Exploring a unified and quantitative accounting for biodiversity marketing
Ningyu Yan1, Gengyuan Liu1,2,*
- State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
- Beijing Engineering Research Center for Watershed Environmental Restoration & Integrated Ecological Regulation, Beijing 100875, China
Abstract: Conservation of biodiversity is about nature and the future of mankind. The Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, to be adopted in May 2022, will help avoid the extinction of more than 1 million plant and animal species. Many countries have adopted policies to offset biodiversity loss and established Bio-Banks. Due to the complexity of ecosystem value, there are a lot of information asymmetry and externalities in the transaction process, so the Bio-Banking method requires regulators to closely monitor the transaction. As with any market, biobank schemes need to develop a common currency to facilitate the pooling of offsets and their exchange. This means the losses and gains of biodiversity must be quantified and translated into credit. Herein, we established a new accounting framework to provide a unified measurement for biodiversity marketing. We conducted biodiversity assessment adopting the emergy-based and the Credit-Debit method of wetland mitigation banking to evaluate the biodiversity of 82 ecological projects in Shannxi province, China. Biodiversity value consists of three dimensions (site value, landscape valueand species value). The results have shown that: 1) The correlation of credit and Net Primary Productivity (NPP) is strong (R2= 0.75); 2) The ratio of credit and NPP is approximately 3.53E-14, and this ratio can provide reference for future credit accounting; 3) Per cost of credit and NPP are 8.36E-07 (acre-point/ Yuan) and 2.73E+07 (sej/Yuan), and per area of credit and NPP are 5.04E-04(acre-point/m2) and 1.50E+10(sej/m2) respectively. We argue that NPP based on emergy analysis shows advantages in terms of objectivity, accuracy, and generalization, and it provides the possibility to further extend the application of NPP to strong support for credit results.
Evaluation of Poverty Traps in Brazilian Federative Units:
Method Based on EMERGY and Five Sector Sustainability Model
Glauco A. do Nascimento, Marcos J. Alves-Pinto Jr, and Biagio F. Giannetti
Laboratory of Production and Environment, Paulista University, São Paulo, Brazil
G.A.N. nascimentoglauco@hotmail.com, B.F.G. biafgian@unip.br
Poverty is one of the world's greatest challenges. Against this chronic problem in the world, the end of poverty in all its forms is the United Nations' first sustainable development goal (SDG1). To achieve this goal, it is necessary to overcome the poverty traps, a vicious system due to lack of capital (economic, natural and social). To support SDG1, the academic community needs to develop tools for decision makers. In this sense, this work explores the use of EMERGY combined with the Five Sector Sustainability (5SEnSU) Model. The method developed aims to be a systemic identifier of the barriers that exist in a society to thrive sustainably and in capital harmony. The ideal values of the indicators are presented, which barriers should be overcome and the possible public policies to be adopted. The guiding method of overcoming poverty traps was applied to the Brazilian Federative Units in 2007. The results show dramatic regional disparities and the different degrees of poverty traps. The guide method has two types of implications: Practices - are useful for decision makers to identify barriers. The method is exclusively a guide without advancing the actions because it recognizes that the actions to be taken are the result of the social contract at the national, regional and international levels. Academic - this is the strongest point of this work, which explores different conceptual approaches. The method serves to better understand the relationships between the different forms of capital, the poverty traps related to environmental resources and the unbalanced exchanges existing in foreign trade and society.
Keywords: poverty, inequality, public policies and sustainability.
Emergy Analysis in a Circular Economy Supply Chain
Lojain Alkhuzaim
Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA USA – email:Lalkhuzaim@wpi.edu
Abstract:Due to the complexity associated with applications of emergy analysis, the current literature has been particularly focusing on broad levels of analysis including national, regional, and municipal levels. Considering the limited literature at a microscopic level, the need to expand applications of emergy analysis is growing. As a result, this study fills a gap by offering a practical implementation of a comprehensive performance measure applied at a granular level adopting a donor-side perspective. To address this issue, the investigation focuses on some specific supply chain concerns to explore the feasibility of using emergy in supply chain decisions by evaluating a potential circular economy supply chain setting. The supply chain under investigation deals with two sourcing alternatives of different agricultural byproducts. Date seeds and walnut shells are evaluated as the product of two different sources supplied from local and global supply chains respectively. Using emergy analysis concepts and calculations, the two byproducts are evaluated throughout extended multi-tier supply chains considering all inputs from the environment within the investigated system’s boundary. Results of the proposed integration suggest that emergy analysis considers a broader scope when evaluating two alternatives offering environmentally sound decisions when compared to traditional cost measures. Furthermore, several emergy indicators are considered highlighting some potential areas of development to improve the sustainability of the system under study. Finally, despite some practical limitations in covering an expanded supply chain, emergy analysis provides a promising integrative tool for decision makers at the organizational level.
Keywords: Emergy Analysis, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability, Circular Economy, Performance Measures