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Water plays a quintessential role in the lives of individuals and communities. In recent decades, population growth, migration from rural to urban areas, industrialization, and climate change have increasingly jeopardized the sustainability of cities, especially in developing countries, including Iran. The purpose of this study is to assess recent and future perspectives for urban water security in Iran. To do so, the paper extends previous water security studies within the region by collecting data on urban water security from a cohort of cities rather than a single location. To assess the state of water security in the recent past, from 2013 to 2019, we introduce a dedicated framework comprised of five dimensions and twelve indicators. In estimating future water resources for Iran in the period up to 2100, ensemble-based hydro-climatic regional climate model projections for RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 were analyzed in time and space. The results show that four of the five dimensions of present-day urban water security, including accessibility, availability, water health and sanitation, and the economic value of water, all demonstrate general improvements in water-related urban infrastructure, whereas the environmental indicator depicts a decreasing trend. Future projected trends for Iran's hydro-climate show a general decline in its net availability from already scarce conditions and also increased variability due to climate change. In general, the study indicates both advances in Iran's urban water security recently and severe implications for future water availability in certain regions and periods in the decades to come. The study also advises policymakers to seek to mitigate the water crisis in so far, as also enforced by climate change, by increasing the appropriate infrastructure and using new technologies in the water and wastewater industry.

Losses of nitrogen (N) fertilizers applied in the fields lead to adverse impacts on the environment quality, human and ecosystem health. Quantifying the integrated effects of N fertilizer on the environment, human health, and ecosystem economic benefits (EEB) is critical to developing sustainable N-management strategies. In this study, the life cycle assessment (LCA) and EEB evaluation of winter wheat under five N fertilizer levels for 12 years on the North China Plain (NCP) were performed. The LCA results demonstrated that, compared to the conventional N (Con. N) treatment, the optimal N treatment (Opt. N, 165 kg N ha−1 on average) based on in-season root-zone N management, substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions, acidification, eutrophication, and energy consumption potentials per Mg of grain produced by reducing life-cycle pollutants emissions. Moreover, the increase in crop yield in the Opt. N indirectly reduced the life-cycle land use, water use, human toxicity, aquatic ecotoxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity potentials per Mg of grain produced compared to lower N application treatments. Consequently, Opt. N had the lowest aggregated environmental indicator (0.39 EcoX Mg−1). Also, Opt. N reduced the negative effects on human health by 28% and 31% compared to the without N treatment (CK) and Con. N treatments. In addition, the average N-derived EEB considering the cost from N fertilizer, ecosystem and human health effects was highest with Opt. N (1493 $ ha−1). This study demonstrates that long-term optimal N management in wheat production can increase ecosystem economic benefits while reducing harm to the ecosystem and human health, and the integrated assessment of this study could provide a more comprehensive view on sustainable N management strategy to the policy-makers and stake-holders.

Incorporating environmental sustainability into production systems and supply chain management perspectives is a growing issue; this requires thorough efforts in measuring the environmental performance of such systems and benchmarking these against industry standards, through the usage of appropriate indicators. The usage of environmental indicators in order to monitor and manage sustainability issues is an ongoing topic of debate and deliberation in the scientific community, which has generated the development of several methodological and conceptual approaches, often incorporated into Life Cycle Assessment frameworks, enabling the evaluation and monitoring of cumulative polluting impacts resulting across the whole product supply chain. In this field, the main challenge is to identify indicators to be employed in environmental assessments, in such a way that a precise account of sustainability issues is given without overloading end-users with overly complex and redundant information. By utilising well-established environmental indicators measuring the sustainability performance of supply chains, this paper aims at critically assessing the amount of redundancy embedded in current performance measurement systems, also identifying the subset of environmental indicators that, if employed, could cover a wide amount of environmental impact categories without redundancies and providing decision-makers with a clear perspective.

The predicted increase in global demand for dairy products over the next decade is driving the global dairy sector to increase its production capacity. For the New Zealand dairy sector, farm intensification is a common strategy to increase milk production per hectare, and is generally achieved through increased stocking rate, predominately supported by different feed provision methods. In the present study, seven prospective intensification scenarios were established, and multiple environmental impacts of these scenarios were assessed using prospective attributional Life Cycle Assessment. Increased productivity per animal and increased pasture utilization efficiency reduced all environmental indicator results compared with a business-as-usual scenario (per kg of standardized milk). Increased use of locally produced maize silage reduced all environmental indicator results except for Ozone Depletion Potential, Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential, and Ecotoxicity for Aquatic Freshwater. On the other hand, the use of imported wheat grain increased all environmental indicator results except for Climate Change and Terrestrial Eutrophication Potential, and this was mainly due to the production and long-distance transport of wheat grain. Use of extra nitrogen fertilizer to increase on-farm pasture production increased five, and reduced six, environmental indicator results. In conclusion, increased animal productivity and increased pasture utilization efficiency are the most promising intensification scenarios for future New Zealand dairy systems from an environmental sustainability perspective. Scenario-based prospective attributional Life Cycle Assessment assists in highlighting the environmental trade-offs and hotspots among prospective farm intensification scenarios in pasture-based dairy systems.

A number of studies addressing the environmental impact of deploying carbon capture utilization and storage are focused on sources of CO 2 in the power sector. However, there is a lack of environmental studies on the use of CO 2 from process stream within the oil and gas industries. The carbon balance of an enhanced oil recovery project for the specific case of using CO 2 process stream of ammonia production from emission factors and regional databases in the Mexican oil and gas sector was assessed. Two independent tools to assess life cycle assessment according to guidelines ISO 14040/14044 were utilized: (i) use of Umberto software to quantify the environmental impact with ReCiPe model midpoint; and, (ii) The American Petroleum Institute method through the use of emissions factor for each source and emission gas of the activity/facility in a spread sheet. The results of the tools were compared and the dissimilarities analysed. The emissions profiles from all direct and indirect activities associated with the enhanced oil recovery system were compared with a “cradle-to-grave” model. The functional unit is one barrel of crude oil extracted and consumed. Global warming as the environmental indicator of both tools was used. Additionally, the energy balance of the project was estimated. The global warming impact of the enhanced oil recovery system was 0.51 tCO 2e /barrel (bbl) using the American Petroleum Institute tool, whilst the emissions using Umberto software were 0.54 tCO 2e /bbl. Also, for each MJ of energy produced a value of 72 tCO 2e /MJ oil and of 66 tCO 2e /MJ oil, were obtained. This study demonstrates that both tools delivered an accurate estimation of the greenhouse gas emissions in the enhanced oil recovery system for the oil and gas industries. However, American Petroleum Institute has the advantage that the calculations can be performed ´manually' in a spread sheet using emissions factor adjusted to the facilities and Country. Regarding the results of both tools, this work shows that American Petroleum Institute results have proven to be an efficient tool for practitioners and researchers that intend to analyse the greenhouse gas emission of carbon capture utilization and storage systems to estimate, with accuracy, the global warming impact.

The product carbon footprint (CF) has been raised as an environmental indicator to estimate the sum and removals of GHG emissions, expressed as CO2 equivalents (CO2e), based on a life cycle assessment. Mainly, the measurement of the CF of fruits has been focused on different separate stages with reduced integration of the entire supply chain because data come from different sources at the global fruit market. The main objective of this study is to estimate the CF of the entire supply chain of exported Chilean apple from agricultural production to the UK consumer’s door. The results indicate that the Chilean apple presents GHG emissions of 0.54 kg CO2e/kg apple. The ocean freight is a hot spot that determines the performance of the CF of exported apple with a contribution of 39.2%. Finally, the importance of carrying out these types of studies covering the entire supply chain is emphasized, to provide public and private agents with accurate information and help them make the right decisions. In this way, the misuse of concepts—such as food miles—by interest groups in society is prevented, thus avoiding distortion in the fresh fruit trade.

An exergoenvironmental analysis is conducted at the component level of a system and identifies (a) the relative contribution of each component to the environmental impact associated with the entire system, and (b) options for reducing the environmental impact associated with the overall system. In an exergoenvironmental analysis a one-dimensional characterization indicator is obtained using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). An index (a single number) describes the overall environmental impact associated with system components and exergy carriers. It should be mentioned that the evaluation of environmental impacts would always be subjective to some degree. The paper discusses the effect of the indicator used in an exergoenvironmental analysis on the conclusions obtained from the analysis using a compression refrigeration machine as an example. The results demonstrate that the contribution of the component-related environmental impact can be neglected in the exergoenvironmental evaluation, and that only the environmental impact associated with the exergy destruction should be considered in the analysis. For the case study reported here, the conclusions extracted from the exergoenvironmental evaluation are independent of the employed environmental indicator.

The one of ways to moderat aviation emissions resulting from aircraft engines is to comprehend formation mechanism of environmental impacts. In this article, exergo-environmental aspects of Boeing-747 propulsion system (PW4000 turbofan) used in long range air transport is dealt with life cycle assesment method for eight different flight phases. Environmental impact regarding the turbofan engine and its components is calculated using Eco-indicator points per unit second (Pts/s). Results show that environmental impact related to exergy destruction for the combustor changes from 8.16 mPts/s (at cruise phase) to 24.35 mPts/s at (take-off phase), whereas its environmental impact related to component production and maintenance phases is found as 0.374 mPts/s. On the other hand, exergo-environmental factor of the whole PW4000 engine is calculated as the lowest with 15.83% and 17.22% at take off and climb-out phases, respectively. Moreover, a new environmental indicator, namely, specific thrust environmental effect index (mPts/kN.s) is defined in this study. In this context, environmental effect index of Fan and core specific thrust is estimated the lowest with 0.065 mPts/kN.s and 0.107 mPts/kN.s at cruise phase, respectively. Especially, take-off and climb out phases seem to be the two where the PW4000 behaviour affects environmental effect to the greatest degree. The reason for this could be attributed that these two phases have relatively higher thrust settings. However, considering cumulative environmental impact, cruise phase has the highest environmental impact from exhaust air of the Fan and core as 54.2 Pts and 74.41 Pts, respectively. Consequently, it is expected that the method used in present study could help comparing aircraft flight phases in terms of exergo based-environmental impact.

Several economic approaches can be carried out for managing the environmental impacts in agriculture, i.e. property and bargaining rights, economic incentives, ecological fees, etc. These approaches can be mainly applied to the cultivation phase or to the markets of the agricultural commodities. However, a further ambit in which the regulatory systems could be useful to trigger sustainable cultivation practices is the farmland market. Hence, this study contributes to the setting of market mechanisms based on incentives or fees related to the environmental impacts of farming practices for reducing the pressures of the production processes on the environmental components. The study, through a hedonic pricing method based on a spatial quantile regression and integrated by an environmental analysis, highlights different trends of land value determinants along the quantiles of the selling prices as the intensity of the cultivation system varies. The results show that the most important value determinants of the vineyards cultivated through the semi-extensive production system are related to the quality of grapes. Conversely, in presence of the intensive production system, the most important value determinants are related to the high yields, which also generate high greenhouse gas emissions, in contrast with the “polluter pays” principle. The results allow the assessment of the implicit marginal prices concerning the impact of the environmental indicator on land value per cultivation system, so as to favour the setting of regulatory monetary strategies able to foster farmers towards cleaner agricultural practices.

Photovoltaic (PV) power is emission-free during operation. However, its life-cycle environmental impacts should be accounted for during the design phase. This paper presents the first methodology to calculate the product environmental footprint (PEF) and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) based on a unified technical modeling framework of ground-mounted, grid-connected PV power plants. To test the model, we determined the single- and multiobjective optima of 8 main balance-of-system design parameters applying a genetic algorithm for a case study of two geographical locations with distinct solar resources. Results show that impacts can be reduced by 1–13% in each of the 16 different PEF environmental impact categories. Unfortunately, the different types of impacts cannot be reduced simultaneously with a single design solution, calling for the use of a weighted environmental footprint as the most favorable single-score environmental indicator. Pareto-optimal design solutions for multiple objectives show that increasing the AC/DC ratio, row distance, tilt angle, and cable losses compared to the economic optimum is beneficial for carbon and environmental footprint reduction. By accepting a small cost increase, the majority of the potential impact reduction can be achieved. Trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives are analyzed by assigning a price tag to environmental impacts. Based on the proposed weighting scheme, regions with polluting electricity production mix should choose the most profitable plant design for the largest environmental benefit. In other places eco-design could lead to a 1% overall impact reduction for just 0.1% extra cost. Balancing power requirements, copper recycling scenarios, the uncertainty of ecological impacts, and combined land use are identified as future research areas.

Economic growth, accompanied by rising energy demand in ASEAN countries have been unprecedented over these few years. On the other hand, the energy consumed in the ASEAN region is predominantly non-renewable, which could have implications for sustainable development. Previous studies that have investigated the energy-growth-environment nexus for this region are inefficient in terms of the proxies used to measure environmental quality and the estimation techniques adopted. As such this study explores the influence of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and urbanization on a more reliable environmental indicator (ecological footprint) from 1990 to 2016, while controlling for trade. First-and-second-generation unit root and cointegration tests are applied amidst evidence of cross-sectional dependence. Findings reveal that economic growth, trade, and non-renewable energy contribute significantly to environmental degradation in ASEAN countries. This suggests that the region is growing at the expense of its environment, while also indulging in emission-intensive trade. Further findings show a one-way causality from urbanization to non-renewable energy consumption. Policy directions and implications of the findings for sustainability are discussed.

It has been argued recently that green growth is the only economic development pathway to secure a sustainable future. The Government of Jordan has launched a National Green Growth Plan aiming to facilitate the transition towards green growth in six priority sectors; amongst those is the solid waste management sector. Jordan Vision 2025 has set a 33% reduction target in the solid waste amounts disposed in landfills or dumpsites by 2025. This study examines the development of the municipal solid waste management sector in Jordan from sustainability standpoint and presents potential scenarios to attain Jordan Vision 2025 target and gradually place this sector on a green growth path. The Sustainability Window analysis tool was used to assess the sustainability of this sector over the 2010–2015 period. This tool identifies whether the economic growth maintains the social and environmental wellbeing using strong and weak environmental, social inclusion, and economic indicators. Three scenarios to address Jordan Vision 2025 target were proposed and compared using the Sustainability Window tool: Mechanical biological treatment-anaerobic digestion, mechanical biological treatment-composting, and incineration. It was concluded from the sustainability window analysis of the 2010–2015 data that the total number of jobs in the municipal solid waste management sector is a weak social inclusion indicator compared to the stronger one “jobs per 10,000 tonnes”. Likewise, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per tonne is a weak environmental indicator unlike the stronger “net GHG emissions”. It was also inferred from the Sustainability Window analysis that the 2010–2015 Jordanian municipal solid waste sector growth did not fulfill all sustainability criteria. The proposed future scenarios were compared and it was determined that the mechanical biological treatment alternatives fulfill all sustainability criteria regardless of the indicators’ strength, whereas the incineration scenario only satisfies the sustainability criteria using weak environmental indicators. Nonetheless, mechanical biological treatment-composting is the most attractive scenario from an economic perspective owing to the lower GHG mitigation cost of $18.3 per tCO2-eq compared to $35.5/tCO2-eq for the mechanical biological treatment-anaerobic digestion and $161.7/tCO2-eq for incineration.

Haze continues to affect the Southeast Asian region and causes a significant deterioration in air quality. The palm oil industry is blamed for causing the haze and is urged by stakeholders to improve its accountability and transparency. Despite the growing research in environmental accountability and transparency, to the best of our knowledge, none has scrutinised stakeholders’ perspectives in relation to environmental disclosure by this controversial industry. This study aims to investigate stakeholders’ needs and expectations regarding environmental disclosure by palm oil companies, and to examine the quality of disclosure and its impact on firm performance. This study conducted semi-structured interviews to ascertain stakeholders’ needs and expectations regarding palm oil companies’ environmental disclosure. Then, content analysis of 2013–2017 annual reports of publicly listed palm oil companies was undertaken to examine the quality of disclosures. Finally, the impact of environmental disclosure on firm performance was tested using a panel data approach. One of the novel contributions from this study is the identification of an additional environmental indicator requested by stakeholders, namely information on location of logging and forest clearance, which has not been previously identified in the literature or by the Global Reporting Initiative. The study also finds that Indonesian plantation companies showed a lack of accountability and transparency in relation to the haze and other environmental issues. Malaysian companies provided slightly better disclosures year by year, indicating improved accountability and transparency. The findings also show that environmental disclosure was associated with better firm performance, but only for Malaysian companies. The Malaysian government should give serious consideration to making environmental disclosure mandatory, not only for the sake of the environment but also for the economic sustainability of the palm oil industry. Disclosure has no association with the performance of Indonesian companies, and further research should seek to identify alternative actions to improve stakeholder confidence in the Indonesian palm oil industry.

Environmental management in the Chinese manufacturing industry has attracted global attention. Using environmental indicator data from 2001 to 2010 for this industry, we empirically examine its environmental management efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Hierarchical Clustering methods. Our findings reveal that the environmental management of the Chinese manufacturing industry has more DEA inefficiency than efficiency. Environmental management efficiency showed a significant decline before 2004, but rapid growth since 2007. Our findings also indicate that there is input redundancy and output insufficiency in the manufacturing industry's environmental management from 2002 to 2004. In addition, we found that most manufacturing sectors in China had consistently inefficient environmental management over the 10 years under study. Overall, our findings reveal that efficiency remains low. Thus, the manufacturing industry's environmental management needs to improve from the perspective of enterprises and government. We hope that our study paves the way for future research into improving the manufacturing industry's environmental management in emerging countries.

Water reclamation and reuse not only reduce the negative impacts of wastewater to the environment, but also provide an alternative to withdrawal from natural water resources, forming a closed-loop water supply chain. The design of such a supply chain requires an appropriate sustainability assessment, which simultaneously accounts for economic, environmental, and social dimensions. In this study, a multi-objective optimization model was developed to minimize the costs and carbon footprint (as an environmental indicator), and maximize the value of resource recovery (representing a social benefit) of the water reclamation systems by locating the treatment facility, allocating the treatment capacity, selecting the treatment technology, and allocating customers (final reclaimed water users). The optimizer CPLEX 12.7 was applied and the Triangle Splitting Method was used for the optimization algorithm. The expansion of a water reclamation system in Hillsborough County, Florida was evaluated to illustrate the use of the model. The impacts of population density and elevation variation in the water service area on the model outputs were also investigated. Although the centralization of treatment facilities takes advantage of the economies of scale, the results revealed that simultaneous consideration of economic and environmental indicators favored decentralization of treatment facilities in the study area. This was mainly due to the significant decrease in water transfer requirements, especially in less populous areas. Moreover, the results revealed that contribution of population density to the optimal degree of decentralization of treatment facilities was significant.

Currently, carbon footprint (CF) analysis is gaining a role of primary interest within the extensive literature regarding wine sustainability issues. It envisages the quantification of greenhouse gas emissions that underpin the life-cycle of wine, from viticulture and vinification to wine bottling, distribution, consumption and waste end-of-life. This critical review pursues several methodological and conceptual issues behind wine carbon footprinting, such as calculation approaches, labeling and standardization purposes, combinations with other methods and theories, and CF trends in the wine sector. Most studies have only addressed specific methodological issues from an attributional life-cycle perspective, or have directly reported the CF profile of a given wine product. Future studies, however, will have to deal with increasingly complex market interactions linked to the entire life cycle of wine-making. A comprehensive discussion is presented concerning the benefits the CF indicator may provide both to producers and consumers and on the needs for reducing uncertainties and misinterpretations within a growing globalized wine market.

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.