Voluntary Measures Research Articles

Indonesian Society of Respirology (ISR) Consensus Statement on Lung Cancer Screening and Early Detection in Indonesia

Lung cancer is the leading cause of mortality for all cancer globally and in Indonesia. In Indonesia, lung cancer contributes to 12.6% of death of all cancer, making it the number one cause of cancer death, and 8.6% of all cancer incidence in 2018, behind breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer. The total cases per year are expected to almost double from 30,023 in 2018 to 54,983 cases in 2040. Smoking is among the risk factors for lung cancer, after occupational/environmental risk factors, history of lung fibrosis, and family history of cancer. There was a tendency of younger smokers in Indonesia and increased lung cancer incidence and prevalence in the younger population. The median age of lung cancer in Indonesia was younger than in any country, probably due to the younger age of smoking, early onset of carcinogens, asbestos use, and environmental. Lung cancer screening is a voluntary measure to detect lung cancer in the earliest stage, to find cancer at curable disease before symptoms appear in high-risk individuals. Lung cancer early detection is strategies to find cancer earlier after symptoms appear (cough, hemoptysis, dyspnea, chest pain). Low-dose computerized tomography of the thorax (LDCT) screening has been known to reduce lung cancer mortality compared to a chest x-ray (CXR). This Indonesian Society of Respirology consensus statement was aimed to give recommendations on lung cancer screening and early diagnosis in Indonesia.

接待を伴う飲食店における室内環境と感染症対策（その１）：建築設備の概要及びコロナ禍における換気運用と感染状況

From the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been many reports on cluster infections in clubs and bars. Meanwhile, there is no report on the indoor air environment in those places and it will limit measures for infection control. This study aims to understand the indoor air and ventilation environment and to propose practical and appropriate improvement measures for related industries. In addition to measuring CO2 concentration in clubs and bars in Tokyo, we have surveyed the voluntary measures taken against COVID-19, outlines of building and ventilation/air conditioning equipment, ventilation regime, and so on.

Fleeting energy protections: State and utility level policy responses to energy poverty in the United States during COVID-19

Millions of American households suffer from energy poverty, threatening their continued access to electricity. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has unveiled the entrenched environmental and energy injustices that threaten public health at the household level and has inspired energy protection responses to address pandemic-caused economic hardship. While policies supporting energy protections have been in place for years, they vary spatially. Moreover, the scholarly research that explores energy protection responses during the pandemic is limited. This paper explores energy protection responses to the pandemic implemented in 25 major metropolitan areas in the United States. We employ a content analysis of policy language to examine the response time, authorization level, and type of energy protections deployed during the initial months of the pandemic. We demarcate authorization level as either mandatory or voluntary measures and characterize ‘energy resiliency responses’ as a suite of residential energy protections required to reduce vulnerability to energy poverty and build resilience during the pandemic. We examine the total number and type of responses relative to household energy burden. We find differences in residential consumer energy protections among low-income and highly energy burdened households and conclude that protections are unevenly deployed across the country. Our findings motivate contemporary national, state, and local energy poverty recognition and responses that center personal and economic wellbeing during and after crises.

Estimating the impact of ship strikes on the Mediterranean fin whale subpopulation

The Mediterranean fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus) subpopulation is under threat from collisions with ships. Given the international dimension of the issue, the French, Italian, Monegasque and Spanish governments have proposed a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA), i.e., a management zone of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), in which mandatory and voluntary protective measures can be implemented. Defining the risk and its impact at the subpopulation level is required to improve the chances of an IMO acceptance for such a proposal. While previous research partially succeeded in defining the collision risk, its impact on the subpopulation has not been thoroughly evaluated, especially at the spatial scale of the envisioned PSSA. Our study uses the carcass recovery approach to estimate the number of deadly collisions within the proposed PSSA. We then assess the probability that this number exceeds three management rules: Potential Biological Removal (PBR), Alert Reference Point (ARP) and Critical Reference Point (CRP). These management rules describe thresholds beyond which (a) the incidental mortality may prevent the recovery of the population within 100 years (PBR), (b) there is a cause for concern about incidental mortality (ARP), and (c) there is a critical need to lower the incidental mortality (CRP). We conclude that mortality from collisions alone is in excess of PBR. Taking into account confirmed and suspected collisions in strandings in calculations, the collision mortality exceeds ARP; this threshold being considered unacceptable by some international organisations. Additionally, there is almost a 35% chance that the mortality due to ship strikes exceeds the CRP, likely resulting in a population decline. The probability of anthropogenic mortality exceeding CRP is 60% if we include the fishery-related mortality in stranding (i.e., taking into account the total incidental mortality from bycatch and ship strikes). The PSSA proposal could use our approach to estimate the impact of collisions and assess the effectiveness of implemented protective measures. However, it is important to highlight that the IMO process for establishing a PSSA is lengthy, and our findings show that immediate action is required, as there is a high probability that the ship strike and fishery mortality is beyond the critical threshold fixed by the Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS).

Voluntary risk mitigation behaviour can reduce impact of SARS-CoV-2: a real-time modelling study of the January 2022 Omicron wave in England

BackgroundPredicting the likely size of future SARS-CoV-2 waves is necessary for public health planning. In England, voluntary “plan B” mitigation measures were introduced in December 2021 including increased home working and face coverings in shops but stopped short of restrictions on social contacts. The impact of voluntary risk mitigation behaviours on future SARS-CoV-2 burden is unknown.MethodsWe developed a rapid online survey of risk mitigation behaviours ahead of the winter 2021 festive period and deployed in two longitudinal cohort studies in the UK (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) and TwinsUK/COVID Symptom Study (CSS) Biobank) in December 2021. Using an individual-based, probabilistic model of COVID-19 transmission between social contacts with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant parameters and realistic vaccine coverage in England, we predicted the potential impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron wave in England in terms of the effective reproduction number and cumulative infections, hospital admissions and deaths. Using survey results, we estimated in real-time the impact of voluntary risk mitigation behaviours on the Omicron wave in England, if implemented for the entire epidemic wave.ResultsOver 95% of survey respondents (NALSPAC = 2686 and NTwins = 6155) reported some risk mitigation behaviours, with vaccination and using home testing kits reported most frequently. Less than half of those respondents reported that their behaviour was due to “plan B”. We estimate that without risk mitigation behaviours, the Omicron variant is consistent with an effective reproduction number between 2.5 and 3.5. Due to the reduced vaccine effectiveness against infection with the Omicron variant, our modelled estimates suggest that between 55% and 60% of the English population could be infected during the current wave, translating into between 12,000 and 46,000 cumulative deaths, depending on assumptions about severity and vaccine effectiveness. The actual number of deaths was 15,208 (26 November 2021–1 March 2022). We estimate that voluntary risk reduction measures could reduce the effective reproduction number to between 1.8 and 2.2 and reduce the cumulative number of deaths by up to 24%.ConclusionsPredicting future infection burden is affected by uncertainty in disease severity and vaccine effectiveness estimates. In addition to biological uncertainty, we show that voluntary measures substantially reduce the projected impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant but that voluntary measures alone would be unlikely to completely control transmission.

Fear, learning, or self-control? Predictors of Russian citizens’ compliance with mandatory and voluntary Covid-19 prevention measures

In this article, we examine citizens’ willingness to comply with Covid-19 prevention strategies of mandatory mask-wearing and recommended social distance/contact limitation measures from competing theoretical perspectives. These include self-control, deterrence, learning, social control theories, and fear of the infection. Data for the study come from 508 respondents from St. Petersburg—Russia’s second largest city—in May 2020, when the Covid-19 regional legislation that mandated citizens to wear masks in public went into effect. Overall, our findings suggest mixed support for various theoretical perspectives. Among the variables included in the analysis, fear of the infection is positively related to compliance with both mandated and recommended measures. Fear of Covid-19 infection, fear of punishment, and fear of disapproval on behalf of significant others that would follow non-compliance appear to be strong predictors of law-abiding behavior. Learning and self-control theories explain compliance with non-mandatory measures, but not with mask-wearing, which carried a penalty for violating the mandate.

Climate change and the public health imperative for supporting migration as adaptation

In an era of accelerating global climate change, human mobility has reached unprecedented levels. While it is acknowledged that many cases of human migration in the context of climate change are forced or involuntary, particularly where adaptation measures have failed to achieve sufficient resiliency of communities against impending slow- and sudden-onset disasters. There are also many cases where migration is, itself, a voluntary adaptive measure to secure otherwise unattainable physical safety and life-sustaining resources. It is in these cases that migration can be viewed as adaptation. Under the right policy conditions, it is possible for such adaptive migration to save countless lives. Moreover, it can achieve remarkable health and well-being gains for otherwise vulnerable communities residing on environmentally degrading lands and disproportionately suffering from the health impacts of climate change. While several activists have spoken loudly on the topic of climate migration, emphasizing the human rights imperative for supportive global policy action, the public health community has not been equally vocal nor unanimous in its stance. This paper, a product of the World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) Environmental Health Working Group, aims to rectify this gap, by analyzing adaptive climate migration through a public health lens. In doing so, it argues that creating an enabling environment for adaptive climate migration is not just a human rights imperative, but also a public health one. This argument is supported by evidence demonstrating how creating such an enabling environment can synergistically support the fulfillment of key public health services and functions, as outlined under the internationally endorsed Global Charter for the Public's Health of the WFPHA.

Breaking commuter mode-use habits: An exploration of deliberative decision-making windows and their implications for travel demand management

It is widely accepted that travel behaviour can be habitual. It is also widely accepted that voluntary Travel Demand Management (TDM) seldom records city-wide mode-switching impacts. If travel choices are habitual, this is unsurprising, as much of the population are not making deliberative choices, and new information is not considered. Shifts to deliberative choice-making are posited to occur when a ‘stressor’ (e.g., changing job location) is experienced, which renders the travel habit no longer satisfactory. A common conceptualisation of these moments is that the stressor triggers deliberation, manifested in information-seeking and experimentation, to find a new satisfactory behaviour. If found and implemented, a new habit may be formed. This conceptualisation has implications for improving TDM impacts. It is tempting to assume that voluntary TDM measures should target those who have just experienced such stressors, as they are likely to be most receptive to deliberative change. This paper reports the findings of a retrospective survey of a purposive non-probability sample of (n = 250) Cape Town commuters who had experienced a habit-breaking stressor. A recall aid in the form of an ‘event history calendar’ was used to help create multiple memory recollection pathways of past commuting behaviour, and a ‘deliberation calendar’ was used to guide respondents in reporting the process of habit breaking. The study found that the trigger for deliberation and information-seeking was not the manifestation of a new residence or job location (together accounting for the majority of observed stressors), but around two months earlier when the decision-maker consolidated a plan of action. This finding contributes to a growing literature on the temporal dimensions of behaviour dynamics, and has implications for how TDM should be targeted. Targeting new homeowners or employees misses the ‘window of opportunity’ to influence deliberative decisions and new habits. These decision-makers need to be targeted sooner, while still house- or job-seekers.

Drivers of young adults’ voluntary compliance with COVID-19 protective measures: results from a multi-method study

BackgroundWith the easing of governmental COVID-19 restrictions, promoting voluntary public compliance with protective measures becomes essential for the pandemic evolution. A highly relevant target group for such health promotion are adolescents and young adults since they showed a strong decline in compliance throughout the pandemic. Building on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior, this article investigates drivers of young people’s intentions to engage in voluntary COVID-19 measures in phases of re-opening.MethodsWe conducted a sequential multi-method study among 14- to 29-year-olds in Germany: (1) a semi-standardized online survey (N = 88) to examine underlying beliefs and (2) a standardized online survey (N = 979) to identify influencing factors of compliance. The pre-study addressed the respondents’ perceptions about wearing a mask, social distancing, and avoiding crowded locations (open-ended questions). Responses for all protective measures were aggregated to identify general behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about COVID-19 protective measures. In order to gain generalizable insights into the factors determining voluntary compliance intentions in younger adults, we conceptualized the model constructs in the subsequent standardized online survey as formative measures based on their underlying beliefs. PLS-SEM was used to examine the effects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, risk perceptions, and knowledge on young people’s intentions to comply (main study). Furthermore, a multi-group analysis was conducted to investigate differences between compliers and non-compliers.ResultsThe pre-study revealed that young people’s instrumental attitudes not only cover reasons of protection but also aspects of self-presentation (e.g., being a role model). The main study showed that besides knowledge and perceived severity of illness, instrumental attitude is the strongest predictor of intention to comply. The influence is even stronger in the group of non-compliers.ConclusionThis article highlights the importance of theory-based campaign planning and provides practical guidance to health communicators on how to increase voluntary compliance with COVID-19 protective measures in adolescents and young adults. The findings demonstrate the great potential of combining the Theory of Planned Behavior with risk perception and knowledge to gain deeper insights into the feelings and thoughts of younger target groups during a health crisis.

Politics of hesitance and the formation of ethical subjects through responsible gambling practices.

Instead of harm prevention and risk related to gambling products, responsible gambling discourse emphasizes the importance of voluntary measures. From the point of view of governmentality, the responsible gambling practices produce, rely on, and call forth subjectivities. The aim of the study is to find out what kind of subjects are being produced through the responsible gambling practices of four Nordic state-owned gambling companies. As the companies are state-owned and operate on different types of markets, there are reasons to suspect that the companies could endorse different versions of the figure of responsible gambler. Previous research indicates that responsible gambling practices typically presuppose or aim to produce a self-governing subject making informed choices. Less attention has been given to detailed analyses of the heterogeneous factors contributing to the ethical subject formation. Moreover, there is a growing body of literature indicating, that along with the use of detailed behavioral data (big data), new forms of governmentality, that are highly relevant from the point of view of subject formation, are emerging. The responsible gambling practices are analyzed along Michel Foucault's four aspects of ethics. First, there is ethical substance, the problematic aspect of the self that is taken as the target of the ethical work. Second, the subject needs to have a certain relation to social norms and moral codes. Third, ethical work is needed to mold the problematic aspect of the self. Fourth, the aim of the ethical work is a certain mode of being or relationship to oneself. The analyzed material consists of the annual reports of the companies between 2019 and 2021. The results show that the figure of subject making informed voluntary choices is deeply embedded in the responsible gambling practices of the companies. The companies entice the gamblers to think about themselves and to act upon themselves as subjects capable of self-control. Hesitancy to intervene characterizes the activities of the companies, even if all the companies collect and use detailed behavioral data. The inclusion of the precarious subject of gambling harm would allow the companies to do much more to prevent gambling harm.

Особливості та напрями реалізації спільної сільськогосподарської політики ЄС

The Common Agricultural Policy is one of the most regulated and yet most controversial EU policies. Over the past decades, it has become an important tool to support farmers in the fight against climate change and sustainable management of natural resources. The article aims to study the features and directions of the EU's common agricultural policy from its origins to modern transformations, along with an analysis of environmental taxation’s impact on agriculture. The study was conducted using general methods, namely: analysis, synthesis, induction, and generalization. The article considers the objectives and financing of the CAP. It is determined that the new Common Agricultural Policy retains the existing financing architecture. It is established that in recent years, the CAP has undergone several reforms to become not just a tool for direct support of agricultural producers, but a driving force for sustainable rural development and greening of agricultural production at the EU level through the introduction of eco-schemes (voluntary environmental protection measures). This reorientation has become a key goal of the MTP, which should stop the current environmental degradation and biodiversity loss and ensure a fair distribution of financial support for small and medium-sized farms, which will become the center of safe food. It is determined that as part of the implementation of the new policy, each state must develop a national strategic plan describing the MTP instruments based on the analysis of its current conditions and needs to achieve the goals of the European Green Deal, a feature of which is the possibility of its annual adjustment and improvement. The new MTP also provides the support for young farmers to promote rural areas. Keywords: common agricultural policy, environmental taxation, agriculture, CAP funding, financial policy, ecologization, eco-schemes, reform of the CAP, the EU green deal.

Personality Traits and Security Motivation.

Security awareness training has long been considered a critical element in organizational cybersecurity preparedness and a mandatory activity in many laws and regulations as well as cybersecurity management standards such as ISO 27001. Organizations approach the issue with different methods, but many rely on online training as a cost-effective way to reach a large number of employees at a low cost. When this training is delivered as a voluntary measure, it is essential to have knowledge about the factors contributing to motivation to participate. This study uses the theoretical concepts from Protection motivation theory (PMT) as well as looking into how individual personality traits might affect the willingness to participate. A survey was conducted in a large Norwegian municipality and the data analyzed with PLS-SEM. The study found support for the concepts of Cost and Effectiveness affecting Motivation, but not Vulnerability and Severity. The personality traits of Extroversion and Agreeableness was found to have some moderating effect.

Navigating the nexus: The role of intermediaries in charting a new frontier of policy integration for agrifood and energy systems transformation

The effects of climate change are instigating a discourse shift towards net-zero emissions agriculture. However, a sectoral silo paradigm of policy design is incompatible with a systems approach to address complex global environmental challenges. This study introduces a social cartography approach that amalgamates network theory with a nexus perspective to identify social relation changes in the making. The study examines the role of an advisor-led initiative promoting the discourse of climate-smart farming in Scotland and identifies the impacts upon farmer knowledge networks. The social cartography comprises of a survey, farm meeting observations, and social network analysis of the agriculture, climate change, and energy (ACE) policyscape. As a visualization method, the social cartography provides a conceptual compass to navigate social relation changes of farmer knowledge networks amidst discursive transition. The results demonstrate that the advisor-led initiative acts an intermediary of discursive transition by introducing new knowledge frames and practices of farming that facilitate network shifts. However, voluntary measures fall short of instigating cross-sectoral interplay to actualize transformation towards systems integration. Furthermore, the study presents policy design elements to chart a new frontier of integrated agrifood and energy systems governance in Scotland.

A game-theoretic model of rabies in domestic dogs with multiple voluntary preventive measures.

Game theory is now routinely applied to quantitatively model the decision making of individuals presented with various voluntary actions that can prevent a given disease. Most models consider only a single preventive strategy and the case where multiple preventative actions are available is severely understudied. In our paper, we consider a very simple SI compartmental model of rabies in the domestic dog population. We study two choices of the dog owners: to vaccinate their dogs or to restrict the movements of unvaccinated dogs. We analyze the relatively rich patterns of Nash equilibria (NE). We show that there is always at least one NE at which the owners utilize only one form of prevention. However, there can be up to three different NEs at the same time: two NEs at which the owners use exclusively only the vaccination or movement restriction, and the third NE when the owners use both forms of prevention simultaneously. However, we also show that, unlike the first two types of NEs, the third kind of NE is not convergent stable.

How Sweden approached the COVID-19 pandemic: Summary and commentary on the National Commission Inquiry.

AimSweden initially chose a different disease prevention and control path during the pandemic than many other European countries. In June 2020, the Swedish Government established a National Commission to examine the management of COVID‐19 in Sweden. This paper summarises, and discusses, its findings.MethodsThree reports published by the Commission were analysed. The first focused on the care of older people during the pandemic. The second examined disease and infection transmission and control and health care and public health. The third updated the first two reports and also covered economic aspects, crisis management and public communication.ResultsBy 25 February 2022, when the final report was published, 15 800 individuals, 1.5 per 1000 Swedish inhabitants, had died after COVID‐19. The death rates were high in spring 2020, but overall excess mortality in 2020–2021 was +0.79%, which was lower than in many other European countries. The Commission suggested that the voluntary measures that were adopted were appropriate and maintained Swedes' personal freedom during the pandemic. However, more extensive and earlier measures should have been taken, especially during the first wave.ConclusionThe Swedish COVID‐19 Commission felt that earlier and more extensive pandemic action should have been taken, particularly during the first wave.

Landscape context and farm characteristics are key to farmers' adoption of agri-environmental schemes

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) belong to the main instruments of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to foster sustainable farming practices that contribute to the conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate change mitigation and adaptation. Farmers’ attitudes towards these voluntary measures and the socio-economic factors influencing their decisions have been widely studied through interviews or surveys. However, it remains unclear whether the spatial patterns of AES adoption can be predicted based on farm structural and environmental variables.In this study, we combine biophysical maps with information on farm structure and landscape context to model the influence of these variables on AES implementation at both farm and field level. We fit a set of regression models using farm characteristics (e.g. farm size and specialization, field size) as well as landscape context variables (e.g. elevation, soil fertility, presence of protected areas) as predictors using the Mulde River Basin in Germany as a case study.Our analysis reveals that the spatial distribution of AES can be explained by these factors:AES tend to be implemented by larger farms specialized in permanent grassland cultivation and are typically located in protected areas with lower soil fertility. At the field level, AES are preferably allocated on fields close to water bodies and small woody features. The effect of the different environmental and farm-related variables on AES adoption varies across different AES-schemes indicating the complex set of factors farmers take into consideration when allocating a scheme on a field.As our study shows a quantifiable tendency to place AES in unproductive and/or protected areas, it supports previous evidence criticizing the global tendency to allocate environmental protection measures in regions with low agricultural value, which results in conservation goals not being met. The models presented here can support the development of future AES, e.g. by developing schemes tailored to fit farms and fields that are currently unlikely to adopt AES, thus improving the effectiveness of environmentally friendly agricultural practices.

The effect of voluntary versus compulsory preventive behavior on consumer adaptation during COVID-19

Consumers have been taking various preventive measures during COVID-19. We propose that people who take voluntary (vs. compulsory) preventive actions are better able to adapt to different aspects of life changes. In four studies, we demonstrate that voluntary preventive measures have a positive effect on consumers’ adaptation to work, social relationships, interest in hobbies, and other consumption aspects. Because voluntary behavior promotes autonomy, we also manipulate consumers’ autonomous motivation and find that feeling autonomous increases consumers’ intention to take prevention and pursue adaptation. Moreover, we manipulate consumer self-efficacy and find that it improves consumer safety behavior and adaptation.

Decarbonizing the academic sector: Lessons from an international research project

Research activities generate considerable carbon emissions. Some universities and research centers have implemented voluntary measures to reduce academia's carbon footprint. To contribute to the debate on pathways to decarbonize the academic sector, this work calculates the carbon emissions of an international research project in relation to 1) research-related travel, 2) researchers' non-business travel derived from the international nature of the team, 3) researchers' commuting, and 4) project's digital footprint. The work then simulates the project's carbon potential reduction under two scenarios and discusses emissions reduction alternatives and their potential side-effects. The project examined emitted an estimate of 161 tons CO2-eq, which could have been largely reduced to 92 tons CO2-eq (or 53% of the emissions) by applying a standard set of measures already proposed by scholars aiming to decarbonize research (“Reduced emissions scenario”) or to 4 tons CO2-eq (or 2.4% of the estimated emissions) by applying more strict measures aiming to reach carbon neutrality (“Net-zero emissions scenario”). Most emissions reductions come from reducing travel. While the measures proposed could indeed save a substantial amount of emissions, they might have also impacted project's academic outputs, economic costs, and researcher's work-life balance. Although collateral impacts of decarbonizing measures are yet little understood, they are likely not negligible and should be considered in a decision-oriented context to discern acceptable from unacceptable rules. The article discusses reliance on individual or voluntary action as the major bottlenecks that hamper the application of measures to decarbonize the academic sector and calls for the development of normative standards of scientific research practice that encourage, value or even impose the reduction of carbon emissions.

INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INDIA AND AUSTRALIA

The corporate sector plays a very important role in the sustainable growth and development of any economy. Jurisdictions in which corporate are subjected to good governance practices are more prosperous as compared to those having weaker governance. The Board of directors’ independence is considered the cornerstone of corporate governance in any country. Although the concept of independent director emerged in the United States of America as a voluntary measure which was made compulsory there following the management and shareholders agency theory problems commonly referred to as the outsider’s model problems. The giant corporate failures occurring across the various jurisdictions compelled the regulators across the globe to make compulsory provisions regarding the Independent Directors irrespective of the model of corporate governance they were following. Following the initiative taken by the US and UK various other countries also adopted the provision of overhauling and revamping the board structure for ensuring better governance by appointing independent directors. The focus of the present paper is on the study of the regulatory provisions related to the office of the independent director of the two countries i.e., India and Australia belonging to the Asia Pacific region.

მოსახლეობის მიერ ბიო-პროდუქტების გამოყენების ანალიზი ზუგდიდისა და ქუთაისის მუნიციპალიტეტების მაგალითზე

The UN recognizes Green Growth and Green Economy as important factors for sustainable development. The Government of Georgia considers the Green Economy as one of the main means of the future development of the country and announces an initiative to implement voluntary measures to promote sustainable development. In this regard, it is essential to promote the ecosystem services, clean production, environmental education and green jobs. Green Economy and Green Growth require the involvement of the whole community. The transition to environmentally friendly activities is not carried out rapidly as Green Growth is a versatile and complex issue and requires a certain level of public awareness together with other factors. In recent years, the awareness of the population of different countries has shown a growing interest towards the problem of damaging the nature caused by the production, exploitation and utilization of various goods. From an ecological point of view, change of structures of irrational production and consumption will become one of the strategic directions of social development. However, the focus on eco-friendly production must be strengthened by recognizing its profitability and enabling the enterprise to receive both direct financial benefits - through the reduction of raw material costs, waste recycling, insurance and liability, and indirect ones - through more efficient environmental marketing and public opinion. Green marketing strategies are expensive and complicated and its successful implementation requires a lot of effort. Firms with green strategies can make a profit if they are able to attain the desired target positions in the minds of consumers towards the green brand in the market. Those green strategies tend to become more successful which are oriented on association, more credibility, enhanced perception of brand quality and brand loyalty among the target groups. It is no coincidence that the effects of these four communications (i.e., brand associations, credibility (or trust), quality, and loyalty) represent the customer-based brand equity.