Rapid growth in the international demand for palm oil has triggered considerable global concern because oil palm plantations deteriorate the environment where they are developed, resulting in complex environmental impacts in the producer nations. Here, we illustrate the historical trends in the structure of Indonesian palm oil supply chains and how these have been affected by the final demand of other nations since 2000 by using the most recent dataset of global material flows of palm oil and a global input–output database. In addition, the combination of spatial land-use change with palm oil consumption along the supply chains illustrates the linkages between ultimate consumption and land-use changes due to the palm oil plantations. As a result, the major contributors to palm oil production in Indonesia were mostly stable, being India, China, Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. However, the contribution of Indonesia declined by 6% during 2000–2013, illustrating a possible shift towards palm oil being used for non-food demands, such as apparel and medicines. Building on consumption-based accounting schemes as demonstrated by this study are considered necessary to protect local ecosystems and society.

This study focuses on the location decisions of private disposal sites for industrial waste. Using a unique dataset of industrial waste disposal sites from 1977 to 2012 in Japan and an econometric approach, we investigate trends in site selection for private industrial waste disposal locations. We also investigate the characteristics of communities that tend to locate disposal sites. Our results show that the number of disposal sites being constructed decreased after the Japanese waste disposal law revision was implemented in 1997 and 1998. In addition, we found that the introduction of an industrial waste tax and trade restrictions on industrial waste shipments tend to decrease the number construction of sites for industrial disposal.

This study is an empirical investigation of the location of industrial waste disposal sites in Japan. We found some evidence of spatial concentration of industrial waste disposal sites in area with other waste-related facilities. In addition, we found a higher number of industrial waste disposal sites per capita in municipalities that had not experienced conflict relating to the construction of disposal sites. Our results suggest that companies may decide to locate disposal sites in areas in which other waste-related facilities already exist and/or where there is less citizen conflict over their construction. This would explain why there is a spatial concentration of unwanted facilities in some areas.

This paper investigates determinants for municipalities on accepting disaster wastes generated from the Great East Japan Earthquake, by using media coverage as reference and econometric analysis. Empirical results show that municipalities with higher amount of donations to the victims of disaster or higher number of volunteers are more positive about accepting of the disaster waste. In addition, it became clear that municipalities located further from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant or the municipalities with higher populations of agricultural worker are more negative toward accepting of the disaster the waste. These results suggest that there is an anxiety about the risk of radiation that prevents municipalities from accepting disaster waste from affected areas.

This study investigates the effects of inter-municipal cooperation in municipal solid waste disposal on waste disposal costs. Using a dataset of disposal costs from 2006 to 2015 for all municipalities in Japan, we investigate whether inter-municipal cooperation in the disposal process induces economies of scale and scope. We find that municipalities with inter-municipal cooperation have lower disposal costs, and the effect is remarkable in municipalities with smaller waste emission scale. Our results also show that cooperation in multiple disposal processes is more effective for cost reduction, which suggests the presence of scope economies. These results indicate that economies of scale and scope play a significant role in the cost efficiency of municipal solid waste disposal.

This study focus on the location decisions of private disposal sites for industrial waste. Using a unique dataset of industrial waste disposal sites from 1977 to 2012 in Japan and spatial econometric approach, we investigate the trend of location of the private disposal sites for industrial waste and the community characteristics that tend to locate the disposal sites. As a result, we found that the number of construction of disposal sites decreased after the Japanese waste disposal law revision implemented in 1997 and 1998. The empirical results show that the economic factors and the existence of other waste-related facilities have a positive effect on the location of private landfill sites. Interestingly, this relationship was fairly stable for 20 years despite a significant decline in the number of sites in operation. In addition, we found that the introduction of industrial waste tax and trade restrictions of waste tend to decrease the number of construction of disposal sites.