Since the 2010s, all levels of governments in Canada have gradually initiated social procurement as a policy tool to further their social values and political agendas. Social enterprises of various ...shapes and sizes across the country have served as partners in the execution of those agendas. Selling Social examines the experiences of these enterprises in social procurement and social purchasing. Selling Social presents the findings of a three-year Canadian research project detailing experiences of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) selling their goods and services to organizational purchasers, including governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations. Drawing on survey findings and interviews, the book explores a diverse group of social enterprises from across Canada, showcasing their successes and their challenges based on real-life examples to aid social enterprises that are considering this path. The book emphasizes the importance of including social and environmental considerations in procurement and purchasing decisions, particularly at larger scales and through public policy. In doing so, Selling Social extends the understanding of social enterprises beyond their social and economic outcomes and into the broader movement towards responsible procurement and purchasing.
The objective of this study is to investigate the potentials of power generation and hydrogen production via solar and wind energy resources at different locations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...namely; Dhahran, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abha and Yanbu. These locations represent the climatic conditions variety in the Kingdom with different solar radiation and wind speed potentials. At each location, different renewable off-grid power generation systems are considered to cover a load demand of a typical house incorporating; photovoltaic (PV) array, wind turbines, converter, batteries, electrolyzer, fuel cell (FC) and hydrogen tank. Six systems are considered in hourly base simulations; PV/battery bank, wind/battery bank, PV/wind/battery bank, PV/FC, wind/FC and PV/wind/FC. The simulations have been extended to cover two global locations, namely; Toronto (Canada) and Sydney (Australia). The simulations and the optimizations studies are carried out to identify the cost effective configurations. The results show that integration of 2kW PV array, 3 wind turbines, 2kW converter and 7 batteries storage bank is the best configuration that leads to the minimum levelized cost of energy (COE) of 0.609$/kWh at Yanbu area. Replacing the battery bank by a combination of electrolyzer, fuel cell and hydrogen tank, storage system is possible; however, the cost increases due to the investment cost of the system components. Integrating PV/wind/FC in Abha area gives the minimum levelized cost of energy (COE) of 1.208$/kWh and the cost of the hydrogen production (COH) is 43.1$/kg.
•Local CO2 emission factors of China’s coal chemical products are published.•The total CO2 emission from China's coal chemical industry was 607 Mt in 2015.•The spatial disparity of CO2 emission from ...China's coal chemical industry is great.•CO2 emission from modern coal chemical industry is predicted to be 417 Mt in 2020.•Carbon capture, utilization, and storage has great potential to reduce its emission.
As the largest producer of coal chemical products in the world, China faces tremendous pressure to reduce its carbon emission. An accurate quantification of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission of coal chemical industry in China is therefore necessary. However, due to the variety of coal chemical products and limitations of CO2 emission factors, the total CO2 emission of coal chemical industry has yet to be determined. In this study, local CO2 emission factors of coal chemical products in China are published based on first hand data from twenty-three coal chemical enterprises and the total CO2 emission of China's coal chemical industry is extrapolated. The provincial-level spatial distribution of the CO2 emission of coal chemical industry is presented to assist the government in identifying key emission reduction areas. Additionally, scenario analysis of CO2 emission for China’s modern coal chemical industry in 2020 is conducted to determine whether the development of the modern coal chemical industry will have a significant impact on future CO2 emission, as well as the effect of carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies on the reduction in carbon emission. The estimate shows that the total CO2 emission of the coal chemical industry in 2015 was 607 million tonnes (Mt), accounting for approximately 5.71% of China’s total CO2 emission. The figure is higher than the total annual CO2 emission of a country such as Canada (555 Mt) or Brazil (486 Mt). Quantifying the emission of the coal chemical industry is therefore critical to understand the global carbon budget. The spatial distribution shows that Shandong, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi release one-third of the coal chemical industry’s total CO2 emission. Considering the development of the modern coal chemical industry, its CO2 emission is predicted to be as high as 416.52 million tonnes in 2020. However, the CO2 emission could be reduced by 317.98 million tonnes when carbon capture, utilization and storage are applied to process and energy systems simultaneously. This paper quantifies the CO2 emission of the coal chemical industry in China for the first time, identifies key chemical products and the provinces in which they are produced, explores the carbon reduction potential by scenario analysis, and provides specific data to support the assessment of effective CO2 reduction policy.
To assess the North American high-latitude vegetation response to the rising temperature, we derived NDVI trend for 91.2% of the non-water, non-snow land area of Canada and Alaska using the ...peak-summer Landsat surface reflectance data of 1984–2012. Our analysis indicated that 29.4% and 2.9% of the land area of Canada and Alaska showed statistically significant positive (greening) and negative (browning) trends respectively, at significance level p<0.01, after burned forest areas were masked out. The area with greening trend dominated over that with browning trend for all land cover types. The greening occurred primarily in the tundra of western Alaska, along the north coast of Canada and in northeastern Canada; the most intensive and extensive greening occurred in Quebec and Labrador. The browning occurred mostly in the boreal forests of eastern Alaska. The Landsat-based greenness trend is broadly similar to the 8-km GIMMS AVHRR-based trend for all vegetation zones. However, for tundra, the Landsat data indicated much less extensive greening in Alaska North Slope and much more extensive greening in Quebec and Labrador, and substantially less extensive browning trend in the boreal forests that were free of fire disturbances. These differences call for further validation of the Landsat reflectance and the AVHRR NDVI datasets. Correlation study with local environmental factors, such as topography, glacial history and soil condition, will be needed to understand the heterogeneous greenness change at the Landsat scale.
•Discrepancy between Landsat 5 & 7 NDVI was corrected.•Wall-to-wall mapping of Landsat NDVI trend (1984–2012) across northern North America•Landsat data well capture the fire disturbances in boreal forests.•Landsat reveals more extensive greening in northeastern Canada compared to AVHRR.•But much less extensive greening in northern Alaska compared to AVHRR
An increasing number of studies since 2010 have examined bike sharing from diverse perspectives to provide the best travel practices of “the last mile”. However, few studies have attempted to ...comprehensively review existing literature over the past decade. The present study aims to map bike sharing research published between 2010 and 2018. A total of 208 relevant articles were collected to conduct scientometric analysis. The results revealed that the most significant contributions in bike sharing research primarily originated from the US, China, Canada, England and Australia. Critical institutions, publications and articles were also identified. The knowledge domains of bike sharing research focus mainly on topic categories of factors & barrier, system optimization, behavior & impact, safety & health, and sharing economy. Evolutionary trends in bike sharing research tend to move from the safety and benefits of bike usage to more complex external impacts, system optimization, design and integration with public transit. Furthermore, increasing interests and outputs in the new generation of dockless bike sharing programs were observed from the research community for the past two years. The present study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on bike sharing by presenting a new, integrated and holistic knowledge map. This study offers valuable guidance and in-depth understanding to researchers, operators and policy makers who wish to promote bike sharing sustainability, as well as for follow-up studies, updates and management.
•A scientometric review of 208 bike-sharing-related articles is conducted.•Key countries/regions and institutions, journals and articles are identified.•Keyword co-occurrence, timezone view and cluster analysis are used to help understand the overall research status.•As a result, a comprehensive knowledge map on bike sharing research is constructed.
Water contamination by ammonium (NH4+) can present considerable risks to natural ecosystems. This work evaluates the potential application of biochar, produced from the pyrolysis of digested sludge, ...to remove ammonium from water. Anaerobic digester sludge was collected from a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Alberta, Canada, and individual biochars were produced at 50 °C temperature increments between 350 °C and 550 °C. The chemical characteristics of the resulting biochars were determined using elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET surface area analysis, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Our findings demonstrate that the biochar yield decreased with increasing pyrolysis temperature, and biochar produced at 450 °C (BC450) had the highest ammonium removal capacity due to its higher surface area and functional group density. The Langmuir isotherm best described the observed ammonium removal capacity by the biochars, indicating that monolayer chemical adsorption may be the dominating mechanism. Biochar ammonium removal capacity was 1.2 mg NH4N per gram of biochar in municipal wastewater, which is lower than that observed in parallel experiments using a synthetic ammonium solution (1.4 mg NH4+-N/g biochar). This phenomenon is likely due to competition between ammonia and other containments for sorption to biochar surface sites. Our results demonstrate for the first time ever that biochar produced from digester sludge is a promising adsorbent for ammonium removal from municipal wastewater.
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•Documentation of geochemical, petrographic and petrophysical characteristics of Montney and Bakken.•First-time application of profile permeability test to large Montney and Bakken ...intervals.•Matrix/fracture permeability measurements under “in-situ” effective stress.•Comparison of different non-steady-state gas permeability techniques.
The results from an ongoing laboratory study investigating petrophysical characteristics of the Montney and Bakken formations in Canada are presented. The primary objectives are to (1) characterize the pore network (porosity, pore size distribution) and fluid transport (permeability) properties of these formations in areas with limited datasets and (2) analyze the effects of different geological factors on porosity, pore size distribution and permeability. The techniques used for characterization include: Rock–Eval pyrolysis; bitumen reflectance (BRo); grain size measurement; helium pycnometry; low-pressure gas (N2) adsorption (surface area, pore size distribution); pressure-decay profile permeability, pulse-decay and crushed-rock gas (N2, He) permeability and fracture permeability tests.
Rock–Eval analysis and microscopic observations indicate that most samples are organic-lean (average TOC content: 0.3wt.%), ranging from fine-grained siltstone to very fine-grained sandstone (grain size range: 27–53.7μm). The measured permeability values on core plugs increase with increasing porosity (2.1–14.1%), ranging between 3.3⋅10−6 and 7.3⋅10−2mD. For the core plugs analyzed (“as-received”), profile (probe) permeability values (9.2⋅10−4–7.3·10−2mD) are consistently higher than pulse-decay (1.6⋅10−5–3.9⋅10−2mD) and crushed-rock (3.3⋅10−6–4.6⋅10−5mD) permeability values. Corrected profile (probe) permeability values for “in-situ” effective stress (5.3⋅10−5–2.5⋅10−2mD) are, however, comparable with the pulse-decay (1.6⋅10−5–3.9⋅10−2mD) permeability values. Unpropped fracture permeability, determined using an innovative procedure in this work, can be significantly (up to eight orders of magnitude) higher than matrix permeability under similar effective stress conditions. The grain size data are correlated to permeability values. The dominant pore throat diameter controlling fluid flow is estimated for all samples using Winland-style correlations; these values agree with those obtained from low-pressure N2 adsorption analysis.
Applying multiple analysis techniques on a large number of samples (26m of slabbed core, 22 core plugs and their accompanying cuttings), this study provides a comprehensive petrophysical characterization of Montney and Bakken tight oil and liquid-rich gas reservoirs in Canada.
Current anthropogenic climate change is the result of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere, which records the aggregation of billions of individual decisions. Here we consider a broad range ...of individual lifestyle choices and calculate their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, based on 148 scenarios from 39 sources. We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year). These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less). Though adolescents poised to establish lifelong patterns are an important target group for promoting high-impact actions, we find that ten high school science textbooks from Canada largely fail to mention these actions (they account for 4% of their recommended actions), instead focusing on incremental changes with much smaller potential emissions reductions. Government resources on climate change from the EU, USA, Canada, and Australia also focus recommendations on lower-impact actions. We conclude that there are opportunities to improve existing educational and communication structures to promote the most effective emission-reduction strategies and close this mitigation gap.
Newcomers contribute to organizational innovation by bringing in new knowledge and ideas, on the one hand, and by collaborating and exchanging with incumbents, on the other. We propose that an ...organization's ability to use these contributions is influenced by hiring rate, hiring rate change, and hiring rate dispersion, which affect both the flow of new ideas into the organization and the level of collaboration between newcomers and incumbents. Using four years of data from a large, multi-industry sample, we find that hiring rate and hiring rate dispersion increase organizational innovation. We also find that increases in hiring rates from year to year are positively related to innovation for organizations with more collaborative work practices, while the relationship between hiring rate dispersion and innovation is less positive when organizations have more collaborative work practices. This study highlights how temporal patterns of hiring influence human capital acquisition and development.
The influence of human resource management on innovation has attracted considerable research attention over the last decade. However, existing studies have primarily focused on the macro-level human ...resource management architecture, limiting our understanding about the cross-level origin of innovation. Developing an emergence-based human resource management framework, we propose that an employee-experienced high-involvement work system (HIWS) promotes innovation by eliciting collective interactions for knowledge exchange and aggregation. Further, we investigate the emergence-enabling process that facilitates an employee-experienced HIWS to give rise to organization-level innovation. Specifically, we probe three distinct emergence enablers that amplify the positive influence of HIWS on innovation by shaping the concertedness, direction, and adaptability of collective interactions: (1) the homogeneity of HIWS experiences as the internal mechanism, (2) the strategic importance of innovation as the external mechanism, and (3) the churn in human resources as the temporal mechanism. We tested our theoretical model using data from a nationally representative sample of workplaces in Canada (n = 2,639). Our results suggest that an employee-experienced HIWS was positively related to innovation. In addition, this positive effect was amplified by all three emergence enablers (i.e., the homogeneity of HIWS experiences, the strategic importance of innovation, and the churn in human resources).
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