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In a circular economy, extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a regulatory approach that accounts for all environmental costs associated with a product throughout its life cycle. When considering the EPR, the regulator must (1) design an integrated framework for different stakeholders and (2) provide effective policies to create financial incentives to accelerate the circular system. Recycling funds and subsidies are the most prominent financial strategies that can either encourage or curtail the flows of recycled products. In Indonesia, a few companies provided recycling bonus s to their customers as incentives to increase the recycling rate. However, the recycling rate was not as effective as expected by the enterprise because recycling was practiced by a limited number of companies, rendering it economically unviable. The enterprises hope the government could develop a recycling fund system. In order to develop the recycling fund system, a system dynamic model was proposed and simulated to optimize the recycling funds and subsidies based on decentralized reverse supply chains. Although it is not a novelty model; however, the research show a very significant results for the government in Indonesia. This enabled a more precise, well-planned, and sustainable decision-making process for the EPR. In addition, by utilizing the system dynamic model with different scenarios in a real case study (aseptic paper packaging waste), we found that the capacity of the recycler could become the reference for the funds to be paid by the importer-producer group, wherein the recycling rate will increase with an increase in the recycling fund.

To address the challenge of high water consumption, massive wastewater discharge and high pollution risk in textile industries, different countries have chosen various treatment method for textile wastewater according to the location and management of textile enterprises. It is not economical purposely to build separate wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) for each small-scale enterprise, hence, it is common to treat the wastewater for a group of factories and then complete the treatment via a municipal wastewater treatment plant. However, the complex characteristics of textile wastewater brings some new problems for WWTPs: Textile wastewater contains over 300 mg/L COD, 100 μg/L antimony, 1000 μg/L aniline, some of which are toxic to microbes or non-biodegradable. Coagulation plays an important role in the pretreatment of textile wastewater for removing hydrophobic dyes, decreasing the SS and COD. In this paper, Poly Ferric Sulfate (PFS), Poly Aluminum Chloride (PAC) and Poly Aluminum Ferric Chloride (PAFC) were chosen to improve the biodegradability of the textile wastewater. And then, quantitatively evaluate the biodegradability of wastewater before and after coagulation treatment by analyzing the proportion of different organic pollution, which could be divided into four parts including rapid bio-treated, easy bio-treated, normal bio-treated and non-biological treatment. Results showed that the biodegradability of textile wastewater could be improved by coagulation process, and the contents of organic matter of rapid bio-treated and easy bio-treated could be maximizing when the control condition of coagulation process was optimized. Moreover, because of its characteristics of simple, easy to use, and rapidly online implement, this approach holds a great promise for applications such as investigate wastewater feature deeply, treatment technology optimization, risk control and management.

Co-hydrothermal carbonization (co-HTC) has emerged recently as a promising thermochemical technique that can transfer organic solid residue (e.g., biomass, sewage sludge, plastic, livestock manure) into value-added products (i.e., hydrochar). This advanced mechanism conceals the weakness of hydrochars derived from the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of a single feedstock. The co-HTC of various feedstock blends used for hydrochar is reviewed in this article. Biomass/sludge, biomass/plastic, biomass/coal, biomass/manure were the most common feedstock blends. Many studies have found that co-HTC, compared to single feedstock, enhances the yield, ultimate and proximate properties, higher heating value (HHV), thermal behaviors, and overall quality of hydrochars. The synergistic effects of feedstock types, blending ratio, temperature, and residence time are also discussed. The feedstock mixing ratio emerges as the most important variable, followed by feedstock types, temperature, and reaction time. Thermogravimetric (TG) and derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) analyses have made it possible to better understand the thermal decomposition characteristics of hydrochars. In most papers on this subject, the range of combustion temperature and comprehensive combustion index (CCI) has increased. Overall, the physicochemical and thermal behaviors of hydrochar derived from co-HTC make it energy-efficient and environmentally sound by reducing the waste load and avoiding pollution issues. Additionally, several important suggestions have been recommended for future advances being made in co-HTC of feedstocks and its comprehensive application.

In this paper, we report on the economic and environmental issues associated with a pyrolysis plant for processing sugarcane residues. The analyses consider four scenarios: (i) raw sugarcane bagasse (SCB), (ii) raw sugarcane trash (SCT) and acid-leached (iii) sugarcane bagasse (L-SCB) and (iv) sugarcane trash (L-SCT). The systems were studied by integrating a comprehensive mathematical model and experimental data. The environmental impact assessment was performed using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, including agriculture and sugar industry stages into the system boundaries. The results demonstrate that the process economy heavily depends on the bio-oil composition, yield, feedstock cost, and leaching conditions. Bio-oil from L-SCT and L-SCB contained more than 30 wt%. levoglucosan, which made it a candidate to produce fermentable sugars or other valuable chemicals instead of being burnt in low-efficiency boilers. The unitary cost of bio-oil produced from L-SCT (0.89 USD/L) and L-SCB (0.75 USD/L) was below that obtained for raw biomass, even when the Total Investment Costs behaved differently. The environmental impacts, expressed in damage categories, associated with L-SCB and L-SCT, were nearly 86% higher than for SCB and SCT. The highest impact could be attributed to the citric acid (CA) production chain, biomass transport, and harvesting operations.

Due to growing environmental concerns mainly related to non-renewable fuels and high added-value chemicals, new solutions should reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biorefineries, which use lignocellulosic biomass as raw material, emerges as a promising alternative to replace fossil fuels and to avoid competition between food and fuel production for arable land and drinking water. Sugarcane is one of the most harvested crops in the world, mainly in the equatorial zone. One tonne of processed cane generates between 300 and 400 kg of bagasse. This work proposes a biorefinery configuration for the co-production of ethanol, xylitol, lignin, and cellulose acetate, analyzing two different scenarios in the context of low sugarcane availability. The analysis included the determination of mass, total capital investment, total manufacturing costs, CO2 footprint, and water consumption. The cellulose acetate, ethanol, and xylitol production were economically viable only if lignin is considered a product. Positive net income, with return on investment in at least ten years, was achieved. Based on the environmental assessment, the carbon capture capacity is about 400 kg per tonne of sugarcane included in the process was determined.

This study evaluated the potential of ultrasonic enhanced Fenton-based advanced oxidation to reduce toxicity, total phenol (TPh) and organic matter (COD) from olive mill wastewater (OMW). Emphasis was also placed on suggesting a sustainable treatment strategy in the light of accumulated scientific evidence, indicating the role of Fenton-based oxidation in the suggested scheme. Fenton oxidation and Fenton-like oxidation (with Fe2+ and Fe3+) were tested as selected advanced oxidation methods. The experiments were conducted in such a way that the individual removal efficiencies of ultrasonication and advanced oxidation processes be evaluated separately and in sequence. The impact on toxicity removal was tested by means of a standard respirometric method, also currently used to assess biodegradation in wastewaters. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) involving central composite design (CCD) was implemented to assess the optimum conditions. Results highlighted the merit of Fenton-based oxidation with an 80% TPh reduction and a decrease of toxicity down to the narrow margin of 13–17%, together with a COD reduction of 20–26%, all quite meaningful for the following step of biological treatment. The ultrasonic pretreatment also proved to be quite useful as it secured up to 40% of particulate COD dissolution. Studies on particle size distribution of the OMW clearly showed that preliminary treatment including advanced oxidation would leave behind the bulk of soluble COD accumulated below the size of 3 nm. Accordingly, co-treatment of OMW diluted with municipal sewage was recommended after a pretreatment sequence of holding/plain settling; chemical treatment and Fenton-based oxidation. For OMWs with low particulate COD (VSS) content, Fenton-based oxidation enhanced by ultrasonic pretreatment would be a viable option in the view of effective particulate COD dissolution achieved in this study when coupled with ultrafiltration, prior to joint biological treatment with sewage. The study highlighted advanced oxidation as an indispensable step in the treatment of olive mill wastewaters.

Mercury pollution from artisanal gold mining causes severe environmental and health problems, especially to operators and people living around the processing facilities. Over 2000 tonnes/a of mercury is released to the environment by the artisanal miners which is the largest man-made source of mercury pollution. Here we present a novel method using a local plant, cassava, common in many artisanal mining areas in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, to dissolve gold from ores. In our experiments, we used a liquid by-product of cassava flour manufacturing, “manipueira” to leach gold from the gold ore. It contains hydrogen cyanide, generating from the hydrolysis of cyanogenic glycosides in the cassava plant. The results were very promising to replace the use of mercury, as approximately 50% of the gold content was extracted from the ore in 24 h.

Although urine constitutes less than 1% volume of the total wastewater, it adds up 50–80% of the nutrient load [Phosphates (PO43−) and Nitrates (NO3−), Ammonium (NH4+)] in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Recovery of Phosphorous (P) and Nitrogen (N) from urine diminishes the eutrophication impact as well it could act as a sustainable source of P by lessening dependence on finite phosphorite reservoirs. Due to its environmental (carbon-negative process) and economic (produced from waste) value, biochar is gaining the researcher’s attention in recent years. Many studies are ongoing to introduce novel structures and modifications in the surface properties of biochar for efficient adsorption of P and N. Direct application of urine as fertilizer has been discouraged due to various hygienic pitfalls further forced to explore the alternative nutrient recovery methods. This review article explores the nutrient recovery paradigms from source-separated human urine for abridging the nutrient gap between wastewater treatment and agricultural productivity using pristine/engineered biochar. The influencing factors for P and N’s adsorption process by biochar and its detailed mechanisms have been outlined. Further, it deliberates the possible strategies of engineering the biochar to enhance the recovery of P and N from human urine. Applications of nutrient-loaded biochar in an agricultural field could act as a slow-release fertilizer to releases P and N in addition to soil conditioning. This review emphasized the challenges of storage, transportation, contamination of urine, and possible difficulties in the adsorption process by pristine/engineered biochar.

Fruit and vegetables contain molecules that have particular colors, which can potentially be an environmentally attractive substitute for their synthetic counterparts in (non-)food applications. The most sustainable source for such natural colorants would be by the valorization of by-products from the fruit and vegetable industries, but qualitative and quantitative characteristics of food by-products for this purpose remain scarce. Natural dyes also show mediocre stability and affinity toward textile fibers, which questions their potential feasibility for application and level of sustainability to overcome these issues. This review describes three dye classes (i.e., anthocyanins, quinones, and carotenoids) along with their occurrence, mass, and concentration in by-products that are generated from agricultural losses as well as the fruit and vegetable processing industries. To tackle the shortcomings of natural dyes on fibers, several application techniques were collected from the literature. A discussion on techno-economic potential and environmental sustainability is included. The latter is done by including a life cycle assessment (LCA) to investigate the environmental impact of extracting anthocyanins, quinones, and carotenoids from fruit and vegetable processing by-products and their subsequent application to the dyeing process. The mapping of by-products for each natural dye class illustrates the vast availability of agro-food residues (>0.1 Mt annually in the EU-28) with a natural dye content of up to 56 kg/t DW for anthocyanins, 18 kg/t DW for quinones, and 593 kg/t DW for carotenoids. Metallic mordants are mostly favored for improving the fixation of natural dyes but entail potential environmental issues. Greener approaches, such as biomordants and enzymes, still show room for improvement, chemical modification methods might also guarantee dye fixation, though questionable in environmental sustainability. The different valorization scenarios of anthocyanins, quinones, and carotenoids from food waste, analyzed with LCA, showed the environmental competitiveness of these natural dyes, applied as a crude extract, compared to synthetic dyes. The valorization routes design shows that agricultural losses and food processing waste streams are adequate sources of natural dyes, especially to be applied in niche scale applications.

In the last decade, there have been significant developments in the field of intelligent energy management systems (IEMSs), with various methods and new solutions proposed for managing the energy resources intelligently. An important issue related to finding the desired outcomes remains unexplored, i.e., how to determine key insights from the sparse academic literature in the age of digital publishing. To mitigate the issue, this study proposes a novel strategy to systematically survey the relevant studies by converting the sparse literature into visual presentations. We first apply a systematic approach called a PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses) statement to provide the insights from the published literature of the past decade (2010–2020). Then, VOSviewer experiments are conducted to transform these sparse scholarly data into visual representations. In total, eighty-one papers published in high-impact journals are identified based on their scientific soundness and relevance, and a VOSviewer analysis is applied. The analysis revealed the existence of three research clusters focused on the following main thematic areas: the energy management in smart homes and smart grids (35 journal papers); the emerging concept of context-awareness (26 journal papers); and the role of privacy preservation in IEMSs (20 journal papers). This analysis uncovers the current state of IEMSs and explores existing issues, methods, findings, and gaps. Thus, future research directions have been recommended to fill the existing gaps. This systematic literature review is to assist both researchers and industry practitioners to understand the research gaps of previous studies.

Product longevity is an important part of the circular economy discussion, contributing to global sustainable development. However, practicing and adopting product longevity remain challenging. Currently, the literature primarily focuses on various proposals and strategies that could lead to an increase in the longevity of products. However, adopting product longevity in practice demands an overview of barriers that must be accounted for before appropriate strategies and proposals can be selected and implemented. Until now, such an overview of the barriers for longevity is largely undefined. This paper contributes by identifying 14 distinct barriers that are likely to obstruct companies from introducing long-lasting products, to challenge their product development or to make it difficult for consumers to keep or maintain their products for a long time. In this paper, a comprehensive review provides a list of barriers that have been identified through the existing literature across three perspectives: 1) companies and manufacturers, 2) designers, engineers and developers and 3) customers/consumers and users. A systematic search revealed 4204 academic papers that relate to the topic. After reviewing the titles, abstracts and keywords of these papers, a total of 143 papers combined with additional 62 articles identified through snowballing and postidentification were identified as eligible to constitute the foundation of this review. From these, a list of 14 product longevity barriers was created. The result is a unique identification and overview of barriers to product longevity as well as a categorisation of these barriers with respect to stakeholders. Product longevity is an important part of the circular economy discussion, contributing to global sustainable development. However, practicing and adopting product longevity remain challenging. Currently, the literature primarily focuses on various proposals and strategies that could lead to an increase in the longevity of products. However, adopting product longevity in practice demands an overview of barriers that must be accounted for before appropriate strategies and proposals can be selected and implemented. Until now, such an overview of the barriers for longevity is largely undefined.This paper contributes by identifying 14 distinct barriers that are likely to obstruct companies from introducing long-lasting products, to challenge their product development or to make it difficult for consumers to keep or maintain their products for a long time. In this paper, a comprehensive review provides a list of barriers that have been identified through the existing literature across three perspectives: 1) companies and manufacturers, 2) designers, engineers and developers and 3) customers/consumers and users. A systematic search revealed 4204 academic papers that relate to the topic. After reviewing the titles, abstracts and keywords of these papers, a total of 143 papers combined with additional 62 articles identified through snowballing and post-identification were identified as eligible to constitute the foundation of this review. From these, a list of 14 product longevity barriers was created.The result is a unique identification and overview of barriers to product longevity as well as a categorisation of these barriers with respect to stakeholders.

The rapid development of new energy represented by wind power and photovoltaic power generation necessitates higher requirements for the flexibility of traditional thermal power generation units. The role of thermal power units will change from conventional main power to auxiliary power, not only because of the need for the survival and development of thermal power enterprises, but also because of the inevitable requirement for promoting the revolution of power energy production and consumption in China. The economy of thermal power unit flexibility transformation is an important constraint factor for decision-making in thermal power unit transformation. How to consider the economic factor of the thermal power unit transformation is a key problem for decision-making. In this paper, a nonlinear programming model is proposed to solve the problem. By introducing greedy strategy and improved reproduction strategy, an improved invasive weed optimization (IWO) algorithm is also proposed to solve the problem. Finally, a case study with three different scenario assumptions was conducted according to the most used transformation schemes of thermal power units in China, and the results were derived by using the proposed model and the improved IWO method. The comparative analysis of the results showed that the more the thermal power units participated in deep peak shaving, the greater the risk of the flexibility transformation of the thermal power units. In addition, under the condition of the same proportion of peak shaving, the risk of transformation without oil peak shaving was lower than that of oil peak shaving. Thus, the improved IWO algorithm can provide a stable and satisfactory solution. The research in this paper can provide a more scientific basis for decision-making on the flexibility transformation of the thermal power unit and can provide a reference for the selection of the flexibility transformation scheme of the thermal power unit.

Cultivating water markets is an urgent task related to the sustainable use of water resources. With the intention of promoting water conservation, China has been actively exploring and fostering a water rights market since the turn of the century. This paper discusses whether water rights trading (WRT) promotes water conservation in agriculture using the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 1999 to 2018, settling 2014 as the beginning of water rights trading policy. National water rights pilots and provincial water rights pilots are selected as the subjects of this study, and the DID method is used for basic analysis and mechanistic analysis. This paper includes three major findings: (1) agricultural water use (AWU) in the water rights pilots were significantly lower by 992.7 million m3 compared to non-pilot areas, a proportional decrease of about 8.04%. (2) water rights market has a stronger effect on saving water in areas with high and low AWU than medium AWU; national pilots have stronger impact compared to provincial pilots; also, the policy has the stronger impact in the regions with higher precipitation. (3) the two main channels of water-saving effects from the policy are the promotion of agricultural technology innovation and the water rights transfer to high water consuming industries. This paper shows that water rights trading can reduce agricultural water use, providing valuable insights for current and future water management in China.

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world are involved in a variety of sustainability initiatives. These are acknowledged to be important elements in fostering the cause of sustainability in HEIs, in further developing the organizations’ culture and in acting as enablers in the institutional embedding of sustainability. But despite the relevance of sustainability initiatives, there is a lack of systematic international efforts in how best to map them, especially in Latin America. On the basis of the need to address this gap, this paper reports on the results of an empirical study, aimed at analyzing the current status of sustainability initiatives among Latin American HEIs. Apart from a review of the latest literature, an international survey was performed to design a model using principal component analysis to identify the main descriptors of sustainability initiatives among Latin American HEIs and also the major drivers and challenges. The study sheds some light on the ways universities perceive and handle sustainability-related initiatives. The results show that sustainability is being incorporated in more than 80% of the sampled universities, and that a special emphasis is being given to campus operations. The value of the paper resides on the fact that it one of the few papers that have holistically investigated trends in sustainable development across universities in Latin America. The implications of the study are twofold. It maps for the first time how sustainable development initiatives are being practiced in 157 universities in 13 countries, being one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, and it also outlines some of the main challenges that universities in the region face. The central message of this paper is that the different levels of emphasis given to SD in Latin American universities need to be better understood in order to catalyze continued and long-term actions.

Studies using Hedonic housing price model to discuss residents' demand for urban green space (UGS) demonstrate the importance that residents place on UGS. While much of the empirical findings have focused on residents' willingness to pay, more attention needs to be paid on its temporal change and spatial heterogeneity. Taking advantage of the diverse composition of urban parks, housing, and residents in Beijing, this paper explores the dynamic and heterogeneous demand for UGS. Using more than 240 thousand micro housing resale transaction data from 2011 to 2019, this paper constructs a Hedonic model to empirically estimate and confirm the basic, dynamic and heterogenous willingness to pay of residents for urban parks. Our empirical findings confirm the rising and heterogeneous demand for UGS by Chinese urban residents. First, the willingness to pay for parks of urban residents has continued to grow during our study period. Second, in view of different socioeconomic characteristics, there exists heterogeneous demand related to the housing of residents and different types of parks. Residents who live in homes with a larger size have a stronger demand for urban parks. Meanwhile, urban residents prefer parks with free entry over fee-based parks, and they have strong preference for some specific types of parks. Moreover, we conduct a survey and collect 907 valid samples to directly obtain residents' willingness to pay for urban parks, and the survey results further confirm the abovementioned findings. This study deepens the understanding of urban residents’ demand for UGS, and will contribute to more scientific decision making on the planning, financing and management of UGS.

Electric mobility is being studied as a possible solution for reducing the environmental impact associated to the transportation sector. However, there is a huge ongoing debate among scholars and practitioners on the extent to which Electric Vehicles perform better in terms of greenhouse gases emissions against Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles, and especially on the variables that affect such performance. To the best of our knowledge, most of the studies addressing the topic mainly focus only on some specific phases of a vehicle's life cycle, such as vehicle manufacturing and use, while comprehensive evaluations of the greenhouse gases emissions during a vehicle's life cycle are quite rare. Therefore, the paper aims to develop a comprehensive evaluation framework in order to estimate the environmental impact associated to Electric Vehicles and Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles, by adopting a Life Cycle Assessment approach. The evaluation framework is then adopted to estimate the environmental impact associated to Electric Vehicles and Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles in four different scenarios, each one assuming different countries in which the phases of a vehicle's life cycle take place. Results show that CO2 emissions over the Electric Vehicle's life cycle are lower than the ones associated to a comparable Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle in all the scenarios analysed. Moreover, the analysis highlights: (i) the huge impact on a vehicle's CO2 emissions associated to the geographical location in which the upstream phases of the vehicle supply chain take place (mainly for Electric Vehicles); (ii) the primary impact played by the use phase on the Electric Vehicles CO2 emissions, followed by the vehicle and battery manufacturing ones. Both evidences reinforce the impact of the energy mix on the environmental performance of Electric Vehicles, as further confirmed by the sensitivity analysis. The paper contributes to the extant literature by reaffirming the better environmental performance of Electric Vehicles compared to Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles in terms of CO2 emissions over the whole life cycle, also providing policymakers with useful suggestions for the promotion of Electric Vehicles as a means to tackle environmental issues.

Globally, most industrial parks that have not gone through a proper site selection process have been neglected or underutilised and such active sites tend to burn a lot of fuels and generate greenhouse gases. Technology must be used to conduct on-site investigations of the spatial and non-spatial factors of industrial parks, especially the emerging Eco-Industrial Park (EIP). The paper seeks to appraise the global application, capability and acceptability of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) tools in the EIP sites selection and planning. Also, to identify the benefits of mixing MCDM tools when integrating with GIS. There have been some reviews on the use of GIS and MCDM methods, but so far, there is none on the role of GIS and MCDM methods in EIP site selection. Geospatial and MCDM tools can be used to carefully select EIP sites, where materials and energy can be shared to achieve cleaner production, reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable development. To understand the usage of these tools and their role in the EIP site selection process, a critical review of twenty-two papers published from 2007 to 2020 indexed by Google Scholar, Springer, IEEE Xplore and Web of Science have been developed for the first time. The articles are classified based on country/region, journal of publication, year and citations of publication, the authors and technologies applied. The results show that most studies on EIP site selection come from Iran and China. The Journal of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment has the highest number of articles published at 28%. The highest number of articles was published in 2014 with 312 citations. GIS and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) topped the technologies used, accounting for 42% and 24% respectively, and hybrid tools 34%. As categorised by criteria content, there was an overlap of criteria in most journals. Though, water bodies, utilities, infrastructure, and natural characteristics were prominent. Renewable energy resources were not given attention by most researchers, and risk assessment was absent from the site selection literature. A blend of traditional MCDM tools constitutes the state-of-the-art tools, and when these are combined with GIS in EIP site surveys, they execute to obtain actual results. Future EIP site selection that is integrated with risk assessment is envisioned to be industry 4.0 (4IR)-driven through a combination of GIS and artificial intelligence, and the recently developed MCDM hybrid modules.

The global economy is advancing towards a low-carbon future. Alongside this energy transition, the sustainability concept has become a fundamental value of our society, encouraging a worldwide discussion on the consideration of socio-environmental issues by the energy sector. In Brazil, the electricity generation expansion planning has not been doing enough to incorporate these issues into its decision-making process, especially in regards to alternative and renewable energy sources. Considering that Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is suitable for addressing this situation, we focus on one of its first steps, which consists of defining a set of indicators able to communicate sustainability issues. With this in mind, this paper aims at incorporating sustainability into the decision-making process concerning electricity generation in Brazil by formulating a set of indicators. We carry out a systematic review for collecting the leading environmental, social, and economic indicators used by scientific papers focused on recent and practical LCSA studies concerning electricity generation and that contemplate alternative and renewable energy sources. Thus, we analyze the frequency of indicators in a sample of 41 papers and screen them against selection criteria and their relevance for the Brazilian context. As a result, we establish a set of 28 indicators (18 environmental, four social, and six economic). It is clear from our findings that LCSA practitioners have been facing different levels of methodological and practical challenges depending on the dimension of sustainability, which reflects on the number of environmental, social, and economic indicators collected from the overall sample.

Precision, sustainability and intelligence are the development trend of livestock farming in the future. Precision livestock farming (PLF) is a key step to achieve the sustainable development of smart farms, but it is still in the initial stage and has broad prospects. In order to realize precise livestock production, it is necessary to speed up the popularization of intelligent technologies such as environmental control, disease early warning, precise feeding and remote diagnosis. By analyzing the background and technical features of wearable Internet of Things (W-IoT), this paper puts forward a new scheme of applying W-IoT to PLF. Through the detailed survey of the related research on W-IoT and PLF, we believe that precise perception of information, biocompatibility of wearable devices, and sustainability monitoring of wearable systems are necessary contents. However, most wearable technologies that can generate precise, dynamic and sustainable signals are only applicable to humans, and rarely modified or tested specifically for farm animals. At present, these innovative technologies are gradually promoted to livestock farming, which are expected to become one of the most effective solutions for PLF in smart farms. In addition, this paper also discusses the benefits, challenges and prospects of the W-IoT in farm animals.

A comprehensive analysis of the archival literature on sustainable (i.e., socioeconomic, and environmental friendly) machining of advanced aerospace materials and composites has been performed. Specifically, the paper focuses on the techniques to improve the machinability of difficult to cut materials (Steel alloys, Ni-based super alloys, Ti-based alloys, and composites) frequently consume in aerospace manufacturing industry. The current industrial requirement on high-performance sustainable machining of advanced super alloys and composites have been addressed for the machining process optimization to gain reasonable profit margin. Here, the specific interest areas are formulation of high-performance vegetable oil-based metalworking fluid (MWF), health and environmental conscious machining of difficult to cut materials and future perspectives on biodegradable MWFs on machining advanced aerospace materials and composites. The proposed approaches of the sustainable and cleaner production for the above-mentioned areas involves the occupational health and safety, minimum waste (i.e., effluent) generation, elimination of the environment pollution (i.e., MWF usage and disposal phases) and high-performance machining. Additionally, the influence of tribological properties of vegetable oil based MWFs on thermophysical characteristics of difficult to cut materials have been critically reviewed. The study presented in the paper is timely valuable due to the rapid increment of the demand on sustainable machining requirement in difficult to cut materials. Moreover, the presented comprehensive analysis, proposed suggestions and recommendations will help the next generation scientists to find the recent advances as well as future avenues of research on high performance sustainable machining of advanced aerospace materials and composites (i.e., category of difficult to cut materials) to ensure process optimization and industrial sustainability.

In England Duty of Care legislation requires businesses to ensure the waste they generate is managed in a responsible way protecting both human health and the environment. Businesses usually comply with Duty of Care by paying a service provider, authorised by the Environment Agency, to collect their waste. Non-compliance with Duty of Care could mean businesses are illegally dumping waste or using household waste services which is prohibited. Under Duty of Care, waste is tracked using Waste Transfer Notes which record important information on the waste collected including its source, quantity, composition and who collected it. Historically the system was paper based but in 2014 an electronic version - Electronic Duty of Care (EDOC) – was launched which aimed to lead to a more efficient system for tracking waste. In England whilst the Environment Agency is the regulatory body for the environment, enforcement of Duty of Care is conducted at a localised level by local authorities. There is an absence of peer-reviewed research understanding the enforcement strategies being adopted by local authorities to enforce Duty of Care in England, or similar regulations in other jurisdictions. This paper presents the results of collecting primary data from 267 local authorities in England (83.7% of the total) to analyse the waste collection services they offer to businesses, approach to enforcement of Duty of Care and use of EDOC. The results show an inconsistent approach across England with 49% of local authorities not offering any collection services to businesses, and 12% of local authorities not enforcing Duty of Care at all. There was variation in enforcement approaches including protocols, resourcing and issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices. There was low uptake in EDOC with only 2.5% of local authorities operating a business waste service using the system. Barriers to uptake included local authorities already operating their own system, business customers unable to manage the EDOC system, lack of internal resources, and preference for hard copies. The research highlights the need for a more consistent approach to tackle waste crime and improve resource flows as we strive to move towards a waste system based on Circular Economy principles.

Enterprise environmental protection investment has recently become increasingly essential to address environmental problems. Based on the data from China's A-share heavy pollution industry listed companies from 2007 to 2018, this paper empirically examines the impact of the degree of resource slack on enterprise environmental protection investment and the moderating effect of environmental management maturity on both. The results show that the degree of resource slack has a significant negative impact on the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. As the maturity of environmental management increase, the negative impact of the degree of resource slack on the scale of enterprise protection environmental investment is significantly weakened. This paper further finds that there are significant differences in the moderating effect of environmental management maturity in enterprises of different life cycles on the relationship between the degree of resource slack and the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. Compared with the enterprises in the recession period, the environmental management maturity in the growth and mature period can more alleviate the negative relationship between the degree of resource slack and the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. The results are conducive to clarifying the important impact of implementing voluntary environmental management and strengthening internal control capabilities on enterprises' active environmental investment. It provides ideas for enterprises to dynamically adjust their environmental management methods, promote the improvement of internal governance and sustainable development. At the same time, it also provides a theoretical basis for the government to issue differentiated environmental regulations and improve the efficiency of government environmental governance.

As a basic structural unit of the city, the community plays a crucial role in decreasing carbon emissions and creating a low carbon city. This paper selects a classic and official low carbon community named Min'an Community in Beijing as a case to illustrate the governance mechanism of the low carbon community in China from the perspective of polycentric governance. The paper summarizes the government mechanism, market mechanism, and public participation mechanism in Min'an Community and analyzes the provision, monitoring, and enforcement of each mechanism. We find that unlike the low carbon governance at the city or industry park levels, China's low carbon governance at the community level lacks a dominant mechanism. Even though it involves community-wide governance, the public participation mechanism is also inadequate. For improving low carbon governance at the community level, the government should broaden finance channels to strengthen the incentive mechanisms, make active use of new technologies, such as mobile Internet, encourage innovation of public participation mechanism, and employ various publicity and education measures to cultivate the low carbon culture.

With its focus on financial performance, accounting has played a central role in conceptualizing the success of modern business organisations. This dominant focus, however, can create tension in decision-making when organisations are challenged on sustainability performance. In recognising these limitations, various frameworks or models have been proposed to extend accounting beyond the financial and to integrate sustainability measures and performance. Whilst evidence has been forthcoming on the effective application of these frameworks, there is limited evidence from practice of how the fundamental concepts of these frameworks may shape decision-making. This paper examines the extent to which sustainability is considered in the context of capital budgeting decisions, a core role of management accounting with broadly accepted accounting technologies supporting performance measurement and decision-making. Rather than focusing on a specific formal framework, the paper explores how decisions makers in various contexts may draw upon and adapt concepts identifiable within the various frameworks to address acknowledged limitations with the financial focus of accounting. Core to the ‘successful’ integration of sustainability is an understanding that accounting provides ‘flawed’ measures of performance creating a space for and recognition of legitimate sustainability measures to complement, or even temporarily supersede, the dominant accounting paradigm. We find that differences in individual perceptions of sustainability, within the constraints of past organisational processes, have substantive impact on the extent to which sustainability maybe privileged.

Amidst the high number of frameworks associated with supply chain sustainability (SCS), proper consideration to the role and importance of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) has been missing in the literature. To address this research gap, this paper investigates the driving factors that support MSE supply chains to achieve sustainability. We employ institutional and complexity theories to broaden our understanding of the dynamics behind neglected supply chain structures, especially the ones predominantly formed by MSEs. An in-depth nested case study is carried out in a MSE supply chain in an emerging economy, where 33 supply chain players were involved in the data collection. Using a combination of deductive and inductive approaches to analyze the data, we find that to truly implement SCS, research and practice should consider not only the strategic, structural and process levels, but also the contextual level, which is critical dimension to SCS dynamics. Results show that MSE supply chains contribute significantly to regional socio-economic development due to their local roots and regional history. Also, findings demonstrate that MSE supply chains have enhanced resilience to crises (e.g., economic, political and other disruptions) because they are often focused on long-standing economic activities within the regional ecosystems. This paper contributes to theory by arguing that SCS is a much more complex phenomenon in practice than the current theory implies. Therefore, incorporating the diversity from reality and the peculiarities of MSE supply chains into the SCS debate helps the literature to get closer to the SCS practice.

Sustainability curriculum in higher education is a crucial lever for building capabilities and knowledge for graduates to address the interconnected social, ecological and economic challenges of the 21st century in their professional, and personal lives. A body of theory exists describing elements of good practice learning and teaching for sustainability in higher education which is accompanied by a small range of case studies reporting on sustainability courses and educational initiatives being undertaken in universities around the world. Often, such studies of practice are informed by post-hoc measures of effectiveness, rather than thorough evaluation frameworks informed by theories of good practice sustainability education and educational research methods. This paper aims to explore the lived experience of the theory of good practice learning and teaching for Sustainability Education using a holistic methodological framework. This paper firstly presents the theory of good practice learning and teaching for sustainability and summarises this in the Good Practice Learning and Teaching for Sustainability Education (GPLTSE) framework. This framework is then applied to the learning and teaching practices and student experiences of one undergraduate course in the built environment discipline that seeks to apply best practice educational approaches in course design and delivery. Using qualitative data collected from a mixed-methods case study of the course, along with the GPLTS framework, this paper highlights key factors enabling student engagement and positive learning experiences in this first-year undergraduate course. The findings have implications for pedagogy and also course evaluation approaches that aim to understand learning outcomes.

The topical research on Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) is investigated in this paper but in the context of uncertainty using Monto Carlo Simulation (MCS) tools. This study aims to capture some of the inherent uncertainties by implementing MCS in two dimensions: Dimension 1 considers the variability within the prescribed parameters; and Dimension 2 captures the uncertainty due to functional definitions of some of the moments of the selected distributions and interdependency of correlated parameters at a higher level. The 2D MCS model of HHRA is applied to risk assessment of a study area contaminated by arsenic, a challenging case in which arsenic has a geogenic origin but the risk is triggered by human activities. The results indicate that (i) the uncertainty in the results for the site reflects a probability distribution of risk with a positive skew; and (ii) the uncertainty increases by increasing arsenic concentration, as indicated by whisker box diagrams. The study sheds light on identifying remedial strategies since risk corresponding to Reasonable Maximum Exposure (RME Risk) is higher than the concern level of risk recommended by USEPA. The risk corresponding to the central tendency exposure is also higher than the concern level of risk in most of the samples. The paper investigates current water supply sources in the residential areas and their risk values and accordingly identifies a set of possible action plans to mitigate risk. However, the formulated 2D MCS can be extended by employing local data for deriving probability distributions and different uncertainty techniques.

The popularity of remanufacturing among the research community resulted in an increase in the number of academic publications in recent years. Quite a number of literature reviews related to reverse logistics, core acquisition management, Design for Remanufacturing (DfRem), production planning, analytical models in remanufacturing were published in various journals. The management of remanufactured products is quite complex due to specific operations like core acquisition, reverse logistics, disassembly, cleaning, repairing and reassembly. This often makes determining the price of remanufactured product a difficult task. Moreover, pricing of remanufactured products acts as a control mechanism to maintain the demand for both new and remanufactured products. A significant number of academic publications have been published regarding pricing and competition decision in remanufacturing. This paper aims to study with a focus on pricing related decisions in remanufacturing through bibliometric analysis that can provide insights into the latest research trends in this area by analysing the most significant and cited papers, authors collaboration network, keywords, countries, and institutions. In this paper, a thorough review and bibliometric analysis are conducted over 336 articles from 2000 until May 2020. The systematic mapping and analysis help to identify developing research areas, key research topics, publication evolution over time, collaboration patterns among authors, countries, the co-occurrence of authors keywords, and future research directions. From the content analysis, we have identified five pricing models such as pricing of remanufactured products under competition, impact of the product lifecycle on remanufacturing pricing, pricing related to product design in remanufacturing, pricing models under an uncertain environment, and optimal pricing under customer willingness-to-pay. We have also identified the decision variables, assumptions, and research objective(s) for each model. The findings of this research provide a direction for a further study in this domain, such as how pricing of a remanufactured products can be done in oligopolistic competition, how an effective product design strategy determines the price of remanufactured product, how the government regulatory policies influence the profitability in remanufacturing, or what is the effect of carbon cap and trade mechanism on the price of remanufactured products.

This empirically-based paper examines how sustainability is implemented in tourism destination management organizations. By positing a conceptual model for sustainability implementation that is grounded in the academic literature and assessed in light of the empirical findings of the study presented here, this paper combines two strands of academic inquiry. Works on sustainability and its implementation offer the theoretical and practical context; implementation theory from the political sciences provides the conceptual context. Twenty interviews with 22 destination managers in nature-based tourism destinations in the Tyrolean Oberland and the South Island of New Zealand form the empirical basis of our study. Implementation processes are found to be non-linear and non-synchronous. Discretion of individuals and communication between destination stakeholders are decisive factors that influence implementation processes. Destination managers associate a wide range of projects with sustainability, and they prioritize implementing projects for economic sustainability. Sustainability successes as measured against SDGs 8 and 12 lack in concrete and holistic measures.

This paper proposes a self-assessment model to evaluate the level of readiness of organizations to implement Green Lean initiatives. A systematic literature review was conducted to synthesize the key elements of the implementation of Green Lean, barriers and its critical success factors. The proposed instrument was validated through semi-structured interviews and workshops with experts from academia and industry and applied in four manufacturing companies in a developing country. The results revealed that the proposed self-assessment model is an appropriate instrument to determine the readiness of organizations for effectively implementing Green Lean. The proposed self-assessment model was able to display the potential challenges a company will face if it aims to integrate Green and Lean and implement it. The results of this paper will help the practitioners to conduct a diagnostic of requirements for Green Lean adoption, thereby increasing the probability of success of such an initiative before a company spends its resources on the project. Consequently, this paper will contribute to encouraging the effective implementation of Green Lean initiatives and serving as implications for further exploration and contribution to this area.

As worldwide goals for sustainable development expand, numerous countries are investing in renewable energy projects, particularly onshore and offshore wind farm projects, which have low adverse environmental impacts. Since onshore wind farm projects are novel types of energy infrastructure projects in many countries worldwide, the literature lacks a comprehensive list of risks that affect such projects. The first goal of this paper is to fill the research gap by identifying the work-package–level risks that affect onshore wind farm construction projects and developing a risk breakdown matrix suitable to these projects. However, the application of existing risk identification techniques in these projects is usually hindered by the lack of comprehensive research in the literature, scarcity of historical data, and high cost of acquiring expert knowledge. Consequently, the second goal of this paper is developing a new risk identification technique based on case-based reasoning and fuzzy logic suitable to onshore wind farm projects. The case-based reasoning component enables the identification of risks associated with a given type of construction project based on its similarities to the other types of projects. Moreover, the application of fuzzy logic in the proposed technique allows users to assess the similarities between different types of projects using linguistic variables, and it facilitates the capture of partial similarities between the different types of construction projects. In addition to the novel risk identification technique, this paper presents a risk breakdown matrix of onshore wind farm projects representing 169 risk factors, which are mapped to 11 construction work packages of onshore wind farm projects to improve the risk management process for these projects. The results of this paper and the proposed risk identification technique are compared with conventional techniques, confirming that the proposed technique is suitable to novel types of construction projects like onshore wind farms.

Waste printed circuit boards are produced greatly due to the wide application of electronic devices, in which non-ferrous metals are valuable resources. Without effective recovery processes, it can cause serious heavy metal pollution. Traditional recover technologies will cost too much energy, materials, manpower together with producing secondary ecological and environmental pollution. Eddy current separation is a green and low-cost technology to separate non-ferrous metals from others. However, it was well reported that there was a certain particle size limitation for the separated non-ferrous metals. Was it a truth or unbreakable principle for eddy current separation? In this paper, we researched the causes of the size limitation for eddy current separation. Meanwhile, the eddy current separation mechanism was detailed explained in a new comprehension related to the change of magnetic flux density, generation of eddy current force and particles’ motor behaviors. We consider that there is no size limitation for the separated non-ferrous metals in eddy current separation as long as the size of magnetic pole is enough big or small. This paper brings a new recognition about the traditional eddy current separation and will expand new application area for this environment-friendly and low-cost technology.

The global challenges of today are many, and one of the most concerning aspects relates to food production for an increasing global population. The sustainability of doing ‘more of the same thing’ is being increasingly called into question. Several sustainable business model frameworks have been presented in recent years to address these challenges, but our knowledge is limited about the change processes of the agricultural sector. This paper aims to increase our understanding of how sustainable business models have developed in the agricultural sector in Sweden. It maps eight archetypes of sustainable business models, clustered in three groups, with a focus on the technological, social, and organisational innovation components at agri-food companies. The study takes a quantitative, methodological approach, conducting a telephone survey with owners and managers of 1143 agri-food companies in Sweden, and using analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the analysis. The paper provides empirical evidence on the various options for sustainable business models that Swedish agri-food companies use. No major differences were found with respect to technical or social innovation components in the three regions: East, south, and north Sweden. However, significant differences were found between the regions with respect to the organisational innovation component. The organisational innovation component is based on two sustainable business model archetypes, namely, repurpose for society/environment and develop scale up solutions. North Sweden had a higher degree of organisational innovation than both south and east Sweden. The reason for this could be the larger environmental, economic, and organizational challenges in north Sweden compared to the rest of the country, which makes the need for innovation stronger. The paper also suggests new areas for researchers and practical avenues for stakeholders in the agricultural sector (and other industries) to translate social and environmental value creation into economic profit and competitive advantage. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use sustainable business model archetypes in an empirical setting in the agricultural sector.

The application of biochar is a win-win practice to improve soil properties, reduce the mobility of agrochemicals and respond to climate change. However, there is likely a lack of momentum in many agricultural countries where governments cannot involve farmers in this practice. This suggests that we need more incentives to integrate biochar into other field practices. This paper schematizes biochars, in particular those rich in silica, as potential composites for formulating adaptively controlled-release fertilizers to encourage the utilization of agricultural residues in smart fertilizer technology. Recent findings on the microstructure and physicochemical properties of silica-rich biochars indicated that biochars can potentially be used as controlled release platforms. The biochar builds up a skeleton and creates space for loading fertilizers; in addition, silica with tuneable dissolution can act as windows for releasing fertilizers. This review paper demonstrates a new route for the formulation of adaptively controlled release fertilizers and provides additional insight into cascading use and upcycling billions of tons of agricultural silica-rich biomass worldwide.

The traditional cement production wastes a large amount of natural resources and energy, and causes environmental pollution, which cannot meet the green and sustainable development needs of modern building materials. Geopolymer is an environmentally friendly materials that can utilize industrial solid wastes and have low environmental load and energy consumption, which is expected to become a substitute for OPC. However, geopolymers also have shortcomings in some properties that need to be improved. This paper reviews the recent research progress on the performance improvement, potential new applicationw and sustainability assessment of geopolymer materials. Discussion from this paper showed that the properties of geopolymer materials, including rheology, hardening properties, toughness, etc., can be significantly improved by some methods such as chemical additives, mineral admixtures, nanoparticles, fibers, etc. Furthermore, this paper proves that geopolymers have great application potential as porous thermal insulation materials and 3D printing building materials, and points out some performance optimization methods for geopolymer-based porous materials and 3D printing materials. In this work, it was also concluded that geopolymer shows significant advantages over OPC in sustainable analysis index such as E-energy and E-CO2 (Energy and CO2 emission) based on LCA method. Finally, a few potential opportunities and development directions have been suggested for future research on geopolymer materials.

Pakistan is facing a severe electricity shortfall due to rapidly growing demand leading to 8–12 h d−1 power outages in rural areas in summer. Predominant use of imported fossil fuels for electricity generation is exerting a huge burden on the economy and causing immense damage to the environment in the form of GHG emissions. One of the best energy sources in terms of economy and emissions is biomass waste which is abundantly available in Pakistan in the forms of animal manure, poultry waste, sugarcane bagasse and kitchen waste. This paper critically analyses the potential of these largely underutilized biomass waste resources for biogas production as a Waste-to-Energy technology to overcome Pakistan's power crisis. Potential biogas production from each resource and its subsequent utilization in power generation is calculated for Bahawalpur (a division of Pakistan) as a case study and for the whole country Pakistan as well. Remarkable results come out to be 11.65 M m3 d−1 of biogas production potential which can generate 3059.7 GWh y−1 electricity for Bahawalpur division alone. The results for the whole Pakistan are 226.8 M m3 d−1 of biogas production potential and corresponding electricity generation of 59,536 GWh y−1 which accounts to be 49.4% of the total power generation for the year 2018. The most striking finding is that power generation from biogas will be enough to eliminate Pakistan’s power shortfall. There is a possible market of 12.9 B USD y-1 corresponding to total bio-fertilizer generation of 340,800 kt y-1 from anaerobic digestion (AD). Findings of this paper present the government of Pakistan a critical consideration of widespread use of biogas technology in future and draft a proper Waste-to-Energy policy accordingly. The conclusion is that the biogas production and its subsequent use in electricity generation from biomass waste is the sustainable and eco-friendly renewable energy source which could resolve power crises and environmental and waste management issues in Pakistan. Biogas as a source of energy can be an important component for sustainability transition in Pakistan. This study could be a good reference for other developing countries too.

Previous studies demonstrated how urban sustainability assessment systems can support the decision-making process to enhance the sustainability performance of an existing urban area. Nevertheless, although these systems were conceived to evaluate environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, the economic dimension is still underrepresented, particularly in terms of alternative project solutions’ economic feasibility. Therefore, this paper used a neighborhood redevelopment project in Lisbon (Portugal) to propose the economic evaluation of alternative sustainable solutions from single buildings to fully integrated community strategies. For this purpose, it estimated and compared the net present value, the internal rate of return, and the payback time of three alternative renovation strategies: creation of green space areas for urban agriculture; installation of photovoltaic systems; and installation of water harvesting systems. The results showed that community strategies can maximize the economic benefits over time by taking advantage of scale economies and synergies between buildings. In addition, the paper highlighted the possible economic benefits of combining alternative renovation strategies. Finally, it discussed policy and regulatory considerations, providing recommendations for future versions of urban sustainability assessment systems.

Every country must face the problem of controlling industrial pollution during industrialization. Although low-carbon development has become important to global economic development, industrial pollution remains a problem in rapidly industrializing developing countries. With China as a case study, this paper utilizes the Malmquist index based on game cross-efficiency to measure the industrial pollution mitigation performance (IPMP) in each province of China. Labor and money variables related to industrial pollution mitigation are taken as the input indexes, and the reduction rate of various industrial pollution emissions are taken as the output indexes. From the perspectives of the public and the government, this paper further explores the influencing factors on the IPMP. Considering that there may be a nonlinear relationship between the influencing factors and the IPMP, nonparametric kernel regression is employed to explore the effect by the influencing factors, and the nonparametric bivariate density estimation is used to verify the regression results. The main conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) Due to the concentration of heavy industry, the IPMP is low in northern China. In contrast, the IPMP in central and western China is relatively high. (2) Public supervision has a positive impact on the IPMP. However, the results of heterogeneity analysis show that this effect is different in eastern, central and western China. As a result, under a high degree of public supervision, the regional IPMP will be significantly improved. (3) Public concentration has a positive “U”-shaped impact on the IPMP. The heterogeneity analysis shows that eastern China also has this “U”-shaped characteristic, while the public concentration of central and western China has a positive impact on the IPMP; that is, similar to the public supervision, under a high degree of public concentration, the regional IPMP will be significantly improved. (4) In areas where the enforcement of environmental law is strict, government supervision has a positive impact on the IPMP. By contrast, in areas where environmental law enforcement is not strict, government supervision does not have a positive impact on the IPMP. (5) Due to the failures of policy design and implementation, government concentration has a negative impact on the IPMP. China is the largest developing country in the world. It is of great significance to study its IPMP and the roles of public and government, as it provides other developing countries with insights regarding the experience of industrial pollution control.

Carbon footprint labels allow manufactures to show information about the impact that their food production has on the environment, as well as to help consumers make more sustainable choices. Thus, investigating consumers’ reaction towards carbon footprint labels is vital to understand their effectiveness. The aim of this manuscript is to identify the state of the art and research gaps on this topic, by conducting a literature review of published scientific article between 2011 and 2020. In total, 38 papers emerged. Findings show that females, adults, with higher income and educational level have a more positive attitude towards carbon footprint labels. Furthermore, people expressing higher environmental concern and those who are used to buy eco-friendly labelled foods are willing to pay more for carbon footprint labelled foods. However, it also emerges that consumers still have poor knowledge of carbon measurements and the existing carbon footprint label system is still unclear. When carbon footprint labels are re-designed using consumers friendly symbols (e.g., traffic light colours), consumers’ understanding significantly increases. Consumers from countries like Egypt and China also show a positive attitude towards carbon footprint information, meaning that a carbon footprint label system should be developed also in the emerging countries. Nonetheless, when carbon footprint is presented with other labels (e.g., organic, Fair Trade etc.) consumers show the lowest willingness to pay for carbon footprint information. It was also found that using a carbon footprint label on environmentally sustainable produced foods (e.g., using upcycled ingredients) increses willingness to pay. Food manufacturers should better inform consumers on carbon footprint labels and policy makers are advised to develop a consumers friendlier carbon footprint label system to incentivize more sustainable choices. This paper is the first to summarize existing literature on consumers’ behaviour for carbon footprint labelled foods, providing a discussion of the implications for food manufacturers and policy makers, as well as future research avenues.

Energy efficiency of privately rented homes is poorer than that of owner-occupied properties in many countries across Europe, North America and Australasia. Small-scale private landlords are the key decision makers for energy efficiency improvements for most rental properties. These landlords’ energy efficiency retrofit decisions are poorly understood. This paper aims to synthesise existing research examining small-scale landlords’ energy efficiency decisions. A systematic review was conducted according to the specifications of the PRISMA checklist. Sixteen academic and grey literature databases were searched, with 16 papers eligible for inclusion in the review. From these papers, a total of 47 factors were identified that potentially influence landlords’ willingness to retrofit. The strongest available evidence relates to financial factors, which were more frequently studied than other factors. However, the wide range of factors identified in this review indicates that retrofitting in rental properties is not a purely financial consideration. Complexities in managing rental properties; landlord-tenant relationships; landlords’ values, beliefs, and knowledge; and property market factors were all found to affect retrofitting. The paper highlights the need for landlord-specific energy efficiency research, particularly to confirm the influence of many factors in different social and regulatory contexts. A conceptual model of landlords’ energy efficiency retrofitting behaviour is proposed.

As global biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate, urban green infrastructures can potentially play a beneficial role in biodiversity conservation. Such infrastructures are produced and managed by practitioners. Analogous to engineering inspection, the ecological performance of such infrastructures also needs to be evaluated: not only for assessing benefits against added costs but also for generating valuable lessons to improve future practices. The practitioners, however, are often not equipped with knowledge background and tools to evaluate biodiversity. This paper bridges the knowledge gap of practitioners in assessing the biodiversity of urban green infrastructures. Research methods include literature review and synthesis, interviews with experts, and case studies. The outcomes of the study include a methodological framework for streamlining biodiversity assessment by practitioners, a recommended list of species for monitoring, simple yet scientifically sound survey methods, and a decision table. Case studies indicate that the research outcomes are useful in evaluating the biodiversity of the studied sites. Overall, this paper provides a systematic and straightforward approach to evaluating the biodiversity of urban green infrastructures from the perspective of practitioners.

Carbon fibre manufacturing is characterized by a high energy demand due to long processing times and energy intensive thermal processes. Since energy flow related information about the carbon fibre production is rare, lacks in detail and ranges widely, the goal of this paper is to increase the transparency of energy flows in the carbon fibre value chain. To this end, the extended energy value stream methodology was modified and applied on a research scale polyacrylonitrile precursor line and a pilot scale carbon fibre line. The paper takes in a holistic factory understanding when quantifying energy demands and it provides highly-detailed energy related data across the carbon fibre manufacturing process chain. Energy demands are broken down into energy carriers, process steps and peripheral levels of the carbon fibre production system. The results of the paper lay a first valuable step towards a comprehensive life cycle inventory of carbon fibre manufacturing. Furthermore, the high transparency of energy data provides a starting point for future research to increase the energy efficiency of carbon fibre manufacturing. With respect to the high share of the technical building services on the total energy demand, the paper emphasizes the need for an integrated assessment and improvement of the manufacturing process and technical building services.

Food packaging maintains the food safety and ensures the quality of food throughout the supply chain. Both are achieved by the protective function of the packaging against negative ambient influences such as mechanical damage, light or water vapour. Material, form and concepts of packaging vary widely, which thus also differentiates the environmental impact for packaging. This paper provides an overview of the current research of European consumer perception and how this correlates with the environmental impact of loose foodstuffs and packaged food. Considered materials are plastic, glass, metal, and paper/cardboard. These perceptions are compared to the objective environmentally friendliness based on the selected assessment criteria carbon footprint, recycling rate, reuse rate and biological degradation/decomposition in Europe. The purpose of this paper is to discover whether there is any link between the consumer perception and the scientific assessed environmental sustainability. Consumers judge packaging material by criteria of circular economy, natural looking material, and design. The environmental impact of paper/cardboard and metal are rated in line with the scientific measure by consumers, whereas plastic packaging is underestimated and glass and biodegradable plastic packaging are highly overestimated. These results indicate that the rating of European consumers and scientific life cycle assessments turn out differently. The differences are mainly linked by theoretical concepts of recyclability, biodegradability, and reuse rate of the packaging. Consumers evaluate food packaging by affective feelings than using cognitive reasoning. Their knowledge about the practical implementation of recyclability, biodegradability and reusability as well as additional environmental impact factors are low. Consequently, consumers’ buying behaviour is in most cases less environmentally sustainable than intended. Awareness trainings based on scientific facts, clear product and packaging information based on labelling schemes (“eco-labelling”) and nudging for sustainable behaviour can potentially support consumers in their sustainable buying behaviour.

Industry 4.0 has been identified as a major contributor to the era of digitalisation. Its implications for sustainable development have gained widespread attention from the perspectives of the triple bottom line, sustainable business models and circular economy. The purpose of this paper is to map the broad field of sustainable development and investigate the key research areas which comprises the aforementioned perspectives under Industry 4.0 framework. A systematic mapping review was conducted by searching five databases for relevant literature published between January 1, 2012 and April 17, 2020. The search yielded 4291 papers of which 81 were identified as primary papers relevant to the research herein. The primary findings are that the majority of sustainability research focuses on conceptual analysis, and the Internet of Things is dominantly cited with an emphasis on achieving the triple bottom line benefits. Sustainable development in the Industry 4.0 context contributes to circular economic objectives by achieving social, economic, and environmental benefits. Triple bottom line studies mainly focus on Industry 4.0 adoption and implementation, sustainable supply chains, smart and sustainable cities, and smart factories. Circular economy and sustainable business models as emerging research themes that focus on Industry 4.0 adoption and implementation, as well as sustainable supply chains. Our analysis consolidates emerging research patterns areas in both the Industry 4.0 and sustainability literature. Furthermore, it identifies salient research gaps and suggests future research.

Recycling is an essential practice for the successful operation of zero waste cities. It is essential to understand the recyclable waste recycling potential (RWRP). This study quantifies the RWRP of different cities in China. Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Suqian represent high-, middle- and low-income cities, respectively. The RWRP statistics are based on systematic multiple longitudinal tracking field surveys conducted between 2016 and 2019. Obvious RWRP spatio-temporal disparities were observed between inter-city and intra-city. For instance, Suzhou showed a slight increase in high resource value paper; Yangzhou had a slight increase in low resource value paper; and Suqian had a huge increase in no resource value paper and plastic. Additionally, more recyclable organics were generated in the old districts of Suzhou, and they were also predominant in the new districts of Yangzhou. No significant difference was observed in recyclable organics and recyclable material in Suqian. However, recyclable organics is a constant, while recyclable material fluctuates in the case cities. Household consumption structure has a major impact on RWRP. Other factors, such as economic development, urban resident population, consumption preferences, local customs and culture, as well as residential lifestyles also affect RWRP. This study proposes three policies: 1) to establish flexible and carefully planned recycling strategies, 2) to develop the distribution market of composting products, and 3) to incorporate economic and demographic initiatives to develop a workable recycling policy that can lead to zero waste implementation in the future. The zero waste concept was further assessed by the authors’ review of 69 cities worldwide based on previous research. We compared past results with the three featured cities in this study and 35 other Chinese cities, thereby presenting a world view of zero waste potential. It is anticipated that representative cities’ RWRP quantification and policy implementations can be a model for municipal solid waste management and recycling policies in other Chinese cities, which will help them transition to zero waste cities and probably provide a model for cities worldwide.

Dispersed wind power is undoubtedly assisting sustainable development of society but hindered by various factors. To promote the development of dispersed wind power, this paper is devoted to obstacles identification and analysis to provide effective development proposals. Firstly, a three-stage process (namely collection, screening and improvement) is developed to extract common obstacles from literature and explore unique obstacles according to the characteristics and development status of dispersed wind power. Then, DANP method is improved to analyze interaction, interrelation and relative importance among filtered obstacles, where Pythagorean fuzzy numbers and K-Means clustering algorithm are introduced to modify incomplete information collection and arbitrary threshold determination, respectively. Three reasonable thresholds are determined according to clustering results, which divide the influence degree among obstacles into four categories (namely, high, moderate, low and no influence). The analysis results indicate that lagged unified planning ranks the first of obstacles, followed by financial difficulty and restricted grid access. On that basis, some practical proposals on regional coordinated development are suggested, including building unified coordination platforms and forming dispersed wind power project group. This paper does not only enrich material database for scholars, but also provide reference and guidance for government and related enterprises.

The challenges of sustainable development require whole supply chains and networks to drive change and innovation. However, most existing research on sustainable innovations is on a company level and the dominating company focus in practice drives “silo” approaches, short-term thinking, and profit maximization. Consequently, there is a need for research and new models that facilitate sustainable supply chain innovations. The purpose of this paper is to identify, categorize, and evaluate the importance of critical factors for the realization of sustainable supply chain innovation, and to contribute with a process model for the development of sustainable supply chain innovation. A systematic literature review and content analysis of relevant sustainable supply chain innovation literature were performed in five steps starting with (1) question formulation followed by (2) locating studies, (3) selection and evaluation, (4) analysis and synthesis, and (5) reporting and using the results. The analysis resulted in 14 main categories of critical factors. Collaboration is by far the most frequently observed main category, followed by strategic orientation, culture, practices, and political context. The paper contributes with a process model for the realization of sustainable supply chain innovation. The process model is based on a design-thinking model for innovation where the critical factors are integrated into different spaces for innovation. In practice, the model could provide managers with the most critical factors for sustainable supply chain innovation, and could provide advice on when and how to manage these factors during the innovation process. The critical factors and the process model proposed could guide further research, enabling such research to adopt more complex approaches to the development of improved guidance, and provide support for the realization of sustainable development.

A successful transition to a Circular Economy, as promoted by the European Commission, requires solid information on the future availability of anthropogenic resources. Anthropogenic resources are human-made material stocks and flows, such as old landfills, buildings or different waste streams. A case study approach was adopted in this paper to investigate the role of the classification of anthropogenic resources in supporting the transition to a Circular Economy. The first objective is to identify the motivation and scope of the reviewed case studies. The second objective is to investigate to what extent they address the challenges linked to anthropogenic resource recovery. The third objective is to elicit in how far resource classification can contribute to promote anthropogenic resource recovery and to support the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy. This paper includes case studies that classify materials recovered from old landfills, built infrastructure, national secondary metal stocks, electrical and electronic waste and waste incineration residues. With respect to anthropogenic resource recovery, five areas were identified, in which resource classification can have a meaningful contribution in the future, namely in knowledge management, research and development, policy support, (pre-) feasibility studies, and marketing. In a wider Circular Economy context, resource classification can play a key role in assessing anthropogenic resources in analogy to natural resources for integrated resource management. Further, it can be useful to improve communication along the value chain, e.g., to optimize waste management operations, processes and products for enhanced resource recovery and recyclability. Resource classification can also help compare different Circular Economy options. The paper concludes that a standardized classification, which encompasses guidance on detailed assessment of different types of anthropogenic resources, is necessary. This should take into account the fact that the availability of resources does not solely depend on the material quantities, but also on the technical, operational, economic, social, environmental and regulatory conditions which cumulatively enable or prevent recovery of these resources.

The study of household carbon emissions (HCEs) has become one of the most important topics in sustainability research due to the growing awareness of its significances in responding to global warming. This paper aims to identify the trends and characteristics of HCEs research for the period 1993–2019 through the bibliometric analysis approach. The impacts of most productive journals, countries, institutions and authors are evaluated by citation analysis, while the co-authorship network between various countries, institutions as well as the co-occurrence among different keywords are presented. The results of this paper provide a detailed picture on HCEs-related articles from 1993 to 2019. Both the number of publications on HCEs and the cooperation among countries and institutions have increased during the period. Keyword analysis suggests that the revelation of current status of HCEs and corresponding influencing factors are the main lines of HCEs research, and the prediction of HCEs should become the focus of future research. The valuable results obtained from this study can help the academic professionals keep informed of the latest developments in the HCEs-related field.

The deterioration of the environment and the depletion of resources are promoting the development of clean, renewable energy. Offshore wind is characterized by its sustainability and cleanliness, and is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy in recent years. Various methodologies have been therefore utilized to support offshore wind power investment decision-making. However, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive analysis and summary of these methods aimed at improving investment efficiency. To this end, this paper undertakes a systematic literature review of methodologies and theories commonly used in offshore wind power investment decision-making, following with the characteristics, applicability of various methods discussed and discussion of representative literature. Then, the selected papers were classified by the year of publication (2010–2020), journals, country of author affiliation, method consideration perspectives and application fields. These classifications are presented to highlight the trends, which aim to provide broad, systematic approaches and tools for assessment of power investment, and to give suggestions on which method to use for each situation. It can be seen that the popularity and applicability of these methods have improved after 2015. They cannot replace but complement each other and should be implemented in a parallel or better comprehensive way. The outputs of this review will map appropriate analytical techniques to specific investment applications and perspectives, provide researchers with guidance on future investment decision-making research, and point out any possible gaps. Specifically, through this review, decision-makers would be able to choose the best-suited or hybrid methodology, according to different fields and objects, for investment viability and effectiveness. Finally, untapped issues recognized in recent research approaches are discussed along with suggestions for future research.