Bunching with the Stars: How Firms Respond to Environmental Certification

Voluntary environmental certification programs have been a popular tool used by governments, industry groups, and nonprofit organizations alike. A central question in the design of such programs is who should pay for them. In a context where firms respond strategically to a certification, the answer to this question is a priori ambiguous and, ultimately, empirical. This paper provides important insights on this question using ENERGY STAR, a voluntary certification program for energy-efficient products, as a case study. I show that firms are highly strategic with respect to this certification and extract consumer surplus associated with certified products via three mechanisms. They offer products that bunch at the certification requirement, differentiate certified products in the energy and nonenergy dimensions, and charge a price premium on certified products. I use these findings to motivate a structural econometric model with firms’ strategic behaviors with respect to product line and pricing decisions and to investigate the incidence of a certification licensing fee to fund the certification program. This paper was accepted by Juanjuan Zhang, marketing.

Review of NZEB Criteria: Design of Life Containers in Operations Area

The Spanish Ministry of Defense is currently attempting to reduce the amount of energy that is consumed by its military bases and has therefore raised concerns about how to make their facilities more energy efficient. To fulfill this objective, the Spanish army has developed various studies and projects, as well as a technical prescription sheet that defines the thermal transmittance values of the materials that are to be used to construct the different elements of the containers that make up the temporary housing units at Spanish military camps. Both governments and private entities have developed initiatives that are aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings, which are classified into two groups: those aimed at the development of mandatory building codes and those that are based on voluntary certification programs. The use of passive strategies is one of the key actions that is being implemented to achieve the NZEB category, as its first requirement is to be a “very low energy consumption building”. This paper compares the energy efficiency requirements of the tents and containers that are used in military camps and the energy-efficient design requirements that are demanded by the energy efficiency standards for buildings in the civil sector. Through this comparison, we determine how energy efficient the current living spaces in military camps are in order to define strategies that can be implemented to improve the design requirements of these living spaces so to reduce the consumption and operation logistics and to improve both operability and safety in military camp facilities.

Improving Communications to Increase Nonindustrial Private Forest Landowner (NIPF) Participation in Forest Certification Programs: A Case Study in Arkansas, USA

Despite the socioeconomic and ecological significance of the 10.4 million acres of forestland owned by nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners across Arkansas (approximately 58% of forestland in the state), only 5% of this land is certified through the American Tree Farm System. As such, understanding how to improve the reach and content of communications to NIPF landowners is vital for expanding certification participation and subsequent improvement of forest management in Arkansas and throughout the southern United States. To explore current and optimal communications to increase NIPF participation, we employed Berlo’s source–message–channel–receiver (SMCR, 1960) model to analyze survey data collected from Arkansas NIPF landowners regarding their familiarity with, interest in, and information sources for forest certification programs. Our results indicate that NIPF landowners have a relatively low familiarity with certification programs and a low interest in adopting a certification program regardless of personal involvement throughout the certification process, the transparency of on-sight inspections to the public, and the requirements of forest management plans. However, positive correlations were found between self-reported familiarity with certification programs and the perceived usefulness of various information sources, indicating that communications to NIPF landowners have the ability to be influential. Furthermore, the results showed that the greatest perceived benefits to landowners were improved timber growth and health, better management actions, and environmentally-friendly timber harvesting, whereas the most concerning perceived drawbacks were increased record-keeping and paperwork as well as management costs. These findings will offer actionable insights into future messaging campaigns and provide directions for new approaches of reaching NIPF landowners to increase their participation in forest certification.

IoT Security-Quality-Metrics Method and Its Conformity with Emerging Guidelines

This study proposes a security-quality-metrics method tailored for the Internet of things (IoT) and evaluates conformity of the proposed approach with pertinent cybersecurity regulations and guidelines for IoT. Cybersecurity incidents involving IoT devices have recently come to light; consequently, IoT security correspondence has become a necessity. The ISO 25000 series is used for software; however, the concept of security as a quality factor has not been applied to IoT devices. Because software vulnerabilities were not the device vendors’ responsibility as product liability, most vendors did not consider the security capability of IoT devices as part of their quality control. Furthermore, an appropriate IoT security-quality metric for vendors does not exist; instead, vendors have to set their security standards, which lack consistency and are difficult to justify by themselves. To address this problem, the authors propose a universal method for specifying IoT security-quality metrics on a globally accepted scale, inspired by the goal/question/metric (GQM) method. The method enables vendors to verify their products to conform to the requirements of existing baselines and certification programs and to help vendors to tailor their quality requirements to meet the given security requirements. The IoT users would also be able to use these metrics to verify the security quality of IoT devices.

Evaluating the association of state regulation of community health workers on adoption of standard roles, skills, and qualities by employers in select states: a mixed methods study

Background The occupation of community health worker (CHW) has evolved to support community member navigation of complex health and social systems. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics formally recognized the occupation of community health worker (CHW) in 2009. Since then, various national and state efforts to professionalize the occupation have been undertaken. The Community Health Workers Core Consensus (C3) project released a set of CHW roles and competency recommendations meant to provide evidence-based standards for CHW roles across work settings. Some states have adopted the recommendations; however, there are a variety of approaches regarding the regulation of the occupation. As of 2020, 19 U.S. states have implemented voluntary statewide CHW certification programs. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between state regulation of CHWs and adoption of standard roles, skills, and qualities by employers in select states. Methods This mixed methods study used purposive sampling of job ads for CHWs posted by employers from 2017 to 2020 in select states. Natural language processing was used to extract content from job ads and preprocess the data for statistical analysis. ANOVA, chi-square analysis, and MANOVA was used to test hypotheses related to the relationship between state regulation of CHWs and differences in skills, roles, and qualities employers seek based on seniority of state regulatory processes and employer types. Results The mean job ads with nationally identified roles, skills, and qualities varies significantly by state policy type (F(2, 4801) = 26.21) and by employer type (F(4, 4799) = 69.08, p = 0.000). Conclusions Employment of CHWs is increasing to provide culturally competent care, address the social determinants of health, and improve access to health and social services for members of traditionally underserved communities. Employers in states with CHW certification programs were associated with greater adoption of occupational standards set by state and professional organizations. Wide adoption of such standards may improve recognition of the CHW workforce as a valuable resource in addressing the needs of high-need and marginalized groups.

Upaya Peningkatan Guru Profesional Dalam Menghadapi Pendidikan Di Era Globalisasi

Teachers should be respected because teachers have a concern for the success of learning in school. Education conducted in schools is related to the era of globalization. Teachers who work professionally still need the ability to organize all aspects of life in society. But there are various problems faced by teachers in Indonesia. Elementary school teachers who have undergraduate diplomas are still few in Indonesia. Teachers are distributed in Indonesia less evenly. The welfare of teachers working in Indonesia is still of concern. The type of research used is qualitative research. This research was conducted by searching various library materials. The government's effort to increase professional teachers is done by granting lecture permits through tertiary education. Efforts to increase professional teachers are also carried out by the government through activities such as seminars, training, and teacher certification programs. The government's effort to increase professional teachers is done by giving UKG (Teacher Competency Exams). Government efforts to increase professional teachers are carried out through institutionalized activities such as PKG (Teacher Activity Center) and KKG (Teacher Working Group). Government efforts to increase professional teachers are carried out through zoning systems activities.