Hasil untuk "Environmental law"

Yuyu Liu, Aiguo Wang, Yuqing Wu

Abstract This study investigates the impact of China’s new Environmental Protection Law on the green innovation behaviour of listed companies in high-polluting industries. The implementation of China’s strict and new Environmental Protection Law provides a quasi-natural experimental setting for examining the causal effect of environmental regulation on corporate green innovation. Based on data of the application for environmental patents of high-polluting firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2010 to 2017, this study analyses the change in the green innovation behaviour of firms after the implementation of China’s new and stringent Environmental Protection Law using the PSM-DID approach. We find that firms tend to file more applications for environmental patents, including patents for inventions and utility models after the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law. Further analysis shows that while this effect is stronger for state-owned enterprises, it is weaker for firms headquartered in cities where economies depend more on the secondary industry. Firms in concentrated industries have more incentive to file applications for green invention patents than those in competitive industries. The study has important implications for policy makers on better implementing the environmental protection law in developing countries.

Guangqiang Liu, Zhiqing Yang, Fan Zhang et al.

Ali Abdelaal, Abdelgalil Ahmed, Huifeng Wang et al.

Abstract Over the past decade, pharmaceuticals have emerged as a significant class of environmental contaminants due to their adverse impacts on natural ecosystems. The removal of pharmaceuticals from aquatic environments, soils, and wastewater treatment systems using techniques such as adsorption, advanced oxidation, biological degradation, and membrane filtration has been widely investigated. Among these approaches, adsorption attracted considerable attention due to its simplicity, high removal efficiency, and low energy requirements. Date palm waste biomass is abundant biomass source what makes it a promising precursor for biochar and activated carbon adsorbents production for water treatment. This review critically evaluate the impact of the different date palm components, pyrolysis conditions, and activation methods on biochar properties and its performance as an adsorbent of emerging contaminates, particularly pharmaceuticals, from wastewater. Moderate pyrolysis temperatures (400–600 °C) found to generally enhance adsorption performance, while higher temperatures (≥ 700 °C) increase surface area but reduce surface polarity and affinity towards polar pharmaceuticals. Moreover, chemically activated biochars (H3PO4, KOH, or ZnCl2) exhibit an improved porosity and adsorption capacities, reaching 400 mg/g, that is comparable to commercial activated carbons. In contrast, physical activation (steam, CO2) is a more environmentally friendly approach that relatively increases surface area and pore volume, but shows limited improvement in adsorption capacity. Despite these advances in the literature, the relationship between specific date palm feedstock and adsorption performance remains insufficiently explored, highlighting the need for systematic comparative studies. Graphical abstract

Katrin Wendt-Potthoff, Chenxi Mi, Pouyan Ahmadi et al.

Abstract Background Microplastic (MP) pollution has garnered global attention due to its ubiquity in marine and freshwater systems, as well as its potential—though still uncertain—risks to human health. While MP concentrations in drinking water remain relatively low, safeguarding reservoir-based drinking water supplies against potential contamination remains a pressing concern. In this study, we applied a rigorously validated, two-dimensional hydrodynamic model (CE-QUAL-W2) to Germany’s largest drinking water reservoir, the Rappbode Reservoir, to examine MP retention under realistic inflow, meteorological, and operational conditions. Our primary aim was to quantify how varying particle settling velocities (0.1–1.0 m d⁻1) influence MP transport, sedimentation, and breakthrough to the raw water outlet over a 2-year simulation period. Results We demonstrate that reservoir-scale retention efficiency rises sharply with increasing MP settling velocity, with near-complete retention (> 95%) achieved at settling velocities of 0.9 m d⁻1 or higher. Conversely, slower-sinking particles (≤ 0.3 m d⁻1) exhibit significant downstream export, indicating that weak sedimentation can negate the reservoir’s inherent trapping capacity even under long residence times (~ 1 year). Furthermore, episodic phenomena such as stratification breakdown or shortcut currents can rapidly redistribute or mobilise MP particles, bypassing much of the reservoir volume and potentially delivering MP particles directly to outflows. These findings highlight the critical roles of both hydrodynamics (stratification, mixing, and lateral transport) and particle-specific traits such as settling velocity in determining MP fate. Conclusions By integrating comprehensive field-derived meteorological inputs and a validated numerical framework, this study provides novel insights into MP retention in drinking water reservoirs and underscores the vulnerability of such systems to episodic transport events. Our approach offers a robust tool for reservoir managers and policy-makers to anticipate MP contaminant pathways, optimise withdrawal strategies, and develop early warning systems for drinking water preparation. This work thus advances both the scientific understanding of MP dynamics in lentic systems and supports more informed, adaptive water-resource management.

Meital Peleg Mizrachi, Ori Sharon

Abstract The fashion industry contributes 2–8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, driven by rising clothing consumption and the proliferation of fast fashion. Fast fashion accelerates environmental harm through rapid production cycles, low costs, and short garment lifespans. Secondhand clothing markets are often promoted as a sustainable alternative, promising extended use and reduced waste. These markets have grown rapidly, with global sales reaching $177 billion in 2022 and projected to double by 2027. Despite this growth, few studies have empirically examined whether secondhand purchasing displaces or merely supplements primary market consumption. This study addresses that gap using a nationally representative survey of 1,009 U.S. consumers. We find that secondhand consumption is positively correlated with new clothing purchases (r = 0.58, p < 0.01), particularly among younger consumers and frequent shoppers. Cluster and principal component analyses reveal that highly engaged secondhand consumers also exhibit high overall consumption and short garment retention. Although many report high sustainability knowledge, such knowledge does not reliably predict sustainable behavior. Drawing on rebound and moral licensing theories, we suggest that secondhand purchases may psychologically or economically justify continued overconsumption. These findings challenge assumptions about resale’s environmental benefits and support policy interventions to realign resale practices with sustainability goals.

Torsten Tiltack

This paper introduces AIJIM, the Artificial Intelligence Journalism Integration Model -- a novel framework for integrating real-time AI into environmental journalism. AIJIM combines Vision Transformer-based hazard detection, crowdsourced validation with 252 validators, and automated reporting within a scalable, modular architecture. A dual-layer explainability approach ensures ethical transparency through fast CAM-based visual overlays and optional LIME-based box-level interpretations. Validated in a 2024 pilot on the island of Mallorca using the NamicGreen platform, AIJIM achieved 85.4\% detection accuracy and 89.7\% agreement with expert annotations, while reducing reporting latency by 40\%. Unlike conventional approaches such as Data-Driven Journalism or AI Fact-Checking, AIJIM provides a transferable model for participatory, community-driven environmental reporting, advancing journalism, artificial intelligence, and sustainability in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the EU AI Act.

Natali Helberger, Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, Agustin Reyna

In modern markets, many companies offer so-called 'free' services and monetize consumer data they collect through those services. This paper argues that consumer law and data protection law can usefully complement each other. Data protection law can also inform the interpretation of consumer law. Using consumer rights, consumers should be able to challenge excessive collection of their personal data. Consumer organizations have used consumer law to tackle data protection infringements. The interplay of data protection law and consumer protection law provides exciting opportunities for a more integrated vision on 'data consumer law'.

Zaihan Harmaen Anggayudha, Jody Imam Rafsanjani

Human security serves as a link between the concept of security and human rights (HAM), and it is considered to overcome the weaknesses of the traditional security concept. The concept makes humanitarian issues into a security domain, such as food, health, economic, environmental, personal, community, and politics, to ensure everyone is prosperous and free from threats and fear. As if it were a paradox, Human Security also takes environmental issues into account. Economic activity is not infrequently one of the causes of environmental damage. This article aims to determine the threat of environmental damage due to economic activity from a Human Security perspective and its paradoxes. Using qualitative methods through a security study approach, human rights, and environmental law were carried out through desk research and then analyzed with analytical description. Poverty is one of the discussions of Human Security. In Indonesia, a decent life is a fundamental right of every citizen protected by the constitution. When economic activity impacts the environment and threatens the environment and humans, this problem becomes a security challenge. The state becomes an important actor and is responsible for providing solutions and has a strategy to substitute these livelihoods with values ​​that are at least almost the same or even exceed them so that in the end, the state is not only an institution that can only issue prohibition instruments but is also able to present solution instruments.

Hambur Wang

Air pollution has emerged as a serious challenge for China, posing a threat to public health and hindering the progress of sustainable economic development. In response to air pollution and other environmental issues, the Chinese government introduced a new Environmental Protection Law in 2015. This paper investigates the impact of the new Environmental Protection Law's implementation and corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investments on air pollution and public subjective well-being. Using panel data at the macro level, we employ a difference-in-differences (DID) model, with Chinese provinces and municipalities as units of analysis, to examine the combined effects of the new Environmental Protection Law and changes in corporate ESG investment intensity. The study evaluates their impacts on air quality and public subjective well-being. Findings indicate that these policies and investment behaviors significantly improve public subjective well-being by reducing air pollution. Notably, an increase in ESG investment significantly reduces air pollution levels and is positively associated with enhanced well-being. These results underscore the critical role of environmental legislation and corporate social responsibility in improving public quality of life and provide empirical support for promoting sustainable development in China and beyond.

C-Y Law, Jonathan C. Tan, Raphael Skalidis et al.

Magnetic fields may play a crucial role in setting the initial conditions of massive star and star cluster formation. To investigate this, we report SOFIA-HAWC+ $214\:μ$m observations of polarized thermal dust emission and high-resolution GBT-Argus C$^{18}$O(1-0) observations toward the massive Infrared Dark Cloud (IRDC) G28.37+0.07. Considering the local dispersion of $B$-field orientations, we produce a map of $B$-field strength of the IRDC, which exhibits values between $\sim0.03 - 1\:$mG based on a refined Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi (r-DCF) method proposed by Skalidis \& Tassis. Comparing to a map of inferred density, the IRDC exhibits a $B-n$ relation with a power law index of $0.51\pm0.02$, which is consistent with a scenario of magnetically-regulated anisotropic collapse. Consideration of the mass-to-flux ratio map indicates that magnetic fields are dynamically important in most regions of the IRDC. A virial analysis of a sample of massive, dense cores in the IRDC, including evaluation of magnetic and kinetic internal and surface terms, indicates consistency with virial equilibrium, sub-Alfvénic conditions and a dominant role for $B-$fields in regulating collapse. A clear alignment of magnetic field morphology with direction of steepest column density gradient is also detected. However, there is no preferred orientation of protostellar outflow directions with the $B-$field. Overall, these results indicate that magnetic fields play a crucial role in regulating massive star and star cluster formation and so need to be accounted for in theoretical models of these processes.

Holli Sargeant, Ahmed Izzidien, Felix Steffek

This paper addresses a critical gap in legal analytics by developing and applying a novel taxonomy for topic classification of summary judgment cases in the United Kingdom. Using a curated dataset of summary judgment cases, we use the Large Language Model Claude 3 Opus to explore functional topics and trends. We find that Claude 3 Opus correctly classified the topic with an accuracy of 87.13% and an F1 score of 0.87. The analysis reveals distinct patterns in the application of summary judgments across various legal domains. As case law in the United Kingdom is not originally labelled with keywords or a topic filtering option, the findings not only refine our understanding of the thematic underpinnings of summary judgments but also illustrate the potential of combining traditional and AI-driven approaches in legal classification. Therefore, this paper provides a new and general taxonomy for UK law. The implications of this work serve as a foundation for further research and policy discussions in the field of judicial administration and computational legal research methodologies.

Jasper Krommendijk, Dirk Sanderink

There has been a turn to fundamental rights in environmental and climate cases before national and international courts in recent years. We know very little whether there has been such a turn in relation to European Union (EU) law before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The CJEU occupies an increasingly relevant position in this nexus between environmental law and human rights because of strong and effective EU enforcement mechanisms, the abundance of specific EU secondary environmental law, the growing role of fundamental rights since 2009 and the self-standing provision on the environment in Article 37 of the Charter. An analysis of the case law, nonetheless, shows that Charter rights that can be used as ‘swords’ in the interest of environmental protection have so far played only a limited role. After explaining the absence of a rights turn, we argue that such a turn is warranted before the CJEU as well, also from a legal perspective. This article examines two potential avenues. The CJEU can derive positive obligations from relevant Charter provisions, including Articles 2 (right to life) and 7 (right to respect for private life and the home) of the Charter, or it can rely more extensively on Article 37 as a tool for interpreting primary and secondary EU law in an environmentally friendly way.

Phoebe Koundouri, Georgios I. Papayiannis, Electra V. Petracou et al.

In this paper we propose a consensus group decision making scheme under model uncertainty consisting of an iterative two-stage procedure and based on the concept of Fréchet barycenter. Each step consists of two stages: the agents first update their position in the opinion metric space by a local barycenter characterized by the agents' immediate interactions and then a moderator makes a proposal in terms of a global barycenter, checking for consensus at each step. In cases of large heterogeneous groups the procedure can be complemented by an auxiliary initial homogenization step, consisting of a clustering procedure in opinion space, leading to large homogeneous groups for which the aforementioned procedure will be applied. The scheme is illustrated in examples motivated from environmental economics.

Widya Ayu Nirmala Sari

Based on the 1945 Constitution Article 1 paragraph 3, Indonesia is a state ruled by law since the constitution of Indonesia incorporated several legal systems. The law should be fair, impartial to those in power and not intimidate the weak. However, the law is often misused and traded for the interests of those in power. This study aims to find out how the law is enforced against PT Rayon Utama Makmur that has harmed local residents for causing environmental pollution as a result of the textile factory activities. Data are collected from literature. The theory used is the conflict theory of Karl Marx given that there was a conflict of interest between PT Rayon Utama Makmur and the local residents. The results of the study indicate that the law enforcement against PT Rayon Utama Makmur is still very weak. After being proven to have polluted the environment by dumping the factory waste into the river thus endangering the health of the residents, PT Rayon Utama Makmur did not receive any significant sanctions so that it did not cause a deterrent effect for the company. The weak law enforcement for PT Rayon Utama Makmur caused injustice for the residents. And that gradually triggered a conflict between the residents and the company.

S. K. Ocker, J. M. Cordes, S. Chatterjee et al.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-timescale radio transients, the origins of which are predominantly extragalactic and likely involve highly magnetized compact objects. FRBs undergo multipath propagation, or scattering, from electron density fluctuations on sub-parsec scales in ionized gas along the line-of-sight. Scattering observations have located plasma structures within FRB host galaxies, probed Galactic and extragalactic turbulence, and constrained FRB redshifts. Scattering also inhibits FRB detection and biases the observed FRB population. We report the detection of scattering times from the repeating FRB 20190520B that vary by up to a factor of two or more on minutes to days-long timescales. In one notable case, the scattering time varied from $7.9\pm0.4$ ms to less than 3.1 ms ($95\%$ confidence) over 2.9 minutes at 1.45 GHz. The scattering times appear to be uncorrelated between bursts or with dispersion and rotation measure variations. Scattering variations are attributable to dynamic, inhomogeneous plasma in the circumsource medium, and analogous variations have been observed from the Crab pulsar. Under such circumstances, the frequency dependence of scattering can deviate from the typical power-law used to measure scattering. Similar variations may therefore be detectable from other FRBs, even those with inconspicuous scattering, providing a unique probe of small-scale processes within FRB environments.

Rossana Mastrandrea, Rob ter Burg, Yuli Shan et al.

The largest 6,529 international corporations are accountable for almost 30% of global CO2e emissions. A growing awareness of the role of the corporate world in the path toward sustainability has led many shareholders and stakeholders to pursue increasingly stringent and ambitious environmental goals. However, how to assess the corporate environmental performance objectively and efficiently remains an open question. This study reveals underlying dynamics and structures that can be used to construct a unified quantitative picture of the environmental impact of companies. This study shows that the environmental impact (metabolism) of companies CO2e energy used, water withdrawal and waste production, scales with their size according to a simple power law which is often sublinear, and can be used to derive a sector-specific, size-dependent benchmark to asses unambiguously a company's environmental performance. Enforcing such a benchmark would potentially result in a 15% emissions reduction, but a fair and effective environmental policy should consider the size of the corporation and the super or sublinear nature of the scaling relationship

Xin Wu, Pan Han, Li Yuping

Clean energy can not only alleviate environmental problems but also contribute to rapid and sustainable development. The gray system is based on the sequence operator to process the original data and mine the law of change. GM(1,1) is a specific method of mining data, by building a GM(1,1) model to accumulate and generate data, the randomness of the data can be weakened and its regularity can be revealed. Here we use the GM(1,1) model to dynamically predict the future consumption rate of clean energy. This research not only provides data support for China’s green development, but also provides suggestions for improvement based on actual conditions.

Phurita Noranarttakun, Chanathip Pharino

Implementation of Green Industry (GI) strategy has long been recommended for industrial sectors to achieve sustainable production. Among various approaches, GI certification as a voluntary scheme has been implemented widely to promote the adoption of environmental-friendly practices for Thai industrial entrepreneurs. This research examined the progress and lessons learnt from existing schemes and identified the challenges of GI implementation and future improvement. The study particularly focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the electronic products and electrical equipment manufacturing sector. A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data, and the Mann-Whitney U Test was used to verify significant barriers and drivers among the samples. The results indicated that major common practices of SMEs are widely approved for fulfilling GI criteria, i.e., waste segregation and minimization, and energy saving, so as to comply with environmental law. While other environmental practices, such as greenhouse gas accounting, green labelling, and green supply chain management were limited in adoption. SMEs, both certified with GI and non-certified with GI, expressed the same opinion that all factors including financial, legal, social, personnel, technological and policies were barriers to GI adoption but significantly different from the economic factor. SMEs in both groups revealed the same opinion that incentive, expertise and technology were drivers of GI adoption but differ significantly from the financial support. Incentive-based instruments such as subsidies and voluntary schemes for green product certification are proposed as appropriate measures to encourage SMEs to adopt GI.

Coline Senior, Alenka Temeljotov Salaj, Milena Vukmirovic et al.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges of an old low-standard urban district with a strong historical and cultural heritage and propose more sustainable renovation solutions, acceptable for the residents and municipality. The challenges of physical renovation or refurbishment are complex due to poor condition of the buildings, municipal ownership and governance, mixed management with community and low rents, which are insufficient to cover the costs. The paper discusses the proposed solutions of living standards, supported by the research in two directions: (i) available resources and reuse of materials, (ii) developing a renovation guidance for inhabitants from the building physics perspective, including indoor environment quality. Challenges related to energy efficiency are addressed from the decision-making perspective to overcome the barrier of lack of motivation to invest in energy-efficient measures at the individual and community level. The interdisciplinary approach complements engineering-focused studies with a focus on the comfort conditions and the influence of occupant habits in sustainable buildings. The methods used were literature review, case studies with observations and survey, looking to cover all technical, social, and historical aspects of sustainable renovation of cultural heritage buildings with the same level of importance. Results show that to keep a sustainable, low-cost urban living model, instructions for self-renovation are a valuable guidance for non-professional actors to make more sustainable choices. In conclusion, we can emphasize that inhabitants are accustomed to lower living standards, so the project is aimed to present the proper solutions for improvement as a balance between new sustainable technical solutions, personal self-renovation skills, habits, and health.

Luis Fernando Chaves, Mariel D. Friberg

Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) is a major global invasive mosquito species that, in Japan, co-occurs with Aedes (Stegomyia) flavopictus Yamada, a closely related species recently intercepted in Europe. Here, we present results of a detailed 25-month long study where we biweekly sampled pupae and fourth instar larvae of these two species from ovitraps set along Mt. Konpira, Nagasaki, Japan. This setting allowed us to ask whether these species had different responses to changes in environmental variables along the altitudinal gradient of an urban hill. We found that spatially Ae. albopictus abundance decreased, while Ae. flavopictus abundance increased, the further away from urban land. Ae. flavopictus also was more abundant than Ae. albopictus in locations with homogenous vegetation growth with a high mean Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), platykurtic EVI, and low SD in canopy cover, while Ae. albopictus was more abundant than Ae. flavopictus in areas with more variable (high SD) canopy cover. Moreover, Ae. flavopictus abundance negatively impacted the spatial abundance of Ae. albopictus. Temporally we found that Ae. flavopictus was more likely to be present in Mt. Konpira at lower temperatures than Ae. albopictus. Our results suggest that spatial and temporal abundance patterns of these two mosquito species are partially driven by their different response to environmental factors.