Assessing the Environmental Value of Water Treatment Solutions in the Mining Industry

Environmental accountability has become a major source of competitive advantage for industrial companies, because customers consider it as relevant buying criterion. However, in order to leverage their environmental responsibility, industrial suppliers have to be able to demonstrate the environmental value of their products and services, which is also the aim of Kemira, a global water chemistry company considered in this study. The aim of this thesis is to develop a tool which Kemira can use to assess the environmental value of their solutions for the customer companies in mining industry. This study answers to questions on what kinds of methods to assess environmental impacts exist, and what kind of tool could be used to assess the environmental value of Kemira’s water treatment solutions. The environmental impacts of mining activities vary greatly between different mines. Generally the major impacts include the water related issues and wastes. Energy consumption is also a significant environmental aspect. Water related issues include water consumption and impacts in water quality. There are several methods to assess environmental impacts, for example life cycle assessment, eco-efficiency tools, footprint calculations and process simulation. In addition the corresponding financial value may be estimated utilizing monetary assessment methods. Some of the industrial companies considered in the analysis of industry best practices use environmental and sustainability assessments. Based on the theoretical research and conducted interviews, an Excel based tool utilizing reference data on previous customer cases and customer specific test results was considered to be most suitable to assess the environmental value of Kemira’s solutions. The tool can be used to demonstrate the functionality of Kemira’s solutions in customers’ processes, their impacts in other process parameters and their environmental and financial aspects. In the future, the tool may be applied to fit also Kemira’s other segments, not only mining industry.

An Overview of the Cleantech Sector - Evaluating Environmental Indicators

The purpose of the thesis is to give an overview of the cleantech sector and to give an answer how cleantech companies can evaluate the environmental sustainability of their business by utilizing various indicators and measures. The thesis is a literature study and it is based on a secondary data. Thesis presents the definitions to cleantech as well as its history and the main industries. Cleantech market overview in Finland and worldwide is also introduced. Furthermore, various indicators are presented in order to evaluate the environmental sustainability of companies' business. In the end, indicators used in cleantech sector are evaluated. As a result, the thesis presents the following methodologies that can be used in evaluating the environmental sustainability in the cleantech sector: Sustainability assessment framework, Environmental value analysis, COMPLIMENT - Environmental performance index for industries and Environmental assessment for cleaner production. More tools are still needed to evaluate environmental sustainability in the cleantech sector.

Pasvik Water Quality Report Environmental Monitoring Programme in the Norwegian, Finnish and Russian Border Area

The Pasvik monitoring programme was created in 2006 as a result of the trilateral cooperation, and with the intention of following changes in the environment under variable pollution levels. Water quality is one of the basic elements of the Programme when assessing the effects of the emissions from the Pechenganikel mining and metallurgical industry (Kola GMK). The Metallurgic Production Renovation Programme was implemented by OJSC Kola GMK to reduce emissions of sulphur and heavy metal concentrated dust. However, the expectations for the reduction in emissions from the smelter in the settlement Nikel were not realized. Nevertheless, Kola GMK has found that the modernization programme’s measures do not provide the planned reductions of sulfur dioxide emissions. In this report, temporal trends in water chemistry during 2000–2009 are examined on the basis of the data gathered from Lake Inari, River Pasvik and directly connected lakes, as well as from 26 small lakes in three areas: Pechenganikel (Russia), Jarfjord (Norway) and Vätsäri (Finland). The lower parts of the Pasvik watercourse are impacted by both atmospheric pollution and direct wastewater discharge from the Pechenganikel smelter and the settlement of Nikel. The upper section of the watercourse, and the small lakes and streams which are not directly linked to the Pasvik watercourse, only receive atmospheric pollution. The data obtained confirms the ongoing pollution of the river and water system. Copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) and sulphates are the main pollution components. The highest levels were observed close to the smelters. The most polluted water source of the basin is the River Kolosjoki, as it directly receives the sewage discharge from the smelters and the stream connecting the Lakes Salmijarvi and Kuetsjarvi. The concentrations of metals and sulphates in the River Pasvik are higher downstream from the Kuetsjarvi Lake. There has been no fall in the concentrations of pollutants in Pasvik watercourse over the last 10 years. Ongoing recovery from acidification has been evident in the small lakes of the Jarfjord and Vätsäri areas during the 2000s. The buffering capacity of these lakes has improved and the pH has increased. The reason for this recovery is that sulphate deposition has decreased, which is also evident in the water quality. However, concentrations of some metals, especially Ni and Cu, have risen during the 2000s. Ni concentrations have increased in all three areas, and Cu concentrations in the Pechenganickel and Jarfjord areas, which are located closer to the smelters. Emission levels of Ni and Cu did not fall during 2000s. In fact, the emission levels of Ni compounds even increased compared to the 1990s.

Research framework for the connection between environmental collaboration and firm performance

This thesis focuses on collaborative activities with regard to environmental issues both within the firm and outside the firm with the key suppliers and customers, i.e. internal and external environmental collaboration. Integrating environmental thinking into supply chain management has received increasing interest in recent years. The relational view and the natural resource-based-view together suggest that environmental capabilities can be built jointly with supply chain partners and used to gain sustained competitive advantage. Several studies have been undertaken to analyse the connection between environmental activities and firm performance but most studies have taken only economic performance into account. This study pays attention also to two other dimensions of firm performance, intra-firm supply chain performance and environmental performance, and aims at presenting the linkages between them and environmental collaboration. This thesis creates a research framework for the connections between environmental collaboration and firm performance and suggests approaches to analyse these. In order to find out the key concepts and their relationship, an extensive literature review is conducted. The research framework proposes a positive connection between internal and external environmental collaboration and all three dimensions of firm performance. In addition, environmental performance and intra-firm supply chain performance are expected to contribute positively to economic performance. Hence, firms are suggested to benefit from environmental collaboration both within the firm and outside the firm. Empirical testing of the developed research framework is out of the scope of this study. However, this thesis proposes using a mixed methods research approach, including survey research and multiple case studies. Finland State of Logistics 2012 survey commissioned by the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications and conducted by Turku School of Economics is used as an example of data for the quantitative phase. The applicability of these two methods is discussed at a general level and with regard to analysing the research framework developed in the thesis. Future research will aim at the development of the research framework and the methods in order to confirm the connection between environmental collaboration and firm performance.

Microstructural and environmental effects on the mechanical properties of porous particle-polymer composites

Papper kan anses vara ett av de mest använda materialen i det dagliga livet. Tidskrifter, tidningar, böcker och diverse förpackningar är några exempel på pappersbaserade produkter. Papperets egenskaper måste anpassas till användningsändamålet. En tidskrift kräver t.ex. hög ljushet, opacitet och en slät yta hos papperet, medan dessa egenskaper är mindre viktiga för en dagstidning. Allt tryckpapper behöver vissa mekaniska egenskaper för att tåla vidarebearbetning såsom kalandrering, tryckning och vikning. Man kan bestryka papper för att förbättra dess optiska egenskaper och tryckbarhetsegenskaper. Vid bestrykning appliceras en dispersion av mineralpigment och polymerbindemedel som ett tunt lager på papperets yta. Bestrykningsskiktet kan ses som ett komplext, poröst kompositmaterial som även bidrar till papperets mekaniska egenskaper och dess processerbarhet i diverse konverteringsoperationer. Kravet på framställning av förmånligt papper med tillräckliga styrkeegenskaper ställer allt högre krav på optimeringen av pappersbestrykningsskiktets egenskaper och produktionskostnader. Målet med detta arbete var att förstå sambandet mellan pigmentbestrykningsskiktets mikrostruktur och dess makroskopiska, mekaniska egenskaper. Resultaten visar att adhesionen i gränsytan mellan pigment och bindemedel är kritisk för bestrykningsskiktets förmåga att bära mekanisk belastning. Polära vätskor är vanliga i tryckfärger och kan, eftersom de påverkar syra/bas-interaktionerna mellan pigment och latexbindemedel, försvaga denna adhesion. Resultaten tyder på att ytstyrkan hos bestruket papper kan höjas genom användning av bifunktionella dispergeringsmedel för mineralpigment. Detta medför inbesparingar i pappersproduktionen eftersom mängden bindemedel, den dyraste komponenten i bestrykningsskiktet, kan minskas.

Harmonization of Environmental Costs and Investments Reporting

The objective of this Master’s Thesis is to examine the current state of environmental costs and investments reporting at Stora Enso in the Business Area of Printing and Reading. Differences and the factors causing the differences in environmental costs and investments reporting are examined in order to further harmonize the reporting between the mills. Research method is a case study, which comprises 11 paper mills. Environmental costs are studied from year 2012 and environmental investments from year 2011 or from 2012 depending on the mill. The results show that there are two types of differences such as actual and harmonisable affecting to environmental costs reporting. Actual differences result from factors such as location and technical features of the mill. Harmonisable differences represent differences, which distort the actual differences. Factors that cause harmonisable differences are identification and traceability of environmental costs as well as interpretation of the instructions. Estimation of the environmental share of indirect environmental investments causes differences between the mills in environmental investments reporting, as it has to be done case-by-case judgments. A further research could consider a detailed examination of the data registering process in order to further improve traceability of environmental costs. Furthermore, identification and reporting of potential savings could be studied from environmental point of view as resource efficiency is an increasing interest.

Five Baltic Ports Togehter: Forecasts, Trends and Recommendations

The ports of Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, Naantali and Turku play key roles in making the Central Baltic region accessible. Effective, competitive, eco-friendly and safe port procedures and solutions for the transportation of goods are of major importance for trade in the Baltic Sea region. This report presents the most essential results and recommendations of the PENTA project, which focused on how ports could better comprehend and face current and future challenges facing carriage of goods by sea. Each of the four work packages (WPs) of the PENTA project analysed the changes from a different perspective. WP2 focused on traffic flows between the PENTA ports. Its main emphasis was on the ports, shipowners, and logistics companies that are the key parties in freight transport and on the changes affecting the economy of those ports. In WP3 noise as an environmental challenge for ports was investigated and the analysis also shed light on the relationship between the port and the city. In WP4 procedures related to safety, security and administrative procedures were researched. The main emphasis was on identifying the requirements for the harmonisation of those procedures. Collaboration is highlighted throughout this report. In order to prepare for the future, it was found that ports need to respond to growing competition, increasing costs and shifts in customer demand by strengthening their existing partnerships with other actors in the maritime cluster. Cargo and passenger transport are the main sources of income for most ports. Cargo traffic between the PENTA ports is expected to grow steadily in the future and the outlook for passenger traffic is positive. However, to prepare for the future, ports should not only secure the core activities which generate revenue but also seek alternative ways to make profit. In order to gain more transit traffic, it is suggested that ports conduct a more thorough study of the future requirements for doing business with Russia. The investigation of noise at ports revealed two specific dilemmas that ports cannot solve alone. Firstly, the noise made by vessels and, secondly, the relationship between the port and the surrounding city. Vessels are the most important single noise source in the PENTA ports and also one of the hardest noise sources to handle. Nevertheless, port authorities in Finland and Sweden are held responsible for all noise in the port area, including noise produced by vessels, which is noise the port authority can only influence indirectly. Building housing by waterfront areas close to ports may also initiate disagreements because inhabitants may want quiet areas, whereas port activities always produce some noise from their traffic. The qualitative aspects of the noise question, cooperating with the stakeholders and the communicating of issues related to noise are just as important. We propose that ports should follow the logic of continuous improvement in their noise management. The administrative barriers discussed in this report are mainly caused by differences in international and national legislation, variations in the customs procedures of each country, the incompatibility of the IT systems used in maritime transport, noncompliance with regulations regarding dangerous goods, and difficulties in applying Schengen regulations to vessels from non-EU countries. Improving the situation is out of the hands of the ports to do alone and requires joint action on a variety of levels, including the EU, national authorities and across administrative borders.

The Environmental Status of the Port of HaminaKotka

This study is a part of the Ecologically Friendly Port Ust-Luga (EFP) project. The purpose of this study is to examine the environmental status of the Finnish ports and, more specifically, the Port of HaminaKotka. An analysis of the environmental status is performed mainly as a literature review, because the Finnish ports must comply with Finnish and EU legislation and with the binding international regulations and conventions created by different organizations. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has done groundbreaking work in the field of maritime safety and maritime environmental protection. The MARPOL convention has a great impact on decreasing pollution from international shipping and it applies to 99% of the world’s merchant tonnage. Pollution prevention covers: Oil pollution, Chemical pollution, Air pollution and GHG Emissions, Dumping of Wasted and Other Matters, Garbage, Sewage, Port Reception Facilities, Special Areas under MARPOL and Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas. There is also Pollution Prevention for other treaties like anti-fouling systems used on ships, the transfer of alien species by ships’ ballast water and the environmentally sound recycling of ships. There are more than twenty different EU and international regulations that influence ports and port operations in Finland. In addition, there is also national legislation that has an effect on Finnish ports. For the most part, the legislation for ports is common in the EU area, but the biggest and most important difference between the legislation in Finland and other EU countries is due to the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure. The Act states that the environmental impact assessment procedure shall be applied to projects that may have significant adverse environmental impacts, due to the special features of Finland`s nature and environment. In this Act, the term environmental impact refers to the direct and indirect effects inside and outside Finnish territory of a project or operations on human health, living conditions and amenity; soil, water, air, climate, organisms, interaction between them and biodiversity; community structure, buildings, landscape, townscape and cultural heritage; utilization of natural resources. In Finland, the Environmental Permit requires that ports collect all necessary information concerning environmental effects and make required reports to the Finnish authorities, stakeholders and the public. Commonly, environmental reporting is public and environmental achievements are emphasized in reporting and in media. At the moment, the problem in environmental reporting is that it’s difficult to compare data from different ports. There is enough data concerning the environmental effects and performance, but the manner of reporting and the quality of the data varies between ports. There are differences in the units and codes used, in some cases the information is not sufficient and it can even be rather unreliable. There are also differences regarding the subjects that are emphasized in reporting.

Open Environmental Information Upon Disclosure Request in China: The Paradox of Legal Mobilization

Taking a realist view that law is one form of politics, this dissertation studies the roles of citizens and organizations in mobilizing the law to request government agencies to disclose environmental information in China, and during this process, how the socio-legal field interacts with the political-legal sphere, and what changes have been brought about during their interactions. This work takes a socio-legal approach and applies methodologies of social science and legal analysis. It aims to understand the paradox of why and how citizens and entities have been invoking the law to access environmental information despite the fact that various obstacles exist and the effectiveness of the new mechanism of environmental information disclosure still remains low. The study is largely based on the 28 cases and eight surveys of environmental information disclosure requests collected by the author. The cases and surveys analysed in this dissertation all occurred between May 2008, when the OGI Regulations and the OEI Measures came into effect, and August 2012 when the case collection was completed. The findings of this study have shown that by invoking the rules of law made by the authorities to demand government agencies disclosing environmental information, the public, including citizens, organizations, law firms, and the media, have strategically created a repercussive pressure upon the authorities to act according to the law. While it is a top-down process that has established the mechanism of open government information in China, it is indeed the bottom-up activism of the public that makes it work. Citizens and organizations’ use of legal tactics to push government agencies to disclose environmental information have formed not only an end of accessing the information but more a means of making government agencies accountable to their legal obligations. Law has thus played a pivotal role in enabling citizen participation in the political process. Against the current situation in China that political campaigns, or politicization, from general election to collective actions, especially contentious actions, are still restrained or even repressed by the government, legal mobilization, or judicialization, that citizens and organizations use legal tactics to demand their rights and push government agencies to enforce the law, become de facto an alternative of political participation. During this process, legal actions have helped to strengthen the civil society, make government agencies act according to law, push back the political boundaries, and induce changes in the relationship between the state and the public. In the field of environmental information disclosure, citizens and organizations have formed a bottom-up social activism, though limited in scope, using the language of law, creating progressive social, legal and political changes. This study emphasizes that it is partial and incomplete to understand China’s transition only from the top-down policy-making and government administration; it is also important to observe it from the bottom-up perspective that in a realistic view law can be part of politics and legal mobilization, even when utterly apolitical, can help to achieve political aims as well. This study of legal mobilization in the field of environmental information disclosure also helps us to better understand the function of law: law is not only a tool for the authorities to regulate and control, but inevitably also a weapon for the public to demand government agencies to work towards their obligations stipulated by the laws issued by themselves.

Envia – a repository for environmental information access and discovery

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

The effect of environmentally differentiated port fees to shipping companies’ environmental investments

The pressure has grown to develop cost-effective emission reduction strategies in the Baltic Sea. The forthcoming stringent regulations of the International Maritime Organization for reducing harmful emissions of shipping in the Baltic Sea are causing increasing expenses for the operators. A market-based attitude towards pricing of economic incentives could be seen as a new approach for a successful application for the additional emission reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx). In this study the aim is to understand the phenomenon of environmentally differentiated port fees and its effects on shipping companies’ emission reduction investments. The goal is to examine empirically the real-life effects of the possible environmental differentiated port fee system and the effect of environmentally differentiated port fees on NOx reduction investments in the Baltic Sea. The research approach of this study is nomothetical. In this study research questions are answered by analyzing the broad database of the Baltic Sea fleet. Also the framework of theory is confirmed and plays an important role in analyzing the research problem. Existing investment costs of NOx emission reduction technology to ship owners are estimated and compared to investment costs with granted discounts added to the cash flows. The statistical analysis in this study is descriptive. The major statistic examination of this study is the calculation of the net present values of investments with different port fee scenarios. This is done to investigate if the NOx technology investments could be economically reasonable. Based on calculations it is clear that the effect of environmentally differentiated port fees is not adequate to compensate the total investment costs for NOx reduction. If the investment decision is made only with profitability considerations, sources will prefer to emission abatement as long as incomes from the given subsidy exceeds their abatement costs. Despite of the results, evidence was found that shipping companies are nevertheless willing to invest on voluntary emission abatement technology. In that case, investment decision could be made with criteria of, for example, sustainable strategy or brand image. Combined fairway and port fee system or governmental regulations and recommendation could also function as additional incentives to compensate the investment costs. Also, the results imply that the use of NPV is not necessarily the best method to evaluate environmental investments. If the calculations would be done with more environmental methods the results would probably be different.