Browsing by Subject "Best practices"

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    Tailoring renewable portfolio standards to achieve disparate economic and environmental goals
    (2008-12-05T21:40:16Z) Martin, Garrett
    Within the United States, Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) programs have become a popular public policy initiative for states to enact in order to encourage the use of renewable resources for meeting state energy demand. As more states have adopted RPS programs, the design of these programs have grown more varied and complex as states seek to increase the benefits and decrease the costs of RPS programs by tailoring program design to suit the interests and characteristics of a state. The purpose of this Masters Project is to create a primer for policymakers, interested in designing new, or amending existing, RPS programs, to better understand the policy design options available when developing an RPS program, the potential impacts of structuring an RPS program in a particular manner, and the current best practices and national trends in designing RPS programs. My report uses best practice RPS design principles, created by Wiser et al. in 2003, to evaluate the positive and negative impacts RPS component options have on each principle. The use of an energy-based compliance requirement, unbundled renewable energy certificates (RECs), REC banking, true-up periods, and clearly defined financial penalties for non-compliance are necessary components for the optimal performance of any state RPS program. The goals emphasized by different RPS programs and state-specific characteristics dictate the additional RPS components needed to complete the optimal RPS design for a state. Of the RPS design options analyzed, most have positive impacts on some best practice principles while having negative impacts on others. As a result, it is important for policymakers to clearly define the relative importance of different policy goals that an RPS program aims to achieve in order to select the appropriate RPS component options.
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    Timber Best Practice Guidelines for Protected Areas Management in Gabon
    (2013-04-23) Winchester, Caroline
    Located in Central Africa, Gabon contains large swaths of tropical forest that are a reserve for an incredible level of plant and animal biodiversity. In order to protect this biodiversity, in 2002 thirteen national parks were created along with buffer zones surrounding these parks. Since 2007 Gabon’s national park agency, L’Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN), has been the regulatory body governing both the parks and their associated buffer zones. In recent years, Gabon’s rapidly expanding timber industry has threatened the integrity of these parks. Within buffer zones, timber operators are required to submit environmental impact assessments to ANPN and the Ministry of Environment to demonstrate that timber operations will not negatively impact neighboring parks. However, as of 2012 ANPN lacked guidelines for how timber operations should be conducted in park buffer zones, and thus lacked a mechanism by which to enforce or monitor timber operators for environmental compliance. To help resolve this challenge, I spent a total of thirteen weeks in Gabon as an intern with ANPN. I was assigned the task of developing best practice guideline recommendations for how timber operations should be conducted in national park buffer zones. I also incorporated a way to score companies for their compliance with these best practices. In order to create the timber best practice guidelines I assembled twelve international guidelines into one document, incorporated the priorities of ANPN, obtained feedback from forestry experts, and ensured the guidelines were realistic and context specific by working for five weeks with Olam Timber Gabon. I then created an associated compliance scoring template (CST) utilizing the theory of decision analysis and the method of swing weighting. With the timber best practice guidelines and associated CST, ANPN is closer to being able to enforce good practices adjacent to national parks. They now have the ability to clearly state what they expect of timber operators in buffer zones, and they have a method to monitor operators for compliance. Given the negative impacts timber operations can have on ecosystems, the implementation of the guidelines will help ensure that Gabon’s national parks remain intact for years to come.
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    Working for Change in the Environmental Health Sphere: Unique Challenges and the Best Practices to Address Those Challenges
    (2012-04-27) Messenger, Leigh
    Individuals working for change in environmental health face some challenges that best practices can help navigate. Environmental health is becoming a much more important area of focus as expanding knowledge increasingly links everyday environmental exposures with a higher risk of disease. These exposures can be from a variety of substances including common everyday chemicals, pollution, heavy metals, and other substances. The focus of this project is to identify through an interdisciplinary lens some of the unique challenges and best practices in Environmental Health using conversational interviews, observations, and all forms of published information from geographically diverse individuals and organizations. The challenges discussed underscore the difficulty that many characteristics of environmental health are not necessarily visible and tangible to many people and individuals must rely on changing belief, perceptions, and behavior in order to effect change. This is as challenging as trying to get someone to quit smoking or exercise more. Those working in environmental health find their work to be more difficult due to public disputes over health effects, as well as the validity of the scientific findings. Overall, individuals working in the area of environmental health can benefit from understanding the basics of health-related models and communication, as well as the way people process information and make decisions. Some crucial best practices identified focus on the areas of credibility, education, communication, and involvement.