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A new environmental ban has forced the restructure of open dumps in China since 1 July 2011. A technical process was established in this study that is feasible for the upgrade of open dumps through restructuring. The feasibility of restructuring and the benefit of greenhouse gas emission reductions were assessed according to field surveys of five landfills and four dumps in Nanjing. The results showed that the daily processing capacities of the existing landfills have been unable to meet the growth of municipal solid waste (MSW), making restructuring of the landfills imperative. According to an assessment of the technical process, only four sites in Nanjing were suitable for upgrading. Restructuring the Jiaozishan landfill effectively reduced the leachate generation rate by 5.84% under its scale when expanded by 60.7% in 2015. CO2 emissions were reduced by approximately 55,000–86,000 tons per year, in which biogas power generation replaced fossil fuels Fossil fuels accounted for the largest proportion, up to 45,000–60,000 tons. Photovoltaic power generation on the overlying land has not only reduced CO2 emissions to 26,000–30,000 tons per year but has also brought in continuing income from the sale of electricity. The funds are essential for developing countries such as China, which lack long-term financial support for landfill management after closure.

Production of biodiesel from yellow grease (waste cooking oil and waste animal fats) is fast emerging as a promising alternative to address the twin challenges before the biodiesel industry today-fluctuation in prices of vegetable oil and the food versus fuel debate. Yellow grease has a high percentage of free fatty acids (FFA) and proves to be an unsuitable feedstock for biodiesel production from commercially viable alkali-catalyzed production systems due to saponification problems.“Green” methodologies based on heterogeneous solid acid catalyzed reactions have the potential to simultaneously promote esterification and transesterification reactions of yellow grease to produce biodiesel without soap formation and offer easy catalyst separation without generation of toxic streams. This paper presents kinetic studies for the conversion of model yellow grease feeds to biodiesel using a heteropolyacid supported on alumina (HSiW/Al2O3) using a batch autoclave. Three model yellow grease feeds were prepared using canola oil with added FFA such as palmitic, oleic and linoleic acid. A pseudo homogeneous kinetic model for the parallel esterification and transesterification was developed. The rate constants and activation parameters for esterification and transesterification reactions for the model yellow grease feeds were determined. The rate constants for esterification are higher than the transesterification rate constants. The kinetic model was validated using the experimental biodiesel data obtained from processing a commercial yellow grease feed. The kinetic model could be used to design novel processes to convert various low-value waste oils, fats and non-food grade oils to sustainable biodiesel. Keywords: Yellow grease, Canola oil, Free fatty acids, Heteropolyacid, Kinetics for esterification and transesterification

The main objective of this comparative study is to understand and analyse the sustainability perspectives of museums in France, Canada, Sweden, Turkey and Greece. By adopting a qualitative research approach, data were gathered from eleven museum officials in five different countries. As an interesting result of the study, an advanced use of technology was seen at the oldest museum of the research sample. Overall, the comparative analysis revealed that general sustainability efforts, use of technology in presenting cultural heritage and active participation of visitors to the museum activities need to be improved and paid more attention at some of the museums. The increase in the number of museum activities contributes to the understanding of how cultural heritage can be sustained. The study sheds a light on the inside of changing museology and offers suggestions to the researchers in this field.

Climate change, environmental degradation, and limited resources are motivations for sustainable forest management. Forests, the most abundant renewable resource on earth, used to make a wide variety of forest-based products for human consumption. To provide a scientific measure of a product’s sustainability and environmental performance, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method is used. This article provides a comprehensive review of environmental performances of forest-based products including traditional building products, emerging (mass-timber) building products and nanomaterials using attributional LCA. Across the supply chain, the product manufacturing life-cycle stage tends to have the largest environmental impacts. However, forest management activities and logistics tend to have the greatest economic impact. In addition, environmental trade-offs exist when regulating emissions as indicated by the latest traditional wood building product LCAs. Interpretation of these LCA results can guide new product development using biomaterials, future (mass) building systems and policy-making on mitigating climate change. Key challenges include handling of uncertainties in the supply chain and complex interactions of environment, material conversion, resource use for product production and quantifying the emissions released.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the establishment of a robust framework for the assessment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in businesses, using the construction industry as an example and with the primary focus on combating climate change (SDG 13). We provide a critical analysis of a selection of relatively widely used SDG impact assessment tools, combined with a case study from the construction industry to explore how a meaningful SDG assessment can be framed with linkages between SDG 13 and other related SDGs. Our analysis points towards the importance of framing SDG assessments in a way that discourages "Greenwashing". Any SDG assessment that relates to climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement should identify the processes and activities that can be expected to be particularly challenging in terms of their abatement. In our road construction work case, we identify four such hard-to-abate activities: 1) introducing biomass for renewable transportation fuels for use in construction equipment and heavy transport; 2) electrification of transport and industrial processes; 3) substitution as part of transitioning from fossil fuel use; and 4) applying carbon capture and storage technologies in the production of basic materials, such as cement and steel. The approach applied will avoid that businesses only focus on SDGs in situations where they are already performing well or can apply low-cost measures or that they only relate to the part of the supply chain that pertains to their own business (Scope 1 emissions). For an SDG assessment to provide basis for informed decisions regarding real change towards more sustainable and equitable corporate practices it should: (i) identify and include concrete measures to align with the terms of the Paris Agreement; (ii) include relevant value chains; and (iii) consider both the short-term and long-term effects of strategic choices.

Plastic film mulching (FM) became a general practice to enhance crop productivity and its net primary production (NPP), but it can increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The proper addition of organic amendments might effectively decrease the impact of FM on global warming. To evaluate the feasibility of biomass addition on decreasing this negative influence, cover crop biomass as a green manure was incorporated with different recycling levels (0-100% of aboveground biomass) under FM and no-mulching. The net global warming potential (GWP) which integrated with soil C stock change and GHG (N2O and CH4) fluxes with CO2-equivalent was evaluated during maize cultivation. Under the same biomass incorporation, FM significantly enhanced the grain productivity and NPP of maize by 22-61 and 18-58% over no-mulching, respectively. In contrast, FM also highly increased the respired C loss, which was 11-95% higher than NPP increase, over no-mulching. Irrespective with biomass recycling ratio and mulching system, negative NECB which indicates the decrease of soil C stock was observed, mainly due to big harvest removal. FM decreased more soil C stock by 57-158% over no-mulching, but its C stock was clearly increased with increasing biomass addition. FM significantly increased total N2O and CH4 fluxes by 4-61 and 140-600% over no-mulching, respectively. Soil C stock changes mainly decided net GWP scale, but N2O and CH4 fluxes negligibly influenced. As a result, FM highly increased net GWP over no-mulching, while this net GWP was clearly decreased with increasing biomass application. However, cover cropping, and its biomass recycling was not enough to compensate the negative impact of FM on global warming. Therefore, more biomass incorporation might be essential to compensate this negative effect of FM.

The territorial approach is the basic approach to a region management. At the same time, the “territory” component is the basis of the logistics complex used in Supply Chain Management. In this regard, a need is to clarify and supplement the theory and methodology of the territorial approach to the management of both the region and the supply chains.The subject of this study is the relationship between the regional authorities and the focus enterprise of the supply chain regarding the development of the territories and resources of the region on a mutually beneficial basis.The research methods are methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, as well as classification, and the tools are binary matrices that provide for the joint use of two classification attributes of the object under study and their dichotomies.The results of this study are the management principles by the competitiveness and sustainability of the management object; classifications of approaches to the management by the region and supply chains; of territories from the point of view of the focus enterprise of the supply chain and the region; the management decisions in the interaction of regions with the links of supply chains; the sequence of the formation of supply chains and the development of territories and resources of the region on the basis of the territorial approach and the relationship between them.The obtained results allow to reduce the costs and time for the development of territories and resources of the region by reducing the lost profits of the supply chain links due to their rational placement and increasing sustainability by achieving a synergistic effect both by the region and by the supply chains.

The current status and challenges associated with the production and utilization of cellulosic ethanol in Korea are reviewed in this paper. Cellulosic ethanol has emerged as a promising option for mitigating Korea's CO(2) emissions and enhancing its energy security. Korea's limited biomass resources is the most critical barrier to achieving its implementation targets for cellulosic ethanol. Efforts to identify new suitable biomass resources for cellulosic ethanol production are ongoing and intensive. Aquatic biomasses including macroalgae and plantation wastes collected in the Southeast Asia region have been found to have great potential as feedstocks for the production of cellulosic ethanol. R&D explorations into the development of technologies that can convert biomass materials to ethanol more efficiently also are underway. It is expected that cellulosic ethanol will be in supply from 2020 and that, by 2030, its use will have effectively reduced Korea's total gasoline consumption by 10%.