Search results for " and plants"
showing 10 items of 332 documents
Exploring the opportunities and challenges of european design policy to enable innovation. The case of designscapes project
2020
Design policy for innovation and prosperity has been acknowledged and adopted globally. Existing literature on design policy usually adopts a top-down perspective to analyse the components of the design innovation system and ignores the practical needs of practitioners. Our study aims to explore potential opportunities and challenges of design policies for design-enabled innovation from a bottom-up perspective. We firstly discussed the enabling role of design in the context of design as input, output and process of innovation with emphasis on design-enabled innovation conception
Efficiency versus Fairness in the Management of Public Housing Assets in Palermo (Italy)
2019
Public housing policy has been proposing plans of public housing (PH) stock alienation or, as an alternative, property enhancement plans, since administrative and financial commitments have become too heavy for municipalities. This paper deals with one of the current public housing management policy initiatives, undertaken by the Municipality of Palermo (Italy), which aimed at transferring a significant part of the public housing asset to the current tenants, according to some terms and conditions, and applying a politically fixed price. This policy is described in general, focusing on the amount of the assets involved, reporting the terms and conditions for transferring them at an affordab…
From Buildings' End of Life to Aggregate Recycling under a Circular Economic Perspective: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Case Study
2021
The demolition of buildings, apart from being energy intensive and disruptive, inevitably produces construction and demolition waste (C&Dw). Unfortunately, even today, the majority of this waste ends up underexploited and not considered as valuable resources to be re-circulated into a closed/open loop process under the umbrella of circular economy (CE). Considering the amount of virgin aggregates needed in civil engineering applications, C&Dw can act as sustainable catalyst towards the preservation of natural resources and the shift towards a CE. This study completes current research by presenting a life cycle inventory compilation and life cycle assessment case study of two buildin…
A New Methodology to Assess Territorial Competence for Sustainable Local Development: The READI® (Resources-Actors-Dynamics) Matrix
2021
[EN] The ability of a territory to manage certain sustainable development processes increasingly depends on its capacity to apply previous diagnostic processes to its current situation. For this reason, methodologies that facilitate the detection of needs and/or potentialities of the territory are key to meeting its anticipated sustainable development goals. We present the most notable results of the research methodology carried out in the province of Valencia (Spain) that has enabled the construction of a matrix of indicators that allow these previous diagnostic processes to be put into practice at a local level, based on the participation of the territory's socioeconomic actors.
Promoting Food Waste Reduction at Primary Schools. A Case Study
2021
Food waste (FW) has recently attracted the interest of different institutions and has been the focus of many studies due to its important environmental, social and economic impact. This paper aims to analyze whether a didactic intervention, consisting of informing teachers and pupils and involving pupils in reducing FW, could bring about changes in the level of knowledge and attitude towards FW and in the amount of FW generated during the mid-morning break and lunch at schools. This study was conducted at a public Primary School in Valencia (Spain). Subtle changes in the level of knowledge and attitude towards FW were detected in teachers and pupils after the intervention. Around 30% of FW …
Integrating Circularity in the Sustainability Assessment of Asphalt Mixtures
2020
Rising concerns about the impacts that the road engineering industry is imposing to the environment have redirected national road authorities to firmly re-consider the sustainability implications of their operations. Lately, though, sustainability has established a forceful correlation with the Circular Economy and its principles. The road engineering industry, therefore, is moving towards more circular approaches. However, this is occurring without the assessment of the potential impacts of such a transition. For this reason, in this study, a composite indicator, namely, Environmental Sustainability and Circularity indicator (ESCi), for investigating the potential effects that increased ci…
The Valencia Eustress-Distress Appraisal Scale (VEDAS): Validation of the Italian Version
2018
© 2018 by the authors. The aim of this study is to validate the Italian version of the Valencia Eustress-Distress Appraisal Scale (VEDAS). Two hundred and thirty-two Italian workers were involved in the study. Dimensionality, reliability, and concurrent validity were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-dimensional structure. In addition, the Italian version of the scale showed good internal consistency and validity. The results indicate that the Italian version of the VEDAS is a valid instrument for measuring eustress and distress appraisal in the Italian context. ispartof: SUSTAINABILITY vol:10 issue:11 status: published
Fitting the Stocking Rate with Pastoral Resources to Manage and Preserve Mediterranean Forestlands: A Case Study
2015
Pasture practices have affected Mediterranean forest ecosystems for millennia, and they are still quite widespread in mountainous areas. Nevertheless, in the last decades, the stability of forest ecosystems has been jeopardized due to the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices, so that the gradual reduction of open areas due to progressive succession processes has caused a high increase of grazing pressure by livestock and wild ungulates feeding on forest areas. This paper aims at showing a methodological approach for evaluating the effect of applying measures in order to improve the grazing value of grasslands and ecotonal patches and lower the grazing impact on native woodland…
Valuing the unmarketable: an ecological approach to the externalities estimate in fishing activities
2013
In a rapidly changing world, sustainability, if it can be said to exist at all, is concept that has attained mythic status, often pursued and rarely reached. In order to improve our capability to cope with environmental problems, adopting an Ecosystem Approach has been suggested. One of the major challenges in the implementation of this new paradigm relates to control of externalities. The recognition and quantification of externalities is often cast as valuing the unmarketable, and there are several approaches that have been proposed. Here, we analyze the opportunity to “feed” the economic valuation with ecological concepts. From an ecological perspective, the energy required to sustain a …
Insulating Building Components Made from a Mixture of Waste and Vegetal Materials: Thermal Characterization of Nine New Products
2021
Nowadays, energy efficiency and sustainability are the fulcra of building policies. These policies promote the use of new technologies and materials that can reduce the primary energy involved and the environmental costs of construction, guarantying at the same time a high level of comfort for the building’s occupants. Synergy between previous construction techniques and the use of new materials should be pursued by employing materials with a low environmental impact and optimal thermal insulation properties. Within this framework, new materials derived from the agriculture sector, and waste or recycling products from the industrial/agricultural sectors have been studied. The aim of this pa…