We describe and reflect on seven recurring critiques of the concept of ecosystem services and respective counter‐arguments. First, the concept is criticized for being anthropocentric, whereas others ...argue that it goes beyond instrumental values. Second, some argue that the concept promotes an exploitative human–nature relationship, whereas others state that it reconnects society to ecosystems, emphasizing humanity's dependence on nature. Third, concerns exist that the concept may conflict with biodiversity conservation objectives, whereas others emphasize complementarity. Fourth, the concept is questioned because of its supposed focus on economic valuation, whereas others argue that ecosystem services science includes many values. Fifth, the concept is criticized for promoting commodification of nature, whereas others point out that most ecosystem services are not connected to market‐based instruments. Sixth, vagueness of definitions and classifications are stated to be a weakness, whereas others argue that vagueness enhances transdisciplinary collaboration. Seventh, some criticize the normative nature of the concept, implying that all outcomes of ecosystem processes are desirable. The normative nature is indeed typical for the concept, but should not be problematic when acknowledged. By disentangling and contrasting different arguments we hope to contribute to a more structured debate between opponents and proponents of the ecosystem services concept.
Recent environmental disasters worldwide have made people consider the need for environmental protection. Therefore, the invisible pressure from these people made a paradigm shift on the economic ...structure as well as the business strategies. Even if these pressures from the environmental-friendly people are not forceful, it is nevertheless inevitable to put more strategic importance on the environment. The aim of this study was to identify determinants of acceptance of green products, including attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control of theory of planned behavior with social impression, environmental consciousness, and environmental ethics and beliefs to understand and predict the adoption of consumer intentions. An online survey with 406 responses has been analyzed by partial least square (PLS). This study found that the attitude, perceived behavioral control, environmental consciousness of consumers and the environmental ethics and beliefs of consumers have a significant positive association with their intention to use green products, while the subjective norms consumers and the social impression consumers are positively but not significantly correlated to their intentions towards using green products. Based on these results, several strategic suggestions for participators and academics as well as policy implications to promote the green production were offered.
•Extend theory of planned behavior to elucidate the acceptance of green products.•Attitude and perceived behavioral control influence green products acceptance.•Environmental ethics, beliefs and consciousness influence green products acceptance.•Our model has a strong prediction power for the acceptance of green products
This paper points out the relation between population growth and energy justice in a finite world. Reflecting on the meaning of limits, I propose to look at energy justice in a broader sense: ...restoring a safe and more equal operating space for humanity by stressing renewable energy concrete possibilities. Firstly, I show that during the last two centuries humanity has turned fossil fuels into human biomass. I suggest that, a new approach to energy has brought the global population to an exponential explosion. Indeed, the phenomenon called Great Acceleration is characterized by an extraordinary increase in both population and consumption. Then, I explain why a growing demographic trend can be an effective obstacle to solve the problem of energy distribution. In this direction, I explore the current lack of energy independence of most of the states outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Hereafter, I explain, in physical terms, why planet Earth is not an isolated system nor a closed system but a finite one. Thus, a never-ending growth in term of energy consumption is bio-physically impossible. Finally, I emphasize how a realistic perspective on energy ethics has to be weaved with an informed consideration of demographic ethics.
This study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the positive effect of corporate environmental ethics on competitive advantage in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry via the ...mediator: green innovation performance. This study divides green innovation into green product innovation and green process innovation. The empirical results show that corporate environmental ethics positively affects green product innovation and green process innovation. In addition, this study verifies that green product innovation mediates the positive relationship between corporate environmental ethics and competitive advantage, but green process innovation does not. Therefore, corporate environmental ethics can not only affect competitive advantage directly, but also influence it indirectly via green product innovation in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry. Taiwanese manufacturing companies can increase their corporate environmental ethics and green product innovation to enhance their competitive advantages.
As the biodiversity crisis deepens, Anna Wienhues sets out radical environmental thinking and action to respond to the threat of mass species extinction.
Climate change is genuinely global, dominantly intergenerational, and takes place in a setting where our prescriptive theories are weak. This “perfect moral storm” poses a profound challenge to ...humanity. This book explains the storm, how it makes sense of our current malaise, and why better ethics can help. This book argues that despite decades of awareness, we are currently accelerating hard into the climate problem in a way that defies standard explanations. It claims that this suggests that our current focus on the scientific and economic questions is too narrow, and that the tendency to see the political problem as a traditional tragedy of the commons facing nation states is too optimistic. Instead, the key issue is that the current generation, and especially the most affluent, are in a position to pass on most of the costs of their behavior (and especially the most serious harms) to the global poor, future generations and nonhuman nature. This tyranny of the contemporary is a deeper problem than the traditional tragedy of the commons. Moreover, the book argues that this diagnosis helps to explain both the past failures of international climate policy (e.g., the “shadow solutions” of Kyoto and Copenhagen), and the current push towards geoengineering. Part of the solution, it argues, is better public ethics. We must work harder on articulating both the ethical problem, and moral constraints on solutions. In addition, there is a role for “defensive” moral and political philosophy, aimed at preserving the quality of public discourse.
This paper argues that mechanisms such as information sharing and collaboration used in green supply chain integration (GSCI) to improve information processing capacity can reduce uncertain outcomes ...of green product and process innovation. Based on data from a survey of Chinese (Hong Kong) firms, the paper tests whether the three dimensions of GSCI (green internal, customer and supplier integration) improve environmental performance and cost reduction by facilitating green product and process innovation. The results show that green customer integration improves cost and environmental performance through green process innovation (not green product innovation). Both green product and process innovations are facilitated by green customer integration (not green supplier integration), while both green customer and supplier integration significantly depend on green internal integration. These suggest that the distinctive information processing capacity created by green internal and customer integration can facilitate the green process innovation required to improve environmental and cost efficiency, while green product innovation and green supplier integration cannot create such efficiencies.
In this study, we develop a better understanding of the mechanisms by which corporate environmental ethics influences performance through the adoption of substantive actions. The empirical results of ...a moderated mediating analysis show that firms with higher environmental ethics are more likely to implement green marketing programs, consisting of the green production, pricing, distribution, and promotion programs and then improve firm performance. It is also observed that closure mechanism negatively moderates the mediation effect of green marketing programs because it leads to low trust and unwillingness to internal cooperation. These findings indicate that the value of corporate environmental ethics could not be determined in a vacuum, both strategy and people do matter when pursuing environmentally driven performance.
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