as soon as possible. To accomplish this objective, a new approach, called hindsight-intermediate-target-based RL (HIT-RL), to realize autonomous mapless navigation is proposed to effectively take detour routes to the destination based solely on recent local observations. The proposed HIT-RL generates virtual intermediate targets that guide the mobile vehicle to the final destination. The velocity of the mobile vehicle, as the action of RL, is determined to aim for the intermediate targets, and trained with a neural network to reach the original target by rewarding for it. Navigation tasks realized with an aerial vehicle, or a drone, that the proposed HIT-RL allows the mobile vehicle to effectively escape from dead ends without a map and, hence, reach the final destination within a reasonable time. The navigation performance is also illustrated with an actual mobile vehicle system to show that the proposed HIT-RL exhibits good performance in practical environments.

PENGARUH MEKANISME GOOD CORPORATE GOVERNANCE DAN KINERJA LINGKUNGAN TERHADAP KINERJA PERUSAHAAN

This study uses the variable mechanism of good corporate governance (Independent Commissioner, Board of Directors and Audit Committee) and environmental performance on company performance. Sample 16 Companies The consumer goods industry sector registered on the 2016-2020 IDX using the purposive sampling method and using secondary data. To prove the hypothesis used in this study, quantitative analysis methods are used. Data testing is carried out using SPSS 16.0. In this method the data processing stage is carried out with the stages of statistical testing. The results of hypothesis testing, only independent commissioners have a significant effect on company performance while the board of directors, audit committees and environmental performance have no effect on company performance.

Sustainability reporting and firm value

Environment has become an important issue in the business world these days. Companies are increasingly paying more attention to company management without neglecting environmental sustainability. This study aims to examine the effect of sustainability reports for on stock performance, with growth category companies as the moderating variable. The sample consist of 18 growth-category companies that were included in the evaluation during 2020 in Indonesian Stock Exchange. The sustainability report is an indicator for environmental performance taken from compliance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, while stock performance is measured using the share price at the reporting date. Tests are carried out using Moderated Regression Analysis. The results showed that a growth category company that had a good environmental performance also had a good stock performance. And when compared with the performance of companies that are included in the non-growing category, there is a difference, although not statistically significant. This implies the importance of companies and investors to pay attention to environmental performance reporting and processes in accordance with environmental performance reporting standards.

AUC optimization for deep learning-based voice activity detection

Voice activity detection (VAD) based on deep neural networks (DNN) have demonstrated good performance in adverse acoustic environments. Current DNN-based VAD optimizes a surrogate function, e.g., minimum cross-entropy or minimum squared error, at a given decision threshold. However, VAD usually works on-the-fly with a dynamic decision threshold, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is a global evaluation metric for VAD at all possible decision thresholds. In this paper, we propose to maximize the area under the ROC curve (MaxAUC) by DNN, which can maximize the performance of VAD in terms of the entire ROC curve. However, the objective of the AUC maximization is nondifferentiable. To overcome this difficulty, we relax the nondifferentiable loss function to two differentiable approximation functions—sigmoid loss and hinge loss. To study the effectiveness of the proposed MaxAUC-DNN VAD, we take either a standard feedforward neural network or a bidirectional long short-term memory network as the DNN model with either the state-of-the-art multi-resolution cochleagram or short-term Fourier transform as the acoustic feature. We conducted noise-independent training to all comparison methods. Experimental results show that taking AUC as the optimization objective results in higher performance than the common objectives of the minimum squared error and minimum cross-entropy. The experimental conclusion is consistent across different DNN structures, acoustic features, noise scenarios, training sets, and languages.

The Role of Environmental Management System, Environmental Performance, and Military Connections to Carbon Emission Disclosure

This study aims to examine the role of environmental management systems, environmental performance, and military connections to the disclosure of carbon emissions. This study focuses on companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period 2017-2020. Hypothesis testing using multiple linear regression. Test-F shows a stable and significant model. The research results show four variables that have been proven to be insignificant to carbon emissions, namely the environmental management system, military connections, size firms, and leverage. Environmental performance and age firms in this research have affected a positive and significant impact on the disclosure of carbon emissions. This demonstrates that companies that receive the PROPER Awards from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry are those with good environmental performance in accordance with government regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Does Environmental Information Disclosure Mediate the Effect of Environmental Cost on Environmental Performance?

Environmental performance is a measure created by the Government to determine the company’s concern for the environment. Environmental costs are sacrifices made by companies to obtain good environmental performance. In addition, companies can disclose information about the activities they have carried out to preserve the environment. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of environmental costs on environmental performance, mediated by environmental information disclosure. Data were obtained from the annual reports of 12 manufacturing companies in Indonesia, registered from 2015-2019. These companies were selected using purposive sampling. The results indicated that: 1) environmental costs had no effect on environmental performance; 2) environmental costs had a positive and significant effect on disclosure of environmental information; 3) disclosure of environmental information had a positive and significant effect on environmental performance; and 4) disclosure of environmental information mediated the effect of environmental costs on environmental performance. Based on these findings, Indonesian manufacturing companies should increase the quality of their disclosure of environmental information.
 Keywords: environmental cost, environmental performance, environmental information disclosure

Pengaruh Good Corporate Governance dan Environmental Performance Terhadap Kinerja Keuangan Perusahaan

This study aims to analyze the effect of good corporate governance and environmental performance on the company's financial performance. The population of this study are non-cyclical consumer sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) in 2019 to 2021. Based on the criteria determined using the purposive sampling technique, a research sample of 81 companies was generated for three years. The research method used is multiple regression model. The results showed that the independent board of commissioners and institutional ownership had a positive effect on financial performance, while the audit committee and environmental performance had no effect on financial performance.

Sorption Mechanism and Site Energy Distribution of Acetaminophen on Straw-derived Biochar

As one of the large dosages of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), acetaminophen is widely present in the water environment and presents potential environmental risks. Therefore, it is necessary to study the removal mechanism of acetaminophen from the environment. Based on the high-value conversion demand of agricultural straw resources in China, straw-derived biochar prepared by pyrolysis has a good application prospect for the sorption and purification of acetaminophen in water. However, the sorption process and mechanism of straw-derived biochar for acetaminophen remain unclear. Four types of straw (rice, wheat, maize, and bean straw) were chosen as raw materials, and straw-derived biochars were prepared through the pyrolysis method at 400℃ and 500℃. The batch sorption experiments were used to study the sorption of acetaminophen to different sources and different pyrolysis temperature biochars. The effect of humic acid and pH on the sorption process was also studied. The results showed that:based on the Freundlich and site energy distribution models, the sorption of acetaminophen on biochar at 500℃ biochar was significantly higher than that at 400℃ biochar (the sorption coefficient KF was 1.16-2.53 times higher), and 500℃ biochar had more high-energy sorption sites. For high-temperature pyrolysis biochar, the primary sorption mechanism was pore sorption and π-π effect; for low-temperature pyrolysis biochar, the primary sorption mechanism for removing acetaminophen was H-bonding. The presence of humic acid enhanced the sorption of acetaminophen, which was attributed to the strong interaction between the humic acid selected in the experiment and acetaminophen, thus promoting adsorption. The decrease in sorption capacity of biochar caused by the increasing pH was mainly attributed to the pore blockage resulting from the aggregation of acetaminophen molecules. The pore sorption and π-π interaction of acetaminophen on straw-derived biochar could be promoted by increasing pyrolysis temperature. These experiments on humic acid and pH show that straw-derived biochar is not affected by humic acid and has good sorption performance in a low pH environment.

Channel attention and multi-scale graph neural networks for skeleton-based action recognition

3D skeleton data has been widely used in action recognition as the skeleton-based method has achieved good performance in complex dynamic environments. The rise of spatio-temporal graph convolutions has attracted much attention to use graph convolution to extract spatial and temporal features together in the field of skeleton-based action recognition. However, due to the huge difference in the focus of spatial and temporal features, it is difficult to improve the efficiency of extracting the spatiotemporal features. In this paper, we propose a channel attention and multi-scale neural network (CA-MSN) for skeleton-based action recognition with a series of spatio-temporal extraction modules. We exploit the relationship of body joints hierarchically through two modules, i.e., a spatial module which uses the residual GCN network with the channel attention block to extract the high-level spatial features, and a temporal module which uses the multi-scale TCN network to extract the temporal features at different scales. We perform extensive experiments on both the NTU-RGBD60 and NTU-RGBD120 datasets to verify the effectiveness of our network. The comparison results show that our method achieves the state-of-the-art performance with the competitive computing speed. In order to test the application effect of our CA-MSN model, we design a multi-task tandem network consisting of 2D pose estimation, 2D to 3D pose regression and skeleton action recognition model. The end-to-end (RGB video-to-action type) recognition effect is demonstrated. The code is available at https://github.com/Rh-Dang/CA-MSN-action-recognition.git.