feedbacks for assignments 7& 8

Assignment 7 – LCA

Increasing the use of LCA’s

Hey,

You gave a very clear structure by listing those viewpoints helps a lot to understand the whole idea.

However, the structure of the whole article could still be perfected, because, in my point of view, some points are a little bit simplistic in this post. As you said at the beginning of this post that you are going to give four ways in which the government can increase the use of LCA’s. You do paid a lot of attention to the forth way that in the end you gave your conclusion that “promoting product stewardship is an effective way to promote the use of LCA’s”. While I think it would be better if you could give a stronger reasoning about other three approaches, since we cannot assume that once the government implement one, some certain thing will happen. I believe a few examples will help, and also more your own opinion.

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http://sairamiroslava.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/how-can-the-government-increase-the-use-of-lcas/

Hey,

Nice post! Really clear structure. It is objective that you also mentioned the limitations of LCA at the beginning, and aiming at those limitations deriving 4 solutions. Also, the objectives-tasks table makes the idea clearer and more targeted that helps problem-solving. Moreover, you also managed to give many practical approaches, such as environmental labelling, incentives, which are readily applicable.

While still, in my opinion, there is something needed to be more detailed. You said government can increase the use of LCA by ‘forcing companies to become more transparent’, which is a big challenge. I agree this opinion but how can we reach that? We can’t just simply deem it will happen, right?

The Sabatier’s framework you used in this article is very clear and comprehensive, and indeed, in the long-run more external control might be needed if goals are not attained. I agree with you.

Weiwen zhong

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Assignment 8 – Improve\design a game

http://michaeloconnorindustrialecology.blogspot.nl/2014/11/blog-post_18.html

Hey Michael,

Thanks for your post.

I have some questions related to the rules of this game.

First of all, at the beginning everyone toss the dice to decide who start the game, since you also mentioned this game can be played with unlimited player, than if several people has the same number on dice how to decide who to start?

Secondly, because in this game things like dice and ‘scissors, paper, rock’ are involved, then more uncertainty than controllability is in this game, so basically what kind of cars the players can get is more about probability instead their own choice. While in the end, when deciding which one to survive, certain criteria are applied. It seems a little bit contradictory. I mean, for example, if a player really wants a sustainable or eco-friendly car at the beginning, while he/she has such bad luck that always toss a wrong number or couldn’t win in ‘scissors, paper, rock’. Then he/she will lose the game anyway. Do I understand it wrong?

Weiwen zhong

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http://socialscienceforindustrialecology.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/design-a-game-the-evolution-of-the-car-designs/

Hey Niocle,

Your game sounds quite nice, but it would be better if you give more details. For example, you mentioned each number of the dice represents one characteristic of cars: 1=performance, 2=maintenance, 3=price, 4=eco-efficiency, 5=status and 6=special event, while I think the appearance of a car also plays crucial role when people choose which car to buy, so dose the size, etc. But I am not sure if you included these things into ‘special event’. If not, what the ‘special event’ refers to? That’s why I think you could give more explanation of your game design.

I believe with a little bit more details and improvement, this can be a really applicable and practical game.

Weiwen zhong

NEW POST AVAILABLE

Hey guys,

sorry for the delay. My post about regional network now is available, please check:

week 5 assignment: Analysis of a Regional network of production

The one about LCA:

Life Cycle Assessment & Sabatier’s framework

But the one of create your own game or give the improvements of games, I’m gonna skip that.

Best Wishes

W.Zhong

feedbacks for assignments 5 & 6

Assignment 5 – Regional Network

Regional network

Hey.
Nice post. Very clear explanation, and those actors that you list are comprehensive. I just still wanna ask one more thing that is there production process in this regional network? I mean any product that sold to outside the system? This network has very good close loop in the term of energy but how about other material? Because, from my point of view, the material resource is something as important as the energy source, even if this system is focus on renewable energy we cannot ignore the material needed to develop this energy system. What is your opinion?

Week 5 Regional Network of Production – KP Holland Flower Company

Hi Zejun!
Really nice post. The graph at the beginning is really clear visualized the system. I especially like the part about dependency that you give several examples of how this company tackle with dependency as well as the cause of each kind of dependency. But for the part of material close loop, I think, it would be better if you give more details and examples. And I just curious why they don’t just add nutrients into the old soil instead of recycle the waste soil?
And you mentioned that they locate closer to have better cooperation, but you don not specify what benefits they get from this, and I think you can say a little bit more about this point.

best wishes,
weiwen

good luck
weiwen

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Assignment 6 – Harvest

‘Harvest’ game with improved rules.

Hey Hans,
Just read your opinion of how to improve the game of harvest. One thing well done is that you replaced the main target of ‘to maximize profit’ with ‘to play at least 10 rounds’ that you started with the fundamental.
And I believe the establishment of ‘fishery sustainability committee’ and allowing them to sanction the team fishing at least 20% more than the other teams will help every team control their yield. But still, if some teams capture more than the sustainable yield but not arrive 20% more, it will still damage the whole system, because when faced up with over-exploitation the eco-equilibrium is quite delicate. If only with the rules you set, it might still be hard to avoid the tragedy of an empty sea. Therefore, I think, some further regulations needed to be settled.
Besides, for the last part that you mentioned, I didn’t really catch the point. I mean, it will be better if you explain a little bit more about the reason why you set the rule of annual replacement of committee.

good luck!
weiwen

http://suchasocialsystem.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/the-harvest-game-seeking-for-a-sustainable-harvest/

Hey Francesca,

If there’s an opportunity to play your version of the game, I think that would be fun! Because the group of FISHING VESSEL added, haha! I am quite curious about what people will behave as a delegate. While, if we’re really gonna play this game, more detailed rules are needed.

For example, how are delegates picked? Randomly? Self-recommended? Or based on other factors?

And what kind of ‘short game’ will be played to decide which boat will remain? Since this step seems quite critical in the whole game.

Besides this as a game, I also want to give an extra opinion. The game is a reflex of the reality, therefore, the rule of that only the group of fishing vessel can go out to the sea and fish may be not really feasible. Because, in reality fishing is a job that requires quite a lot labor, if in every boat only one person could go fishing and others can only wait for delivering, then it’s an inefficient and ineffective way.

Anyway, it’s just an extra opinion concerning about reality, the game itself is interesting and practical, I think.   J

Best wishes.

weiwen

Life Cycle Assessment & Sabatier’s framework

LCAs are a tool for assessing the environmental impact of products. Think up four ways in which government can increase the use of LCAs through external control and setting boundary conditions. Use Sabatier’s framework to assess the potential effectiveness of external control vis-a-vis other options.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a technique to assess overall environmental impacts of a production process associated with all the stages of a product’s life from cradle to grave. The first LCA case is

The formal analytical scheme that was to become LCA was first conceived by Harry E. Teasley, Jr.in 1969. He was managing the packaging function for The Coca-Cola Company. At that time, The Coca-Cola Company was considering whether they should self-manufacture beverage cans (R. G. Hunt, W. E. Franklin, 1996). LCAs can help companies to find more energy-saving and more environmental friendly options to produce their products. Firms want a more economical ways, as what Friedman said: the business of business is increasing profit. If there is an overlap, then the problem solved; however, if there is a contradiction, then an external force is needed to accelerate the LCA thinking in an industrial process.

In my opinion, the external force can be divided into two categories: pressure and control. The former one can be derived from public, organizations and competitors; the second one is mainly generated by ruler, which is, in our society, the government. In this post, I will mainly discuss about how to increase the use of LCAs through the second way – the external control – as well as setting boundary conditions.

Boundary conditions are conditions set by the government in order to stimulate the self-organization of a system towards a certain goal.

External control is that the government creates a system that encompasses rules, monitoring and sanctioning in order to control a social/socio-economic system.

With these two mechanisms, 4 possible ways to enhance the execution of LCAs are introduced below:

1, Labeling (boundary condition)

Nowadays, labels are everywhere. Even when I went to a restaurant, on the menu there is a line says ’This menu is printed with vegetable based inks on FSC accredited paper by and FSC certified printer.’ This is, on some extent, also a social pressure, while I would suggest that government could related with organizations and institutes to give certificates to companies linking to LCA.

2, Information (boundary condition)

One key source of LCAs is database. The database of LCA is enormous, which needs sufficient cooperation between companies and government and timely update. Therefore, that the government establishes and improves LCA Database is crucial.

Also a group of expertise of LCA to help corporations to apply this methodology is also necessary.

3, Targets (external control)

Reachable and challenging goals are good initiative to companies to implement LCA. The government could set a certain target to industries and make it obligatory. For example, government could require a yearly decrease of a company´s environmental impact by a certain percentage.

4, Rewards and punishments (external control)

This could be a further step of setting targets that according to the progress companies will receive some rewards or punishments by government. This could be something notional like a title or award that could gain the company a positive profile. Or something substantial like subsidy or tax that influence the profit of a business.

There are still other approaches to facilitate the implementation of LCAs, but in this post I stop here. In the following paragraph, I would like to discuss the potential effectiveness of external control compared to other options by using Sabatier’s framework.

Paul Sabatier proposed a conceptual framework, and the figure below is the skeletal flow diagram of the variable involved in the implementation process (P. Sabatier, 1980).

Tractability of the problem:

Sabatier put at the first place is the tractability. In this stage, target group is defined. Moreover, the diversity of target group behavior is distinguished, which means for each individual company the situation varies. Therefore, in that case, the external controlling rules and boundary conditions that set by government are less effective than private interest government.

Ability to structure implementation:

When tackle with a certain problem, adequate theory, unambiguous policy, financial resources, hierarchical integration, rules and accesses are all essential. Therefore, I believe, the government plays a vital role in this stage, and the external control and boundary conditions are more functional.

Non-statutory variables affecting implementation:

Non-statutory factors, such as socio-economic element, resources restrict, public pressure including media, crowds, society, etc. are also affect a business. In this case, external control no longer plays a crucial role since the when there is a huge pressure, the self-governance will start to function.

To develop and implement LCA, a combination of internal governance and external control is indispensable; hence, the cooperation between companies and government is important.

References:

Robert G. Hunt, William E. Franklin (1996), LCA – How It Came About – Personal reflection on the origin and the development of LCA in the USA.

Paul Sabatier (2005), Conceptual Framework. The implementation of public policy: a framework of analysis. Policy Studies Journal, 8(4), pp. 538-560.

From the Game to the Reality

In the SSPM class of last week, we played a game called Harvest. We are divided into 6 groups, each team act as a fishing boat, and the common pool resources that we had was a ‘sea’ which contains 50 units of fish. After each time of fishing, the amount of fish that remained was doubled in the second round with the upper limit of 50 units still. There was no exchange of information between groups, and each group can decide by their own of the amount of fish that they capture, after several turns the group with the largest amount of fish will win. We started it with great interest, while after the third turn we were told that the ‘sea’ was already empty. Although it was a game, we can tell form it that in real life how people will deal with common pool resources, that people always try to get as much as they can from it, which becomes the tragedy of commons. With the table of the numbers of each team’s harvest that teacher showed us, we could easily see how this tragedy of the commons forms and how people become more and more ‘evil’. Now I would like to start with my team.

At the beginning, my teammates and I discussed about if our business is increase profit or remain sustainable. On the one hand, we know for sure that we cannot over-exploit resources, on the other hand, we want win the game. In the end, we decided to start with a sustainable fishing way, and interestingly, other groups seems all have the same idea that all groups chose to start with 4 units of fish which is a very sustainable amount. We managed to keep the eco-equilibrium perfectly at the first round, which is a very encouraging start. While the situation began to go bad at the second turn when some groups start to acquire more from the system, even though not dramatically increase, the balance has been disrupted. The total fish in the common pool started to decrease, even there was one team trying to save the trend by almost not get any fish in that turn, it was already too late, at the third turn we already exhausted our ‘sea’.

Common pool resource becomes common dry well. Unfortunately, this sort of case actually happens many times in our real life, so to avoid the tragedy I think it’s necessary to question first the causes.

In my personal opinion, I think the tragedy of commons can be divided into two kinds: the tragedy from the beginning and the tragedy from halfway.

The tragedy from the beginning can also be interpreted as the tragedy of ignorance; here the ignorance not only refers to the ignorance of individuals but of the human being as a whole, that because of the lack of knowledge and constraints, people overuse natural resources from the very beginning, leading to resource deplete rapidly. The ‘knowledge’ I mentioned is generalized that includes the prediction of consequences, the approach to solution, and so on. Excessive pumping of underground water is one example that due to the lack of early forecast of consequence, and the mining of unrenewable energy, especially fossil fuel such as coal and oil, can also be labelled as examples since the world is still on the way to figure out the best solution.

The tragedy from halfway can be applied on other sort of resources, such as hydro resource, forest, fish, etc. that after a long time of accumulation of science and experience, people already know the importance to maintain its sustainability, but with too many uncertainties and the complex interaction among actors the tragic ending still becomes somehow inevitable.

After that game, when being asked why they increased their amount of fishing, people answered that because they assumed that some team will be super-sustainable that left some resource unused, and since they increase the amount by only a little they thought it won’t affect much the relatively huge common pool. Being without any exchange of information this assumption actually turned up at every team, as a result, all groups increased their demand after the first or second round, leading to the tragedy of the empty sea. Besides these bounded-rational reasons, there are also some irrational causes such as the greed of human being that they always hunger for more.

Therefore, to deal with sustainability of common pool resources, we need to avoid both kinds of tragedy. To deal with the first one, knowledge of eco-system is necessary, individual conscience is a goodly portion, minor market demand can be extra winning, and still certain laws and regulations should be set. To avoid the second one, that is to tackle the uncertainties and variables, a monitoring system is required, not only for supervising those who draw resources from common pool, but also for measuring the amount of resources, which helps to keep the system dynamically balanced. In addition, effective communication between actors is in great need, and in that case a coordinator or intermediator is also very crucial.

Relate what I said above about our game of fishery, I think the specific steps that can be taken are mainly these:

1. Establish a set of regulations that clarify the limitation of fishing (time, spacial, quantity, etc.)
2. Give sufficient knowledge to fishermen about the significance of keeping the eco-equilibrium
3. Set up a group of monitors to ensure every fishing team comply with the rules
4. Build-up a mechanism of communication (among fishermen & between fishermen and monitors)
5. Draw up proper measures of punishment

To realize each of these steps, coordination is extremely needed. So we now assume that there is an organization that consists of people from every fishing group and some ecologist (since we cannot presume the existence of government). Therefore, it is mainly this organization take the charge of building and implying the measures, and for that, many efforts should be invested:

1. The regulations must base on solid scientific and analytical evidence, so the prior survey and study is essential. For example, assume they put the limitation on the MSY, if any one breaks the rules it will be a large harm to the whole system. But if they set the upper limit at MEY, it has better economic effect, and what’s more, it has more flexibility. (see fig.1)
2. Beside the Internet where people can rapidly spread vast information, they can also organize seminars and workshops for people. It is possible that some people are not motivated for this meeting, but since there is representative from every group of fishermen, that agent can always bring the main idea back to his group.
3. As far as I can see, step C is the thorniest one, nevertheless, is also the most crucial one. We can send monitors to each other’s fishing team, which seems to be a feasible method. But as what we discussed during our class, there are too many uncertainties and risks, so it is very difficult to measure the accurate amount of fish that they get from the sea. Therefore, I come up with an idea that we can turn to count how many they sell to the market, which means we monitor both the production and the market at the same time to estimate the total amount.
4. Nowadays, the best way to communication among different groups from all over the world is undoubtedly the Internet; hence, we can create an online database system with forum that people can register with their real name.
5. Punishment should depend on how serious the issues are. And I believe the moral condemnation will also be an invisible pressure.

I know there are still many other measures and techniques can be applied in this case, here I just proposed my own views. Thanks for your time of reading, and I would like to hear your opinion.

Fig.1

《Measuring and assessing capacity in fishery 2. Issues and methods》

http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y5027e/y5027e04.htm

week 5 assignment: Analysis of a Regional network of production

The regional network I chose is an industrial cluster leading by a sugar company – the Guitang Group (the GG). It is one of the largest sugar refineries in China that has been developing and applying industrial symbiosis strategy for decades (Zhu, Lowe, Wei, & Barnes, 2007). The GG complex covers more than 2 km² that located in southwestern China – Guangxi Province (Zhu and Cote, 2004). Since 2000, the GG has committed itself to promoting and expanding its operation as a model of an eco-industrial park (EIP). With one leading enterprise (the sugar refinery), this regional initiative with internal symbiosis could also be called an eco-industrial network (Lowe 2001, 2005). After years of development, nowadays, it is a cluster of different industrial sectors including construction, food industry, paper industry, power generation, water treatment, agriculture and livestock. From the diagram given below (see fig.1), we could see there are multiple interactions between different sectors within this complex and we could recognize many processes of material exchange flow:

• Molasses to alcohol
• Alcohol residue to fertilizer
• Filter mud to cement mill
• Used CO2 to cement mill
• White sludge to cement mill
• Bagasse (long fibers_60%) to paper mill
• Pith (short fibers_40%) to boiler house
• Ash to road construction

   Figure 1 Guitang Group Process Diagram (Zhu, Lowe, Wei, & Barnes, 2007)

With all these recycling and reusing of resources, the by-products from upstream companies are used as secondary material in the downstream companies. From only one main raw material input (the sugarcane), a main product (sugar) and several profitable by-products are produced including cement, alcohol, paper and compound fertilizer. Therefore, I define this system as a tightly coupled network. The dependency within this system among different sectors is quite strong. While, as I mentioned before, there is one main basic material of this system – sugarcane, thus, the production of sugar is still the main chain which is a bit more central than others and also heavily rely on the material input from outside this system. As a result, a steady supply and the quality of sugarcane is crucial, thus the GG has signed long-term contracts with farmers as well as provided technological support to them, which is a asymmetric dependency. Also we could see from the graph, there is still another input source which is ‘external sugar refineries’, and this linkage of the regional network with ‘non-local’ actor insure the steady input as well. The GG developed long-term relationships with its suppliers with large market shares and high profit margins (Zhu and Geng 2002), which is advantageous to each other.

Gordon and McCann defined regional network into three types – agglomeration, industrial complex and social network. In my point of view, I regard the Guitang Group as an industrial complex since they developed strong resource networks and stimulate their suppliers to cooperate as I have mentioned above. Also by investing in developing its collection downstream companies to utilize almost all by-product of sugar production, the GG reached an interfirm level of industrial ecology (Chertow, 2000).

The GG has mainly focused on material flows in its supply chains (Zhu and Cote 2004). According to (Lambert, 2001), the outgoing material of a production process can be divided into 4 main groups: products, co-products, by-products and residual products. The target of the GG is to increase the productivity of its main products and take full advantage of co-products and by-products, while reducing residual products. With these operations, the efficiency and productivity per unit of material input increased (Zhu, Lowe, Wei, & Barnes, 200). In addition to the economic benefits, with those approaches the GG realized a circulation of substance that a ‘waste’ becomes a resource, thus closing material loop.

References：

Zhu, Q., Lowe, E. A., Wei, Y.-a., & Barnes, D. (2007). Industrial Symbiosis in China: a Case Study of the Guitang Group. Journal of Industrial Ecology. (11)1: 31-42.

Qinghua Zhu, Raymond P Cote (2004). Integrating green supply chain management into an embryonic eco-industrial development: a case study of the Guitang group. Journal of Clear Production. 12(8-10): 1025-1035.

Lowe, E. A. 2001. Eco-industrial handbook for Asian developing countries. Report to the Environ- ment Department, Asian Development Bank. <www.indigodev.com/Handbook.html>.

Lowe, E. A. 2005. Defining eco-industrial parks: The global context and China. Prepared for the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy, State Environmental Protection Administra- tion,China.<www.indigodev.com/Defining EIP. html>.

Zhu, Q. H. and Y. Geng (2002). Integrating environmental issues into supplier selection and management: A study of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises in China. Greener Management International 35 (spring): 27–40.

Lambert AJD. Life-cycle chain analysis, including recycling. In: Sarkis J, editor. Green manufacturing and operations: from design to delivery and back. Sheffield (UK): Greenleaf Publishing; 2001, pp. 36-55.

Ian R. Gordon and Philip McCann (2000).Industrial Clusters: Complexes, Agglomeration and/or Social Networks? Urban Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 513–532.

Chertow MR. Industrial symbiosis: Literature and Taxonomy (2000). Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. 25:313-37.

feedbacks for assignments 4

assignment 4 – Nokia Documentary

Week 4,5,6,7

Hi Bob,
Thanks for the nice reading. I especially like the first part, where you first state briefly the three kinds of isomorphism, and then draw each one from the Nokia case. It is very clear and logical, so as a reader I can easily follow and have a general comprehension of how Nokia and its supplier both strive for legitimacy. While for the mimetic isomorphism, I have a small question: that what has been said — Nokia is mimicking Apple and the Chinese suppliers are mimicking other suppliers in terms of offering bad working conditions — is your opinion or is based on some certain evidence? If is the second case, I think it’s better to demonstrate a bit more.
For the second part, I agree with your opinion. I also think Nokia could do something more to make their approach more efficient. But as you also mentioned, the situation is not very pleasing since Rome was not built in a day, the improvement might be very slow.
And for the last part, about other coordination mechanism, you mentioned both the companies and the local government, while I still think the government should take the main responsibility. Because, as you said many companies outsource their production to manufactures in other countries, so it is hard to monitor and supervise their suppliers thousands miles away. Therefore, I think the governmental measures should be more effective in this case.

Nokia Documentary

The documentary of ‘a decent factory’ shows us a real case of some unseen problems behind a well-run business and how they strive for legitimacy

How the two key organizations in this case (Nokia and the supplier) are striving for legitimacy.

People who lives in the public eyes always acts more delicately and speak more cautiously, because their behaviors are seen by more people. For example, if a person drive after drinking, he will be fined, and the story ends; however, if a famous singer or actor did this, besides penalty, he has to be faced with social criticism that gives him huge pressure and even ruins his cause.

Same thing will happen when it comes to companies. Nokia, as one of the leading mobile phone brand at that time, held a lot of public attention, which could become a kind of social pressure, requiring them to behave more adequately. By contrast, the supplier, a factory in the south of China that stays ‘unseen’ for consumers, is less concentrated on its decency. Because people go to mobile phone shops and choose cell-phone by brands, instead of by producers. So Nokia has to strive for legitimacy to maintain their reputation, which is one of the biggest incentives for its buyers. While the supplier, which more invisible to the customers, chose to yield their legitimacy to profit.

As their partnership becomes firm and long-term, what the supplier does will definitely affect Nokia. For instance, if any scandal of the supplier happened, the newspaper will give a headline with a big word of ‘NOKIA’ in it more than the factory itself. So Nokia needs not only strive for its own legitimacy, but also for its partner’s. While they do this, they might lose some money (because their supplier is likely to increase the price of products to balance the rise in wage of labours), but they can keep their fame that gains them a long-term earnings. And for the supplier, it has to apply itself to reach the criteria, which might lessen the profit a little bit, but will keep its cooperative relation with Nokia; otherwise Nokia might go to find another supplier that meets their conditions.

So both organizations are striving for legitimacy for maintaining long-term development.

Is the approach taken by Nokia an effective way of diffusing sustainability criteria?

In my opinion, the approach taken by Nokia is not effective enough. From the documentary, we can only see that Nokia gave its supplier requirements, while didn’t give sufficient proposals or suggestions of how the supplier can do to meet their criteria. As I said in the former paragraph, since the current mode seems more ‘profitable’ for the owners of the factory, they probably are not motivated enough for changing. They might alter it to meet the criteria, but not the optimal scheme, only for maintaining the partnership with Nokia, even in a superficial way, which won’t be a sustainable solution. Therefore, it is better if Nokia takes some further steps to coordinate with their supplier to purse for sustainability criteria.

While for Nokia, the good thing is, after this case they certainly will also investigate their other suppliers or manufacturers to make sure the legitimacy of the whole chain.

How could another coordination mechanism improve on this?

In this case, I think the government should take some steps to ensure the employees’ minimum wage. A factory of this scale certainly is a big tax payer for the local, so although the factory is ‘unseen’ by consumers of the mobile phone, it must be notable for the local government. And the government should set up some monitoring mechanism to guarantee the local workers’ welfare.

 

Info:

http://www.thomasbalmes.com/filmography/a-decent-factory/

 

PS.

To be honest, after watch the documentary, I felt quite bad, because the incomes of those workers are too low. For those who have no idea of how much ‘500 yuan’ means, I would say it’s about 70 euro, and in China the price is not that cheap as you might think, for example, movie ticket is 60yuan, 80 for 3D, and around 120 for IMAX. And they actually not get 500 yuan in total per month,  but something about 250yuan if I  remember correctly. So you can image that it is hard for people to live with that little of money. Some people argued that they already have place to live and canteen to have meals, so they can survive. But I want to say that no one is born to be a work machine, people shouldn’t just earn their living, people should live.

Now, ten years past, hopefully things will be better.

Socio-ecological system (SESs) __ assignment of week 3

(1. Analyze a socio-ecological system (SESs) using Ostrom’s framework)

The system I chose is a very small one. It’s a real estate company in China, which focuses on energy saving buildings. One of those energy-saving implementations they used is GSHP, which adjusting indoor temperature during summer and winter by taking advantage from the ground.

Because the temperature of the ground not changes much during the whole year, so with this technique people can extract heat from the soil to the building during winter, and draw heat from the room back to the underground during summer. An 80 meter deep GSHP tube (RS4) can provide 3.2 kilowatt per hour (RU7), so with this innovation, they almost don’t need any extra heating facility or air conditioning (depends on the location of building(RS9)), saving a large amount of electricity every year. For example, one of their projects has installed 2000 GSHP well-tube units, which produces millions of KWH a summer (RS5).

So in this case, resource system is ground source (RS1). It has clear system boundary, namely, the construction area (RS2). And resource units are GSHP tubes (RU1). While although the temperature of ground (under a certain meters) remains almost unchanged trough years, but it still has a certain capacity (RS6). If people implement too many tubes, extracting overmuch heat from underground, than thermodynamic equilibrium will be affected. In other words, if put too many tubes, the first few years would have better effect, but not after long, the ground average temperature will start to decrease, and the whole system efficiency will reduce.

Therefore, there is a restrict rule (GS4) of the density and quantity (RU5) of tubes under each building, calculated by the company, to insure that this system could run sustainably through years without significant drop of efficiency (RS7). Meantime, governmental organizations also take part in evaluate those projects (GS1). That we could say is the mainly part of governance in this system.

Users, mainly the habitants of the buildings (U1), are really benefited from this technique. Although GSHP is not their only option, with sufficient information (U7/I2), they understand the advantages of this system compared with traditional HVAC systems in economy and comfortability.

So, with all these factors, sustainable management and economic superiority, this system runs well.

feedbacks for assignments 1&2&3

assignment 1

Assignment 1 / 19-09-2014

Your explanations are very clear and reasonable. And another point also comes to my mind that when income increases, people pay more tax to government, so the government can have more fund for environmental issues. I deem that the view of primary needs and the secondary needs that you mentioned really catches the point. But I saw the correlation is not merely linear, it’s more like turn up in a triangle area, I think you could explain about this as well. Actually I quite curious about it as well.

And for the second part, I quite agree with you, actually in my article I gave more or less the same position that the primary business of a business is making profit, but they also seeking for social value at the same time. Bravo!

http://olarcin.blogspot.nl/2014/09/ex-ante-position.html

You start your positions with definition, which is really good, as what teacher mentioned today as well. Your first argument is strong enough, and you made it very clear. But I’m kinda lost in the last part, since you extend it a little bit. I think it will be better if you address it bit more.

http://olarcin.blogspot.nl/2014/09/industrial-ecology-inspired-puzzle.html

In the beginning, the A-G lines you used are concise, I like this way. While in my view, I think the line F can be detailed a little more. For the 3 solutions you give out, the first one I am really interested in, especially you mentioned that our economy is growing and striving to reach an endless goal, which is badly true. The second one, de-globalization of material and product can help the environment, is that what you mean or I misunderstand something? Because this one is a rather complicated step that is hard to achieve, and I’m still not sure if it is a good solution. That’s just my own opinion, because I believe that IE is trying to reach a balance between comfort and ecology. If we want keep the environmental sustainability by changing people’s life in an inconvenient way, it is not mentally sustainable. People’s happiness is as crucial as sustainability. Like what you said in the third point, it’s indeed that every product we buy leaves a footprint on the environment, but it might not be enough to motivate people to act differently. Anyway, this post is really good and enlightening. Thank you .

 

assignment 2

The Friedman-proposition

You actually convinced me, since before I supported that business should be added social value, but now I think it’s their own choice to do so or not, while the government still act a very important role to motivate them. But what different consequences will be lead to (short-term or long-term)still can be illuminated if necessary.

Rational decisionmaking versus bounded rationality

Nice post! I specifically like the point you gave of high levels of emotion, which always influence us when make a decision. And the social pressure that the government feeling forced to do something is also a good argument.

Development towards my position on the Friedman proposition

I think your words:”As a business it ultimately depends how you view success.” is a nice outline, While I think it will be better if you also give some further explanation or examples. Because your opinion changed a little from your former post, right? And for the last sentence you said “Businesses have the right to decide if they wish to go the extra mile”, while different decisions lead to different consequences, which can be elaborated a bit more.

Rational decision-making and bounded rationaility

You gave very clear view from rational decision-making and bounded rationality.
While your quote “Mature societies must be driven by facts, not our irrational fears” triggers me to think something a little bit further: for people who live near nuclear power station, they always think it’s unsafe, since if anything happened they would be the first in distress. While for those who not live near nuclear power plant, they believe nuclear is safe enough because numerous statistics declare that. But these two groups of people actually stay in different situations, estimate the case from disparate perspectives. So I think either we can’t just say their fear is irrational since we never be in the same situation, or should I say human can never get rid of bounded rationality, because fear is their nature.
Thanks for your Nice post!

 

assignment 3

http://stephanysspm.blogspot.nl/2014/10/assignment-3.html

You gave a very clear analysis of a bee-honey system by using Ostrom’s framework. Especially the part of resource units, you gave GS1, GS2 and GS8 with explanation and examples, helps me to understand this system and the framework a lot. And for the part of users, I think you also gave a very good comment of ‘ eating honey is not a matter of survival’ which evaluates the whole case from a different perspective.

And for the second part, you made it precise and caught the point. To a certain extent I agree with you that if resources become scarce, it is very hard or even impossible for a business to make profits. But there are still companies and firms that not heavily based on resources, right? I think you could give a further illustration of if sustainability is also crucial for this kind of business.

http://sspm-ie.blogspot.nl/2014/10/extracting-natural-gas-and-oil-from.html

Hi Jason,
This is a very significant example, and I’m really interested in it. You gave really completed explanation of it, and these graphs make it more visual. In addition, with all the documents supporting your article, you managed to make your post rather persuasive. But, I’m not sure if it’s advisable, I think you could address a little bit more about how these four subsystems interact and coordinate with each other. I mean you gave clear explanations of each of them, but not enough analysis of their relations, like in the graph, their interactions that make the final outcomes.
Hope it’s useful.

http://sspm-ie.blogspot.nl/2014/10/social-ecological-systems-make-it.html

Good reasoning, very logical. I like your deduction of that the more exploitation the more uneven between supply and demand, leading to lower price, which I didn’t think of before. Now I’m even kinda doubt myself if I misread Friedman’s proposition. I once thought that there is few thing in common between sustainability and maximizing profit, people hardly can get both at the same time, they need find a tradeoff. But now I start thinking that in some certain situation, people can find an optimum that can increase benefits as well as maintain sustainable development, just like the example you gave.