• Energy Research

Construction and demolition waste reduction (C&DWR) is an important measure to protect the environment and promote sustainable development in the construction sector. The present policy in China remains a lack of emphasis on carbon tax and penalty for reducing construction waste. This paper proposes a construction and demolition waste (C&DW) management model to identify the waste reduction effects of various policies in China. It simulates the effects of single policies and combined policies on waste reduction and carbon emission by using the approach of integrating system dynamics and grey model theory. The results reveal that: (1) Penalties can effectively reduce the amount of illegal dump waste and carbon emissions from illegal dump waste, with an appropriate penalty value (in Chinese CNY) suggested as ∈160,320. (2) Subsidies can vastly increase the amount of waste recycled and a carbon tax can reduce carbon emissions; the recommended values are suggested as subsidies ∈30,45 and carbon tax ∈40,70. (3) Compared to other policies, the combined policy of penalty–waste disposal charging fee–subsidy–carbon tax (160, 60, 45, 70) achieves the greatest environmental benefits in terms of reducing waste and carbon emission. (4) Governments should improve waste minimization incentive policies and gradually introduce trials for a carbon tax policy, encourage the use of digital governance combined with blockchain technology to regulate C&DW. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers to develop effective waste reduction strategies and promote sustainability through the implementation of C&DWR theories.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for designing the most sustainable bioethanol supply chain. Taking into consideration of the possibility of multiple-feedstock, multiple transportation modes, multiple alternative technologies, multiple transport patterns and multiple waste disposal manners in bioethanol systems, this study developed a model for designing the most sustainable bioethanol supply chain by minimizing the total ecological footprint under some prerequisite constraints including satisfying the goal of the stakeholders', the limitation of resources and energy, the capacity of warehouses, the market demand and some technological constraints. And an illustrative case of multiple-feedstock bioethanol system has been studied by the proposed method, and a global best solution by which the total ecological footprint is the minimal has been obtained.

AbstractThis study aims to develop a sustainability‐interval‐index (SII) conceptual framework with life‐cycle considerations which can incorporate the opinions/preferences of multiple stakeholders in the complex decision‐making processes and address the decision‐making matrix composed by multiple types of data for multiactor life cycle ranking of industrial systems. The multiactor fuzzy best‐worst method which allows multiple groups of stakeholders to use fuzzy numbers to express their opinions and preferences was developed for determining the weights of the indicators in life cycle sustainability assessment. A multicriteria decision‐making method under hybrid information was developed for addressing the decision‐making matrix composed by multiple types of data. Five hydrogen production pathways were studied, and the results reveal that the developed SII is feasible for sustainability ranking of industrial systems in life cycle perspective.

Abstract The enhancement of sustainability of hydrogen supply chain is of vital importance for the stakeholders/decision-makers to design a sustainable hydrogen supply chain. The objective of this paper is to develop a method for prioritizing the influential factors, identifying the key driving factors that influence the sustainability of hydrogen supply chain and mapping the cause–effect relationships to improve the sustainability of hydrogen supply chain. In this paper, thirty seven criteria in four aspects including economic, technological, environmental and societal aspects are considered for enhancing the sustainability of hydrogen supply chain, and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory has been used to analyze the relationships among these criteria. The status of hydrogen supply chain in China has been studied by the proposed method, and the results are consistent with the actual conditions. It could be concluded that the proposed method is feasible and could be popularized to some other cases.

Abstract In this study, Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (OLCA) was applied to a multisite beverage company along with a product LCA to one of its representative beverage product. Results proved that, given a certain production mix and volume, different allocations of production of the specific beverage product among different sites could improve the product environmental performances but worsen the overall organizational environmental performances. Therefore, it is important to use both LCA and OLCA results to effectively plan environmental performance improvement of a company and that production allocation strategies should be considered to avoid environmental burden shifting.

Climate change is seriously impacting coastal biodiversity and the benefits it provides to humans. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of the European Union’s Natura 2000 network of areas for nature protection, where the sensitivity of local ecosystems calls for intervention to increase resistance and resilience to climate-related risks. Given the complex ways in which climate can influence conservation hotspot areas, there is a need to develop effective strategic approaches and general operational models to identify priorities for management and inform adaptation and mitigation measures. Here, a novel methodological proposal to perform climate risk assessment in Natura 2000 sites is presented that implements the systematic approach of ISO 14090 in combination with the theoretical framework of ecosystem services assessment and local stakeholder participation to identify climate-related issues for local protected habitats and improve the knowledge base needed to plan sustainable conservation and restoration measures. The methodology was applied to five Natura 2000 sites located along the Adriatic coast of Italy and Slovenia. Results show that each of the assessed sites, despite being along the coast of the same sea, is affected by different climate-related issues, impacting different habitats and corresponding ecosystem services. This novel methodology enables a simple and rapid screening for the prioritization of conservation actions and of the possible further investigations needed to support decision making, and was found to be robust and of general applicability. These findings highlight the importance of designing site-specific adaptation measures, tailored to address the peculiar response to climate change of each site in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Biodiesel as a promising alternative energy resource has been a hot spot in chemical engineering nowadays, but there is also an argument about the sustainability of biodiesel. In order to analyze the sustainability of biodiesel production systems and select the most sustainable scenario, various kinds of crop‐based biodiesel including soybean‐, rapeseed‐, sunflower‐, jatropha‐ and palm‐based biodiesel production options are studied by emergy analysis; soybean‐based scenario is recognized as the most sustainable scenario that should be chosen for further study in China. DEA method is used to evaluate the sustainability efficiencies of these options, and the biodiesel production systems based on soybean, sunflower, and palm are considered as DEA efficient, whereas rapeseed‐based and jatropha‐based scenarios are needed to be improved, and the improved methods have also been specified.

Abstract The purpose of this study is to develop a method for prioritizing and classifying the sustainability of hydrogen supply chains and assist decision-making for the stakeholders/decision-makers. Multiple criteria for sustainability assessment of hydrogen supply chains are considered and multiple decision-makers are allowed to participate in the decision-making using linguistic terms. In this study, extension theory and analytic hierarchy process are combined to rate the sustainability of hydrogen supply chains. The sustainability of hydrogen supply chains could be identified according to the synthesis correlation degrees to each classical domain. Finally, an illustrative case is studied by the proposed method, and the results show that the proposed method is feasible for prioritizing and classifying the sustainability of hydrogen supply chains.