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Genuine Savings (GS), also known as ‘net adjusted savings’, is a composite indicator of the sustainability of economic development. Genuine Savings reflects year-on-year changes in the total wealth or capital of a country, including net investment in produced capita, investment in human capital, depletion of natural resources, and damage caused by pollution. A negative Genuine Savings rate suggests that the stock of national wealth is declining and that future utility must be less than current utility, indicating that economic development is non-sustainable (Hamilton and Clemens, 1999). We make use of data over a 150 year period to examine the relationship between Genuine Savings and a number of indicators of well-being over time, and compare the relative changes in human, produced, and components of natural capital over the period. Overall, we find that the magnitude of genuine savings is positively related to changes in future consumption, with some evidence of a cointegrating relationship. However, the relationships between genuine savings and infant mortality or average heights are less clear.

This timely book critically examines the role played by international, regional and national legal frameworks in holding corporations operating in the natural resource sector accountable for human rights violations in the Global South, probing the effectiveness of the mechanisms available to aggrieved communities in pursuit of effective remedies and socio-ecological justice. The book brings together influential scholars from across the world addressing topical and relevant themes concerning the integration of business & human rights standards for better governance of natural resources and the transition towards net zero societies, especially in the context of extractive and multinational companies operating in the Global South. It also considers the application and implementation of transnational and domestic legal remedies for holding corporations accountable with references to case studies in natural resources governance in selected countries and regions, in particular Africa, Asia and Latin America. The book reviews proposals for an enforceable legal framework on the liability of corporations for human rights abuses and environmental damage, taking account of the existing initiatives such as the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, UN’s Draft Business & Human Rights Treaty and the European Commission’s 2022 proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence. The book is essential reading for academics and students working or researching in the fields of business law, human rights and natural resources law; as well as corporate and human rights lawyers and practitioners litigating in the energy and natural resources sectors.

Moral panic, our predisposition to exaggerate threats against our livelihood and start blaming ourselves, is as old as human history. We always feared “others”, people with skin colors or ethnicity other than ours, people coming from other corners of the globe, and the infectious diseases the strangers might bring along. This paper deals with a new version of such moral panics which is arguably even more intense than the previous ones, but which relates to a new dimension of human experience, namely globalization. The health, economic and environmental challenges we are now faced with are posed globally. The moral panic today stems from this triple challenge. Our central thesis is that these three emergencies are interrelated, but there is no simple causal relationship between them. They can only be addressed in a global manner, while we still live in a world which is segmented into sovereign nation-states.

Attempts by governments and NGOs to provide modern solutions to the management of local water resources, and to alleviate the hazards of flooding, often create unforeseen problems adversely affecting future water resources and leading to increased vulnerability to crises. The book outlines the need to develop an integrative approach. The Hydro-hazardscape concept draws upon the landscape school within cultural geography to make a case for awarding centrality to hazards in social life, that parallels the esthetic view in the landscape tradition. The approach furthermore, makes a case for apprehending power differentials inherent in social life by being attentive to the dissonance and conflict between the analytical view of hazardous environments by the powerful and technocrats and lived experience of those environments by the vulnerable populations. It is argued that by adopting the approach that is attentive to the multiple values of water in the communities affected, can one hope for any measure of success. Examples from South Asia, Central America, the Caucasus and the USA, illustrate how the approach will help achieve long-term sustainability in a future filled with climate change.

Wind turbines are a proven source of clean energy with wind power energy harvesting technologies supplying about 3% of global electricity consumption. However there is an increasing demand on maintenance and operational improvements since turbines have been plagued with downtime problems of major components e.g. gearboxes and generators, especially with offshore turbines which are difficult to access. Reliability Centric Maintenance (RCM) is a way of capturing the potential causes of downtime and poor performance by preventing failures and having a proactive approach to operations and maintenance (O&M). However, for a large fleet of turbines, adopting the RCM approach becomes difficult due to the complexities that arise as a result of the interactions between individual elements that make up the system in the product lifecycle. This paper discusses how a systems thinking approach can be used to identify the relevant aspects and possible interactions between the RCM approach and wind turbine gearboxes and also how the gaps that exist within the system can be closed so as to add value to business. The outcome of the paper is a proposal for applying a systems approach to wind turbine gearbox operation and maintenance, optimising the asset value adding contribution at minimal total cost to the operator.

This article will address a number of issues of law and policy. First, each option requires to be analysed in terms of the wider debate on relative sustainability in waste management, in order to determine which is most effective and attainable. Secondly, the solid waste route presents a number of particular problems. The term 'domestic sanitary solids' is not a term of art and its meaning must be compared to relevant statutory definitions. Consequential issues arise in relation to the lawfulness of current methods of disposal, particularly whether special provision is required under rules for the management of clinical waste. Finally, an assessment is made of the effects of new EU legislation, in particular the Landfill Directive, and conclusions are drawn as to the Best Practicable Environmental Options for policymakers and other stakeholders in waste and wastewater management. It should be noted that whilst most waste management legislation is uniform throughout Great Britain, legislation relating to the supply of sewerage services is not. Unless otherwise stated, the applicable law is that of Scotland. However, the analysis will be applicable wherever the WC is used as a disposal route for domestic waste.

There is a need to better understand the dynamic interactions between people, organisation, and physical infrastructure when working to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) emissions and utility bills in organisations. This paper presents a Systems Dynamics approach to the problem that combines both the social and the technical factors affecting a building’s carbon emissions over time in a single model. Through assigning variables to represent both the soft aspects of the building system – organisational culture, roles and responsibilities, energy management attitudes, etc.; and the physical infrastructure – rated power of plug load equipment, building services equipment, building fabric, etc. – a SD model can indicate which factors are most important. We anticipate there will be several long-term benefits from the use of this model, namely: 1) helping to bring clarity to a very messy problem, 2) providing a picture of how carbon and energy issues change over time, 3) getting people within an organisation to incorporate carbon management into their everyday work life. GHG emissions are often overlooked in organisations but we believe that proactive, ongoing carbon management should be as important as meeting legal or health and safety requirements and that it is essential for an organisation’s long-term resilience.

To state that climate change and environment issues are important to International Relations is an understatement. Mitigation and adaptation debates, strategies and mechanisms are all developed at the international level. Yet, the complexities of climate change make it a difficult phenomenon for international governance. In the wake of the 2015 Paris conference, this edited collection details current tendencies of study, explores the most important routes of assessing environmental issues as an issue of international governance, and provides perspectives on the route forward.