Search results for "EXCHANGE"
showing 10 items of 2035 documents
Towards Municipal Environmental Development: Environmental Management Systems for Local Formal Education Establishments
2021
Educational institutions create certain environmental impacts in their operation – these impacts can be grouped into the sectors of waste, water, energy, transport and others. There is a need for educational institutions to adopt effective environmental management systems in order to reduce these impacts, as well as those of the whole municipality. The Eco-Schools programme is one of the most comprehensive and popular models of environmental education and management in the world. In recent years, the Eco-Schools programme has proved its effectiveness in numerous evaluations in several countries. The programme aims to raise awareness about environmental issues. Therefore, this programme enco…
Tax benefits for the energy requalification of Italian real estate assets
2020
The need for energy-efficient buildings has emerged since the onset of the first energy crises in the 1970s. It's in this decade that the concepts of sustainable development and energy saving have been introduced in the construction sector. Currently, the greatest energy saving potential for buildings does not lie in new buildings, but in the energy redevelopment of existing buildings. In order to promote interventions for building restoration, which are often costly and not economically convenient, Italian legislation has made a series of economic incentives available to the sector. This work reviews the main incentive systems for the energy requalification of buildings.
How to bring urban and global climate studies together with urban planning and architecture?
2020
Abstract Climate friendly urban planning plays a key role in climate change mitigation and adaptation and allows for sustainable development of living conditions for future generations. It has been long understood that measures such as urban greening, planted facades and roofs or highly reflecting building materials are able to dampen excess heat and help reducing energetic costs. Transferring scientific and often theoretical knowledge into actual urban planning however necessarily involves an interdisciplinary dialogue. This paper intends to provide a review of existing literature from a meteorological perspective in order to answer the question how results from urban climate studies can b…
Cultivating cultural sustainability in farming practices
2018
The aim of this chapter is to explore agricultural practices and their sustainability, in order to analyse the essence and dynamics of culture in relation to sustainable development. We ask, what should sustain in culture and what does culturally sustainable development entail? We identified three core qualities of sustainability in farming: fertility, diversity and continuity. They are bound together and shaped by rationalization related to the feasible functioning of the farming system and appreciation judging the desirability and quality of the practices. We discuss the ways the model explaining the sustainability of agricultural practices can be used to inform the essence of culture in …
Critical range of soil organic carbon in southern Europe lands under desertification risk.
2021
Soil quality is fundamental for ecosystem long term functionality, productivity and resilience to current climatic changes. Despite its importance, soil is lost and degraded at dramatic rates worldwide. In Europe, the Mediterranean areas are a hotspot for soil erosion and land degradation due to a combination of climatic conditions, soils, geomorphology and anthropic pressure. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is considered a key indicator of soil quality as it relates to other fundamental soil functions supporting crucial ecosystem services. In the present study, the functional relationships among SOC and other important soil properties were investigated in the topsoil of 38 sites under different …
Regulating and Deregulating Sharing Mobility in Europe
2020
This chapter gives an account of the many legal issues related to the rise of sharing mobility in Europe, as part of the activities carried out within the 2018–2020 Jean Monnet Project “Regulating and Deregulating Sharing Mobility in Europe” (RIDER). In the first part, it outlines the most fundamental economic transformations that make the case for regulating sharing mobility services quite different from conventional transport. By also referring to the activities carried out during the project, it identifies those emerging legal issues stemming from the advent of sharing mobility, in order to categorize the competing claims that regulators should be considering when facing these innovative…
Municipal Building Regulations for Energy Efficiency in Southern Italy
2014
The building sector is still one of the most energy consuming sectors in Italy, like developed countries in Europe. At European level, the main policy driver related to the energy use in buildings is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD, 2002/91/EC) and its recast. Through the EPBD in- troduction, requirements for certification, inspections, training or renovation are now imposed in Member States. In order to fulfill the expected changes, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. It is thus required support the issue of local rules at municipal level in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretional power of …
Do Exchange-Rate Regimes Matter for Monetary-Policy Autonomy? The Experiences of 11 Small, Open European Economies in the 1980s and 1990s
2003
We investigate monetary-policy autonomy under different exchange-rate regimes in small, open European economies during the 1980s and 1990s. We find no systematic difference in the degree of nominal monetary-policy autonomy enjoyed by those countries that pursue flexible exchange-rate regimes as compared to those that have kept their exchange rates fixed. Our interpretation of the results is that over the medium and long term following an 'independent' target for monetary policy, which does not deviate much from the targets of those countries to which one is closely financially integrated, is as constraining as locking the exchange rate to some particular level.
Opportunities for research on evaluation of seaport performance: A systemic analysis from international literature
2015
The purpose of this article is to analyze the opportunities for research on the theme evaluation of seaport performance through the investigation of a bibliographic portfolio of articles with scientific relevance. In order to reach this goal, the intervention tool used was ProKnow-C (Knowledge Development Process – Constructivist), which consists of a structured process for the generation of knowledge on a determined theme from the interests and limitations of the researcher, following a constructivist view and requiring a constant interaction between the researcher and the object of his research. The highlighted results are the identification of the main characteristics of the scientific …
Thermal potential of ion-exchange membranes and its application to thermoelectric power generation
2016
The low efficiency and high price of thermoelectric semiconductors has generated interest in unconventional forms of thermoelectric materials. In this article, ionic thermoelectricity has been studied with commercial ion-exchange membranes for different aqueous 1:1 electrolytes. The theory of thermal membrane potential has been derived taking into account the ionic heats of transport, the non-isothermal Donnan potentials, the temperature polarization, and the thermally-induced concentration polarization of the electrolyte. Also the generated thermoelectric power has been experimentally studied. The experiments show good agreement with the theory, and suggest ways for systematic improvement …