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Allocating environmental impacts within life cycle assessment (LCA) is a recognised methodological problem. Different allocation methods have been developed to fulfil the various goals of LCA studies. At present, there is neither a consensus regarding the method to be used nor a one-fits-all method for dealing with recycling in LCA. The paper discusses some of the main allocation procedures practised in the pulp and paper industry, namely those covered by ISO/TS 14067:2018, GHG Protocol/PAS 2050, and the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). All in all, the allocation method described in the ISO/TS 14067:2018 standard was considered the most appropriate to account for open-loop recycling of paper products. However, the method neither considers the number of subsequent uses of recycled fibres, nor the recycled fibre age. Yet, both of them are considered especially important in the open-loop recycling of paper products. In order to account for these aspects, the present study proposes an advanced, step-wise approach to handle allocation in LCAs accounting for the open-loop recycling of paper products. The advanced approach is based on the fibre mass flow model used to calculate the mean fibre age and the mean number of uses of paper products within the European context. The approach was validated with the data from the pulp and paper industry, particularly examining the newsprint paper grade with different contents of recycled fibre and fibre age. The paper, however, introduces all the parameters required to perform allocation based on the proposed method for other paper grades. The categpory of global warming potential was considered in the study as an illustrative example. yet the method could be applied to other impact assessment categories. The results calculated using the proposed allocation approach were compared to those obtained with the allocation methods described in the GHG Protocol/PAS 2050 and the PEF. The proposed allocation method can be used to guide further development of available standards and the product category rules, which will contribute to increased harmonisation and consistency of LCA studies in the pulp and paper sector, as well as to the enhanced practical implementation of LCA in industry.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a well-established and informative method of understanding the environmental impacts of consumer products across the entire value chain. However, companies committed to sustainability are interested in more methods that examine their products and activities' impacts. Methods that build on LCA strengths and illuminate other connected but less understood facets, related to social and economic impacts, would provide greater value to decision-makers. This study is a LCA that calculates the potential impacts associated with Bounty® paper towels from two facilities with different production lines, an older one (Albany, Georgia) representing established technology and the other (Box Elder, Utah), a newer state-of-the-art platform. This is unique in that it includes use of Industrial Process Systems Assessment (IPSA), new electricity and pulp data, modeled in open source software, and is the basis for the development of new integrated sustainability metrics (published separately). The new metrics can guide supply chain and manufacturing enhancements, and product design related to environmental protection and resource sustainability. Results of the LCA indicate Box Elder had improvements on environmental impact scores related to air emission indicators, except for particulate matter. Albany had lower water use impacts. After normalization of the results, fossil fuel depletion is the most critical environmental indicator. Pulp production, electricity, and fuels for product production drive fossil fuel depletion. Climate change, land occupation, and particulate matter are also relevant. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by pulp, electricity, papermaking, and landfill methane from the disposed product, drive climate change impacts. Pulp provides significant offsets to balance climate change impacts due to sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Ninety-nine percent of land occupation is for the growth of the trees for pulp production. Papermaking, electricity, and pulp production cause the most potential particular matter formation.

Biorefinery sector has become a serious dispute for cleaner and sustainable development in recent years. In the present study, pretreatment of pineapple peel waste was carried out in high pressure reactor using various pretreatment-enhancers. The type and concentration effect of each enhancer on hemicellulose solubilization was systematically investigated. The binary acid (phenol + sulfuric acid) at 180 °C was found to be superior amongst other studied enhancers, giving 81.17% (w/v) hemicellulose solubilization in liquid-fraction under optimized conditions. Solid residue thus obtained was subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis that resulted into 24.50% (w/v) cellulose breakdown. Treated solid residue was further characterized by scanning electron microscopy and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to elucidate structural changes. The pooled fractions (acid treated and enzymatically hydrolyzed) were fermented using Clostridium acetobutylicum NRRL B 527 which resulted in butanol production of 5.18 g/L with yield of 0.13 g butanol/g sugar consumed. Therefore, pretreatment of pineapple peel waste evaluated in this study can be considered as milestone in utilization of low cost feedstock, for bioenergy production.

Cost simulations provide a strong tool to render the production of microalgae economically viable. This study evaluated the unexplored effect of harvesting time and the corresponding microalgal biomass composition on the overall production cost, under both continuous light and light/dark regime using techno-economic analysis (TEA). At the same time, the TEA gives evidence that a novel product “proteinaceous salt” from Dunaliella microalgae production is a promising high-value product for commercialization with profitability. The optimum production scenario is to employ natural light/dark regime and harvest microalgal biomass around late exponential phase, obtaining the minimum production cost of 11 €/kg and a profitable minimum selling price (MSP) of 14.4 €/kg for the “proteinaceous salt”. For further optimization of the production, increasing microalgal biomass concentration is the most effective way to reduce the total production cost and increase the profits of microalgae products.

The disposal of highly-concentrated neutral coal mine effluents into the environment constitutes a severe threat to the natural ecosystem. This work proposes and compares five novel treatment chains to purify the effluent and recover raw materials. The chains present different combinations of pre-treatment and concentration technologies. In all cases, the solution sent to the concentration step is concentrated up to saturation to recover water and sodium chloride. Concerning the technical performances, the treatment chains are compared in terms of total energy demand and salt recovery. Furthermore, the economic feasibility assessment is performed via a novel global parameter, i.e. the levelized cost of the produced NaCl crystals (Levelized Salt Cost, LSC). The energetic and economic analysis of the chains highlighted that the thermal energy demand of the concentration technology covers the highest share of the total demand and the relevant costs are among the highest expenditures. Also, the revenues given by Mg(OH)2 production were found to play a key role in offsetting the treatment costs. Among the treatment chains analysed, the one composed by two nanofiltration units and two crystallizers in the pre-treatment step and a multi-effect distillation unit in the concentration step showed the highest recovery of NaCl and turned out to be the most economically feasible. The relevant LSC (∼100 $/tonNaCl) was the lowest and it was comparable with the lower bound of the current range of price of high-purity NaCl crystals. In conclusion, the findings of this work contribute to improving the sustainability of the coal mine industrial sector, by proposing economically feasible solutions for the treatment and valorisation of its neutral effluent.

Policymakers are embracing the circular economy (CE) as a means of harmonizing environmental and economic interactions, including at the urban level. Whilst numerous studies cover CE practices, few papers cover how it is being implemented and how cities (hotspots of material consumption, waste generation and disconnected pollution) are transitioning from linear-like processing of materials to a cyclical form. This paper addresses (a) how is the CE being applied and driven at the city level, and (b) what are the emerging transitional barriers and limits of such strategies? It compares the case studies of Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague, especially as the Netherlands is considered a CE frontrunner. Utilising document analysis of key national and city level strategies and 67 interviews, we show that the key municipal instruments include public procurement, zoning laws, capacity building and knowledge exchange and these can mostly be applied to municipal purchases and the construction sector. Practitioners perceived the initial barriers as knowledge of suitable technologies and deployment opportunities, the low quality of waste streams in comparison to the low costs of high-quality virgin inputs, the difficulty in addressing these issues at the urban scale, and the linear mindset of relevant actors. We argue that core limitations for these strategies and city level circular transitions include the instrumental scope and capacity to influence value chains and businesses, in addition to an overt focus on end-of-pipe actions as opposed to reducing and reusing resources. This research suggests that multi-level policy integration is needed to alter value chains to enable a greater reduction in material inputs and changes in actor behaviour.

Air pollution presents a serious public health risk globally, particularly in fast industrializing countries such as China. Effectiveness of local air pollution control measures is influenced by external forces such as atmospheric emission transport and interprovincial trade. However, there is lack of research on comparison of these two indicators and local indicators (e.g. per capita income and emissions) determines the responsibility allocation in pollution control. In this paper, cross-provincial air pollution is stimulated via atmospheric transport (atmospheric linkage indicator) based on Weather Research and Forecasting/Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (WRF/CAMx) model. The air pollutants embodied in interprovincial trade (trade linkage indicator) was studied by using the latest multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model. This study revealed the significant influence of atmospheric transport on neighboring provinces. However, transport of trade-induced embodied emissions affects both neighboring areas and larger areas. According to aggregation analysis of these two indicators, in most provinces of China, direction of atmospheric transport contradicts to that of the trade-induced transport. These findings are used to analyze the rationality of regional differences in environmental tax rate in the new environmental protection tax law of China. By comparing the local and interregional linkage indicators, we found the current environment tax for air pollutants was mainly affected by per capita income whereas other environment and linkage indicators show little correlation. Therefore, we integrated environment and linkage indicators to propose adjusted provincial environment tax rates plan for air pollutants as a cost sharing mechanism. The results of this paper provide novel perspective for central government to adjust fairness environmental responsibility between provinces of China by tax policy. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The aim of this research is to explore how social housing associations can introduce circular strategies and integrate social elements, next to ecological elements, within these strategies. In order to investigate this aim, this paper first explores the circular strategy options that can be adopted by housing associations. Thereafter, the paper explores how social elements can be integrated within these strategies via the establishment of relationships with communities in the network of housing associations. By performing an in-depth case study, we identified potential circular strategies for housing associations and indicate how community relationships could be established within these strategies. The findings highlight that community relationships in the vision formulation and activities involved in the execution of circular strategies may assist in creating synergies between the ecological aims of circular strategies and the perspectives and needs of communities. On the other hand, the results indicate that not establishing relationships with communities or only establishing relationships in the strategy outcomes may be detrimental to both community needs and the ecological aims of circular strategies. ? 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Currently, the “2019-CoV-2” has been raging across the world for months, causing massive death, huge panic, chaos, and immeasurable economic loss. Such emerging epidemic viruses come again and again over years, leading to similar destructive consequences. Air-borne transmission among humans is the main reason for the rapid spreading of the virus. Blocking the air-borne transmission should be a significant measure to suppress the spreading of the pandemic. Considering the hospital is the most “dangerous” place to occur massive cross-infection among patients as emerging virus usually comes in a disguised way, an air distribution optimization of a general three-bed hospital ward in China is carried out in this paper. Using the Eulerian-Lagrangian method, sneeze process from patients who are assumed to be the virus carrier, which is responsible for a common event to trigger cross-infection, is simulated. The trajectory of the released toxic particle and the probability of approaching others in the same ward are calculated. Two evaluation parameter, total maximum time (TMT) and overall particle concentration (OPC) to reflect the particle mobility and probability to cause cross-infection respectively, are developed to evaluate the proposed ten air distributions in this paper. A relatively optimized air distribution proposal with the lowest TMT and OPC is distinguished through a three-stage actively analysis. Results show that a bottom-in and top-out air distribution proposal is recommended to minimize the cross-infection., Highlights • A ward-based sneeze process from a patient with epidemic disease is modeled. • Air distribution (AD) affects the flow pattern of the sneeze-induced virus particles. • Ten AD proposals are developed to evaluate the their probability of cross-infection. • Two parameters are proposed to judge which proposals is better quantitatively. • The direct probability of cross-infection can be decreased by 95% via optimization.

Accurate, detailed, and up-to-date information on energy costs is crucial for energy management in manufacturing companies. Yet, to what extent is such energy costs information actually available and used? This study reviews empirical information provided in papers published in research journals about the availability and use of energy costs information in manufacturing companies. The study aims to focus both on energy-intensive companies as well as non-energy-intensive companies, and also to distinguish between the practices of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) vs. large companies. The literature review covers 23 journals in the fields of business, accounting, energy, and engineering, leading to the final sample that includes 51 papers for the analysis. Most studies in this sample concern energy-intensive and large companies. The most striking result is that with only few exceptions, almost no studies provide a nuanced description of how measuring and allocating energy costs is being done. For example, almost no studies investigate specific cost allocation bases, the accuracy of cost allocations, or differentiation between first-stage allocation and second-stage allocation. Nevertheless, the overall impression is that many manufacturing companies resort to imprecise methods for measuring and allocating energy costs. They seem to lack much of the cost information necessary for energy management, such as information needed for improving energy efficiency, evaluating energy efficiency improvement investments, and holding managers accountable for energy efficiency.

This paper seeks to ascertain why the role of end-user (consumer) within sustainable innovation remains largely overlooked by policymakers in spite of their significant potential in driving socio-technical transitions. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with policymakers, the paper finds that conceptual vagueness and a lack of clear definitions within the field have led to a myriad of terms being used to refer to the engagement of end-users in the sustainable innovation process. This lack of clarity has generated a confused policy narrative when discussing the role of end-user in sustainable innovation, making it difficult for insights to be shared with and drawn from others and resulting in a fragmented policy toolset. In addition to this ambiguity, the interviews revealed that policymakers often take a traditional view of innovation and its main actors, wherein end-users are seen as playing the role of ‘the informed consumer’ who drives the demand side but does not contribute to supply. Thus, despite significant evidence to the contrary, policymakers remain apprehensive about the potential of end-users driving sustainable innovation. The paper concludes that existing policy concerns are less about whether end-users innovate or not than whether this form of innovation can actually translate into public goods. The key takeaway for proponents of sustainable end-user innovation is that, from a policy perspective, the larger impact and business case has yet to be made.

Profiting from the benefits of smart products connected through the Internet of Things (IoT) could disrupt business models and has the potential to foster a circular economy by embracing a performance economy. Extant literature has offered insights into circular strategies, smart products and product-service systems (PSS) in isolated ways or by considering partial overlaps, but lacks a holistic account of their interplay. By means of an integrated review, this paper synthesises literatures from various domains to describe interrelationships among these three concepts and propose a conceptual framework of smart-circular systems. This paper thereby advances research by providing a description of three binary interrelationships: smart circularity, smart PSS and circular PSS. Moreover, the review elaborates a new understanding of smart-circular (product-service) systems by articulating the base strategy smart use and extending the following circular strategies (or technical loops): maintenance, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling. Finally, the review outlines a critique of the state of the literature on this phenomenon and offers suggestions to guide future empirical and theoretical research in the domains of circular strategies, services and business models.

Closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) as one of the important configurations of the circular economy (CE) has received considerable attention in sustainability matters. It is composed of characteristics that, when identified, studied, and categorized, help not only to a better understanding of the current contributions in the literature but also lead to formulating new models. This research presents one of the first in-depth studies to investigate factors influencing CLSCs. It concerns the investigation of the models which are designed based on the game theory (GT). Therefore, the reviewed works focused on cooperation and competition among the game participants. A systematic literature review is implemented as a four-step process consisting of material collection, a descriptive analysis, category selection, and evaluation stage to review and discuss the works that focus on CLSC and use GT simultaneously. A content-based analysis is carried for the final works, which include 215 papers. The identified characteristics of these papers are classified into 12 main categories. Moreover, they are divided into subcategories to highlight the contribution of each paper. Accordingly, results are derived, and gaps are explained.

This study focuses on the boundary-spanning nature of sustainable business model innovation, studying multi-stakeholder engagement and alignment. Drawing on the concept of boundary work, we explore the different types of organizational boundary changes between focal companies and their external stakeholders, investigating specifically the process of exploring, negotiating, disrupting and realigning organizational boundaries. Based on an exploratory study of nine different sustainable business model initiatives from for-profit and non-profit organizations, our analysis shows how actors involved need to find alignment at normative, instrumental and strategic dimensions in order to achieve sustainable value creation. However, complexity for alignment emerges through different understandings of value, diverging interests, division of risks and responsibilities, and existing processes and activities that limits actors’ openness to align. Mutual boundary changes are thus necessary in the process of multi-stakeholder engagement in order to enhance organizations’ understanding of value and to capture the envisioned value. This paper functions as an agenda-setting paper, presenting first insights on how the boundary work lens can advance our understanding of alignment processes between focal organizations and their external stakeholders, required for sustainable business model innovation.

‘Local embedding’ is a term increasingly used by transition researchers but in a variety of ways. As a concept it is emotive but lacks clarity. The first contribution of this paper is to explore and substantiate the concept of local embedding by drawing on three theoretical fields: socio-technical transitions, domestication studies and research on innovation intermediaries. Emphasis is placed on the work required to integrate low carbon technologies into local contexts of use by aligning multiple system elements into configurations that work. This points to a particular form of actor – those performing relational work between multiple actors and technologies, commonly known as intermediaries – as being central to the process. Three key intermediary processes – of facilitating, configuring and brokering - are thought to define the work that intermediary organisations do. Nonetheless, understanding how these key intermediary processes relate as well as the agency of intermediary organisations in local embedding is still largely uncharted territory. The paper's second contribution is the development of a process perspective on the agency of intermediary organisations in local embedding. The resulting perspective offers a means to situate and understand the agency of user-side intermediaries in local embedding and insights into later phases of transition processes.

Environmental efficiency improvement has played a crucial role in the theory and practice of stimulating clean production. This paper analyzes the interaction between environmental efficiency and output efficiency, particularly whether they reinforce each other or compete with each other, on the basis of a data set of 137 firms in the textile industry in China's Jiangsu Province. In the first stage, generalized data envelopment analysis is applied to calculate efficiency measures of energy, waste water, waste gas, soot, and output efficiency taking capital, labor, water, and energy as inputs, industrial output value as desirable output, and waste water discharges, waste gas and soot emissions as undesirable outputs. In the second stage analysis, a structural equation model with latent variables is applied to analyze the interaction between the latent variable environmental efficiency, measured by the four observed environmental indicators, and output efficiency, taking also into account the endogenous variable profit. The main outcomes of the structural equation model are the following. Firstly, environmental efficiency negatively impacts on profit while profit positively impacts on environmental efficiency. In a similar vein, output efficiency is found to depress profit while profit increases output efficiency. Thirdly, environmental efficiency has a positive impact on output efficiency while there is no effect of output efficiency on environmental efficiency. Fourthly, taxes impair a firm's output efficiency. From the findings it follows that a swap of general taxes for an energy tax is likely to improve both output efficiency and energy efficiency. The latter outcome implies a win win situation which will facilitate the further implementation and adoption of environmental policy. Finally, the paper illustrates the applicability of structural equation modeling in efficiency analysis. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Demonstrations serve an important role in the promotion of sustainable technologies. This paper analyzes sustainable building demonstration from the strategic niche management perspective. It studies how demonstration sequences conducted over a long time span gradually contribute to niche development for clean energy technologies at the national level. Our empirical analysis focuses on solar building demonstrations in Finland, an unfavorable context for the technology. Our findings show that the demonstrations leveraged sporadic windows of opportunity for the technology resulting from international developments. The projects supported three niche development processes: the building of networks, different types of learning and the creation of visions and expectations, thereby softening the ground for solar technology uptake in new buildings. However, they have also struggled to make an immediate impact on mainstream practices due to weak continuity and the challenging socio-technical environment. The paper concludes with implications for carrying out demonstrations projects that provide continuity in unfriendly environments.

Accompanying by the rapid urbanization process of China, unprecedented amounts of cement have been poured into urban construction over the last decade. Since research is still scarce on the factors underlying the cement consumption, the motivation of this paper is to provide insight into cement-based socioeconomic metabolism and to improve understanding of the linkage between human activities and cement consumption. To explore the key impact factors of cement consumption, an extended STIRPAT model is exploited in this paper to examine the effect of population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, cement consumption intensity, fixed investment and urbanization level with regional panel data of China from 2005 to 2013. The empirical results indicate that fixed investment and GDP per capita are the decisive driving factors of cement consumption. The unbalanced investment between infrastructure and people's livelihood reflects bias urbanization policy in China. Inverted-U shaped nexus between cement consumption and urbanization, as well as GDP per capita, are observed in the empirical results. Moreover, regional heterogeneities are taken into account in the model estimation. On the ground of the empirical findings, several policy recommendations are provided for policy makers. It is suggested that policy makers should take account of the regional discrepancy and implement a sustainable urbanization strategy to curtail cement consumption. Only when excessive fixed investment is curbed does the enthusiasm of cement consumption calm down. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the transition to a more sustainable world, the development of sustainable technologies needs to be accompanied by promoting the legitimacy of the technologies. Consumers that perceive a technology as desirable and appropriate are more likely to adopt it. Organizations can collaborate to enhance the legitimacy of new technologies. While previous research has emphasized the importance of collaboration in the field of sustainability, it has not studied collaborative efforts of organizations aimed at achieving legitimacy of sustainable technologies. The contribution of this paper is therefore to analyze the role of inter-organizational alliances in creating legitimacy for a sustainable technology. The paper contributes to the literature by analyzing how alliances create three types of legitimacy: technology-sourced market legitimacy, technology-sourced social legitimacy and technology legitimacy. It focuses on the case of bio-plastics, which is emerging as a sustainable technology in the chemical industry. The analysis is based on a database containing information on 105 alliances in the field of bio-plastics over the period 1990–2013. The results show that alliances aim to promote technology-sourced market and social legitimacy by providing access to the sustainable technology of a partner, by collaboratively developing a sustainable technology, or by providing the technology of a partner with access to customers and production capacity. Alliances promote technology legitimacy by relying on positive externalities, by exercising their signaling role, and by acting as institutional entrepreneurs. The paper concludes that there are differences between alliances that create technology-sourced market and social legitimacy on the one hand, and technology legitimacy on the other hand. The first type of alliances are often bilateral alliances between for-profit companies that produce and market sustainable technologies. In contrast, alliances that stimulate technology legitimacy are multilateral alliances that operate in the pre-competitive stage of the value chain and involve not-for-profit organizations.

The 2030 Agenda recognizes the role of the private sector and calls on its innovative and creative capabilities to help solve sustainable development challenges. Judging by the embracement of the SDGs in sustainability reporting, this call seems to resonate. However, the extent to which companies actually make a contribution to solving SDG challenges remains unclear. This paper aims to explore this innovative contribution to the SDGs. It does so by assessing the level of SDG relevant innovation by the largest multinational enterprises in the world. We develop a method for the identification of SDG relevant patent applications, distinguishing between “green” patents, related to environmental themes, and “blue” patents, related to “improving conditions” and meeting unmet sustainable development needs. In addition, we explore whether the level of SDG relevant innovation is systematically associated with a number of company characteristics. Our results show that large MNEs have similar levels of green patents, and lower levels of blue patents, compared to smaller companies. Using regression analysis, we find that there are regional and industry-specific differences. Corporate sustainable development attributes such as Global Compact membership and sustainability reporting, are less convincingly associated. It can be concluded that MNEs play an important role in SDG relevant innovation, but that there are trade-offs between different SDGs. Some SDG relevant innovation is not commonly associated with sustainable development. This study attempts to quantify the actual effect of sustainability strategies of companies by identifying their sustainable patents and associates this to company characteristics, using a new method for sustainable patent identification. Moreover, SDG relevant innovation is taken beyond green innovation to include the whole range of technical innovation that is related to the broad range of SDGs.

Renewable energy plays an important role in reducing global carbon (CO2) emission. This paper builds a RER (renewable energy consumption rate) index to represent the energy structure of a country and proposes a U-shaped RKC (renewable energy Kuznets Curve) hypothesis between RER and economic growth. We also examine the dynamic relationship between RER and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis using two panel data sets of 17 major developing and developed countries as well as six geo-economic regions of the world during 1990–2014. Panel co-integration tests indicate that a long-run relationship exists among economic growth, RER and carbon emission. We employ the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) techniques to estimate the co-integration coefficients of the panels and individual countries/regions respectively. The results verify both the EKC and RKC hypotheses, indicating that a 10% rise in RER would to a 1.6% carbon emission reduction. It is also found that the RKC turning points of individual countries and the entire samples in general take place before the turning points of the respective EKCs. It suggests that promoting renewable energy consumption to make RKC cross its turning point earlier can accelerate EKC to reach its turning point more quickly. This finding has important policy implications with respect to the development and utilization of renewable energy and environmental protection.

In recent years, several scholarly attempts have been made to conceptually outline the contours of the sharing economy. However, there is still limited consensus on fundamental characteristics of sharing models, the markets they create, and the controversies surrounding them. Based on an assessment of existing typologies of the sharing economy, this paper outlines a new theory-driven framework for describing and analyzing business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer sharing models that draws on the nascent literature of partial organization. Emphasizing the core organizational characteristics of sharing models (membership, rules, monitoring, sanctioning, and hierarchy), this new framework moves beyond existing definitions and scales used to map and analyze the fast-growing sharing economy field.

In international scientific literature, it is argued from institutional theory that economic freedom stimulates corporate environmental responsibility. However, economic freedom comprises several different dimensions, such as government size, rule of law, open markets, and (freedom from) government regulation. Whereas previous literature has shown that rule of law and open markets stimulate corporate environmental responsibility, the impact of government size and government regulation on corporate environmental responsibility of companies located in different countries has yet not been explored. This paper contributes to scientific literature by researching the effects of these two dimensions of economic freedom on corporate environmental responsibility. We hypothesize that small government stimulates corporate environmental responsibility and that freedom from government regulation discourages it. Using panel data from ASSET4 for the corporate environmental responsibility of 5023 companies, and data of government size and government regulation from Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation for 41 countries, the authors perform panel analysis for the period 2005–2014 to test the hypotheses. The estimation results show that both small size of government and freedom from government regulation decrease corporate environmental responsibility. The test results are robust for the type of economic freedom data (Fraser Institute or Heritage Foundation) used.

Existing empirical and theoretical literature provides excellent insight into many aspects of CEO-related phenomena. However, so far, no study has explored the interrelation between corporate governance and CEO ability in influencing corporate social responsibility practices. From resource-based view perspectives, this research examines the complementarities/substitutions that may exist between social responsibility oriented corporate governance mechanisms and CEO ability in affecting corporate social responsibility performance among United States firms. This research documents that CEO ability is a unique resource that can help firms reduce agency problem associated with social and environmental performance. The analysis of data for the period of 2006–2015 reveals several fact-based findings. This research finds strong complementarities between CEO ability and internal social responsibility oriented governance mechanisms (i.e., board independence, the presence of a sustainability committee, and social performance-related incentives for managers) in enhancing socially responsible performance within a firm. Conventionally, it is considered that CEOs are less likely to engage in socially responsible activities, while findings of this paper shed light on the brighter side of CEO ability.

Value creation and appropriation are much-studied processes in business and management fields. However, both academia and business practice have traditionally focused on how value is created and appropriated in the economic context and by economic actors. This overemphasis on economic logic has created institutionalized asymmetries in managing the relationship between business, society and ecological environment. In this paper, we broaden the value creation and appropriation analysis along two dimensions: (1) the type of economic goods used to create value (private and club goods, public goods and common goods) and (2) value creation and appropriation domains (economic, social, and environmental). Building on this framework, we argue that there are several institutionalized asymmetries in the relationship between the goods used to create value and the domains in which the value is eventually appropriated. We point out the system-level tendency of value over-appropriation in the economic domain over the two other domains as well as value over-appropriation in the social domain over the environmental domain. We also discuss how existing organizational practices, such as corporate social responsibility, shared value creation, and sustainable business models, have attempted to overcome them, and reflect on the main critiques to these approaches. Finally, we identify potential business-based solutions to the institutionalized asymmetries and provide implications to research and practice. Post-print / Final draft

The concept of a circular economy has been proposed as a key component of a solution for the finiteness of earth’s resources. As one path, the research on the direct reuse of construction components focusses on strategies for designing buildings for disassembly in the end-of-life stage. This is of particular importance because it can reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry. The recently published ISO 20887 also advocates to design buildings for disassembly and to use standard-sized components. However, to the authors’ knowledge the role of standardisation in this process remains unexplored. Therefore, in this paper the evolution of standardisation is studied in order to identify the drivers for standardisation and currently available standards that aid and support the claims of the ISO 20887. This study concludes that most standards are introduced from an economic, rather than an environmental point of view. Also, ISO 20887 seems to be the first actual standard addressing the idea of reusing building components. Through an integrative discussion of the available types of construction standards, the problem areas obstructing the required further standardisation are identified: protectionism of contractors whom perceive standardisation as a threat, protectionism of manufacturers whom are reluctant to change the organisation structure, and designers whom seem least aware of the need to implement the circular economy in the construction sector. Finally, a corresponding trajectory is proposed for future standardisation to tackle these problem areas and to actually perform its role as an essential enabler for circular Reuse in the construction sector.

China’s strategy of greening industrial development aims to decouple industrial growth from industrial wastewater discharges (IWDs). This study combines decoupling analysis, decomposition analysis, and attribution analysis to support this goal. First, the decoupling analysis is employed to explore the degree of decoupling between industrial growth and IWDs in China, as well as across 30 provinces, from 2000 to 2015. Next, a decomposition analysis focusing on the change in industrial wastewater discharge intensity (IWDI) is performed to reveal the factors influencing decoupling trends. Then, attribution analysis is used to attribute contributions of these factors to different regions. Our decoupling results indicate an increasing decoupling trend between industrial output and IWDs in China in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, there is a convergence in decoupling degrees among provinces. Decomposition results reveal that water intensity plays a dominant role in promoting decoupling, while the wastewater discharge coefficient negatively impacted decoupling before 2005 but contributed to decoupling later on. Regional attribution results indicate provinces in South China have exerted more efforts in both water saving and wastewater treatment during the study period. Water scarce provinces in North China performed better in terms of water saving, while more developed and water-rich provinces in South China performed better in wastewater treatment. This paper suggests targeted policy methods at province level.

This paper focuses on the potential impact of various options for decarbonization of public bus transport in Stockholm, with particular attention to electrification. An optimization model is used to locate electric bus chargers and to estimate the associated carbon emissions, using a life cycle perspective and various implementation scenarios. Emissions associated with fuels and batteries of electric powertrains are considered to be the two main factors affecting carbon emissions. The results show that, although higher battery capacities could help electrify more routes of the city's bus network, this does not necessarily lead to a reduction of the total emissions. The results show the lowest life cycle emissions occurring when electric buses use batteries with a capacity of 120 kWh. The fuel choices significantly influence the environmental impact of a bus network. For example, the use of electricity is a better choice than first generation biofuels from a carbon emission perspective. However, the use of second-generation biofuels, such as Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), can directly compete with the Nordic electricity mix. Among all fuel options, certified renewable electricity has the lowest impact. The analysis also shows that electrification could be beneficial for reduction of local pollutants in the Stockholm inner city; however, the local emissions of public transport are much lower than emissions from private transport.

Organizations have to deal with increasing challenges in their supply chains. Their decision makers brought to balance economic performance with environmental and social issues. Methods and concepts for jointly optimizing economic, environmental and social cost of operations in supply chains are challenging. Decision support systems could help organizations to support sustainability in their supply chains. A collaborative decision-making framework for sustainable supply chain planning is proposed in this paper. This framework facilitates the development of multi-party collaborative relationships across a network to improve the sustainability of delivered products. It supports a new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system platform. The platform provides insight for infrastructure and visibility to support supply chain sustainability requirements. The proposed decision support system proposes simultaneously collaboration and sustainability functionalities missing in many existing supply chain planning systems. This system has been evaluated and validated through a pilot program across a range of food supply networks. The work is motivated and applied by a major European research program in the agri-food supply chain.

Many Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) technologies fail to achieve their full potential impact due to low levels of adoption by smallholder farmers and difficulties in scaling CSA. This paper presents how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can act as change agents for the uptake of CSA technologies where their business models may be seen as adoption and scaling mechanisms. Drawing upon our fieldwork in Punjab (India) during which over 100 respondents have been interviewed, critical issues and enabling factors for the business model of two types of SMEs, i.e. farmer cooperatives and individual service providers of climate smart technologies have been identified. Enabling factors supporting adoption are driven by scientific and practical evidence of CSA technologies, good partnership between SMEs and research institutes, good customer relationships and effective channels through farmers' field trials. Critical issues consist of distortive government subsidies on energy and the lack of market intelligence affecting the profitability of the business model. Scaling is enhanced through market intelligence and a favouring regulatory landscape. However, difficult socio-economic circumstances and distortive government subsidies limit the role of SMEs business model as mechanism for scaling.

In this paper, a multi-commodity energy business model for an industrial park is designed and evaluated using the extended "business model design framework for viability". The framework has been validated earlier for mono-commodity energy systems. Our goal is to examine the application of the business model design framework for viability for multi-commodity energy systems as they are more complex. The framework was applied to an industrial park, where heat and electricity networks are integrated. The business model was designed iteratively to harvest and exploit the flexibility embedded in the industrial processes of the heat consumers. The first iteration showed that the business model design framework for viability was largely successful. However, adding two extensions to the framework helps to deal with the complexity of designing and evaluating viable business models for multi-commodity energy systems in a better way. First, the configuration techniques in the framework are extended to include reference business models. Second, the evaluation criteria in the framework are extended to include the capabilities of the stakeholders. The extended business model design framework for viability better enables the design of complex business models and allows to evaluate the capabilities of the stakeholders to implement the designed Business model. The extended business model design framework for viability successfully facilitated the design and evaluation of a viable multi-commodity energy business model and therefore is corroborated. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cities have been one of the most important areas of CO2 emissions. It is increasingly important to research the effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions, especially in large emerging and developing economies, due to the indispensable need for understanding the effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions, evaluating carbon reduction tasks and providing the scientific basis for low-carbon urbanization. Utilizing a balanced panel dataset in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China, during the period of 2000–2010, this paper employed data envelopment analysis (DEA) window analysis and a spatial lag panel Tobit model to investigate the effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions efficiency (the ratio of the target CO2 emissions to the actual CO2 emissions). The results show that the average CO2 emissions efficiency was 0.959 in 2010, and CO2 emissions efficiency ranged from 0.816 to 1 and exhibited spatial clustering in the region. The larger potential of CO2 emissions reduction appeared in Zhenjiang and Yangzhou, indicating that more CO2 emissions reduction tasks should be allocated to these two cities. Urbanization has negative effects on improving CO2 emissions efficiency, and there is a U-curve relation between CO2 emissions efficiency and urbanization, indicating that CO2 emissions efficiency decreases at the early stage of urbanization, then increases when urbanization reach a high level. There is spatial spillover effect among the prefecture-level cities, suggesting that different prefecture-level governments should coordinate with each other to improve CO2 emissions efficiency in the whole area. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita also plays a markedly positive role in improving CO2 emissions efficiency. This research highlights the effect of urbanization on CO2 emissions efficiency and the importance of improving CO2 emissions efficiency in developing countries., Highlights • The effect of urbanization on CO2 emission efficiency in the YRD was investigated. • DEA window analysis and spatial lag panel Tobit model were utilized. • Urbanization, GDP and spatial effect have marked effects on CO2 emission efficiency.

There are many different types of manufacturing distributions, ranging from subsistence do-it-yourself (DIY) to centralized industrial production. In this paper, a taxonomy is introduced of alternative manufacturing distributions for sustainable production. First, different types of manufacturing distributions are explained. Second, the importance of location-specific considerations is illustrated through a case study of Turkish car production. Third, comparative sustainability analysis for different manufacturing distributions is provided. This includes economic, ecological, social and institutional sustainability. Fourth, factors affecting the sustainability of all manufacturing distributions are explained. Fifth, the taxonomy is introduced, together with an example of comparative sustainability analysis for two alternative types of manufacturing distributions. Overall, it is argued that different manufacturing distributions have different strengths and weaknesses depending on multiple factors. Moreover, in some situations, centralized manufacturing can have higher potential for sustainable production than other distributions of manufacturing. Hence, the taxonomy is introduced to facilitate increased specificity and balance in debate concerning alternative manufacturing distributions for sustainable production.

Energy-intensive industries account for almost 51% of energy consumption in China. A continuous improvement in energy efficiency is important for energy-intensive industries. Cleaner production has proven itself as an effective way to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. However, there is a lack of manufacturing data due to the difficult implementation of sensors in harsh production environment, such as high temperature, high pressure, high acid, high alkali, and smoky environment which hinders the implementation of the cleaner production strategy. Thanks to the rapid development of the Internet of Things, many data can be sensed and collected in the manufacturing processes. In this paper, a big data driven analytical framework is proposed to reduce the energy consumption and emission for energy-intensive manufacturing industries. Then, two key technologies of the proposed framework, namely energy big data acquisition and energy big data mining, are utilized to implement energy big data analytics. Finally, an application scenario of ball mills in a pulp workshop of a partner company is presented to demonstrate the proposed framework. The results show that the energy consumption and energy costs are reduced by 3% and 4% respectively. These improvements can promote the implementation of cleaner production strategy and contribute to the sustainable development of energy intensive manufacturing industries. Funding Agencies|National Natural Science Foundation of China [51675441, 51475096, U1501248]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [3102017jc04001]; Circularis (Circular Economy through Innovating Design) project - Vinnova - Swedens Innovation Agency [2016-03267]; Simon (New Application of Al for Services in Maintenance towards a Circular Economy) project - Vinnova - Swedens Innovation Agency [2017-01649]

Experimenting and learning are increasingly considered as means to innovate governance approaches for pursuing a more sustainable society. Learning and experimenting can unfold in different formats, such as games or co-design processes. This paper investigates an experimental co-design process conducted in the Dutch Province of Groningen to collaboratively design a serious game called the ‘Energy Safari’. Serious games can mimic real-world issues and thus provide a safe and open environment that is inviting for exploring, experimenting and learning. Co-designing games is recognized for its capacity to support the integration of ‘real world’ components in games, which is also our first ambition with the experimental co-design process of the ‘Energy Safari. Little attention has been paid, however, to the role of the game-co-design process itself to instigate civic learning events. Our second ambition targets this research gap. The analysis illustrates that co-designers are very well capable to experiment with serious game components in a way that creates a meaningful and recognisable regional narrative that deeply embeds regional challenges. Linked to playful game prototyping learning events also occurred during the co-design practises and the debriefing cover a wide range of learning activities, ranging from single loop to triple loop learning Ambiguity and procedural gaps forced the co-designers to question practises and institutions by confronting them with their real-world experience. Our analysis suggests, that prototypes thus need a nuanced balance between generic and specific to generate an open experimentation and learning space that is however deeply rooted in a regional narrative. Doing so can subsequently trigger a rich variety of civic learning activities. Nevertheless, it is also clear that the promotion of more inquisitive triple loop learning effects will not easily emerge and likely require active promotion.

This paper addresses the sustainable development of Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC). In general, based on theoretical and practical points of views, two strategies are employed here: 1) optimized design of the UHPFRC matrix based on modified Andreasen & Andersen particle packing model and appropriate application of substitutive materials; 2) efficient improve the fibre efficiency based on an optimized casting method. The obtained experimental results show that by utilizing the improved packing model and appropriate substitutive materials, it is possible to design a dense UHPFRC skeleton with relatively low binder amount, and the embedded CO2 emission of the designed UHPFRC matrix can be effectively reduced. Moreover, based on the adjustment of fresh UHPFRC flowing parameters (such as flowing direction, flowing distance), the fibres orientation can be controlled, and an optimized UHPFRC with better mechanical properties can be obtained. Additionally, when the particle packing model, substitutive materials and controlled casting method are well utilized together, an optimized UHPFRC with low environmental impacts and high materials efficiencies can be obtained, which could promote a cleaner construction production in the near future.

The concept of circular economy (CE), a recent popular global business trend, considerably minimizes waste and environmental pollution. However, studies exploring CE practices in the context of leather industry have been scant. To deal with this issue, this paper proposes a decision support framework for evaluating the challenges to CE practices in the context of leather industry. Best worst method, a generic decision support tool, is employed in the assessment process. The study findings reveal that “lack of financial support from authorities” is assigned the highest weight in the final ranking results. This indicates that the lack of financial facility poses a major challenge to the successful implementation of CE practices. The findings can assist industrial managers and authorities in taking the required actions to implement CE practices in the leather industry for the sustainable development of the leather sector.

Recent decades have witnessed considerable research advances on the relationship between sustainable product attributes and consumer decision-making. However, despite the substantial body of research, findings remain fragmented and sometimes even contradictory. This study provides a state-of-the-art overview of extant research, uncovers knowledge gaps and develops recommendations for future research. Specifically, it presents a systematic review of research into relationships between sustainable product attributes and consumer decision-making over the past decade (2008–2018). In general, this review finds that most papers assume linear and rational consumer decision-making process, focus on environmental sustainability, and mostly examine food products; social sustainability is comparatively neglected, as is work that addresses cultural contexts, particularly differences between emerging and developed countries.

In recent decades new recycling technologies for mixed plastic waste have emerged. In pyrolysis, the polymer chains are thermally broken (pyrolyzed) to obtain hydrocarbon materials of different molecular weights such as naphtha, oil or waxes, whose yields can be controlled by varying the reaction parameters. Naphtha represents a closed-loop recycling process as it is a feedstock for (poly)olefins; while the co-production of waxes, having several applications in e.g. the construction industry, exemplifies an open-loop recycling process. This paper compares the economic performance of the pyrolysis of mixed polyolefin waste in a closed-loop and open-loop scheme, including a probabilistic approach to the most important variables. From an economic perspective, open-loop pyrolysis as presented outperforms closed-loop recycling, due to the high prices of wax. However, the results present a high dispersion caused by the volatility of the prices of crude oil and its derivates. Considering the current oil price projections, our case study analysis showed that for open-loop recycling there is a future probability of almost a 98% of observing positive results and around 57% of probability in the case of closed-loop recycling, under the assumptions made. Yet, in a future scenario where decarbonized electricity would decrease oil prices, the probability of a positive outcome reduces to 57% for the open-loop case and to less than 8% in the case of closed-loop recycling. To make these pathways attractive to investors, the nameplate capacity should be at least 70 kt/year for open-loop recycling and 115 kt/year for closed-loop recycling. A 120 kt/year plant should operate minimally at 80% of its capacity for open-loop recycling, while closed-loop recycling would demand running close to maximum capacity. Security of feedstock supply therefore is required.

Over the last decades, there has been growing pressure on organizations to manage their operations in a responsible manner to improve their environmental and social performance. This has motivated organizations and researchers alike to identify ways to implement sustainable operations. In this context, Green-Lean has emerged as a major part of the sustainability answer. The discussion on Green-Lean in the context of manufacturing SMEs is in a less developed stage and deserves attention. Thus, the main objective of this research was to identify and analyze, through a systematic review, data on the challenges, success factors, tools and techniques, sustainability aspects, frameworks and benefits of Green-Lean in manufacturing SMEs. A systemic model representing the relationship among the determinants to implement a Green-Lean initiative for manufacturing SMES is also presented and discussed. The findings indicate that the most common challenge to Green-Lean implementation is a lack of metrics and measurement. 5S is the most used tool. In addition, the majority of frameworks have been developed for specific industrial sectors instead of generic frameworks to reduce/eliminate different wastes. However, these frameworks have missed the social dimension. The main contribution of this paper is the provision of an exhaustive summary of the state of knowledge and systematic classification of the relevant literature on the Green-Lean initiative in the context of SMEs. The findings are useful for both academics and SME owners and managers to undertake measures for improving sustainability.

While it is well known where the best entrepreneurial ecosystems can be found in general, such information is missing in the case of sustainability entrepreneurial ecosystems. These are entrepreneurial ecosystems with high shares of startups that are active in industries which address the Sustainable Development Goals through innovation. Not knowing what the best sustainability entrepreneurial ecosystems are, inhibits sustainability startups to locate to regions with the most favourable supportive conditions. This paper addresses the above-mentioned gap by establishing a ranking of entrepreneurial ecosystems according to their share of sustainability enterprises. For this purpose, we have analysed the websites of 19,997 startups in the 28 largest entrepreneurial ecosystems according to the Startup Genome project using Latent Dirichlet Allocation. We find that the highest proportion of sustainability startups among these entrepreneurial ecosystems is located in Boston, followed by Houston, Seattle and Lagos, respectively. A qualitative comparative analysis of the causal patterns underlying our results reveals that high GDP in combination with either (1) high shares of female founders of startups or (2) high shares of non-religious people in the population induce entrepreneurial ecosystems with relatively high levels of sustainability enterprises. Our work aims to stimulate further scholarly interest in sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial ecosystems. Policy makers can use the causal drivers to increase the share of sustainability startups in their region.

Research on sustainable practices has attracted increasing interest as a way to understand energy demand and transitions towards sustainability. In this paper we elaborate on how practice theories can inform the discussion of experimentation. Practice theory suggests that the everyday life of people appears recalcitrant. Practices are robust, resilient and have multiple, historically formed constituents and are thereby difficult to destabilize and change quickly. The making and breaking of links inside and between practices is highlighted, as is the need for enduring, multi-sited change efforts. Practice theory further helps us to better understand the constitution of new, levelled forms of expertise, the distributed nature of experimentation and the enrolment of citizens as active participants in sustainability transitions. We have operationalized and examined these suggestions in a Finnish research project related to climate change mitigation and energy use in detached houses. We report specific modes of experimentation and innovation, including user innovations, and the shared resources of situated expertise, the collective and shared processes of empowerment and the ways in which normality is challenged by ruptures in everyday life. Based on the results, we derive suggestions for effective policy interventions. We also bring forward a set of generic suggestions for more sensitive, appreciative and effective public policies on sustainability transitions and cast experimentation in a particular and partial role in such policies.

Pilots are frequently used to explore the possibilities for policy innovation at a distance from the policy regime in a safe environment, but they can also function as a boundary organization and contribute to the development of trust, mutual understanding and reciprocity among different actors with different viewpoints. However, the question of how pilots’ particular characteristics contribute to collaborative capacity building is as yet unanswered. A specific domain in which pilots are frequently used is the emerging domain of climate change adaptation. In the Netherlands, pilots are used to explore the possibilities of using a more risk-based approach to flood management. The traditional approach of preventing floods by dikes and dams is gradually being replaced by a risk-based approach called multilevel flood safety. In this approach, which is quite complex compared to the traditional prevention-oriented approach, flood risk management is based on three types of measures at different levels: preventing floods, adaptive spatial planning and emergency management. The implementation of this new approach requires collaboration among different public authorities with different task orientations, legal competencies and resources. In 2013, three regional pilots were started to explore how this new concept could be applied. These pilots (in which collaboration was indispensable but also highly difficult because of the huge fragmentation of the policy arena) are analyzed in this paper to determine whether and how the specific functional context of a pilot project contributes to collaborative capacity building, which pilot characteristics contribute to this capacity, and which ones hinder its development.

Steel production from iron ore is a very energy intensive process that relies strongly on fossil fuels and is also responsible for a considerable part of the global carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. Replacing part of the fuels or reductants with biomass will reduce the fossil derived CO 2 emissions, given that the biomass is harvested in a sustainable way. In this paper the possibility of using biomass as a secondary reductant in primary steel production is studied numerically. The steel plant is optimized to minimize production costs of rolled steel by selecting the best biomass injection rate and the best state of the blast furnace under the given internal and external constraints imposed. In the analysis, raw materials and energy are given purchase prices and fossil derived CO 2 emissions are subjected to a penalty fee. Emphasis is put on the preprocessing steps of biomass, including drying, torrefaction, pyrolysis (slow and fast) and grinding. An overall investment cost for the biomass preprocessing units is considered in the economic analysis. The results reveal the conditions under which it is feasible to use biomass in the plant and also provides information about the biomass pretreatment capacity worth investing in. The study indicates that slow pyrolysis seems to be the most promising concept among the three options considered, but that it is still not economically feasible with today's emission penalties. According to the estimates, the break-even point for slow pyrolysis occurs at a penalty fee of about 20 € t −1 fossil derived CO 2 if one t of dry biomass costs 40 €, at a specific char injection rate of 50 kg t −1 hot metal. Fast pyrolysis requires considerably higher emission penalties to become feasible, while torrefaction proved to be infeasible with the cost structure used in the study.

Summarization: Bioenergy is the most widely used type of renewable energy. A drawback of crops applied for bioenergy is that they compete with food and use the same natural resources like water. From a natural resources perspective, it would be more efficient to apply the large potential of available crop residues. In this paper, we calculate the water footprint (WF) of ten crop residue types and a few other second-generation bioenergy feedstocks (miscanthus, eucalyptus and pine). Further we estimate the WF of energy carriers produced through different conversion techniques (heat or electricity from combustion and gasification, bioethanol from fermentation and oil from pyrolysis), using the global WF standard. The WFs of crop residues, miscanthus and wood show a large variation. Crop residues have a smaller WF than miscanthus and wood. Given a certain feedstock, the WF of pyrolysis oil is smaller than the WF of bioethanol from fermentation. The WFs of heat from combustion or gasification are similar. The WF of electricity by combustion ranges from 33 to 324 m3/GJ and the WF of electricity by gasification from 21 to 104 m3/GJ. This research concludes that it is relatively water-efficient to apply crop residues, and that the production of miscanthus and wood for bioenergy is less favourable. Crop residues can best be converted to oil rather than to ethanol. Electricity from gasification has a smaller WF than electricity form combustion; heat from combustion has a smaller WF than heat from gasification. By showing the water efficiency of different feedstocks and techniques to produce second-generation bioenergy, the study provides a useful basis to wisely choose amongst different alternative forms of second-generation bioenergy. Presented on: Journal of Cleaner Production

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a highly interdisciplinary field that requires knowledge from different domains to be gathered and interpreted together. Although there are relatively few major data sources for LCA, the data themselves are presented with highly heterogeneous formats, interfaces, and distribution mechanisms. The lack of agreement among data providers for descriptions of processes and flows creates substantial barriers for information sharing and reuse of practitioners’ models. Nevertheless, the many data resources share a common logic. The use of Semantic Web technologies and text mining techniques can facilitate the interpretation of data from diverse sources. Numerous existing efforts have been made to articulate a knowledge model for LCA. In March of 2015 a joint workshop was held that brought together leading international domain experts with ontology engineers to develop a set of simple models called ontology design patterns (ODPs) for LCA information. In this paper we build on the outcomes of the workshop, as well as prior published works, to derive a minimal “consensus model” for LCA. We use the consensus model to derive a description of an LCA “catalog” that can be used to express the semantic content of a data resource. We generate catalogs of several prominent databases, and make those catalogs available to the public for independent use. Finally, we “link” those catalogs to existing knowledge models using JSON-LD, a linked data format that can expose the catalog contents to Semantic Web tools. We then show by example how the catalogs may be used to answer questions about the scope, coverage, and comparability of data, both within and across data sources, that are difficult to answer when the contents of the catalogs are provided independently and inconsistently. We discuss how the use of semantic catalogs can help address challenges that initiatives such as the “Global Network of Interoperable LCA Databases – Global LCA Data Access” are facing today.

High energy consumption is one of the main challenges of the chemical industry. The energy footprint of most processes can, however, diminish through the solutions presented in the current paper, leading to cleaner ways of producing chemicals. Ethylene production process is selected as a case study to demonstrate the approach as it is one of the most energy consuming processes in the chemical industry. The study involves an exergetic diagnosis and does not only find the low-exergy-efficient unit operations, but also proposes tools to improve these units based on their key sources of irreversibility. For the ethylene production process, this is conducted by first splitting the flowsheet into four main functional blocks (namely cracking, compression, refrigeration, and separation and purification) according to their exergy losses. This results in identifying the cracking block as the most inefficient block with more than 45% of total exergy losses and thus the first block to be improved so that overall losses reduce (examples of which include increasing the number of furnace tubes while reducing their lengths). Although the compression block is-found to have the lowest contribution to internal exergy losses, the inefficient unit operations such as the water cooler (with an exergy loss of 214 4J/kg) can still be improved through solutions such as system isolation. The refrigeration block is also shown to have the second highest exergy losses with its ethylene and propylene compressors being the main contributors. Solutions are again provided to improve the block performance with specific focus on intercooler design improvement and system isolation. Finally, exergy losses in the purification and separation block are identified to be mainly due to demethanator, deethanator, and ethylene column where modifications in column design might be helpful as concentration and temperature gradients along the towers are the main sources of exergy losses. The approach used in the current study can also be applied to other chemical processes and the findings suggest that even for a well-developed process technology, there is still opportunity for thermodynamically justifiable energy efficiency improvements. Therefore, it is important for process developers to continuously revisit existing processes, in order to ensure lessons learned in one area can be applied to another one. Using a panel of solutions, which has been constructed from a number of previous case studies helps to make this approach more systematic and user-friendly. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Based on the newly adopted strategy “The European Green Deal”, by 2050, the European Union should become the first climate neutral region worldwide. This very ambitious goal will require many political, social and economic activities. Huge financial resources will also be needed to change the economy in order to reduce the emissions of harmful substances into the environment. The implementation of such an ambitious climate policy requires the development of a very reasonable economic plan, backed by many analyses, to ensure adequate financing of this idea. One of the basic objectives of such a plan should be to appropriately target aid funds to a group of countries with a similar structure of the emissions in question. The identification of the groups of similar countries in terms of the structure of harmful substance emissions requires the development of both appropriate methodology and applicable studies. Such methodology is presented in this paper, namely the Kohonen’s artificial neural network model. The main objective of the developed methodology was to divide the European Union countries into groups similar in terms of the emissions of selected gases and dusts into the atmosphere. In addition to the division of the European Union countries into similar groups by the total volume of the emissions of studied substances, completely new division criteria were introduced. It was assumed that in order for the results of this study to be practically used, it is necessary to broaden the scope of the analysis. Therefore, an additional division of the European Union countries was made in relation to the volume of the emissions per capita, the value of gross domestic product and the area of a given country. This new approach was intended to show the diversity of the European Union countries in economic, demographic and geographical terms. The grouping results should be regarded as additional information to be utilized when preparing specific action plans to improve the state of the environment. Definitely, these plans need to be dedicated both to the groups of countries and the entire sectors in these groups. This will enable the efficient use of financial resources and can be a huge impetus for the European Union economic development. It will also allow smaller and less prosperous countries to achieve their goals. Undoubtedly, the developed methodology and conducted research allowed the authors to solve a significant research problem, and the results can be successfully used in practice., Highlights • Greenhouse gas and air pollutant levels vary greatly amongst EU Member States. • Three greenhouse gases and six air pollutants are analyzed. • European Union countries were used as grouping objects using a SOM method. • The aim was to group the EU countries into homogeneous groups by the of gas and dust emissions to the atmosphere.

This paper performs an emergy analysis (EmA) to compare two real power plants include a conventional natural gas steam power plant (NGPP) with one that burns municipal solid waste (MSWPP). For this purpose, the EmA is used to investigate the sustainability, renewability, environmental impacts, and economic issues. The capacity of the NGPP and MSWPP are 247.5 and 3 MW, respectively. Results from this study show that the percent of renewability (PR) and emergy sustainability index (ESI) of the MSWPP are much more than those of the NGPP. The PR and ESI of the MSWPP are 46.81 and 1.65, while for the NGPP are 5.01 and 0.05, respectively. It is proved that the MSWPP is more efficient and has the better environmental impacts compared to the NGPP. Moreover, a hypothetical MSWPP with the same electricity output of the NGPP is studied using the EmA. A more efficient system with the higher PR and ESI is observed compared to the other case studies. Beside of these advantages, use of the MSW has other benefits such as reducing the greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere, saving fossil fuels, low land area required compared to the landfill, speed and ease of disposal, and production of clean and useful ash., Highlights • Emergy analysis is used to compare two kind of power plants. • The fuels of one of the power plants is natural gas and the other is MSW. • The emergy indices (EYR, ELR, and ESI) have been computed to compare them. • The best ESI is obtained by using the MSW as a fuel in power plants.

The growing environmental problems, the rapid urbanization, and the disappearance of the demographic dividend in China has brought unprecedented opportunities to the development of prefabricated housing (PH). However, many barriers are hindering the promotion of PH, for instance, cost, lack of regulations, and the shortage of knowledge, among which cost is identified as one of the most critical barriers. Unlike previous studies focused only on production costs, this research aims to investigate transaction costs (TCs), e.g., searching costs, negotiation costs, and enforcement costs. First, this paper develops a theoretical TCs framework of the PH supply chain, based on an extensive literature review. Secondly, an empirical study was conducted on two cases in Chongqing to validate the TCs framework. Key stakeholders are identified by Social Network Analysis (SNA). Subsequently, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, both to verify the new TCs framework and to explore stakeholder concerns about TCs. The centrality metrics by SNA identified six key stakeholders who have a significant influence on TCs. It is found from the interviews that both the conceptual phase and the construction phase are stages where the majority of TCs occur. Both the developer and the general contractor are paying for more TCs compared to the other stakeholders. This study contributes to theory by initially introducing the concepts of TCs to the PH field, and the findings bring implications on the governance of PH supply chain to both private stakeholders and the government.