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Using a hybrid multi-regional input-output approach, we traced sustainability footprints of a nutrient recovery strategy from sewage sludge applied in Italy. We then compared the results with the most common landfilling practice. Overall, accounting for indirect global upstream effects, using sewage sludge for organic fertiliser production generates more jobs and reduces more greenhouse gas emissions than landfilling. By contrast, landfilling stimulates the whole economy more, generating higher indirect turnover and reduces energy carrier use more. Finally, we accounted for uncertainties in these results using an error propagation method based on Monte Carlo simulations.

Using a hybrid multi-regional input–output approach, we traced sustainability footprints of a nutrient recovery strategy from sewage sludge applied in Italy. We then compared the results with the most common landfilling practice. Overall, accounting for indirect global upstream effects, using sewage sludge for organic fertiliser production generates more jobs and reduces more greenhouse gas emissions than landfilling. By contrast, landfilling stimulates the whole economy more, generating higher indirect turnover and reduces energy carrier use more. Finally, we accounted for uncertainties in these results using an error propagation method based on Monte Carlo simulations.

Portando ad esempio il caso di studio “Parco Sempione” si intende proporre una riflessione metodologica in forma audiovisiva sulle potenzialità della filmic geography (Jacobs, 2013) nello studio di uno spazio di riequilibrio ambientale e sociale nelle metropoli contemporanee: il parco urbano (Roditi, 1994). Il Parco Sempione, situato nel centro di Milano è un luogo di interesse per diversi viventi umani e non umani. Similmente ad altre aree verdi urbane, sebbene sia caratterizzato da un’ampia rete di spazi pianificati per agevolare attività ludico-ricreative, si tratta di un’area pubblica cintata e video-sorvegliata. Il contributo, proponendo un approccio ispirato al linguaggio del ‘cinema d’osservazione’ (Garrett, 2010), si è soffermato nello specifico sulle opportunità scaturite dalla combinazione di due principali dispositivi metodologici: il corpo della ricercatrice in movimento negli spazi del parco, sfruttando anche la verticalità della Torre Branca lì presente, e l’interazione dello stesso con la strumentazione, costituita da una fotocamera digitale a ottiche intercambiabili, un cavalletto, un microfono e un software di editing. Da questa sperimentazione è stato possibile portare alla luce tre livelli di rappresentazione geografica del Parco Sempione: in primis una prospettiva aerea che allude al controllo esercitato dalla sorveglianza, che agevola sì una mappatura d’insieme del parco, ma che di contro genera una rappresentazione appiattita, sfocata e povera di suono, intrinseca all’allargamento della scala; in secondo luogo una prospettiva che richiama gli approcci non-representational e more-than-human (Lorimer, 2010), che si dispiega attraverso uno sguardo frammentato e un ascolto ravvicinato, focalizzato sui movimenti umani e non umani, incarnati nel flusso della quotidianità, rappresentazione da cui emerge la vitalità e l’eterogeneità di processi socio-spaziali qui presenti; in ultimo una prospettiva veloce e distratta, sospesa tra reale e vi

The energy transition in agriculture must be accompanied by agronomic practices that shift production towards organic regimes. Among the energy consuming processes that today find resistance in organic conversion there is certainly the removal of weeds from crops, that is mainly carried out through herbicides. This analysis evaluates the economic and environmental implications that the introduction of innovative thermal weeding systems, powered by biomass gasification, can have in the substitution of traditional chemical and mechanical weeding technologies. The comparison is carried out through a combination of cost–benefit analysis, environmental analysis and sensitivity analysis applied to the case study of vineyard management in northern Italy. The results show that the biomass-powered weeding system is economically feasible when it can benefit from economic incentives that reward organic production. In all cases, biomass-powered weeding system provides for a reduction in equivalent CO2 emissions which reaches −75% in the case of replacement of glyphosate-based chemical weeding methods. The analysis points out that gasification-powered weeding process can also achieve carbon neutrality through the co-production of biochar, which should lead policy makers to support this practice under the environmental objectives at national and European level.

Il film geografico sta progressivamente affermandosi come metodo di ricerca e restituzione incarnato, relazionale, più-che-visuale e più-che- narrativo, utile ad abbracciare le sfide della geografia contemporanea. Tuttavia restano ancora numerose questioni aperte e irrisolte, tra cui quella, apparentemente banale, ma oggi più che mai urgente, di delineare con più chiarezza in che modo il film geografico possa oggi differenziarsi da altre tipologie di audiovisivi. L’obiettivo di questa riflessione, che si pone in continuità con la sintesi sui primi sviluppi della filmic geography presentata in un precedente articolo, è quello di contribuire a fare avanzare il dibattito in corso sull’inserimento della ricerca filmica nel contesto accademico, negli ultimi anni arricchitosi anche grazie ad esperienze di film geografici italiani realizzati nell’ambito di tesi magistrali e dottorali, riflettendo in particolare intorno a tre nodi chiave: la definizione di film geografico, le possibilità di indagine geografica scaturite dall’attrezzatura cinematografica e la relazione tra film geografico e multimedialità.

In questo capitolo viene analizzata la situaqzione delle principali variabili macroeconomiche e l'andamento dei mercati dei prodotti agroalimentari nel corso del 2020.

The aim of this paper is to explore how debt contracts are affected by investment in asset specialization and by the dynamics of the secondary market for collateralized productive assets. Before applying for a loan, financially constrained firms face a specificity trade-off: asset specialization increases firms’ project returns, but decreases the liquidation value of assets in the secondary market if the firm is in financial distress. To study this trade-off, the paper uses a theoretical model in which the choice of asset specificity and the outcome of the secondary market for distressed firms’ assets are endogenous. High redeployability costs and a small number of participants in the secondary market are associated to low recovery values and to a high cost of debt. The paper shows the conditions under which financial constraints reduce firms’ incentive to invest in asset specificity.

We examine how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may signal their quality and growth orientation to the market and the effect on the cost of bond funding, which is often high for unlisted firms and SMEs mainly because of their information opacity and higher riskiness. The paper contributes to the growing European debate on market innovations aimed at facilitating funding for smaller and nonlisted firms, breaking from the prior main focus on the cost for large and listed companies of accessing liquid bond markets. We analyze 220 mini-bonds listed in Italy between 2013 and 2017 to examine determinants of yield spreads. Our explanatory variables are size, age, and tangible assets—all indicators of the firm's information opacity—together with the issuer's growth opportunities, rating availability, and the presence of a guarantee. The findings suggest that tangible assets can ease the asymmetric information and associated monitoring costs for investors, thus reducing the bond yield spread. More significantly, the yield spread depends on the type of investment project financed: risky growth projects are associated with a higher cost of funding than other types of projects. Under such circumstances, the rating represents an informative instrument for the market in assessing issuers' growth orientation.

L’IMF valuta una contrazione dell’economia mondiale del -3,3% nello scorso anno, dell’1,1% inferiore a quanto previsto nell’ottobre 2020, e una crescita per il 2021 del 6% e del 4,4% nel 2022, rispettivamente 0,8% e 0,2% in più rispetto alle previsioni dell’ottobre 2020, valori che riflettono il sostegno fiscale messo in campo dai governi delle economie avanzate e l’effetto vaccino. Nel 2020 l’indice nominale FAO dei prezzi agro-alimentari (Food Price Index, FPI) registra una media annuale pari a 98,0 (base 100 nel triennio 2014-2016), con una crescita, pari al 3,2%, rispetto all’anno precedente: dopo una flessione nella prima metà dell’anno, i prezzi hanno continuato a salire, fi- no a raggiungere un valore pari a 108,5 a fino anno, continuando poi a cresce- re nei primi mesi del 2021 (118,5 a marzo). Anche i dati World Bank sui mercati delle commodity confermano questo andamento, registrando nel 2020 una crescita del 4,6% dell’indice dei prezzi agricoli. Scendono invece del 10,0% su base annua i prezzi dei fertilizzanti.

This paper aims to trace and shed light on recent developments in filmic geography, an emerging theme of Anglo-Saxon geography that has animated the scientific debate over the last twenty years, attracting the attention of researchers who are interested in mobile audiovisual technologies. The aim is to give an initial overview of the filmic works made by geographers, reviewing and examining their typologies, themes, potential and critical issues, connecting the issues of filmic geography with the recent Italian debate on the University’s Third Mission and, more generally, on public geography.

La distribuzione alimentare in Emilia-Romagna nel 2020

Case study research plays a crucial role in studying the development of the bioeconomy. The versatility of the empirical method coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the bioeconomy concept requires a consistent and comparable application of the method to obtain valid and generalizable results. To stimulate such systematization, we first need to know the state of case studies in bioeconomy research. This article reviews the recent literature with a qualitative content analysis facilitated by systematic text coding. Our results provide an overview of how the narratives of the concept of bioeconomy affect the versatility of the case study research. Based on the low density of the illustrated semantic networks, we conclude that future empirical research on bio-based phenomena should be more transdisci-plinary and rely more on cross-sectoral approaches. Further work is also required in developing common research protocols that support transparency and replicability of case studies in the bioeconomy.

Case study research plays a crucial role in studying the development of the bioeconomy. The versatility of the empirical method coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the bioeconomy concept requires a consistent and comparable application of the method to obtain valid and generalizable results. To stimulate such systematization, we first need to know the state of case studies in bioeconomy research. This article reviews the recent literature with a qualitative content analysis facilitated by systematic text coding. Our results provide an overview of how the narratives of the concept of bioeconomy affect the versatility of the case study research. Based on the low density of the illustrated semantic networks, we conclude that future empirical research on bio-based phenomena should be more transdisciplinary and rely more on cross-sectoral approaches. Further work is also required in developing common research protocols that support transparency and replicability of case studies in the bioeconomy.