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Water Governance Indicators Challenges and Prospects for Improving Transboundary Lake Governance
Published in Velma I. Grover, Gail Krantzberg, Lake Governance, 2018
There is now a voluminous literature on indicators. Over the past few decades, water governance indicators have generally evolved from broader environmental indicators. Environmental indicators evolved to provide information related to some baseline of the state of the environment, the extent and nature of environmental degradation, change in environmental components or performance of institutions and management tools (Bennet and Roche 2000). For example, the Environmental Sustainability Index a composite index published from 1999 to 2005 by Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and the World Economic Forum. It tracked 21 elements of environmental sustainability, including 77 variables of which 10 related to water. Another example is the OECD’s Core Environmental Indicators which were designed to track environmental progress and included five water-related response indicators, all related to the state of waste water treatment facilities in various countries. The UN and UNESCOs World Water Assessment Program (WWAP) was created in 2000 in response to “a well-recognized need to undertake comprehensive and objective assessments of all aspects of water resources, including the ability of nations to deal with water management challenges” (UN-Water 2008).
The Baseline
Published in Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger, Mining and the Environment, 2019
Karlheinz Spitz, John Trudinger
Environmental indicators are a way of presenting complex information in a simple and clear manner (Case 9.1). It is impractical if not impossible to measure all environmental parameters, such as for example the concentration in water of all elements in the periodic table. Accordingly, the practice that has developed is to select environmental indicators that best represent the key elements of a complex ecosystem or environmental issue. An indicator’s defining characteristic is that it quantifies and simplifies information in a manner that facilitates understanding of environmental issues by both decision-makers and the public. Indicators are superior data as an analytical tool, since they commonly present several data in one number.
Ethical Issues in Nanotechnology-I
Published in Chaudhery Mustansar Hussain, Gustavo Marques da Costa, Environmental, Ethical, and Economical Issues of Nanotechnology, 2022
Environmental indicator could give us clues about the societal impacts of something new like a nanotechnology product that could modify the pollution and health condition. An example of an environmental indicator is the air quality measured by nitrogen oxide (NO2), monoxide of carbon (CO) and dioxide of carbon (CO2), and particulate material (PM10, PM2.5 and PM1)(Panis et al. 2011) (Heberle et al. 2018) (Wallington, Sullivan, and Hurley 2008) (Hussain 2020 c).
Sustainability outcomes in multi-tier supply chains: an empirical study of Turkish manufacturing firms
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2023
Damla Durak Uşar, Mehmet Ali Soytas
Harik et al. (2015) group sustainability indicators under economic, environmental, social and production indicators. Economic indicators include R&D expenditures, wasted sum of money, brand-related expenses, brand success, brand strategy, firm’s COB/COM approach, brand officials, foreign labour, customer satisfaction and expectations, and tolerance to bribery. Environmental indicators are determined as greenhouse gas emission, water consumption, land use, harmful substances content, residuals density, conscious raw material selection, recycling, source reduction adoption, waste treatment methods, green building initiatives, environmental risk management, environmental fines and energy usage regulations and standards. Social indicators are philanthropy, product necessity purpose, investment in local community, employee average duration of stay, employee ergonomic consideration, percentage of female employees, percentage of female managers, percentage of minority employees, average salary, organisational learning frameworks, employee appraisal systems and development, employee rights and participation, international safety and worker rights standards, aggregated social risk management and learning from incidents. Finally, production indicators are listed as process approach, process planning and control, process responsibility and authority, supplier selection, international manufacturing standards, machine scheduling techniques and inventory management techniques.
Blue economy investment and sustainability of Ghana’s territorial waters: an application of structural equation modelling
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 2023
Michael Karikari Appiah, Elikplim Ameko, Theodora Akweley Asiamah, Rahmat Quaigrane Duker
In this study, SSCP is a measuring variable based on the triple bottom line (TBL) approach that incorporates environmental, economic, and social indicators to measure sustainability performance. It is imperative to reduce food waste and prevent emission and spillage into the oceans. This will save as costs and furtherance keep the healthy condition of the marine ecosystem. In this study, SSCP is considered as a variable that influence BEI (Voyer et al. 2018; Mukhopadhyay et al. 2020; Upadhyay and Mishra 2020). The economic indicators of SSCP include SC overhead costs (e.g. production costs, transaction costs, transportation and distribution costs, and equipment conversion costs), environmental costs, such as energy costs, and profitability (sales). Environmental indicators refer to the reduction of environmental impact and are related to the reduction of negative impacts and externalities caused by emissions, e-waste, inefficient use of resources, etc. Environmental indicators also include the reduction of food waste and loss through efficient green technologies and supply chain practices (El Bilali and Allahyari 2018; Allaoui et al. 2018; Tsang et al. 2018). Also, social indicators include the number of jobs created, farmers and small farmers. In addition, a section on food security was added to the social indicators of the SSCP. In a view of the ongoing argument/presentation, the study hypothesises as follows:
Integration of DFMA and sustainability - A case study
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 2021
Arunkumar Subbaiah, Kishore M. Antony
The application of DFMA on the original bike horn reduced the number of parts from 48 to 37 that is, 22.92% which is very much significant. In addition, the cost of materials and manufacturing processes reduced from USD 11.31 to USD 10.46 (7.52% reduction) and USD 20.65 to USD 13.64 (33.94% reduction) respectively. As a consequence, the total cost of the bike horn was reduced by 24.59%. In the next step, the impact of original and modified bike horn designs on the environment were obtained from the sustainability module of SOLIDWORKS software. The environmental indicators are in terms of carbon footprint, total energy consumed (material, manufacturing, transportation, use and end of life), air acidification and water eutrophication (Figs. 7 and Figs. 8). The effect of redesign by reducing the number of parts and incorporating eco-friendly materials and processes can be observed in Table 5. From Table 5, it can be noticed that, a reduction of carbon footprint by 13.04%, the total energy by 8.69%, air acidification by 6.25% and water eutrophication by 50% were achieved. The environmental impact comparison of original and redesigned horn across different life cycle phases is given in Table 6. In addition, the comparison of cost and environmental impact parameters is also presented graphically in Figure 9. An appreciable reduction in the harmful effect of on the environment is accomplished through the integrated application of DFMA and sustainability principles resulting in an environmentally friendly and economical design.