Plastic pollution, especially in marine environments, is a global problem that is currently inadequately managed. Solutions for marine plastic can occur through policy, behavior change and infrastructure improvements, but also through entrepreneurial ventures and technological innovations. Currently, information about these ventures and innovations is scattered and lacks coherence. This study presents the first comprehensive overview of entrepreneurial and SME led solutions for marine plastic by analyzing a database of 105 SMEs categorized into four functions: prevention, collection, transformation and monitoring. We find that small businesses are successfully commercializing goods and services to reduce the damage of plastics on the marine environment through innovative business models, with a steep growth of startups founded between 2016 and 2019. However, efforts to manage marine plastic are still underdeveloped in many areas, including microplastic management and monitoring. Practitioners, policymakers and researchers can utilize the database to identify solutions, best practices, synergies and avenues for further research, such as quantifying the environmental impacts of this industry.
In the context of climate change, small island developing states (SIDS) need to engage in adaptation efforts. Due to the rural, remote and specific institutional characteristics of SIDS, these efforts are commonly implemented at the community level. Therefore, the adaptive capacity of the community is an essential attribute of the adaptation process. With a focus on the role of social capital, this paper provides a quantitative analysis of determinants of household intention to participate in community adaptation projects, using data from a household survey and discrete choice experiment conducted in a coastal community in the Federated States of Micronesia. The results reveal that expectation of high climate change risks and strong sense of social capital enhance adaptive capacity. Participation in community activities and perception of threats to the social group in question are important components of social capital in determining adaptive capacity. Household size, income diversification, and very high resource dependency are negatively related to the household's intention to contribute to community adaptation and therefore adaptive capacity. These results provide crucial insights for the design and implementation of community adaptation projects in SIDS.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.