مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد ارزیابی عوامل موثر بر پایداری مالی مدیریت زباله – الزویر 2018

1- Introduction

2- Literature review

3- Waste management sector in Italy

4- Materials and methods

5- Results and discussion

6- Conclusions

References

Abstract

This article examines the financial sustainability of waste management activities to understand whether and how choices oriented toward environmental protection and contextual factors influence waste management companies’ revenues and costs, which, in turn, affect their financial sustainability and, thus, their ongoing viability. To achieve this purpose, a three-year empirical analysis on 880 Italian municipalities was conducted. Financial sustainability was evaluated with reference to waste management companies working in these territories, and a set of quantitative and qualitative data was considered to investigate possible influencing factors. The results show that separate waste collection may positively influence companies’ financial performance, while municipalities’ territorial extension negatively impacts profitability. Lastly, there is no evidence of a relationship between companies’ financial sustainability and the potential presence of waste disposal plants or the geographical areas in which they operate. For the analyzed companies, thus, it seems that it would be more convenient to expand business by boosting separate waste collection activities than by enlarging the territories served. These findings can support firms’ decisions regarding environmental and financial issues, both of which are crucial for long-term sustainability. It can also help policy makers detect appropriate tools to support companies in implementing European Union waste management targets.

Introduction

The collection and disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a strategic issue for countries around the world, given the enormous increase in the quantity of waste produced in recent decades due to augmented consumption, despite occasional decreases caused by the economic crises. This topic has important social, environmental, and financial effects due to the various involved actors: the governments responsible for defining waste management (WM) policies, the companies that carry out waste collection and disposal, and the citizens whose behaviors must comply with the governments’ strategies. A tradeoff between environmental and financial implications should be accomplished through the responsible behavior of all stakeholders (Fisher-Vanden and Thorburn, 2011). According to the European Union (EU), member states should monitor the full waste cycle from production to disposal following the hierarchical principle, whose aim is to prevent waste’s negative environmental impacts: it advocates, in order of priority: reuse, recycling, other kinds of recovery (e.g. for energy production) and, finally, disposal (Gharfalkar et al., 2015). The hierarchical principle is not a new approach, though it has been strengthened through Directives 2006/12 and 2008/98 and recently reinforced by EU institutions with the circular economy action plan and new legislative proposals on waste (Eurpopean Commission, 2015; European Parliament, 2017). In brief, considering that member states often experience a lack of natural resources, but abundant waste, they should seek ways to use waste more efficiently, defining policies to promote the conversion of waste into resources that may be re-introduced into the economic system as secondary raw materials (Cossu and Williams, 2015). Within this context, the present article focuses on Italian municipalities governing WM services in their territories according to specific policies, which should comply with the circular economy principles.