April 29, 2008 by
AROMAKE AFIEGBE | Filed under: General,In the industry and in the workplace [1, 2, 3],Literature Review,RESEARCH CATEGORY: THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER | No Comments »
As corporations have come of age in their sensitivities to environmental concerns, this article beacons on the environmental manager to seize the opportunities present to accept a leadership role in guiding corporations to meeting their desire to becoming more environmentally responsible. It also challenges the environmental manager to look beyond their roles as compliance promoters in the industry to helping companies incorporate environmental concerns into their corporate strategy and decision making albeit in conformity to the peculiar situation of the company.
Andrew J Hoffman. “Environmental strategy: Emerging market for consulting services. ” Consulting to Management 13.4 (2002): 15-24. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. RIT Lib., Rochester, NY.. 29 Apr. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>
April 29, 2008 by
AYOUB MOHAMED | Filed under: Collaboratory,General,Literature Review,The Goal of the Environmental Manager [1, 2, 3, 4] | No Comments »
This article is a complementary to the”Renewable Refuse” article in Environmental Protection magazine, May 2007 that was in my previous post.
Abstract
After reading the “Renewable Refuse”, this article is discussing the questions: where do we start? what should be involved? how do yo implement recycling? and other questions that need to be addressed.
- Step One: Evaluate Facility Process
- Step Two: Identify and Prioritize Waste Stream
- Step Three: Identify and Prioritize P2 Projects
- Step Four: Set goals
- Step Five: Evaluate projects and goals
By following these steps you ar not only maintaining compliance with the EPA or state regulation, but also making profit to your company and making a good image to your company in the public eye.
Source: (Lori D. Pfeil, Article”Don’t waste your waste” Environmental Protection magazine, July-August 2007)
April 29, 2008 by
AROMAKE AFIEGBE and
| Filed under: Environmental Valuation and Accounting [1],General,Literature Review | 1 Comment »
Gross National Product, while a tool for measurement of a countries well being does not always appropriately capture the full picture specifically to include inequality and poverty, true measure of human resource, environmental impact of various activities and the spiritual, social, political aspects of welfare. Many of these aspects cannot be measured in any quantitative sense, of course, which may tend to diminish their importance in the minds of policymakers. This literature looks at the efforts to define gross national product as a measure of development while appropriately taking into account and possibly integrating social and environmental concerns into the core accounts. Although not a requirement for countries, it is suggested that they prepare satellite accounts, comprising both physical and monetary units, consistent with the core accounts. “Green” accounting can offer policymakers insights into the long-term productive capacity of a nation through the investment and capital accounts.
Steer, Andrew, Lutz, Ernst. “Measuring environmentally sustainable development. ” Finance & Development 1 Dec. 1993: 20. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. RIT Lib., Rochester, NY.. 29 Apr. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>
April 21, 2008 by
AROMAKE AFIEGBE ,
Brian Butler ,
and
admin | Filed under: In the industry and in the workplace [1, 2, 3],Literature Review,RESEARCH CATEGORY: THE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER | No Comments »
The environmental manager has come a long was since the early days of being viewed in the industry “as harbingers of additional cost and restrictions” (Voluntary Environmental Management:The Inevitable Future-John Morelli)) to a more defined professional seen as needed to facilitate change in environmental culture. But with the establishment of the environmentalism culture and metamorphosis of the driving reasons for companies to become environmentally friendly, the environmental manager has gradually left the forefront of decision making to become more of a shared service provider now being joined with other departments such as human resources, information technology safety and so on. The environmental departments are not anymore insulated from cutbacks because management feared government penalties due to non compliance. Many businesses have gotten used to the new culture of compliance and if not anything being seen as being environmentally responsible and so believe that the “environmental problem” has largely gone away and so do not feel impelled to invest in an area that seems “under control”. Also, by and large the past activities and and efforts of environmental compliance has created in the consumers an image of environmental responsibility, so the drive to pursue an up-scaled environmental department has reduced. For management, the environment has reduced to a two dimensional landscape-compliance and right public image- leaving little room for much contribution by environmental managers.
The question now is, where does the profession of corporate environmental management go for here? How can the role of the environmental manager move with this shift in culture from becoming relegated service provider to a strategic decision maker? The following article considers these questions and more.
Richard MacLean. “Corporate Environmentalism: In Search of Vision, Leadership, and Strategy. ” Environmental Quality Management 1 Oct. 2005: 1-14. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. RIT Lib., Rochester, NY.. 21 Apr. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>
April 19, 2008 by
AROMAKE AFIEGBE | Filed under: Collaboratory,Environmental Valuation and Accounting [1],General,Literature Review,RESEARCH CATEGORY: TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABILITY | No Comments »
The term service provider solicits an immediate attention to the business community in defining an entity, individual or business, that provides for a need of another entity. To subscribe to the ecological environment as a “Service Provider” as implicitly captured in the term “Ecosystem services” challenges the social and economic community not only to begin to adopt the environment as a limited entity that provides existence to both business and humans, but to explore means to make this service provider stay in business, as it were, and be sustainable. The importance of this issue has prompted increased awareness programs and a growing development of ways to define the ecosystem providers or entities and explore ways to pay, in monetary term and otherwise, for its services. The aim is not only to design ways to give back to or preserve the environment but also to discourage further unnecessary depletion of the natural environmental resources by human practices through policy making and enforcement. The following article looks at ecosystem valuation in China with the aim of redirecting research attention in valuating ecosystems.
January 15, 2008 by
John Morelli | Filed under: Literature Review | No Comments »
Welcome to the discussion!
Researchers working on this important subtopic include:
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Listed below are the various postings from the research team. Some will be abstracts of and links to relevant literature. Others will be original work posted here for comments, criticisms, suggestions, questions, etc. from professional environmental managers who visit this site.
If you are interested in participating on this professional research team, or learning more about it, please contact us by clicking here.
January 13, 2008 by
Brian Butler ,
John Morelli | Filed under: Literature Review,Purpose of Business and the Role of the Corporation | No Comments »
The article discusses the concept of assigning a corporate identity from a moral perspective. In it the authors suggest that there are moral complications when assigning an identity, positive or negative, to a corporation because the actions and decisions of a corporation come from the individuals that comprise the corporation. The authors argue that there is a philosophical problem in assigning a moral characteristic to a corporate entity, which is an abstraction. The article continues to consider practical and ethical issues in the areas of safety and health, organizational commitment, and social responsibility. Ultimately, the authors contend that from a practical standpoint, the value of the corporate identity will be judged, allowing the potential for it to be used for morally disingenuous purposes.
January 13, 2008 by
Brian Butler ,
John Morelli | Filed under: Literature Review,Purpose of Business and the Role of the Corporation | No Comments »
The paper was written in a first person point of view from an employee or someone involved in the company (Dupont) expressing and describing company direction, past, present and future of not only Dupont, but also the industry. Subjects such as Corporate Environmentalism, Business Integration, Sustainable Growth and Social Responsibility are discussed from a Dupont perspective. The discussion of the paper evolves around the concept of when a company globalizes, it (the company) must place more emphasis on supply chain management in order to become sustainable and socially responsible. Companies who become globalized will tend to externalize supply chain management and production activities, moving away from sustainability and social responsibility. Dupont, as discussed in the paper, has placed incentives within its framework of business in order to work towards sustainability in the environment, increase business development and address social responsibilities. Of course, this cannot happen unless a set of strategies is incorporated to bring greater profits to shareholders, without it, sustainability will never be reached. In respects to social responsibility, Dupont has addressed social responsibility in several ways. The author states that (we, at Dupont)..are “also committed to operating with the highest standards of business ethics wherever we do business in the world”. In order to police that statement, Dupont has incorporated a senior level corporate compliance committee. The author states Dupont recognizes and support employee volunteer efforts in their communities and how Dupont has sponsored some of those efforts. Dupont has also funded many community based sustainability projects. The article continues about all the good things Dupont is doing and believes “the ultimate social responsibility role we (Dupont) have as a global business is to provide products and services that improve the standard and quality of life for people around the world.
January 13, 2008 by
Brian Butler ,
John Morelli | Filed under: Literature Review | No Comments »
K.B Hodgins, P Quellette. “High-pressure Direct Injection of Natural Gas In a Diesel Engine For High Performance/Low Emissions” Westport Innovation Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. March/April 2005. Vol. 98, N 1086. CIM Bulletin, Technical Paper.
This article analyses the benefits of using Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as primary fuel source in large diesel engines. Large engines are used mainly by mining, rail and marine industries to power a variety of large vehicles and vessels used for material transport and power generation applications. Increasing pressures from EPA demonstrated by Tier 1, Tier 2 and blue sky initiative standards demanding significant reduction of emissions from such engines significantly increase the compliance challenges for affected industries. Westport Innovations Inc. of Vancouver British Columbia has been able to resolve some of the main challenges of feasibility of using natural gas for powering large diesel engines and has developed a High Pressure Direct Injection (HPDI) technology, which involves powering diesel engines with natural gas without significant/intrusive engine modifications and virtually no engine efficiency loss. Understandably, switching fuel dependence of diesel engine from diesel to natural gas offers a significant reduction of air pollutant emissions associated with internal fuel combustion processes. One of the large diesel engines used by mining industries for bulk material transportation purposes is a Cummins QSK series engine used for high horsepower applications such as power generation and mine haul trucking. This article analyses the benefits and challenges associated with application of HPDI to the Cummins QSK series engine and points to potentials and ease of application of this technology in a variety of other similar engines used by a number of industries for different applications. To implement this technology, minor engine modifications would have to be performed, a truck would have to be equipped with a Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tank and the facility would have to be equipped with easy means for LNG refueling. While the site and engine modifications costs are involved, the estimated savings in fuel purchases and emissions trading costs are expected to be considerable making the initiative feasible. Typical air pollutant emissions reductions achieved by HPDI technology in large diesel engine applications are expected to average 44% for NOx (nitrogen oxides), 52% for PM (particulate matter) and 21% for CO2 (carbon dioxide). Such emission reductions are equivalent to engine out greenhouse gas emissions reduction of approximately 900 tons per year per engine.
January 13, 2008 by
Brian Butler ,
John Morelli | Filed under: Literature Review | No Comments »
A. Dhouib, M. Ellouz, F. Aloui, S. Sayadi. “Effect of Bioaugmentation of Activated Sludge With White-rot Fungi on Olive Mill Wastewater Detoxification.” Centre de Biotechnologie de Sfax, BP: K, Tunisia. Letters in Applied Microbiology. April 2006 Volume 42.
This article is the experiment-results analysis of a study that aimed to determine the effects of pretreatment of Olive Mill Wastewater (OMW) by non-sterile activated sludge media bioaugmented with Phanerochaete chrysosporium, the white-rot fungi. More precisely, experiment aimed to determine if the white-rot fungi were able to thrive in a complex non-sterile activated sludge medium and if they were able to reduce the toxicity of OMW. Reduction of toxicity of OMW was of particular importance in this case; the toxicity of OMW was inhibitory to the secondary treatment of pretreated OMW, which involved anaerobic digestion. Prior to this work, other treatment approaches were studied along with similar experiments performed using lygninolic fungi in a bench top type, sterile conditions, rendering a need for non-sterile type treatment analysis using white-rot fungi, which displayed a potential for successful survival in the presence of inhibitory substances like phenolics, a major group of aromatic compounds present in OMW. The experiment results were promising as the toxicity of OMW was reduced by 30% and consequently production of methane from the anaerobic digestion process was feasible. Additionally, quality of treated OMW increased dramatically making it a safer and more adequate source of water for reuse in agricultural and industrial applications.
