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The building and construction sector is a large contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and consumes vast natural resources. Improvements in this sector are of fundamental importance for national and global targets to combat climate change. In this context, vertical greenery systems (VGS) in buildings have become popular in urban areas to restore green space in cities and be an adaptation strategy for challenges such as climate change. However, only a small amount of knowledge is available on the different VGS environmental impacts. This paper discusses a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) between a building with green walls, a building with green facades and a reference building without any greenery system in the continental Mediterranean climate. This life cycle assessment is carried according to ISO 14040/44 using ReCiPe and GWP indicators. Moreover, this study fills this gap by thoroughly tracking and quantifying all impacts in all phases of the building life cycle related to the manufacturing and construction stage, maintenance, use stage (operational energy use experimentally tested), and final disposal. The adopted functional unit is the square meter of the facade. Results showed that the operational stage had the highest impact contributing by up to 90% of the total environmental impacts during its 50 years life cycle. Moreover, when considering VGS, there is an annual reduction of about 1% in the environmental burdens. However, in summer, the reduction is almost 50%. Finally, if the use stage is excluded, the manufacturing and the maintenance stage are the most significant contributors, especially in the green wall system.

Artículos en revistas Liberalization policies, the challenges of integrating distributed generation resources, and the recent flattening of electricity demand due to the economic crisis and technological change have led to lower returns for European electricity suppliers. Innovative and sustainable business models are needed to serve electricity customers while reflecting the operational needs of the system and maintaining supplier financial viability. This paper describes a novel model of Integrated Energy Services that encompasses distributed generation (DG) and demand response (DR) resources for industrial customers. We further reflect on some of the market opportunities and regulatory drivers for the development of similar schemes across Europe. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with focus on carbon footprint, followed by Life Cycle Costing (LCC) of municipal solid waste (MSW) management were conducted in a residential area of a medium-sized European city of 80,000 inhabitants. The initial results showed high environmental impacts and lack of economic sustainability, due to the high amounts of waste landfilled, the low extent of separate collection, low performance of mechanical-biological treatment as well as absence from alternatives to landfilling of non-recyclable materials. Taking this result as a baseline scenario, three improvement.s were tested with the aim of turning the carbon footprint of the local MSW management system into a neutral value: (i) increased separate collection of recyclables, (ii) enhanced biogas production and (iii) refuse-derived fuel (RDF) production. Successively adding the improvements, three alternative improved scenarios were defined, until reaching a negative carbon footprint, meaning that an optimised system would avoid GHG emissions. The proposed changes were sufficient to achieve carbon neutrality, as well as reduce overall environmental impacts, but were not enough for achieving economic sustainability due to the great influence of collection costs, especially for separate collection. It was concluded that by using an adequate combination of several treatment options and increasing the separate collection of recyclable materials it is possible to turn MSW management into a carbon neutral activity as well as improve its economic balance.

Abstract The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) has been growing in importance as a technology for producing electricity from low temperature waste and renewable heat sources. In small-scale applications, the most used working fluid has been HFC-245fa, although this is being substituted for low GWP alternatives. A new HCFO working fluid, HCFO-1224yd(Z), has appeared as a possible alternative for HFC-245fa. In this study, this alternative working fluid is analysed and, finally, the working fluid is experimentally tested as drop-in alternative in a commercial ORC system. The main purpose is to determine the feasibility of using HCFO-1224yd(Z) as a drop-in replacement for HFC-245fa in a real facility that was initially designed to operate with HFC-245fa. The results show how the use of HCFO-1224yd(Z) offers power output that ranges from 7.5% to 17.4% lower than that provided by HFC-245fa. Although HFC-245fa offers higher power output, the results show that HCFO-1224yd(Z) offers up to 7.7% higher cycle net efficiency; this is due to the higher input thermal rate required by HFC-245fa. Finally, HCFO-1224yd(Z) has been stated as a suitable alternative to HFC-245fa as a drop-in replacement in a small-scale, low-temperature ORC, which increases its attractiveness for heat source with higher temperatures.

Thermophilic co-digestion of sewage sludge with three different doses of trapped grease waste (GW) from the pre-treatment of a WWTP has been assessed in a CSTR bench-scale reactor. After adding 12% and 27% of grease waste (on COD basis), the organic loading rate increased from 2.2 to 2.3 and 2.8 kgCOD m-3 d-1 respectively, and the methane yield increased 1.2 and 2.2 times. Further GW increase (37% on COD basis) resulted in an unstable methane yield and in long chain fatty acids (LCFA) accumulation. Although this inestability, the presence of volatile fatty acids in the effluent was negligible, showing good adaptation to fats of the thermophilic biomass. Nevertheless, the presence of LCFA in the effluent worsens its dewatering properties. Specific methanogenic activity tests showed that the addition of grease waste ameliorates the acetoclastic activity in detriment of the hydrogenotrophic activity, and suggests that the tolerance to LCFA can be further enhanced by slowly increasing the addition of lipidrich materials.

Introduction: The current economic, social and environmental problems faced by society are some of the most emerging concerns of the main governmental institutions. In this sense, Education for Sustainable Development and integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the education system seems to be a key link for its mitigation. Within education, physical education (PE) could provide positive synergy and contribute to achieve the SDGs. However, the relationship between PE and Sustainable Development is still in its nascent stage. Objective: Overall, we aim to explore the ways in which the literature has addressed the SDGs and PE. To this end, this scoping review has two objectives. The first is to provide a synthesis of the research to date on PE and the SDGs, presenting the results in terms of the types of literature, methods, samples, provenance of authorship and the main findings. The second is to investigate which specific SDGs and targets have appeared most frequently in research within the field of PE. Method: Due to the emergent nature of the topic under examination, we present a scoping review. After identifying the parameters to be analysed, we redefined the topic of study. We applied a number of criteria and selected relevant studies the introduction of the SDGs (2015) until June 2022. We searched Web of Science, SPORTdiscus, Scopus, Google Scholar and PROquest using words such as ‘Sustainable Development’, ‘SDGs’ and ‘PE’. Results and discussion: We reviewed 22 papers that met the inclusion criteria. We noted several characteristics in these studies. Most studies published between 2015 and 2022 come from international institutions (Commonwealth, UNESCO, etc.), and critical view articles, which theorise about the potential relation between PE and the SDGs. Beginning in 2021, there has been much more empirical research, mainly in the form of qualitative and quantitative cross-sectional studies. Most of this empirical research has been developed with undergraduate students in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE). Some researchers have used pedagogical models such as service learning and cooperative learning as valid didactic tools to work on the SDGs. On the other hand, the countries that seem to show the greatest interest in research on the SDGs and PE are European, especially Spain and Sweden. Finally, SDGs 3 (Health and Wellbeing), 4 (Quality-Education) and 5 (Gender-Equality) have the greatest relationship with PE, specifically target 4.5 on inclusion and equity, target 5.1 to avoid discrimination based on sex and target 3.6 concerning physical and mental health. Conclusions: The relationship between PE and the SDGs is an emerging topic. While papers published within the five years after definition of the SDGs have a strong theoretical character, empirical research has begun to predominate since 2021. The focus of future research should be to deepen the ways in which PE can contribute to the SDGs (pedagogical perspectives, content, objectives …). Researchers should use practice-based models to look for more sustainability-related content and, above all, to try to get students to reflect on how their daily actions can contribute to a more sustainable and durable world. This work was supported by ODSEF PROJECT. Design and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals for Physical Education (University of Alicante) [REDES ICE-2021-5489].

Agroforestry is considered a sustainable form of land management that optimizes the use of natural resources (nutrients, radiation, water). Agroforestry is defined as the deliberate integration of woody vegetation with agricultural activities in the lower story. It provides a higher biomass production per unit of land, while providing more ecosystem services than woody-less agricultural lands, such as the reduction of soil erosion and nitrogen leaching, and increase carbon sequestration and landscape biodiversity. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the past and current European Union Common Agricultural policies aiming at promoting the afforestation or reforestation of lands, as the introduction of trees can be seen as a first step to carry out agroforestry practices in former agricultural or forest lands. Agroforestry was a traditional land use system in Europe before modern times. However, before the sixties land intensification and consolidation destroyed millions of trees all over Europe. On the contrary, some good examples of agroforestry promotion are found in Eastern European countries in order to reduce the effect of extreme events such as winds, flooding at the beginning and mid of the last century. In Western European countries, the introduction of trees in the land has been promoted by agroforestry, afforestation and reforestation at the end of the last century. Afforestation of agricultural lands have been the most successful CAP measure (over 1 million hectares) while agroforestry measures were not extensively adopted which may be explained by the funds associated to afforestation measure which compensated the losses of income 15 or 20 years in afforested lands. Agroforestry was poorly adopted in the CAP 2007-2013, having a better success in the CAP 2014-2020 due to the recognition of woody vegetation and the compensation of 5 years given for maintenance once agroforestry is established. However, policy rules ensuring Pillar I payment when agroforestry measure is adopted such as a management plans ensuring that maximum tree density (100 trees per hectare) is not reached, should be pursued.

Materials on the built environment are exposed to several agents that promote alteration processes resulting in features that might be considered detrimental of its value. Here we review the main issues related to the struggle against these alteration processes, from the consideration of the intervention criteria, including the non-intervention option, to strategic considerations on the organisation of the intervention that must consider the temporal and spatial features of the alteration processes, as well as possible interventions on the surroundings of the materials, e.g. atmosphere, terrain and structure, and in relation to treatments of materials, including its replacement. It is highlighted the problem of testing using small clean specimens aggravated by comparative studies based on one specimen by case. Assessment of short-term an effects is discussed in relation to intrinsic aspects of the interventions. The long-term effectiveness is linked with the global strategy namely in relation to the conditions that promote the alteration processes. Some sustainability questions related to the intervention operations are also considered such the use of toxic substances and the consumption of resources The Centre of Geological Research, Management and Valorisation of Resources (CIG-R) is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal) Portuguese funds (PEst-OE/CTE/UI0697/2011). The collaboration between the authors in this subjected has benefited from Portuguese-Spanish collaboration Project “Ação Integrada E-141/10” (Fundação das Universidades Portuguesas)/“Acción Integrada PT2009-0077” (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación). info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Postprint: versão dos autores