Issue #3 (Volume 8 2017)

Green production, sale, willing to pay and financing are related to green business. Bangladesh, a developing country in South Asia, is the most fertile delta region and identified as one of the front-line countries to suffer from the adverse consequences of climate change. Research question of the study is limited to examining several relationships related to green business production, sale, and willingness to pay. Primary data were utilized to test the hypothesized relationships. Based on the literature review, several conceptual relationships are presented and empirically tested. Findings conclude that production and sale of green products were related to the plan to produce and sell green products in Bangladesh. Consumers who are environmentally sensitive are willing to pay premium prices for green products and purchase these products frequently. Paper recommends that government, civil society organizations and the financial institutions should take a more active role in promoting and encouraging businesses to produce and market green products. Authors suggest that the government should provide incentives to set up community banking in the rural areas including informal sector, micro savings, and investment through green financing, for green production, green transportation and green consumption.

In South Africa, during the apartheid era, the mining sector had records of extremely high injuries and occupational diseases that led to massive death of mine workers who were predominantly Blacks. In the post-apartheid era, measures such as monitoring, inspections, investigations and regulatory interventions have been introduced to identify hazards with the aim of minimizing and eliminating the risk to health and safety of mine workers. However, despite these interventions and measures, the pace of ensuring total eradication of accidents and fatalities is slow and there is a need to accelerate it, as every life is important. This can only be realized if there is substantial improvement in the implementation, enforcement and compliance with legislation, measures and policies that have been put in place to curb accidents, diseases and fatalities in the mining sector. This article examines the effectiveness of the interventions, points out the weaknesses and provides viable solutions for improvement. The article also highlights the importance of trade unions and technologies as catalysts to drive and improve safety standards in the mining environments.

The authors examined environmental responsibility and financial performance nexus of Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s socially responsible investing manufacturing and mining firms during the period of 2008-2014. The study employs annual panel dataset of fourteen manufacturing and mining companies on the index, and Granger causality analysis using Gcause2 Baum’s version. The paper found unidirectional causal relationship between environmental responsibility, measured by emissions intensity and equity returns, and bidirectional causal relationship between emissions intensity and market value of equity deflated by sales at 1% significant levels. Impliedly, improvements in ‘energy efficient technologies’ to reduce fossil energy consumption (prevention activities) seem to exhibit value destroying tendencies, while improvements in ‘end-of-pipe’ activities seem to estimate a drive market value of equity deflated by sales and equity returns. The Pesaran CD and Breusch-Pagan LM tests confirmed existence of cross-sectional dependence amongst panel members. The authors tend to support institutional and stakeholder theories.

Violent conflict between native communities and migrant herdsmen is one of Nigeria’s most ubiquitous security challenges in the age of climate change. It accounts for an increasing number of human and material losses which is not only surpassed by the country’s ongoing counter-insurgency, but also threatens unity among its regions. It has therefore gained attention in the legislative arm of government. In response, lawmakers mainly of northern Nigeria extraction have proposed a Grazing Bill which seeks to expand and legalize nationwide access to grazing land for pastoral farmers in defiance to agitation in host communities for legislative protection. A cardinal principle of federalism is the premium placed on preservation of local interests that are peculiar to component units while harnessing strength in areas of concerns common to federating units. Against the backdrop of Nigeria’s federal system and its social, ecological and historical diversity, this paper examines the implications of the proposed Grazing Bill for managing farmer-herder conflict. It argues that frameworks which downplay the country’s diversity will further aggravate conflicts and insecurity in the fragile federation. The paper therefore advocates for sedentary system of cattle ranching.

In this article, the authors introduce a polluting eco-industry. Depending on the level of damage, there are two optimal equilibria. If the damage is low, one generalizes the usual results of the economic literature to the polluting eco-industry: the dirty firm partially abates their emissions, only efficient eco-industry firms produce and the abatement level increases with the damage. However, very specific results are obtained if the damage is high. In this case, not all efficient eco-industry firms produce. The abatement level and the number of active eco-industry firms both decrease as the damage increases. The authors finally show that a well-designed Pigouvian tax implements these equilibria in a competitive economy.

There is no doubt that the problem of climate change has become imperative for all parties oа the international community to join forces to resolve this crisis. With the signing of the Paris Agreement and following many deliberations and negotiations, this agreement is a new phase in dealing with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. With the participation of everyone, whether developed or developing countries, that opens the door to a new system of investment in the implementation of this commitment.
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is the cornerstone of this new type of emissions exchange between the parties. The old emissions trading system under the Kyoto Protocol has shown many advantages and disadvantages, which open the door to the need to find a new system that achieves the actual emission reduction target and opens the way for a new type of FDI.
Although the features of the new system have not yet been formed, but many of the ideas and theses dealt with by many intellectuals and economists on how to develop an emissions trading system that achieves the goals of sustainable development.
In this paper, a new vision will be taken to put Article 6 of the Paris Agreement into effect, in order to achieve the objective of the main agreement which is to reduce emissions without having a significant impact on development plans, especially in developing and poor countries, on the one hand, and the opportunity to attract foreign investment and capital flows towards more attention to the green economy.

The purpose of this paper is to delineate the perceptions of grade 12 students about the integration of environmental economics through environmental education into the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). Margaret Archer’s (1995) Realist social theory (RST): the morphogenetic approach provides the meta-theoretical framework that informs this study. RST deals with the concepts of structure, culture, agency, pre-existing structures, position-practice systems and mechanisms that have impact on the economic growth and welfare of the society. Data was collected through focus-group interviews with ten students who were purposefully selected from a classroom of 80 students. In addition, a qualitative research approach was used in this study to describe perception of youth about proper utilisation of scarce natural resources. The inductive analysis approach was used to interpret raw data sourced from the participants.The results of this paper revealed that even though youth have been taught principles of environmental education which consist of natural resource economics as a cross-curricular topic, some do not appreciate the importance of efficient use of natural resources in the reduction of poverty and welfare of future generation. Further, the youth believe that environmental issues such as land degradation, water and air pollution, and improper solid waste disposal can be alleviated through activities that can be done outside the classroom. However, some participants noted that the local government has to provide financial support for programmes that encourage natural resource sustainability in the schools.

The transport sector, particularly road transport, is a major factor in the overall emissions balance of the substances involved in air pollution for the majority of developing countries. This paper investigates the dynamic links between information and communication technology (ICT), transport energy, environmental degradation and growth for Tunisia. The authors used a Johansen co-integration analysis to determine this econometric relationship using data during 1990–2015. In order to test the Granger causality links in the short and long run, a panel Vector Error Correction Model is used. The variance decomposition is used to confirm the existing links between the different variables. Different results are found. These findings show the existence of bidirectional in short- and long-run causality between transport energy and CO₂ emissions. By cons, ICT does not minimize significantly pollution in Tunisia. These findings are very important for the transport sector and in terms of the choice of government policy decisions in order to minimize the pollution.

How do the levels of extreme positions of various interest groups influence the conservation policies in the context of a renewable resource conservation contest? To answer this question, a model is provided where conservation policy is determined as a contest between two opposing interest groups: one in favor of conservation and another in favor of non-conservation. The levels of extreme positions for the conservationalists are determined by their demands about the severity of the conservation strategy that needs to be implemented. For the non-conservation group, the level of extreme position is determined by how large the current harvest of the resource should be.
The main driver of the model is that resource conservation is realized only if the conservation group wins the contest, which again depends on the relative gain the two contenders receive when winning the contest. The paper derives conditions where the more extreme positioned groups will have less likelihood of succeeding, e.g., a conservation group demanding larger conservation efforts will face a reduced probability that actual conservation policies will be implemented.

Sugarcane production in South Africa is one of the major foreign exchange earnings, and constitute an important contributor to GDP growth of South Africa. It is argued that sucrose content, one of the significant components of sugarcane has been at the declining trend in the recent years. This study offers Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) as an important tool, since it supports managerial decision making process by making it possible to visualize and quantify material losses. The study hypothesis is that can MFCA as tool increase organizational profitability. The study adopts models from literature to access the efficiency of MFCA as an important alternatives to the conventional accounting process. In this study, production cost has been classified into four categories, namely: system cost, energy cost, material flow cost and residual cost. Accessing the efficiency of this accounting skill, data from South African Sugarcane Milling industry has been adopted to establish our claim in the study and finally, this study has been able to implement the process involved in the use of MFCA. We, therefore, recommend the proficient use of MFCA in organizations among the South African industries as it possess the quality of classifying product cost from waste cost and hence improving profitability and organizational efficiency.

This research evaluates the role of environmental pressure on the extend of environmental disclosure of South African banks. Although much research on corporate sustainability disclosure exists, this research is unique since little of the previous research in South Africa has given a closer examination of environmental pressure implication on the banking sector environmental disclosure. Research data were collected from secondary source, which are available from the sustainability reports of the sample of banks. Data were arranged and analyzed by means of the panel data multiple regression. Findings from the analysis showed that none of the seven environmental pressure variables had a significant relationship with banks’ environmental disclosure, which confirms assertion in the literature that banks are not much concerned with environmental issues. In conclusion, the research made some recommendations, which include that future researchers should expand the number of banks by including other financial institutions. Additionally, more research should be conducted to ascertain why external pressure is not very effective in motivating banks’ environmental disclosure as found in this study. Hence, the suggested question for further research is “what motivates bank’s environmental disclosure” and “do banks internalize or externalize their environmental costs”.

Energy is a useful component that has a positive impact to Africa’s socio-economic development. Its effect on households can therefore not be overlooked. Past studies revealed that, the role of the Solar Water Heater is to utilize the energy generated by the sun to heat water. The heating of the water is achieved via the collector. The tubes are filled with water which is heated during the day light hours and this hot water is stored in the main tank. The hot water rises in the tube and is replaced by the cooler water, which is at the lower level of the main tank. This cycle is repeated continuously throughout the day thus heating the water in the main tank. As hot water is drawn from the system, cold water is subsequently supplied. This paper is based on the review of the related literature to show the effects of solar water heating and the usage of innovative technology in residential homes. In particular, the description of SWH product, demand side management potential of solar water heaters, and the innovation diffusion reasons. Then, the conceptual framework as it relates to the innovation diffusion theory will be presented. Lastly, the development of the research problem is outlined. Using a theoretical framework, the paper is able to present the advantages and disadvantages of SWH in Gauteng, South Africa.

This article examines how marine pollution can be effectively contained and curtailed using existing regulatory instruments. The harmful effect of marine pollution on marine ecosystems and species is a problem that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It is against the backdrop of this concern that national and international legal frameworks have been put in place to regulate, reduce or stop marine pollution. Despite this, the problem of marine pollution is still rampant and impacting negatively on marine socio-economic goods and services. It is pertinent to point out that marine pollution only receives attention when it has catastrophic impacts. This article scrutinizes frameworks that have been put in place to curb marine pollution by assessing their functions. It submits that measures should be taken to ensure compliance of these regulations and that prevention of marine pollution should be prioritized in order to guard against the manifestation of destructive adverse effects of harmful substances.

This study examined the effects of the likely change in rainfall on food crop prices in Rwanda, a landlocked country where agriculture is mainly rain-fed. The empirical investigation is based on nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag cointegration framework, which incorporates an error correction mechanism and allows estimation of asymmetric long-run and short-run dynamic coefficients. The results suggest that food crop prices are vulnerable to rainfall shocks and that the effect is asymmetric in both the short and long run. Moreover, there was evidence of seasonal differences, with prices falling during harvest season and rising thereafter. Considering the ongoing threat of global climate change, and in order to cope with rainfall shortage and uncertainty, increase food affordability and ultimately ensure food security throughout the year, there is a need to develop and distribute food crop varieties and crop technologies that reduce the vulnerability of farming to rainfall shocks.

Based on the theoretical method of generalizing the views of scientists on the essence of the “synergy” concept, the authors of the article have examined the content and essence of the concept “synergetic effect” in the article. The concept of “collaborative social responsibility” was defined during the formation of collaborative alliances in the “state-local communities-extracting enterprise” system. The authors have determined the formation of a synergetic effect in the natural resource management in the conditions of collaborative alliances and it was suggested to assess the synergetic effect from the collaborative alliance interaction in the natural resource management through the analysis of “benefits and costs”.

Electricity is an essential basic need that the South African government needs to pay special attention. A continuous or uninterrupted supply of electricity is essential for industrial production and economic growth and development. Since South Africa is overly reliant on coal fired electricity generating technologies which are environmentally damaging, the move towards green energy technologies to form part of the electricity generating matrix is highly desirable not only to reduce environmental pollution, but also to increase the supply of electricity to meet rising demand. However, the adoption and implementation of green energy projects has not been that easy and progress has been far from satisfactory. This study was therefore consummated to assess the effectiveness of installed green technology in the area of Pinetown in Kwazulu-Natal. The study also investigated the technological challenges affecting the implementation of green energy projects in SME sector in Pinetown Kwazulu-Natal. Furthermore, the study also examined as to what extent technological challenges are affecting the use of installed green technology in the selected area of Pinetown in Kwazulu-Natal. This was followed by exploring strategies that could be implemented to improve effectiveness of installed green technology in Pinetown. A quantitative research approach was adopted. Data collection for this study was performed by distributing and collecting a structured survey questionnaire to respondents. Data analysis for this research was performed using SPSS.