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The social confinement resulting from the COVID-19 crisis temporarily reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Although experts contend that the decrease in pollution rates was not drastic, some surveys detect growth in social concern about the climate. In this new climate-conscious environment, municipalities and local governments are promoting a new way of living and caring for cities, even before they can regain national and international freedom of movement. This work analyzes the connections between new climate awareness arising from the COVID-19 crisis, proposals of sustainable citizenship around the world, and its communication on Twitter to educate the new eco-conscious audience. The methodology mixes quantitative and qualitative analysis, using the Twitonomy Premium tool and the Twitter research tool with data extracted at the end of December 2020. Among the top ten most influential and active accounts, the results show educational institutions, local institutions, companies, neighborhoods, associations, and influencers. The impossibility of living in the city has not prevented citizen education and commitment to make real change for when that city and its citizens return to normality. However, this new normality must be different: more ecological, more responsible, more sustainable, and practiced from early childhood.

The university is an essential participant in education, a key place where societal change processes are developed. So, it must be a place to bring up current challenges and social requirements. That is the reason why it holds the responsibility to assure the creation of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values in the students to achieve an effective solution to environmental issues. The objective of this research was the assessment of the attitudes, knowledge, and pro-environmental behavior in university students from different faculties, studies, and degrees, as well as their influence in this group. The results show that most of the students have previous concepts of environment, and they consider that a good environmental education is necessary to solve the environmental issues that they have around. This proves that key factors in attitudes become essential elements for changing them. The differences made by gender and studies in several fields in attitudes (cognitive and emotional levels) are also confirmed.

On 25 September 2015, the member states of the United Nations approved an initiative in New York called “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [...]

How can urban policies and planning approaches help in achieving a safer mobility and carbon reduction in the transport sector? The attention of planners and policy makers towards the promotion of sustainability and reduction of environmental impacts has grown in recent years. This paper investigates the role that Urban Planning plays in the long term towards a safer and climate friendlier mobility, highlighting the need for integrated approaches gathering spatial planning and mobility management. After a review of several urban policies and planning strategies, initiatives, and approaches, mainly based on the urban scale, the paper presents an urban regeneration case study leading to an increase of pedestrian accessibility at the neighborhood level. This can be seen as a support tool to foster sustainable, safe, and climate friendly mobility in cities. The results of the performed analysis show a dependency of accessibility from two different factors: the distribution of services and the capillarity of the soft mobility network, which can contribute to creating a more walkable space.

Due to climate change and current efforts to reduce emissions in the construction sector, this study evaluates and discusses the results of a comparative cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), with a main focus on Global Warming Potential for functionally equivalent carbon-reinforced concrete (CRC) and steel-reinforced concrete (SRC) façade panels for the first time. The novelty of this study is the focus on construction waste and, in particular, the worst-case application of non-recycled construction waste. The use of CRC requires a lower concrete thickness than SRC because the carbon fiber reinforcement does not corrode, in contrast to steel reinforcement. Façade panels of the same geometrical dimensions and structural performance were defined as functional units (FU). Assuming an End-of-Life (EoL) scenario of 50% landfill and 50% recycling, the Global Warming Potential (GWP, given in CO2 equivalent (CO2e)) of the CRC façade (411–496 kg CO2e) is shown to perform better than or equal to the SRC façade (492 kg CO2e). Changing the assumption of CRC to a worst-case scenario, going fully to landfill and not being recycled (single life cycle), turns the GWP results in favor of the SRC façade. Assuming a 50-year service life for the SRC façade panel and relativizing the emissions to the years, the more durable CRC façade performs much better. Finally, depending on the system boundary, the assumed EoL and lifetime, CRC can represent a lower-emission alternative to a functionally equivalent component made of SRC. The most important and “novel” result in this study, which also leads to future research opportunities, is that delicate adjustments (especially concerning EoL scenarios and expected service life) can lead to completely different recommendations for decision-makers. Only by combining the knowledge of LCA experts, structural engineers, and builders optimal decisions can be made regarding sustainable materials and building components.

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is the phenomenon of altered increased temperatures in urban areas compared to their rural surroundings. UHIs grow and intensify under extreme hot periods, such as during heat waves, which can affect human health and also increase the demand for energy for cooling. This study applies remote sensing and land use/land cover (LULC) data to assess the cooling effect of varying urban vegetation cover, especially during extreme warm periods, in the city of Munich, Germany. To compute the relationship between Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land Use Land Cover (LULC), MODIS eight-day interval LST data for the months of June, July and August from 2002 to 2012 and the Corine Land Cover (CLC) database were used. Due to similarities in the behavior of surface temperature of different CLCs, some classes were reclassified and combined to form two major, rather simplified, homogenized classes: one of built-up area and one of urban vegetation. The homogenized map was merged with the MODIS eight-day interval LST data to compute the relationship between them. The results revealed that (i) the cooling effect accrued from urban vegetation tended to be non-linear; and (ii) a remarkable and stronger cooling effect in terms of LST was identified in regions where the proportion of vegetation cover was between seventy and almost eighty percent per square kilometer. The results also demonstrated that LST within urban vegetation was affected by the temperature of the surrounding built-up and that during the well-known European 2003 heat wave, suburb areas were cooler from the core of the urbanized region. This study concluded that the optimum green space for obtaining the lowest temperature is a non-linear trend. This could support urban planning strategies to facilitate appropriate applications to mitigate heat-stress in urban area.

Is it true that a nuclear technology approach to generate electric energy offers a clean, safe, reliable and affordable, i.e., sustainable option? In principle yes, however a technology impact on the environment strongly depends on the actual implementation bearing residual risks due to technical failures, human factors, or natural catastrophes. A full response is thus difficult and can be given first when the wicked multi-disciplinary issues get well formulated and “resolved”. These problems are lying at the interface between: the necessary R&D effort, the industrial deployment and the technology impact in view of the environmental sustainability including the management of produced hazardous waste. As such, this problem is clearly of multi-dimensional nature. This enormous complexity indicates that just a description of the problem might cause a dilemma. The paper proposes a novel holistic approach applying Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to assess the potential of nuclear energy systems with respect to a sustainable performance. It shows how to establish a multi-level criteria structure tree and examines the trading-off techniques for scoring and ranking of options. The presented framework allows multi-criteria and multi-group treatment. The methodology can be applied to support any pre-decisional process launched in a country to find the best nuclear and/or non-nuclear option according to national preferences and priorities. The approach addresses major aspects of the environmental footprint of nuclear energy systems. As a case study, advanced nuclear fuel cycles are analyzed, which were previously investigated by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA/OECD) expert group WASTEMAN. Sustainability facets of waste management, resource utilization and economics are in focus.