Two significant trends are shaping the environmental agenda: Green procurement – more and more businesses, governments and even consumers are seeking ecoproducts; and, new product related guidelines, directives and regulations have already been developed. How should business respond? There are tools and approaches available. This book, “ECODESIGN – the competitive advantage”, was written specifically to provide guidance and will help managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as others interested in the management of business, in a range of ways, including: how to best deal with the European Union’s new Ecodesign directives; how to understand the concepts behind (and the process of calculating) the carbon footprint of products; how to prepare for future challenges related to, for example, climate change, resource depletion and shortages, increasing restrictions on the use of toxic substances, and energy management; and how to best position products which have been environmentally improved in a competitive marketplace. In order to deal with the myriad of challenges, the authors have included simple, but detailed checklists that can be used to evaluate a company’s operations and serve as a guide to finding solutions. These have been structured around the corporate, management, product and production levels typically found in any enterprise. Environmental expenditures should not be viewed as costs, but rather investments – with the expectation that prudent investment will yield competitive advantage.

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The need to put into perspective the ever-mounting body of new information, beyond the frames of disciplines, on environmental security of food and water issues in Asia provided the impetus for the development of this book. It combines presentations from symposia on food and water sustainability held recently in Macau, China.

This book represents the latest research findings in all the major aspects of food and water security issues in Asia. The first chapter portrays the strategies for water resources management in Asian countries. In this connection, the environmental challenges for sustainable development were discussed. Model application on spatial allocation of water resources viewed the tradeoff between economic goal and ecological goal. The hydrological changes related to the socio-economic development in china were also included in this chapter. The second chapter deals with sustainable water uses in domestic purposes for both urban and rural areas. The potential use of reclaimed wastewater was described in the context of different cities as reference for the urban water management in whole Asia. The traditional drinking water uses in rural communities and associated challenges towards sustainability were also discussed in this regard. The third chapter focuses on the security issues in aquatic products. The long-term strategy for the fisheries development in China was represented as lessons for other communities in Asia. The environmental impacts of aquaculture and the control measures were also included in this discussion. Chapter four of this book represents the sustainability aspect in food grains. The delicate balance between water resources and food grain production was addressed. Sustainable strategies for water use and food production were described in the context of several Asian countries. The impact of biofuel production on food security issues was raised in this discussion. Some other socio-economic factors related to this issue were also included in this chapter. The overarching importances of the food and water sustainability issues in climate changes have been shown in chapter five. Impacts of global warming on water resources and food production in Asian countries were described with examples and simulation. Mitigation measures were also sited with regional references in Korea, Thailand and other parts of Asia. Strategies aiming the security issues in food and water were addressed in chapter six. Scenarios of environmental managements in Asian countries related to allocation of water resources, water quality, remediation of hazardous wastes, and soil clean up were the major topics in this context. The organizational strategies were also assessed in this discussion.

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Vision 2030: roadmap for a sustainable earth

From the book’s introduction:
“Can we humans continue to live and work as we have until now within the resource limits of the earth? And can we sustain the earth’s bountiful resources, including a clean and healthy environment, for generations to come? The goal of this book is to propose a concrete vision of a road to a sustainable future for humanity and the earth. This book shows how – by virtue of science and technology – we can create an infrastructure for conserving energy and recycling materials by the year 2050. Realizing this infrastructure will require that we establish a good relationship between society and technology. This relationship must be based on clear and honest communication between researchers in technology and stakeholders in society.”

“The book provides an easily accessible and lucid message unclouded by the hype that characterizes so much of the current debate on sustainability.”

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-4-431-09430-2

“Management of Health Risk from Environment and Food”, edited by Hajime Sato, describes a five-country comparison of the policy and politics of health risk management with a focus on asbestos and BSE.
More info: AGS book series volume 16

“Highway and Urban Environment – Proceedings of the 9th Highway and Urban Environment Symposium”. Editor Sébastien Rauch, Greg Morrison and André Monzón.
More info: AGS book series volume 17

AGS faculty are invited to publish resarch in the AGS book series, more information is available in the book series section

Discount offer is available on all Springer books for faculty at AGS Universities. Please contact Alexandra Priatna to get the discount token.

The AGS book series ‘Science and Technology: tools for sustainable development’ published by Springer, provides timely accounts based on AGS research into emerging barriers to sustainable development, and methodologies  and tools to help governments, industry and civil society overcome them. The level of presentation is for graduate students in natural, social and engineering sciences as well as policy and decision makers in government, industry and civil society.

Management of Health Risks from Environment and Food (2010) Proceedings of the 9th Highway and Urban Environment Symposium Sebastien Rauch, Greg Morrison and Andrés Monzón (editors) ISBN: 978-90-481-3042-9 (hardcover)

The 9^th Highway and Urban Environment Symposium (9HUES) was held in Madrid, Spain, from 9-11 June 2008. HUES is run by Chalmers University of Technology within the Alliance for Global Sustainability (The AGS).

HUES was initiated by Professor Ron Hamilton at Middlesex Polytechnic (now University) in the early 1980s and had the title “Highway Pollution”. The initial aim was to measure and assess challenges in highway pollution, with a strong emphasis on urban photochemical smog, ozone formation and particle release. After the first symposium, the emphasis on air pollution issues continued through to Munich in 1989 where diesel particulate issues and the relevance to health through measurements of PM10 emerged. The focus on air quality issues was also strengthened. In parallel, the symposium started to receive an increasing number of scientific contributions from the area of urban run off, indeed to the extent that the title of the symposium was changed to “Highway and Urban Pollution”. Since then the importance of science in support of policy became increasingly important as a key aspect of the symposium.

9HUES was held at TRANSyT- Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain to provide a professional and scientific forum on global examples of the science required to support pathways to a positive and sustainable future in the highway and urban environment.

This volume contains papers grouped by topic on ustainable mobility and management; air pollution; trace elements in the environment; urban water contamination, contaminated sites and treatment; urban climate and climate change.

More information about AGS Book Series vol.17 on Springer website

Management of Health Risks from Environment and Food (2010) Policy and Politics of Health Risk Management in Five Countries – Asbestos and BGE Hajime Sato (editor) ISBN: 978-90-481-3027-6 (hardcover)

This book examines the policy and politics of two health risks, which have recently become prominent social issues in many countries. One is the issue of asbestos as an environmental risk to humans, and another is that of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease as an animal disease, and of its variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) as a human food risk. Employing a set of analytical frameworks in political science, each case study explores how the issues emerged, agendas got set, alternatives were chosen, and policies were implemented. Through the analysis, it is examined how safety and public reassurance were pursued in the countries studied (Japan, the UK, France the USA, and Korea).

Exploration of the successes and failures in their efforts discloses the key elements to successful health risk management.

More information about AGS Book Series vol.16 on Springer website

Climate Change and Energy Pathways for the Mediterranean (2008) Workshop Proceedings, Cyprus Ernest J. Monitz ISBN: 978-1-4020-4858-6 (hardcover)

Reflecting the success of the first workshop of the Cyprus Institute entitled Climate Change and Energy Pathways for the Mediterranean held in Cyprus in 2005, these proceedings present an overview of the implications of climate change for the eastern Mediterranean and the impact of climate change response on regional economic activity, particularly in the hydrocarbon industry. The 11 invited papers and the summaries of presentations and interactive discussion of the workshop emphasize regional implications and set the stage to build a research strategy for the newly established Cyprus Institute. This book is aimed not just at scientists and researchers, but at policy makers and politicians, particularly in the Mediterranean region.

More information about AGS Book Series vol.15 on Springer website

Moving Millions (2007) Transport Strategies for Sustainable Development in Megacities Fred Moavenzadeh, M.J. Markow ISBN: 978-1-4020-6701-3 (hardcover)

More information about AGS Book Series vol.14 on Springer website

An Energy Analysis of Household Consumption (2007) Changing Patterns of Direct and Indirect Use in India Shonali Pachauri ISBN: 978-1-4020-4031-7 (hardcover)

With energy consumption set to become one of the biggest issues in the daily lives of householders around the world, this book could not be more relevant – despite the fact that it focuses on India.

Pachauri adopts a socio-economic approach to analyzing the energy system and energy consumption in India from a household perspective.

In addition, the work incorporates two crucial aspects often ignored by many traditional modeling approaches that are characteristic of most developing countries, namely the importance of non-commercial sources of energy, mostly biofuels, and the very large diversity in the patterns of energy use in households with widely diverging lifestyles and well-being.

Adopting a household perspective allows for analyzing how energy use and consumption patterns are linked with the quality of life of individual households or persons and provides a novel view of the energy system and development in India.

The works makes a first significant step in identifying key driving forces and trends in economic, technical, demographic, and lifestyles factors that heve had an impact on energy use patterns in India over the last couple of decades. The results should be of interest to inform academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners as well as those interested in energy analysis and development policy.

More information about AGS Book Series vol.13 on Springer website

Highway and Urban Environment (2007) Proceedings of the 8th Highway and Urban Environment Symposium Greg Morrison and Sebastien Rauch (editors) ISBN: 978-1-4020-6009-0 (hardcover)

More information about AGS Book Series vol.12 on Springer website