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The transition to a low carbon future is starting to affect landscapes around the world. In order for this landscape transformation to be sustainable, renewable energy technologies should not cause critical trade-offs between the provision of energy and that of other ecosystem services such as food production. This literature review advances the body of knowledge on sustainable energy transition with special focus on ecosystem services-based approaches and methods. Two key issues emerge from this review: only one sixth of the published applications on the relation between renewable energy and landscape make use of the ecosystem service framework. Secondly, the applications that do address ecosystem services for landscape planning and design lack efficient methods and spatial reference systems that accommodate both cultural and regulating ecosystem services. Future research efforts should be directed to further advancing the spatial reference systems, the use of participatory mapping and landscape visualizations tools for cultural ecosystem services and the elaboration of landscape design principles.

Since 2007, a range of new modeling approaches and tools have been developed for sustainability impact assessment (SIA), but a lack of universal acceptance of SIA tools in applied policy making is observed. The current article gives an overview of experiences from several European and international projects, critically reviews the selected SIA tools and then discusses a number of reasons for the observed disconnect of the tools with the potential users. Largely based on the experiences of the presented SIA tools focusing land use policy advice, a decision tree is designed, which may facilitate an adequate, region and developmental phase specific selection of tool-box components for the development of SIA tools in future. Elements to ensure end-user participation are also integrated in the decision tree in order to increase the likelihood of the tool in applied land use policy advice. In addition, the Challenges in SIA tool development and use are further discussed.

Corporate social performance (CSP) is assumed to have a positive impact on macroeconomic sustainability, but empirical evidence of this impact is absent in the literature. The objective of this paper is to investigate the macro impacts of CSP. We first establish a conceptual framework on the relationship between CSP at the individual business level and sustainability at the macro level. Next, we empirically test the relationship between (averaged) CSP scores and greenhouse gas emissions at the macro level for 22 countries during 20042011. We use Granger causality tests to check for Granger causality. The estimation results show that CSP reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but the long-term effect is rather modest.

Wet-laying is a mature technology that is applied in large scale for the manufacture of nonwovens, including paper products. However, it usually uses large volumes of water and is energy-intensive. Here we used foam-laying to substantially diminish the volume of water consumed in the formation of fiber networks (5-fold reduction) and to reduce the water content of the nonwovens produced before drying, achieving a reduced energy demand. The prospects of foam-laying were evaluated by comparing foam-laid and wet-laid webs of two types of wood fibers: stiff (lignin-containing) or flexible (lignin-free). Also, the effect of foaming agent type (anionic, cationic, nonionic, and amphoteric) was elucidated. Reference webs were produced by conventional wet-laying, with or without surfactants. Foam-laying was effective in producing a more uniform areal mass distribution (better formation) after wet-pressing. This effect was more evident for the webs synthesized with the flexible fibers. Unlike the layered network structures that were obtained by wet-laying, foam-laid webs exhibited a more felted network, with fibers positioned in the out-of-plane direction. As a result, higher air permeability, web porosity, and light scattering coefficients were measured for the foam-laid webs. The enhanced porosity (lower density) was related to the effect of bubbles during foam-laying and the reduction in surface tension of the foamed-fiber dispersion. The resistance to delamination of low-density webs obtained by foam-laying in the out-of-plane direction was preserved. However, the reduction in tensile strength and modulus of foam-laid webs were determined, owing to the reduced density of the formed structures. Notably, the type of foaming agent used played a minor role as far as the resultant properties of the webs, making the process flexible in terms of the selection of environmentally friendly alternatives. Overall, we compared the physico-mechanical properties of fiber networks formed by web- and foam-laying, depending on fiber type and foaming agent, yielding a property space that is useful in the design of lightweight structures (nonwovens, including paper). The prospects of water and energy savings by foam-laying are the major benefits in the sustainable use of fibers for the assembly of porous materials, such as lightweight nonwoven and paper products.

AbstractBackgroundCodes of ethics (CoE) are widely adopted in several professional areas, including that of Software Engineering. However, contemporary CoE do not pay sufficient attention to one of the most important trends to have appeared in the last years environmental issues.AimThe aim of this study is to establish a Green CoE for software engineering and Professional Practices (GreCo). Our intention is to cover a wide range of aspects related to sustainability, such as economic, environmental, social, and technical features. We are additionally interested in encouraging software engineers to adopt these aspects.MethodsThe Green CoE presented is the result of the interaction of several experts in the area. A first version of GreCo, whose starting point was a discussion at the GInSEng workshop, was created by identifying key principles and adapting them to the Green area. Next, various important CoE were reviewed so as to gather the existing references to sustainability or to detect new ones. These elements would then possibly be incorporated into the new code or stimulate the creation of new sustainable principles.ResultsThe final result is the GreCo code, which has been produced by modifying existing principles or by the introduction of new ones.

As a fast-growing food production industry, aquaculture is dealing with the need for intensification due to the global increasing demand for fish products. However, this also implies the use of more sustainable practices to reduce negative environmental impacts currently associated with this industry, including the use of wild resources, destruction of natural ecosystems, eutrophication of effluent receiving bodies, impacts due to inadequate medication practices, among others. Using multi-species systems, such as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, allows to produce economically important species while reducing some of these aquaculture concerns, through biomitigation of aquaculture wastes and reduction of diseases outbreaks, for example. Applying mathematical models to these systems is crucial to control and understand the interactions between species, maximizing productivity, with important environmental and economic benefits. Here, the application of some equations and models available in the literature, regarding basic parameters, is discussed – population dynamics, growth, waste production, and filtering rate – when considering the description and optimization of a theoretical integrated multi-trophic aquaculture operation composed by three trophic levels.

Due to the high conversion rates and the low tar amounts in the product gas, entrained flow gasification of biomass can be an alternative process to state of the art gasification technologies, e.g., fluidized-bed gasifiers. Feedstock treatment is mandatory for entrained flow gasification (EFG). However, it has the potential of making residuals available for energetic use. In this study, the feasibility of EFG of solid biomass in an industrial-like test rig with a state of the art pneumatic dense-phase coal feeding system is shown. Four biomasses—torrefied wood (TW), beech wood (B), hydrothermal carbonized green waste (HCG), and corn cobs (CoC)—were used and compared to Rhenish lignite (RL). Especially, the gasification behavior of hydrothermal carbonized biomass is rarely known from the literature. The study includes a comparison of the fuels regarding feeding behavior, conversion rate, achievable gas composition, and cold gas efficiency (CGE) as well as tar formation. The oxygen stoichiometric ratio λ wa...