Accountability in transnational governance: The partial organization of voluntary sustainability standards in long‐term account‐giving

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Arnold
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-383
Author(s):  
Sylvaine Lemeilleur ◽  
Julie Subervie ◽  
Anderson Edilson Presoto ◽  
Roberta Souza Piao ◽  
Maria Sylvia M. Saes

PurposeThis paper investigates the incentives to coffee farmers to participate in certification schemes that require improved agricultural practices.Design/methodology/approachThe authors ran a choice experiment among 250 Brazilian coffee farmers in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.FindingsThe authors’ findings show that both cash and non-cash payments are likely to incentive farmers' participation in a certification scheme. Besides price premium, incentives as long-term contracts and provision of technical would encourage producers to adopt eco-certification schemes. Our results also suggest that non-cash payments may be appropriate substitutes to a price premium to some extent.Research limitations/implicationsThe large coffee producers are over-represented in our sample compared to the population of Brazilian coffee farms. However, it seems reasonable to focus on these producers, as they are usually the ones who individually adopt strategies, since small farmers are induced by collective strategies (e.g. cooperatives).Social implicationsThe result regarding technical assistance makes sense given that Brazilian farmers generally have poor access to rural extension services.Originality/valueWe contributed in the literature about adoption of sustainable agriculture practices analyzing the requirements and motivations for farmer participation in certification schemes. We also contribute private and public strategies to encourage the adoption of sustainable practices.


Author(s):  
Tim Bartley

Transnational private regulation has brought reforms to forests and factories but rarely of an empowering or transformative kind. This chapter draws out normative implications of the research in this book and highlights paths toward improvement. While not dispensing with supply-chain scrutiny altogether, the chapter calls for revising the rating of corporate responsibility, re-centering the state, and shifting toward “place-conscious” transnational governance. Some elements of this approach can already be seen in a new transnational timber legality regime, which has the potential to overcome the limits of private sustainability standards. The chapter explains the rise of this regime and considers the possibilities for extending the legality framework to labor.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greetje Schouten ◽  
Otto Hospes

Since the 1990s, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and businesses have gained prominence as architects of new forms of transnational governance creating Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS). The legitimacy and effectiveness of VSS are dependent on interactions with public authorities and regulation. While studies suggest that the (perceived) gain or loss of sovereignty by a state shapes public–private interactions, we have little understanding on how states use or interpret sovereignty in their interactions with VSS. In this paper, we explore what interpretations of sovereignty are used by states at different ends of global value chains in interactions with VSS. Based on a comparative and longitudinal study of interactions of Indonesian and Dutch state actors with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, we conclude that states strategically use different and changing notions of sovereignty to control the policy and debate regarding sustainable palm oil. When interactions between public and private governance are coordinative in nature, notions of interdependent sovereignty are used. However, when interactions are competitive, domestic and Westphalian notions of sovereignty are used. Our results show conflicting interpretations and usages of sovereignty by different states, which might negatively impact the regulatory capacity within an issue field to address sustainability issues.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2721
Author(s):  
Andrea Bassi ◽  
Monica Moscatelli

Society is evolving faster and faster and there are many changes in our everyday living environment, especially concerning buildings. Buildings have significant effects on the ecosystem, economy, health, and productivity of the people occupying them; moreover, their environmental impact is not limited to the energy consumption for heating, cooling, moving, and lighting, but it affects many other factors, including above all the relationship with the territory. Considering these premises, this research focused on suggesting sustainable guidelines in Italy by trying to identify what has changed in the methods of residential construction, especially in order to meet new environmental and people’s requests. The research purpose is to focus on the concept of property value, trying to identify some guidelines that increase the value of housing according to the mutated market requests observed by a representative sample of real estate agents. As a result, a new property concept aimed at high quality and sustainability standards, co-housing, and dynamic scenarios pushed up by the increasing demand from new generations, such as single, high-educated young workers and university students, lead us to explore the solution of short-term rents in the Italian territory. This solution appears in a real estate market heavily affected by the economic crisis, and is a good alternative for owners or landlords, which is able to guarantee a positive return on investment and to assure a major capability to keep value in the long term.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. A. Ioannidis

AbstractNeurobiology-based interventions for mental diseases and searches for useful biomarkers of treatment response have largely failed. Clinical trials should assess interventions related to environmental and social stressors, with long-term follow-up; social rather than biological endpoints; personalized outcomes; and suitable cluster, adaptive, and n-of-1 designs. Labor, education, financial, and other social/political decisions should be evaluated for their impacts on mental disease.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Potter

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.


1999 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 189-192
Author(s):  
J. Tichá ◽  
M. Tichý ◽  
Z. Moravec

AbstractA long-term photographic search programme for minor planets was begun at the Kleť Observatory at the end of seventies using a 0.63-m Maksutov telescope, but with insufficient respect for long-arc follow-up astrometry. More than two thousand provisional designations were given to new Kleť discoveries. Since 1993 targeted follow-up astrometry of Kleť candidates has been performed with a 0.57-m reflector equipped with a CCD camera, and reliable orbits for many previous Kleť discoveries have been determined. The photographic programme results in more than 350 numbered minor planets credited to Kleť, one of the world's most prolific discovery sites. Nearly 50 per cent of them were numbered as a consequence of CCD follow-up observations since 1994.This brief summary describes the results of this Kleť photographic minor planet survey between 1977 and 1996. The majority of the Kleť photographic discoveries are main belt asteroids, but two Amor type asteroids and one Trojan have been found.


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