Search results for "Ecological Footprint"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
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…
The impact of space development structure on the level of ecological footprint - Shift share analysis for European Union countries
2022
The impact of the space development structure on the level of the ecological footprint is an important element of the sustainable development policy, determining not only its directions, but also indicating the manner of respecting en- vironmental principles. The aim of the research is to assess the impact of the spatial development structure on the eco- logical footprint level. The considerations are based on the assumption that the spatial development structure is a determinant of the ecological footprint level. The study used the shift share analysis method. Selected European coun- tries were the subject of the research. The research period covered the years 2009–2019. The spatial differ…
Synthetic environmental appraisal of waste management system: an application to the Sicilian region
2004
This paper addresses the problem of synthetically evaluating the environmental performances of urban solid waste systems. This, in fact, represents a crucial point in the management process of complex systems that local administrations are called to cope with, in order to provide decisions about policy options that involve different issues characterising the quality of life of people. Suitable methods of evaluation are clearly required for this aim. This work introduces the dashboard of sustainability and the ecological footprint approaches as aggregate indicators of the performances of solid waste management systems. The methods have been selected due to their intrinsic simplicities, provi…
A Holistic Vision of Smart Cities: An Opportunity for a Big Change
2016
The depletion of energy resources on the one hand, and the population growth on the other, forced the society at all levels (local, national and international) to turn its attention to the identification of new forms of protection of the environment and the waste reduction for a new eco-sustainable way of living. The process of massive urbanization already in place, exacerbated by the movement of large masses of people in search of a more human form of life, is putting severely under test the livability within our cities, bringing out the inefficiency of existing management and organization models. Daisaku Ikeda said: “Certainly, the density of urban populations means that problems are conc…
Cities facing the Wild
2021
Untamed ecosystems and plots of wild nature increasingly constitute large parts of contemporary urban spaces. They are often the unbidden result of a long-standing lack of maintenance as well as of the uncontrolled flourishing of weeds produced by the pesticide absolute ban. But they are also something more. Many recently implemented urban open spaces deal with wild nature to solve some of the most urgent tasks of the contemporary cities: reclaiming areas fallen into disuse, designing sustainable infrastructures, revitalizing valuable public spaces, enhancing the ecological footprint of new developments, suggesting new practices and social ritual, reducing management costs, fighting climate…
Agder as Mutual Competence Builders: Developing Sustainability as a Competitive Advantage
2015
In this chapter, Agder as Mutual Competence Builders: developing sustainability as a competitive advantage, Karen Landmark, Marianne Rodvelt and Stina Torjesen provide a discussion of companies in the Agder region which are organised in the Eyde-network, and how they have developed a common sustainability agenda in co-operation with the university. The chapter shows how this is followed up by organising an Eyde-school as vocational training in co-operation with the university.
Environmental management of granite slab production from an industrial ecology standpoint
2014
Abstract The granite production chain is high energy and water intensive with low resource efficiency. This paper focus on characterizing the potential for environmental improvement of the granite production chain by promoting the optimization of sawing technology, the implementation of rainwater harvesting (RWH) and the material recovery of wasted granite (sludge). The environmental performance of multi-blade gangsaw (MBGS) and diamond multi-wire saw (DMWS) technologies is compared by mean of life cycle assessment. Results demonstrate that DMWS technology contribute 30% of water savings, 40% of energy savings and 80% of material savings per square meter of polished granite tiles (60 x 40 x…
Greening MSW management systems by saving footprint: The contribution of the waste transportation.
2018
Abstract Municipal solid waste (MSW) management constitutes a highly challenging issue to cope with in order of moving towards more sustainable urban policies. Despite new Standards call for recycling and reusing materials contained in the urban waste, several municipalities still use landfilling as a waste disposal method. Other than the environmental pressure exerted by these plants, waste transportation from the collection points to the landfill needs a specific attention to correctly assess the whole burden of the waste management systems. In this paper, the Ecological Footprint (EF) indicator is applied to the actual MSW of the city of Palermo (Sicily). Results show that the effects pr…
In Situ Analysis Devices for Estimating the Environmental Footprint in Beverages Industry
2019
Abstract The need to calculate the environmental footprint could mean the integration of sustainability in differentiation strategies for beverages industries. The parameters for estimating the footprint are outlined and discussed. The main negative impacts are related to water pollution, atmospheric pollution, and solid waste. Agro-industrial effluents may contain pesticides, complex oils, alkaline or acidic compounds, and other organic substances. As for atmospheric emissions, particulate material, SO2, NOx, hydrocarbons, and other organic compounds, can be mentioned. The state of art of in situ analysis devices for this purpose is described. The devices are compared through the tool CALI…
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 …