Guest editorial

Citation

Ketola, T. and Ndzibah, E. (2010), "Guest editorial", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 21 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2010.08321faa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 21, Issue 6

About the Guest EditorsTarja Ketola is Acting Professor of Sustainable Development in the Industrial Management Unit of the Faculty of Technology at the University of Vaasa, Finland, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Management at the Turku School of Economics, Finland. She took her PhD at Imperial College, University of London, and worked at Brunel University, UK, before returning to Finland. Her research interests include sustainable development, corporate sustainability, strategic environmental management, corporate responsibility and responsible leadership psychology. She has written several books and published articles in a number of scientific journals.

Emmanuel Ndzibah is a PhD student in the Industrial Management Unit under the Faculty of Technology at the University of Vaasa, Finland. Prior to his MSc dissertation he worked as a researcher at VaasaEMG (Vaasa Energy Marketing Group) for two years, which helped him develop his MSc thesis on “Product strategies of Finnish photovoltaic technologies for Africa”. His research interests include renewable energy systems, market and marketing strategies for developing economies, especially in Africa.

This special issue of Management of Environmental Quality (MEQ) focuses on renewable energy initiatives and their potentials in developing and developed countries, particularly in Africa and Europe with one example from South West Asia. The issue contains a set of papers presented in the Renewable Energy workshop held at the Corporate Responsibility Research Conference, which took place in Vaasa, Finland, during 7-9 September 2009. In addition, it contains an article on managing environmental training in organisations and a paper on the impact on sustainable development policies in Geneva.

The papers highlight the similarities and differences in current and possible production and use of different kinds of renewable energy in privileged and underprivileged countries, linking it with the matters of environmental management and sustainable development policies. Economically wealthier countries, such as Western European states and United Arab Emirates have more financial resources for high-tech renewable energy initiatives, but economically poorer countries, such as Sub-Saharan countries, have abundant, youthful human resources for creative renewable energy initiatives and their implementation.

This special issue starts with Toufic Mezher’s article “CSR in the renewable energy: MASDAR Initiative in Abu Dhabi” in which he explains how Abu Dhabi, the biggest Emirate, is taking leadership in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in United Arab Emirates through a major, nation-wide renewable energy project called the MASDAR Initiative. This endeavour intends to be a prime mover in environmental, social and economic sustainability locally, regionally and globally. The initiative expresses the willingness of oil producing countries to become more sustainable and mitigate climate change.

Renewable energy technology breakthroughs may not be directly transferrable from developed countries to developing countries – and not even from one developing country to another. Maša Kovi demonstrates in her article “Technology transfer projects and institutional development in developing countries” that the success of technology transfer projects depends greatly on the projects’ conformity with the institutional development in the country in question. She studies two user models of solar home systems in Zambia and Kenya. Because of the countries’ economically and judicially different institutional developmental circumstances a “fee-for-service” solar home system was successful in Zambia, but would be unsuccessful in Kenya, and a “market” solar home system was successful in Kenya, but would be unsuccessful in Zambia.

Emmanuel Ndzibah continues reports of field studies on solar systems in Africa in his article “Diffusion of solar solution in developing countries – focus group study in Ghana”. His focus group research looks for a solution to the growing trend of power outages in Ghana in the diffusion of solar systems. He finds that many Ghanaians consider solar energy as the best alternative, but affordability, financing and accessibility are the main concerns, for which possible answers are mapped out. Unlike in developed countries, the greenness of solar energy does not seem to be important to the potential users in Ghana. The alternative solar solutions identified include: standalone, backup and hybrid systems.

Nelson Abila expands the renewable energy discussion of Sub-Saharan Africa to biofuels in his article “Biofuels adoption in Nigeria: a preliminary review of feedstock and fuel production potentials”. He analyzes data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Nigeria is one of the largest oil producers in the world, but as climate change shifts fuel consumption away from oil, biofuel adoption is crucial for Nigeria to remain an important player in the world energy market. Nigeria has immense potential for energy crops cultivation for biofuel production. The data shows that Nigeria ranks globally very high in cassava, palm oil, palm kernel and ground nut production. The data demonstrating rainfall distribution shows that most energy crops can be grown all over the country. With governmental and private investments in agriculture and processing plants, biofuels production can become a major line of business, enhancing local livelihoods, and Nigeria can become a leading exporter of biofuels.

Tarja Ketola and Tiina Salmi diversify the biofuel discussion by comparing the positive and negative environmental social, cultural and economic impacts of biogases, bioliquids, field biomass, peat and wood-based biomass in their article “Sustainability life cycle comparison of biofuels: sewage the saviour?” They test a hypothesis: by year 2015 households, companies and other organizations all over the world will turn their sewages into biofuels instead of discharging them into the environment. The findings from the interviews of biofuels’ experts in Finnish companies, industry organizations, research institutions, and non-governmental organization support the hypothesis to the extent that refining sewage into biofuels would solve two global environmental problems at once: carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels contributing to climate change and over-fertilization of waterways, but although other biofuels cause loss of biodiversity and many of them are socio-culturally unsustainable, they compete so heavily that large-scale global turning of sewage into biofuels by 2015 is unlikely.

Isabelle Brose, Florence Van Stappen and Annick Castiaux focus on agricultural bioenergy in their article “Articulation of environmental and socio-economic externalities from bioenergy”. They point out that bioenergy from agriculture is considered a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus climate change, but has also other impacts on air, soil and water quality and biodiversity as well as on human health, social wellbeing and local prosperity. These externalities must be assessed to enhance responsible political decisions. The authors draft a qualitative model defining links between externalities and dividing them into positive or negative correlations. The model shows that many interactions between different environmental externalities and between different socio-economic externalities are not straightforward but space- or time-dependent as agricultural practices vary from one region to another. In addition, indirect effects are not yet fully understood and the long-term effects of climate change are still unknown. Environmental and socio-economic externalities should be weighed against each other. This consolidated qualitative model could then be developed into a quantitative model that monetizes the externalities so that the model could be utilized in political decision-making.

Giuseppe Catenazzo, Alexandre Epalle, Emmanuel Fragnière and Jean Tuberosa identify the impact of two Canton Geneva pedagogical tools devised to sensibilize the local population to sustainable development issues.

Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour, Adriano Alves Teixeira, Jorge Henrique Caldeira de Oliveira and Davi Fouad Soubihia address the issue of environmental training in organizations, presenting a theoretical review on the subject and proposing a model that highlights the importance of this type of training for organizations.

Political, corporate and household decision-makers in both Europe and Africa – and all over the world – need simple tools with which to compare the huge variety of currently and potentially available energy options. While comparisons between unrenewable and renewable energy sources have already been made easier, the challenge of comparing different renewable energy options and integrating their environmental, social, cultural and economic comparisons is still unanswered. The articles in this special issue are making their own contributions for the research community to start meeting this challenge.

Tarja Ketola, Emmanuel Ndzibah