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The impacts of increasing natural climate disasters are threatening food security in the Asia-Pacific region. Rice is Asia’s most important staple food. Climate variability and change directly impact rice production, through changes in rainfall, temperature and CO2 concentrations. The key for sustainable rice crop is water management. Adaptation can occur through shifts of cropping to higher latitudes and can profit from river systems (via irrigation) so far not considered. New opportunities arise to produce more than one crop per year in cooler areas. Asian wheat production in 2005 represents about 43 % of the global total. Changes in agronomic practices, such as earlier plant dates and cultivar substitution will be required. Fisheries play a crucial role in providing food security with the contribution of fish to dietary animal protein being very high in the region – up to 90 % in small island developing states (SIDS). With the warming of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and increased acidification, marine ecosystems are presently under stress. Despite these trends, maintaining or enhancing food production from the sea is critical. However, future sustainability must be maintained whilst also securing biodiversity conservation. Improved fisheries management to address the existing non-climate threats remains paramount in the Indian and Pacific Oceans with sustainable management regimes being established. Climate-related impacts are expected to increase in magnitude over the coming decades, thus preliminary adaptation to climate change is valuable.

The aim of this research is to develop a simple and easily useable scale to assess sustainable development in the ready-made garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh. A framework has been proposed where sustainable development dimensions, sub-dimensions (or variables) under dimensions, and items under sub-dimensions, are developed through an extensive literature review. This framework serves as the base for index development in this study. The proposed framework comes in the form of a questionnaire. After receiving satisfactory results from the pilot study, further information was gathered from the Tier 1 RMG factories in Bangladesh using the proposed questionnaire. Excluding the incomplete responses, a total of 238 responses were considered for further analysis. Following this, the collected data were passed through a number of statistical processes including item-total correlation and CFA (Confirmatory Factor Analysis). After rigorous analysis, only 30 items were shown to be model fit according to the proposed second-order sustainability index model. Finally, the results of factor loading showed that dimensions load very well on the proposed framework. Therefore, this study culminated in developing a 30-item valid and reliable sustainability index for three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social, for the Bangladeshi RMG sector.

ASEAN is a dynamic and diverse region which has experienced rapid urbanization and population growth. Their energy demand grew by 60% in the last 15 years. In 2013, about 3.6% of global greenhouse-gas emissions was emitted from this region and the share is expected to rise substantially. Hence, a better understanding of driving forces of the changes in CO2 emissions is important to tackle global climate change and develop appropriate policies. Using IPAT combined with variance analysis, this study aims to identify the main driving factors of CO2 emissions for ASEAN and four selected countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand) during 1971–2013. The results show that population growth and economic growth were the main driving factors for increasing CO2 emissions for most of the countries. Fossil fuels play an important role in increasing CO2 emissions, however the growth in emissions was compensated by improved energy efficiency and carbon intensity of fossil energy. The results imply that to decouple energy use from high levels of emissions is important. Proper energy management through fuel substitution and decreasing emission intensity through technological upgrades have considerable potential to cut emissions.

AbstractSustainable energy has turned into one of the most promising ways to handle the challenges of energy demand problems of numerous consumers worldwide. Myanmar's energy consumption mainly depends upon traditional energy such as fuel wood, charcoal and biomass. The government had laid the energy policy guidelines and emphasized in renewable energy resources to replace traditional energy types. Although domestic conventional energy sources such as oil and natural gas have been increasing a little bit through discoveries and development, these does not satisfy the demand of the country. In this paper, the energy utilization and the present sustainable energy status are mentioned. Following that, completed projects by each sector are provided. The future plan for energy conservation is finally highlighted.

AbstractWith the lack of a management budget and weak policy for waste management of local communities in developing countries, especially for clusters that have the amount of garbage less than 5 tons per day, open dumping or open burning is the most common municipal solid waste (MSW) management, leading to severe impact on the environment. This study focuses on the sustainable development and eco-friendly waste management concept for these local communities. First, public participation campaigns with the 3R's concept (Reduced, Reuse and Recycle) must be launched to reduce and separate waste from households to be mixed with combustible waste, organic waste, and recycled waste. If the separation at the source is successful, the treated waste of about 2.5 tons is divided into wet and dry fractions. The wet fraction can be easily treated by conventional composting to produce soil conditioners and generate income for communities. The dry fraction must be treated by an incinerator. However, due to the high moisture content and low heating value of the waste, the incinerator needs to run with additional fossil fuel, causing high operating costs. Therefore, a novel hybrid incineration-gasification system has been introduced in this study to use Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) prepared by dry fraction as feedstock to a downdraft gasifier. The producer gas generated from the gasifier can be used to substitute fossil fuel. This sustainable and eco-friendly model of waste management can be used as a prototype model for other rural areas in low or low-middle income countries.

This paper applied the optimization model of the biogas utilization pathway with the biogas utilization availability assessment to examine the effect of biogas system parameters on biogas utilization. The model analyzes the biogas utilization pathway availability and maximum profit to value added and productivity in biogas from industry wastewater in Thailand. The results showed that profit and availability of biogas utilization reduce biogas loss to flare, that it entails several conversion processes. The scenario for the biogas utilization pathway and storage with biogas production technology improves. Evaluated are operation time, waste and energy demand to the cassava starch usage during the production for 50–1000 tons per day. Five mature biogas production technologies were benchmarked evaluated based on the chemical oxygen demand removal efficiency and biogas yields. Subsequently, low-, medium-, and high-pressure storages and a battery storage were considered and discussed in this paper as suitable energy storage for each desired biogas plant operation. Five biogas utilization pathways, including converting biogas into thermal energy, generating electricity, and upgrading biogas to compressed biogas, were then compared. Those improved options in the scenario select suitable biogas technologies, storage, and application for value-added, reduce the environmental problems and renewable energy production from wastewater.

Abstract This paper is aimed to systematically assess greenhouse gases (GHGs) and energy intensity of the granite rock mining operations in Thailand and also identify a range of feasible options to minimize their GHG emissions. Mining factories A, B and C, located in the Eastern region of Thailand, were selected as research case studies. The results indicated that the 3-year average of GHGs emissions from factories A to C was 3387 718 kgCO2e per year with approximately 2.92 kgCO2e per ton of granite rock produced over 2012 to 2014. Of this, the carbon intensity of grid-electricity consumption for the crushed rock production was 1.84 kgCO2/kWh. Diesel fuel combustion for transport activities in the mining factories was the greatest contributor to GHGs emissions (68 %) compared to the purchased electricity and explosion process, with 31 % and 1 %, respectively. In-Pit Crushing and Conveying (IPCC) installation, haul truck payload optimization and management, and reduction in tire rolling resistance have shown potential to reduce carbon emissions accounted for 20 % to 70 %.