| 1. |
- Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika, et al.
(författare)
-
Food and life cycle energy inputs : consequences of diet and ways to increase efficiency
- 2003
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 44:03-feb, s. 293-307
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food consumption is one of the most polluting everyday activities when impacts during product life cycles are considered. Greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector are substantial and need to be lowered to stabilise climate change. Here, we present an inventory of life cycle energy inputs for 150 food items available in Sweden and discuss how energy efficient meals and diets can be composed. Energy inputs in food life cycles vary from 2 to 220 MJ per kg due to a multitude of factors related to animal or vegetable origin, degree of processing, choice of processing and preparation technology and transportation distance. Daily total life cycle energy inputs for diets with a similar dietary energy consumed by one person can vary by a factor of four, from 13 to 51 MJ. Current Swedish food consumption patterns result in life cycle energy inputs ranging from 6900 to 21,000 MJ per person and year. Choice of ingredients and gender differences in food consumption patterns explain the differences. Up to a third of the total energy inputs is related to snacks, sweets and drinks, items with little nutritional value. It is possible to compose a diet compatible with goals for energy efficiency and equal global partition of energy resources. However, such a diet is far from the Swedish average and not in line with current trends.
|
|
| 2. |
- Carlsson, Lars
(författare)
-
Book review: Protecting the commons : a framework for resource management in the Americas
- 2002
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 40:3, s. 457-458
-
Recension (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Review of: Protecting the commons. A framework for resource management in the Americas Edited by Joanna Burger, Elinor Ostrom, Richard B. Norgaard, David Policansky and Bernard D. Goldstein, Island Press, Washington DC, 2001, ISBN 1-55963-738-2
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
- Gudmundsson, Henrik, et al.
(författare)
-
Sustainable development principles and their implications for transport
- 1996
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 19:3, s. 269-282
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 'Sustainable mobility' has been adopted as an overall objective for European transport policy, and similar intentions are expressed in other parts of the world. However, little has been done to define what 'sustainable mobility' would actually imply for our understanding and assessment of transport. We suspect that this much used term could merely end up acting as a lubricant to the very development it was meant to challenge: The ever increasing movement of people and goods. In this article we attempt to place transport in the context of sustainable development principles. We emphasise the need to include principles of development (increasing well-being and equity) as well as sustainability (preserving natural and man-made capital). Four such principles are suggested, taking inspiration from Herman Daly and others. We then turn to explore the main features of transport, establishing a comprehensive transport concept. The concept combines a systems perspective with a service perspective. Omitting either one would disable a complete consideration of sustainable development. Our confrontation of the four principles with the reality of current transport trends gives rise to several critical implications. The most important of which relate to the contribution of transport to depleting natural capital and quality of life. Moreover, we are also forced to challenge the value of increasing mobility itself, if other forms of access may provide relevant substitutes. The article thereby outlines some conceptual foundations for a transport policy that could qualify as sustainable.
|
|
| 5. |
- Gustafsson, Bo
(författare)
-
Scope and limits of the market mechanism in environmental management
- 1998
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 24:2, s. 259-274
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper tries to evaluate the role of the market mechanism in environmental management and warns against reductionist views on the causes and remedies of environmental damages. According to some of these views, proper pricing of the environment and extensive use of market mechanisms in environmental management would solve environmental problems. But various conditions tell against such simplifications, namely: the complex causality behind environmental damages; the complexity of the functions and values of nature; as well as limitations of the market mechanism in coping with the functions and services of nature. Several of those limitations—the difficulties of defining and enforcing property rights to nature's functions and services; the pervasiveness of externalities conditioned by the public goods characteristics of many environmental functions and values; the difficulties in enticing, processing and using information about environmental goods; and the high transaction costs caused by all these circumstances—often rule out contracts and trading of environmental services. It is less known that the basic cause of market existence and extension, namely specialization and division of labour, have negative environmental effects. With respect to environmental policy, conceptual problems are analyzed. While all kinds of environmental management mechanisms have a regulatory function, only quantity mechanisms, as a subset of incentive mechanisms, are market mechanisms. The choice of relevant environmental policy instrument is conditioned by many considerations. The issue of the superior efficiency properties of market mechanisms in environmental management is not yet settled satisfactorily; extensive empirical tests are still lacking.
|
|
| 6. |
- Hammer, Monica, et al.
(författare)
-
Enhancing transdisciplinary dialogue in curricula development
- 2001
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 38, s. 1-5
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A crucial step towards realizing transdisciplinary understanding is to address transdisciplinary issues in university curricula, and to train students in critically analyzing and understanding disciplinary metaphors. We present an experimental exercise at Stockholm University with the aim of finding a constructive way to introduce transdisciplinary elements in disciplinary courses and thus increase student awareness of disciplinary metaphors. The exercise required a minimum of formal university decision procedures and thus circumvented the institutional barriers that tend to obstruct the establishment of full transdisciplinary programs.
|
|
| 7. |
- Rönnbäck, Patrik, et al.
(författare)
-
Illuminating the need for ecological knowledge in economic valuation of mangroves under different management regimes — a critique
- 2000
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 35:2, s. 135-141
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This is a commentary on a paper by Gilbert and Janssen (Gilbert, A.J., Janssen, R., 1998. Ecol. Econ. 25, 323–346) that deals with valuation of management alternatives for the Pagbilao mangroves, Philippines. Our main critique focuses on the undervaluation of fisheries as well as the inability to quantify the value of ecological services and internalize aquaculture’s environmental costs. In addition, the sustainability criteria set up for the aquaculture management alternatives is open to debate. These weaknesses affect the result of Gilbert and Janssen’s analysis so that the value of the unexploited mangrove forest is underestimated, and the value and sustainability of converting the forest into aquaculture ponds are overestimated. If applied to decision-making, the erroneous results from this partial cost–benefit analysis may have dire consequences for the mangroves and coastal communities of Pagbilao.
|
|
| 8. |
- Rönnbäck, Patrik
(författare)
-
The ecological basis for economic value of seafood production supported by mangrove ecosystems
- 1999
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 29:2, s. 235-252
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The undervaluation of natural products and ecological services generated by mangrove ecosystems is a major driving force behind the conversion of this system into alternative uses. This trend of undervaluation is partly due to the difficulty involved in placing a monetary value on all relevant factors, but lack of ecological knowledge and a holistic approach among those performing the evaluation may be even more important determinants. This article identifies and synthesizes ecological and biophysical links of mangroves that sustain capture fisheries and aquaculture production. Fish, crustacean and mollusc species associated with mangroves are presented and the ecology of their direct use of this system is reviewed. Through a coastal seascape perspective, biophysical interactions among mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs are illustrated. The life-support functions of mangrove ecosystems also set the framework for sustainable aquaculture in these environments. Estimates of the annual market value of capture fisheries supported by mangroves ranges from US$ 750 to 16 750 per hectare, which illustrates the potential support value of mangroves. The value of mangroves in seafood production would further increase by additional research on subsistence fisheries, biophysical support to other ecosystems, and the mechanisms which sustain aquaculture production.
|
|
| 9. |
- Sundkvist, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
-
Strengths and limitations of localizing food production as a sustainability-building strategy : - an analysis of bread production on the island of Gotland, Sweden
- 2001
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 37:2, s. 217-227
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we analyze the environmental consequences of local small-scale versus centralized large-scale bread production and the potential for self-sufficiency in bread in a Swedish island community. Mills and bakeries located on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea were compared with large-scale production systems on the Swedish mainland. The results show that bread production in local bakeries requires more total energy input per kilogram of bread than the industrial bakery, mainly due to inefficient technology. On the other hand, the analysis shows that emissions of CO2, SO2 and NOx are smaller from bread produced in the small local bakeries than from big bakeries on the Swedish mainland. This is because the transportation routes are much shorter for bread from the small bakeries and because oil is more frequently used for heating the ovens in large and medium sized bakeries. The present local production of flour on Gotland does not satisfy the local demand, but there is a potential for increased self-sufficiency. Farms on the island produce large amounts of bread grain, but only a small fraction (2%) is used in local flour production, while the rest is exported or used as animal fodder. Thus the region has a large potential to produce enough flour for its local population and thus to become less dependent on imports. However, using more locally produced bread grain to produce flour in local mills, improving energy efficiency in small-scale mills and bakeries, changing consumer behavior and internalizing environmental costs of transportation are crucial measures in achieving this goal.
|
|
| 10. |
- Söderbaum, Peter, 1937-
(författare)
-
Actors, ideology, markets : Neoclassical and institutional perspectives on environmental policy
- 1994
-
Ingår i: Ecological Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0921-8009 .- 1873-6106. ; 10:1, s. 47-60
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This essay is a critical examination of three well-known textbooks of neoclassical environmental economics concerning their treatment of environmental policy. Dynamic efficiency in the sense of Cost-Benefit Analysis of a monetary kind is not the value-neutral instrument to project and policy evaluation it purports to be. Measuring willingness-to-pay and other market values does not solve many problems if the issue is one of world view, ideology and life-styles. As an alternative to conventional approaches. a more open attitude to various ideological standpoints in society is recommended.Neoclassical textbooks emphasize the government as the main agent in environmental policy and classify policy instruments as either belonging to the command-and-control or the economic incentives category. A broadening of perspective is here suggested in the sense ofincluding many more agents of environmental policy; for instance business companies and public interest groups. Environmental policy starts rather at the level of individuals than governments. A distinction is made between monetary and non-monetary incentives and disincentives as ways of influencing behavior, and alternatives to the neoclassical view of man, business, markets are suggested for purposes of understanding social change.
|
|
