Search results

This study estimated greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation and sought systems that could manage these emissions based on the IPCC guidelines to prepare for greenhouse gas regulations on international airlines. For this purpose, policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation were developed based on international agreements and the cases of advanced countries. In addition, marginal abatement costs and greenhouse gas reduction measures were derived for the effective execution of these policies. While estimating greenhouse gas emissions from aviation transportation, it was found that there has been an average increase of 3.9% and 12.9% for domestic and international flights, indicating that it is urgent that we prepare global greenhouse gas regulations. The estimated marginal abatement cost of greenhouse gas from airplanes was approximately. USD 123, and this amount could be used to decide the price of emission rights, the amount of carbon tax, and could be referred to when distributing incentives for voluntary agreements.

The measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for aviation transportation were classified into four types: voluntary agreements, international collaboration, greenhouse gas reduction technology and operation process development, and application of emission trading and carbon tax.

In early 2017, after launching its successful “Greenhouse-in-a-Box” pilot project in India with fifteen smallholder farmers, Kheyti, a non-profit agricultural technology (AgTech) social enterprise, was struggling with several decisions in developing and growing its business. Kheyti was launched in 2015 to help smallholder farmers battle poverty and income variability by providing affordable technologies bundled with services. Over eighteen months, the team had developed a low-cost and modular greenhouse product to which it added financing, inputs, training, and market linkages to create a comprehensive “full-stack” solution for small farmers. The pilot project was a success in many ways, but Saumya, Kheyti's co-founder and head of product, was concerned that it revealed shortcomings that could severely affect the viability and scalability of Kheyti's solution.

Saumya had some important decisions to make. Should Kheyti redesign the product from scratch, or find other ways to reduce the cost for early adopters? Should it rely on upfront revenues from sales of the greenhouse, or consider developing an innovative financing or contract farming model? Kheyti's dwindling cash reserves meant that these decisions were urgent and critical. The path chosen now would determine whether the startup would move beyond the pilot stage and achieve its vision of serving 1 million farmers by 2025.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the situation in Spain after the Kyoto Protocol with respect to greenhouse gas emissions and the national allocation plan published in 2005, which assigns CO₂ tonnes to approximately 1,920 Spanish firms for the 2005‐2007 period.

The author analysed the international norms related to the Kyoto Protocol and the situation in Spain.

From the conclusions of the study it can be derived that, although in recent years notable progress has been made, there is still a series of issues that can only be resolved, in the author's opinion, with practical application on the part of firms over time. These issues, both on an international level and in Spain, are: how to reflect the greenhouse gas emissions allowance in accounting; what information firms should include about greenhouse gas emissions in their annual reports; environmental reports and web sites; and what the economic impact of the Kyoto Protocol will be on the world economy, considering that some countries have already ratified it, while others have not.

This work should also be extended to more countries and not just be limited to Spanish companies. There is still much to be done to cover the possible gaps in this topic.

It is believed that the issues posed by the different sets of regulations are developing little by little, as seen in the fact that different countries are passing their respective national allocation plans, which specify the individual allocation of greenhouse gas emission allowances of different industries.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the cause of global warming, its trends and consequences as indicated by the International Panel on Climate Change. Sea‐level rise is one consequence of particular concern to Pacific Island states. It also reviews the views of economists about connections between economic growth and global warming.

International efforts, such as through the Kyoto protocol, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentration are discussed and prospects for post‐Kyoto policies are considered. Ways are also examined of addressing the consequences of global warming for the Pacific Island states. How they will be affected and to what extent is discussed, together with their ability to cope with the emerging problem.

The paper finds that whereas the majority of economists did not foresee a conflict between economic growth and global warming, the possibility of such a conflict is now more widely recognized following the Stern Report. It is predicted that a significant reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions is unlikely to be achieved in the foreseeable future owing to conflicting national interest (a prisoners' dilemma problem) and because is will take time to develop new technologies which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, payment for greenhouse gas emissions (for example, via tradable permits) will accelerate desirable technological advance. Both international political action and efforts to develop and use technologies that lower greenhouse gas emissions need to be pursued. Given current and likely increases in greenhouse gas emissions, continuing global warming in this century (and beyond) appears to be inevitable and consequently Pacific Island states will be adversely affected by sea‐level rise and climate change.

The paper emphasizes that Pacific Island states will suffer great hardship from global warming but are ill‐placed geographically, financially and administratively to prevent or adjust to the possible environmental disasters that await them. Nothing may save some from eventual environmental annihilation.

This research presents a design method for designing greenhouse structures based on topology optimization. Moreover, the structural design of a gothic greenhouse is proposed in which its structural strength has been improved by using this proposed method. In this method, the design of the structure is done mathematically; therefore, in the design process, more attention can be focused on the constraint space and boundary conditions. It was also shown how the static reliability and fatigue coefficients will change as a result of the design of the greenhouse structure with this method. Another purpose of this study is to find the weakest part of the greenhouse structure against lateral winds and other general loads on the greenhouse structure.

In the proposed method, the outer surface and the allowable volume as a constraint domain were considered. The desired loads can be located on the constraint domain. The topology optimization was used to minimize the mass and structural compliance as the objective function. The obtained volume was modified for simplifying the construction. The changes in the shape of the greenhouse structure were investigated by choosing three different penalty numbers for the topology optimization algorithm. The final design of the proposed structure was performed based on the total simultaneous critical loads on the structure. The results of the proposed method were compared in the order of different volume fractions. This showed that the volume fraction approach can significantly reduce the weight of the structure while maintaining its strength and stability.

Topology optimization results showed different strut and chords composition because of the changes in maximum mass limit and volume fraction. The results showed that the fatigue was more hazardous, and it decreased the strength of structure nearly three times more than a static analysis. Further, it was noticed that how the penalty numbers can affect topology optimization results. An optimal design based on topology optimization results was presented to improve the proposed greenhouse design against destruction and demolition. Furthermore, this study shows the most sensitive part of the greenhouse against the standard loads of wind, snow, and crop.

The obtained designs were compared with a conventional arch greenhouse, and then the structural performances were shown based on standard loads. The results showed that in designing the proposed structure, the optimized changes increased the structure strength against the standard loads compared to a simple arch greenhouse. Moreover, the stress safety factor and fatigue safety factor because of different designs of this structure were also compared with each other.

The purpose of this study is to analyse different factors behind the disclosure of corporate information on issues related to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change world‐wide.

The empirical analysis carried out was performed in two stages: analysis of the data obtained through content analysis and analysis of the factors that influence the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change using a dependency model, a multiple linear regression. Several variables were introduced to represent the size of the companies, leverage, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and Market‐to‐Book ratio. Also, other dummy variables have been incorporated: Kyoto Protocol, activity sector in which the company operates and inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

The results obtained show a direct relationship between corporate size, its market capitalization and the disclosure of information in addition to proposed Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators on greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, an inverse relationship between ROE and disclosure is detected.

The findings emphasize that the main quoted companies operating in industries related to greenhouse gas emissions typically reveal information on almost all the GRI core indicators as well as the additional items specifically proposed for this issue. Moreover, the results suggest a trend for companies to utilize information on greenhouse gas emissions as a mechanism that enables them to legitimise themselves with those groups that can be of benefit to them.

The paper has analysed the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and other information of importance to climate change in companies from different countries, some of which have ratified, approved, adhered to or accepted the Kyoto Protocol, and some of which have still not accepted it.

This paper is intended to investigate the economic, organizational and social factors affecting the receipt of advance payment by greenhouse vegetable producers from commission agents operating in the wholesale market.

The data were gathered through questionnaire forms developed for this specific purpose through face-to-face interviews with 180 producers growing greenhouse vegetables in the central district and Serik, Antalya in the Western Mediterranean Region of Turkey. A logistic regression model was employed to analyse the factors affecting the likelihood of greenhouse vegetable growers getting advance from commission agents.

A good financial status of enterprises producing greenhouse vegetables and the fact that their production input needs are met by cooperatives reduce their dependence on commission agents, thereby increasing their bargaining power when selling their products. Since producers can readily meet their need for the capital required for the vegetable production process from commission agents, they do not prefer to borrow from lending institutions making agricultural loans with requirements such as collateral. The fact that greenhouse vegetable farmers receive technical and market information and advice from commission agents strengthens their relationship with them.

It is the first study that evaluates in detail the financial aspect of the relationships between producers and commission agents in the greenhouse vegetables wholesale market. It contributes significantly to agricultural policymakers regarding the functioning of the greenhouse vegetable market, and in particular, the regulations on agricultural loans for production processes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors driving greenhouse gas reporting by Chinese companies.

Content analysis of annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports for the year 2010 of the top 100 A‐share companies listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange was conducted to investigate the extent of greenhouse gas reporting. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the factors driving these companies' greenhouse gas reporting.

It was found that most Chinese companies reported neutral and good news. The results also indicate larger companies operating in an industry which has higher level of carbon dioxide emissions tend to have higher levels of greenhouse gas disclosures, consistent with the expectation of legitimacy theory. However, profitability and overseas listing were not significantly related to greenhouse gas reporting. This is consistent with the findings of previous literature. Finally, contrary to expectations, state‐owned companies report less greenhouse gas information than private companies.

The paper contributes towards theory development by testing legitimacy theory in the context of greenhouse gas reporting by Chinese companies and contributes to existing literature on greenhouse gas reporting by focussing on the large emerging economy of China. The practical contribution of the paper rests in the area of accounting practice. The results outline the dearth in greenhouse gas reporting by Chinese companies, suggesting there needs to be future development of accounting standards in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to predict the amount of energy consumption by using a suitable statistical method in some sectors and energy carriers, which has shown a significant correlation with greenhouse gas emissions.

After studying the correlation between energy consumption rates in different sectors of energy consumption and some energy carriers with greenhouse gas distribution (CO₂, SO₂, NO_X and SPM), the most effective factors on pollution emission will be first identified and then predicted for the next 20 years (2015 to 2004). Furthermore, to determine the appropriate method for forecasting, two approaches titled “trend analysis” and “double exponential smoothing” will be applied on data, collected from 1967 to 2014, and their capabilities in anticipating will be compared to each other contributing MSD, MAD, MAPE indices and also the actual and projected time series comparison. After predicting the energy consumption in the sectors and energy carriers, the growth rate of consumption in the next 20 years is also calculated.

Correlation study shows that four energy sectors (industry sector, agriculture, transportation and household-general-commercial) and two energy carriers (electricity and natural gas) have shown remarkable correlation with greenhouse gas emissions. To predict the energy consumption in mentioned sectors and carriers, it is proven that double exponential smoothing method is more capable in predicting. The study shows that among the demand sectors, the industry will account for the highest consumption rate. Electricity will experience the highest rate among the energy careers. In fact, producing this amount of electricity causes emissions of greenhouse gases.

Access to the data and categorized data was one of the main limitations.

By identifying the sectors and energy carriers that have the highest consumption growth rate in the next 20 years, it can be said that greenhouse gas emissions, which show remarkable correlation with these sectors and carriers, will also increase dramatically. So, their stricter control seems to be necessary. On the other hand, to control a particular greenhouse gas, it is possible to focus on the amount of energy consumed in the sectors and carriers that have a significant correlation with this pollutant. These results will lead to more targeted policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The tendency of communities toward industrialization along with population growth will doubtlessly lead to more consumption of fossil fuels. An immediate aftermath of burning fuels is greenhouse gas emission resulting in destructive effects on the environment and ecosystems. Identifying the factors affecting the pollutants resulted from consumption of fossil fuels is significant in controlling the emissions.

Such analyses help policymakers make more informed and targeted decisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make safer and more appropriate policies and investment.

The purpose of this paper is to raise a selection of issues and questions that have begun to face academics and business professionals in the technically complex field of greenhouse gas accounting.

This paper drew on accounting, audit and assurance‐based field work whilst the author was employed with a “Big 4” accounting firm and undertaken with a range of Australian companies preparing to report greenhouse gas emissions to the Australian Government for the first time during June‐October 2009. The issues discussed in this paper include: determination of organisational boundaries and ownership of greenhouse emissions; determination of operational boundaries and how to account for the greenhouse emissions of contractors; and challenges of measuring and accounting for greenhouse gas emissions in the underground coal mining industry.

This paper highlights the need for further research into greenhouse gas accounting methodologies.

The paper is primarily a news piece with a focus on three of a possible multitude of issues. The intention is not to provide a complete review of the growing academic literature in the greenhouse gas accounting field, nor to elaborate on the entire array of challenges presented by greenhouse gas accounting for a range of industries. Further, the paper does not intend to discuss climate change science or emissions trading in any detail.

Whilst the focus is on the Australian experience, the questions raised may be of interest to a more international audience as attempts are made to put a national framework using local measures on a global problem are commonplace.