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How to fully motivate manufacturing enterprises to fulfill their environmental governance responsibilities and promote their green transformation and upgrading has become an important issue in China's high-quality economic development. The existing research mainly focuses on the environmental forcing effect of command-and-control environmental regulations, and the environmental incentive effect of soft tools such as green certification has received insufficient attention, and the conclusions are inconsistent. Based on the data of China's A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2015 to 2021, this study used the Notice on the Construction of Green Manufacturing System Issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to empirically test the impact, mechanisms, and spillover effect of green factory certification, a government green certification system, on corporate environmental governance responsibilities by constructing a multi-time point DID model. The results showed that: ① The government's green certification system had a significant environmental incentive effect. Compared with non-certified enterprises, certified green factories could significantly encourage enterprises to actively fulfill their environmental governance responsibilities, such as environmental protection investment and green innovation. This result held after a series of robustness tests. ② Mechanism analysis showed that government green certification mainly promoted enterprises to actively fulfill their environmental governance responsibilities through three channels: cost effect, resource effect, and supervision effect. ③ The spillover effect test showed that government green certification could encourage enterprises in the same industry and other enterprises in the same city to simultaneously improve their environmental responsibilities. ④ The analysis of scale effect showed that government green certification could expand the output scale of enterprises, indicating that the environmental incentive effect of government green certification could be achieved without sacrificing the large-scale development of enterprises. ⑤ The heterogeneity test showed that the environmental incentive effect of the government green certification system was more pronounced in large-scale enterprises, high-polluting enterprises, and enterprises with a high shareholding ratio of long-term institutional investors. To accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of the development mode, the government can, on the one hand, draw on the successful experience of green factories to develop other green certification tools and fully utilize the positive role of government green certification in green development. On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the incentive mechanisms and the market environment, where the government's green certification plays a role, and carry out targeted support for appropriate enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net-zero carbon reduction has become a global supply chain development trend, and the EU has established CBAM regulations. Industries that fail to effectively reduce carbon emissions will face operational challenges under these regulations. For SMEs, carbon reduction is crucial for sustainable operations. To address this challenge, governments worldwide are formulating relevant policies and investing resources to help SMEs enhance their competitiveness. In Taiwan, the metal industry has an export ratio exceeding 45%, making it a significant global production base for metal products. This study conducted a green operational transformation survey on 230 SMEs in Taiwan's metal industry. The Taiwanese government has devised a comprehensive carbon reduction approach for the metal industry, which includes environmental facilities, digital technology introduction, process and production technology improvement, resource recycling, and energy conversion as strategies and tools for promoting carbon reduction. According to this study, the aforementioned five promotion strategies have become essential tools for SMEs in their carbon reduction efforts. This study utilized a one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, and simple regression analysis, all of which demonstrated significant correlations among these tools. These findings can serve as a reference for other partner countries, accelerating the global industry's transition toward green operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the development of green factory standards in the building materials industry and systematically analyzes the construction of green factories in the building materials industry from dimensions such as regional distribution and industry. Furthermore, based on years of experience in green factory cultivation, the key points of creating green factories for the building materials industry in terms of factory planning, energy conservation, material and water conservation, emission reduction and green factory management are analyzed, providing an empirical reference for building materials production factories to create green factories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the main consumers of electricity, industries account for in releasing a large amount of emission. Using renewable energies to feed factories is not an easy task and they should be economically viable to compete with fossil fuels. The goal of this study is to analyze the possibilities of using energy local area networks in off-grid and on-grid modes in an industrial project by considering and calculating all primary and deferrable loads in detail for the first time. The industrial project is sensitive and all possibilities should be considered closely to avoid economic losses. In this case, changes in electrical loads during the project, degradation of components, environmental risks, and economic risks of the investment (for each scenario) are considered and determined too. The results indicate that component degradation can cause 24,000 kWh drop in total electricity production at the end of the project and the total biogas consumption increases from 742 kg/yr to 9330 kg/yr. The results also show that the on-gird scenario (solar/battery) with the Net Present Cost of 200,000$ will be an easy and low-risk choice for investment, but has high environmental risks. On the other hand, the stand-alone scenario (solar/wind/bio/battery) with Net Present Cost of 598,000$ minimizes the environmental risks at the expense of high investment risk. A proper comparison between the multi-year and single-year modes at the end of the project ensures the high accuracy of techno-economic analysis in terms of optimum system types, emissions, and economics.

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This paper takes Zhejiang Zhongguang Electric Group Co.Ltd. as an example to explain how enterprises overcome the problems faced in the transformation of green manufacturing, take innovation-driven green manufacturing as the primary premise, and become the pathfinder of innovation-driven green manufacturing in the manufacturing industry. The research in this case found that CGE adheres to the “innovation” driven development, and strives to create a development model of “one main body, innovation driven and five integration” with itself as the main body, innovation driven and five integration complemented; Through the construction of green factories, the design of green parks, the research and development of green products and the operation of green supply chain, the in-depth development of innovation is promoted in an orderly manner, providing valuable experience for the organic integration of green manufacturing and sustainable development. At the same time, the strategic layout of Zhongguang Electric is also improving day by day, constantly pursuing enterprise growth and technological breakthroughs, and integrating green management into enterprise management, product design and production.

Abstract Microalgae are cosmopolitan organisms in nature with short life cycles, playing a tremendous role in reducing the pressure of industrial carbon emissions. Besides, microalgae have the unique advantages of being photoautotrophic and harboring both prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems, becoming a popular host for recombinant proteins. Currently, numerous advanced molecular tools related to microalgal transgenesis have been explored and established, especially for the model species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii hereafter). The development of genetic tools and the emergence of new strategies further increase the feasibility of developing C. reinhardtii chloroplasts as green factories, and the strong genetic operability of C. reinhardtii endows it with enormous potential as a synthetic biology platform. At present, C. reinhardtii chloroplasts could successfully produce plenty of recombinant proteins, including antigens, antibodies, antimicrobial peptides, protein hormones and enzymes. However, additional techniques and toolkits for chloroplasts need to be developed to achieve efficient and markerless editing of plastid genomes. Mining novel genetic elements and selectable markers will be more intensively studied in the future, and more factors affecting protein expression are urged to be explored. This review focuses on the latest technological progress of selectable markers for Chlamydomonas chloroplast genetic engineering and the factors that affect the efficiency of chloroplast protein expression. Furthermore, urgent challenges and prospects for future development are pointed out.

Microalgae are cosmopolitan organisms in nature with short life cycles, playing a tremendous role in reducing the pressure of industrial carbon emissions. Besides, microalgae have the unique advantages of being photoautotrophic and harboring both prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems, becoming a popular host for recombinant proteins. Currently, numerous advanced molecular tools related to microalgal transgenesis have been explored and established, especially for the model species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii hereafter). The development of genetic tools and the emergence of new strategies further increase the feasibility of developing C. reinhardtii chloroplasts as green factories, and the strong genetic operability of C. reinhardtii endows it with enormous potential as a synthetic biology platform. At present, C. reinhardtii chloroplasts could successfully produce plenty of recombinant proteins, including antigens, antibodies, antimicrobial peptides, protein hormones and enzymes. However, additional techniques and toolkits for chloroplasts need to be developed to achieve efficient and markerless editing of plastid genomes. Mining novel genetic elements and selectable markers will be more intensively studied in the future, and more factors affecting protein expression are urged to be explored. This review focuses on the latest technological progress of selectable markers for Chlamydomonas chloroplast genetic engineering and the factors that affect the efficiency of chloroplast protein expression. Furthermore, urgent challenges and prospects for future development are pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wax esters are high-value compounds used as feedstocks for the production of lubricants, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Currently, they are produced mostly from fossil reserves using chemical synthesis, but this cannot meet increasing demand and has a negative environmental impact. Natural wax esters are also obtained from Simmondsia chinensi s (jojoba) but comparably in very low amounts and expensively. Therefore, metabolic engineering of plants, especially of the seed storage lipid metabolism of oil crops, represents an attractive strategy for renewable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly production of wax esters tailored to industrial applications. Utilization of wax ester-synthesizing enzymes with defined specificities and modulation of the acyl-CoA pools by various genetic engineering approaches can lead to obtaining wax esters with desired compositions and properties. However, obtaining high amounts of wax esters is still challenging due to their negative impact on seed germination and yield. In this review, we describe recent progress in establishing non-food-plant platforms for wax ester production and discuss their advantages and limitations as well as future prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, the design of factories has been profit-driven only, while their detrimental effects on the environment, perceptual-aesthetic interferences with the surroundings, and social disturbances on local communities have been largely neglected. Despite a growing attention towards these topics, literature shows that there is a fundamental knowledge and tool gap on design practices for holistically sustainable factories, and companies are often unaware of both negative and positive effects related to the impact of their sites on the landscape. This paper presents a toolkit that has been developed to support entrepreneurs and designers in devising more sustainable factories through an integrated perspective, which is the great novelty of the approach. The article focuses on one of its tools: a digital atlas of design tactics. These have been mapped in sustainable factories around the world and labelled with an ad hoc faceted classification. Each tactic is then described in an info-sheet, which feeds a web portal. There, the user is assisted in searching for the most suitable tactics and mutual links with other useful strategies. The main potentiality of the atlas is to encourage a holistic design approach by highlighting positive synergies among tactics from different fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid all the hype about bringing factories back from the periphery and reintegrating them into the city centre, are some of the downsides of central location being ignored? Frank Barkow, co‐founder of architectural practice Barkow Leibinger with offices in Berlin and New York, argues for a continuation of the industrial edge condition on the grounds of scale, flexibility and adaptability as well as in terms of transport infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Main conclusion: Plastid-based MNEI protein mutants retain the structure, stability and sweetness of their bacterial counterparts, confirming the attractiveness of the plastid transformation technology for high-yield production of recombinant proteins.The prevalence of obesity and diabetes has dramatically increased the industrial demand for the development and use of alternatives to sugar and traditional sweeteners. Sweet proteins, such as MNEI, a single chain derivative of monellin, are the most promising candidates for industrial applications. In this work, we describe the use of tobacco chloroplasts as a stable plant expression platform to produce three MNEI protein mutants with improved taste profile and stability. All plant-based proteins were correctly expressed in tobacco chloroplasts, purified and subjected to in-depth chemical and sensory analyses. Recombinant MNEI mutants showed a protein yield ranging from 5% to more than 50% of total soluble proteins, which, to date, represents the highest accumulation level of MNEI mutants in plants. Comparative analyses demonstrated the high similarity, in terms of structure, stability and function, of the proteins produced in plant chloroplasts and bacteria. The high yield and the extreme sweetness perceived for the plant-derived proteins prove that plastid transformation technology is a safe, stable and cost-effective production platform for low-calorie sweeteners, with an estimated production of up to 25-30 mg of pure protein/plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing is a transformation process where various inputs get transformed to products or sub-assemblies that satisfy unmet needs. Raw materials, energy, cutting fluids, processes, etc. are inputs whereas waste, emissions, finished items, etc. form outputs. Industrial sector utilizes about 37% of the global energy production and hence, manufacturing must employ more efficient approaches and technologies to realize the sustainable society dream. Sustainable manufacturing aims at the same output with lesser input thereby reducing overall consumption, environmental impacts, and waste. Theories and approaches proposed to realize sustainable manufacturing are usually complex, devoid of practical guidelines, and focuses mostly on the energy component. Aspects of manufacturing like pollution control, waste reduction, worker environment factors like noise and aerosol, etc. and their impact on sustainability are not significantly researched yet. Guidelines for systematic analysis of manufacturing facilities, specifically the unit manufacturing processes are necessary to identify improvement opportunities. This work developed a practical approach to mathematically describe relationships between various process variables to energy consumption, waste reduction, and worker environment. Four unit manufacturing processes, viz., grinding, drilling, milling, and micro-EDM were modeled and their corresponding process parameters were optimized using Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (ABC) to improve the ‘greenness’ of these processes. A hypothetical flow shop facility comprising of these four optimized green unit manufacturing processes was modeled using Technomatix Simulation software. This flowshop was numerically simulated to realize a target throughput while minimizing environmental impacts, energy, and waste. The milling, drilling, grinding, and μ-WEDG process operating at green parameter settings demonstrated 29%, 16%, 31%, and 42% savings in energy respectively; resulting in a total saving of 28% in the variable energy of the overall factory. Also, the results demonstrated around 92% reduction in the usage of cutting fluids. Further, complete substitution of the non-biodegradable cutting fluids without compromising process parameters was also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green energy supply can play an important role for manufacturing companies. To achieve this, companies can support their energy supply with renewable energies (RE). For designing and planning a Virtual Power Plant, the PREmdeK simulation can be used. Realized with the AnyLogic© software, PREmdeK 3.0 simulates combinations of RE sources, energy storages and consumers as a multiagent system (MAS). In this MAS, every member of the local energy system is represented by an agent. The agents negotiate to reach a balanced energy state. The negotiation is based on operating data (energy production and/or demand) and sustainability criteria. The simulation is set up in a generic way, able to reflect changes in the constellation of the energy system. New agents can easily be implemented into the generic MAS through inheritance. In this paper, the implementation of this MAS to handle energy balancing of local energy system including sector coupling is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A life cycle assessment of two polycarbonate production processes was conducted. • Bisphenol A production and coal mining and burning were identified as key factors. • The leading-level polycarbonate green factories can reduce carbon emissions by 10%. • Mechanically recycled polycarbonate could yield environmental benefits of over 82%. • Green mines and bio-based plastics were suggested to optimize the environment. The global plastics industry urgently requires a shift to sustainable manufacturing, but only a mere fraction of these plastics have been explored for their life cycle environmental impacts. Polycarbonate (PC), the top consumer of engineering plastics, lacks due attention. This study quantified the industrial-level environmental impacts of two mainstream PC production processes in China, the world's largest PC producer, via an integrated and regionalized life cycle impact assessment model. The fossil depletion category contributed dominant environmental impacts, accounting for approximately 60% in both scenarios. Bisphenol A production and coal mining and combustion were identified as crucial processes, specifying optimal directions toward sustainability. The PC green factories showed eco-effectiveness, with roughly 10% reductions in both non-carcinogens and global warming categories at the leading level. The mechanically recycled PC production could yield 82.3%–99.6% benefits in key categories. Moreover, green mines, ultra-low emission, bio-based plastics, and extended producer responsibility are highly recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biofuels production from plant biomasses is a complex multi-step process with important economic burdens. Several biotechnological approaches have been pursued to reduce biofuels production costs. The aim of the present study was to explore the production in tobacco plastome of three genes encoding (hemi)cellulolytic enzymes from thermophilic and hyperthermophilic bacterium and Archaea, respectively, and test their application in the bioconversion of an important industrially pretreated biomass feedstock (A. donax) for production of secondgeneration biofuels. Results: The selected enzymes, endoglucanase, endo-β-1,4-xylanase and β-glucosidase, were expressed in tobacco plastome with a protein yield range from 2 % to more than 75 % of total soluble proteins (TSP). The accumulation of endoglucanase (up to 2 % TSP) gave altered plant phenotypes whose severity was directly linked to the enzyme yield. The most severe seedling-lethal phenotype was due to the impairment of plastid development associated to the binding of endoglucanase protein to thylakoids. Endo-β-1,4-xylanase and β-glucosidase, produced at very high level without detrimental effects on plant development, were enriched (fourfold) by heat treatment (105.4 and 255.4 U/mg, respectively). Both plastid-derived biocatalysts retained the main features of the native or recombinantly expressed enzymes with interesting differences. Plastid-derived xylanase and β-glucosidase resulted more thermophilic than the E. coli recombinant and native counterpart, respectively. Bioconversion experiments, carried out at 50 and 60 °C, demonstrated that plastid-derived enzymes were able to hydrolyse an industrially pretreated giant reed biomass. In particular, the replacement of commercial enzyme with plastid-derived xylanase, at 60 °C, produced an increase of both xylose recovery and hydrolysis rate; whereas the replacement of both xylanase and β-glucosidase produced glucose levels similar to those observed with the commercial cocktails, and xylose yields always higher in the whole 24-72 h range. Conclusions: The very high production level of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic enzymes, their stability and bioconversion efficiencies described in this study demonstrate that plastid transformation represents a real cost-effective production platform for cellulolytic enzymes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salinity is among the main drivers affecting growth and distribution of photosynthetic organisms as Chlamydomonas spp. These species can live in multiple environments, including polar regions, and have been frequently studied for their adaptation to live at different salinity gradients. Upon salinity stress (hypersalinity is the most studied), Chlamydomonas spp. were found to alter their metabolism, reduce biomass production (growth), chlorophyll content, photosynthetic activity, and simultaneously increasing radical oxygen species production as well as lipid and carotenoid contents. This review summarizes the current literature on salt stress related studies on the green algae from the genus Chlamydomonas considering physiological and molecular aspects. The overall picture emerging from the data suggests the existence of common features of the genus in response to salinity stress, as well as some differences peculiar to single Chlamydomonas species. These differences were probably linked to the different morphological characteristics of the studied algae (e.g., with or without cell wall) or different sampling locations and adaptations. On the other hand, molecular data suggest the presence of common reactions, key genes, and metabolic pathways that can be used as biomarkers of salt stress in Chlamydomonas spp., with implications for future physiological and biotechnological studies on microalgae and plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]