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In the face of the rapidly dwindling carbon budgets, negative emission technologies are widely suggested as required to stabilize the Earth’s climate. However, finding cost-effective, socially acceptable, and politically achievable means to enable such technologies remains a challenge. We propose solutions based on negative emission technologies to facilitate wealth creation for the stakeholders while helping to mitigate climate change. This paper comes up with suggestions and guidelines on significantly increasing carbon sequestration in coffee farms. A coffee and jackfruit agroforestry-based case study is presented along with an array of technical interventions, having a special focus on bioenergy and biochar, potentially leading to “negative emissions at negative cost.” The strategies for integrating food production with soil and water management, fuel production, adoption of renewable energy systems and timber management are outlined. The emphasis is on combining biological and engineering sciences to devise a practically viable niche that is easy to adopt, adapt and scale up for the communities and regions to achieve net negative emissions. The concerns expressed in the recent literature on the implementation of emission reduction and negative emission technologies are briefly presented. The novel opportunities to alleviate these concerns arising from our proposed interventions are then pointed out. Our analysis indicates that 1 ha coffee jackfruit-based agroforestry can additionally sequester around 10 tonnes of CO2-eq and lead to an income enhancement of up to 3,000–4,000 Euros in comparison to unshaded coffee. Finally, the global outlook for an easily adoptable nature-based approach is presented, suggesting an opportunity to implement revenue-generating negative emission technologies on a gigatonne scale. We anticipate that our approach presented in the paper results in increased attention to the development of practically viable science and technology-based interventions in order to support the speeding up of climate change mitigation efforts.

Presently, most of world electricity and other energy services are catered by fossil fuel resources. This is unsustainable in the long run both with respect to energy security and climate change problems. Fuel switching, specifically using biomass may partially address this problem. Polygeneration is an efficient way of delivering multiple utility outputs with one or more inputs. Decentralized small or large scale polygeneration using alternative fuels may be a future sustainable solution. In this paper, a techno-economic evaluation of a polygeneration with four utility outputs and rice straw as input has been reported. Results of the simulation and real-life data as inputs are used for the techno-economic analysis. The analysis is specific for a district in the state of West Bengal of India. Results show that such a plant has strong potential to qualify in techno-economic performance in addition to higher efficiency and lower CO2 emission.

Accurate building construction cost prediction is critical, especially for sustainable projects (i.e., green buildings). Green building construction contracts are relatively new to the construction industry, where stakeholders have limited experience in contract cost estimation. Unlike conventional building construction, green buildings are designed to utilize new technologies to reduce their operations’ environmental and societal impacts. Consequently, green buildings’ construction bidding and awarding processes have become more complicated due to difficulties forecasting the initial construction costs and setting integrated selection criteria for the winning bidders. Thus, robust green building cost prediction modeling is essential to provide stakeholders with an initial construction cost benchmark to enhance decision-making. The current study presents machine learning-based algorithms, including extreme gradient boosting (XGBOOST), deep neural network (DNN), and random forest (RF), to predict green building costs. The proposed models are designed to consider the influence of soft and hard cost-related attributes. Evaluation metrics (i.e., MAE, MSE, MAPE, and R2) are applied to evaluate and compare the developed algorithms’ accuracy. XGBOOST provided the highest accuracy of 0.96 compared to 0.91 for the DNN, followed by RF with an accuracy of 0.87. The proposed machine learning models can be utilized as a decision support tool for construction project managers and practitioners to advance automation as a coherent field of research within the green construction industry.

Abstract Energy modelling is the process of using mathematical models to develop abstractions and then seek insights into future energy systems. It can be an abstract academic activity. Or, it can insert threads that influence our development. We argue therefore, that energy modelling that provides policy support (EMoPS) should not only be grounded in rigorous analytics, but also in good governance principles. As, together with other policy actions, it should be accountable. Almost all aspects of society and much of its impact on the environment are influenced by our use of energy. In this context, EMoPS can inspire, motivate, calibrate, and ‘post assess’ energy policy. But, such modeling is often undertaken by too few analysts under time and resource pressure. Building on the advances of ‘class leaders’, we propose that EMoPS should reach for practical goals — including engagement and accountability with the communities it involves, and those it will later affect. (We use the term Ubuntu, meaning ‘I am because you are’ to capture this interdependency). We argue that Ubuntu, together with retrievability, repeatability, reconstructability, interoperability and auditability (U4RIA) of EMoPS should be used to signal the beginnings of a new default practice. We demonstrate how the U4RIA principles can contribute in practice using recent modelling of aspirational energy futures by Costa Rica as a case study. This modelling effort includes community involvement and interfaces and integrates stakeholder involvement. It leaves a trail that allows for its auditing and accountability, while building capacity and sustainable institutional memory.

Municipal solid waste management and poor fertility status of sodic soils are two important issues experienced by all developing nations including India. Disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) being produced in huge amounts is a challenging task for researchers and policy makers. Reclamation of salt affected soils with chemical amendments is a costly affair for resource-poor farmers. Composting of MSW and its enrichment with microbes is one of the options for its recycling and utilization for the reclamation of salt-affected soils. A field experiment was conducted in sodic soil to study the performance of microbial enriched municipal solid waste compost (EMSWC) alone and in combination with a reduced dose of gypsum on growth, yield, nutrient uptake, and grain quality of rice and wheat. The experiment was conducted for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2019 and 2020 to 2021 at ICAR Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Research farm, Shivri, Lucknow, India, in sodic soil having pH 9.2, electrical conductivity (EC) 1.14 dSm−1, exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) 48, and organic carbon 0.30%. There were six treatments consisting of control, recommended dose of gypsum (50% GR), and enriched and un-enriched MSW compost with reduced dose of gypsum (25% GR). Based on the results pertaining to plant growth, yield-attributing characters, and yields, the treatment T6 (application of microbial enriched MSW compost @ 10 t ha−1 in conjunction with gypsum @25% GR) performed the best. Grain yield of rice and wheat (5.45 and 3.92 t ha−1) with treatment T6 was 29.45% and 110.75% higher over control (T1) and 29.45% and 110.06% over the recommended dose of gypsum (T2). Maximum nutrient content and N, P, and K uptake in rice-wheat grain and straw was observed with the treatment T6 (MSW compost plus gypsum @ 25 GR). However, the highest Na content and Na: K ratio in plant parts were recorded in treatment T2. The highest positive net return and benefit to cost (B/C) ratio were observed in treatment T6 followed by T5 and the lowest in treatment T1 (control), whereas negative return was calculated in treatment of gypsum alone (T2). This shows that the cost of sodic soil reclamation with application of gypsum was not recovered until the second year of cultivation. The results of this study showed significant impacts in MSW management for regaining the productivity potential of sodic soils.

Abstract In building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems, PV elements are integrated along with the building which often serves as the exterior weathering skin. PV researchers from various countries have been working for several years to optimize these systems. Sustainable BIPV system has many benefits such as the building itself becomes the PV support structure, and the BIPV components displace the conventional building materials and labor cost, thereby reducing the net installed cost of the PV system and building construction. It also provides on-site generation of electricity and architectural elegance, which increases the market acceptance of the buildings. The BIPV systems can be interfaced with the available utility grid or used as off-grid systems. This paper identifies sustainable building concept in South Asian countries and role of BIPV applications in sustainable building. This article gives review of BIPV applications in South Asian countries. Finally, Barrier and challenges of BIPV system have been discussed and future direction is highlighted.

In this poster, the authors present how biomass can broaden our conception of nature to ensure a sustainable future. It is a collaborative and inter-disciplinary work that criticises the modern concept of resource and recognises the interdependence within ecosystems and their limits. Biomass reanchors our needs in their materiality and reminds us that interactions on ecosystems cannot be seen solely through the prism of services and production. Non-humans are not just a decoration to be used for human consumption but are an ally for sustainable prosperity thus they should be treated as such – and biomass is a good place to start. The authors argue that there is an urgent need to redefine our sensibility to the non-humans, the ethics of our interactions and of our own needs which goes hand in hand with a necessary arbitration and debate on the useful and the superfluous final services for humans.

Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.