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Cultural heritage faces many types of threats such as neglect, conflicts, disasters caused by natural and human induced hazards, unplanned infrastructure projects, climate change, etc. Over time, a number of institutions, organisations, programmes and initiatives to address the issues related to heritage at risk through varied modes of interventions such as advocacy work, conservation efforts, funding, awareness-raising regarding particular sites, etc. have emerged. Despite the stimulus and support of the various institutions, organisations and initiatives, diverse threats continue to impact cultural heritage in present times with some factors amplifying more than before, leading to the subsequent damages to or losses of heritage assets. Though reasons for these issues are varied and complex, one of the important factors to look into is the agency of the diverse ‘Heritage at Risk’ programmes or initiatives. ICOMOS being one of the pioneers in this global discourse of threatened heritage, its role is strategically vital. 20 years after ICOMOS’s first attempts to initiate one of the first ‘Heritage at Risk’ programmes, this research is an opportunity to re-examine and analyse the effectiveness of ICOMOS’ ‘Heritage at Risk’ programme within the current organisational/ institutional landscape of initiatives in the field of heritage at risk, that ICOMOS is embedded in. It is also an opportunity to situate the programme within the diverse views of the heritage at risk framework and the continuing shifts in the foundational paradigms of the international discourse on heritage conservation. The purpose of this analysis is to guide programme improvement for optimising efforts in favour of cultural heritage at risk within and/ or beyond ICOMOS and improve their ability to contribute towards - safeguarding heritage at risk, increasing the resilience of cultural heritage and sustainable development.
Nachhaltig und Geschäftsprozesse sind häufig benutzte Schlagworte der heutigen Zeit, vor allem in Politik und Wissenschaft. Auch deren Verbindung nachhaltige Geschäftsprozesse hat Aufnahme in den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch und Wortschatz gefunden. Das Ziel nachhaltiger Geschäftsprozesse ist es, die Effektivität und Effizienz des Unternehmens langfristig zu verbessern, ohne die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Unternehmens zu beinträchtigen. Nachhaltige Geschäftsprozesse fokussieren dabei insbesondere auf drei unterschiedliche Aspekte: Ökonomie, Ökologie und Soziales. Diese Aspekte sind unter dem allgemeinen Grundsatz der Nachhaltigkeit zu betrachten und in das bestehende Management zu integrieren. Auch dieses funktionale Managen von Geschäftsprozessen oder der Nachhaltigkeit ist zwischenzeitlich wissenschaftlich bearbeitet worden. Dessen Umsetzung in der Wirtschaft lässt jedoch zu wünschen übrig. Diese Arbeit hatte sich daher zur Aufgabe gemacht, das funktionale Managen, d. h. das Planen, das Steuern und Kontrollieren von nachhaltigen Geschäftsprozessen in einen Kontext zu bringen. Dabei wurde unter den Gesichtspunkten der Effektivität und der Effizienz geprüft, ob für dieses komplexe Management ein separates Konzept notwendig wird. Es wurde daher untersucht, ob sich mit dem Geschäftsprozessmanagement die Nachhaltigkeitsaspekte planen, steuern und kontrollieren lassen. Zur Prüfung dieser These wurden die deutschen Automobilhersteller als Validierungsobjekte herangezogen.
Water is a primordial resource for the development of urban agglomerations. Today, 50% of the population worldwide is concentrated in urban settlements and 10 - 20% of all worldwide freshwater consumption occurs in the domestic sector (UN: World water development report 3). By 2030, 60% of the world’s population will be living in urban settlements (UNESCO), and domestic freshwater consumption will rise by 70% in 2025. Urban areas inflict high pressure on the local and even regional water sources, since the high population density requires large flow volumes in a restricted area, with often competing pressures on the water resource per se as well as for the space needed for water storage or aquifer recharge. This becomes complicated and even critical in areas where natural water availability is already scarce and urban demand is high due to large population sizes. Today 700 million people in 43 countries are living in water stress condition (Human Development Report 2006). Mexico, ranking 88 on a global scale in water availability per capita, is a clear example of this situation, where the most populated urban settlements, such as Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla or Queretaro are located in regions which concentrate only 31% of the renewable water of the country (CONAGUA). Thus, the main question arises: How will the urban settlements develop a sustainable water supply now and in the future?
The city of Guadalajara, in particular, has seen an extremely fast and chaotic development in the past three decades, where the population of the city increased from 1,354,000 inhabitants in 1970 to 4,064,000 in 2005; by 2020 Guadalajara is expected to overpass the 5 million inhabitants thus becoming a megacity. Nowadays, overall water consumption in the city is about 9.3 m3/sec. and it is estimated to be 10.3 m3/sec by 2030, with Lake Chapala as the main water source, supplying 55% of the water demand. However, Lake Chapala has been confronted with several severe droughts which critically lowered its water table as was the case between 1998 and 2003 and due to its weak equilibrium droughts could be more recurrent in the future. As the water supply of Guadalajara is strongly linked to the faith of Lake Chapala, Guadalajara needs to reduce its pressure on the lake by adopting strategies based on sustainable development.
The main goal of this research is to provide governments and decision makers with a robust tool that integrates the most amount of information possible but presents this information in a simple way, offering at the same time the possibility to detect the factors that need to be addressed in order to reach sustainability.
The specific aim is to test the use of composite indices (CIs) to the case of the city of Guadalajara in the period of the year 2000 to 2009. CI is a holistic methodology in which independent variables can be aggregated into a single result. CIs thus allow for the comparison between different cases, the integration of qualitative and quantitative variables and the easy use by decision makers. We used 11 carefully selected variables from all three sectors of sustainability, economical, ecological and social, which were first normalized using ranging procedures and process capability indices, and aggregated by using the weighted geometric mean. A set of best strategies Guadalajara should follow are suggested in order to have a sustainable water supply in the future.
With this study, we have been able to show that CIs are an effective tool for evaluating sustainability of domestic freshwater supply at local scale. Overall, Guadalajara reached a CI of 0.29 showing, that its domestic water supply is currently not sustainable. It was able to identify the following three main problems: a) lack of wastewater treatment with just less than 3% of the waste water being treated; b) water loss in the distribution system, with 34% of the water extracted being lost at some point in the distribution system (during treatment, in the pipelines and dweller connection to the distribution net); c) water availability, with increased flow volumes of Lake Chapala in the last six years, but only surpassing its natural storage twice (2004 and 2009). Nonetheless, a clear trend of continuous improvement could be seen overall in the past years with a decline in the domestic water consumption per capita to levels comparable to the one in Berlin, as a consequence of people awareness after the several drought Lake Chapala suffered in the beginning of the decade, and an increase in the level of access to piped water and connectivity to the drainage system to 94% of the city’s coverage in 2009 (on year 1990, the access to piped water was 89% and the connectivity to the drainage system was 92%).
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a concept and a decision-making support tool. Based on its definitions, it is claimed that SEA can 1) contribute to the integration of environmental concerns into strategic decisions: policies, plans and programmes (PPPs); and that SEA 2) is a systematic process. Although these claims are widely acknowledged in SEA research and practice, they remain largely unsubstantiated empirically. To date, SEA research is dominated by qualitative-type approaches, investigating aspects of effectiveness, of context and of elements of good practice. Quantitative-type research has been rare, and often criticised on the basis that it is unable to capture and address the dynamic nature of PPP-making processes, i.e. the involvement of a wide range of actors, the input of new information and the existence of different views and interests, which give rise to uncertainty and unpredictability. Nevertheless, the potential of quantitative research in SEA has yet to be fully explored, and the extent to which SEA is meeting the two definitional claims mentioned above remains untested and undetermined. Within this context, this study aims to apply a quantitative research approach to SEA and verify the extent to which SEA contributes to environmental integration (EI) and the extent to which SEA behaves systematically. It achieves this by looking at UK practice as a case study. It applies questionnaire survey, correlation analysis and sensitivity analysis as methods of quantitative research approach. The findings of this research confirmed that quantitative methodologies can be successfully applied to evaluate the presence and quality of SEA procedures and their outputs. Furthermore, the degree of EI reflected in plans and programmes (PPs) because of the SEA, as reflected in the PP’s environmental objectives and indicators, can be quantitatively evaluated. However, to enhance this quantitative evaluation process, clearer and more precise environmental objectives are needed. Of the two definitional SEA claims evaluated, that (1) SEA contributes to EI in PPPs and that (2) SEA is a systematic process), there was weak evidence to support the claim that SEA significantly achieved EI within UK SEA practice. Of the second claim, it was concluded that the UK SEA process behaves as a systematic process composed of negative and positive feedbacks. Moreover, the UK SEA process is a stable system prone to over-development and with inadequate negative feedbacks to facilitate self-regulation of the SEA process towards a certain range of EI. Based on the findings, it is recommended that if SEA effectiveness and theory-building are to be enhanced, application of more quantitative methods and hypothetico-deductive paradigms of scientific enquiry should be applied in order to test and verify stated hypotheses. Application of other quantitative methods such as Factor Analysis and/or Principal Component Analysis should be considered in order to further establish the explanatory elements for EI achievement, and contributory roles of various SEA elements in achieving EI. Furthermore, quantitative approaches can facilitate calibrating of SEA reports and EI achieved, and enhance standardisation and quality control. It is further recommended that if SEA is to be understood as a systematic process with dynamic interactions amongst its elements, then further research needs to be conducted to improve follow-up mechanisms and establish quality hold points in order to enhance quality assurance. Specifically, more negative feedback loops or best practice standards and quality control hold points should be integrated into the SEA system in order for it to better self-regulate towards achieving a defined range of EI.
Recycling and material recovery are gaining more grounds in applicability as viable options to sustainable solid waste management especially in Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) schemes. In this dissertation a critical analyzes is made of the MSWM problem in Cameroon and an assessment of the role Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises have been playing in the area of recycling and material recovery. The main research methods applied in this research include: fieldwork, administration of questionnaires, interview and literature review. Using two case study localities (Limbe and Buea municipalities), the various practices in MSWM are elaborated, the constraints and challenges faced by management discussed and proposals for either expanding/upgrading existing schemes to be more sustainable as well as strategies to initiate new systems presented. Innovations within collection systems such as the introduction of household bins and specialized collection of specific waste could be quite beneficial to existing schemes. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) which constitute one of the fastest growing waste streams presents greater management challenges. Two case study localities (Buea and Kumba) are used to analyze the problem of WEEE in Cameroon. An overview of the handling of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) at end-of-life (EoL) in Cameroon is made with special focus on households and repair units. At household level, WEEE is disposed of alongside other waste arisings in the available disposal facilities for given household. Repair units represent a very vital connection between dysfunctional EEE and EoL forms as all users of EEE tend to bring these devices to these units for repairs. An inventory of the various EEE at repair units for these two localities shows that above 40% percent of such equipments are totally out of use. In Kumba, Classes 1 and 4 EEE (according to EU WEEE directive classification) dominate while class 3 is almost absent. In Buea, Class 3 and 4 are dominant. These results show that socio-cultural, economic and even climatic factors influence the choice of EEE that people in this area acquire. The intense level of repair activities and recovery of useful parts by repair units show that there exist adaptable options to handle WEEE in especially economically and environmentally beneficial ways. The recycling of aluminum for production of household utensils represents a very basic and adaptive industrial set-up, which can easily be operated and run at very cheap cost and with a little manpower. While this venture seems apparently successful in economic terms as an option to poverty alleviation through income generation, it is plagued by some problems which, if given due consideration will render it a prospective option for poverty alleviation (through small enterprise business development) and environmental sustainability (as an option to sustainable MSWM). In this dissertation, a model is thus presented, which can be utilized by stakeholders to improve on the sector. An assessment of efforts and constraints to implementing comprehensive recycling and recovery schemes in Cameroon was also carried out. Results show that there are existing practices on which comprehensive recycling and recovery can be built upon that would be beneficial to both councils and engaged schemes – mostly SMEs and NGOs. The challenges faced and likely to be faced and the way forward to implementing any broad scale recovery and recycling are presented. If municipal councils choose to operate existing MSWM schemes without significant changes, then collective collaboration will be highly required. Such collaboration will present benefits to both waste collection and disposal. On the other hand, if they wish to expand schemes or create new schemes, adaptive innovation would be highly recommended. Such adaptive innovation would have to incorporate local practices and approaches of MSWM as well as socio-economic considerations so as to ensure new or expanded schemes survive within local socio-economic context. A greater challenge in enhancing recycling and material recovery in particular and MSWM in general, in Cameroon is on the role the government takes on designing appropriate policies and legislative frameworks to cover such activities in economically and ecological beneficial ways. In the absence of these, SMEs, councils and NGOs (working in partnership with other specialized groups) concerned with activities related to recycling and material recovery may be left with the option of regulating activities within their sectors as such activities stand to alleviate poverty and also present ecological benefits.
While much is known about ISO 14001 and EMAS environmental management systems in general, comparatively little knowledge is about the application of these management instruments in non-industrial sectors, including the municipal waste sector. Consequently, the intention of this paper is to assist municipal waste treatment facilities with the development of environmental management systems in which the continual improvement of environmental performance can be coupled with an increased economic efficiency and quality of delivered services. For this purpose, a manual that provides sample polices, programmes and approaches to the successful realisation of the ISO 14001 environmental management system was written. Due to more stringent requirements for the sound management of municipal solid waste, a growing number of Polish municipal waste treatment facilities have implemented or intend to implement the ISO 14001 system. By the end of 2005, 25% of facilities were formally certified to the ISO 14001 EMS, 60% of which have integrated it with the ISO 9001 QMS. The facilities, despite encountering a number of difficulties, for instance during the identification and assessment of significant environmental aspects, are also gaining numerous benefits, resulting in an improved environmental performance. Ipso facto, 37.5% of municipal waste treatment facilities in Poland have admitted that the environmental-improvement potential of EMSs is higher than economic-human costs related to its introduction and operation. All the presented information, if other sources are not adequately referenced, are based upon the author’s research, encompassing quantitative and qualitative study methods, conducted among municipal waste treatment facilities in Poland in years 2004 – 2006. The response rate of 68% guarantees credibility of the collected data.