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Sustainable Development: Get informed!

On this site INEX is offering some of its academic resources on Sustainable development for you to get informed. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions or need assistance.

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Defining Sustainability
Admonitions to decision makers to "act sustainably" founder on conceptual ambiguities that transcend disciplinary boundaries and affect the definition and assessment of sustainability. In this article we address these underlying theoretical difficulties, paying special attention to two clusters of issues: reversibility and substitutability, and how to assess environmental values. In highlighting these two broad problem areas, we also note that cross-disciplinary disagreements cannot be resolved without making considerable progress in other areas of ecological and economic theory. We suggest that a "two-tiered" system might prove a useful beginning point for finding a more unified and interdisciplinary approach to decision making (Norton & Toman, 1997).

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Norton, B. G., & Toman, M. A. 1997. Sustainability: Ecological and Economic Perspectives. Land Economics, 73(4): 553-568.
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Socially responsible projects: good for the world, good for the companies launching them
Companies are discovering projects can not only help the bottom line, but when done right, they just might make the world a better place. Today, companies are expected to take more responsibility for themselves, for their conduct in society, and for the social and environmental impact they make, says Christopher Pinney, director of executive education at the Center for Corporate Citizenship, Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects must offer viable answers to real issues. At Byrraju Foundation's Centre for Rural Transformation, there's a fundamental understanding that poverty, illiteracy and poor health drag down Indian society-and impair the ability of corporations to find the labor pool required to compete in the emerging digital economy. Starting in 2001, the foundation's trustees and leaders have identified major problems in rural villages and looked for innovative ways to help them achieve a sustainable economy and self-sufficiency. Almost everyone would agree working to save the rainforests is a noble and worthy cause, for example. But it also makes good business sense for Chiquita Brands International, a Cincinnati, Ohio, USA-based food grower and distributor operating in 70 countries. Those rainforests, after all, surround the areas where the company produces many of its products. So the company launched the Nature and Community Project in Nogal, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica. The project's goal is to introduce long-term biodiversity, conservation methods and environmental education as well as promote additional local income opportunities in areas where rainforests and natural habitats are threatened in the Sarapiqui region, says Jennifer Dinsmore, project manager (Greengard, 2007).

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Greengard, S. 2007. good citizenship. PM Network, 21(6): 28.
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Costa Rica is going green
During the first year of his term, Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres signed executive orders and legislative proposals to convert the platitudes of sustainable development into a guiding vision for his country. His initiatives include establishing a new carbon tax devoted to restoring tropical forests on now-idle cow pastures and imposing a new electricity tax to promote energy conservation. Figueres also committed himself to more than double the size of Costa Rica's national parks and wildlife preserves. In 1992, conferees at the Earth Summit developed Agenda 21, a sweeping action plan for green economic growth grounded in social justice. Costa Rica is the first country to bet its entire economy on the concept. To succeed in his quest to sustainably develop Costa Rica's resources, Figueres believes it is vital to capitalize on the country's biodiversity. Aside from the goal of producing 98% of its electricity from renewable sources by the year 2000, Costa Rica has not set many numerical targets for its sustainable development program.(Tenenbaum, 1995)

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Tenenbaum, D. 1995. The greening of Costa Rica. Technology Review, 98(7): 42.
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Voluntary Certification for Sustainable Tourism in Costa Rica
The public policy literature has paid little attention to evaluating the ability of voluntary environmental programs to generate economic benefits for firms. Yet, given their voluntary nature, provision of economic benefits to firms is a necessary condition for these programs to become effective environmental policy instruments. Additionally, little is known about why firms operating in developing countries would participate in these initiatives. This paper provides some of the first cross-sectional empirical evidence about voluntary environmental programs established in developing countries. Specifically, the paper focuses on studying hotel participation in the Costa Rican Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST program). The CST program is probably the first performance-based voluntary environmental program created by a developing country government. Results indicate that hotels with certified superior environmental performance show a positive relationship with differentiation advantages that yield price premiums. Participation in the CST program alone is not significantly related to higher prices and higher sales. The evidence also indicates that participation in the CST program was significantly related to government monitoring, trade association membership and hotels, focus on green consumers (Rivera, 2002).

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Rivera, J. 2002. Assessing a voluntary environmental initiative in the developing world: The Costa Rican Certification for Sustainable Tourism. Policy Sciences, 35(4): 333.
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Costa Rica reducing deforestation
An increasing number of tropical timber-producing nations have enacted bans on export of logs arguing that this will reduce deforestation, expand downstream wood processing and improve the scale efficiency of domestic processing, create jobs and retain more value-added nationally. The theoretical literature is clear that trade restrictions are generally welfare reducing (except in special cases such as when there is a potential for an optimal export tax). At best, a log export ban is a second-best policy tool for reducing deforestation and addressing the associated environmental externalities. In overall terms, the suggestion that log export bans can achieve the objectives expected of them is dubious. However, very little quantitative evidence exists to demonstrate this claim and the paper attempts to address this gap by looking at the economic and environmental impacts of eliminating a log export ban in Costa Rica. The authors argue that eliminating the export ban is Pareto improving and could generate economic gains as high as $14 million per annum with the possibility of relatively modest environmental benefits (Kishor, Mani & Constantino, 2004).

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Kishor, N., Mani, M., & Constantino, L. 2004. Economic and Environmental Benefits of Eliminating Log Export Bans - The Case of Costa Rica. The World Economy, 27(4): 609-624.
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Watershed Protection Program in Costa Rica
Healthy watersheds provide valuable services to society, including the supply and purification of fresh water. Because these natural ecosystem services lie outside the traditional domain of commercial markets, they are undervalued and underprotected. With population and development pressures leading to the rapid modification of watershed lands, valuable hydrological services are being lost, which poses risks to the quality and cost of drinking water and the reliability of water supplies. Increasing the scale and scope of programmes to protect hydrological services requires policies that harmonize land uses in watersheds with the provision of these important natural services. This article summarizes key attributes of hydrological services and their economic benefits; presents a spectrum of institutional mechanisms for safeguarding those services; discusses programmes in Quito (Ecuador), Costa Rica and New York City; and offers some lessons learned and recommendations for achieving higher levels of watershed protection (Postel & Thompson, 2005).

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Postel, S. L., & Thompson, B. H. 2005. Watershed protection: Capturing the benefits of nature's water supply services. Natural Resources Forum, 29(2): 98-108.
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Sustainable Coffee Consortium in Costa Rica
Small and medium-sized organisations in the Costa Rican coffee sector are faced with a growing demand from overseas clients to deliver high-quality and safely produced goods and services on time, in the correct quantities and at competitive standards. Moreover, this sector is starting to encounter a wide range of international standards, which are increasingly required for access to international and regional markets. This paper focuses on experiences in the Sustainable Coffee (SUSCOF) Project in Costa Rica, which aimed to create sustainable production systems within the coffee chain while being flexible enough to adjust to changing requirements. The Costa Rican coffee co-operatives involved have implemented environmental management systems in their coffee mills, based on the ISO 14001 norm, a notable achievement in itself. However, the key term of the ISO 14001 norms is 'continuous improvement', which implies that those who sell sustainable coffee will have to improve over and above legislative requirements (Myrtille & Teun, 2003).

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Myrtille, D., & Teun, W. 2003. Sustainable Coffee in the Mainstream: The Case of the SUSCOF Consortium in Costa Rica. Greener Management International(43): 37.
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Cost and Benefits of Soil Conservation
Most countries in Central America and the Caribbean depend heavily on agriculture; efforts to sustain and improve the sector's productivity are therefore crucial to the region's economic development and to the welfare of its people. Land degradation is thought to pose a severe threat to the sustainability of agricultural production. yet despite long-standing concern about this threat and dramatic claims of environmental damage, surprisingly little empirical analysis has been done on the causes and severity of land degradation problems in the region and on how best to tackle them. Meanwhile, many of the conservation programs designed to address the problems have fallen short of expectations. Often farmers have not adopted the recommended conservation practices or have abandoned them once the project ended. The research presented in this article attempts to bridge the empirical gap, using cost-benefit analysis to investigate the nature and severity of the soil degradation problem and to assess the cost-effectiveness of proposed solutions. Because soil degradation problems tend to be site-specific, the analysis is rooted in case studies, and because conservation programs stand or fall on the participation of farmers, the study's main focus is on the profitability of the measures and the deterrents to their adoption from the farmers' point of view (Lutz, Pagiola & Reiche, 1994).

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Lutz, E., Pagiola, S., & Reiche, C. 1994. The Costs and Benefits of Soil Conservation: The Farmers' Viewpoint. The World Bank Research Observer, 9(2): 273-295.
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Strategy for Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is a salient topic in Costa Rica. Bozzoli discusses the Costa Rican strategy for sustainable development and the role of anthropology in Costa Rica's sustainable development efforts (Bozzoli, 2000)

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Bozzoli, M. E. 2000. A role for anthropology in sustainable development in Costa Rica. Human Organization, 59(3): 275.
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Xerox
Xerox's environmental strategic goal is to become a waste-free company. This ideal permeates the life cycle of Xerox products: waste-free products from waste-free factories for waste-free offices. Xerox has witnessed numerous benefits from implementing this strategy; by using design-for-the-environment principles, it has redesigned products and packaging to support product recovery and to reduce resource and energy consumption. Implementation of an end-of-life equipment takeback and reprocessing program led to savings of over $80 million in Europe in 1997, in addition to turning a potential disposal cost in to a revenue stream. Through its environmental leadership program, Xerox has evolved a win-win-win scenario: improvements in environmental performance (win), customer satisfaction (win), and improved company performance (win) (Maslennikova & Foley, 2000).

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Maslennikova, I., & Foley, D. 2000. Xerox's approach to sustainability. Interfaces, 30(3): 226.
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Scandic Hotels
The case of Scandic Hotels shows, first, that sustainable strategies and practices can be just as useful in service operations as in manufacturing operations; and second, that such strategies and practices can support a corporate turnaround effort. Scandic Hotels, Nordic Europe's biggest hotel chain, was on the verge of collapse in the early 1990s. A new CEO, Roland Nilsson, turned the company around by introducing two business principles, decentralized management and sustainable development. The company's new value system, embodied in the concept of sustainability, linked customers and employees, who were calling for more environmental responsibility. Through employee-training programs, environmental-information systems, and innovative collaborations with suppliers, Scandic was revived within a few years as a profitable corporation well on the road to sustainability (Goodman, 2000).

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Goodman, A. 2000. Implementing sustainability in service operations at Scandic Hotels. Interfaces, 30(3): 202.
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