Win-win Opportunities Research Articles

Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services

The purpose of this special issue is to elucidate concepts of value and methods of valuation that will assist in guiding human decisions vis-à-vis ecosystems. The concept of ecosystem service value can be a useful guide when distinguishing and measuring where trade-offs between society and the rest of nature are possible and where they can be made to enhance human welfare in a sustainable manner. While win-win opportunities for human activities within the environment may exist, they also appear to be increasingly scarce in a ‘full’ global ecological–economic system. This makes valuation all the more essential for guiding future human activity. This paper provides some history, background, and context for many of the issues addressed by the remaining papers in this special issue. Its purpose is to place both economic and ecological meanings of value, and their respective valuation methods, in a comparative context, highlighting strengths, weakness and addressing questions that arise from their integration.

Cleaner coal technology transfer to China: a ''win-win'' opportunity for sustainable development?

This paper examines the role of companies and state institutions in OECD countries in helping China to accelerate the development and deployment of cleaner coal technologies. It focuses particularly on the scope for these technologies to deliver win-win benefits to China by increasing economic efficiency and reducing environmental emissions. Critical examinations of cleaner coal technologies and technology transfer processes are followed by empirical evidence of both government and private company experiences in this area. From this evidence, the barriers to the further uptake of win-win opportunities are explored and some conclusions and implications are put forward for consideration by governments and firms.

Greenhouse Implications of Household Stoves: An Analysis for India

▪ Abstract It is commonly assumed that biomass fuel cycles based on renewable harvesting of wood or agricultural wastes are greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral because the combusted carbon in the form of CO2is soon taken up by regrowing vegetation. Thus, the two fifths or more of the world's households relying on such fuels are generally not thought to play a significant role in GHG emissions, except where the wood or other biomass they use is not harvested renewably. This review examines this assumption using an emissions database of CO2, CO, CH4, NMHC, N2O, and total suspended particulate emissions from a range of household stoves in common use in India using six biomass fuels, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas, and biogas. Because typical biomass stoves are thermally inefficient and divert substantial fuel carbon to products of incomplete combustion, their global warming commitment (GWC) per meal is high. Depending on time horizons and which GHGs are measured, the GWC of a meal cooked on a biomass stove can actually exceed that of the fossil fuels, even if based on renewably harvested fuel. Biogas, being based on a renewable fuel and, because it is a gas, being combusted with high efficiency in simple devices, has by far the lowest GWC emitted at the stove per meal and is indicative of the advantage that upgraded fuels made from biomass have in moving toward sustainable development goals. There are a number of policy implications of this work, including revelation of a range of win-win opportunities for international investment in rural energy development that would achieve cost-effective GHG reduction as well as substantial local benefits.

Pollution intensity of GDP and trade policy: Can the World Bank be wrong?

What are the environmental implications of open trade policies in developing countries? Economic theory and environmental critics suggest they worsen environmental quality. This conventional wisdom has been challenged by several studies which suggest that outward-oriented trade policies are likely to be “win-win” (enhance economic growth and environmental quality). This paper challenges revised conventional wisdom (RCW) by demonstrating that developing countries with outward-oriented trade policies have higher pollution intensities of GDP than those following inward-oriented policies. The paper examines why the evidence reported here differs so sharply from RCW studies, considers the policy implications of these results, and identifies reasons why, despite them, it may not make sense to totally discount future potential win-win opportunities

In Search of Win-Win Opportunities for Parents and Professionals

In Search of Win-Win Opportunities for Parents and Professionals