A pegada de carbono como um dos indicadores de sustentabilidade para medição da responsabilidade socioambiental empresarial: um estudo de caso na unidade sede da Petrobras em Natal-RN

As a contemporary tendency, it is been evidenced that the environmental changes theme, already admitted as a concernment to international economical and political reality, is also gaining repercussion on industrial and business sector. Firms are implementing actions on trial to minimize their own greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions impacts. However, the great majority of those actions of Corporative Social-Environmental Responsibility (CSR) are referred only to direct emissions of the main production systems. Direct emissions are those derived of an isolate process, without considering the upstream and downstream processes emissions, which respond for the majority of emissions originated because of respective firm‟s production system existence. Because the greenhouse effect occurs globally and the GHG emissions contribute to the environmental changes independently of their origin, it must be taken into account the whole productive life cycle of products and systems, since the energy invested on resources extraction and necessary materials to the final disposal. To do so, it must be investigated all relevant steps of a product/production system life cycle, tracking all activities which emit greenhouse gases, directly or indirectly. This amount of emissions consists in the firm‟s Carbon Footprint. This research purpose is to defend the Carbon Footprint relevance and its adoption viability to be used as an Environmental Indicator on measurement/assessment of CSR. It has been realized a study case on Petrobras‟s seat unity at Natal-Brazil, assessing part of its Carbon Footprint. It has been used the software GEMIS 4.6 to do the emissions quantifying. The items measured were the direct emissions of the own unity vehicles and indirect emissions of offset paper (A4), energy and disposable plastic cups consumed. To 2009, these emissions were 3.811,94 tCO2eq. We may conclude that Carbon Footprint quantification is indispensable to the knowledge of real emissions caused by a productive process existence, must serving as basis to CSR decisions about the environmental changes reversion challenge

Vulnerabilidade socioambiental no bairro de Mãe Luíza, Natal – RN/Brasil

This work has as object the elaboration of social environmental indicator of disaster risk that are present in precarious areas of human occupation, related to intense environmental dynamic from the perspective of the studies about the subject in Geography. The District of Mãe Luiza in Natal, capital city of Rio Grande do Norte, was defined as the study area. The place was chosen because it presents –historically- several vulnerability conditions and exposure to disaster risk. After a local social environmental description, two indexes were elaborated: the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI or IVS in Portuguese), based on 17 (seventeen) variables arranged on a questionnaire addressed to the population nucleus of the district, on regular grid (systematic sampling), classified into 5 (five) levels of SV from the weighted average; and the Physical and Natural Exposure to the Mass Movements Index (EMMI or IEMM in Portuguese) which had 16 (sixteen) variables that feature conditions of exposure to the mass movements in the district with classified levels from the weighted average of 1 (one) to 5 (five). The relationship between these two results, specialized in the district map, produced the Social Environmental Vulnerability Index (SEVI or IVSA in Portuguese) of Mãe Luiza, also classified into 5 (five) levels, following the Boolean logic correlation for cartographic overlay with use of computer software ArcGIS v.9.3, being named as: Very Low; low; average; high; and Very High Environmental Vulnerability in District. The study is based on the methodology proposed by Guerra et al (2009) for EMMI and by Almeida (2010) for SVI. They were modified and adapted according to the local reality, producing a new methodology in this study area. It was concluded that the neighborhood has most of its area with High and Very High Socio-environmental vulnerability to disasters, defined seven (7) critical areas, with Very High IVSA, and hazards associated with mass movements or flooding. In the end, the main issues that were found, such as generating elements for proposing mitigation measures and/or the proposed interventions were enumerated, related to structural order of vulnerability factors: how low constructive pattern of households; poor urban drainage; Real Estate forsaken in landslide routes; infrastructure ready access roads and slope containment. And social: as a lack of education about environmental risk; income and education of residents; presence of persons with limited mobility and/or those with special needs. This reality highlights the need for urgent action applied to the resolution and/or reduction of these problems, which is focusing the end of this work.