Developing a Sustainable Eco-City in Pre-Olympic Tokyo

This chapter intends to elucidate the emergence of sustainable urban development in Tokyo in light of the upcoming 2020 Olympics by exploring various administrative and commercial practices, such as urban development plan with rooftop and wall greening or river projects in the inner city. The research methods involved a review of the empirical literature, an analysis of existing statistical data, and a detailed examination of case-specific data collected in a field survey. This chapter concludes that since Tokyo Metropolitan Government encourages urban greening projects as a solution of urban heat island from 2000s, utilization of “green spaces” in the landscape design of commercial and office facilities is gaining attention. This chapter concludes that various practices for sustainable urban development in Tokyo, which faces a restructuring process in light of the 2020 Summer Olympics, exist and that some of these could be further developed by the private sector.

Environmental Reporting and Accounting

This chapter examines the context in which ‘accounting-sustainability hybrids' were constructed in anticipation of the Environmental Reporting Act (ERA) passed in 2015 in New Zealand. Using governmentality perspectives, the researchers consider how the key individuals in local government discursively articulate the ‘sustainability programmatic' – sustainability policies that deploy the Act as a regulative intervention, the mediating instruments (reporting medium), and the hybridisation of accounting and sustainability (accounting-sustainability hybrids). The chapter draws on archival materials and qualitative survey of 90 key individuals from all 78 local authorities. The analysis showed that local mediating instruments were aligned with ERA and sustainability programmatics, resulting in modification of the existing hybrids and the creation of new ones. The chapter demonstrates how legislation facilitates action from a distance.

Reverse Logistics and Solid Waste

This chapter promotes a selection of works collected that seek to analyze the need and the evolution of reverse logistics into the context of the National Policy on Solid Waste in Brazil. Nineteen years of intensive discussion have been held until the legal framework for the implementation of Agenda 21 of 1992 on the environmentally sound management of solid waste could be announced. The principle of shared responsibility for the product lifecycle, which reaches manufacturers, importers, distributors and traders, consumers, and holders of public solid waste management services, is the central theme of the law and undoubtedly innovates on the issue, placing Brazil alongside countries such as those of the European Union and Japan. However, a serious problem that distances them is to achieve large population densities with the benefit of municipalization of the process of control of urban waste. The rate of effective management of solid wastes is relatively low at the municipal level compared to the countries mentioned.

Modeling the Role of Government, Firm, and Civil Society for Environmental Sustainability

The objective of this article is to design a game theory-based model to outline the role of the government, firm and civil society for environmental sustainability. The study used the dynamic game theory of complete information. Based upon the equilibrium analysis, the study highlights that when the punishment for non-compliance with environmental responsibility is smaller, the role of civil society would be higher for environmental sustainability. On the other hand, when the environmental responsibility cost is higher, then the role of a government is also higher for the implementation of environmental responsibility and to ensure the punishment. However, the authors found from model analysis that if the cost is low, the probability of firm to fulfill environmental responsibility is higher. In real life, the high cost of environmental responsibility is the main reason that the firm does not fulfill environmental responsibility. Under the high cost, the firm often has the phenomenon of bribery to the government and other means to avoid environmental responsibility. This article is a valuable policy guide for policy makers to cope with global environmental challenges.

Analysis of the Nexus Between Smart Grid, Sustainable Energy Consumption, and the Smart City

Since the 1990s, the field of smart grid has attempted to remedy some of the core development deficiencies associated with power supply in the smart city. While it seemingly succeeds in provision of electricity, it fails to fully resolve the difficulties associated with sustainable energy consumption. This suggests that the future of smart grid analytics in the smart city largely depends on efficiency in energy consumption which integrates sustainability in the overall energy use. This chapter analyzes the nexus between smart grid, sustainable energy consumption, and the smart city.

The Role of Urban Green Spaces in the Transformation of Community Ecosystem in Developing Countries

This chapter aims to analyze the review the existing literature on some important features of urban green spaces such as the components, functions, services, community involvement, initiatives, and actions from an ecosystem perspective. The analysis begins from the assumption that urban green spaces are ecosystems of vital importance in enhancing the quality of life in an urban environment and supplying ecosystem services such as biodiversity and climate regulation. Meeting the needs of users is related with the functions and services that urban green spaces provide to communities. The methods employed in this analysis are the empirical literature and documents review, analysis of existing data on uses and users, interviews with authorities, and more detailed examination of a case specific data. Also, as some concluding remarks, some wider environmental, economic, and social initiatives for local authorities and communities are suggested that can justify initiatives by all represented and involved stakeholders. Finally, the study advances some opportunities, challenges, and further research.

Conceptual Foundations of Creating Sustainable Development Strategy of Smart Cities

This chapter is devoted to the study of the role of ecological subsystem in the structure of the sustainable development program of smart city. The author suggests the logic of building the environmental strategy of the city as a long-term landmark of its sustainable development including the environmental mission, vision of the future, goals and priorities, programs and their implementation, target indicators for assessing results, and consequences of realization programs. Certain attention is paid to the city as an object of research with a focus on environmental problems. The characteristics of the factors affecting the development of the ecological situation in the city are shown. A system of criteria and indicators that can be used to assess the impact of the planned environmental activities is proposed.

Assessing Urban Ecosystem Services

By integrating social, ecological, and economic perspectives, the assessment of ecosystem services (ES) provides valuable information for better targeting landscape planning and governance. This chapter summarizes different participatory approaches for assessing ES in urban areas of three countries. In Belo Horizonte (Brazil), a conceptual framework for the vacant lots ES assessment is presented as an attempt to integrate landscape, social, and political dimensions. In Leipzig (Germany), a combination of site surveys, interviews, and remote sensing provides a valuable data set that fostered a comparative study between two forms of urban gardening. In Lisbon (Portugal), the study is based on interviews that offer a social insight into the horticultural parks situation, which in turn demands a better dialogue with the municipality. In general, the studies demonstrate the potential benefits of utilizing the ES assessment approaches on urban landscapes, especially for better understanding the interactions between people and nature in urban sites.

The Development of the Environmental Impact Assessment Process in Botswana

The desire to protect the natural environment and the resources it hosts is at the core of every country's ambition to achieve long-term sustainable development. Yet, the history of development shows that environmental protection always came about as an after the fact activity. Nations around the world, including the industrial countries, most of the time reacted to adverse impacts of the environment rather than acting proactively to prevent undesirable outcomes of development. The 1970s decade is seen as a watermark in the development of legislation aimed at protecting the environment particularly in the developed world. This development and requirement to have projects subjected to environmental impact assessments spread to developing countries like Botswana in the 1980s. Botswana embraced the ideal to protect the environment to achieve sustainable development. Toward this end, the government of Botswana carried out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on major projects voluntarily, even before the passing of the maiden EIA Act of 2005 and its supplement of 2011 and accompanying guidelines in 2012. After this and particularly in the 1990s, Botswana rigorously pursued its position on the international terrain where the country signed and ratified some international conventions and protocols. This chapter concludes by suggesting that the next area of focus for Botswana is on monitoring the outcomes of projects for which EIAs have been conducted.

Sustainability Evaluation of Green Urban Logistics Systems

This paper aims to propose a systemic vision of literature on sustainable urban logistics assessment and evaluation. Although non-extensive, this overview pretends lack of unification in the subject of assessing and evaluating the impacts of green urban logistics systems, and, through the proposal of a general assessment and evaluation framework, the steps done and being in course towards standards on this field. First, an overview of the research in urban logistics is provided, after what the main visions of sustainable development and their derived issues for urban logistics assessment and evaluation are presented. Then, a framework to assess and evaluate green urban logistics systems via scenario comparison is proposed. This framework aims to propose a methodological framework to use and combine existing methods to assess scenarios, and not a “black-box” model of software ready to use. This is done to make synergies between existing methods, and to show that, although they remain at an initial stage, steps on the way of defining standards are made. After that, the main applicability and application issues of the proposed methodological framework are addressed, showing those principles of standard from the literature. Finally, and to conclude, future developments on urban logistics research are proposed.