2017 December - 24 articles
The paper investigates actions and decisions of agricultural resource users and explores their implications for institutional change and natural resource management in the post-socialist context of Central Asia. More specifically, the authors propose...
Low- and middle-income countries lag behind in research that is related to the construction industry and the waste problems that the sector is facing. Literature shows that waste reduction and recycling have received a continuous interest from resear...
Despite being generally poorly recognized by public authorities, informal recycling remains nevertheless a major component in the waste sector, which questions the legitimacy of the official waste arrangements. A look at the current transformation in...
Dematerialization is a paradigm in resource conservation strategies. Material use should be reduced so that resource consumption as a whole can be lowered. The benefit for humankind should be completely decoupled from the natural expenditure by a def...
We present the results of a regression analysis of a large-scale integrated user online application that surveys natural resource use and subjective well-being in Germany. We analyse more than 44,000 users who provided information on their natural re...
The assessment of the sustainability of agricultural systems is multidimensional in nature and requires holistic measures using indicators with different measurements and units reflecting social, economic, and environmental aspects. To simplify the a...
The valorization of aquatic-derived biowastes as possible feedstock for the production of value-added chemicals and materials is proposed here as a sustainable alternative compared to the exploitation of the more conventional (fossil) resources. In t...
Recent advances in the electronics sector and the short life-span of electronic products have triggered an exponential increase in the generation of electronic waste (E-waste). Effective recycling of E-waste has thus become a serious solid waste mana...
Recently the circular economy has increasingly received attention worldwide due to the recognition that the security of the supply of resources and environmental sustainability are crucial for the prosperity of all the countries and businesses. G20 c...
Platinum and palladium are used in small but essential quantities in a variety of advanced industrial sectors. Platinum and palladium are used as catalysts in various industrial sectors, especially in the car industry. However, their sources are typi...
Global greenhouse gas emissions have increased at a rate of nearly 2% per year since 1970, and the rate of increase has been increasing. The contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming constitutes an environmental management challenge requirin...
Indicator-based tools are widely used for the assessment of farm sustainability, but analysts still face methodological and conceptual issues, including data availability, the complexity of the concept of sustainability and the heterogeneity of agric...
This article addresses a research gap on the challenges—specifically risk and value—connected to realizing the potential for closing loops for rare earth elements (REE). We develop an analytical framework from conceptual elements of the global value...
The European Union (EU) has set a mandatory target for renewable fuels of 10% for each member state by 2020. Biomethane is a renewable energy representing an alternative to the use of fossil fuels in the transport sector. This resource is a solution...
Recycling has been taking place in South Africa for more than three decades, driven by social and economic needs. While the waste hierarchy is embedded in national policy, an extensive legislative framework has made it more and more challenging for t...
This paper highlights the thermal performance of reclined (parallel to ground surface) and standing (perpendicular to ground surface) slinky horizontal ground heat exchangers (HGHEs) with different water mass flow rates in the heating mode of continu...
Sustainable development is inconceivable without healthy real estate market. A housing project can be regarded as sustainable only when all the dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social) are dealt with. There has been an incre...
During a participatory process in Gmunden, Austria, the organizational and responsibility-sharing arrangements for a landslide warning system proved to be contested issues. While questions on the warning system technology and the distribution of info...
Early successional habitat (ESH) is an important component of natural landscapes and is crucial to maintaining biodiversity. ESH also impacts endangered species. The extent of forest disturbances resulting in ESH has been diminishing, and foresters h...
The discussion on the circular economy (CE) has attracted a rising interest within global policy and business as a way of increasing the sustainability of production and consumption. Yet the literature mostly portrays a Global North perspective. Ther...
Approximately >50% of global rare earth element (REE) resources are hosted by carbonatite related deposits, of which monazite is one of the most important REE minerals. Monazite dominates more than 30 carbonatite-related REE deposits around the wo...
The dairy sector in the Netherlands aims for a 30% increase in efficiency and 30% carbon dioxide emission reduction compared to the reference year of 1990, and a 20% share of renewable energy, all by the year 2020. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can play a...
Properly managed biopiles can be used for slaughterhouse-residual degradation and bacterial pathogen inactivation, which otherwise represent a major health risk in the environment. Biopiles were used to dispose of slaughterhouse-residuals and determi...
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) was adopted as a stand-alone goal and reflected as one of the cross-cutting objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a central role to address global resource consumption and its associ...
