Environmental policies and initiatives have had a significant impact on businesses and employment practices across Europe. The Environment, Employment and Sustainable Development is a wide-ranging ...collection featuring contributions by academics and practitioners from countries including the UK, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Ireland. Subjects covered include:
the effects of EU environmental directives, programmes and legislation and global conventions and agreements
assessment of environmental training, education and qualifications across Europe
national and international case studies
the commercial logic for businesses in 'going green'
examination of the growth in the public and private sector of career opportunities for those with environmental expertise.
During the past five to ten years, increased public and government attention has been drawn to the harmful effects on the environment of business and industry. Consequently, legislation and ...encouragement in the form of incentives have acted to pressurize industry to review its practices and processes in connection with their effects on the environment. As a result, environmental technology as a specialist area of knowledge and skill has emerged. National capacities, particularly in scientific education and training, need to be strengthened. This will enable governments, employers and workers to attain their environmental and development objectives by facilitating the transfer and assimilation of new environmentally sound, socially acceptable and appropriate technology and know-how. With this development there is an increasing need for specialists in this field, for technologists in other areas to be able to put into practice environmental applications, for assessors of the environmental impacts of specific technological developments and for general managers with a knowledge and understanding of environmental management. Thus, there is now an increasing need for environmental education and training in clean production to be applied to a vast array of industrial processes and applications.
This paper will:
1.
• review environmental technology and environmental management in relation to sustainable development;
2.
• describe the basic components of environmental management systems in relation to environmental technology;
3.
• examine the tools available for monitoring and assessment (e.g. technology assessments, environmental impact analysis, environmental auditing, etc.) and their training requirements;
4.
• access the training requirements of chief executives, management and the workforce.
Environmental management and cleaner production are rapidly becoming critical economic, trading, and business competitiveness issues. Many developed countries have already gone through a process of ...implementing legislation for the protection and enhancement of the environment. The role of business and industry in maintaining environmental quality is now increasingly coming under scrutiny with a view to making them more environmentally friendly. Ecolabelling is a part of this process, which will have an impact on global trade in general and exporting small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries in particular.
The European Union (EU) has currently nearly 400 environmental directives operative. These have to be implemented by all member states of the Union via provisions incorporated in the Laws of every Member State. This growing economic bloc is set to expand and the environmental standards for products traded within it will be of increasing importance to countries which import into it.
Irrespective of legislative requirements, EU businesses are now beginning to take account of environmental concerns with regard to their suppliers. Many companies already specify environmental requirements for their suppliers of primary products and manufactured goods.
If businesses outside the EU are to expand and compete in the international market-place then they must understand and take into account environmental factors in their markets. This requires a significant increase in the awareness of environmental considerations in as much as they affect trade and production. Environmental education and training is needed to communicate environmental standards and the associated changes in practice and processes to business and industry.
This paper will review the provisions laid down under the EU Ecolabelling Scheme, the UK implementation of the provisions, and will review the effects ecolabelling is having and is likely to have on global trade. The paper will conclude by reviewing the tools needed to facilitate environmentally friendly production and ecolabelling, including environmental education and training, and life-cycle analysis.
Recent growth in awareness of environmental matters has caused a surge in the number of people seeking employment in the environmental field. In Europe, planners have come to understand that a ...healthy environment is required to maintain a healthy economy. An overview of the most recent trends in environmental employment in the UK and continental Europe is presented. Changes in the activities and responsibilities of environmental consultants are discussed. A survey conducted in 1992 found that approximately 500,000 people in the UK were employed in the environment industry. The relationship between environmental employment and sustainable development is examined. The role played by professional institutes in the environmental sector is analyzed.
The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro emphasized the need for both the developing and developed world to work toward sustainable development. This paper reviews environmental education, sustainable ...development, and environmental strategies for aid donors to integrate into their programs. (Author/MDH)
Much has been written of the agreements and the failures of the basic principles governing the 1992 UN Conf on Environ & Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Not much has been outlined as to ...the degree of progress made in terms of those programs, institutions, and governments creating educational opportunities for developing countries, specifically the technology required to deal with the many problems that were addressed by the conference. By contrast, the Global Forum, which included mostly nongovernmental organizations, spent about 50% of their time discussing education and technology transfers and information exchange. A general review of those aspects of education relating to the environment are presented.
Little is known about the day-to-day experience of people with mental illness. The research that has been conducted has characterized the lives of people with severe and persistent mental illness ...(SPMI) as largely solitary and little meaningful activity. In addition, mood states of boredom and anxiety have been implicated in the functioning of clients with mental illness in community treatment settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the daily life of people with SPMI and identify if challenge/skill qualities of activity were related to mood states of boredom and anxiety. Subjects (n = 8) were drawn from a community mental health center in a Midwestern city. Data were collected using an experience sampling method and examined at the experience level of analysis (n = 326). Logistic regression was used to examine if activity characteristics predicted boredom or anxiety. Findings indicated that the majority of subjects' time was spent in activities in which skill exceeded challenge (75.1%). Activity characteristics were found to be significant predictors of the reporting of anxiety, but were not significant predictors of boredom. Findings are discussed in terms of future research and practice.
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