Vol. 2, No. 3 (2014): Regular Issue

The present study provides an overview of the evolution of non-financial disclosure over time, from sustainability towards integrated reports. The article tackles three different themes. First, it introduces the concept of NFI, and it discusses why such information is relevant in the current business environment. It revises previous literature in order to answer to the question “why do companies invest inCorporate Social Disclosure (CSD)”? Second, it defines and discusses the topic of Integrated Reporting (IR). Third, it provides an analysis ofthe state of the art of CSD and IR nowadays. The study shows that policy makers are increasingly pushing companies towards NFI disclosure and that, at the same time, companies have incentives in engaging in NFI disclosure, as shown by previous academic literature. While sustainability reporting is a well-established reality, IR still needs to be further developed, and this study proposes some avenues for future research.

The present study provides an overview of the evolution of non-financial disclosure over time, from sustainability towards integrated reports. The article tackles three different themes. First, it introduces the concept of NFI, and it discusses why such information is relevant in the current business environment. It revises previous literature in order to answer to the question “why do companies invest inCorporate Social Disclosure (CSD)”? Second, it defines and discusses the topic of Integrated Reporting (IR). Third, it provides an analysis ofthe state of the art of CSD and IR nowadays. The study shows that policy makers are increasingly pushing companies towards NFI disclosure and that, at the same time, companies have incentives in engaging in NFI disclosure, as shown by previous academic literature. While sustainability reporting is a well-established reality, IR still needs to be further developed, and this study proposes some avenues for future research.

Eco-culture is essentially a social ideology which promotes coexistence and mutual prosperity between mankind and nature, in order to realize cohesive and harmonious development of ecology, economy and society. Based on the analysis of essence ofeco-culture, this paper reveals a mechanism that eco-culture influenced on urban development and analyzes its phenomena. We find that eco-culture is the driving force and soul of urban ecological development, which has penetrated into every aspect of urban society, economy, planning and construction. Eco-culture can not only contribute to resolve ecological crisis, but also facilitate the resource-saving and environment-friendly society development, also promotes the circular economy development, and plays an important role in constructing ecological physical space.

Eco-culture is essentially a social ideology which promotes coexistence and mutual prosperity between mankind and nature, in order to realize cohesive and harmonious development of ecology, economy and society. Based on the analysis of essence ofeco-culture, this paper reveals a mechanism that eco-culture influenced on urban development and analyzes its phenomena. We find that eco-culture is the driving force and soul of urban ecological development, which has penetrated into every aspect of urban society, economy, planning and construction. Eco-culture can not only contribute to resolve ecological crisis, but also facilitate the resource-saving and environment-friendly society development, also promotes the circular economy development, and plays an important role in constructing ecological physical space.

The continuous expansion of impervious artificial surfaces in cities has significantly influenced the urban thermal environment. Recent advances in remote-sensing techniques and geographic information systems have made it possible to investigate the thermal characteristics of the urban environment at a city scale. In the present study, we performed spatial, temporal, and consistency analysis of land surface temperatures (LST) and land use by using Landsat TM thermal infrared remote-sensing images to derive the spatial patterns of urban LST and its changes in Shanghai from 1987 to 2000, meanwhile we also analyzed the relationship between the LST distribution and land-use patterns. We found that the LST distribution was closely related to the land-use pattern: construction land tended to have high LST, whereas vegetation and water body mainly had low LST. We further classified Shanghai's urban thermal environment into five temperature classes; changes inthese classes defined three temperature trends. Using 2000 as an example, we analyzed the consistency of the relationship between LST and land use to examine the impact of urban land use on the urban thermal environment. The results showed that our approach was a feasible way to examine urban LST and its evolution, and revealed a strong relationship between land use and LST. For the future research, it is also reasonable to focus on longer time series and more land-use types.

The continuous expansion of impervious artificial surfaces in cities has significantly influenced the urban thermal environment. Recent advances in remote-sensing techniques and geographic information systems have made it possible to investigate the thermal characteristics of the urban environment at a city scale. In the present study, we performed spatial, temporal, and consistency analysis of land surface temperatures (LST) and land use by using Landsat TM thermal infrared remote-sensing images to derive the spatial patterns of urban LST and its changes in Shanghai from 1987 to 2000, meanwhile we also analyzed the relationship between the LST distribution and land-use patterns. We found that the LST distribution was closely related to the land-use pattern: construction land tended to have high LST, whereas vegetation and water body mainly had low LST. We further classified Shanghai's urban thermal environment into five temperature classes; changes inthese classes defined three temperature trends. Using 2000 as an example, we analyzed the consistency of the relationship between LST and land use to examine the impact of urban land use on the urban thermal environment. The results showed that our approach was a feasible way to examine urban LST and its evolution, and revealed a strong relationship between land use and LST. For the future research, it is also reasonable to focus on longer time series and more land-use types.

The Pampas region contributes 80% of the total national production of soya, wheat and maize in Argentina, characterized by large grain exports and internal consumption. Today the area allocated to these crops is driven by short-term economic opportunities, creating a tension between people with vested economic interests and those more concerned about the benefits provided by preserving natural capital and ecosystem services. The objectives of this study were toanalyze resource use, environmental impact, and sustainability of annual crop production in the northern Pampas regions and promote discussion of management strategies and production goals. SUMMA (Sustainability Multimethod Multiscale Assessment), an approach that integrates material demand, energy use, emergy and emissions within a life cycle assessment framework, provides indicators of resource depletion, environmental impact and performance of agricultural systems. Results show a more than doubled water demand per hectare for soy and three times higher for maize and wheat in 2009 compared to 1986, while abiotic material demand per ha decreased down to 10% of the reference year values. On a per gram basis, 2-5 g water were needed in 2009 per gram of product dry matter, with higher demand for wheat and lower for maize. Energy demand decreased by about 60% for soy on per hectare basis, while increased for maize and wheat. About 460 kg CO2 equiv/ha and 3.2 kg SO2equiv/ha were released in 2009 by soybean and up to three times more by maize and wheat, translating into 0.1-0.3 g CO2 equiv/g d.m. of product (with maize performing better and wheat worse). Finally, emergy indicators show an unbalance between use of resources that are free renewable and locally available and resources that are nonrenewable and purchased from outside the system. This unbalance cannot be disregarded, being a key aspect of sustainability.

The Pampas region contributes 80% of the total national production of soya, wheat and maize in Argentina, characterized by large grain exports and internal consumption. Today the area allocated to these crops is driven by short-term economic opportunities, creating a tension between people with vested economic interests and those more concerned about the benefits provided by preserving natural capital and ecosystem services. The objectives of this study were toanalyze resource use, environmental impact, and sustainability of annual crop production in the northern Pampas regions and promote discussion of management strategies and production goals. SUMMA (Sustainability Multimethod Multiscale Assessment), an approach that integrates material demand, energy use, emergy and emissions within a life cycle assessment framework, provides indicators of resource depletion, environmental impact and performance of agricultural systems. Results show a more than doubled water demand per hectare for soy and three times higher for maize and wheat in 2009 compared to 1986, while abiotic material demand per ha decreased down to 10% of the reference year values. On a per gram basis, 2-5 g water were needed in 2009 per gram of product dry matter, with higher demand for wheat and lower for maize. Energy demand decreased by about 60% for soy on per hectare basis, while increased for maize and wheat. About 460 kg CO2 equiv/ha and 3.2 kg SO2equiv/ha were released in 2009 by soybean and up to three times more by maize and wheat, translating into 0.1-0.3 g CO2 equiv/g d.m. of product (with maize performing better and wheat worse). Finally, emergy indicators show an unbalance between use of resources that are free renewable and locally available and resources that are nonrenewable and purchased from outside the system. This unbalance cannot be disregarded, being a key aspect of sustainability.

In this study, we measured the embodied CO2emission and analyzed the flow direction of embodied CO2 in China’s foreign trade among the trade partners using a multi-national input-output model based on noncompetitive input-output tables, national input-output tables developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and CO2 emission strength listed in the Global Trade Analysis Program (GTAP) version 7.0 for the years 2002, 2005, and 2010. Using a structural decomposition method, we analyzed the changes in the embodied CO2emissions in China’s foreign trade were caused bythe three factors:export scale and structural changes, intermediate structural changes in the input-output table, and CO2emissions per unit of output. According to our results, from 2002 to 2010, China’s foreign trade created a huge trade surplus and a large embodied CO 2 deficit. In 2010, the CO2surplus reached 1.012 billion t. The rapid growth of trade scale was the main factor in the increase of embodied CO2in China’s export trade, and the technique effect brought about by the decrease in CO2emission strength is a significant factor in restraining the increase of embodied CO2in export trade.

In this study, we measured the embodied CO2emission and analyzed the flow direction of embodied CO2 in China’s foreign trade among the trade partners using a multi-national input-output model based on noncompetitive input-output tables, national input-output tables developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and CO2 emission strength listed in the Global Trade Analysis Program (GTAP) version 7.0 for the years 2002, 2005, and 2010. Using a structural decomposition method, we analyzed the changes in the embodied CO2emissions in China’s foreign trade were caused bythe three factors:export scale and structural changes, intermediate structural changes in the input-output table, and CO2emissions per unit of output. According to our results, from 2002 to 2010, China’s foreign trade created a huge trade surplus and a large embodied CO 2 deficit. In 2010, the CO2surplus reached 1.012 billion t. The rapid growth of trade scale was the main factor in the increase of embodied CO2in China’s export trade, and the technique effect brought about by the decrease in CO2emission strength is a significant factor in restraining the increase of embodied CO2in export trade.

Due to the impact of human activities, continuing degradation of lake ecosystems and loss of aquatic biodiversity, symptoms of ecosystem damages are widespread, and many efforts have been made in improving ecological conditions through diverse lake ecological restoration ways. However, agreement on what constitutes a successful restoration project continues to be lacking, and we need well-accepted criteria for judging ecological success. In this paper, detailed comparative lake health assessments using coupled lake models were conducted to judge ecological restoration effects of Baiyangdian Lake. We developed an approach to guide restoration of a degraded wetland through construction of two environmental models: hydrodynamics and water quality model as well as compartmental ecological models. Two ecological restoration scenarios- watershed water transfer and watershed pollution load control, were tested. Through correlation analysis and principal component analysis, 10 health evaluation indices were selected indexes from three aspects (structure, function and system) to construct health evaluation system of Baiyangdian Lake. Simulating and assessments results showed that watershed water transfer could improve ecological health status of Baiyangdian Lake more effectively comparedwith watershed pollution load control, and water quality of watershed water transfer is also an important influence factor on ecological health status. Watershed pollution load control is only has restoration effect on the water area near river entrance. For hydrodynamic index, water level in two watershed water transfer scenarios increased significantly, and water quality was also improved a lot. In watershed pollution load control scenario, water quality improved only in water area near river entrance. For water ecological index, zooplankton biomass in two watershed water transfer scenarios increased significantly and phytoplankton biomass increased slightly compared with that in benchmark scenario. Zooplankton biomass in watershed pollution load control scenarios increasednot much comparedwith that in benchmark scenario, and phytoplankton biomass had no obvious change, either. Aquatic plant biomass in all scenarios basically had the same variation. The proposed models and comparative lake health assessments we established show some promising applications as middle-scale or largescale lake management tools for ecological restoration such as pollution load control and ecological water transfer. These tools quantify the implications of proposed future water management decisions.

Due to the impact of human activities, continuing degradation of lake ecosystems and loss of aquatic biodiversity, symptoms of ecosystem damages are widespread, and many efforts have been made in improving ecological conditions through diverse lake ecological restoration ways. However, agreement on what constitutes a successful restoration project continues to be lacking, and we need well-accepted criteria for judging ecological success. In this paper, detailed comparative lake health assessments using coupled lake models were conducted to judge ecological restoration effects of Baiyangdian Lake. We developed an approach to guide restoration of a degraded wetland through construction of two environmental models: hydrodynamics and water quality model as well as compartmental ecological models. Two ecological restoration scenarios- watershed water transfer and watershed pollution load control, were tested. Through correlation analysis and principal component analysis, 10 health evaluation indices were selected indexes from three aspects (structure, function and system) to construct health evaluation system of Baiyangdian Lake. Simulating and assessments results showed that watershed water transfer could improve ecological health status of Baiyangdian Lake more effectively comparedwith watershed pollution load control, and water quality of watershed water transfer is also an important influence factor on ecological health status. Watershed pollution load control is only has restoration effect on the water area near river entrance. For hydrodynamic index, water level in two watershed water transfer scenarios increased significantly, and water quality was also improved a lot. In watershed pollution load control scenario, water quality improved only in water area near river entrance. For water ecological index, zooplankton biomass in two watershed water transfer scenarios increased significantly and phytoplankton biomass increased slightly compared with that in benchmark scenario. Zooplankton biomass in watershed pollution load control scenarios increasednot much comparedwith that in benchmark scenario, and phytoplankton biomass had no obvious change, either. Aquatic plant biomass in all scenarios basically had the same variation. The proposed models and comparative lake health assessments we established show some promising applications as middle-scale or largescale lake management tools for ecological restoration such as pollution load control and ecological water transfer. These tools quantify the implications of proposed future water management decisions.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the set of articles about cleaner production published in International Workshop on Advances in Cleaner Production (IWACP) Brazil in 2007. The methodology adopted was a bibliometric analysis using the UCINET-Draw software, which quantified and evaluated the scientific production inquestion in qualita-tive and quantitative terms. The primary constructs evaluated were as follows: (i) article thematics, methods used and segmentsresearched, (ii) relationships between thematics, segments and methods, (iii) the evolu-tion and the rate of rejection of articles from the IWACP (2007) for pub-lication in the Special Volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production (SJCP) (18) (2010) through an analysis of the citations in the ISI Web of Knowledge and a content analysis. The results demonstrate the general panorama of the IWACP (2007), allowing the proposition of future stud-ies in sustainability that focus on thematics, segments and methods. The results also show that the quality of the articles published in the SJCP (18) (2010) from the IWACP (2007) is similar to the other articles pub-lished in the Journal of Cleaner Production (JCP).

The objective of this study was to evaluate the set of articles about cleaner production published in International Workshop on Advances in Cleaner Production (IWACP) Brazil in 2007. The methodology adopted was a bibliometric analysis using the UCINET-Draw software, which quantified and evaluated the scientific production inquestion in qualita-tive and quantitative terms. The primary constructs evaluated were as follows: (i) article thematics, methods used and segmentsresearched, (ii) relationships between thematics, segments and methods, (iii) the evolu-tion and the rate of rejection of articles from the IWACP (2007) for pub-lication in the Special Volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production (SJCP) (18) (2010) through an analysis of the citations in the ISI Web of Knowledge and a content analysis. The results demonstrate the general panorama of the IWACP (2007), allowing the proposition of future stud-ies in sustainability that focus on thematics, segments and methods. The results also show that the quality of the articles published in the SJCP (18) (2010) from the IWACP (2007) is similar to the other articles pub-lished in the Journal of Cleaner Production (JCP).