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The paper "Blue Food policy objectives: an analysis of opportunities and trade-offs" integrates the findings of an initiative to assess the multiple roles of blue foods in food systems worldwide (https://www.bluefood.earth/) and translates them into four policy objectives aimed at realizing the contributions of aquatic foods to more nutritious, just, resilient and environmentally sustainable food systems. This dataset contains the variables used to assess conditions (at the level of nations) when blue food policy objectives are likely to be relevant. The R code used for Boolean analysis is available here: https://github.com/emmywas/BFA_Policy_analysis The paper "Blue Food policy objectives: an analysis of opportunities and trade-offs" is part of the Blue Food Assessment ( https://www.bluefood.earth/ ) a comprehensive examination of the role of aquatic foods in building healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems. The assessment was supported by the Builders Initiative, the MAVA Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. BC also thanks the Erling Persson Family Foundation. The data comes from publicly available (or published) datasets

Low-income, rural frontline communities of California’s Central Valley experience environmental and socioeconomic injustice, water insecurity, extremely poor air quality, and lack of fundamental infrastructure (sewage, green areas, health services), which makes them less resilient. Many communities depend financially on agriculture, while water scarcity and associated policy may trigger farmland retirement, further hindering socioeconomic opportunities. Here we propose a multi-benefit framework to repurpose cropland in buffers inside and around (400-m and 1600-m buffers) 154 rural disadvantaged communities of the Central Valley to promote socioeconomic opportunities, environmental benefits, and business diversification. We estimated the potential for (1) reductions in water and pesticide use, nitrogen leaching, and nitrogen gas emissions, (2) managed aquifer recharge, and (3) economic and employment impacts associated with clean industries and solar energy. Retiring cropland within 1600-m buffers resulted in estimated reductions in annual water use of 2.18 km3/year, nitrate leaching into local aquifers of 105,500 t/year, greenhouse gas emissions of 2,232,000 t CO2‑equivalent/year, and 5,388 t pesticides/year, with accompanying losses in agricultural revenue of US$4,213 million/year and employment of 25,682 positions. Buffer repurposing investments of US$27 million/year per community for ten years showed potential to generate US$101 million/year per community (total US$15,578 million/year) for 30 years and 407 new jobs/year (total 62,697 jobs/year) paying 67% more than prior farmworker jobs. In the San Joaquin Valley (southern Central Valley), where groundwater overdraft averages 2.3 km3/year, potential water use reduction is 1.8 km3/year. We identified 99 communities with surficial soils adequate for aquifer recharge and canals/rivers within 1600 m. This demonstrates the potential of managed aquifer recharge in buffered zones to substantially reduce overdraft. The buffers framework shows that well-planned land repurposing near disadvantaged communities can create multiple benefits for agriculture and industry stakeholders, while improving quality of life in disadvantaged communities and producing positive externalities for society.

The concrete industry currently contributes an estimated ~8% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions annually. Reducing emissions from this industry is a critical step in meeting emissions goals. In our study, we investigate near-term mitigation strategies that can significantly reduce global GHG emissions from concrete production. The manufacturing of cement, an essential ingredient in concrete, is the primary contributor to GHG emissions from concrete production. This model’s primary focus is on the efficient use of cement, a key strategy for reducing emissions. Based on projected global population growth and material saturation levels, we estimated the global cement demand from 2015-2100. We quantified estimates for current GHG emissions from the production of cement-based materials and the potential reduction in GHG emissions that could be achieved globally if four mitigation strategies are implemented. These strategies are: (1) implementing changes to cement manufacturing, such as improving the energy efficiency, using low-carbon fuels, and switching to lower-emissions electricity grids; (2) increasing use of supplementary cementitious materials to lower the amount of high-emissions components of cement and concrete; (3) utilizing concrete strength and steel reinforcement ratios to optimize concrete structural members; and (4) elongating the service life of concrete structures to reduce future cement demand. This packet includes a dataset used in the associated publication "Near-term pathways for decarbonizing global concrete production", a manuscript which explores how engineering design can be used to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from concrete production. Additionally, the codes written to make these figures are included in the packet.

Worldwide, rice production contributes about 10% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agricultural sector, mainly due to CH4 emissions from continuously flooded (CF) fields. Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) is a promising crop technology for mitigating CH4 emissions and reducing the irrigation water currently being applied in many of the world's top rice-producing countries. However, decreased emissions of CH4 may be partially counterbalanced by increased N2O emissions. In this case study for the Philippines, the national mitigation potential of AWD is explored using the process-based biogeochemical model LandscapeDNDC. Simulated mean annual CH4 emissions under conventional rice production for the time period 2000 - 2011 are estimated as 1,180163 Gg CH4 yr-1. During the cropping season, this is about +16% higher than a former estimate using emission factors. Scenario simulations of nationwide introduction of AWD in irrigated landscapes suggest a considerable decrease of CH4 emissions by -23%, while N2O emissions are only increased by +8%. Irrespective of field management, at national scale the radiative forcing of irrigated rice production is always dominated by CH4 (>95%). The reduction potential of GHG emissions depends on, e.g., number of crops per year, residue management, amount of applied irrigation water and sand content. Seasonal weather conditions also play an important role, since the mitigation potential of AWD is almost double as high in dry as compared to wet seasons. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of temporal continuity, considering off-season emissions and the long-term development of GHG emissions across multiple years. This study was conducted as part of the multidisciplinary research project ICON: ‘Introducing Non-Flooded Crops in Rice- Dominated Landscapes: Impacts on Carbon, Nitrogen and Water Cycles’. We thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for its generous funding (FOR 1701, BU1173/13-1/2 and KI1431/3-1/2).

Abstract Methane is responsible for 20% of the global warming resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are the third largest anthropogenic source of methane and are thus important to estimating the global methane budget and evaluating its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the greenhouse gas inventory guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the first-order decay method used to estimate emissions from MSW landfills – and in line with MSW management in various regions – we calculated methane emissions from MSW landfills in various Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2013. During this period, methane emissions from MSW landfills increased from 1141.10 Gg to 1858.98 Gg, representing a mean annual increase of 71.79 Gg. MSW emissions tended to increase more in the northern and western provinces than in the southern and eastern provinces, as methane emissions strongly and positively correlated with population and socioeconomic demographics. MSW decontamination is growing rapidly in China, and landfills predominate in all MSW treatments; moreover, incineration has also dramatically increased in recent years.

Introducing private capital into the public transport system for its sustainable development has been increasing around the world. However, previous research ignores emissions and energy consumption impacts, which are important for private capital investment policy-making. To address this problem, the system dynamic (SD) approach was used to quantitatively analyze the cumulative effects of different private capital investment models in public transport from the environmental perspective. The SD model validity was verified in the case study of Jinan public traffic. Simulation results show that the fuel consumption and emission reductions are obvious when the private capital considering passenger value invests in public transport compared with the no private capital investment and traditional investment models. There are obvious cumulative reductions for fuel consumption, CO2, CO, SO2, and PM10 emissions for 100 months compared with no private capital investment. This research verifies the superiority of the passenger value investment model in public transport from the environmental point of view, and supplies a theoretical tool for administrators to evaluate the private capital investment effects systematically.

Global trends and factors, such as the increased level of globalization, climate change, resource scarcity, and awareness of social and environmental responsibilities, as well as fiercer competition and lower profit margins in all industries, force organizations to act to retain, regain, or sustain their competitive advantages for long-term survival. These trends and factors are historically known to bring about innovations that drive the evolution of industries. Sustainability is considered to be such an innovation to achieve fiscally sound, environmentally conscious, and socially progressive organizations and supply chains. This study reviewed 477 past articles published in five major databases from 1990 to 2018. The purpose of the study was to assess the current state-of-the art in the subject of lean-driven sustainability. Based on the exhaustive descriptive and contextual analysis, synergies, divergences, and the extent of two-way permeability of lean and sustainability concepts from the perspective of intra- and inter-organizational operations were identified along with future research opportunities. Fundamental strengths and weaknesses of both concepts, existing strong synergies and untapped potential, along with their key contributors, the potential-use cases of lean tools to derive sustainable solutions are highlighted in this review.

Abstract Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have driven the industry of rechargeable batteries in recent years due to their advantages such as high energy and power density and relatively long lifespan. Nevertheless, the dispose of spent LIBs has harmful impacts on the environment which needs to be addressed by recycling LIBs. However, none of the currently developed recycling processes is economical. The physical recycling process of LIBs may be economical if the cathode active materials can be separated, regenerated, and reused to make new LIBs. However, the first barrier for regeneration and reusing is the separation of different types of spent cathode active materials in the filter cake that are mixed with each other and come in the form of very fine powders with various sizes (< 30 μm) from the physical recycling process. The aim of this study is to separate the mixture of cathode active materials by adopting Stokes’ law. The focus will be only on mechanical separation with no thermal or chemical separation methods. For the validation, an experiment was designed and successfully performed where different types of spent cathode materials (e.g., LiCoO2, LiFePO4, and LiMn2O4) were separated from the spent anode materials (e.g., graphite) with high efficiency and reasonable time.