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- Alriksson, Stina, 1971-
(författare)
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Conjoint analysis as a tool for communication and corporate environmental decision-making
- 2008
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Conjoint analysis has been used extensively in marketing, transportation and healthcare for the past 50 years. Since the mid-1990s, it has also been applied to an increasing number of environmental issues. In this thesis, conjoint analysis is applied to environmental objectives of the Swedish steel industry. The aim of the research project has been to develop a method for eliciting stakeholder preferences for environmental issues and to present the results to the stakeholders through the multivariate data analysis method of partial least squares regression. This licentiate thesis is based on three studies: a literature review of all conjoint studies conducted on environmental issues, a pilot study in which a new method was developed, and a main study where this method was tested on four environmental objectives of the Swedish steel industry. Up to the present, 109 environmental conjoint studies have been carried out. Recently, studies in environ¬mental economy have dominated, with investigators trying to estimate a mone¬tary value on environmental values or products. The problem selection has varied widely, from ecosystem management and green products to waste and risk management. One trend among environmental conjoint studies has been to use conjoint methods that report results at a group level. In the pilot study here, conjoint analysis was combined with partial least squares regression to enable presentation of results at individual level. The benefit of individual-level results is that they can be used to initiate a dialogue between an industry and its stakeholders, as well as between different stakeholder groups. The presentation mode also allows the researcher to find segments of respondents that think alike, although perhaps from different groups. In the pilot study, cluster analysis was used successfully to find hidden segments among the respondents. In the main study, the method from the pilot study was used to elicit preferences for four environmental objectives of the Swedish steel industry: reduced use of non-renewable energy, reduced use of non-renewable resources, decreased emission of carbon dioxide and weight reduction of products. Six stakeholder groups participated in the study, and the results showed that decreased emission of carbon dioxide was the environmental objective that most participants prioritised highest. Lowest priority was given to weight reduction of products. Conjoint analysis combined with multivariate data analysis methods such as partial least squares regression, principal component analysis and cluster analysis has been verified as an effective method for eliciting stake¬holder preferences on industry-wide environmental issues.
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- Alriksson, Stina, et al.
(författare)
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Conjoint analysis for environmental evaluation : a review of methods and applications.
- 2008
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Ingår i: Environmental Science and Pollution Research. - : Springer Berlin. - 0944-1344 .- 1614-7499. ; 15:3, s. 244-257
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND, AIM AND SCOPE: Conjoint analysis and the related choice-modelling methods have been used for many years in marketing research to evaluate consumer behaviour and preferences for different kinds of product attributes. Recently, the number of applications in environmental science and management has started to grow. Conjoint analysis is found in many different forms, and the environmental studies evaluated in this review display the same range of methods as in other fields. The key characteristic of all these methods is that trade-offs are evaluated by jointly considering a number of important attributes. MAIN FEATURES: This paper is a review of the literature on environmental applications of conjoint analysis and assesses in which environmental area conjoint analysis has been most successful. The method and the design of the studies are reviewed as well. RESULTS: A total of 84 studies were found, dealing with environmental issues that were evaluated by conjoint analysis. The studies concern agriculture, ecosystem management, energy, environmental evaluation, forestry, land management, pollution, products, recreation, environmental risk analysis and waste management. DISCUSSION: Choice experiments seem to have a comparatively stronger position in environmental studies than elsewhere. Most of the environmental applications are related to natural resource management. This is somewhat surprising, but a number of reports have appeared also on product evaluation, which could be a key application area in the future. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to marketing and transportation, the number of environmental conjoint studies is rather small but increasing, and the method has proven to work effectively in eliciting preferences on environmental issues. In environmental issues, experimenters often use choice experiments, especially concerning ecosystem management and environmental evaluations. When it comes to evaluating preferences concerning agriculture, forestry, energy and products, a more traditional approach of conjoint analysis is favoured. RECOMMENDATIONS AND PERSPECTIVES: Two new areas of application are identified in this review--environmental communication and expert elicitation. Conjoint analysis can thus be developed into a useful instrument for environmental risk analysis and communication, both of which are necessary for an efficient approach to risk governance.
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- Alriksson, Stina, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a closed steel eco-cycle - cojoint analysis as a decision tool
- 2005
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Ingår i: Proceedings Kalmar ECO-TECH´ 05. - Kalmar : Högskolan i Kalmar. ; , s. 27-36
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Swedish steel industry has over the past 20 years made substantial efforts to promote energy efficiency and environment protection. However, the dominant part of these investments has been directed to the individual production sites, most of which today have 'solved' their own acute environmental problems. The focus has therefore switched to the properties and performance of the steel products where the evaluation of environmental performance is a complex task that often requires simultaneous consideration of many different attributes. Conjoint analysis is commonly used in marketing research, to evaluate how consumers appreciate specific attributes in products. It has also been widely used in health care, traffic planning and quality management. Conjoint analysis has also been applied to environmental issues such as energy, recreation, environmental valuation, ecosystem management, consumer preferences to products, public preferences to industrial projects, waste management, and environmental policy development. This previous research has shown that the method is well suited for evaluating environmental issues. Here we briefly present the methodology and review some papers on environmental applications. It is our intention to use this approach as a tool to integrate environmental considerations into both process and product development within the steel industry.
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- Augustsson, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Climate change - an uncertainty factor in risk analysis of contaminated land
- 2011
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 409:22, s. 4693-4700
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Metals frequently occur at contaminated sites, where their potential toxicity and persistence require risk assessments that consider possible long-term changes. Changes in climate are likely to affect the speciation, mobility, and risks associated with metals. This paper provides an example of how the climate effect can be inserted in a commonly used exposure model, and how the exposure then changes compared to present conditions. The comparison was made for cadmium (Cd) exposure to 4-year-old children at a highly contaminated iron and steel works site in southeastern Sweden. Both deterministic and probabilistic approaches (through probability bounds analysis, PBA) were used in the exposure assessment. Potential climate-sensitive variables were determined by a literature review. Although only six of the total 39 model variables were assumed to be sensitive to a change in climate (groundwater infiltration, hydraulic conductivity, soil moisture, soil:water distribution, and two bioconcentration factors), the total exposure was clearly affected. For example, by altering the climate-sensitive variables in the order of 15% to 20%, the deterministic estimate of exposure increased by 27%. Similarly, the PBA estimate of the reasonable maximum exposure (RME, defined as the upper bound of the 95th percentile) increased by almost 20%. This means that sites where the exposure in present conditions is determined to be slightly below guideline values may in the future exceed these guidelines, and risk management decisions could thus be affected. The PBA, however, showed that there is also a possibility of lower exposure levels, which means that the changes assumed for the climate-sensitive variables increase the total uncertainty in the probabilistic calculations. This highlights the importance of considering climate as a factor in the characterization of input data to exposure assessments at contaminated sites. The variable with the strongest influence on the result was the soil:water distribution coefficient (Kd).
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- Barlow, Sue, et al.
(författare)
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Scientific report of the Endocrine Active Substances Task Force
- 2010
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Ingår i: EFSA Journal. - Parma, Italy : European Food Safety Authority. - 1831-4732. ; 8:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Discussions within the Scientific Committee and the Advisory Forum have called for the development of a common approach within EFSA towards endocrine active substances. The aim of this report by an internal EFSA task force is to clarify the state-of-play, and provide recommendations for scientific and communication issues. Both specific issues and new regulations make it necessary to follow up on recent developments with the EU bodies, Member States, and internationally, in order to avoid diverging assessment approaches and the duplication of work. The proposed actions for EFSA are to contribute to the work in progress under the auspices of DG Environment and to continue its participation in the ongoing OECD activities in the area of testing of chemicals. The development of a generally accepted risk assessment methodology is an additional challenge due to the complexity of the issues involved. Here, the task force recommends that EFSA continues its activities aimed at developing harmonised methodologies for risk assessment of combined exposures to endocrine active substances in food. EFSA should continue to build a dialogue to develop a common strategy with the EC, other EU bodies, Member States’ Competent Authorities, international organisations and partners, as well as external experts and stakeholders on the before mentioned issues. In line with these recommendations, it is proposed that EFSA creates a working group of Panel experts and national experts to advise on prioritising the work on endocrine active substances. EFSA should also work with the experts in its Advisory Group on Risk Communications in conjunction with the communication experts from Member States, and continues to monitor and analyse media and stakeholder developments, in order to define a strategy for communications addressing both the collective group and specific endocrine active substances.
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