Insights from international environmental legislation and protocols for the global plastic treaty.

Plastic pollution has emerged as a global challenge necessitating collective efforts to mitigate its adverse environmental consequences. International negotiations are currently underway to establish a global plastic treaty. Emphasizing the need for solution-orientated research, rather than focusing on further defining the problems of widespread environmental occurrence and ecological impacts, this paper extracts insights and draws key patterns that are relevant for these international negotiations. The analysis reveals that (i) environmental rather than human health concerns have been the predominant driving force behind previous regulations targeting pollutants, and (ii) the decision to ban or discontinue the use of harmful pollutants is primarily affected by the availability of viable substitutes. These two key findings are relevant to the discussions of the ongoing Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on the global plastic treaty and underscore the recognition of environmental consequences associated with plastic pollution while emphasizing the need to enhance the knowledge base of potential human health risks. Leveraging the availability of substitutes can significantly contribute to the development and implementation of effective strategies aimed at reducing plastic usage and corresponding pollution.

Trade-offs in the transition to a blue economy - Mapping social acceptance of aquaculture expansion in Norway.

Aquaculture is currently the fastest growing food industry globally, and proposed expansion plans include substantial increases in production over the next decades. While this will improve global food security, contribute to the blue economy and create jobs locally, the potential negative impacts on the marine environment could be massive. The existing literature suggests that further research needs to be conducted into the dynamic nature of the social-ecological systems which host aquaculture. This paper presents the results of a choice experiment survey of Norwegian households' trade-offs between salmon production and job creation, and the detrimental impacts on the marine environment. Most respondents were at the outset neutral or supportive of plans for a substantial increase in aquaculture production. However, when informed about potential environmental impacts in terms of marine plastics and salmon lice affecting wild salmon stocks, and asked to trade these off against the positive effects, the majority opposed the plans and expressed a positive willingness-to-pay to avoid the planned expansion. Applying a hybrid mixed multinomial logit model we find that income, education and to some extent age, along with environmental attitudes, explain most of the variation in people's preferences. Support for large aquaculture expansion is higher among people who consume farmed salmon frequently and those living in areas with a high density of aquaculture farms. Hence, we do not find the so-called "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) effect. These results, which arguably contrast with previous studies of environmental impacts from aquaculture, can be useful for public planners globally as they consider expanding the blue economy.

Willingness to pay to protect cold water corals.

There is increasing pressure to use currently untapped resources in the deep sea, raising questions regarding ecosystem service trade-offs in these often unknown areas. We assessed the trade-offs between protection of cold-water coral reefs and economic activities, such as fisheries and petroleum extraction, through a survey of a representative sample of the populations of Norway and Ireland. Choice-experiment surveys were conducted in workshop settings and through the internet. Both survey approaches provided some similar results, such as preferences for protection. Our cross-country comparison showed the general public in Norway and Ireland was willing, despite possible conflict with extractive and consumptive economic activities in the deep sea, to protect cold-water corals as habitat for fish. On average, people were willing to pay NKr 341 and NKr 424 for a small and large increase in protected areas respectively, and NKr 880 if the area is important habitat for fish, all else held equal. However, there was large variation across individuals and countries. Norwegian respondents valued pure existence of cold-water corals more than the Irish respondents, and the latter were less willing to trade off industrial activities than the former. Nonetheless, the findings support conservation of cold-water corals and more generally of ocean environments that provide habitat for fish, which the current deep sea governance systems are not adequately designed or sufficiently well-structured to secure.

RESUMEN: Existe una creciente presión por el uso correcto de recursos NO EXPLOTADOS en los mares profundos, lo que genera preguntas con respecto a las compensaciones de los servicios ambientales en los ecosistemas de estas áreas comúnmente desconocidas. Evaluamos las compensaciones entre la protección de los arrecifes de coral de aguas frías y las actividades económicas, como las pesquerías y la extracción de petróleo, por medio de un censo de muestras representativas de las poblaciones de Noruega e Irlanda. Las encuestas de experimento de elección se realizaron dentro de talleres y por medio del internet. Ambas estrategias de encuesta proporcionaron algunos resultados similares, como la preferencia por la protección. Nuestra comparación entre países mostró que el público en general en Noruega y en Irlanda estaba dispuesto, a pesar del posible conflicto con las actividades económicas de extracción y de consumo en el mar profundo, a proteger los corales de aguas frías como hábitat para peces. En promedio, las personas estuvieron dispuestas a pagar 341 coronas noruegas (NKr) y NKr 424 por un incremento menor y mayor respectivamente de las áreas protegidas y NKr 880 si el área es un hábitat importante para los peces, todo lo demás se mantuvo igual. Sin embargo, hubo una gran variación entre individuos y países. Los respondientes noruegos valoraron la pura existencia de los corales de aguas frías más que los respondientes irlandeses, y estos últimos tuvieron menos disposición que los primeros para compensar las actividades industriales. Sin embargo, nuestros resultados respaldan la conservación de los corales de aguas frías y, con mayor generalidad, de los ambientes oceánicos que proporcionan un hábitat para los peces, para lo cual los sistemas de la actual gobernanza del mar profundo no están diseñados adecuadamente o estructurados suficientemente para asegurar esto.

Global ecological, social and economic impacts of marine plastic.

This research takes a holistic approach to considering the consequences of marine plastic pollution. A semi-systematic literature review of 1191 data points provides the basis to determine the global ecological, social and economic impacts. An ecosystem impact analysis demonstrates that there is global evidence of impact with medium to high frequency on all subjects, with a medium to high degree of irreversibility. A novel translation of these ecological impacts into ecosystem service impacts provides evidence that all ecosystem services are impacted to some extent by the presence of marine plastic, with a reduction in provision predicted for all except one. This reduction in ecosystem service provision is evidenced to have implications for human health and wellbeing, linked particularly to fisheries, heritage and charismatic species, and recreation.

Smarter elder care? A cost-effectiveness analysis of implementing technology in elder care.

Whereas in most sectors, technology has taken over trivial and labour consuming tasks, this transformation has been delayed in the healthcare sector. Although appropriate technology is available, there is general resistance to substituting 'warm' hands with 'cold' technology. In the future, this may change as the number of elderly people increases relative to the people in the work force. In combination with an increasing demand for healthcare services, there are calls for efforts to increase productivity in the sector. Based on experience data from previous studies on information and communication technology efforts in the healthcare sector, we quantitatively assess the use of smart house technology and video visits in home care. Having identified healthcare providers, hospitals and relatives as the main affected groups, we show that smart house technology is cost-effective, even if only relatives gain from it. Video visits, which have higher implementation costs, demand effects on both relatives and health care providers in order to be a cost-effective tool in home care. As the analysis is purely quantitative, these results need to be complemented with qualitative effects and with more thorough discussions of the ethical, medical and legal aspects of the use of technology in home care.

Economic gains from electronic message exchange: the importance of working procedures.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: There are several cost-benefit evaluations of introducing new technology for administrative purposes in the health care sector. Whereas some of these recognise the importance of adapting the working procedures to the new technology, very few look into the consequences of delays in adaptation to the new technology. In this paper, we focus on the consequences of keeping old working procedures, although new technology is implemented. METHODS: Based on on-site observations we have estimated the economic gains of implementing electronic message exchange in the health care sector depending on which working procedures are applied. Then we continue by using a dynamic cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in order to take into account that conversion to new working procedures takes place over time, and we demonstrate the loss in potential gains due to such a delay. RESULTS: Keeping working procedures fit to old technology when new technology is implemented may imply that only between 40 and 50% of the potential time savings (benefits) are realised. In a dynamic perspective, the keeping of double procedures for 10 years and more will jeopardise the economic gains for surgeries, whereas hospitals still may have an economic gain. The delay in conversion to new working procedures implies that only 50% of the dynamic net present value of the gains is realised. The longer it takes before the old procedures are abandoned the lower is the dynamic net present value of the gains. This is due to the discounting of future gains. CONCLUSIONS: These are all arguments for emphasising and putting resources into training and motivation programs for employees when new technology is being implemented. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY: We have only considered quantifiable effects of electronic message exchange in the health care sector, and only for hospitals and surgeries.