Energy and environmental management protocols of an agrocombined system for biogas production from biomass waste: the experience of the project Italy Tunisia VEDe.R

Application of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) to Natural Parks and reserves

Natural parks and reserves have to face problems concerning the conservation of their natural resources. Citizens and firms often perceive the institution of new protected areas more as a bind or a restriction to their activities than an added value of the territory. Following the principles of sustainable development, it is necessary to integrate the environmental protection with the needs of neighbouring urban areas and production sites. The implementation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) according to international standards (ISO 14001, EMAS) can support the Park administration in their complex management activities. This paper analysed the criticisms related to the application…

The use of Genetic Algorithms to solve the allocation problems in the Life Cycle Assessment

The paper applies a GA (Genetic Algorithms) to a multi-output productive process of essential oils, natural and concen-trated juices from oranges and lemonsThe results obtained for the case study taken into consideration showed that the application of GA allows to respect the energ y and mass balances for the examined system .

Economic Allocation in Life Cycle Assessment The State of the Art and Discussion of Examples

Summary This article examines methods for analyzing allocation in life cycle assessment (LCA); it focuses on comparisons of economic allocation with other feasible alternatives. The International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) guideline 14044 indicates that economic allocation should only be used as a last resort, when other methods are not suitable. However, the LCA literature reports several examples of the use of economic allocation. This is due partly to its simplicity and partly to its ability to illustrate the properties of complex systems. Sometimes a price summarizes complex attributes of product or service quality that cannot be easily measured by physical criteria. On th…

Methodological insights on Life Cycle Assessment of solar energy technologies

Renewable energies are reliable sources to move the world toward a sustainable energy economy, to achieve the emission reduction targets and to face the shortage of worldwide fossil fuels reserves. A reliable energy and environmental profile of renewable energy technologies (RETs) may not leave out considerations on the impacts of the background system, including also the production, use, and disposal of such systems. In this context the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an established methodology to estimate the energy and environmental benefits and drawbacks of RETs and to identify components and life cycle stages having the largest impacts. In the present Chapter the authors focus on the an…

sistemi di gestione ambientale applicati al prodotto: un caso studio viti-vinicolo

I Sistemi di Gestione Ambientale (SGA) Orientati al Prodotto (POEMS – Product Oriented Environmental Management System) rappresentano un’evoluzione dei SGA già diffusi nel contesto nazionale ed internazionale. I POEMS combinano elementi consolidati dei SGA con aspetti di ciclo di vita dei prodotti, permettendo alle aziende di sviluppare e promuovere nel mercato prodotti che si contraddistinguano per la loro qualità ecologica. L’articolo presenta un’analisi delle peculiarità metodologiche dei POEMS e descrive un’applicazione sperimentale ad un’azienda vitivinicola siciliana.

Le caratteristiche termofisiche del patrimonio edilizio della città di Palermo

Un ambiente confinato è un rapporto continuo con il contesto bioclimatico esterno attraverso l'involucro edilizio, che notoriamente svolge una funzione di protezione e di filtro rispetto agli input esterni. Una corretta ottimizzazione della interfaccia edificio clima è legata, fra gli altri fattori, anche alla selezione di materiali le cui carayyeristiche termofisiche siano tali da agevolare il conseguimento della suddetta ottimizzazione. In particolare, la conoscenza del tempo di ritardo fra l'onda termica incidente e quella emergente all'interno dello spazio confinato, associata alla stima del fattore di attenuazione del flusso di calore, è presupposto di base per una corretta progettazio…