A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Environment, Resources and Development

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1998

A training software package on economic instruments for pollution prevention has been designed for mid-level environmental managers. This package enables the mid-level managers with limited knowledge and technical background in environmental issues to clearly understand various aspects of economic tools used in pollution prevention and control. This package mainly consists of four different elements, namely simulation games, slides, quizzes, and reference bank. Eight different simulation games have been prepared and each of them incorporates two different parts: static part (example) and the dynamic part (simulation). Additionally, every game is equipped with a help file. Slides contain brief and "to-the-point" illustration of economic tools used in the field of pollution prevention until now. Similarly, quizzes contain practically relevant and universal issues, and they have been prepared topic-wise for each category of economic tools. Lastly, an equally useful element of this software package is the reference bank. This part consists of literature review section that serves as a theoretical hard-copy, a bibliographic listing of an wide variety of reference materials on economic instruments and pollution prevention, and a listing of useful internet web-sites, related to economic instruments and environmental pollution control. The simulation game part of this software package is expected to provide the user with varieties of scenario related to pollution prevention costs and environmental quality. The user is expected to benefit from the different issues incorporated in the games such as application of pollution charges, need for an investment in wastewater treatment plant, feasibility of trading of pollutants through permit systems, effect of regulatory standards and command-and-control approach with incentives (based on "carrot and stick" principle), use and effectiveness of subsidies, charging and refund mechanism on environmentally harmful products, and effect of liability costs in pollution prevention programs. The whole "Training Resource Package" is prepared in Microsoft-Office program. Simulation games and quizzes are prepared with MS-Excel 97 program utilizing visual basic features. Slides are prepared in PowerPoint and the remaining elements namely reference bibliography, literature review, and web-site listings in MS-Word 97 program.