Greening as strategic development in industrial change - Why companies participate in eco-networks

Networking between companies and other regional key actors has grown into a widespread instrument for economic development since the 1990s. Participatory networks have formed the concept for many activities of Local Agenda 21. Simultaneously, economic geography has focused on network theories to explain innovation in and the economic success of regions.This article focuses on the reasons why individual actors participate in environmentally oriented information networks. The questions approached are: Does the concept of learning within networks influence a firm’s development? How do the participants interact with each other? What effects do the networks have on their environment (arenas)?The changing arenas of a firm are analysed with regard to environmental concerns. These changes need to be anticipated for reliable strategies. To gain information and knowledge about current behaviour and activities, the functions of networks as learning platforms are discussed. Drawing upon arguments from different network theories, the motivations of participating in a network are threefold: actor and firm oriented, network internal (inter-firm), and network external. From these, a generic target cube of network motivations and actions is set up.The concept is reviewed by examining 12 ‘regional environmental information-oriented corporation networks’ (RUN) in the Greater Munich Area. The empirical material reveals that this type of network does not provide a guarantee for significant improvements in a firm’s environmental behaviour. However, participants learn about best practices while pursuing explicit or implicit aims as to influence their arenas.     

Recent trends in vegetation dynamics in the African Sahel and their relationship to climate

Contrary to assertions of widespread irreversible desertification in the African Sahel, a recent increase in seasonal greenness over large areas of the Sahel has been observed, which has been interpreted as a recovery from the great Sahelian droughts. This research investigates temporal and spatial patterns of vegetation greenness and rainfall variability in the African Sahel and their interrelationships based on analyses of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series for the period 1982–2003 and gridded satellite rainfall estimates. While rainfall emerges as the dominant causative factor for the increase in vegetation greenness, there is evidence of another causative factor, hypothetically a human-induced change superimposed on the climate trend.     

Woody vegetation and land cover changes in the Sahel of Mali (1967–2011)

In the past 50 years, the Sahel has experienced significant tree- and land cover changes accelerated by human expansion and prolonged droughts during the 1970s and 1980s. This study uses remote sensing techniques, supplemented by ground-truth data to compare pre-drought woody vegetation and land cover with the situation in 2011. High resolution panchromatic Corona imagery of 1967 and multi-spectral RapidEye imagery of 2011 form the basis of this regional scaled study, which is focused on the Dogon Plateau and the Seno Plain in the Sahel zone of Mali. Object-based feature extraction and classifications are used to analyze the datasets and map land cover and woody vegetation changes over 44 years. Interviews add information about changes in species compositions. Results show a significant increase of cultivated land, a reduction of dense natural vegetation as well as an increase of trees on farmer's fields. Mean woody cover decreased in the plains (−4%) but is stable on the plateau (+1%) although stark spatial discrepancies exist. Species decline and encroachment of degraded land are observed. However, the direction of change is not always negative and a variety of spatial variations are shown. Although the impact of climate is obvious, we demonstrate that anthropogenic activities have been the main drivers of change.     

The politics of greening unceded lands in the settler city

ABSTRACT

Urban greening is a buzz term in urban policy and research settings in Australia and elsewhere. In a context of settler colonial urbanism, like Australia, a first fact becomes clear: urban greening is always being practiced on unceded Indigenous lands. Recognising this requires some honest reckoning with how this latest urban policy response perpetuates dispossessory settler-colonial structures. In this paper, we listen to the place-based ontologies of the peoples and lands from where we write to inform understanding the city as an always already Indigenous place – a sovereign Aboriginal City. In so doing, the paper tries to practice a way of creating more truthful and response-able urban knowledge practices. We analyse three distinct areas of scholarly research that are present in the contemporary literature: urban greening and green infrastructure; urban political ecology; and more-than-human cities. When placed in relationship of learning with the sovereign Aboriginal City, our analysis finds that these scholarly domains of urban greening work to re-organise colonial power relations. The paper considers what work the practice and scholarship of ‘urban greening’ might need to do in order to become response-able and learn to learn with Indigenous sovereignties and ontologies.     

Environmental economic geography: A sympathetic critique

In this article I examine the objectives and substantive claims of a body of work that has come to be known as ‘environmental economic geography’ (EEG). I characterize this loose grouping of research activities as a topical contrivance: often what unites EEG researchers is simply a desire to apply the theories and methods of economic geography to environmental issues. The article explores an alternative rationale for doing EEG: the development of a distinctive intellectual project out of the encounter between economic geography and environment. Such a project extends beyond an assessment of the environmental impacts of economic activity, to examine the ways in which many ‘economic’ processes are environmentally constituted.     

Greening the Dam: The case of the San Roque Multi-purpose Project in the Philippines

This article aims to illustrate the extent and ways in which a traditional development aid project became the focus of a ‘greening’ process in the 1990s (and beyond). The article examines the San Roque Multi-purpose Project in the Philippines - a major Japanese bilateral international cooperation project - from a political ecology perspective. The analysis highlights how a complex story of contemporary aid dynamics in the bilateral Japan-Philippines relationship influenced this ‘greening’ process. The article interrogates critically and empirically the stated greening of a proto-type development aid project. This specific example of the practices of the Japanese aid industry is set within the context of the wider political economy of both donor and recipient elite interests.     

Seeing the trees for the (urban) forest: more-than-human geographies and urban greening

ABSTRACT

Urban spaces have long been places to think through human relationships with nature. The recent shift in thinking from urban green space as outcome to urban greening as a process provides an opportunity to consider more explicitly how we engage with more-than-human worlds in urban spaces, in more differentiated ways, and for what ends. In this paper we contribute to growing interest in improved urban sustainability and well-being by bringing human geography perspectives on more-than-human worlds into conversation with the literature on urban greening. Drawing on key examples oriented around urban trees, we consider two main themes: sensibilities and belonging. We argue for an understanding of urban places as collective achievements that not only involve knowing and living with diverse humans and non-humans but also involve the re/making of sensibilities and belongings. Through this paper, we aim to open dialogue about how more-than-human geographies might help us to differently understand urban trees, contemporary urban greening, and people–plant relations.     

Sustainable imaginaries and the green roof on Chicago’s City Hall

The concept of an imaginary has a long history of describing a society’s collective understanding of how the world works. This article introduces the concept of the sustainable imaginary as a society’s understanding and vision of how resources are being used and should be used to ensure socio-environmental reproduction. Incorporating John Allen’s modalities of power makes it possible to see exactly how those resources are being used within and outside of city government. This article employs the sustainable imaginary via the example of the green roof on Chicago’s City Hall. This structure exemplifies appropriate relationships within and with city government, the ways in which imaginaries are performed and reiterated, and how local environments interact with global discourses to produce specific discursive and material outcomes.     

应用遥感技术探讨岳阳园林城市发展战略

采用美国IKONOS卫星数据为主要信息源,通过计算机图像处理、几何校正及人机交互式解译和自动面积量算,准确地调查了岳阳市城市绿化面积。认为岳阳市城市绿化指标达到了国家标准,园林城市建设潜力很大,充分利用岳阳市水面和外围风景林是多、快、好、省的城市绿化途径,应该确立国际园林城市的发展战略。     

太湖地区工业绿色化进程研究——以无锡市为例

太湖区域工业化进程的加速,对区域生态环境造成了极大的干扰,积极推进工业绿色化,对保护太湖,推进区域可持续发展具有重要意义．本文以濒临太湖的无锡市为例,通过企业环境统计和问卷调查资料分析,考察该市工业绿色化进程及其与环境压力、企业性质的相关作用,得出以下结论:①无锡市工业绿色化不断发展,工业结构中高污染行业逐步缩减,企业的环境意识不断增强,企业的环境行为有明显改善的趋势;②无锡市目前企业实施绿色化的生产行为主要压力来自政府管制,只有少部分面向国际市场的企业具有较强的市场压力意识;③企业的环境行为与企业的规模、所有制、区位等密切相关,规模大的企业环境行为较好,国有企业和集体企业的环境行为优于外商投资企业和私营企业;④无锡工业绿色化的水平还处于初级阶段．发达地区要推进工业绿色化的进程,仍然要强化政府管制能力,并引导市场和公众发挥更多的作用．