Search results for " Environmental Sustainability"
showing 10 items of 32 documents
Integrated membrane bioreactors modelling: A review on new comprehensive modelling framework
2021
International audience; Integrated Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) models, combination of biological and physical models, have been representing powerful tools for the accomplishment of high environmental sustainability. This paper, produced by the International Water Association (IWA) Task Group on Membrane Modelling and Control, reviews the state-of-the-art, identifying gaps for future researches, and proposes a new integrated MBR modelling framework. In particular, the framework aims to guide researchers and managers in pursuing good performances of MBRs in terms of effluent quality, operating costs (such as membrane fouling, energy consumption due to aeration) and mitigation of greenhouse gas…
A Systematic Literature Review of Historic Garden Management and Its Economic Aspects
2020
Historic gardens are important parts of humanity’s built heritage within the designed landscape, providing many environmental, economic and socio-cultural benefits. Management is a key part of their conservation, perhaps the most difficult because it is costly, must be continual, and requires a skilled workforce. This systematic review looks at the literature addressing historic garden management, with special attention regarding the social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. Academic studies on this subject come from many different disciplines, making it both stimulating and fragmented. It is now time to consolidate these interdisciplinary efforts into a clear vision, in…
Life Cycle Assessment for Supporting Eco-Design: The Case Study of Sodium–Nickel Chloride Cells
2021
The European Union is moving towards a sustainable, decarbonized, and circular economy. It has identified seven key value chains in which to intervene, with the battery and vehicle value chain being one of them. Thus, actions and strategies for the sustainability of batteries need to be developed. Since Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a strategic tool for evaluating environmental sustainability, this paper investigates its application to two configurations of a sodium–nickel chloride cell (planar and tubular), focusing on the active material and the anode, with the purpose of identifying the configuration characterized by the lowest environmental impacts. The results, based on a “from cradle…
A comparative life-cycle assessment of asphalt mixtures for railway sub-ballast containing alternative materials
2018
Abstract Bituminous sub-ballast in railway track-bed can mitigate the variation of the moisture content in the subgrade and reduce vertical stiffness variations of the track leading to a more durable infrastructure. Nevertheless, durability is only one of the aspects that affects the sustainability of an infrastructure. Other relevant aspects are related to the environmental and economic issues. This research work joins the worldwide effort towards a paradigm shift in civil engineering devoted to assess the sustainability of infrastructures at the design stage. With this in mind, in this study different alternative bituminous sub-ballast mixtures containing recycled materials, namely crumb …
Culinary tourism experiences in agri-tourism destinations and sustainable consumption-Understanding Italian tourists' motivations
2019
Culinary tourism represents an emerging component of the tourism industry and encompasses all the traditional values associated with the new trends in tourism: respect for culture and tradition, authenticity and sustainability. Italy is known worldwide for the richness and variety of its gastronomy, and agri-tourism represents one of the most important places where culinary tourists can experience local food and beverages. By using a modified version of Kim and Eves&rsquo
Approccio “Life Cycle Thinking” applicato alla riparazione di una scuola danneggiata dal terremoto dell’Italia centrale
2017
L’adeguamento sismico ed il miglioramento energetico delle strutture sono diventati al giorno d’oggi una priorità. Buona parte del patrimonio edilizio esistente si trova in stato di grande obsolescenza strutturale, architettonica ed energetica. Oltre alla prevenzione, tuttavia, un aspetto molto importante riguarda la riparazione e riqualificazione degli edifici resi inagibili dagli eventi sismici recentemente accaduti nel territorio nazionale. In modo particolare, nel presente articolo verrà preso in considerazione un edificio del plesso scolastico sito nel Comune di Pievebovigliana, provincia di Macerata, danneggiato dai terremoti che hanno colpito l’Italia centrale il 24.08.2016 e il 30.1…
Environmental Sustainability Orientation, Reward-Based Crowdfunding, and Venture Capital: The Mediating Role of Crowdfunding Performance for New Tech…
2021
Extant literature has investigated the effects of new ventures’ environmental sustainability orientation (ESO) on the crowdfunding (CF) performance and on the ability to secure venture capital, separately and with mixed results. In this article, we address the study of these relationships simultaneously. Specifically, we examine how the presence of ESO features influences new technology-based ventures’ ability to secure funding in reward-based CF campaigns and how the CF performance mediates the effect of such features on attracting subsequent venture capital. Using a sample of new hardware ventures that have launched a CF campaign on Kickstarter, we document a negative effect of the presen…
An integrated environmental indicator for urban transportation systems: description and application
2015
A simplified version of the ecological footprint method is proposed for assessing the environmental performances of urban transportation systems. The method, starting from the knowledge of the composition of the running vehicular fleet, is here applied to a southern Italian province. It represents a synthetic indicator of the environmental pressure exerted by the system also matching the pollutant emissions with the carrying capacity of the site. Particularly, the forested area needed to absorb the CO2 emissions of the system is compared with the total forested area of the province. The results of the case-study indicates the yearly maximum distance that each vehicle of the fleet can cover …
The role of the transportation phase for a green management of municipal solid waste
2017
Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) constitutes a high challenging issue to cope with to move towards sustainability of the urban policies. Despite new standards call for recycling and reusing materials contained in the city waste, several municipalities still use extensive landfills. Other than the environmental pressure exerted by these plants, the waste transportation from the recovery points of towns to landfills needs consideration to correctly assess the whole burden of the waste management. In this paper, the Ecological Footprint indicator is applied to the MSWM of the town of Palermo (Sicily). Results show that the effects produced by the involved transportation vehicles, both i…
Integration of green roofs&walls in urban areas
2020
Growing urbanization is associated with the emergence of environmental problems, such as the reduction of natural resources, the atmosphere pollution and the increase of the heat islands phenomenon in cities. The integration of vegetation in the urban areas, through the creation of green hanging systems, represents a possible solution to improve the energy sustainability of buildings, to combat meteoric excesses, to improve stormwater management and to reduce pollutant levels. These energy and environmental benefits are related to the properties of evapotranspiration, shading and thermal insulation of the vegetation. The work reports the results of the main studies concerning the use of han…