Investigating the effect of construction management strategies on project greenhouse gas emissions using interactive simulation

The challenges posed by global climate change are motivating the investigation of strategies that can reduce the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of products and processes. While new construction materials and technologies have received significant attention, there has been limited emphasis on understanding how construction processes can be best managed to reduce GHG emissions. Unexpected disruptive events tend to adversely impact construction costs and delay project completion. They also tend to increase project GHG emissions. The objective of this paper is to investigate ways in which project GHG emissions can be reduced by appropriate management of disruptive events. First, an empirical analysis of construction data from a specific highway construction project is used to illustrate the impact of unexpected schedule delays in increasing project GHG emissions. Next, a simulation based methodology is described to assess the effectiveness of alternative project management strategies in reducing GHG emissions. The contribution of this paper is that it explicitly considers projects emissions, in addition to cost and project duration, in developing project management strategies. Practical application of the method discussed in this paper will help construction firms reduce their project emissions through strategic project management, and without significant investment in new technology. In effect, this paper lays the foundation for best practices in construction management that will optimize project cost and duration, while minimizing GHG emissions.

The Exploration and Development of Alternative Management Strategies for Mining and Recreational Activities Atop Mount Antero and Mount White; Chaffee County, Colorado

The Mount Antero/White area is a popular prospecting area. Recent expansions in the recreation economy is drawing more visitors to the area. Consequently, visitors may be placing unsustainable pressures on the landscape. In order to help rectify this, the legal, ecological, geologic, aesthetic, recreational, historic, social, and economic character of the Antero/White area has been identified. Four feasible management alternatives have also been recognized. They are a) take no new management actions, b) prohibit motorized activities in the area, c) develop a mineralogical park, and d) a combination of options b and c. Option C has been defended, as it best balances the desires of area users with the underlying ecological and geological character of the area.

Parking management strategies for reducing automobile emissions /

Item 431-I-19

Evaluation of corporate environmental management approaches: A framework and application

This article proposes a framework to evaluate corporate environmental strategies. In the proposed framework, a company's environmental risks are analyzed on two dimensions, One dimension, the endogenous environmental risks, arises from the internal operations of the company. The other dimension, the exogenous environmental risks, are determined by the company's external world: its location, its ecological setting, and the demographic characteristics of the physical environment in which it operates. Four environmental management approaches are defined as a function of endogenous and exogenous environmental risks: reactive, proactive, strategic, and crisis preventive. The framework was applied in a survey of 141 company representatives in Hungary. A relationship was sought between the a priori defined environmental management approaches based on technology and location and the companies' environmental management characteristics defined by senior managers. Variables that differentiated among the four environmental management approaches were identified and ranked. The study concludes that there is a relatively well-defined relationship between the environmental risks of companies and the nature of their environmental management approaches, Implementing a strategic environmental management approach may not be the best option for all companies - although there is a growing pressure to do so.

Integrated assessment of water conservation practices for sustainable management strategies

Miami-Dade County implemented a series of water conservation programs, which included rebate/exchange incentives to encourage the use of high efficiency aerators (AR), showerheads (SH), toilets (HET) and clothes washers (HEW), to respond to the environmental sustainability issue in urban areas. This study first used panel data analysis of water consumption to evaluate the performance and actual water savings of individual programs. Integrated water demand model has also been developed for incorporating property’s physical characteristics into the water consumption profiles. Life cycle assessment (with emphasis on end-use stage in water system) of water intense appliances was conducted to determine the environmental impacts brought by each practice. Approximately 6 to 10 % of water has been saved in the first and second year of implementation of high efficiency appliances, and with continuing savings in the third and fourth years. Water savings (gallons per household per day) for water efficiency appliances were observed at 28 (11.1%) for SH, 34.7 (13.3%) for HET, and 39.7 (14.5%) for HEW. Furthermore, the estimated contributions of high efficiency appliances for reducing water demand in the integrated water demand model were between 5 and 19% (highest in the AR program). Results indicated that adoption of more than one type of water efficiency appliance could significantly reduce residential water demand. For the sustainable water management strategies, the appropriate water conservation rate was projected to be 1 to 2 million gallons per day (MGD) through 2030. With 2 MGD of water savings, the estimated per capita water use (GPCD) could be reduced from approximately 140 to 122 GPCD. Additional efforts are needed to reduce the water demand to US EPA’s “Water Sense” conservation levels of 70 GPCD by 2030. Life cycle assessment results showed that environmental impacts (water and energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions) from end-use and demand phases are most significant within the water system, particularly due to water heating (73% for clothes washer and 93% for showerhead). Estimations of optimal lifespan for appliances (8 to 21 years) implied that earlier replacement with efficiency models is encouraged in order to minimize the environmental impacts brought by current practice.

Learning from one another: evaluating the impact of horizontal knowledge exchange for environmental management and governance

There is increasing advocacy for inclusive community-based approaches to environmental management, and growing evidence that involving communities improves the sustainability of social-ecological systems. Most community-based approaches rely on partnerships and knowledge exchange between communities, civil society organizations, and professionals such as practitioners and/or scientists. However, few models have actively integrated more horizontal knowledge exchange from community to community. We reflect on the transferability of community owned solutions between indigenous communities by exploring challenges and achievements of community peer-to-peer knowledge exchange as a way of empowering communities to face up to local environmental and social challenges. Using participatory visual methods, indigenous communities of the North Rupununi (Guyana) identified and documented their community owned solutions through films and photostories. Indigenous researchers from this community then shared their solutions with six other communities that faced similar challenges within Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia, French Guiana, and Brazil. They were supported by in-country civil society organizations and academics. We analyzed the impact of the knowledge exchange through interviews, field reports, and observations. Our results show that indigenous community members were significantly more receptive to solutions emerging from, and communicated by, other indigenous peoples, and that this approach was a significant motivating force for galvanizing communities to make changes in their community. We identified a range of enabling factors, such as building capacity for a shared conceptual and technical understanding, that strengthens the exchange between communities and contributes to a lasting impact. With national and international policy-makers mobilizing significant financial resources for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation, we argue that the promotion of community owned solutions through community peer-to-peer exchange may deliver more long-lasting, socially and ecologically integrated, and investment-effective strategies compared to top-down, expert led, and/or foreign-led initiatives.

Effects of trawling on sessile megabenthos in the Great Barrier Reef and evaluation of the efficacy of management strategies

A series of related research studies over 15 years assessed the effects of prawn trawling on sessile megabenthos in the Great Barrier Reef, to support management for sustainable use in the World Heritage Area. These large-scale studies estimated impacts on benthos (particularly removal rates per trawl pass), monitored subsequent recovery rates, measured natural dynamics of tagged megabenthos, mapped the regional distribution of seabed habitats and benthic species, and integrated these results in a dynamic modelling framework together with spatio-temporal fishery effort data and simulated management. Typical impact rates were between 5 and 25% per trawl, recovery times ranged from several years to several decades, and most sessile megabenthos were naturally distributed in areas where little or no trawling occurred and so had low exposure to trawling. The model simulated trawl impact and recovery on the mapped species distributions, and estimated the regional scale cumulative changes due to trawling as a time series of status for megabenthos species. The regional status of these taxa at time of greatest depletion ranged from ∼77% relative to pre-trawl abundance for the worst case species, having slow recovery with moderate exposure to trawling, to ∼97% for the least affected taxon. The model also evaluated the expected outcomes for sessile megabenthos in response to major management interventions implemented between 1999 and 2006, including closures, effort reductions, and protected areas. As a result of these interventions, all taxa were predicted to recover (by 2-14% at 2025); the most affected species having relatively greater recovery. Effort reductions made the biggest positive contributions to benthos status for all taxa, with closures making smaller contributions for some taxa. The results demonstrated that management actions have arrested and reversed previous unsustainable trends for all taxa assessed, and have led to a prawn trawl fishery with improved environmental sustainability. © 2015 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea 2015. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Equity management strategies in the Australian private sector

This paper outlines the methods and outcomes of a study into equity management strategies in Australian private sector organisations reporting to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. Reports from 1976 organisations indicate eleven key factors characterising equity management in Australia. The study highlights differences within previously identified social structural policies, temperamental and opportunity policies and identifies a further policy type, categorised as “support policies”. Differences have also been identified in relation to distribution structures, suggesting that gender is not the sole consideration in determining equity management strategies. The principle of distribution also figures strongly in equity management implementation.

Applying integrated resource and environmental management to transmission right-of-way maintenance

The concept of a substantive integrator is introduced as a method for integrated resource and environmental management as a means to assimilate different resource values at the operational or field level. A substantive integrator is a strategic management tool for integrating multiple uses into coprorate management regimes that traditionally manage for single values. Wildlife habitat management is presented as a substantive integrator for managing vegetation on electric utility power line corridors. A case study from northern British Columbia provides an example of wildlife habitat management as a means to integrate other resource values such as aesthetics, access and subsistence along British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority's transmission rights-of-way.

An indexing model for sustainable urban environmental management : the case of Gold Coast, Australia

Improving urban ecosystems and the quality of life of citizens have become a central issue in the global effort of creating sustainable built environments. As human beings our lives completely depend on the sustainability of the nature and we need to protect and manage natural resources in a more sustainable way in order to sustain our existence. As a result of population growth and rapid urbanisation, increasing demand of productivity depletes and degrades natural resources. However, the increasing activities and rapid development require more resources, and therefore, ecological planning becomes an essential vehicle in preserving scarce natural resources. This paper aims to indentify the interation between urban ecosystems and human activities in the context of urban sustainability and explores the degrading environmental impacts of this interaction and the necessity and benefits of using sustainability indicators as a tool in sustainable urban evnironmental management. Additionally, the paper also introduces an environmental sustainability indexing model (ASSURE) as an innovative approach to evaluate the environmental conditions of built environment.

Organisational challenges in understanding and implementing effective buiness continuity management strategies in a complex and critical organisation : an airport case study

With the increasing complexity of modern day threats and the growing sophistication of interlinked and interdependent operating environments, Business Continuity Management (BCM) has emerged as a new discipline, offering a strategic approach to safeguarding organisational functions. Of significant interest is the application of BCM frameworks and strategies within critical infrastructure, and in particular the aviation industry. Given the increased focus on security and safety for critical infrastructures, research into the adoption of BCM principles within an airport environment provides valuable management outcomes and research into a previously neglected area of inquisition. This research has used a single case study methodology to identify possible impediments to BCM adoption and implementation by the Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC). It has identified a number of misalignments between the required breadth of focus for a BCM program, identified differing views on specific roles and responsibilities required during a major disruptive event and illustrated the complexities of the Brisbane Airport which impede the understanding and implementation of effective Business Continuity Management Strategies.

The relationship of boat movements to environmental management at some Queensland marinas

Marinas currently exist primarily to service recreational boats, and these vessels are a potential cause of both problems and opportunities in environmental management. Thus, on the one hand, destructive fuel and other pollutants may be expelled, boat wakes can cause littoral soil erosion, physical damage results from collisions with marine life, and litter and noise pollution occur in otherwise pristine habitat. Boats also provide access to otherwise inaccessible natural environments for educational and other management reasons. In this study, boat traffic at three large marinas located along the Queensland coastline has been field surveyed for introductory information. No attempt was made at this juncture to survey the behaviour of the boat crews and passengers (concerning actual destinations, activities on board, etc. or to survey the recreational boat industry. Such studies rely on boat registration records and personal questionnaires. Some other surveys relating to fishing draw on boat ramp surveys and direct submissions by recreational fishers; these provide some data on daily usage of boat ramps, but without particular attention to boats. We believe field observations of overall boat activities in the water are necessary for environmental management purposes. The aim of the survey was to provide information to help prioritize the potential impacts that boats’ activities have on the surrounding natural environment. Any impact by boats will be a product of their numbers, size, frequency of movement, carrying capacity and routes/destinations. The severity of impacts will dictate the appropriate management action.

Environmental management and wildlife in Queensland : a review of Queensland mammal species designated as scarce

From 19 authoritative lists with 164 entries of ‘endangered’ Australian mammal species, 39 species have been reported as extinct. When examined in the light of field conditions, the 18 of these species thought to be from Queensland consist of (a) species described from fragmentary museum material collected in the earliest days of exploration, (b) populations inferred to exist in Queensland by extrapolation from distribution records in neighbouring States or countries, (c) inhabitants of remote and harsh locations where search effort is extraordinarily difficult (especially in circumstances of drought or flooding). and/or (d) individuals that are clearly transitory or peripheral in distribution. ‘Rediscovery’ of such scarce species - a not infrequent occurrence - is nowadays attracting increasing attention. Management in respect of any scarce wildlife in Queensland presently derives from such official lists. The analyses here indicate that this method of prioritizing action needs review. This is especially so because action then tends to be centred on species chosen out of the lists for populist reasons and that mostly addresses Crown lands. There is reason to believe that the preferred management may lie private lands where casual observation has provided for rediscovery and where management is most desirable and practicable.