No description available.

All tiers of UK Government are required to include a range of environmental objectives in developing land use and transportation plans. The current trend towards regionalisation of governance brings with it uncertainty and debate. Part of this debate must include determination of the optimum scale for implementing land use and transportation plans to incorporate environmental objectives. This thesis is the result of developing tools to assist in this debate, using the environmental objectives relating to local air quality management and global climate change. A major outcome of this research is the development of robust techniques and tools for the estimation of atmospheric emissions and subsequent air quality impact from land use, including industry, and transportation activities. An extensive number of evaluation techniques have been used to verify the robustness of these tools. These tools have been applied to a geographically diverse part of the UK representing a sub-regional level of governance and have been demonstrated to be applicable at the regional scale. The tools have been used to provide a spatially detailed and source specific profile of emissions of key pollutants over a period from 1990 to 2020 allowing for the consideration of devolving the climate change objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the national to local scale. There is a balance between source size and the extent of geographical area (scale of governance) to ensure meaningful emission reduction measures can be implemented equitably. The tools have also been used to test the impact on local air quality of reducing emissions through assessment of a number of land use and transportation scenarios. The results indicate meeting climate change objectives will deliver more in terms of local air quality management than vice versa. There is expected to be a future limit to local air quality management in terms of reducing emissions and a need to reduce population exposure through land use planning. The issue of source scale may be overcome by adopting off setting policies. The results of this research suggest the inclusion of local air quality management and climate change objectives in land use and transportation planning could be achieved at the regional or sub-regional scale, rather than local (district) scale of governance.

The UK National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) is the first industrial symbiosis (IS) network in the world to have been established at national level. Many studies have recently investigated the UK NISP, but much work remains to be done in understanding the context that enabled the development and management of a large scale IS network. This research aims to explore and understand: (1) the place of the UK NISP within the UK government’s ‘green’ market strategy; and, (2) the management and organisational design employed by the UK NISP in developing and managing a nation-wide IS network. Based on a qualitative inquiry, a case study approach was adopted to conduct this research. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to gather information from twenty-eight policy officers, government advisors, as well as representatives of the UK NISP and its partner organisations. The research findings showed that the government’s decision-making mechanism, in each of the UK countries, was significantly different. Whilst it was found that the UK government is focused on embedding ecological modernisation components in the policy process, there is also a need for extended and consistent decentralisation across the UK and a structural framework that enables non-state stakeholders to effectively influence the policy process. The outcomes of this research indicate a relationship between EM theory and the IS concept. By adopting the ecological modernisation agenda, the UK government can play a significant role in promoting the use of the IS concept by: (1) devising policies that are directly aimed at supporting the development of IS networks; and, (2) aligning the funding for technological innovation with the needs of potential IS projects. Nevertheless, the study found that the future of the UK NISP is entirely dependent on UK government funding and, therefore, it is recommended that the UK NISP should identify ways to raise income from the private sector as well for the UK NISP’s long term survival. The findings also highlighted the effectiveness of the organisational design employed by the UK NISP (including leadership at national level, regional delivery strategy and regional partnership strategy) for a large scale IS network and the suitability of the UK NISP’s organisational design to the dynamic nature of the IS network development. The regional partnership strategy was found to promote sectoral focus in IS networks, which did not adhere to the ‘innovation’ and ‘diversity’ principles of IS. This would result in limited innovation and raise the potential for an IS network to become unstable, for example, if a member decides to leave the network, the lack of diversity in the IS network would make it difficult to replace that member. So it is important that the UK NISP staff and contractors are provided with extensive training to ensure a better understanding of the IS concept principles. In a society facing economic and environmental challenges, this study specifically contributes to the understanding of the context that enabled the development of a large scale IS network that would help integrate environmental protection and economic growth.