The human race has always faced environmental challenges. What differs at present, however, are the scale and entrenched social structures (e.g., capitalism, man/nature duality, a dominant social paradigm) that are contributing to these problems and our own irrationality when it comes to possible solutions. Implicit testing methodologies, borrowed from experimental psychology, may be able to bypass some of these issues and provide a means to identify simple 'point of decision' interventions to effect change in behavior on an individual level. The approach adopted in the current thesis was to explore the extent to which movement dynamics (measured using MouseTracker) can inform the decisional anatomy of an important pro-environmental activity — recycling. MouseTracker is a useful methodology as it assesses the real-time conflict that people experience when confronted with the decision to recycle a particular item or not. There were three stages to the progression of this research: (1) using focus groups to gain knowledge of undergraduates' beliefs and opinions towards recycling (Study 1); (2) assessing the utility of MouseTracker as an implicit tool to explore recycling decisions (Expts. 1 & 2); and (3) establishing the extent to which personal (i.e, Social Value Orientation) and situational factors (i.e., environmental primes) influence the anatomy of recycling decisions (Expts. 3-6). Results from the focus groups confirmed that university undergraduates hold widely held societal beliefs about recycling, thereby justifying their inclusion in the current investigation. Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed the utility of MouseTracker as a methodology to explore recycling decisions. Overall, participants displayed a stronger attraction to putting recyclable items in the rubbish bin than garbage in the recycle bin, a tendency that was reduced with increasing levels of environmental concern. Results in the subsequent experiments were mixed. An important individual difference variable (i.e., Social Value Orientation) failed to show an influence on recycling behavior (Expt. 3), and subtle environmental primes produced a collection of modest effects (Expts. 4 & 5). Most notably, a messy environment improved recycling performance (Expt. 5). Compelling results were observed, however, when self-directed attention was manipulated (Expt. 6). In particular, recycling performance was enhanced in the presence of a mirror, thereby confirming the relation between self-focus and normative behavior (the efficient disposal of waste). Discussion centers on the theoretical and practical implications of the current findings, limitations with the methodology employed, and consideration is given to future research on this important societal topic.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / The paper revolves around the intersection of food waste and food insecurity within the built environment. A sample of grocery stores were asked to explain their policies regarding food waste, specifically how they divided this waste stream between food recovery and composting. It was determined in the end that the potential to grow composting as a waste management practice is far greater than the potential to expand food recovery, for all the participating grocery stores could not donate more food than they had historically.

This thesis describes a comparative evaluation of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) systems in four countries, including the UK as a developed Western nation and Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia as examples of differing rapidly developing countries in South-East Asia. In order to carry out this evaluation, a conceptual framework for analysing an EIA system has been developed. This defined framework provides an uniform basis for examining the insights and effectiveness of the individual EIA systems. The study results showed that ETA has been implemented in the UK through secondary regulations. Guidelines on the ETA procedure are available. Nevertheless, public consultation prior to the submission of an environmental statement (ES) with a planning application is a recommendation only, rather than a statutory requirement. Post-EIA monitoring is required through planning conditions, but not defined in the EIA regulations. Formal appraisal of plans is required for local/structure plans and is undertaken informally for other plans. It was found that EIA implementation by various competent authorities has been inconsistent across the country. In Taiwan, various EIA general and technical guidelines are introduced. A formal requirement for ETA of government policies is included in the 1994 ETA Law. The procedure appears to be quite comprehensive with public participation at the early stage of ETA, i.e. scoping and public presentationlhearing, but not formal channels for appeals. EIA compliance monitoring and enforcement is conducted by an independent Task Force. However, the effectiveness of ETA implementation in practice still needs to be strengthened. Malaysia has devoted considerable effort to improving indigenous ETA capabilities through, for example, EIA training, developing an EIA tracking system and a central database of ETA reports. However, a number of aspects of ETA, including guidance availability, public involvement, ETA compliance monitoring and enforcement, and the effectiveness of implementation in practice, need to be strengthened. In Indonesia, the requirements for an EIA report are quite strict and clear. The linkage of ETA and spatial use management has been established since 1993. There have been considerable technical and financial inputs from Canada. However, aspects, such as guidance availability, public participation, EIA enforcement and implementation in practice, should be enhanced. Based on the study findings, an EIA Evaluation Model and a conceptual framework for a comprehensive ETA system have been developed. It is suggested that competent national authorities can apply the EIA Evaluation Model to identif' the strengths and weaknesses of their ETA systems. The proposed conceptual framework for a comprehensive ETA system can be used as a reference model. Competent national authorities could, then, set out priorities and devote resources to overcome shortcomings and strengthen ETA effectiveness, so that the performance of the ETA systems can be improved. 2

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