Suchergebnisse

The sustainability of cities highly depends on city center viability and shopping street resilience. With the increasing number of shopping centers and the strong impact of e-commerce on existing retail systems, the major urban challenge has become maintaining a balance in the market. The governments have attempted to reverse these negative impacts by developing proactive policies and programs. Over the last 25 years schemes of Town Centre Management (Tcm) or like-Tcm initiatives have emerged as a practical response to ensure that towns are desirable and attractive places. Whilst most reviews of Tcm or like- Tcm programs to date have focused on their structure and operations, little attention has been given to the role of these schemes as a «competitive tool» to safeguard and valorise the Sme retailers located in the city centre. This paper examines the impact of «Distretto del commercio » – a like-Tcm scheme introduced by the Lombardy region (Italy) in the 2008 – on the Sme retailers during the economic crisis (2008-2017). Our analysis demonstrates that the «Distretto del commercio» had a relevant positive effect on the shopping street resilience and city center viability. The size of the effect depends on the different typology of Distretto, the commercial competitiveness of the area and the structural variables of the territory.

Since the economic crisis of 2007-2008, during which food commodity prices peaked, there has been an increase in Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs) (Landmatrix, 2017). In addition to socio-economic factors, climate change might be in relation to LSLAs but its possible role has largely been unrecognized. We assessed the role of economic, political, environmental and climate variables on LSLAs, both in host and investor countries. We hypothesized that investors may be influenced in their land acquisitions by the level of climate change both in the target and the investor countries. We used a gravity model starting from a raw dataset of 2402 concluded deals from 2003 – 2017. The results suggest that climatic conditions play a statistically significant role as explanatory factors for LSLAs in Target countries, confirming the original assumptions.

Corporate social responsibility has become a strategic asset for food firms to demonstrate their good environmental conduct. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of the implementation of corporate social responsibility activities on the reorganization of vertical relationships within food supply chains. Applying content analysis techniques to the Global Reporting Initiative reports, we collected qualitative data on investments in environmentally friendly options, the adoption of standards, stakeholder engagement, information searches, impact-monitoring activities, and chain coordination to transform it into quali-quantitative data. We find that the variables affecting chain coordination relate to the presence of sourcing standards, effort in discussing with chain partners ways to prevent and manage chain environmental impacts, and costs related to stakeholder feedback collection. The results of the analysis confirm corporate social responsibility as a strategic tool to improve supply chain relationships through an augmented vertical coordination and to integrate environmental policy.

This work contributes significantly to previous research on the relationship between specific features of a regional knowledge space and the technological progress of the region. In particular, the main element of originality of this work is to have isolated the determinants of the technological progress intensity on the one side and those of the technological progress relevance on the other side. We acknowledge the importance of knowledge assets for new knowledge production, and we identify path-dependent processes that allow a region to become increasingly competitive in terms of innovation potential. In particular, adopting an evolutionary view of regional development, we describe the regional knowledge space through four crucial characteristics: 1) technological knowledge base, 2) technological cumulativeness, 3) technological diversification, and 4) technological relatedness. We then measure to what extent each of the knowledge space's characteristics differently affects the technological progress intensity and relevance of the region. A longitudinal study of 269 European regions over the period 1996-2012 was organized using data from the REGPAT and Eurostat databases. Our results show that the factors influencing the innovation intensity are not the same as those affecting the innovation relevance, except for technological relatedness. It appears, in fact, that technological relatedness is the key factor influencing the technological progress of regions, measured either in terms of intensity or in terms of relevance. Finally, implications for EU policies supporting and stimulating regional technological progress are discussed.

Intensive pig farming is responsible for significant air pollutant emissions. This study explores the effect that the large-scale implementation of air cleaning technologies (wet acid scrubbers) for pig housing facilities could have in the European Union. Emissions related to the housing stage of NH3, PM10, NMVOC and indirect N2O from large pig farms (>1000 heads of sows or fattening pigs) are first estimated in the actual situation (current scenario - CS), considering implementation rates and removal efficiencies of the different emission abatement techniques available. Subsequently, alternative scenarios (AS1 and AS2) are simulated with a growing implementation rate of the wet acid scrubber (35% and 65% of the concerned pig farms in all Member States). A comparison between the scenarios was carried out, taking into account emissions reduction, consumables for scrubber operation and environmental credit given by the avoidance of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production. The annual impact on human health of 21,212 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) in CS was significantly reduced in AS1 (-15%) and in AS2 (-40%), showing that the environmental trade-off given by the consumables is largely overwhelmed by emission abatement. At the same time, the current environmental cost to society of the concerned emissions was estimated at 4154 million € per year (of which 89% due to NH3), which also was reduced in alternative scenarios (−668 and −1765 million € for AS1 and AS2). The abatement of NH3, on which the wet acid scrubber expresses the greatest removal efficiency, was fundamental in both reducing the human health impact and environmental costs, demonstrating the key environmental role of this pollutant and the growing need to find solutions for its containment in the EU.