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This paper seeks to identify major shifts in the Australian environmental policy agenda over the past fifty years, and discusses the possible causes of and variables affecting agenda change. The issue of what comprises 'environment' policy is discussed, with reference to overlaps and intersections with other policy sectors such as agriculture, public health, energy and regional affairs. While the diversity of the environment policy domain complicates any analysis of trends, there have been two persistent trends of (i) an expansion from a more narrowly to a more broadly defined suite of issue (from environment to sustainable development) and incorporation of environment into natural resource management, and (ii) an increasing diversity of policy instruments being used. Consistent with the wide variety of issues confronted, pragmatism and convenience are often as influential as political ideology or underlying trajectories. The drivers of policy change are diverse, including biophysical factors such as drought, political leaders and international policy developments, and punctuations are often better interpreted as intensification or redirections of past policy trajectories.

published_or_final_version ; Environmental Management ; Master ; Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version ; Environmental Management ; Master ; Master of Science in Environmental Management

International audience ; Environmental contaminants are substances that originate from diffuse sources and may appear in foods based on their ubiquitous presence in the environment. This paper analyses how maximum levels for environmental contaminants in food were derived by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, by the European Union and by national authorities (USA, Germany). Both the risk assessment process (derivation of tolerable intake values and intake assessment by scientific bodies) and the risk management process (derivation of maximum levels by risk management bodies) are discussed. The different organisations show similar principal approaches and similar numerical values for those maximum levels that are available for the same contaminants in the same food items. For the risk management decision-making, a noticeable lack of transparency is observed in all the investigated systems. Recommendations for harmonisation and improvement are provided for the exposure assessment, for the communication between risk assessment and risk management processes and for improvements for better documentation and transparency of the risk management decision-making processes.

This book presents the radiological sources that could be a threat to humans and the environment. It discusses how to deal with this threat in terms of measurements, prospective models, and regulations. The transport of radioactive substances in ecosystems is discussed, together with remedial actions in case an accident should happen. The book covers radiation sources, measurement methods, modeling, and calculations, as well as strategies in emergency preparedness (including strategies for first-responders and radiological triage)--

published_or_final_version ; Environmental Management ; Master ; Master of Science in Environmental Management

This book addresses the ability of market-based instruments to improve the sustainable provision of environmental services. The author combines field research and insights from the multi-stakeholder dialogue at the FAO to analyze the gap between the predictions provided by theory and the corresponding outcomes in practice. In particular, the author challenges the theory behind Payments for Environmental Services (PES), a concept derived from neoclassical welfare economics, by demonstrating that PES projects often lack financial sustainability unless local entrepreneurs make use of the resulting new networks to create innovative markets for environmental goods. The author calls for a shift of focus from regulation to innovation in projects and policies designed to improve the provision of environmental services. Its spotlight on the positive social impacts of companies that engage in hybrid PES schemes will make the book appealing to practitioners and policymakers alike. "This book is a refreshing challenge to conventional approaches to payments for environmental services. It offers a more realistic framework that accounts for human creativity and innovation in environmental management." Professor Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA (Author of the "The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa", Oxford University Press 2011) "Philipp Aerni offers a most useful critical assessment of the theory and practice of payments for ecosystem services. His book helps us understand why such payments sometimes fail to reach their objectives, and what could be done about it, particularly in less developed countries." Professor Thomas Bernauer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland "Drawing on lessons learned from case studies in Kenya, this important book shows what is needed to improve environmental services and sustainability in the developing world." Paul Slovic, President, Decision Research and Professor, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Many people believe 'management' and 'ethics' are opposing ideas. Others simply laugh and shake their heads in utter disbelief. Perhaps rightly so! In our lifetime alone, management's moral failings range from Thalidomide (1950s) to today's Enron, BP, and Bernie Madoff's 'Ponzi Scheme'. Maybe management's dilemma with morality has been perfectly expressed as 'greed is good!' (Gordon Gekko in the film 'Wall Steet'). Is it really all about greed, money, and shareholder value? Seven Management Moralities examines management's moral behaviour from seven different perspectives. These are derived from Kohlberg's development of human morality. The seven levels range from 'macho-management' at level 1, selfishness (2), virtue ethics (3) law and order (4), wellbeing (5), to universalism (6) and environmental ethics (7). This volume has three sections: (I) applies ethics to management, (II) contains seven levels of management morality, and (III) concludes with an assessment of management when measured against an ascending scale of morality.

In recent years, strategies for sustainable development are arguably among the most discussed issues among political, public and corporate actors. These discussions are spurred by major trends such as climate change, rapid urbanization, critical material and energy resource depletion. To facilitate sustainable development, deep structural and wide reaching changes seem needed in current technologies, infrastructure, businesses and institutions. In the academic discourse, different concepts, methods and tools, have been proposed and continue to be expounded within the framework of sustainable development. Notable among them include the concepts of ecodesign, and product and service systems design. These concepts have contributed to environmental improvements but have been challenged by critics to be expanded beyond products and services to include non-technological changes in order to deliver system wide environmental improvements. Departing from this background, the goal of this article is twofold, first to offer an expanded view on environmental conscious design of products and services with large scaled sociotechnical systems and then to propose and discuss important components to consider when developing business concepts based on large scaled environmental technology systems. In doing this, we offer a new way of describing business concepts based on large scaled environmental technology systems which incorporates non-technological dimensions such as meeting formal and informal expectations. We propose a set of components to consider when developing business concepts based on large scaled environmental technology offering. These components are: market (including regulations), finance, resources, activities, partnership (especially public-private partnership), ownership and responsibility, and legitimacy. Among these factors, regulation, public-private partnership, and legitimacy were found as particular for environmental technology diffusion. ; BMEX (Business models for market expansion of Swedish municipal environmental technologies)

Abstract
It is shown how corruption in the management of environmental resources can give rise to a comparative advantage in environment-intensive industries. International trade, in this setting, is not necessarily welfare improving. When corruption responds endogenously to the over-exploitation of resources, it is possible for international trade to generate forces that improve resource management by reducing corruption. Therefore, in this case trade could provide gains in addition to the usual gains.

Much of the existing environmental security literature examines the causal linkages between environmental scarcity and violent conflict. Such research is clearly useful for exploring the causes of violence but less useful for exploring the causes of peace. This article adopts a theoretical approach to the environment-conflict nexus that considers a range of local variables that shape the ways in which actors socially construct resource use competition. The basic approach is to accept that any resource use competition can be constructed in ways that engender either cooperative solutions or unproductive forms of conflict, including violence. The local variables that shape actors' constructions of conflicts are, therefore, viewed as the determinants of the kind of outcomes that result from a resource use conflict. This theoretical approach is developed with reference to environmental conflicts in areas hosting refugees. The variable of resource management regimes is explored in more detail, illustrated by a case study from an Ethiopian refugee camp. The article finds theoretical and empirical evidence to support the view that participatory and inclusive resource management regimes may enable communities to construct resource use conflicts in ways that help to prevent unproductive conflict. Such forms of governance can potentially be initiated in places where the state is failing to mitigate conflict through its own institutional resources. Thus, there may be an opportunity to respond to the 'ingenuity gap' that Homer-Dixon identifies as a key linkage between scarcity and conflict.