scholarly journals The First City Organizational LCA Case Study: Feasibility and Lessons Learned from Vienna

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5062
Author(s):  
Alexander Cremer ◽  
Markus Berger ◽  
Katrin Müller ◽  
Matthias Finkbeiner
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
City Managers ◽  
First Case ◽  
Public Service Provision ◽  
Organizational Lca

Cities are recognized as a major contributor to environmental pressures. Recently, organizational LCA (OLCA) has been found to align well with requirements for city-scale environmental decision support and a novel city-OLCA framework was introduced. City-OLCA combines two relevant aspects: It covers activities beyond public service provision (multi-stakeholder) and emissions beyond greenhouse gases (multi-impact). Its unique approach of acknowledging responsibility levels should help both city-managers and academia in performance tracking and to prioritize mitigation measures. The goal of this work is to test city-OLCA’s feasibility in a first case study with real city data from Vienna. The feasibility was confirmed, and results for 12 impact categories were obtained. As an example, Vienna’s global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, and marine eutrophication potential for 2016 were 14,686 kt CO­2 eq., 6796 kg CFC-11 eq., and 310 t N eq., respectively. Our results indicate that current accounting practices may underestimate greenhouse gas emissions of the entire city by up to a factor of 3. This is mainly due to additional activities not covered by conventional standards (food and goods consumption). While the city itself only accounts for 25% of greenhouse gases, 75% are caused by activities beyond public service provision or beyond governmental responsibilities. Based on our results, we encourage city managers to include an organizational based LCA approach in defining reduction strategies. This will reveal environmental blind spots and avoids underestimating environmental burdens, which might lead to setting the wrong focus for mitigation.

scholarly journals Unequal and Gendered: Assessing the Impacts of Austerity Cuts on Public Service Users

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Annette Hastings ◽  
Peter Matthews ◽  
Yang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Data ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Environmental Services ◽  
Service Needs ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Service Provision ◽  
The Impact

A decade of austerity has amplified concern about who gets what from public services. The article considers the socio-economic and gendered impacts of cuts to local environmental services which have increased the need for citizens to report service needs and effectively ‘co-produce’ services. Via a case study of a UK council’s decade of administrative data on citizen requests and service responses, the article provides one of the first detailed analyses of the unfolding impact of austerity cuts over time on public service provision. It demonstrates the impact of austerity across the social gradient, but disproportionately on the least affluent, especially women. The article argues for the importance of detailed empirical examination of administrative data for making visible, and potentially tackling, long standing inequalities in public service provision.

scholarly journals Sustaining Public–Private Partnerships for Public Service Provision Through Democratically Accountable Practices

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110305
Author(s):  
Moses Onyoin ◽  
Christopher H. Bovis
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multiple Stakeholder ◽  
Public Service Provision ◽  
Sustainability Challenges

Despite the multiple stakeholder-centered complexities involved, the public–private partnership (PPP) modality is increasingly the vehicle of choice for the provision of public services in the developing world. This article asks how PPPs might overcome sustainability challenges in a meaningful way while examining which stakeholder-centered interventions are effective in facilitating rather than undermining the continuity of the partnership operations. We draw on the notion of democratic accountability and an in-depth qualitative sector-level case study in Uganda. The findings underscore the primacy of practices that help to reduce stakeholder information asymmetry, increase partnerships’ procedural legitimacy, and improve the understanding of substantive partnership outcomes.

scholarly journals Labour militancy and private contracting: public hospital ancillary services

1970 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stubbs
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Hospital ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Ancillary Services ◽  
Public Service Provision ◽  
Private Contracting

This paper attempts to show that regional variations in the strength of labour force militancy can be an important factor in mediating the regional development of privatization. By taking the private contracting of New Zealand public hospital ancillary services as a specific case study, it is seen that, in some cases, labour militancy can lead to the elimination of private contracting. While acknowledging the need for further research on this issue, some tentative conclusions are drawn on the relevance of labour militancy to the privatization of public service provision in other social contexts.

scholarly journals Firms and Public Service Provision in Russia

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pertti Haaparanta ◽  
Tuuli Juurikkala ◽  
Olga Lazareva ◽  
Jukka Pirttila ◽  
Laura Solanko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Service Provision

scholarly journals Fostering public accountability in South Africa: A reflection on challenges and successes

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pandelani H. Munzhedzi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Public Accountability ◽  
The Public ◽  
Current State ◽  
Public Service Provision ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

Accountability and oversight are constitutional requirements in all the spheres of government in the Republic of South Africa and their foundation is in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. All spheres of government are charged with the constitutional mandate of providing public services. The level of responsibility and public services provision also goes with the level of capacity of a particular sphere. However, most of the direct and visible services that the public receives are at the local sphere of government. As such, enormous resources are channelled towards this sphere of government so that the said public services could be provided. It is imperative that the three spheres of government account for the huge expenditures during the public service provision processes. The parliaments of national and provincial governments exercise oversight and accountability over their executives and administrations through the Public Accounts Committees, while the local sphere of government relies on the Municipal Public Accounts Committees. This article is theoretical in nature, and it seeks to explore the current state of public accountability in South Africa and to evaluate possible measures so as to enhance public accountability. The article argues that the current public accountability mechanisms are not efficient and effective. It is recommended that these mechanisms ought to be enhanced by inter alia capacitating the legislative bodies at national, provincial and local spheres of the government.

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