Search results for " Sustainability assessment"
showing 10 items of 11 documents
SUP R DSS: A sustainability-based decision support & system for road pavements
2019
Road pavement community members are increasingly becoming aware of the need to incorporating the principles of sustainable development into the sector. Policies are also going in this direction and as a consequence in the recent years researchers and practitioners are coming up with new materials, technologies and practices designed to reduce the negative impacts of their activities in the surroundings. Within this framework the road pavements sector is witnessing a paradigm shift towards the development of pavement technologies incorporating high-content of recycled materials, as well as best practices to decrease the overall carbon footprint. These are all promising solutions that to the …
A systematic assessment of road pavement sustainability through a review of rating tools
2017
Pavements are engineered systems present in every modern society, and they have significant environmental, economic and social impacts. In an effort to promote more sustainable decisions regarding pavement design, construction and management, several pavement sustainability assessment tools have been developed. This research reviewed some of these tools and found that many of them do not treat the pavement as a system; instead, they seek to optimize individual aspects of the pavement in an effort to increase its sustainability. Therefore, a framework for analytically assessing the system outcomes towards sustainable objectives is presented and applied for modern pavement sustainability asse…
An interpretive framework for assessing and monitoring the sustainability of school gardens
2016
School gardens are, increasingly, an integral part of projects aiming to promote nutritional education and environmental sustainability in many countries throughout the world. In the late 1950s, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) had already developed projects to improve the dietary intake and behavior through school and community gardens. However, notwithstanding decades of experience, real proof of how these programs contribute to improving sustainability has not been well-documented, and reported findings have mostly been anecdotal. Therefore, it is important to begin a process of collecting and monitoring data to quantify the results and …
Evaluating the Sustainability in Complex Agri-Food Systems: The SAEMETH Framework
2015
During the last few years, the definition of sustainability and the translation of its general principles into practical and operative tasks have come into the foreground of scientific research and political agendas throughout the world. The understanding and the evaluation of the environmental, social and economic performances of complex agricultural food systems is probably the real challenge, and the design of more sustainable alternatives has been recognized as necessary for a correct territorial management. This study’s primary goal is the proposition of an interpretive structure “Sustainable Agri-Food Evaluation Methodology” (SAEMETH), able to guide the evaluation of the sustainabilit…
Costructal law, exergy analysis and life cycle energy sustainability assessment: an expanded framework applied to a boiler
2020
Purpose Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is one of the most relevant tools delving in sustainability science, based currently on the triple bottom line idea that is defined as the contemporary implementation of the three tools of life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment (S-LCA). The methodology is currently being applied to a wide set of products and systems. However, as per in the large interest towards energy-related products, the sustainability assessment of energy systems—in particular those where fluid streams are used—could be more effective if some further stages could be included in the analysis, i.e. a process level analysis …
Pavement life cycle management: Towards a sustainability assessment framework in Europe
2020
Pavement Life Cycle Management is a 2-year international project aiming at supporting European National Road Authorities (NRAs) to introduce sustainability in their practices by providing training on Life Cycle techniques and a user-friendly package to support their widespread implementation. The first task in Pavement Life Cycle Management (Pave-mentLCM) project is the creation of a Sustainability Assessment (SA) framework that complies with EN15643-5 and consequently include the three pillars of sustainability, use a life cycle ap-proach and use quantifiable sustainability performance indicators. This paper presents the first steps towards the creation of the framework which includes the …
Investigating Tools for Sustainability Assessment of Road Pavements in Europe
2022
Sustainability assessment (SA) is a method to support decision making processes through the evaluation of system effectiveness, environmental integrity, economic valuation, and social implications [1]. SA can be carried out through the application of life-cycle-based techniques for quantitative assessment, or by performing a mainly qualitative approach via sustainability rating systems (SRS). In the field of civil engineering, many SRS have been proposed, all based on assigning point values to actions that are determined to contribute to the overall sustainability of the project. However, only few of these systems can be applied specifically to compare road pavement technologies and/or main…
Life cycle energy sustainability assessment: an expanded framework for energy technologies
2018
Life Cycle sustainability assessment is one of the most relevant tools delving in sustainability science, based currently on the triple bottom line idea, that is identified in the use of the three tools of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). The methodology is structured on international regulations and is currently being applied to a wide set of products and systems. However, when targeting specifically energy technologies with this methodology some specific issues need to be taken in consideration before applying tout court the standard LCSA methodology. Energy systems – in particular those where fluid streams are used – have an …
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment al comparto edilizio – teoria e applicazioni pratiche.
2014
A framework for defining a sustainability rating system for railway track-beds
2017
Railways perform a significant role in the transportation system and they have relevant environmental, economic and social impacts. They are currently engineered optimizing every singular aspect rather than considering a broader system for improving the sustainability of the overall infrastructure. Thus, it is necessary to promote an effort to define a global sustainability framework for conceiving the design, construction and management of railway infrastructure. The Sustainable Rating System (SRS) proposed in this paper is a tool under development that evaluates different alternatives of railway track-bed structure. Inspired by similar efforts in the field of road engineering such as Gree…