Many studies have been conducted about consumers' so-called “green” purchase behaviors in Europe and North America. This study examines Hong Kong consumers' intention to buy environmentally friendly products. A model incorporating measures of the theory of planned behavior, self-identity, and past greenpurchase behavior is adopted. A quota sample, in which 704 shoppers across several different districts were interviewed, was conducted. Regression analyses showed that both self-identity and past behavior had significant and independent effect on prediction of green purchase intention, in addition to the measures of the theory of planned behavior. After repeated experiences, intention to buy green products become based relatively more on a consumer's self-identity as a green person and relatively less on attitude toward green products and the social pressure related to green buying. Marketers should establish a clear image of environmentally conscious consumers and encourage product trials as a major promotional strategy. Policy makers should help build an atmosphere that makes green consumerism a socially desirable lifestyle.

Since Executive Order 12898 in 1994, environmental justice analyses are required in the draft environmental impact statements (DEISs) prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act. Of a total of 2,062 DEISs produced from 1994 to 2001, approximately 994 documents had some form of environmental justice analysis. These 994 DEISs were evaluated to determine the methodology utilized in the analyses. Most analyses are conducted by the United States Navy, Department of Energy, Federal Highway Administration, and Army Corps of Engineers. Only about half (49.3%) of the analyses focused on low income as the sole variable. Most documents (93%) concluded that there was no impact to environmental justice communities. Results show that the analyses included some level of empirical information in only about half of the analyses (49.3%). A small percentage (4.4%) of analyses relied upon a qualitative history. Less than half (46.3%) of the analyses merely stated that there was no impact and did not contain substantial qualitative or empirical information. Thus, the findings suggest that there is a potential for environmental justice concerns to be overlooked due to deficient methodology by the DEIS preparers and the large number of DEISs claiming that there is no impact to communities. For instance, a little more than half (57.2%) of the analyses did not include a geographical unit, necessary to the identification of environmental justice communities. Recommendations are made for practitioners and policy makers to rely more on geospatial tools like geographical information systems and to build more sophisticated methods for environmental justice analyses, including statistical analyses using empirical data.

During September and October of 2002, we collected and moved more than 2,000 endangered fat pocketbook pearly mussels, Potamilus capax, from a 5.7-km reach of a drainage ditch in eastern Arkansas. The translocation was to protect mussels from planned maintenance dredging and was required by the Biological Opinion prepared by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The project did not proceed as planned, and we removed only about 80% of the P. capax. In this article we examine mistakes made, lessons learned, and discuss procedures that might have led to a more favorable outcome. We identified three key decisions that should have been thoroughly discussed prior to initiating the work: percentage of mussels to be removed, choice of recipient sites, and number of mussels to be marked and measured. Two other issues were important: the status of P. capax in Arkansas and the likelihood of future dredging needs at recipient sites. Initially, we felt that decision-analysis tools, used during planning, would have facilitated a better understanding of complex issues. Although such tools would have encouraged better discussion, it is now apparent that communication was hampered largely by the different perspectives of participants.

There is widespread belief, currently, that financial markets are well equipped, and should be given the responsibility, to deal with environmental management. In this context, the commodification of nature would appear to serve useful purposes. This article argues that, from the viewpoint of environmental practice, these perspectives do not make a lot of sense, in large part because nature follows rules that are entirely different than those of financial markets and because the limited knowledge that specialists have of many natural processes prevents meaningful monetization. I also point out that, fortunately, within economics, a subdiscipline known as ecological economics tends to advocate caution in this area and offers much-needed common sense amid overwhelming market rhetoric.

Environmental Practice 16: 1–3 (2014)

This commentary offers a background to the carbon challenge, carbon offsets, and emissions trading from an Australian perspective. It sets the scene for a more detailed discussion about carbon sequestration rights, which are defined explicitly by some Australian states and territories but not by others. We highlight that the term carbon sequestration right is poorly defined and relies, inappropriately we suggest, on the borrowed term profit à prendre. This terminology is at odds with the notion of a carbon property right, which has yet to be conceptualized fully by the marketplace and the existing legal framework, given the need to fully engage the sociological and ecological dimensions of carbon and climate change. We find that current policy intent, together with evolving public will and corporate responsibility, is ahead of the science and the legal framework for managing property rights in carbon (used broadly to represent the six greenhouse gasses). The Australian Property Institute has taken the lead in its 2007 policy paper Conceiving Property Rights in Carbon and more recently in Sheehan and Kanas's investigation of “Property Rights in Soil.” This article takes the discussion to the next stage by offering a framework for property rights in carbon and asking whether such rights should be vested in the state or the nation, rather than merely creating a commodity that can be efficiently allocated and thus speculated upon.

Environmental Practice 11:105–114 (2009)

our society chooses among alternative environmental futures through decisions expected to yield, upon implementation, the results sought. if our collective understanding of the link between decisions and outcomes is flawed, however, the expected results may not follow. common–sense understanding is often inadequate for identifying environmental problems and evaluating possible solutions. therefore, our future hinges, to a considerable extent, on society's understanding and sensible use of technical information and scientific analyses. how we make sense of—or frame—the information we use to evaluate probable consequences of environmental decisions is, therefore, critical.

This case study considers the applicability of collaborative governance to natural resource management challenges in China, particularly when compared with its use in the United States (US). The specific case in point centers on a June 2012 workshop in Beijing co-organized by the China Environmental Law Project of the Beijing Representative Office of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Beijing Zhonglin Union Forestry Consulting Company, Ltd. The case study is based on participant observation, literature review, and policy analysis. The critical distinction between the applicability of collaborative governance in China and in the US relates to the incentives to collaborate, which differ in China and in the US. The authors suggest eight possible next steps encompassing research, practice, and education.

Environmental Practice 15:228–239 (2013)

This commentary highlights efforts to promote health monitoring in brownfields communities. Both the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recognize how public health may be improved by including a holistic approach to redevelopment that includes community health monitoring activities. Health monitoring goes beyond testing blood samples to address potentially toxic exposures and can be implemented to assess overall community health status throughout the course of community revitalization efforts. Examples of health monitoring activities include asthma or blood lead level screening, reviewing health statistics, environmental testing, and evaluation of community-specific health concerns. While health monitoring is encouraged as an activity within US EPA Brownfields funding, the number of communities that implement health monitoring programs is low. To encourage more communities to implement health monitoring activities, with or without Brownfields funding, this paper describes several projects by health agencies and communities to represent best practice examples. To facilitate more community health monitoring projects, the ATSDR has created and continues to create tools and resources to assist brownfield and land-reuse communities. In addition, the ATSDR and the US EPA are working together to build internal as well as community capacity to monitor community health through redevelopment activities.

Environmental Practice 11:190–195 (2009)

The language barrier between science and policy is as large and often underestimated as that between British and American English. Although most of the words are the same, they often carry different meaning. One good example of this is the term theory, which has caused much trouble for policy makers in relation to school curricula on evolution. However, there are many other words that have one specific meaning when used by scientists and another more common meaning in everyday use. Translation difficulties may also arise from the particular phraseology and writing conventions used by scientists. These are often more subtle but can create just as much, if not more, trouble in the sound-bite world of mass media, especially in high-profile subject areas such as the effects of noise on marine mammals. Using an excerpt from a report in this subject area by the US National Research Council as a case study, the authors will provide some examples of where scientific language use can be misunderstood (and potentially even intentionally misused) by policy makers and stakeholders and offer some possible solutions to these issues. The intent is to facilitate communication between scientists and policy makers to order to improve management efforts.

Environmental Practice 15:79–83 (2013)

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are environmental contaminants introduced by the activities of man. PPCPs are not new or emerging from the perspective of knowing about them, but they are of growing interest due to reports in the popular media on occurrence and environmental impacts. As a result, PPCPs may be deemed as emerging issues by the public and utilities. Likewise, the biological constituents are not new—but, for reasons that are unclear, certain ones appear to pose a greater risk to consumers today than they have in the past. Similarly, Cryptosporidium parvum did not appear to pose a risk until 400,000 people became ill, and approximately 100 people died of cryptosporidiosis in Milwaukee's water service area in 1993. Today, regulators and public health scientists are trying to identify microbes that pose a similar risk in the future. If these constituents occur in raw water supplies, they may need monitoring and treatment prior to these waters entering the potable water distribution system. The Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) developed by United States Environmental Protection Agency outlines a series of biological contaminants of concern that are not currently regulated but may pose a threat. Should these contaminants move from the CCL to a regulatory framework, water supply utilities will incur added monitoring and testing of their water supply sources, and potentially added monitoring and treatment costs in their operations.

Environmental Practice 13:198–215 (2011)

The United States (US) Army Corps of Engineers and US Environmental Protection Agency share responsibility for regulating placement of fill material in coastal wetlands and open waters. However, achieving the goal of no net wetland loss has been difficult, particularly in urban regions where development pressures and environmental conditions have exacerbated wetland losses. Despite protections provided in the Clean Water Act, one significant wetland category is threatened by adherence to the rules regarding no discharge of fill: low-lying coastal wetlands subject to the effects of a changing climate, including rising sea level, higher storm surges, and flooding. Without inland migration or accretion of new sediments, coastal wetlands will be lost unless marsh surface elevations are raised. The northeastern US coastline is a hot spot that may be especially vulnerable to sea-level rise. To explore current restoration policy, three case studies were examined: Jamaica Bay, New York, disappearing marshes; Jersey City, New Jersey, Lincoln Park West marsh; and Kane Wetland Mitigation Bank in the New Jersey Meadowlands District. Questions related to projected sea-level rise, ecological topography and adjacencies, or the potential for extreme storm events and surges were not addressed in the designs of these recent restorations. Although placement of fill materials in wetlands, marshes, or open water can create unanticipated consequences, if there is stringent regulatory oversight and a transparent public process, allowing placement of fill to preserve coastal wetlands could increase coastal resiliency. We suggest that the greater danger is failing to acknowledge the predicted effects of a changing climate. Permitting decisions must take into account broader geographic areas, expanded time frames, and projected effects of climate change.

Environmental Practice 17: 46–56 (2015)

Although water-harvesting techniques have been used effectively in irrigated agriculture and domestic water supplies, there seems to have been little continued exploitation of the same techniques in arid and semiarid rangeland water conservation. A review of the history of rangeland water harvesting allows identification of the methods that have been useful in the past and that would likely be effective in the future. It seems that relatively simple water-harvesting approaches work best on rangelands, particularly water-ponding dikes to stimulate vegetation growth. Experience from rangeland water harvesting in New Mexico and other locations in the Southwest indicates that the approach is a long-term solution that produces significant vegetation growth, but generally only 10–15 years after installation because of the sporadic and spatially distributed nature of the summer monsoon rainfall. Additionally, the use of water-ponding dikes seems to most reliably produce an “island” of enhanced soil moisture and increased habitat cover and forage. Water-ponding dikes are easy and relatively inexpensive to construct and produce a pattern of vegetation similar to naturally occurring banded vegetation. Even very shallow dikes (7.5 cm) have been shown to produce a significant vegetation response. As climate changes our water supplies, historical techniques of water harvesting used for over 9,000 years are viable rangeland water conservation alternatives now and in the future for adapting to such changes.

Environmental Practice 11:84–94 (2009)

This article reviews scientific, peer-reviewed literature on the costs and benefits of biofuels. Four peer-reviewed journals—Science, Natural Resources Research, Renewable Energy, and Journal of Cleaner Production—were searched for articles from the years 2006 through 2008 that evaluated some aspect of this fuel. The articles identified through this search were then assessed collectively. Non-foodstock biofuels were reported as having the fewest costs associated with their production and use. The article concludes on a sociological note, with a speculative look ahead. Drawing upon the concept of path dependency, the discussion turns briefly to society's ability (or perhaps lack thereof) to switch over to these so-called second-generation biofuels.

Environmental Practice 11:17–24 (2009)

Eastern hemlock [Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière] is a valuable component of Allegheny Plateau forests in northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. Since the 1950s, hemlock forests throughout the Central Appalachians have been under threat from a nonnative forest insect pest, the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand). In 2012, to address this threat at the most meaningful scale, the United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy organized a diverse partnership to develop a strategy for landscape-level conservation of hemlock on the High Allegheny Unglaciated Plateau. The main goal of the partnership was to locate hemlock across the landscape regardless of land ownership and prioritize the hemlock for monitoring and protection from the adelgid. The priority Hemlock Conservation Areas that were identified by this partnership provide a guide for focusing limited financial and personnel resources, with the goal of protecting at least a portion of these areas from the impacts of the adelgid until more long-term management techniques are identified. To protect the important hemlock forests identified in this prioritization, a partnership of private and public land managers are forming a Cooperative Pest Management Area to continue this important collaboration, allocate scarce resources across the area, and allow private partners access to public funding for protection of priority hemlock on their lands.

Environmental Practice 18: 94–105 (2016)

Industrial symbiosis (IS) aims to couple industrial development and environmental protection through the conservation of energy and resources. Conservation of resources is achieved through synergies with industries, which mainly occur through the reuse of waste and water. The promotion and implementation of IS highly depends on the policies adopted at the national and European Union levels. The present study explores the adequacy of the current institutional framework applied in Greece for the practical implementation of IS and highlights its strengths and weaknesses. Despite providing some opportunities for attaining eco-industry, the legislation also imposes restrictions. Specifically, the absence of a comprehensive and specialized legislation and the difficulty of implementing the current regulations effectively pose barriers towards the adoption of the IS model. Considering this, the present legislative and institutional framework needs to be further integrated, while coordination among stakeholders and simplified procedures should be applied so as to realize IS in Greece.

Environmental Practice 18: 253–259 (2016)

Several United States (US) federal agencies have developed visual resource inventory (VRI) and management systems that reflect specific agency missions and visual resource management objectives. These programs have varied in the degree to which they incorporate historic and cultural elements and values into the scenic inventory process. The recent nationwide expansion of renewable energy and associated transmission development is causing an increase in visual impacts on both scenic and historic/cultural resources. This increase has highlighted the need for better integration of visual and historic/cultural resource assessment and management activities for land use planning purposes. The US Department of the Interior National Park Service (NPS), in response to concerns arising from potential scenic impacts from renewable energy, electric transmission, and other types of development on lands and waters near NPS units, has developed a VRI process for high-value views both within and outside NPS unit boundaries. The NPS VRI incorporates historic and cultural elements and values into the scenic resource inventory process and provides practical guidance and metrics for successfully integrating historic and cultural concerns into the NPS’s scenic resource conservation efforts. This article describes the NPS VRI process and compares it with the VRI processes of the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management and the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, with respect to the incorporation of historic and cultural values. The article discusses why a scenic inventory approach that more robustly integrates the historic and cultural values of the landscape is essential for NPS landscapes, and for fulfillment of NPS’s mission. Inventories are underway at many NPS units, and the results indicate that the VRI process can be used successfully to capture important historic and cultural resource information and incorporate that information into the assessment of the scenic values of views within and outside NPS units.

Environmental Practice 18: 166–179 (2016)

Many factors must be considered by environmental officials tasked with managing pesticides. Several socioeconomic analysis techniques can be used to quantify these issues and help improve management, including the full consideration of alternatives. The most popular and commonly used techniques are Cost-Benefit Analysis and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, and additional guidance and reference materials are readily available. Another group of methods, known as Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory Rural Appraisal, can be more appropriate, faster, and have lower cost to use in developing countries. Finally, qualitative decision making under uncertainty, such as through the use of the Precautionary Principle (not a socioeconomic analysis technique), also can be valuable. The precautionary approach requires that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action. Ideally all of the analytical techniques will need complete and reliable socioeconomic data, though in reality, data are often incomplete and fraught with uncertainties. In these cases, the application of the precautionary principle decision rule may have strong justification. The application of these techniques in several decision contexts for pesticides in developing countries will be discussed.

Environmental Practice 17: 57–68 (2015)

Data from a 16-year period were used to investigate ground-water quality and its relation to nearby land uses in the Carson Valley area of Douglas County, Nevada. Within 500 m of ground-water wells with increasing nitrate concentrations, properties on septic systems accounted for 40% of the area, whereas agricultural areas accounted for 8.5%. Agricultural lands comprised 18% of the area near wells with stable contamination trends and 40% near wells with decreasing trends, indicating that lands converted from agriculture to nonsewered properties may be related to increases in nitrate concentrations. The mean size of parcels with septic systems near wells with increasing nitrate concentrations was about half (1.1 ha) that of those near wells with stable nitrate concentrations (2.0 ha). For wells with increasing nitrate and dissolved-solids trends, 50 to 55 properties utilized septic systems within 500 m, compared to fewer than 25 properties near stable trends. The number of wells with increasing trends rose from 2 in 1988 to 15 in 2001 for nitrate and from 1 to 14 for dissolved solids, an indication that it takes a minimum of 20 to 30 years before increasing trends can be identified. Geoprocessing tools and Geographic Information System (GIS) methods in this study can be used for efficient interpretation of ground-water contaminant location and trend, relative to surrounding land uses.