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Supplementary material for the publication " Agricultural biogas plants as a hub to foster circular economy and bioenergy: An assessment using material substance and energy flow analysis" Burg, V., b, Rolli, C., Schnorf, V., Scharfy, D., Anspach, V., Bowman, G. Today's agro-food system is typically based on linear fluxes (e.g. mineral fertilizers importation), when a circular approach should be privileged. The production of biogas as a renewable energy source and digestate, used as an organic fertilizer, is essential for the circular economy in the agricultural sector. This study investigates the current utilization of wet biomass in agricultural anaerobic digestion plants in Switzerland in terms of mass, nutrients, and energy flows, to see how biomass use contributes to circular economy and climate change mitigation through the substitution effect of mineral fertilizers and fossil fuels. We quantify the system and its benefits in details and examine future developments of agricultural biogas plants using different scenarios. Our results demonstrate that agricultural anaerobic digestion could be largely increased, as it could provide ten times more biogas by 2050, while saving significant amounts of mineral fertilizer and GHG emissions.

SummaryThe German government has adopted a law that requires sewage plants to go beyond the recovery of phosphorus from wastewater and to promote recycling. We argue that there is no physical global short‐ or mid‐term phosphorus scarcity. However, we also argue that there are legitimate reasons for policies such as those of Germany, including: precaution as a way to ensure future generations’ long‐term supply security, promotion of technologies for closed‐loop economics in a promising stage of technology development, and decrease in the current supply risk with a new resource pool.

Global energy consumption has risen enormously over the past century due to population growth and increasing energy use per person. Industrial production consumes a significant portion of global energy resources. Thus, industrial sector’s investment in energy efficiency is critical to a sustainable future. For most global enterprises the consumption of energy and natural resources represents a major overhead and developing sustainable energy policies can represent a significant competitive advantage due to the growing price of energy and volatility of supply. This symbiotic relationship can lead to the mutual benefits of increasing industrial efficiency whilst allowing the transition to a sustainable renewables-based energy future and needs to be significantly harnessed. This paper describes a decision support framework to help industrial organisations make positive investment decisions on energy performance improvement projects.

It has been claimed that technological advances will make it possible to make anything anywhere and to do so sustainably. In particular, making anything anywhere would increase the diversity of locations and participants involved in production, with positive effects for sustainability. For example, increasing the diversity of locations can reduce the long-distance transportation of materials and goods, which can improve the ecological sustainability of production. At the same time, increasing the diversity of people included in manufacturing can contribute to the spread of manufacturing communities, which can improve the social sustainability of production. However, physical production continues to be dominated by the same countries that have dominated global manufacturing in recent decades. Meanwhile, trade imbalances between rich and poor countries are similar to those of the past. In this paper, limitations and opportunities are explained for moveable production systems to increase the diversity of locations and participants in global production and trade. In addition, potential geopolitical barriers to the deployment of moveable production systems are explained.

The European Union is currently in the process of transformation toward a circular economy model in which different areas of activity should be integrated for more efficient management of raw materials and waste. The wastewater sector has a great potential in this regard and therefore is an important element of the transformation process to the circular economy model. The targets of the circular economy policy framework such as resource recovery are tightly connected with the wastewater treatment processes and sewage sludge management. With this in view, the present study aims to review existing indicators on resource recovery that can enable efficient monitoring of the sustainable and circular solutions implemented in the wastewater sector. Within the reviewed indicators, most of them were focused on technological aspects of resource recovery processes such as nutrient removal efficiency, sewage sludge processing methods and environmental aspects as the pollutant share in the sewage sludge or its ashes. Moreover, other wide-scope indicators such as the wastewater service coverage or the production of bio-based fertilizers and hydrochar within the wastewater sector were analyzed. The results were used for the development of recommendations for improving the resources recovery monitoring framework in the wastewater sector and a proposal of a circularity indicator for a wastewater treatment plant highlighting new challenges for further researches and wastewater professionals.

The accelerated development of cities involves important inflows and outflows of resources. The construction sector is one of the main consumers of raw materials and producers of waste. Due to its quantity and potential for recovery, waste from the construction sector constitutes significant deposits and requires major action by bringing together different stakeholders to achieve the objectives of a circular economy. Consequently, it is crucial to understand the current knowledge of urban metabolism, deposits, and recovery practices. This article aims to investigate the role of local authorities in the planning of strategies to facilitate a circular economy; in particular, this article aims to answer how local authorities facilitate circular economy initiatives in the building sector and what opportunities and obstacles they encounter in the process. The strategy used for the study was to conduct semistructured interviews with those responsible for circular economy projects within local authorities that were pioneering circular economy projects in metropolitan France. The results highlight the importance of community involvement in the implementation of circular economy principles in the building sector. Thus, it is essential to identify the different stakeholders and their respective challenges to build an operational framework.

This study investigated perceptions of a group of Chinese and Indian state forestry professionals (SFPs) related to the potential benefits and challenges of developing forest-based bioenergy projects (FBPs) in their countries. A total of 110 SFPs participated in the study (55 from each country). The results showed that the SFPs widely agreed upon the potential economic and ecological benefits from developing FBPs in their countries. The economic benefits of job creation and additional income to forest departments were the two most accepted benefits by the SFPs. Two potential challenges of developing FBPs—namely, the lack of suitable technologies and the absence of supportive policies—were considered the most significant by the SFPs. Principal component analysis revealed three key dimensions (ecological, economic and social) of the SFPs’ perceptions of FBPs. The findings from the study imply that in order to become viable, the development of FBPs in these two countries must put emphasis on the sustainability aspects by addressing the environmental, economic and societal elements of FBPs. In addition, framing supportive policies, the development of technologies and building infrastructure for FBPs are needed for their successful implementation in China and India.

ObjectivesHeavy alcohol use can cause somatic and mental diseases, affects patients’ social life and is associated with social isolation, unemployment and reduced quality of life. Therefore, societal costs of alcohol dependence are expected to be high. The aim of this study was to estimate excess costs of patients with alcohol dependence diagnosed using theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition criteria compared with individuals without alcohol dependence in Germany.DesignIn a secondary analysis, baseline data of patients with alcohol dependence enrolled in a randomised controlled trial (German Clinical Trials Register DRS00005035) were compared with data collected via a telephone survey from individuals without alcohol dependence and that had been matched by entropy balancing. Health service use was evaluated retrospectively for a 6-month period.SettingsFour German psychiatric university clinics (patients with alcohol dependence) and the German general adult population (individuals without alcohol dependence).Participantsn=236 adult patients with alcohol dependence and n=4687 adult individuals without alcohol dependence.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe excess costs of health service use, absenteeism and unemployment of patients with alcohol dependence were calculated and compared with individuals without alcohol dependence. In subgroup analyses, the associations between excess cost and gender, comorbidities and the duration of disease were investigated.ResultsTotal 6-month excess costs of €11 839 (95% CI €11 529 to €12 147) were caused by direct excess costs of €4349 (95% CI €4129 to €4566) and indirect costs of €7490 (95% CI €5124 to €9856). In particular, costs of inpatient treatment, formal long-term care, absenteeism and unemployment were high.ConclusionsAlcohol dependence causes substantial direct and indirect excess costs. Cost-effective interventions to prevent and treat alcohol dependence are urgently needed.Trial registration numberDRKS00005035.