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An integrated understanding of both social and ecological aspects of environmental issues is essential to address pressing sustainability challenges. An integrated social-ecological systems perspective is purported to provide a better understanding of the complex relationships between humans and nature. Despite a threefold increase in the amount of social-ecological research published between 2010 and 2015, it is unclear whether these approaches have been truly integrative. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the conceptual, methodological, disciplinary, and functional aspects of social-ecological integration. In general, we found that overall integration is still lacking in social-ecological research. Some social variables deemed important for addressing sustainability challenges are underrepresented in social-ecological studies, e.g., culture, politics, and power. Disciplines such as ecology, urban studies, and geography are better integrated than others, e.g., sociology, biology, and public administration. In addition to ecology and urban studies, biodiversity conservation plays a key brokerage role in integrating other disciplines into social-ecological research. Studies founded on systems theory have the highest rates of integration. Highly integrative studies combine different types of tools, involve stakeholders at appropriate stages, and tend to deliver practical recommendations. Better social-ecological integration must underpin sustainability science. To achieve this potential, future social-ecological research will require greater attention to the following: the interdisciplinary composition of project teams, strategic stakeholder involvement, application of multiple tools, incorporation of both social and ecological variables, consideration of bidirectional relationships between variables, and identification of implications and articulation of clear policy recommendations.

This paper gives an overview of the green potential of the palm biomass industry, which contributes to Malaysia’s economic and sustainable development. An overall picture of the green development indicators of the country is provided based on the authors’ experiences in policy making, research and business development. The emerging palm biomass industry in Malaysia is foreseen to dominate the country’s directional development in the coming years, particularly when the sustainability issue is raised globally. With the increasing volume of palm oil residue accumulation due to palm oil production, palm biomass is gaining significant attention and being increasingly utilised to produce various green products as well as highly valuable biochemicals, such as bioethanol, vitamins, etc. The palm oil industry has been identified as the key industry for expansion to achieve economic advancement along with the development of greener production processes in the country. Research on palm biomass, which is actively being carried out by both private and public institutions, is categorised. Furthermore, actions and policies to promote the implementation of green technology in Malaysia, while simultaneously defending both environmental and ecological health and promoting technology transformation, are summarised. Challenges and concerns over the green future of the country are discussed, as well as the business trend in the Malaysian palm biomass industry.

AbstractCyanobacteria, which use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into biomass, are potential solar biorefineries for the sustainable production of chemicals and biofuels. However, yields obtained with current strains are still uncompetitive compared to existing heterotrophic production systems. Here we report the discovery and characterization of a new cyanobacterial strain, Synechococcus sp. PCC 11901, with promising features for green biotechnology. It is naturally transformable, has a short doubling time of ≈2 hours, grows at high light intensities and in a wide range of salinities and accumulates up to ≈33 g dry cell weight per litre when cultured in a shake-flask system using a modified growth medium − 1.7 to 3 times more than other strains tested under similar conditions. As a proof of principle, PCC 11901 engineered to produce free fatty acids yielded over 6 mM (1.5 g L−1), an amount comparable to that achieved by similarly engineered heterotrophic organisms.

Despite a significant increase in global clean energy investments, as part of the decarbonization process, it remains insufficient to meet the demand for energy services in a sustainable manner. This study investigates the performance of sustainable energy equity investments, with focus on environmental markets, using monthly equity index data from 31 August 2009 to 30 December 2022. The main contributions of our study are (i) assessment of the performance of trading strategies based on the trend, momentum, and volatility of Environmental Opportunities (EO) and Environmental Technologies (ET) equity indices; and (ii) comparison of the performance of sustainable equity index investments to fossil fuel-based and major global equity indices. Market performance evaluation based on technical analysis tools such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Averages, and Average True Range (ATR) is captured through the Sharpe and the Sharpe per trade. The analysis is divided according to regional, sector, and global EO indices, fossil fuel-based indices, and the key global stock market indices. Our findings reveal that a momentum-based strategy performed best for the MSCI Global Alternative Energy index with the highest excess return per unit of risk, followed by the fossil fuel-based indices. A trend-based strategy worked best for the MSCI Global Alternative Energy and EO 100 indices. The use of volatility-based information yielded the highest Sharpe ratio for EO Europe, followed by the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production industry, and MSCI Global Alternative Energy. We further find that a trader relying on a system which simultaneously provides momentum, trend, or volatility information would yield positive returns only for the MSCI Global Alternative Energy, the S&P Oil and Exploration and Production industry, NYSE Arca Oil, and FTSE 100 indices. Overall, despite the superior performance of the MSCI Global Alternative Energy index when using momentum and trend strategies, most region and sector EOs performed poorly compared to fossil fuel-based indices. The results suggest that the existing crude oil prices continue to allow fossil fuel-based equity investments to outperform most environmentally sustainable equity investments. These findings support that sustainable investments, on average, have yet to demonstrate consistent superior performance over non-renewable energy investments which demonstrates the need for continued, rigorous, and accommodating regulatory policy actions from government bodies in order to reorient significant capital flows towards sustainable equity investments.

The 2016 Paris Agreement (UNFCCC Authors, 2015) is the latest of initiative to create an international consensus on action to reduce GHG emissions. However, the challenge of meeting its targets lies mainly in the intimate relationship between GHG emissions and energy production, which in turn links to industry and economic growth. The Middle East and North African region (MENA), particularly those nations rich oil and gas (O&G) resources, depend on these as a main income source. Persuading the region to cut down on O&G production or reduce its GHG emissions is hugely challenging, as it is so vital to its economic strength. In this paper, an alternative option is established by creating an economic link between GHG emissions, measured as their CO2 equivalent (CO2e), and the earning of profits through the concept of Social Carbon Cost (SCC). The case study is a small coastal city in Libya where 6% of electricity is assumed to be generated from renewable sources. At times when renewable energy (RE) output exceeds the demand for power, the surplus is used for powering the production of hydrogen by electrolysis, thus storing the energy and creating an emission-free fuel. Two scenarios are tested based on short and long term SCCs. In the short term scenario, the amount of fossil fuel energy saved matches the renewable energy produced, which equates to the same amount of curtailed O&G production. The O&G-producing region can earn profits in two ways: (1) by cutting down CO2 emissions as a result of a reduction in O&G production and (2) by replacing an amount of fossil fuel with electrolytically-produced hydrogen which creates no CO2 emissions. In the short term scenario, the value of SCC saved is nearly 39% and in the long term scenario, this rose to 83%.

Abstract Biomass polygeneration system is one of the most attractive biomass technologies due to its technicality, feasibility and high associated investment returns. The synthesis, design and economic aspects of constructing a processing system using this technology are well-developed and have recently reached the stage of industrial implementation. Nonetheless, the early stage of technology development focuses on process and product safety and tends to ignore other risk aspects that are closely associated with the biomass value chain. Due to the complex nature of the biomass value chain, conventional risk mitigation strategies are ineffective in mitigating risks at the management level. More recent approaches, particularly stochastic programming methods, have yielded robust results in addressing technological risks and design uncertainties. However, such approaches are still unable to effectively consider non-quantitative risks such as business risks and regulatory risks. Hence, this study proposes a combined method of an analytical model and stochastic programming approach to prioritize risks and risk mitigation strategies for decision-making purposes. This work presents a novel multiple-criteria decision-making expert system based on fuzzy set theory, which is the Decision and Evaluation-based Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (DEFANP) method. The novel method functions to prioritize risk mitigation strategies within a network relationship of project goals, key components of the biomass industry and industrial stakeholders. As the stochastic risk mitigation counterpart, the fluctuations and uncertainties in operations, transportation, market supply-demand and price are modeled using the Monte Carlo simulation method. From this, risks of implementing biomass polygeneration systems can be mitigated by selecting a strategy that yields the highest analytical indicator while reconciling with the corresponding probabilities of achieving management goals. A palm biomass polygeneration system in Malaysia is presented as case study where the key implementation risks are regulatory risks, financing risks, technology risks, supply chain and feedstock risks, business risks, social and environmental risks.

Mass production and consumption based on virgin materials have been the mainstream practice for decades across industrialised nations. Resource consumption has reached an unsustainable level, leading to devastating environmental impacts. For a more sustainable future, not only environmentally but economically and socially, material cycles need to be slowed down and, if possible, closed. Upcycling presents a promising alternative to mass production and consumption based on the use of virgin materials, in order to slow material cycles. There has been a growing academic and industrial interest in upcycling, particularly related to the emerging circular economy. Research in upcycling, however, is still in its infancy. Development of upcycling theory and practices is required if there is to be a transition in upcycling from niche to mainstream. As part of our efforts to develop upcycling theories and practices, we organised the first International Upcycling Symposium and called for contributions by international academics, practitioners and other relevant actors working on upcycling. In response, we received a wide range of papers in the field of upcycling across disciplines, sectors, industries, countries and regions. This chapter provides a brief summary of each contribution showing the state of the art in upcycling research and practice at the global scale which provides fundamental understanding of upcycling with varied definitions and forms across sectors and scales, and informs readers of valuable ideas, theories, projects, experiences and insights into upcycling by global experts.