Diary

Citation

(2013), "Diary", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2013.08324aaa.007

Diary

Diary

Article Type: Diary From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 24, Issue 1.

Symposium – sustainable energy, food risk and emerging pollutants: expect the unexpected, New Orleans, USA, 7-11 April 2013

The topics to be covered include but are not limited to: major achievements of environmental chemistry of biofuels, solar and alternative energies, and novel pollutants such as nano chemicals and pharmaceuticals in the food chain. Contributions that anticipate unexpected issues at the global scale such as the impact of biofuels on food security, the consequence of chemicals on obesity, and social rejection of novel technologies, are welcome. Further details can be seen at: www.acs.org/meetings

Sustainability Live, Birmingham, UK, 16-18 April 2013

Sustainability Live a major event for sustainable business management, providing a comprehensive showcase of best practice across the energy, water and energy from waste sectors. Under one roof, connect to the widest array of decision makers looking for improved operating costs and resource efficiency through sustainable solutions in three essential co-located events. Further details can be seen at: www.sustainabilitylive.com/callforpapers

Sustainable development (SD) in Oceania – towards a new ethic? Northern Province, New Caledonia, 24-26 April 2013

AGORA-SHS NC, the Network of Social Sciences in New Caledonia, in collaboration with the Centre des Nouvelles Etudes sur le Pacifique (CNEP, University of New Caledonia-UNC) and the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD), invites academics, researchers and development practitioners to attend this conference, on the theme of SD in New Caledonia and Oceania.

In Oceania, countries with high living standards and growth rates coexist alongside the poorest countries in the world. The region provides also a wide variety of macroeconomic situations, from countries surviving on fishing and agriculture, to rentier and extroverted economies based on mining and tourism. In Oceania, the problems of non sustainability of the current development models are particularly acute due to various reasons: climate change inducing an inevitable rise in the seawaters, ocean acidification, increased migration, overexploitation of natural resources (such as fish but also drinking water), pollution and ecosystem degradation due, among other things, to the intensive exploitation of mineral resources or tourism development. More generally, Pacific island states and territories face changes in lifestyle, a loss of biodiversity and cultural diversity, a disintegration of the traditional social fabric and a rise in inequality that generates violence and conflicts, health problems related to new patterns and ways of life, etc.

In this context, the purpose of the conference is both to encourage interdisciplinary theoretical debates (economics, law, management, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, ecology, history, etc.) around the concept of SD and the specificities of SIDS, but also to share experiences and prospects of implementation of development programmes in the various countries of Oceania. Proposals of papers should be sent to: agora.shs.nc@gmail.com

Grabbing green: questioning the Green Economy, University of Toronto, Canada, 17-19 May 2013

Over the past two decades “the market” has increasingly been represented as the solution to issues of sustainability and conservation, leading to a reimagining of “nature”. Market forces are now deeply embedded in the policy, planning and practice, of environmental management and conservation leading to constructs such as ecosystems services (and payments for them), biodiversity derivatives and new conservation finance mechanisms like REDD, REDD+, species banking, and carbon trading. These changes reflect a larger transformation in international environmental governance – one in which the discourse of global ecology has accommodated an ontology of natural capital, culminating in the production of what is taking shape as “The Green Economy”. This “Green Economy” is not a natural or coincidental development, but is contingent upon, and to varying degrees coordinated by, actors drawn together around familiar (UNEP, States, World Bank, etc.) and emergent institutions of environmental governance (TEEB, WBCSB, investment companies, etc.). While case studies have begun to reveal the social and ecological marginalization associated with the implementation of market mechanisms in particular sites, this conference seeks to explore the more systemic dimensions involved in the production, circulation and consumption of “The Green Economy”, and the neoliberal “logics” within environmental policy, conservation, development, an business that are mobilizing it. Further details can be seen at: http://ocs.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/CDTS/GrabbingGreen

16th Conference of the European Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption (ERSCP) and 7th Conference of the Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities (EMSU) Istanbul, Turkey, 4-7 June 2013

The conference will highlight progress being made towards more sustainable economic-environmental-social regional processes and patterns. It will focus upon leading examples of practices that are achieving win-win-win advances among the three dimensions of SD in the short- and longer-term futures. It will also focus upon what we need to do to go beyond “good examples” to mainstreaming of the relevant concepts, policies, procedures and life-styles. Further details can be seen at: http://erscp-emsu2013.org/

8th Conference on SD of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES2013), Dubrovnik, Croatia, 22-27 September 2013

The SDEWES Conference is dedicated to the improvement and dissemination of knowledge on methods, policies and technologies for increasing the sustainability of development by, for example, de-coupling growth from natural resources and replacing them with knowledge-based economy, taking into account its economic, environmental and social pillars, as well as methods for assessing and measuring sustainability of development, regarding energy, transport, water, environment and food production systems and their many combinations. Sustainability being also a perfect field for interdisciplinary and multi-cultural evaluation of complex system, the SDEWES Conference has during the first decade of the twenty-first century become a significant venue for researchers in those areas to meet, and originate, discuss, share, and disseminate new ideas. Papers are now invited to the 2013 conference and further details can be seen at: www.dubrovnik2013.sdewes.org