Evaluation of green public road procurement in Australia : current practices and gaps to fill

Public road authorities have a key responsibility in driving initiatives for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the road construction project lifecycle. A coherent and efficient chain of procurement processes and methods is needed to convert green policies into tangible actions that capture the potential for GHG reduction. Yet, many infrastructure clients lack developed methodologies regarding green procurement practices. Designing more efficient solutions for green procurement requires an evaluation of the current initiatives and stages of development. A mapping of the current GHG reduction initiatives in Australian public road procurement is presented in this paper. The study includes the five largest Australian state road authorities, which cover 94% of the total 817,089 km of Australian main roads (not local) and account for 96% of the total A$13 billion annual major road construction and maintenance expenditure. The state road authorities’ green procurement processes and tools are evaluated based on interviews and a review of documents. Altogether 12 people, comprising 1-3 people of each organisation, participated in the interviews and provided documents. An evaluation matrix was developed for mapping the findings across the lifecycle of road construction project delivery. The results show how Australian state road authorities drive decisions with an impact on GHG emissions on the strategic planning phase, project development phase, and project implementation phase. The road authorities demonstrate varying levels of advancement in their green procurement methodologies. Six major gaps in the current green procurement processes are identified and, respectively, six recommendations for future research and development are suggested. The greatest gaps remain in the project development phase, which has a critical role in fixing the project (GHG reduction) goals, identifying risks and opportunities, and selecting the contractor to deliver the project. Specifically, the role of mass-haul optimisation as a part of GHG minimisation was reviewed, and mass-haul management was found to be an underutilised element with GHG reduction potential.

Potential retrofitting of existing campus buildings to green buildings

Green building is building that the focus is to maximize the energy efficiency and resources used. While, retrofitting is the process of renovate or refurnish the existing building. Therefore by retrofit existing buildings that comply with green building requirement, it improves the environmental attributes of the buildings. In Malaysia, existing buildings and its communities contribute over 40% of green house gases to the environment. This paper describes a study that explores the potential to retrofit existing campus buildings that response to sustainable green building standard. A validation survey was carried out and the data collected was analysed using SPSS in order to confirm the significance of retrofitting Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) buildings toward green building initiative. The results show that all the twenty eight identified green elements recorded average index of higher than 3.5 which means that there is significant needs to retrofit the existing buildings to green buildings. This study concludes that it is urgently need for the campus to response to green building requirements in order to achieve higher energy effeciency and this can be done through effective etrofitting of existing buildings.

R&D investment in green building initiatives in Western Australia

This paper reports on a current case study of green building initiatives implemented by the Western Australian government in the past decade. The intent is to provide a qualitative understanding of past R&D investments in the Australian built environment. The case method was selected to illustrate three sector-based investments, one of which is reported on here. The conceptual framework underpinning interview design and data analysis uses dynamic capability, absorptive capacity and open innovation theories to better understand the organisational environment in which these initiatives were implemented. Data has been thematically coded to criteria identified from the literature to illustrate organisational characteristics which may have contributed to dissemination and impact. The results will be combined with two further case studies (construction safety and digital modelling), to inform this research. This industry supported project will conclude by developing policy guidelines for future R&D investment in the built environment.

Green Criminology [International Library of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Penology - Second Series]

In little more than a decade, Green Criminology has become an established new perspective in the field. It embraces an exciting and wide range of topics, from controversies about genetic modification through corporate offending against the environment and human communities, to animal abuse. Green Criminology provides a focal point for longstanding and new areas of research as well as making important interdisciplinary connections.

Issues in Green Criminology: Confronting Harms Against Environments, Humanity and Other Animals

Issues in Green Criminology: confronting harms against environments, humanity and other animals aims to provide, if not a manifesto, then at least a significant resource for thinking about green criminology, a rapidly developing field. It offers a set of specially written introductions and a variety of current and new directions, wide-ranging in scope and international in terms of coverage and contributors. It provides focused discussions of current and cutting edge issues that will influence the emergence of a coherent perspective on green issues. The contributors are drawn from the leading thinkers in the field. The twelve chapters of the book explore the myriad ways in which governments, transnational corporations, military apparatuses and ordinary people going about their everyday lives routinely harm environments, other animals and humanity. The book will be essential reading not only for students taking courses in colleges and universities but also for activists in the environmental and animal rights movements. Its concern is with an ever-expanding agenda - the whys, the hows and the whens of the generation and control of the many aspects of harm to environments, ecological systems and all species of animals, including humans. These harms include, but are not limited to, exploitation, modes of discrimination and disempowerment, degradation, abuse, exclusion, pain, injury, loss and suffering. Straddling and intersecting these many forms of harm are key concepts for a green criminology such as gender inequalities, racism, dominionism and speciesism, classism, the north/south divide, the accountability of science, and the ethics of global capitalist expansion. Green criminology has the potential to provide not only a different way of examining and making sense of various forms of crime and control responses (some well known, others less so) but can also make explicable much wider connections that are not generally well understood. As all societies face up to the need to confront harms against environments, other animals and humanity, criminology will have a major role to play. This book will be an essential part of this process.

Green Exercise in the UK Countryside: Effects on Health and Psychological Well-being and Implications for Policy and Planning

There is evidence that contact with the natural environment and green space promotes good health. It is also well known that participation in regular physical activity generates physical and psychological health benefits. The authors have hypothesised that ‘green exercise’ will improve health and psychological well-being, yet few studies have quantified these effects. This study measured the effects of 10 green exercise case studies (including walking, cycling, horse-riding, fishing, canal-boating and conservation activities) in four regions of the UK on 263 participants. Even though these participants were generally an active and healthy group, it was found that green exercise led to a significant improvement in self-esteem and total mood disturbance (with anger-hostility, confusion-bewilderment, depression-dejection and tension-anxiety all improving post-activity). Self-esteem and mood were found not to be affected by the type, intensity or duration of the green exercise, as the results were similar for all 10 case studies. Thus all these activities generated mental health benefits, indicating the potential for a wider health and well-being dividend from green exercise. Green exercise thus has important implications for public and environmental health, and for a wide range of policy sectors.

Green criminology and dirty collar crime

As a contribution to literature drawing together green criminology and studies of organised and corporate crime, this paper provides a case study of crimes and public health harms linked to the Naples garbage disposal crisis. The context is the inability of modern consumer society to cope with the problem of mass production of waste. In turn this leads to opportunities for both legal and criminal entrepreneurs to offer services that promise but fail to ‘dispose’ of the problem. The analysis draws upon environmental law and classic studies of organised crime.

Green business process management: towards the sustainable enterprise

- Preface by Richard T. Watson - Discusses the emerging challenges of designing “green” business processes - Presents tools and methods that organizations can use in order to design and implement environmentally sustainable processes - Provides insights from cases where organizations successfully engaged in more sustainable business practices Green Business Process Management – Towards the Sustainable Enterprise" consolidates the global state-of-the-art knowledge about how business processes can be managed and improved in light of sustainability objectives. Business organizations, a dominant part of our society, have always been a major contributor to the degradation of our natural environment, through the resource consumption, greenhouse emissions, and wastage production associated with their business processes. In order to lessen their impact on the natural environment, organizations must design and implement environmentally sustainable business processes. Finding solutions to this organizational design problem is the key challenge of Green Business Process Management. This book discusses the emerging challenges of designing “green” business processes, presents tools and methods that organizations can use in order to design and implement environmentally sustainable processes, and provides insights from cases where organizations successfully engaged in more sustainable business practices. The book is of relevance to both practitioners and academics who are interested in understanding, designing, and implementing “green” business processes. It also constitutes a valuable resource for students and lecturers in the fields of information systems, management, and sustainable development.

Green Business Process Management

In managing their operations, organizations have traditionally focused on economic imperatives in terms of time, cost, efficiency, and quality. In doing so, they have been a major contributor to environmental degradation caused by re-source consumption, greenhouse emissions, and wastage. As a consequence, or-ganizations are increasingly encouraged to improve their operations also from an ecological perspective, and thus to consider environmental sustainability as an additional management imperative. In order to lessen their impact on the natural environment, organizations must design and implement environmentally sustainable processes, which we call the challenge of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM). This chapter elaborates on the challenge and perspec-tive of Green BPM, and explores the contributions that business process management can provide to creating environmentally sustainable organizations. Our key premise is that business as well as information technology managers need to engage in a process-focused discussion to enable a common, comprehensive understanding of organizational processes, and the process-centered opportunities for making these processes, and ultimately the organization as a process-centric entity, “green.” Through our review of the key BPM capability areas and how they can be framed in terms of environmental sustainability considerations, we provide an overview and introduction to the subsequent chapters in this book.

Does the protection of vulnerable children require a system of mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect? [An issues paper for the New Zealand Government Green Paper for vulnerable children]

In this Issues Paper, I raise some key points relevant for any government which is considering its child protection and family welfare policy. In particular, I will raise questions about whether a form of legislative reporting duty is required, and if so, what consequences this has for child protection. The context of child maltreatment - and each form of maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological or emotional abuse, and neglect - is extremely complex, and the overarching question of how to deal with these phenomena involve challenging normative, economic and practical questions. There are no easy or perfect solutions. Nor, often, is there the amount and quality of evidence available on which public policy approaches should be devised. However, from the best evidence about the history of this context, from research conducted in this field, and from the best evidence available about the nature, incidence and effects of different subtypes of maltreatment, some observations can be made which may help to inform deliberations. I outline 10 key issues related to mandatory reporting legislation while being mindful of the New Zealand context. My view, based on both research evidence and a concern to protect and promote children’s interests, and society’s interests, is that reporting laws in some form are necessary and can contribute substantially to child protection and enhancing family and community health and wellbeing. However, they are only one necessary part of a sound child protection system, being a method of tertiary and secondary prevention, and primary prevention efforts must also be prioritised. Moreover, it is essential that if a legislative reporting duty is enacted, it must be designed carefully and implemented soundly, and it must be integrated within a properly resourced child protection and family welfare system.