• Energy Research

Biomass and renewable resources are becoming substitutes for fossil-based resources, providing opportunities for more sustainable environmental management and reductions in environmental damage. This paper studies the prospects for wood pellet production in Kazakhstan through the lens of business model adjustment in a microenterprise in Kazakhstan. This study focuses on answering the following questions: (1) How do microenterprises propose, create, deliver and capture value through business models in the wood industry? (2) What are the opportunities and challenges relating to these business models in the context of wood pellet production in Kazakhstan? Kazakhstan has a high potential for biomass production, providing a particularly interesting case for analysing how microenterprises can tap into this potential to create value. This paper combines an analysis of bioenergy and forestry trends with a qualitative case study. The analysis of the business model is based on Osterwalder’s business model canvas. The value proposition of the enterprise studied herein is to provide a local biomass-based alternative to fossil fuels. The overall growth of wood-based industries in Kazakhstan and the national movement towards renewable energy create favourable prospects for microenterprises engaged in the production of wood pellets; however, these industries are also characterised by high institutional and regulatory dependencies.

Little is known about the board structures and processes adopted by agricultural cooperatives, particularly in Eastern European countries. We address this substantial knowledge gap by focusing on Estonian agricultural cooperatives. Using survey results from a sample of 23 Estonian agricultural cooperatives, we identify board structures and processes, measure organizational health, and compare our findings to similar studies in other countries. We find both similarities and differences between sample cooperatives and their counterparts in other countries. Estonian agricultural cooperatives tend to perform better than those without a board. However, more research at the member level is needed in order to draw definite conclusions. Member preference heterogeneity emerges as a potential future threat to organizational health and, thus, demands the attention of cooperative leaders in Estonia. We conclude that there exists considerable room for improvement through the introduction of a more flexible legal framework and the adoption of professional board governance processes, which includes director orientation training, inclusion of additional financial expertise and board evaluation routines.

In this study, a procedure for selecting the optimal heat-accumulating material based on phase transitions for the economical maintenance of poultry farms by applying ANOVA to complex solid bodies’ thermodynamic parameters is described. The relevance of the topic is due to its importance for the development of an energy-saving technology based on the release or absorption of significant heat during the crystallization or melting of materials. The applicability of one-way ANOVA for the selection of the optimal material with a specific functional purpose was demonstrated. As result, the best composition for maintaining a normal temperature regime in poultry farms that could meet all the requirements imposed on heat-storage materials was determined. It was found that magnesium sulphate heptahydrate is such a material.