María-Laura Franco-García

Analysis of indicators to evaluate the industrial parks contribution to sustainable development: Mexican case

Purpose - – The paper suggested a sustainability indicators framework for industrial parks in contexts where information is weakly reliable or insufficient. The authors tried to cover those gaps and construct an indicators framework by answering the following research questions: can a combination of “adopted international” certifications be locally implemented in the Mexican context to reflect the level of regional sustainability of clusters of companies? How sustainable individual performance can be extended to a cluster of companies through collaborative strategies? What is the level of agreement on key success factors for implementing voluntary certification scheme in Mexican Industrial Parks? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - – In order to provide a more realistic set of sustainability indicators for Mexican Industrial Parks, the authors first carried out an analysis of secondary information sources for matching sustainability indicators with available related data which is reported by companies along their certification processes. The main purpose of doing this was to construct the indicator framework, which was explored empirically in the second phase of this research. During such phase, the authors validated the indicators framework by means of surveys and interviews to gather the perceptions of Mexican business managers selected from United Nations indicators which were coupled to available certifications in Mexico. Findings - – It has been observed that the sustainability indicators framework can be adopted from international structures to the local/regional situation when companies have framed their performance under international certifications allowing to count with a minimum of indicators to be used for sustainability development tracking. Originality/value - – Sustainability indicators in industrial parks is not an addressed topic in Latin America. Mexico can be taken as an example for the other Latin American countries in sustainability trends and shows the current context of the use of this tool for measurement.

Interactions management in environmental policy

Purpose - – The paper aims to address regulator-management interactions in environmental policy with reference to direct regulations, social regulations and market-based regulation. Design/methodology/approach - – Revision of literature to identify the European Union regulations for companies producing polymers. Expert groups consultation to enrich the information and testing of the expert system (software). Findings - – Interactions between actors dealing with environmental policy from government and business sectors cause high and growing transaction costs; in The Netherlands during 1990-2007, they represented an increase from 17 to 21 percent of all environment protection costs. Rapid, 14 percent average annual growth followed the shift from the direct to social regulations in the 1990s. Instead of the shift, better interactions management could have saved nearly four billion euro a year in the EU. In support of this, a web-based expert system is developed in a consortium of small and medium size enterprises and expert centers from seven European countries. Originality/value - – The system, Environmentor, contains checklists with exemplary inputs, outputs, environmental standards and technologies for permits, process for implementation of environmental management systems, as well as an administrative model and auction for the EU emission trading.

Circularity of Wastes: Stakeholders Identity and Salience for Household Solid Waste Management in Cimahi City, West Java Province, Indonesia

This paper presents the operationalisation of stakeholders identity and salience theory (Mitchell RK, Agle BR, Wood, DT, Acad Manag Rev 22(4):853–886, 1997) with the purpose to classify the stakeholders involved in the household solid waste management in Cimahi City, West Java Province, Indonesia. This classification will benefit circularity of solid waste management strategies that involve diverse actors needing to collaborate. Several studies have been conducted to identify the stakeholders in solid waste management, but none has been carried out yet to classify their salience in the systematic approach described by Mitchell’s theory. Such classification aims to draw a line between the stakeholders who play a vital role in the household solid waste management process and those who have minor contributions towards the process. Hence, the research questions aligned to this aim are: (1) Who are the stakeholders of household solid waste management in Cimahi City? And (2) who are the most salient stakeholders of household solid waste management in Cimahi City? The research utilised a qualitative method approach. Data collection techniques contained in-depth interviews, non-participant observations and reading documentation. Triangulation was applied to validate the collected data. Even further, data was analysed by the Miles and Huberman model. The result of this research has identified stakeholders with important influence and impacts on the household solid waste management in Cimahi City. The identified stakeholders were classified into two categories: (1) formal sector (government, NGOs and private ones) and (2) informal sector (not officially registered waste collectors and recycling entities). The stakeholder salience for household solid waste management depends on their type of activities, which were reducing and handling. In the reducing activities, one of the “definitive” stakeholders affiliates to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Whilst for the handling activities, the “definitive” stakeholder comes from the municipality of Cimahi City. Understanding the identity and saliency of stakeholders will help develop household solid waste management strategies with circular economy principles.

A Circular Model of Residential Composting in Mexico City

The urban solid waste (USW) in Mexico City is managed at the municipal level. This situation means several challenges: the 3-year municipal administration period clearly affects the continuity of their USW management plans and programmes, adding to the space shortage problem to properly landfill them. Even further, the technologically insufficient operation of landfills represented 16% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. Organic waste represented between 45% and 55% of the total USW. Therefore, grassroots initiatives were the focus of this research because some of them proved to reduce USW at the household level, because activities to turn the organic waste into compost by community members are relevant. This fits into the purposes of the circular economy and zero waste landfill. Local composting has an important potential to improve USW management: the goal of this paper was to identify the conditions necessary for those projects to be successful. Hence, our research question is as follows: Which are the conditions needed to facilitate the community-based compost production? To answer it, international cases were analysed to learn from the existing best practices. Two countries were used as reference: the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. A proper literature review was carried out to build the analytical framework to assess one specific case study in Mexico City: the composting plant Club de Golf Bellavista (CGB). Surveys and interviews were carried out in order to compile empirical data and information for further analysis. Among the most relevant findings, “social participation” came across as a relevant factor in this type of grassroots initiatives, particularly at the source generation of the USW. This was consistently mentioned through surveys responded by CGB stakeholders. Neighbours also had the opportunity to suggest different mechanisms that could convince other neighbours to engage in the separation phase of USW.

Share, Optimise, Closed-Loop for Food Waste (SOL4FoodWaste): The Case of Walmart-Mexico

The food waste in landfill decomposes into contaminated run-off (leachate) and methane (CH4), which is considered a relevant greenhouse gas. This causes environmental liabilities, energy losses and problems in the food system. Currently, organic waste volumes are increasing dramatically converting this into a serious concern in both developed and developing countries. Zero waste to landfill (ZWTL) is one of the most promising concepts for solving organic waste problems. ZWTL when integrated into business processes can lead to innovative ways to identify, prevent and reduce waste. In that sense, the circular economy (CE) has also been considered regularly as an approach to the more appropriate waste management as it considers the business strategy part of the zero waste system. This circularity would increase productivity throughout the food value chain. In that manner, retail stores are proven to be a major market-driven force in the food system. Hence, one retail store located in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City, part of Walmart-Mexico (Walmex), was selected to showcase a suitable strategy to tackle the food waste issue. Thus, this research aimed to explore how the organic waste management can be improved by combining CE business model and a ZWTL strategy. The findings of the combined framework (SOL4FoodWaste) showed that most of the food considered as waste can be recovered through different stages. Even further, 40% of the food waste management costs can be saved through three business actions associated to those recovery stages. The proposed SOL4FoodWaste framework intends to collect all the sustainable concepts that might potentially be implemented or resembled in other industries with similar food waste challenges.

Feasibility Analysis of a Cap-and-Trade System in Mexico and Implications to Circular Economy

Market-based instruments, such as the cap-and-trade, have been widely used to address the increase of greenhouse gases (GHG). In line with other geographic regions, Mexico has seen the need to expand the options of market instruments to mitigate the effects of climate change. Simultaneously, there are important reasons to move towards a circular economy model. In this context, this research seeks to answer if it’s feasible to implement a cap-and-trade system in Mexico as part of its climate policy. That said, firstly, it analyses and assesses the cap-and-trade system in Mexico based upon its contextual environment, its potential of implementation and its economic and environmental benefits and costs. Secondly, it highlights the implications of considering circular economy models into a cap-and-trade instrument. Through the use of marginal abatement cost curves (MACC), it was found that the percentage of measures to reduce GHG with negative cost agglomerates 57% of all the measures, which could translate into a benefit for the economy as a whole by almost 1% of GDP by 2020. As part of the conclusions, we argued that MACC results prove partially that the cap-and-trade system is a feasible option to apply in Mexico. In addition, a cap-and-trade mechanism should show a strong carbon price signal felt by end users and therefore motivates the application of circular economy principles, which are related to the introduction of innovations to enable the closing of current materials and energy loops along the supply production chain.

Social and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (SELCA) Method for Sustainability Analysis: The Jeans Global Value Chain as a Showcase

In this chapter the concepts of social life cycle assessment and combined social and environmental LCA were explored through the application of existing LCA methods to the global value chain of jeans. The social and environmental life cycle assessment (SELCA) method resulted from this explorative research that aims to contribute to the battery of impact assessment tools of products whose value chain scope is multinational (global). From a broader perspective, SELCA has a double-folded purpose to (i) identify opportunities for environmental and social improvement at any of the value chain phases of products, for remediation goals, and (ii) predict the environmental and social performance of different ways (scenarios) to produce the same product, using it as a product design tool. To simplify SELCA development, it was decided to use a single product (jeans) as a showcase from the global textile sector. In this showcase, four scenarios for jeans assembly were compared; three of them were defined under the circular economy principles by including recycled materials (cotton, PET and nylon 6) during the yarn production. During the application of the SELCA method, some new challenges were encountered related to inventory analysis, in particular during data acquisition for social inventories. This is later mainly due to the extensive list of key stakeholders for the showcase and the qualitative nature of social metrics. This list starts with cotton cultivators from different countries where regulations and codes of conduct seem to have contextualised interpretations and consequently different levels of implementation. In this regard, governmental intervention to instrument the transition towards suitable social/environmental performance along the global jeans value chain was also discussed in this chapter.

Towards Zero Waste, Circular Economy Boost: Waste to Resources

This chapter provides an overview of circular economy (CE) and related concepts such as eco-design, biomimicry and eco-industrial development, exploring theoretical and empirical overlaps and complementarities. The circular economy concept is regarded in this chapter as the inspiration to guide public, civil societal and private sectors towards zero waste practices. Firstly, these concepts are independently reviewed from existing literature, categorising some of their nexus. Secondly, this chapter explores the distinction and tensions between the zero waste concept and the zero waste to landfill concept.

Incorporating Circular Sustainability Principles in DKI Jakarta: Lessons Learned from Dutch Business Schools Management

This study aims to set future direction of sustainability pathway(s) to incorporate circular economy within Indonesian high education systems and to “reinvent” the university role whilst shaping future leaders. For this purpose, this study intended to develop the definition of circular sustainability high education. Some of the Indonesian universities have already adopted the sustainability principles, putting the circularity concept at the heart of their education system. Nevertheless, by comparing them with some of the international experiences, in specific those of the Dutch universities, it was expected to identify relevant opportunities for the Indonesian universities to enhance their contribution on the circular sustainability fields. In consequence, the approach of this study was to analyse the managerial practices in order to integrate circular economy at Dutch universities (e.g. Business Schools), which represented the analytical framework for the Indonesian case. In terms of the research question driving this work, it corresponded to: “What are those transferable Dutch practises of circular economy towards sustainability transition to Indonesian Business Schools in DKI Jakarta?” From the methodological viewpoint, this study presented an exploratory and comparative design. As result of this research, it was observed that, among the cases analysed, there is a large difference in the management approach, particularly on how the university leaders demonstrate their contribution to sustainability. This latter requires, consequently, a strategic and systemic approach to measure the circular sustainability through performance indicators to assess progress which are spread out across four criteria. Some of the conclusions showed that there is currently no fixed panacea on how to integrate the concept of circular sustainability high education into the universities culture. Even further, the result of this study could proffer a guide towards a shift in circular sustainability and be used for detailed further application to depict the stand for Indonesian Business Schools.

Joint environmental policy making and sustainable practices for the cardboard production: case study: Smurfit Kappa

Purpose – This paper presents an analysis of the influence of “Joint Environmental Policy-making” (JEP) in the operation of the company Smurfit Kappa (SK) in The Netherlands, Austria and Denmark (NL&AD). The paper aims to answer the question: to what extend has different levels of jointness and voluntariness of cardboard packaging-chain agreements between federal, governmental and business actors led to different recycling performances within the same company? Design/methodology/approach – JEPs analysis was framed under the model described by Mol, Volkmar and Liefferink by using information from mixed-methods throughout a semi-structured questionnaire for interviews and revision of relevant secondary data. This is a case of cross-national comparison for which origin and implementation level of JEPs were described per country, in accordance with those stages of the cardboard production chain. Findings – Jointness and voluntariness amongst other actors from governmental areas and business ranked high for the Dutch packaging-chain agreements with a visible impact in SKs recycling rates. SK in Austria and in Denmark, in this order, had a lower implementation level of JEPs which could be reflected in a lower recycling performance than in the Dutch SK subsidiaries. The context matters, including both political and social conditions. In particular, the role of householders as a last link in the recycling chain. Based on this, the selected countries share some societal characteristics associated with the environmental public awareness and active social participation. Originality/value – This paper fulfills an analysis of how environmental policy making is affected by the country context within the same company.