Urban Environmental Management Approaches by Tourism Organisations in Wellington, New Zealand

<p>Tourism in New Zealand depends heavily on the quality of the environment yet at the same time holds the potential of destroying the very environment on which it relies upon if not managed properly. Therefore, concerted actions must be taken to ensure New Zealand's '100% Pure' image is maintained. According to the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2015, the tourism sector's ability to take a leading role in protecting and enhancing the environment is a key priority. While most tourism studies on environmental management tend to focus on rural or protected areas there is a need to investigate environmental management within urban settings. This research takes a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews to investigate and examine the nature of environmental management approaches taken by tourism organisations in the urban setting of Wellington. It also aims to identify the factors influencing the adoption of environmentally-friendly practices, barriers which may hinder the adoption of such practices, and the role of public and private sector agencies in environmental management for tourism businesses. The research found that tourism organisations in Wellington mainly took an informal approach towards environmental management. However, a qualitative method of enquiry revealed that tourism businesses were slowly moving towards change. This was evident from the number of businesses that indicated they were adopting environmental practices related to supply chain management, employee awareness and training, and interpretation. The main factors influencing adoption have also provided reasons for this change. Though, the barriers and difficulties faced by tourism businesses continue to affect the pace of change. As with businesses, public and private sector organisations have an important role to play in urban environmental management. The responses of interviewees indicate that these 'bigger' organisations such as the RTO need to take on a much more proactive role. The need for greater cooperation and communication between key stakeholders of tourism is essential to the success of urban environmental sustainability.</p>

Urban Environmental Management Approaches by Tourism Organisations in Wellington, New Zealand

<p>Tourism in New Zealand depends heavily on the quality of the environment yet at the same time holds the potential of destroying the very environment on which it relies upon if not managed properly. Therefore, concerted actions must be taken to ensure New Zealand's '100% Pure' image is maintained. According to the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2015, the tourism sector's ability to take a leading role in protecting and enhancing the environment is a key priority. While most tourism studies on environmental management tend to focus on rural or protected areas there is a need to investigate environmental management within urban settings. This research takes a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews to investigate and examine the nature of environmental management approaches taken by tourism organisations in the urban setting of Wellington. It also aims to identify the factors influencing the adoption of environmentally-friendly practices, barriers which may hinder the adoption of such practices, and the role of public and private sector agencies in environmental management for tourism businesses. The research found that tourism organisations in Wellington mainly took an informal approach towards environmental management. However, a qualitative method of enquiry revealed that tourism businesses were slowly moving towards change. This was evident from the number of businesses that indicated they were adopting environmental practices related to supply chain management, employee awareness and training, and interpretation. The main factors influencing adoption have also provided reasons for this change. Though, the barriers and difficulties faced by tourism businesses continue to affect the pace of change. As with businesses, public and private sector organisations have an important role to play in urban environmental management. The responses of interviewees indicate that these 'bigger' organisations such as the RTO need to take on a much more proactive role. The need for greater cooperation and communication between key stakeholders of tourism is essential to the success of urban environmental sustainability.</p>

A System Dynamics Model for Urban Residential Building Stock towards Sustainability: The Case of Jinan, China

Resource and environmental issues related to urban building systems have recently become a hot research topic in the field of urban environmental management research. Taking Jinan city as an example, this paper establishes a system dynamic model for an urban residential building stock system. The simulated results show that the urban residential building stock will be 1.99 × 108 m2 in 2050; and the annual total demolition buildings will be at 3.36 × 106 m2 in 2082. Policy measures were developed based on four important action fields such as per capita floor area (PCFA), the building structure proportion of new construction, lifetime of the residential building, and the recycling of the C&D waste. Among these approaches, the set of policy measures focusing on the recycling of C&D waste appears to be more effective in reducing environmental and resource impacts than the other three fields. It is also found that the recycling of brick and concrete waste plays a considerable role in reducing environment and resource impacts due to the development of urban residential building stock with the lapse of time.

The new urban managerialism in geopolitical context

This commentary critically examines Phelps and Miao’s concept of the new urban managerialism (NUM) in light of three geopolitical processes operating around the state and urban politics: (1) the geopolitics of city-regionalism; (2) the geopolitics of urban environmental management; and (3) the geopolitical implications of the public–private financing of urban infrastructure. It argues that the NUM remains fundamentally a territorialized political project and raises questions about where to draw conceptual and territorial boundaries around the urban public interest.

Urban Environmental Management Towards Achieving Integrated Water Management in the City

In the world’s most developed countries, urban planners are increasingly emphasizing the need to adopt environmental concepts that integrate water management; this guarantees human and environmental rights, and also the sustainable use of natural resources. We based our research on previous studies related to urban environmental management; these studies emphasize the weak cognitive integration in many aspects of the research. Our research aims to show how urban environmental planning impacts sustainable water management, with further implications for community viability. When dealing with the impact of climate change, it is necessary for urban water management departments to engage community participation. Our hope is that this research prompts decision makers to educate their communities, particularly those individuals who are interested in water management, thereby closing the gap between the views held by water specialists and the urban residents. We used field surveys and data collection for our analysis, and we created a questionnaire for distribution across different community samples. We were able to test for compatibility between respondents’ opinions, and how strongly these opinions impacted urban environmental management trends in the study area. We also measured the interconnection between respondents' opinions and water management.

Gender equality for women involvement in urban environmental preservation

The purpose of this study explores the relationship between environmental preservation and gender equality. Efforts to overcome the impacts of climate change in cities through environmental preservation must be carried out by all communities’ participation. Gender equality very important to strengthen providing access to women to preservation activity in the urban environmental management. This study was conducted qualitatively with a literature review using a qualitative systematic review. The findings show that there are still obstacles to achieving gender equality in preserving the environment physically and non-physically. The gender aspect need to be elaborate the preservation activity with emphasis in human aspect to prevent environmental damages. Because women’s way and their consistency contribution in environmental preservation shows that a gender equality approach is very important in environmental conservation activities to achieve urban area sustainable. To conclude, there is important relationship regarding environmental preservation with aspects of gender equality, regarding access and forms of involvement in activities. This study contributes to urban planning with a gender responsive approach, with a focus on involving women in urban preservation by reducing gender discrimination.