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China has experienced serious environmental problems along with rapid economic development in recent years. Industrial production is the fundamental cause of Chinese environmental problems, while production is mainly managed and governed by local industrial Parks. Currently, Chinese industrial parks have just begun to think about sustainable development, and the demonstrative parks are designated as eco-industrial parks (EIPs); however, the EIPs' development strategies and targets are still vague and lack scientific guidance. Therefore, an optimal decision making approach can support EIPs to address environment problems and achieve regional economic development. This study provides an integrated approach to assess the multiple impacts of EIP development strategies and propose optimization planning by using a case study in Wuhu EIP. The initially constructed decision-making model systemically integrates the dynamic model of the Environment-Economic-Energy (3Es) system and an input-output model; then, the model is established and simulated using a linear optimization method. An optimal development strategy can be put forward by analysing scenarios for the Wuhu EIP. Based on the findings of this study, there are several substantial opportunities to further relieve energy pressure, improve the environment, and support socioeconomic activities, such as promotion of clean production and subsidies for technological improvements and changing the industrial structure. Additionally, adopting total environmental quantity constraints rather than intensity constraints is an urgent need in EIP planning. This study provides an applicable and feasible decision-making basis for the development of sustainable industrial parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: China's policymakers are being forced to balance socioeconomic development with the need for environmental protection. In this paper, we have briefly discussed the main characteristics of the environmental problems that China will face in the 21st century and the challenges that must be met in order to develop policies that will support environmental management. As our discussion in this paper shows, the negative effects of China's economic development on its environment will continue to rise for some time, despite strong efforts to reverse the situation. It will also be necessary to change China's resource-intensive mode of economic development, change the economic development philosophy to one in which controlling pollution is as important as economic development, and raise public awareness of the need for environmental protection. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper outlines a new method for determining ecological prices/transformities in complicated ecological–economic systems where non-equilibrium prices are likely to be prevalent. That is, an eigenvalue–eigenvector mathematical solution method for solving an overdetermined, homogeneous system of simultaneous linear equations is proposed and tested. Previous mathematical approaches to the problem of ecological pricing are reviewed before proceeding with an explanation of the new solution method for the determination of ecological prices. The proposed method seeks to avoid the need to make a number of untenable assumptions used in previous methods—e.g., the assumption that there necessarily needs to be an equal number of processes and quantities in the ecological–economic system. The paper also provides practical advice and an algorithm for solving the ecological pricing problem. For example, advice on how to overcome the problem of ill-conditioned matrices which are sometimes encountered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The goal of sustainability is to have levels of resource use and waste assimilation sufficient to maintain a good quality of life for citizens, yet be within environmental carrying capacities. In countries with ageing populations, consumption is constrained by the lower incomes of retired people, and therefore, prospects exist for reductions in resource use and pollutant outputs. The extent of this effect is investigated in this study. This paper uses a new approach to quantify, by age cohort, patterns of resource use and residual generation in New Zealand. These use patterns are then projected to 2051 to see what happens as the population ages. Results indicate that resource use and waste production decline as more people enter the 65+ age group. Gains, however, are diminished by the smaller percentage of young people who have the lowest per capita requirements. Projected growth in population numbers swamp any reductions from ageing effects, even when allowances have been made for future technical change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Achieving a working consensus on how to divide the costs of achieving environmental objectives between resource users and the general community is a key part of mobilizing the policy changes and public resources required to address major resource management challenges in Australia and elsewhere. Existing approaches to this issue have not been able to resolve a maladaptive stand-off between those emphasizing a ‘polluter pays’ approach that imposes costs on resource users and a ‘beneficiary pays’ approach which may privilege an unsustainable status quo. This paper outlines ‘the catchment care principle’ advocated by the Wentworth Group [Wentworth Group, 2002. A New Model for Landscape Conservation in NSW. Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists Report to Premier Carr. WWF, Sydney, February, 2002. ], which states ‘that individual resource managers have an obligation to avoid land or natural resource management practices that harm the long-term interests of resource users as a whole’. The principle is interpreted as implying that resource management practices should not damage ecosystem integrity, while accepting that significant ecosystem modification might be consistent with maintaining a healthy working landscape. The paper also argues that the ‘catchment care’ principle offers a principle-based approach that encourages burden sharing rather than a winner takes all political game, and is likely to enhance the ability of societies to craft constructive policy responses to some of our most difficult environmental challenges. In addition to encouraging more adaptive governance and the protection of ecosystem integrity, the paper argues that the application of the catchment care principle provides a middle ground anchoring point for the political negotiation of policy changes. This is likely to encourage more socially efficient outcomes by reducing incentives to invest in economically unproductive lobbying activity and by encouraging political outcomes that diverge less from underlying social preferences. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Efficiency forms the bedrock of policy, planning and business approaches to sustainable development. But what do ecological economists mean by efficiency? In the resource use context, efficiency has a wide range of potential interpretations, from the ratio of work output/energy inputs to Pareto efficiency. Despite the potential richness of the efficiency concept, in practice, efficiency is often narrowly conceived within disciplinary boundaries. This appears to be the case even in ecological economics, which purports to be ‘transdisciplinary’ and pluralistic. Such narrow disciplinary perspectives essentially waste the richness of the efficiency concept. This wasting could mean ecological economists and decision-makers are destined to Sisyphean toil in the pursuit of sustainable development. This paper explores the efficiency concept and its interpretation. It then reviews ecological economic literature to find that there is much room for improvement in the way ecological economists apply efficiency. Finally, the paper presents a framework within which a truly ecological economic approach to efficiency can emerge. Armed with this framework, policy makers and planners should be better prepared to make decisions leading to sustainable development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]