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The importance of risk perception and risk attitude for understanding individual's risk behaviour are independently well described in literature, but rarely combined in an integrated approach. In this study, we propose a model assuming the choice to implement certain risk management strategies to be directly driven by both perceptions of risks and risk attitude. Other determinants influence the intention to apply different risk strategies mainly indirectly, mediated by risk perception and risk attitude. This conceptual model is empirically tested, using structural equation modelling, for understanding the intention of farmers to implement different common risk management strategies at their farms. Data are gathered in a survey completed by 500 farmers from the Flanders region in Belgium, investigating attitudes towards farming, perceived past exposure to risk, socio-demographic characteristics, farm size, perceptions of the major sources of farm business risk, risk attitudes and the intention to apply common risk management strategies. Our major findings are: (i) perception of major farm business risks have no significant impact on the intention of applying any of the risk strategies under study, (ii) risk attitude does have a significant impact. Therefore, rather than objective risk faced and the subjective interpretation thereof, it is the general risk attitude that influence intended risk strategies to be implemented. A distinction can be made between farmers willing to take risk, who are more inclined to apply ex-ante risk management strategies and risk averse farmers who are less inclined to implement ex-ante risk management strategies but rather cope with the consequences and diminish their effects ex-post when risks have occurred.

This paper reviews the available life cycle analysis (LCA) literature on organic photovoltaics (OPVs). This branch of OPV research has focused on the environmental impact of single-junction bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells using a P3HT/PC 60 BM active layer blend processed on semi-industrial pilot lines in ambient surroundings.The environmental impact was found to be strongly decreasing through continuous innovation of the manufacturing procedures. The current top performing cell regarding environmental performance has a cumulative energy demand of 37.58 MJ p m À2 and an energy payback time in the order of months for cells having 2% efficiency, thereby rendering OPV cells one of the best performing PV technologies from an environmental point of view. Nevertheless, we find that LCA literature is lagging behind on the main body of OPV literature due to the lack of readily available input data. Still, LCA research has led us to believe that in the quest for higher efficiencies, environmental sustainability is being disregarded on the materials' side.Hence, we advise the scientific community to take the progress made on environmental sustainability aspects of OPV preparations into account not only because standard procedures put a bigger strain on the environment, but also because these methods may not be transferrable to an industrial process.Consequently, we recommend policy makers to subsidize research that bridges the gaps between fundamental materials research, stability, and scalability given that these constraints have to be fulfilled simultaneously if OPVs are ever to be successful on the market. Additionally, environmental sustainability will have to keep on being monitored to steer future developments in the right direction. Broader contextOrganic photovoltaics (OPVs) have attracted considerable interest due to their potential to be exible, solution coatable, low cost, low weight, semi-transparent, and easily integratable into different applications. Consequently, many commercialization routes (e.g. portable chargers for consumer electronics, developing world applications, automotive applications, building integrated photovoltaics, etc.) have been identied based on judgments about the evolution in performance on the triangle of efficiency, lifetime, and cost. In case these projections would turn into reality, the wide scale deployment of OPV devices may imply unforeseen negative environmental impacts, if not properly assessed ex-ante. To this end, life cycle analysis (LCA) has been identied as an appropriate tool. LCA is a quantitative product-related assessment technique intended to compare and analyze both the energy use and environmental impacts associated with a product over its full life-cycle, including the following stages: (1) acquisition of raw materials, (2) materials processing/manufacturing, (3) use, and (4) end-of-life, with optional additional transport stages in between. Its results allow steering product and process development in a more sustainable direction. We provide a review o...