• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.191-204
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• 2010

Recently, the CO2 emission and energy consumption have become critical global issues to decide the future of nations. Especially, the spread of IT products and the increased use of internet and web applications result in the energy consumption and CO2 emission of IT industry though information technologies drive global economic growth. EU, the United States, Japan and other developed countries are using IT related environmental regulations such as WEEE(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), RoHS(Restriction of the use of Certain Hazardous Substance), REACH(Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of CHemicals) and EuP(Energy using Product), and have established systematic green business/IT strategies to enhance the competitiveness of IT industry. For example, the Japan government proposed the "Green IT initiative" for being compatible with economic growth and environmental protection. Not only energy saving technologies but energy saving systems have been developed for accomplishing sustainable development. Korea's CO2 emission and energy consumption continuously have grown at comparatively high rates. They are related to its industrial structure depending on high energy-consuming industries such as iron and steel Industry, automotive industry, shipbuilding industry, semiconductor industry, and so on. In particular, export proportion of IT manufacturing is quite high in Korea. For example, the global market share of the semiconductor such as DRAM was about 80% in 2008. Accordingly, Korea needs to establish a systematic strategy to respond to the global environmental regulations and to maintain competitiveness in the IT industry. However, green competitiveness of Korea ranked 11th among 15 major countries and R&D budget for green technology is not large enough to develop energy-saving technologies for infrastructure and value chain of low-carbon society though that grows at high rates. Moreover, there are no concrete action plans in Korea. This research aims to deduce the priorities of the Korean green business/IT strategies to use multi attribute weighted average method. We selected a panel of 19 experts who work at the green business related firms such as HP, IBM, Fujitsu and so on, and selected six assessment indices such as the urgency of the technology development, the technology gap between Korea and the developed countries, the effect of import substitution, the spillover effect of technology, the market growth, and the export potential of the package or stand-alone products by existing literature review. We submitted questionnaires at approximately weekly intervals to them for priorities of the green business/IT strategies. The strategies broadly classify as follows. The first strategy which consists of the green business/IT policy and standardization, process and performance management and IT industry and legislative alignment relates to government's role in the green economy. The second strategy relates to IT to support environment sustainability such as the travel and ways of working management, printer output and recycling, intelligent building, printer rationalization and collaboration and connectivity. The last strategy relates to green IT systems, services and usage such as the data center consolidation and energy management, hardware recycle decommission, server and storage virtualization, device power management, and service supplier management. All the questionnaires were assessed via a five-point Likert scale ranging from "very little" to "very large." Our findings show that the IT to support environment sustainability is prior to the other strategies. In detail, the green business /IT policy and standardization is the most important in the government's role. The strategies of intelligent building and the travel and ways of working management are prior to the others for supporting environment sustainability. Finally, the strategies for the data center consolidation and energy management and server and storage virtualization have the huge influence for green IT systems, services and usage This research results the following implications. The amount of energy consumption and CO2 emissions of IT equipment including electrical business equipment will need to be clearly indicated in order to manage the effect of green business/IT strategy. And it is necessary to develop tools that measure the performance of green business/IT by each step. Additionally, intelligent building could grow up in energy-saving, growth of low carbon and related industries together. It is necessary to expand the affect of virtualization though adjusting and controlling the relationship between the management teams.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.43-49
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• 2011

This study calculated the three indices of Korea's resource productivity (and raw material productivity), material circulation rate and decoupling factor to evaluate the sustainability of domestic economic activities and resource consumption and examine the extent of dematerialization. Korea's resource productivity improved 22% from 1.32 million KRW/ton in 2000 to 1.61 million KRW/ton in 2007, with the annual average growth of resource productivity during the period standing at 2.88%. Raw material inputs accounted for 73-76% of domestic material consumption (DMC); raw material productivity for the year 2007 was 2.11 million KRW/ton, growing 3% on annual average from 2000 through 2007. The wastes released are circulated into the economic system through recycling and energization. Korea's material circulation went up from 10.9% in 2000 to 15.6% in 2007, growing by an annual average of 5.3% during the period. The rate of change in year-on-year growth, however, was found to be on the gradual decrease. This study also showed that Korea's economic activities were decoupled with its resource consumption as the country heads toward dematerialization through sustainable resource management.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.757-767
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• 2006

Biological assessments are the primary tool for evaluating the biological condition of a water body and makes it possible to understand accumulative and long-term effect of stressors. They also provide reliable biological information for which disturbed systems are to be restored. Sustainable water environment is not enough with attaining only the clean water, but it should sustain healthy and diverse aquatic life. Aquatic organisms are affected by various factors, including not only water quality but also habitat condition and stressors, and thus good condition of both physical and chemical water quality is prerequisite for sustaining healthy organisms. Therefore, biological assessment, along with other physical and chemical assessments, are crucial for evaluating the health of a water body. Overall, sustainability of water environment demands the attainment and maintenance of ecological integrity, which is resulted from the combination of physical, chemical and biological integrity. The biological criteria will play very important role in the water resource management and policy issues, and thus bioassessment program should be fully implemented and supported eventually by the law. To keep ecosystem health of water environment safely from the toxic pollutants and other stressors, the following suggestions need to be considered in environmental quality standards in Korea. For the first step, the biological indicators need to be introduced in evaluating river quality condition; they provide a qualitative description of biological condition of water body. Secondly, the biological water quality standards using biotic indices should be developed and implemented under the consideration of characteristics of Korean river systems. Lastly, the ecological status classification regime (ESCR) should be developed and introduced; it could be used in quality assessment of the water environment in general. In developing ESCR, integration of physico-chemical, biological, and habitat parameters should be taken into account.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.161-202
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the ex-post evaluation reports of KOICA's grant aid project in terms of criteria, methods, and contents. To this end, we will examine the evaluation history and process with particular reference to EDCF and KOICA. Our key research questions are: 1) How are the evaluation standards of the OECD DAC reflected in the KOICA ex-post evaluation reports? 2) Whether did Korea's practices of development evaluation change after its entry into the OECD DAC. The paper attempted an content analysis on the key words used in findings and recommendation section of the reports since 1998 that ara available on the website of KOICA. The main results can be summarized as follows. First, the frequency of OECD DAC criteria(relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability) and the use of quantitative methods have been increasing after joining the OECD DAC. Second, in the ex-post evaluation reports issued after 2010, the reference indices including the Project Design Matrix (PDM), baseline data, and performance have increased exponentially.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-309
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• 2023

While South Korea's universal healthcare system has garnered attention in public health, the issue of inequality in healthcare service provision among different age groups has incessantly become a significant concern. The focus of this concern is primarily on essential healthcare services, encompassing fundamental aspects of healthcare such as internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric and adolescent care. This inequality is not limited to differences among age groups (both junior and senior demographics) but also extends to potential disparities in healthcare services based on geographic location, particularly in urban and rural contexts. This paper aims to investigate disparities in primary healthcare service resources in South Korea's evolving economic landscape between 1995 and 2021. We utilize a set of inequality indices with a spatial perspective through geographic cluster analysis. The findings reveal that concerns about inequality have been amplified during various economic events, including the IMF crisis in 1999, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These years are identified as significant phases that have contributed to manifesting spatial disparities in primary healthcare provisions, with a particular emphasis on the senior-aged population rather than junior or all population groups. Our findings underscore the pressing need to address the unequal distribution of essential healthcare resources as part of preparedness for potential economic impacts, requiring a comprehensive consideration of the interconnected nature of demographic and spatial dimensions in healthcare services.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.135-143
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• 2008

An emergy concept was used to evaluate the environment and economy of the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River in Korea. The emergy evaluations clearly showed ecological and socioeconomic characteristics of the estuarine areas that act as ecological and economic centers of surrounding areas. River, tide, and rain provided most of the renewable emergy inputs to the estuarine areas with their contribution to the total emergy input less than 8%. The estuarine areas mostly relied for their operation on the purchased emergy which accounted for $92{\sim}98%$ of the total emergy input to the systems. Emergy indices such as emergy use per unit area, population carrying capacity, environmental loading ratio, and emergy sustainability index revealed that the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River are not sustainable at the current level of economic activities in the areas. The ecological economic values of the environment of the areas were in the range of $7.29{\sim}22.06$ million Em\/ha/yr. They are more than twice that for the whole country, indicating the ecological and economic importance of the eatuarine areas. It is, therefore, urgent to establish and implement estuarine management policies to protect and restore the ecological and economic potentials of the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River. Management plans for the estuarine areas should include both demand-side measures such as reduction of population and economic concentration and consideration of ecological carrying capacity in planning stages for utilization and development of the areas, and supply-side ones such as restoration of degraded ecosystems and construction of new productive ecosystems.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.327-337
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• 2022

Ecological restoration is considered a good means to prevent biodiversity loss in terms of the ecosystem's health and sustainability. However, there are difficulties in putting it into practice as there is no comprehensive and objective standard for the selection of plant species, such as environmental, ecological factors, and restoration goal setting. Therefore, this study developed an evaluation index necessary for selecting plant species for restoration using the Delphi method that synthesizes the opinions of the expert group. A survey with 38 questionnaires was conducted twice for experts in ecological restoration, etc., and the importance and priority of evaluation indicators were analyzed by dividing the restoration targets into inland and island regions. The result of the importance analysis showed that "native plants" had the highest average of 4.9 among the evaluation indices in both inland and island regions, followed by "seed security", "propagation", and "root growth rate". In the inland region, the index priority was analyzed in the order of "native plants", "appearance frequency", "root growth rate", "distribution range", and "seed security" in the island region, it was analyzed in the order of "native plants", "root growth rate", "appearance frequency", "distribution range", and "tolerance", showing slight differences between the two indicators. As a result of the importance and priority indicator analysis, we set the mean importance and priority of 4.1 and 2.9, respectively, in the inland region and 4.2 and 2.9, respectively, in the island region. As for the criteria of selecting plant species for ecological restoration, the "native plants" had the highest importance and priority. "Seed securing", 'viability", "topography", "proliferation", "tolerance", "soil conditions", "growth characteristics", "early succession", "distribution range", "appearance frequency", and "germination rate" were classified into subgroups of low importance and priority. The lowest indicators were "final stage of succession", "transition period", 'transition stage", "root", "reproduction", "soil", "appearance", "technology", "landscape", "climate", and "germination rate". We expected that the findings through objective verification in this study would be used as evaluation indicators for selecting native plant species for ecological restoration.