New Polymeric Products: Fundamentals, Forming Methods and Applications introduces applications of polymer materials in different fields, including new products and processing methods. This book is rich in content and creativity and introduces the development, history, characteristics and existing processing methods of polymer materials in a comprehensive and systematic manner. Sections include the latest achievements from future travel, energy problems, special environment, lens materials ...

This book represents one of the first attempts by a multidisciplinary research team, encompassing the social sciences, business, architecture and planning, engineering, and finance and economics, to help rural communities discover sustainable and self-reliant paths to development and transformation.The opening chapter outlines the background of the research, its importance in the context of China and other countries, the rationale for choosing the case study communities in rural Ch...

Waste to Wealth proves that 'green' and 'growth' need not be binary alternatives. The book examines five new business models that provide circular growth from deploying sustainable resources to the sharing economy before setting out what business leaders need to do to implement the models successfully.

Climate change is a cause for concern both globally and locally. In order for it to be tackled holistically, its governance is an important topic needing scientific and practical consideration. Climate change governance is an emerging area, and one which is closely related to state and public administrative systems and the behaviour of private actors, including the business sector, as well as the civil society and non-governmental organisations. Questions of climate change governance deal ...

India’s recent performance in agriculture has been favorable, with agricultural production growing over the past 30 years. Yet there is widespread consensus that, relative to the rest of the economy, agriculture is lagging and that it can and must do much better to support india’s overall high economic growth and dynamism.This book explores the future and presents the audacious question: what could the agricultural sector in India look like 30 years from now and how should it look ...

This book explains how and why the state-socialist regime in Hungary used technology and propaganda to foster industrialization and the conservation of natural resources simultaneously. Further, this book explains why this process was ultimately a failure. By exploring the environmental pre-history of communist Hungary before analyzing the economic development of the Kádár regime, Pál investigates how economic and environmental policies and technology transfer were negotiated between the o...

This book addresses the ability of market-based instruments to improve the sustainable provision of environmental services. The author combines field research and insights from the multi-stakeholder dialogue at the FAO to analyze the gap between the predictions provided by theory and the corresponding outcomes in practice. In particular, the author challenges the theory behind Payments for Environmental Services (PES), a concept derived from neoclassical welfare economics, by demonstrating...

This book gives a comprehensive overview on Software Product Management (SPM) for beginners as well as best practices, methodology and in-depth discussions for experienced product managers. This includes product strategy, product planning, participation in strategic management activities and orchestration of the functional units of the company. The book is based on the results of the International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) which is led by a group of SPM experts from i...

The future of modern societies depends on their ability to deal with the challenge of climate change in the coming decades. One essential component is a better understanding of innovation processes in the energy sector. This book focuses on sustainability innovations in renewable energies, combined heat and power, and energy service contracting, and analyses the institutions, actors and functions within the innovation system. Of particular interest is the question of whether the joint effe...

This book is particularly concerned with China’s path to green development and how it can be understood, exploring questions such as how the goal of Chinese-led green development can be achieved. The book provides systematic explanations of the theory of green development, exploring its background, its theoretical basis, the areas it covers, the stages it encompasses and the constraining and favorable factors involved. We see how humankind is at a period of transition from the traditional ...

Given rising electricity consumption, coupled with finite resources, and a growing awareness surrounding sustainable energy, ICT-enabled electrical networks such as smart grids are increasingly being deployed by energy companies. One aspect of smart grids is smart meter technology (SMT), which are sophisticated digital electrical meters, having the potential to increase energy efficiency in both residential and industrial sectors.However, a challenge to SMT-implementation in reside...

The main objective of the book is to identify and evaluate the major changes in the Cohesion Policy of the European Union and their effects on Polish regions for the period of 2014 - 2020. The reader will learn how these changes result from the successful agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework and implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy. Based on these aspects, the authors describe the main change in the Cohesion Policy of the EU, which is the renewed focus on competitiveness ...