• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• 11. Sustainability close
• 3. Good health close
• GB close
• EU close

This study assessed the hand hygiene performance in French nursing homes using the consumption of alcohol-based hand rubs (AHRs) as a surrogate. Nursing homes from the 17 French regions were contacted to collect their AHR consumption and occupancy in 2018 and 2019. A total of 1290 nursing homes from 15 French regions participated in the survey. The estimated median number of hand hygiene actions per resident-day was 1.48 (interquartile range: 1.04-2.03) in 2018 and 1.60 (1.10-2.26) in 2019. A significantly higher AHR consumption was observed in public nursing homes with an infection control team or link nurse.

Purpose This study aims to consider environmental sustainability, a global challenge under the preview of sustainable development goals, highlighting the significance of knowledge economy in attaining sustainable aggregate demand behavior globally. For this purpose, 155 countries that have data available from 1995 to 2021 were selected. The purpose of selecting these countries is to test the global responsibility of the knowledge economy to attain environmental sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Results are estimated with the help of panel quantile regression. The empirical existence of aggregate demand-based environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) was tested using non-linear tests. Moreover, principal component analysis has been incorporated to construct the knowledge economy index. Findings U-shaped aggregate demand-based EKC at global level is validated. However, environmental deterioration increases with an additional escalation after US$497.945m in aggregate demand. As a determinant, the knowledge economy is reducing CO2 emissions. The knowledge economy has played a significant role in global responsibility, shifting the EKC downward and extending the CO2 reduction phase for every selected country. Further, urbanization, energy intensity, financial development and trade openness significantly deteriorate the environmental quality. Originality/value This study contains the empirical existence of aggregate demand-based EKC. The role of the knowledge economy is examined through an index which is calculated by using four pillars of the knowledge economy (technology, innovations, education and institutions). This study is based on a combined panel of all the countries for which the data was available.

Abstract In the context of climate change, global industrialised nations are grappling with transforming energy networks to support a low carbon future. Using an energy justice framework this work aims to understand holistic outcomes of one low-carbon energy network intervention: demand-side response enacted on domestic heat pumps. By exploring participants’ lived experience of a pilot project, from recruitment to installation and use, this work reveals how injustices were reduced, introduced and amplified. Choice, consent, cost, comfort, disruption, and control are highlighted as key aspects of interest when considering the distributive, procedural, and recognition implications of this domestic innovation. For a net reduction of energy injustices to be realised, we highlight the need for project designers to work in partnership with end users to optimise the benefits for the household and the electricity system. Whilst this is a UK study, the themes and findings are internationally applicable for interventions that aim to harness the flexibility of heating, the largest global energy end-use.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has matured over the past decades and become part of the broader field of sustainability assessment. To strengthen LCA as a tool and eventually increase its usefulness for sustainability decision-making, it is argued that there is a need to expand the ISO LCA framework by integration and connection with other concepts and methods. This paper explores the potential options for deepening and broadening the LCA methodologies beyond the current ISO framework for improved sustainability analysis. By investigating several environmental, economic and social assessment methods, the paper suggests some options for incorporating (parts of) other methods or combining with other methods for broadening and deepening the LCA.

The deposition of ash - combustion residues - on superheaters and heat exchanger surfaces reduce their efficiency; this phenomenon was investigated for a large-scale waste-to-energy incineration facility. Over a period of six months, ash samples were collected from the plant, which included the bottom ash and deposits from the superheater, as well as flyash from the convective heat exchanger, the economiser and fabric filters. These were analysed for particle size, unburned carbon, elemental composition and surface morphology. Element partitioning was evident in the different combustion residues, as volatile metals, such as cadmium, antimony and arsenic, were found to be depleted in the bottom ash by the high combustion temperatures (1000+°C) and concentrated/enriched in the fabric filter ash (transferred by evaporation). Non-volatile elements by contrast were distributed equally in all locations (transported by particle entrainment). The heat exchanger deposits and fabric filter ash had elevated levels of alkali metals. 82% of flyash particles from the fabric filter were in the submicron range.

One of the major environmental problems is the fast accumulation of brick kiln emissions near the peripheries of almost all urban centers. An enormous quantity of substandard coal, wood, rubber tires, or saw wood is used as fuel in these brick kilns, creating environmental pollution through carbon and heavy metals present in the emissions. The present study was designed to determine the distribution pattern of heavy metals in a soil-water-plant system under the influence of brick kiln emissions. Ash, soil (0-15 cm), water, and plant samples were collected from the adjacent areas of the brick kilns. Geo-accumulation index and contamination factors were used to assess the toxicity of metals to soil and plants. It was found that the concentrations of Cd in water, soil, coal, and plant samples were found in the range of 0.004-0.024 mg L-1, 0.02-0.66, 0.002-0.042, and 0.06 to 0.07 mg kg-1, respectively, while Pb concentration was found within the range of 0-0.08 mg L-1, 0.30-8.60, 0.011-0, and 0.01-0.08 mg kg-1 in water, soil, and plant samples, respectively. The concentration of Cd in brick kilns ash was in the range of 0-0.04 mg kg-1 while Pb was found within the range of 0.01-0.05 mg kg-1 for ash. Geo-accumulation index and contamination factor values for Cd were found higher suggesting proper pollution prevention measures to be implemented. Based on the results, it was concluded that Cd concentrations in soil, plants, and water samples were higher in the subject area due to brick kiln emissions and higher Cd concentrations in the fuel material.

Abstract This paper provides a forecast of electricity consumption in Cyprus up to the year 2030, based on econometric analysis of energy use as a function of macroeconomic variables, prices and weather conditions. If past trends continue electricity use is expected to triple in the coming 20–25 years, with the residential and commercial sectors increasing their already high shares in total consumption. Besides this reference scenario it was attempted to assess the impact of climate change on electricity use. According to official projections, the average temperature in the Eastern Mediterranean is expected to rise by about 1 °C by the year 2030. Using our econometrically estimated model, we calculated that electricity consumption in Cyprus may be about 2.9% higher in 2030 than in the reference scenario. This might lead to a welfare loss of 15 million Euros in 2020 and 45 million Euros in 2030; for the entire period 2008–2030 the present value of costs may exceed 200 million Euros (all expressed in constant Euros of 2007). Moreover, we assessed the additional peak electricity load requirements in the future because of climate change: extra load may amount to 65–75 Megawatts (MW) in the year 2020 and 85–95 MW in 2030.

Technical and economic developments in battery and fast-charging technologies could soon make fuel cell electric vehicles, which run on hydrogen, superfluous in road transport

Schrödinger [Schrödinger, E., 1944. What is Life? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge] marvelled at how the organism is able to use metabolic energy to maintain and even increase its organisation, which could not be understood in terms of classical statistical thermodynamics. Ho [Ho, M.W., 1993. The Rainbow and the Worm, The Physics of Organisms, World Scientific, Singapore; Ho, M.W., 1998a. The Rainbow and the Worm, The Physics of Organisms, 2nd (enlarged) ed., reprinted 1999, 2001, 2003 (available online from ISIS website www.i-sis.org.uk)] outlined a novel "thermodynamics of organised complexity" based on a nested dynamical structure that enables the organism to maintain its organisation and simultaneously achieve non-equilibrium and equilibrium energy transfer at maximum efficiency. This thermodynamic model of the organism is reminiscent of the dynamical structure of steady state ecosystems identified by Ulanowicz [Ulanowicz, R.E., 1983. Identifying the structure of cycling in ecosystems. Math. Biosci. 65, 210-237; Ulanowicz, R.E., 2003. Some steps towards a central theory of ecosystem dynamics. Comput. Biol. Chem. 27, 523-530]. The healthy organism excels in maintaining its organisation and keeping away from thermodynamic equilibrium--death by another name--and in reproducing and providing for future generations. In those respects, it is the ideal sustainable system. We propose therefore to explore the common features between organisms and ecosystems, to see how far we can analyse sustainable systems in agriculture, ecology and economics as organisms, and to extract indicators of the system's health or sustainability. We find that looking at sustainable systems as organisms provides fresh insights on sustainability, and offers diagnostic criteria for sustainability that reflect the system's health. In the case of ecosystems, those diagnostic criteria of health translate into properties such as biodiversity and productivity, the richness of cycles, the efficiency of energy use and minimum dissipation. In the case of economic systems, they translate into space-time differentiation or organised heterogeneity, local autonomy and sufficiency at appropriate levels, reciprocity and equality of exchange, and most of all, balancing the exploitation of natural resources--real input into the system--against the ability of the ecosystem to regenerate itself.