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Wastewater treatment is an essential public service that has a major impact on energy use in the urban water cycle, thus receiving increasing attention in context of the Water-Energy Nexus. Understanding the current energy use for wastewater is an essential step to design reliable policies promoting a more efficient use of resources. This paper develops a pan European estimation of electricity use for the treatment of wastewater, based on a dataset of wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs) across the continent. Prediction of electricity use has been performed using a statistical model that accounts for economies of scale. Different scenarios of improvements of energy use efficiency have been investigated to understand the possible reductions in electricity consumption at the continental scale. The overall WWTP electricity use in Europe (only plants with no less than 2000 population equivalent (PE) have been considered)was estimated at 24 747 GWh yr−1 , about the 0.8% of the electricity consumption in the EU-28. Small plants(less than 50 000 PE)represent almost 90% of the total number of plants, but process only 31% of the PE and require 42% of electricity use. Plants from mid to very large size (more than 50 000 PE), being only 10% of the plants, process about 70% of the PE with 58% of the total electricity use. If all plants that use more than the current average were shifted to the average value, the saving would be slightly more than 5500 GWh yr−1 . With highly stringent targets of efficiency improvement, saving of about 13 500 GWh yr−1 could be expected. Further considerations on the emerging role of WWTPs as energy and material producer are finally discussed This work is part of the project Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus financed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission SI

As downstream processing has been identified as a bottleneck for the sustainable development of the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) value chains, this work aims to provide new insights for the optimization of its environmental performance. After identifying the most promising methods for PHA recovery and purification, four processes with two different system functions,high- and low-grade PHA, were defined and scaled up. The environmental performance of these processes was evaluated by life cycle assessment (LCA). Processes based on solvent extraction showed a worse environmental performance due to the high energy requirements of solvents recovery. Processes relying on chemical digestion showed a better environmental performance when combined with other technologies such as high pressure homogenization, which allows a reduction of the amount of chemicals employed. Therefore, two main improvement actions were proposed to overcome these hotspots and estimate the environmental burdens reduction: heat integration in larger facilities would reduce the heat duty, while introducing a chemical recovery unit or combining chemical digestion with other technologies would reduce those impacts related to chemicals consumption. Through this work, it is demonstrated that the environmental performance of PHA downstream processing can be improved if the process design include life cycle assessment from its conception

Within a few weeks the world has changed, at the time this text is written (May 2020) more than 3.5 million people have been confirmed cases of COVID-19 and estimations propose up to a hundred times the number of actually infected. A third of the global population is on lockdown and a large part of our global economic activity has stopped. Food and access to food has played a visual role in portraying the impact of the outbreak on our society, with images of empty supermarket shelves appearing in mainstream media. In some countries closed schools resulted in many children not having access to free meals and mobilised a number of charities. While parts of the world are now exiting lockdown and measures start relaxing the near future remains uncertain with more waves of the pandemic expected. Given that there is currently no evidence to show that transmission of COVID-19 could occur through food or food packaging there has been limited discussion on the issue, implications and potential future scenarios within the wider food science community., peer-reviewed

Sewage sludge handling is becoming a concern in Europe due to its increasing amount and the presence of contaminants, such as heavy metals and pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs). Currently, over 70% of sludge in Europe is treated thermally by incineration or used as fertilizer in agriculture. New thermochemical methods are under development and are expected to be implemented in the near future. This paper considers the life cycle environmental impacts of the following five alternatives for sludge handling, taking into account the presence of heavy metals and PPCPs: i) agricultural application of anaerobically digested sludge; ii) agricultural application of composted sludge; iii) incineration; iv) pyrolysis; and v) wet air oxidation. The results suggest that anaerobic digestion with recovery of nutrients and electricity has the lowest environmental impacts in 11 out of 18 categories considered. For the mean to maximum resource recovery, composting is the worst alternative, followed by pyrolysis with lower recovery rates. Agricultural application of anaerobically digested sludge has the highest freshwater ecotoxicity due to heavy metals, unless their concentration is in the lowest range, as found in some European sewage sludge applied on land. Therefore, stricter control of heavy metals in the sludge is needed for this option to limit freshwater ecotoxicity to the levels comparable with the thermal processes. The results also indicate that PPCPs have a negligible contribution to freshwater ecotoxicity when compared to heavy metals in the anaerobically digested sludge. Since thermal processes are currently drawing attention due to their potential benefits, the findings of this work suggest that their adoption is environmentally beneficial only if high resource recovery rates can be achieved.

The recovery of resources from food industries wastewater and further transformation into high performance biodegradable plastics is an ambitious objective which fulfils the objectives of circular economy and SDGs 6 and 14: i) a potentially harmful water pollutant if discharged is converted instead into an added-value product; ii) ensuring biodegradability in marine conditions, the plastic pollution is greatly minimised. In the framework of H2020 project USABLE-PACKAGING (www.usable-packaging.eu), we are carrying out a comprehensive analysis of a selection of representative value chains, from the industrial effluent to the final bioplastic product and potential by-products to ensure its economic and environmental sustainability. In particular, we are integrating knowledge from different sources, namely from deliberately designed experiments, mathematical models and literature reviews, for the holistic assessment of the environmental performance of several scenarios, with different wastewater characteristics (i.e. substrate) and a diverse range of bioplastic applications (i.e. final product).

Given the increasing importance of the wastewater sector in terms of energy usage, the understanding of the level of energy efficiency of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is useful to both the industry itself as well as policy makers. Here, based on economic foundations, we apply a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) approach for energy demand modelling to estimate energy efficiency in the wastewater sector. Using specific SFA models and panel data from 183 Swiss WWTPs over the period 2001 to 2015, the paper illustrates that distinguishing between persistent and transient inefficiency is essential to deduce appropriate energy efficiency diagnosis in WWTPs. In this respect, persistent energy inefficiency is found to be more severe than transient energy inefficiency. Furthermore, it is shown that the age of the equipment influences the demand for energy and the energy savings due to technological innovation are quantified. Finally, economies of output density and scale are estimated demonstrating that for plants operating below optimal scale significant energy savings can be achieved if plants would be operated at higher size. Instead, our analysis reveals also that for plants larger than 100000 Population Equivalent, at least from an energy efficiency point of view, it would be no more beneficial to increase their scale. Stefano Longo, Almudena Hospido and Miguel Mauricio-Iglesias belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC2013-032 and the CRETUS strategic partnership (AGRUP2015/02), co-funded by FEDER (EU). Besides, they are supported by ‘ENERWATER’ Coordination Support Action that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649819. Stefano Longo would like to thank REGATA network (ED341D R2016/033), funded by the Galician Government, for the international short-term research visit grant 2023-11-01 SI

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is an urgent and internationally shared target. One of the existing measures to do so is carbon offsetting through afforestation. However, when designing afforestation projects meant to act as carbon sinks, the remaining environmental issues are usually overlooked, with the potential risk of shifting environmental burdens. This study uses the water scarcity footprint as an indicator to choose the most adequate location for afforestation. To do so, a particular case study aimed at offsetting the carbon emissions of a canning company has been chosen. This multinational company has two main locations: Galicia (NW Spain), and La Union (El Salvador). First, the annual carbon and water footprints of the production of the company’s flagship product (a pack of 3 tuna cans) have been calculated. The carbon footprint has been calculated following the corresponding ISO 14067 and PAS 2050 recommendations. Then, an afforestation project aimed at offsetting those carbon emissions has been designed following the corresponding Spanish regulations, and its prospective water scarcity impacts have been calculated. Two potential locations for the afforestation measure (next to the two company facilities in Galicia and La Union) were assessed regarding green water scarcity impacts, in order to choose the more sustainable location. If the afforestation project were located in El Salvador, its water scarcity footprint would be 30% higher than in Galicia, and thus Galicia has been chosen as the location for this offsetting action. A sensitivity analysis has been carried out to evaluate how the use of different evapotranspiration values would affect the results, and the choice of the methodological approach used has been justified. Still, the approach used in this study has some limitations which have also been discussed, and ideas for its further improvement in subsequent studies have been presented. The relevance of following a holistic approach when designing carbon offsetting projects has been stated. If an afforestation project was planned focusing only on its carbon absorption rate, it may result in a burden shift to other impact areas (such as the water scarcity considered here). Thus, by linking indicators, we make sure that the carbon footprint reduction achieved does not imply an unsustainable contribution to water scarcity.

Sludge generation is currently one of the most important issues for sewage treatment plants in Chile. In this work, the life cycle environmental impacts of four sludge management scenarios were studied, focusing on the comparison of current practices and advanced anaerobic digestion (AD) using a sequential pre-treatment (PT). The results show that AD scenarios presented lower potential impacts than lime stabilization scenarios in all assessed categories, including climate change, abiotic depletion, acidification, and eutrophication in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. The overall environmental performance of advanced digestion was similar to conventional digestion, with the main difference being a decrease in the climate change potential and an increase in the abiotic depletion potential. Acidification and eutrophication categories showed similar performances in both conventional and advanced AD. The effect of PT in the AD scenarios was related to energy recovery, sludge transport requirements and nutrient loads in the sludge and supernatant after digestate dewatering. Considering the results, PT could be a useful strategy to promote sludge valorization and decrease the environmental burdens of sludge management in Chile compared to the current scenario.

Se ha elaborado la primera guía clínica española que permitirá a los farmacéuticos comunitarios y demás profesionales de la salud seleccionar, para cada indicación específica, el producto con probióticos adecuado, la dosis y la vía de administración. Con ello se pretende lograr que la práctica diaria de indicación farmacéutica de los suplementos probióticos esté basada en las mejores evidencias científicas disponibles. We have developed the first Spanish clinical guide that will allow the community pharmacists and other health care professionals easily select the right product with probiotics, dosage and format for each specific indication. With the proposed guide, it is our goal that the daily pharmaceutical practice of probiotics supplementation in community pharmacy is based on the best scientific evidence available. SI

We examine gender differences in career progression and promotions in central banking, a stereotypical male-dominated occupation, using confidential anonymized personnel data from the European Central Bank (ECB) during the period 2003-2017. A wage gap emerges between men and women within a few years of hiring, despite broadly similar entry conditions in terms of salary levels and other observables. We also find that women are less likely to be promoted to a higher salary band up until 2010 when the ECB issued a public statement supporting diversity and took several measures to support gender balance. Following this change, the promotion gap disappears. The gender promotion gap prior to this policy change is partly driven by the presence of children. Using 2012-2017 data on promotion applications and decisions, we explore the promotion process in depth, and confirm that during this most recent period women are as likely to be promoted as men. This results from a lower probability of women to apply for promotion, combined with a higher probability of women to be selected conditional on having applied. Following promotion, women perform better in terms of salary progression, suggesting that the higher probability to be selected is based on merit, not positive discrimination.

This paper describes the first methodology specifically tailored to estimate energy efficiency at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Inspired by the cycle of continuous improvement, the method (i) precisely defines the concept of energy efficiency in WWTPs, (ii) proposes systematic and comparable ways to measure it, and (iii) allows benchmarking and diagnosing energy hotspots. The methodology delivers an aggregated measure of the WWTP energy efficiency defined as the Water Treatment Energy Index, a single energy label that uses universally known illustrations enabling wide communication of standardized information on the WWTP energy status. The accuracy, reproducibility and generality of the methodology were validated by a widespread energy benchmarking method, and a case study is presented to show its capabilities. By promoting dialogue towards the creation of a specific European Standard, the actions accomplished by the H2020 Coordination Support Action ENERWATER should positively contribute to improving the exchange of information on energy saving actions and results between wastewater utilities and towards other stakeholders We thank Benedetto Mirko d’Antoni and Diego Cingolani for their contribution to the development of the ENERWATER methodology. Stefano Longo, Miguel Mauricio-Iglesias and Almudena Hospido belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group (ED431C 2017/029) and the CRETUS strategic partnership (AGRUP2017/01), co-funded by FEDER (EU). Besides, they are supported by ENERWATER Coordination Support Action (www.enerwater.eu) that has received founding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 649819 SI

The Survey of Financial Competences (ECF) is a joint initiative of the Banco de Espana and the Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) aimed at measuring the financial competences of the adult population in Spain. Between 2016 and 2017, information has been collected for a large sample provided by the National Statistical Institute of randomly selected individuals, and representative of the whole Spanish population between 18 and 79 years of age and of each of its regions. This paper provides a detailed description of the most relevant methodological aspects in the design and implementation of the survey: the sample design, the questionnaire, the data collection process, the validation of the data, the computation of weights, and the imputation procedure.

This chapter evaluates the economic and environmental implications of MBR using Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). A brief introduction to these methodologies and the main developments and achievements when applied to MBR is given before the presentation of two case studies. In the first case study, CBA and LCA were applied for the assessment of seven wastewater treatment plants using MBR and other membrane technologies. The results highlighted the benefits of removal of substances responsible for eutrophication and the relevance of the scale factor regarding electricity use, one of the main environmental and economic costs. In the second case study, LCA alone was applied for the environmental assessment of four novel MBR configurations at pilot-plant scale focusing on the removal of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), of which only hormones were found to be relevant in terms of toxicity terms due to their higher concentrations in the influent.

We examine gender differences in career progression and promotions in central banking, a stereotypical male-dominated occupation, using confidential anonymized personnel data from the European Central Bank (ECB) during the period 2003-2017. A wage gap emerges between men and women within a few years of hiring, despite broadly similar entry conditions in terms of salary levels and other observables. We also find that women are less likely to be promoted to a higher salary band up until 2010 when the ECB issued a public statement supporting diversity and took several measures to support gender balance. Following this change, the promotion gap disappears. The gender promotion gap prior to this policy change is partly driven by the presence of children. Using 2012-2017 data on promotion applications and decisions, we explore the promotion process in depth, and confirm that during this most recent period women are as likely to be promoted as men. This results from a lower probability of women to apply for promotion, combined with a higher probability of women to be selected conditional on having applied. Following promotion, women perform better in terms of salary progression, suggesting that the higher probability to be selected is based on merit, not positive discrimination.

We study gender differences in the evaluation of submissions to economics conferences. Using data from the Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (2015-2017), the Annual Meeting of the Spanish Economic Association (2012-2017), and the Spring Meeting of Young Economists (2017), we find that all-female-authored papers are 3.2 p.p. (6.8%) less likely to be accepted than all-male-authored papers. This gap is present after controlling for (i) number of authors, (ii) referee fixed effects, (iii) field, (iv) cites of the paper at submission year, (v) previous publication record of the authors, and (vi) the quality of the affiliations of the authors. We also find that the gap is entirely driven by male referees - female referees evaluate male and female-authored papers similarly, but male referees are more favorable towards papers written by men.

This study compares a premium brand of UHT milk, Unicla, characterised by an improved nutritional composition, to conventional milk, in terms of health effects and environmental impacts. Unlike enriched milks, in which nutrients are added to the final product, Unicla is obtained naturally by improving the diet of the dairy cows. Health effects have been analysed based on literature findings, while the environmental analysis focused on those spheres of the environment where milk is expected to cause the higher impacts, and thus carbon (CF) and water footprints (WF) have been determined. Five final products have been compared: 3 conventional (skimmed, semi-skimmed, whole) and 2 Unicla (skimmed, semi-skimmed) milks. As a functional unit, one litre of packaged UHT milk entering the regional distribution centre has been chosen. The improved composition of Unicla milk is expected to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and to protect consumers against oxidative damage, among other health benefits. Concerning the environmental aspect, CF of Unicla products are, on average, 10% lower than their conventional equivalents, mainly due to the lower enteric emissions of caused by the Unicla diet. No significant differences were found between the WF of Unicla and conventional milk. Raw milk is the main contributor to both footprints (on average, 83.2 and 84.3% of the total CF of Unicla and conventional milk, respectively, and 99.9% of WF). The results have been compared to those found in literature, and a sensitivity analysis has been performed to verify their robustness. The study concludes that switching to healthier milk compositions can help slowing down global warming, without contributing to other environmental issues such as water scarcity. The results should encourage other milk companies to commit to the development of healthier, less environmentally damaging products, and also to stimulate consumers to bet on them.

Bananas are among the five most important food crops in the world, after wheat, rice, maize, and potatoes and Ecuador is a major banana producer and the world's leading banana exporter. A detailed carbon footprint assessment from cradle-to-grave of the Ecuadorian banana value chain was carried out. Special effort was made to adjust the emission factors to the local conditions, especially in those activities that were expected to contribute most to the whole footprint. The calculated carbon footprint of Ecuadorian bananas, inclusive of the consumption point in Spain, was 1.28 tonne CO 2 e per tonne of banana. The results were also reported individually for the main contributors within the value chain. The values reported in this study are lower or in line with those available in the literature and the differences can be attributed to the use of different parameters – adjusted in the present study to the specific conditions of Ecuador. Farm stage was identified as the main contributor (22.1%) and significant differences were found between the environmental performance of conventional and organic farms, mainly due to the use of synthetic fertilizers in the former and the related nitrous oxide emissions. A carbon footprint Excel-based calculation tool was also developed, to allow Ecuadorian stakeholders to evaluate different operating conditions. The methodological adjustments developed in this study can be applied to future cases of similar characteristics. For example, the new emission factors obtained can be used to determine nitrous oxide emissions from managed soils in tropical countries; also of broader applicability are the emission factors that consider different load percentages and refrigerated conditions in transport stages. Moreover, the carbon footprint calculation tool will allow banana stakeholders to evaluate their environmental performance under varying conditions and to identify scope for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.