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Points out that sustainability as such does not provide a clearcut guide to policy. First one has to decide what is to be sustained. If this is agreed, it must be in an operational from. However, difficulties may still emerge since opinions may differ about how to achieve. This is illustrated by differences in the views of economists about how sustainable development is to be achieved. Orthodox economists stress the importance of the accumulation of man-made capital to achieve this end whereas neo-Malthusians stress the importance of conserving natural resource and environmental capital. Both take an anthropocentric point of view. For political reasons the neo-Malthusian has had little support but it may eventually turn out to be correct. Economics is concerned with reducing economic scarcity and economists have traditionally suggested four main ways of doing this of which economic growth is one. However, neo-Malthusian economists believe that this may not be a sustainable strategy – it may result in future poverty. It should be noted that economic systems are embedded in social and natural systems and depend on these. Economic sustainability depends on the sustainability of these other systems. So from this point of view, it is just one of several bottom lines. Values must be considered in relation to sustainability. Economics is completely anthropocentric in its approach. Therefore, economic approaches to conservation and sustainability can be at odds with the values of deep ecologists or those willing to accord rights to other sentient beings or ecosystems independent of human wishes, or those who want to make use of value judgments other than those based on the measuring rod of money. Consequently economics evaluation is sometimes ineffective in resolving social conflict, including conflict about what should be sustained. As a rule economics alone should not be the final arbiter of social decisions. It is a part (often an important part) of the social evaluation process but not the bottom line, or just one of many lines.

The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of two types of treated sewage sludge as soil amendment, composted with pruning wastes (CP) and thermally dried (ST) on the production of ten woody perennials species for energy purposes. The species used were: Paulownia tomentosa (princess tree), Populus x euramericana (Canadian poplar), Ulmus minor (field elm, tree clones), Ulmus laevis (European white elm), Prunus x amygdalo-persica (adafuel), Tamarix gallica (tamarisk), Salix alba (white willow) and Platanus x hispanica (plane tree). The increase in plant growth three years after amendment application is evaluated with the aim to analyze the long term effect of the treated sewage sludges application on plant production. In general, the plants developed in the soils treated with ST sludge present the highest values of growth (diameter, height and width), which can be due to the faster supply of nitrogen from this material. However, the growth rate was higher in the CP treatment for the most of the species due to a continuous release of nutrients from the CP degradation. In this sense, the effect of CP treatment on plant production would be observed at the longer time than the ST one. Proceedings of the 26th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 14-17 May 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark, pp. 369-373

The SBE19 Brussels - BAMB-CIRCPATH "Building as Material Banks - A Pathway for a Circular held in Brussels on 5 to 7 of February 2019, is an initiative of the Consortium of the H2020 BAMB Project together with the Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) series of conferences. Being within the SBE series, this event gathers the support of CIB International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction, iiSBE International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment, the United Nations Environment Programme, and FIDIC International Federation of Consulting Engineers. The goal of this series of regional and international conferences is to disseminate innovative policies and developments in the field of sustainable urban environment to a broad international audience of specialists in policy, design, construction and operation of buildings and related infrastructure. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Исследование ландшафтов всегда было традиционным научным направлением географии. В России подобная направленность исследований остаётся актуальной, несмотря на то, что термины «геоэкология» и «ландшафтная экология» сегодня более распространены в англоязычном научном сообществе. Наш краткий обзор показывает значительное ускорение антропогенных ландшафтных изменений в Европе, Центральной Азии и азиатской части России за последние пять десятилетий. Ландшафтные исследования в антропоцене должны быть направлены на достижение и сохранение устойчивости ландшафта при его высокой производительности, что включает в себя прекращение деградации ландшафтов, развитие культурных и сохранение природных ландшафтов. Чистая вода и чистый воздух, плодородные и здоровые почвы для производства продуктов питания и других экосистемных услуг, а также биологически разнообразная зеленая среда являются атрибутами ландшафтов, обеспечивающих выживание и благополучие населения. Дисциплинарные и междисциплинарные исследования должны генерировать знания, инновации и правила принятия действенных решений. Генерация знаний в глобализованном мире основана на сборе больших массивов данных и моделировании сценариев. Международные длительные полевые опыты и системы агроэкологического мониторинга будут предоставлять данные для экосистемных моделей и систем поддержки принимаемых решений. Landscape research has been a traditional scientific discipline of geography. This is still the case in Russia, whilst the terms geo-ecology and landscape ecology have become established in the English speaking scientific community. Our short review reveals huge and accelerating anthropogenic landscape transformations in Europe, Central Asia and Asian Russia since the end the 1960s. Landscape research in the Anthropocene has to focus on achieving landscape sustainability at high productivity. This includes halting landscape degradation, developing cultural landscapes, and maintaining semi-natural landscapes. Clean water and air, fertile and healthy soils for food and other ecosystem services and a green and bio-diverse environment are attributes of landscapes for the survival and well-being of humans. Research has to generate knowledge, innovations and decision rules by disciplinary, interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary work. Knowledge generation in a globalized world is based on big data gathering and scenario modelling. International long-term experiments and agri-environmental monitoring systems will deliver data for ecosystem models and decision support systems.

The climatic, energetic and political context promotes the development of bioenergies. However we have a lack of knowledge to find out the best energy crops, depending on the soil, the climate and the end­use. This work aimed at studying the adaptation and the biomass and biofuel yield, of several energy crops grown in France in different soil and climate conditions. The biomass yields were very variable between the different experimental sites and no differences were observed on the median biomass yield between crops. Moreover, there was no evidence of a highly productive crop in all the conditions of soil and climate. Because of little differences of the lower heating value between crops, no differences were observed on the primary energy yield. The ethanol yield per hectare was higher for miscanthus, switchgrass and fiber sorghum because of higher cellulose content in these crops. The nitrogen removed at harvest by miscanthus and switchgrass were significantly lower than the other crops witch could lead to reduced fertilizer­N requirements. Further research are needed to clarify the effect of limiting factors on the biomass yield of the different energy crops and to consider other parameters such as the environmental impacts to give rules to choose the most suitable crop in a given region. Proceedings of the 18th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 3-7 May 2010, Lyon, France, pp. 269-272

The paper aims to achieve a definition of the concept of sustainability and of sustainable system from a logical perspective. In this respect, it introduces and defines (through the sufficiency predicates) the concept of logically vivid system and, on this basis, are discussed a logical concept of sustainability, respectively of a sustainable system in general are discussed and built up. Sustainability is considered in light of identity preservation of the systems, as a static anchor, on one hand, and of the concept of automatic stabilizers as a dynamic anchor on the other side. Finally, the two sufficiency conditions for a logically vivid system be sustainable are identified: the presence of hyper-cycles, respectively the absence of positive feed-back.

This research investigates the positive role developers and private investors play in preservation and restoration of historical buildings and important sites to national identity in Malta. The research also investigates the positive experience of energy conservation and its contribution to the environment. The role of foreign investors through direct investments, made a significant contribution to the restoration, preservation, and improvements to the tourism sector of the Maltese economy. Findings shows that this is the golden age in construction technology, whereby firms are experimenting with varying technologies, that includes 3D printing, VR, and other digitalized technologies that uses data to make better informed decisions regarding restoration and preservation of heritage buildings, as is the case with Sadeen Group, which showed that innovative practices were facilitated by the education arm of Sadeen, and affection of turning historical ruins into educational institution can make a significant difference to the local community. Proceedings of the 30th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 9-12 May 2022, Online, pp. 351-355

This paper explores a management practice that increases average daily weight gain (ADG) in dairy heifers from three months of age until confirmed pregnancy. The practice achieves early maturation of the animal as heifers under this management start lactation at 22 months of age compared to 26 months under common farm practices. This practice is an efficient rearing process for dairy farms and is considered more environment-friendly. It is associated with reduced emissions of GHG due to a reduced need for maintenance feeding, as well as a lower demand for recruitment animals. The management practice implies higher daily feed costs, but there are lesser days of feeding and lower costs of housing and labour. The objective of this study is to explore the financial and environmental impacts of the ADG management practice on Norwegian dairy farms.

This paper conveniently skips any controversy associated with the science of climate change. On the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change that is detrimental to humanity, the paper focuses on some economic dimensions of the issue which seem to be poorly understood by Australian media commentators, policy analysts, interest groups and the political parties. Using a neoclassical welfare economics framework the paper explores the costs and benefits of greenhouse gas abatement with reference to the findings of the Stern Report, the setting of greenhouse gas targets by Australian political parties, the danger of the government “picking winners” and the emerging carbon theory of value. The paper concludes with a brief review of the relative merits of a carbon tax and a cap and trade approach. Key Words: This paper conveniently skips any controversy associated with the science of climate change. On the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change that is detrimental to humanity, the paper focuses on some economic dimensions of the issue which seem to be poorly understood by Australian media commentators, policy analysts, interest groups and the political parties. Using a neoclassical welfare economics framework the paper explores the costs and benefits of greenhouse gas abatement with reference to the findings of the Stern Report, the setting of greenhouse gas targets by Australian political parties, the danger of the government “picking winners” and the emerging carbon theory of value. The paper concludes with a brief review of the relative merits of a carbon tax and a cap and trade approach.

This Milestone, namely M3.3, is part of Task 3.3 “Downscaling of future climate projections at the case-study scale and their transfer to the Partners”. The aim of M3.3 is to outline the results of the climate change evaluation over the investigated pilot sites. For the future projections of the climate variables (precipitation and temperature), the data provided by EURO-CORDEX initiative under two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) are used. The main information on the pilot sites, available data, analyses and results are presented. The data are freely downloadable from the web repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7247977. This project is part of the PRIMA Programme supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 1923.