Whanganui River and Te Urewera Treaty Settlements: Innovative developments for the practice of rangatiratanga in resource management

<p>This thesis concerns the recent innovative developments in the Whanganui River and Te Urewera Treaty settlements of 2014. The Whanganui River has become the first specific environmental resource to receive the rights and status of a legal person. Te Urewera has been removed from the 1980 National Parks Act to also become its own legal person. Both legal personalities will be co-managed by boards of equal Crown and iwi members. The Te Urewera Board will, however, be rearranged in 2018 to have a Tūhoe majority, another first for Treaty of Waitangi settlements. These new features are considered particularly innovative in this thesis because of the context of Crown indivisible sovereignty and its unequal share of power in negotiating settlements. This thesis considers the ability of these settlements to provide space for iwi to practice rangatiratanga in relation to the resource that is central to their history and identity. If rangatiratanga is considered in this context to be the ability of iwi to practice self-determination and autonomy, then these settlements go further than previously seen because the application of the legal personality and the way it is co-managed is based for the most part on the worldview of the iwi. However, this worldview will continue to be practiced within the wider context of the English political and legal system. Because the improvement of the health and wellbeing of the Whanganui River and Te Urewera will be based on tikanga and mātauranga, Whanganui iwi and Tūhoe have been provided with more space than the Crown has previously conceded to practice rangatiratanga over these resources.</p>

Whanganui River and Te Urewera Treaty Settlements: Innovative developments for the practice of rangatiratanga in resource management

<p>This thesis concerns the recent innovative developments in the Whanganui River and Te Urewera Treaty settlements of 2014. The Whanganui River has become the first specific environmental resource to receive the rights and status of a legal person. Te Urewera has been removed from the 1980 National Parks Act to also become its own legal person. Both legal personalities will be co-managed by boards of equal Crown and iwi members. The Te Urewera Board will, however, be rearranged in 2018 to have a Tūhoe majority, another first for Treaty of Waitangi settlements. These new features are considered particularly innovative in this thesis because of the context of Crown indivisible sovereignty and its unequal share of power in negotiating settlements. This thesis considers the ability of these settlements to provide space for iwi to practice rangatiratanga in relation to the resource that is central to their history and identity. If rangatiratanga is considered in this context to be the ability of iwi to practice self-determination and autonomy, then these settlements go further than previously seen because the application of the legal personality and the way it is co-managed is based for the most part on the worldview of the iwi. However, this worldview will continue to be practiced within the wider context of the English political and legal system. Because the improvement of the health and wellbeing of the Whanganui River and Te Urewera will be based on tikanga and mātauranga, Whanganui iwi and Tūhoe have been provided with more space than the Crown has previously conceded to practice rangatiratanga over these resources.</p>

Third-Party Punishment Mechanism and Corporate Cooperation in Environmental Investment: Experiments on Public Goods Game

In the context of corporate environmental investment (EI), this paper designs an experiment on public goods game without punishment and an experiment on that game with third-party punishment (TPP). Then, the influence of IEP and TPP mechanism on corporate EI behaviors was tested in details. The results show that different enterprises vary in IEP and took heterogenous behaviors in the two corporate EI experiments; the introduction of TPP pushed up the environmental resource investment of enterprises and increased the success rate of EI cooperation; IEP and TPP exerted a significantly positive influence on corporate EI behaviors; the introduction of TPP, coupled with the consideration of corporate IEP, can effectively elevate corporate EI and improve the eco-environment.

An investigation of corporate responsibility & sustainability goals in the Canadian commercial real estate and construction sector

This thesis investigates the potential integration of leading Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CR&S) goals across selected Commercial Real Estate (CRE) firms, key anchor tenants, and construction companies within the Canadian market as they relate to office building assets. Current literature provides limited observations and analysis on CR&S within the CRE sector, particularly for the Canadian market. In order to address this gap and advance the principles of CR&S across the Canadian CRE sector, the research provides a comprehensive qualitative content analysis of publically available CR&S reports, along with interviews conducted with subject matter experts in the sector. Reduction of energy, water and waste consumption, along with associated GHG emissions have been identified as leading elements driving environmental resource management, which in turn is identified as the founding base for integrating CR&S goals across the Canadian CRE market. In addition to uncovering leading CR&S goals, the study identified market differentiators and regulatory compliance as key CR&S motivators, along with leading tracking and implementation measures for CR&S goals, and their associated internal and external barriers to integrating CR&S goals. Ultimately, the study provides an academic contribution in identifying environmental resource management as a base for CR&S integration across the Canadian CRE sector.

An investigation of corporate responsibility & sustainability goals in the Canadian commercial real estate and construction sector

This thesis investigates the potential integration of leading Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CR&S) goals across selected Commercial Real Estate (CRE) firms, key anchor tenants, and construction companies within the Canadian market as they relate to office building assets. Current literature provides limited observations and analysis on CR&S within the CRE sector, particularly for the Canadian market. In order to address this gap and advance the principles of CR&S across the Canadian CRE sector, the research provides a comprehensive qualitative content analysis of publically available CR&S reports, along with interviews conducted with subject matter experts in the sector. Reduction of energy, water and waste consumption, along with associated GHG emissions have been identified as leading elements driving environmental resource management, which in turn is identified as the founding base for integrating CR&S goals across the Canadian CRE market. In addition to uncovering leading CR&S goals, the study identified market differentiators and regulatory compliance as key CR&S motivators, along with leading tracking and implementation measures for CR&S goals, and their associated internal and external barriers to integrating CR&S goals. Ultimately, the study provides an academic contribution in identifying environmental resource management as a base for CR&S integration across the Canadian CRE sector.