Search results

This study aims to conduct a critical analysis of online carbon calculators, assesing their accuracy and ability to provide holistic carbon impact appraisals of different elements of holiday travel. It seeks to identify the major data sources for estimates and establish the interrelatedness between them. The determinant factors for the variance in the magnitude of the carbon footprint appraisals between calculators are critically reviewed.

The paper reviews the key online carbon calculators to better understand how estimates of carbon footprint are made, what background information is available to tool users and which factors affect the accuracy and comprehensiveness of appraisals.

The study concludes that the applicability of existing carbon calculators to carbon impact assessment in tourism is limited. Moreover, poor accesibility of the background data, inconsistencies in the multiplying factors used and inhomogeneity in the appraisal methods employed question the accuracy, credibility and transparency of carbon calculators. Suggestions are made on how to improve the overall quality and reliability of carbon calculators in order to enhance their consistency, transparency and applicability in the tourism domain.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of assessment approaches available in the tourism domain to produce reliable estimates of the carbon impacts from holiday travel.

In order to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is essential that all industry sectors have the appropriate knowledge and tools to contribute. This includes agriculture, which is considered to contribute about a third of emissions globally. This paper reports on one such tool: IMPACCT: Integrated Management oPtions for Agricultural Climate Change miTigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

IMPACCT focuses on GHGs, carbon sequestration and associated mitigation options. However, it also attempts to include information on economic and other environmental impacts in order to provide a more holistic perspective. The model identifies mitigation options, likely economic impacts and any synergies and trade-offs with other environmental objectives. The model has been applied on 22 case study farms in seven Member States.

The tool presents some useful concepts for developing carbon calculators in the future. It has highlighted that calculators need to evolve from simply calculating emissions to identifying cost-effective and integrated emissions reduction options.

IMPACCT has potential to become an effective means of provided targeted guidance, as part of a broader knowledge transfer programme based on an integrated suite of guidance, tools and advice delivered via different media.

IMPACCT is a new model that demonstrates how to take a more integrated approach to mitigating GHGs on farms across Europe. It is a holistic carbon calculator that presents mitigation options in the context other environmental and economic objectives in the search for more sustainable methods of food production.

Low carbon solutions in infrastructure have been well documented and promoted in most areas of the UK except in the context of public sector Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) infrastructure. With the UK Government providing £2.5bn capital investment to reduce risk of flooding and coastal erosion between 2015 and 2020, the carbon impact of this construction programme will have a significant impact on the UK’s carbon targets. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive literature review focusing on the effect of carbon on climate change, the role of UK public sector FCERM construction and organisational cultural challenges in promoting low carbon.

An electronic survey of practising professionals in a leading government agency that procures major FCERM construction projects has been undertaken. The survey covers participants from the whole value chain within the project life cycle, since many authoritative sources call for integration, and for change to be implemented in partner organisations.

The survey shows that although carbon is considered, it is not yet at the level of importance nor is it prioritised to the extent at which cost is. This is for both public and private sector supply chain organisations. Low carbon, although included in discussions, does not feature as prominently throughout all project stages.

The utilisation of a survey for this research is limited as it merely supports current industry findings, albeit having focused on a specific infrastructure area. Further qualitative research is required to fully explore the findings within the survey, and to establish whether the implementation of a new whole life carbon calculator within FCERM construction will have an impact on the organisational culture and future successful implementation of low carbon construction.

The results of this research identify the specific areas in which industry practitioners involved in promoting and prioritising low carbon could focus on to facilitate the change required to fully embed low carbon into FCERM construction.

This research supports industry knowledge specifically for public sector FCERM construction, and the changes to organisational culture required to fully embed low carbon solutions in public sector construction. These changes may have an impact on the amount of carbon being used, which can positively affect climate change as a whole.

The literature review shows that carbon has a clear impact on climate change, and organisational culture and leadership can facilitate the successful implementation of new initiatives. However, previous attempts to embed low carbon into infrastructure construction practice have had limited success to date. The survey findings support the view that organisational culture and leadership can influence the successful embedding of low carbon solutions, and why this has been a challenge.

The purpose of this research project is to reduce the carbon emissions of construction processes by Measuring, Mapping, Modelling and Managing (4Ms) the carbon performance of construction activities. This particular paper presents the research work and major findings in the first two stages: measuring the carbon footprint of construction activities in building projects; and mapping the carbon emissions from construction activities.

A hotel project in South Wales was selected as a case study where the carbon emissions from six categories of construction activities (i.e. management, operations, visitors, deliveries, plant and utilities) were monitored by using carefully designed data collection methods throughout the construction process. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were adopted to distil and map the emissions with construction activities.

This study provides a benchmark for the carbon emissions from construction processes. The results show that construction activities generate more carbon than expected. Of the CO₂ emitted, materials delivery, operational activities and plant operation account for more than 90 per cent of the total emissions. Activities from management, visitors and utilities only contributed 10 per cent of the CO₂ emissions. Carbon emissions from construction processes can be best managed through project planning/scheduling where carbon emissions should be considered as a new criterion for project planning along with time, cost and quality.

There are some limitations with the data collection methods adopted in this study. For example, the fuel/CO₂ emission conversion rate for plant was obtained from online sources. This rate needs to be validated and adjusted on‐site with CO₂ measurement gauges for different equipment. Similarly, the fuel efficiency adjusting rates for vehicles also need to be checked and verified constantly.

The on‐site carbon emission methods, the mapping approaches between the emission and construction activities, and the online system developed in this study (www.constructco2.com/default.aspx) are all embraced by the industry. So far, 76 projects have already subscripted to the online system.

This study developed a set of systematic and feasible approaches to measuring and analysing carbon emissions from construction activities. Unlike the existing studies which mainly focus on recording the carbon emissions on‐site, this research measured the emissions, and mapped the emissions with construction activities. The online system developed could analyse the data collected and support the contractor to decide in which aspects they should make effort to control the carbon emissions.

Over the last decade, multiple initiatives have been undertaken to learn how to capture the carbon footprint of a supply chain at a product level. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the process of standardization to secure consistency of product carbon footprinting (PCF) and to outline how the current developments in PCF support the need for a standardized method to measure and report environmental performance in supply chains.

This paper is based on a literature review and a review of international standards for PCF which brings knowledge of PCF to the existing literature of green supply chain management.

The multiple initiatives for standardization each improve the understanding of standardized methods of conducting PCF. At the same time, however, important differences exist between the standards in terms of the modelling framework to be used when conducting a PCF, and a paradox exists concerning methods for securing future standardization of PCF.

Standards for evaluating emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in supply chains are evaluated without consideration of other environmental impacts. In addition, the research only compares international standards, thereby excluding national initiatives.

Standardization efforts can be expected to shape the future practice of measuring emission of GHGs in companies and supply chains which provides a framework for reducing impacts.

Papers that outline the standardization process for PCF have been examined, but this paper adds value by categorizing the field, outlining the latest standards, and by being the first paper to compare standards for PCF on selected criteria and identify gaps.

This study aims to introduce management students to climate change by providing them with an opportunity to address it in their own lives, through a class exercise.

An in-class exercise was designed, carried out and described in this study. Student teams were assigned different questions on how to address major causes of climate change. Each team did research to generate answers, and ranked their answers based on the speed of implementation. Teams reported their answers to the class. The instructor facilitated a debriefing session, during which all responses were ranked with respect to other variables, including cost savings, time savings and lifestyle fit. This exercise uses few resources and can be adapted to different time lengths and teaching/learning formats (e.g. on-ground, virtual, asynchronous online).

This exercise can help students to gain an understanding of climate change and its causes and complexities. Students learn how to implement a diverse set of personal actions to mitigate climate change; these can start in the present and continue throughout their lives. In addition, this exercise may help students to make the leap from individual climate change mitigation practices to organizational and societal practices, when they are in the position to do so as future leaders.

Although classes, exercises, and assignments ask management students to consider issues such as climate change at the organizational level, this individual-level exercise can allow students with limited organizational experience to engage more quickly with climate change and better understand organizational and societal implications in the future. That is, if students first understand how to address climate change in their own lives, they may more effectively transfer and apply that understanding at organizational and societal levels and ultimately synthesize solutions to address climate change in the world.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to discuss managing sustainability across an industry and examine the catalyst, enablers, and challenges for systems-level change through a case study of one organization, the Port of Los Angeles (POLA), and its participation in the Sustainable Enterprise Executive Roundtable (SEER) action learning network.

Methodology/approach – The chapter uses a case study approach, written by reflective practitioners in action.

Findings – The challenges and enablers of achieving organizational change for sustainability within the POLA ecology are addressed as part of a forcefield of enablers and obstacles. Action learning in the context of collaborative projects across the ecology becomes a key process for managing change toward a sustainable goods movement ecosystem.

Research/practical implications – The chapter is addressed to those scholar-practitioners who struggle with issues of organizational change for sustainability outcomes. The core work is to align organizations, within and around the node organization, for sustainability. By analyzing the systems forcefield, we can better perceive the implications for action and identify leverage for change.

Social implications – Organizations are the key unit for culture change for sustainability within society. Engaging with other organizations involved in the work of sustainability is required to create systems-level change.

Originality/value – The scholarly contribution is based on revisiting the usefulness of Lewin's Change Forcefield, which the authors have adapted by integrating the concepts of the learning organization and systems thinking to help understand change and redesign efforts for sustainability within and among organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to present seven mega-topics wine business researchers could collaborate on to help the global wine industry better cope with changes occurring across the world.

The first six of these topics emerged at a strategy planning session held in Australia in July 2019, and one more topic of concern was decided to be added that will help wine business researchers better model wine buying/wine tourism behaviour.

The seven topic areas are profitability and sustainability of different wine business models; interrelated risk and opportunities in the wine supply chain; how to stimulate innovation; managing growing social pressure and social license; building regional resilience and managing local growth; conducting research in emerging markets and how to measure the impact of marketing activities there; and accounting for infrequent and non-wine alcohol buyers in research.

Academics in wine business (and other areas) often pursue research of personal interest and convenience. However, this behaviour has often led to the accusation, particularly from industry, that this research does not really provide answers to the questions that really matter to industry. This viewpoint provides an industry-generated set of big picture research areas that have both academic and practical value.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the suitability of free carbon calculators aimed at the agricultural industry, for use in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission benchmarking, using the European dairy industry as an example.

Carbon calculators which were claimed to be applicable to European dairy farms were identified and tested using six production scenarios based on data from real European farms supplemented using published literature. The resulting GHG emission estimates, together with estimates apportioned using three functional units, were then compared to determine the robustness of the benchmarking results.

It was found that although there was a degree of agreement between the seven identified carbon calculators in terms of benchmarking total farm emissions, once a suitable functional unit was applied little agreement remained. Tools often ranked farms in different orders, thereby calling into question the robustness of benchmarking in the studied sector.

The scenario-based approach taken has identified issues liable to result in a lack of benchmarking robustness within this sector; however, there remains considerable scope to evaluate these findings in the field, both within this sector and others in the agricultural industry.

The results suggest that there are significant hurdles to overcome if GHG emission benchmarking is to aid in driving forward the environmental performance of the dairy industry. In addition, eco-labelling foods based on GHG benchmarking may be of questionable value.

At a time when environmental benchmarking is of increasing importance, this paper seeks to evaluate its applicability to sectors in which there is considerable scope for variation in the results obtained.