scholarly journals Green credit, environmental protection investment and debt financing for heavily polluting enterprises

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0261311
Author(s):  
Li Ji ◽  
Pan Jia ◽  
Jingshi Yan
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Debt Financing ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Credit Policy ◽  
Heavy Pollution

The paper takes listed companies in the heavily polluting industry from 2009–2017 as a research sample to explore whether heavy pollution enterprises’ environmental protection investment helps their debt financing under the institutional background of China’s continuous implementation of green credit policy. It is found that, in general, the environmental protection investment of heavy pollution enterprises helps them to obtain more and relatively long-term new loans; in terms of time, this effect is more evident after the release of China’s Green Credit Guidelines in 2012; in addition, the level of regional environmental pollution, the level of financial development and the green fiscal policy also have a moderating effect on this. This paper enriches the study of the economic consequences of corporate environmental protection investment from the perspective of debt financing. It examines the effects of the implementation of China’s green credit policy and other institutional factors to provide a reference for the heavy pollution enterprises’ environmental protection investment and the implementation of green credit policy by local governments in China.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Policy Effect of China’s Environmental Interview System for Effective Air Quality Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (17) ◽  
pp. 9006
Author(s):  
Xue Jin ◽  
Ussif Rashid Sumaila ◽  
Kedong Yin ◽  
Zhichao Qi
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Interview System

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China formally proposed an environmental interview system in May 2014, which applies pressure on local governments to fulfill their responsibility toward environmental protection by conducting face-to-face public interviews with their officials. In this paper, 48 cities that were publicly interviewed from 2014–2020 were considered the experimental group and 48 cities surrounding them were the control group. First, the dynamic panel model is applied to initially determine the effect of the policy. Then, a regression discontinuity method (Sharp RD) is used to analyze the short-term and long-term effects and compare the reasons for the differences observed among the estimates of various types of samples. Finally, a series of robustness tests were also conducted. The results show that the environmental interview system can improve air quality. However, because an emergency short-term local governance system exists at present, the governance effect is not long-term and, therefore, not sustainable. Therefore, it suggests that the government should continue to improve the environmental interview system, establish an optimal environmental protection incentive mechanism, and encourage local governments to implement environmental protection policies effectively in the long term. The results of the research are of great significance to the environmental impact assessment system of the world, especially in countries with similar economic systems, which are facing a trade-off between economic growth and environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals Citizen Science Across a Spectrum: Building Partnerships to Broaden the Impact of Citizen Science

2018 ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Shannon Dosemagen ◽  
Alison Parker
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Source Identification ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Enforcement Action ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Community Science ◽  
The Impact

Environmental protection as a movement is broadening to both invite and require the participation and energy of everyone, including federal agencies, local governments, activists, and enthusiasts. Citizen science and community science, approaches rooted in non-traditional partnerships and diverse participation, are a strong approach to science, and they are especially strong approaches to a wide range of outcomes with direct impacts on the protection of the environment, from civic engagement all the way to enforcement action. There is evidence that institutions and agencies are moving towards more inclusive visions of their missions, and citizen and community scientists are motivated to engage. We propose a spectrum of engagement that defines opportunities for citizen science and community science beyond the participation of volunteers in institution-driven or scientist-driven research; we also provide examples of projects and efforts that have led to outcomes for each of the spectrum categories. We argue that the impact of citizen science and community science can be strengthened through the recognition of a wide range of partnership structures, including long-term community documentation, community pattern identification, community problem source identification, and advocacy to community. Citizen science and community science represent a more inclusive version of science, and provide a model for embracing truly collaborative environmental protection, as well.  

scholarly journals Impact of rating and praise campaigns on local government environmental governance efficiency: Evidence from the campaign of establishment of national sanitary cities in China

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0253703
Author(s):  
Genli Tang ◽  
Minghai Lin ◽  
Yilan Xu ◽  
Jinlin Li ◽  
Litai Chen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
The Impact

Background Ecological and environmental protection is essential to achieving sustainable and high-quality development, which highlights the important role of environmental governance. In terms of the practical actions of environmental governance, the central government in China has carried out continuous rating and praise campaigns, and local governments have actively promoted this effort. However, the related performance consequences have not been empirically investigated. We aimed to verify whether this incentive policy can improve the efficiency of environmental governance and whether this governance method has long-term effects. In addition, we sought to identify mechanisms through which the policy can improve environmental governance. Method We take the rating and praise campaign of the Establishment of National Sanitary Cities (EONSCs) as a quasi-natural experiment and use the panel data for 174 cities from 2004 to 2016 and the propensity score matching-difference in differences (PSM-DID) method to test the impact of rating and praise campaigns on environmental governance efficiency. Results EONSCs campaign can improve the efficiency of environmental governance by 0.7595 (p<0.01), which is significant at the 1% level; the effects are clearly significant during the evaluation process and the year in which cities are named National Sanitary Cities (NSCs) but decrease annually thereafter. The EONSCs campaign has a significant promoting effect on public services provision, such as public infrastructure investment, public transportation and education. Conclusions (1) The rating and praise campaigns can effectively improve the efficiency of environmental governance; (2) the incentive effect is distorted and is not a long-term effect; (3) the impact of the rating and praise campaign of EONSCs on the efficiency of environmental governance is mainly realized through the provision of corresponding public services that are closely related to environmental protection. The findings of this paper provide empirical support for the effectiveness of the central government’s rating and praise campaigns and could motivate local governments to actively participate in environmental governance. Moreover, the findings provide an important reference for further improving the rating and praise campaigns and the level of environmental governance.

scholarly journals INSTITUTIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN BRAZIL: THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS' PERSPECTIVE

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Estela Maria Souza Costa Neves
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Brazilian State ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
Federal Organization

ABSTRACT This paper explores some of the institutional factors that guide the environmental action of municipalities in Brazil. The starting premise is that there are particular institutional factors that empower the Brazilian state and society, guide processes and provide a unique profile to local environmental policy. Regulations for environmental protection are analysed from a historical perspective, taking into account the federal organization of the Brazilian state and its particular distribution of powers. Five factors emerge as the driving forces behind the actions taken by municipalities in relation to the environment: the federal status of municipalities, the inclusion of the environmental protection provision in the Federal Constitution, the lack of consistent funding for environmental policy, the coexistence of several regimes within environmental rules, and the discretionary power, held by environmental bureaucracy, related to the indeterminacy of environmental regulation.

scholarly journals Queensland Family Cohort: a study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. e044463
Author(s):  
Danielle Borg ◽  
Kym Rae ◽  
Corrine Fiveash ◽  
Johanna Schagen ◽  
Janelle James-McAlpine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Biological Samples ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Future Health ◽  
The Impact

IntroductionThe perinatal–postnatal family environment is associated with childhood outcomes including impacts on physical and mental health and educational attainment. Family longitudinal cohort studies collect in-depth data that can capture the influence of an era on family lifestyle, mental health, chronic disease, education and financial stability to enable identification of gaps in society and provide the evidence for changes in government in policy and practice.Methods and analysisThe Queensland Family Cohort (QFC) is a prospective, observational, longitudinal study that will recruit 12 500 pregnant families across the state of Queensland (QLD), Australia and intends to follow-up families and children for three decades. To identify the immediate and future health requirements of the QLD population; pregnant participants and their partners will be enrolled by 24 weeks of gestation and followed up at 24, 28 and 36 weeks of gestation, during delivery, on-ward, 6 weeks postpartum and then every 12 months where questionnaires, biological samples and physical measures will be collected from parents and children. To examine the impact of environmental exposures on families, data related to environmental pollution, household pollution and employment exposures will be linked to pregnancy and health outcomes. Where feasible, data linkage of state and federal government databases will be used to follow the participants long term. Biological samples will be stored long term for future discoveries of biomarkers of health and disease.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been obtained from the Mater Research Ethics (HREC/16/MHS/113). Findings will be reported to (1) QFC participating families; (2) funding bodies, institutes and hospitals supporting the QFC; (3) federal, state and local governments to inform policy; (4) presented at local, national and international conferences and (5) disseminated by peer-review publications.

scholarly journals Corporate Environmental Performance in China: The Moderating Effects of the Media versus the Approach of Local Governments

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Zhiru Guo ◽  
Chao Lu
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Random Effect ◽  
Random Effect Model ◽  
Corporate Environmental Performance ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

This article selects the listed companies in China’s A-share heavy pollution industry from 2014 to 2018 as samples, uses a random effect model to empirically test the relationship between media attention and corporate environmental performance and examines the impacts of local government environmental protection and property nature on that relationship. Results are as follow: (1) Media attention can significantly affect a company’s environmental performance. The higher the media attention, the greater the company’s supervision and the better its environmental performance. (2) In areas where the government pays less attention to environmental protection, the impact of media on corporate environmental performance is more obvious, but in other areas, the impact of media on environmental performance cannot be reflected; (3) The media attention is very significant for the environmental performance improvement of state-owned enterprises, and it is not obvious in non-state-owned enterprises. (4) A further breakdown of the study found that the role of media attention in corporate environmental performance is only significant in the sample of local governments that have low environmental protection and are state-owned enterprises. This research incorporates the local government’s emphasis on environmental protection into the research field of vision, expands the research scope of media and corporate environmental performance, and also provides new clues and evidence for promoting the active fulfillment of environmental protection responsibilities by companies and local governments.

Phytoplankton Adaptation to Environmental Stresses from Toxicants, Nutrients, and Pollutants — a Warning

1976 ◽  
Vol 33 (9) ◽  
pp. 2089-2096 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Stockner ◽  
Naval J. Antia
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Pollutant Concentration ◽  
Subsequent Growth ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Test Chemical ◽  
Successful Adaptation ◽  
Shock Response ◽  
Chronic Pollution

Examples are cited from the literature of phytoplankton-related pollution and nutrition studies where the possibility of successful adaptation and subsequent growth could have been overlooked because of insufficient duration of algal exposure to the pollutant or nutrient tested. We present evidence from our investigations where: a) initial algal exposures as long as 20–40 days to the pollutant or alternative nutrient may be required for successful adaptation, and b) phytoplankters initially tolerating only a low level of pollutant concentration could be trained to accept severalfold higher levels by repeated exposure to gradually increasing pollutant concentration A plea is made for future investigators to recognize the importance of long-term bioassays ascertaining algal potential for adaptation, in order that their results may be ecologically realistic for the purpose of environmental protection against chronic pollution and eutrophication. The short-term "shock" response should be clearly distinguished from the long-term habituation response of phytoplankters to the test chemical in these bioassays. Possible problems raising questionable objections to the long-term bioassay approach are discussed.

scholarly journals Municipal Urban Waste Management—Challenges for Polish Cities in an Era of Circular Resource Management

Resources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Agata Mesjasz-Lech
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
City Management ◽  
Environmental Orientation ◽  
Material Cycles ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Urban Waste Management

Municipal authorities increasingly view environmental protection as one of the goals of city management. The pro-environmental orientation of cities can, therefore, foster the creation of new management methods and instruments and promote reorganization of determining material flows in a municipal system. Activities of this kind should result not only in the reduction of generated waste but also in the creation of closed material cycles. Considering the tasks of Polish local governments, municipalities should pay the most attention to municipal waste. Accordingly, the goal of this study was to identify the problem of mixed municipal waste in cities and assess the influence of investments into fixed assets for environmental protection in the scope of waste management on the quantity of mixed municipal waste in cities. This article also identifies activities for circular resource management that need to be realized by Polish municipalities. The analysis was performed using the panel model, dynamic indexes, and critical analysis of city documents. The conducted research revealed positive trends in cities with respect to the amount of waste collected non-selectively that is conducive to circular resource management. The fact that municipal waste quantity is on the increase should encourage urban authorities to promote pro-environmental waste management behaviors among city dwellers.

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