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Abstract Agriculture is one of the main assets of Pakistani and Indian economies, employing in both countries about 50% of the total labour force. Thus, improving agricultural sustainability in the Indo-Pak region has important implications for the local population as well as the rest of the world that relies on food imports from these countries. This article investigates the drivers and consequences of changes in crop production sustainability in India and Pakistan from an emergy-based perspective, from 2001 to 2011. However, due to the numerous crops cultivated in these regions, a detailed calculation of unit emergy values (UEVs) for each crop was not possible, therefore the paper presents a balance at country level (based on literature data for the crops' UEVs), rather than a canonical emergy accounting. The emergy perspective was chosen to holistically evaluate and compare the environmental pressures caused by crop production in both countries. Emergy-based indicators were calculated based on the real time series of input renewable and non-renewable sources. The major findings of the work revealed that purchased renewable inputs, such as irrigating water, and purchased non-renewable inputs, such as agricultural labor, are the largest contributors among the total inputs in both countries. Labor accounted for 46.79% and 60.59% of total emergy input for crop production in India and Pakistan respectively. Overall, the production efficiency in India was greater than that in Pakistan. Emergy of crop production in Pakistan witnessed an increase of only 23%, whereas India saw an increase of 42% during the study period. Despite the lack of data on each specific agricultural process, this trend is an evidence of the fact that, if on one side the agricultural activities in the two countries were intensified to supply an increasing population, on the other side, although India performed better than Pakistan, the sustainability of the agricultural practices (from a nature-oriented perspective as assessed with emergy analysis) in both countries did not improve.. Trends of carrying capacity indicated that intensive means of agricultural production are threatening natural resources in both countries. This study empirically demonstrates the need to conserve natural resources, especially water, which have been rapidly declining in these two countries. Since both countries share these resources, this study represents an evidence for the need to cooperate for transboundary natural resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Ambitious energy policies have been established in Luxembourg, which has one of the highest Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per capita in the world but still much depends on imported fuels and electricity. Born as an alternative to GDP, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) is applied in this study as a framework to predict socio-economic and environmental performances of Luxembourg in relation to energy policy scenarios. The ISEW for the 1960–2010 timeframe is firstly calculated and compared with GDP in order to disclose the impact of factors differently considered by the two indices, e.g. consumption trends, equity, air pollution, carbon emissions, consumer durables expenditures, investments, etc. A forecasting model to predict the ISEW trend until 2030 is then proposed to assess the relevance of national energy policies. The analysis of historical time-series shows that the ISEW grows over time at much slower pace than GDP, mostly due to increases in defensive expenditures. This gap may decline in the future by implementing those energy policies, providing a slight but tangible recovery of the economic welfare over the next 10–15 years. Several insights are ultimately given on the benefits and drawbacks of using the ISEW framework to assess long-term sustainability issues. Highlights • The future Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) is estimated for Luxembourg. • The ISEW for the 1960–2010 timeframe is initially calculated and compared with GDP. • The index is forecasted to address energy scenarios until 2030 using neural networks. • The ISEW grows at much slower pace than GDP in line with previous literature evidence. • The gap between GDP and ISEW may decline by implementing specific energy policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Life cycle assessment (LCA) practitioners face many challenges in their efforts to describe, share, review, and revise their product system models, and to reproduce the models and results of others. Current life cycle inventory modeling techniques have weaknesses in the areas of describing model structure, documenting the use of proxy or non-ideal data, specifying allocation, and including modeler’s observations and assumptions—all affecting how the study is interpreted and limiting the reuse of models. Moreover, LCA software systems manage modeling information in different and sometimes non-compatible ways. Practitioners must also deal with licensing, privacy/confidentiality of data, and other issues around data access which impact how a model can be shared.Methods: This letter was prepared by a working group of the North American Life Cycle Assessment Advisory Group to support the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative’s Flagship Activity on Data, Methods, and Product Sustainability Information. The aim of the working group is to define a roadmap of the technical advances needed to achieve easier LCA model sharing and improve replicability of LCA results among different users in a way that is independent of the LCA software used to compute the results and does not infringe on any licensing restrictions or confidentiality requirements. This is intended to be a consensus document providing the state of the art in this area, with milestones for research and implementation needed to resolve current issues.Results and Conclusions: The roadmap identifies fifteen milestones in three areas: “describing model contents,” “describing model structure,” and “collaborative use of models.” The milestones should support researchers and software developers in advancing practitioners’ abilities to share and review product system models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based models (ABMs) have been adopted to simulate different kinds of complex systems, from biological systems to complex coupled human-natural systems (CHANS). In particular, when used to simulate man-managed systems, they allow considering human behavioural aspects within the modelling framework. On the other hand, environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become an acknowledged tool in research, industry and policy to assess systems' environmental sustainability. More recently, LCA is being applied to assess the potential environmental impacts of large scale policy actions (e.g., actions to combat climate change). This paper describes the application of a coupled ABM-LCA model to simulate cropping activities in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The ABM considers farmers' proneness to risk, which was assessed via a naïve Bayesian model trained with the results of a survey distributed to the farmers of the study region. The goal of the study is to assess the effects of the agents' interactions, that can take place in a farmers' social network, on the agricultural activities. Geographic Information System (GIS) information, national statistics and naïve Bayesian model are used to parameterize agents' behaviour and interaction rules. We believe such assessment is necessary for the successful design of public adaptation strategies and subsidy schemes since governmental adaptation actions are needed to reduce emissions due to agricultural activities. Two scenarios (with different levels of farmers' environmental awareness) were simulated. The results show that the mean and variance of the distribution of farmers' environmental awareness change due to the effect of the interactions and, as a consequence, farmers' long-term decisions concerning agricultural activities are affected. This is reflected in the environmental impacts generated by such activities. [Display omitted] • A tight coupling between an ABM and a LCA module has been implemented. • Naive Bayesian model is a viable instrument to estimate farmers' proneness to risk. • Farmers' social network and interactions have been simulated using different criteria. • Farmers' green consciousness distribution slightly influences the simulated LCIA results. • Cumulative environmental impacts can be reduced via selected set of rules for agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With nearly 70% of the world population expected to live in cities by 2050, assessing the sustainability of urban systems, both existing and future ones, is becoming increasingly relevant. Making cities more sustainable is a global priority, which is highlighted by 'Sustainable Cities and Communities' being listed as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) adopted by United Nations Member States in 2015. This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) explores the implementation and assessment of policies and technologies that contribute to the transition to a sustainable, energy efficient and regenerative society. We organized the issue according to four main research themes: 1) Renewable Energy Systems (i.e., different types of systems, qualitative assessments and public acceptance); 2) Sustainable Built Environment (which includes construction, operation and refurbishment); 3) Multi-Scale Models (considering urban sustainability transition from building to districts, or cities and regions to multi-country comparisons and their scaling across different countries); and 4) Governance and Policy (climate change mitigation and adaptation plans/policies that are reported across countries, urban services and infrastructures). This paper serves two purposes. The first is to provide an analysis about patterns, correlations and synergies found across the different topics that have been addressed over the last 20 years in the literature about cities' sustainability paths. A bibliometric analysis and a contingency matrix show the degree of correlation between scientific journals and main topics addressed by published articles. Secondly, the paper acts as an Editorial to the VSI, introducing the wealth of research articles and topics included in it. Both the bibliometric analysis and the papers published in this VSI demonstrate the interconnectedness of energy consumption, pollutant emissions and the competition for finite resources. The aim is to present advances and challenges of this exciting and ever-evolving research field to inform and guide future studies of urban sustainability. • We carried out a bibliometric analysis of the literature using the Cortext Manager platform· Using network analysis of a corpus of paper spanning 20 years we identified 8 major clusters. • The paper serves also as editorial for a virtual special issue dealing with urban sustainability pathways. • The virtual special issue is organised in four main themes, which touch upon different Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]