Resources — Open Access Journal

Climate change, recurrent economic and financial crises and food security issues are forcing society to look at the increasingly widespread use of “sustainable” production practices. These are often translated into innovations for businesses that are not always easily achievable other than through specific investments. This work sets out to assess the sustainability performance of organic farms, which represent a sustainable production model in terms of values, standards, practices and knowledge on the ground. The research was carried out in two geographical contexts (the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Sicily, Italy) which have certain environmental and socio-economic issues in common, particularly in productive sectors representative of organic agriculture. This was done with the help of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA, in the rest of the text) framework and social network analysis to study the sustainability performance of organic farms within non-structured local production systems in the form of formal enterprise networks that, on the contrary, operate with a recognized and common aim. The results demonstrate both their attainment of excellence and the existence of criticalities, thus, identifying routes to possible improvement. Full article

Waste cooking oil (WCO) has been considered a low-cost and renewable feedstock for the production of biodiesel and biobased products if it can be economically and efficiently collected and recycled. The objective of this case study is to review the scientific background of WCO recycling in the literature in connection with the regulatory and promotional measures in Taiwan under the authorization of a legal waste management system. Furthermore, the updated information about the on-line reporting WCO amounts in Taiwan is also analyzed to illustrate its significant increase in the recycling status of WCO officially designated as one of the mandatory recyclable wastes since 2015. Finally, an overview of available utilization of WCO as biodiesel, fuel oil, and non-fuel related uses is briefly addressed in this paper. It shows that the collected amounts of WCO from residential and commercial sectors in Taiwan significantly increased from 1599 tonnes in 2015 to 12,591 tonnes, reflecting on the WCO recycling regulation effective since 2015. Practically, the most important option for this urban mining is to reuse WCO as an energy source for the productions of biodiesel and auxiliary fuel. Other non-fuel related uses include the production of soaps/detergents, C-18 fatty acids, and lubricants. However, the reuse of WCO as a feed additive should be banned to prevent it from re-entering the food chain. Full article

Personal and physical injuries are two of the most relevant costs to hospitals. Hospital laundries are sources of these costs due to the physical and health risks present in the clothes and the activities performed. Energy and environmental risk and infrastructure issues also incur operational costs to these organizations and to the health system. This research analyzes the social, environmental, and economic risk in the hospital laundry process, through a multiple-case-study design. Data collection methods include interviews regarding three hospital laundry services in Brazil. The processes of these laundry services have a high consumption of resources (water and energy) and a substantial generation of solid and liquid wastes. Cost reduction actions include pooled laundry services and material substitution. There are also social and environmental risks, the most frequent being ergonomic, biological, and chemical hazards, and injures from sharp devices inadequately disposed. Hospital laundries need more sustainable operations, not only in the infrastructure, but also mostly in the awareness of leaders and teams about the importance of their engagements to resource management and waste reduction in laundry. It is opportune to convince professionals and users about changing habits that do not prioritize sustainability, especially its social and environmental aspects. Full article

This study aimed to assess the bioremediation of soils polluted with fuel oil 6 (FO6) using diffuse reflectance (DR) spectroscopy in the visible and near infrared (Vis-NIR) electromagnetic spectrum. To achieve our goal, we determined the spectral signature of fuel oil 6 (FO6), developed a calibration model to quantify the total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), and assessed the bioremediation in soils contaminated with FO6 and inoculated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Surface soil samples (SS) (0–30 cm depth) from uncontaminated Entisol soil from Termoesmeraldas Thermal Power Plant, Ecuador and quart sand (QS) samples were spiked with FO6 at a known contamination of 0.5, 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 wt.% on a gravimetric basis. A sample of contaminated Entisol soil was taken to isolate P. aeruginosa from a spill site located in Termoesmeraldas. P. aeruginosa was successfully augmented in a molasses medium. The results suggested that the C–H stretch combination overtone band around 2300 nm is the one that makes the significant contribution to the FO6 spectral signature and for the analysis of FO6 contaminated Entisols soil. The calibration model for QS samples and SS showed an excellent agreement with experimental data R2 = 0.9989 and R2 = 0.9968, respectively. The TPH at 0, 7, 14, 21, and 23 days after inoculation were found using a calibration model developed and the Unach hydrocarbon index (UHI). While the QS samples showed the lower recovery rate (13.6%), the Entisols SS showed the higher recovery rate (45.8%) in 23 days. The use of DR spectroscopy and determination of the FO6 spectral signature allowed the assessment of the bioremediation process of QS and Entisols SS samples. The results showed that DR decreased with increasing the FO6 concentration and soil properties affected the degree of biodegradation. Full article

Iran boasts internationally important deposits of hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons can be regarded not only as an exceptional energy resource, but also a geological heritage (geoheritage) resource. A new investigation of the Bangestan carbonate rocks from the Cretaceous age in the Fars Province has permitted to find several unique features and to assign these to six geoheritage types, namely sedimentary, palaeontological, stratigraphical, palaeogeographical, structural, and economic. The most important from these is the economic type that is ranked nationally. The Bangestan geoheritage is valuable for geoscience research, geoeducation, and geotourism, and this geoheritage is a subject of geoconservation. As these activities can bring some socio-economic benefits, this geoheritage has to be considered a true natural resource. Field studies have permitted to emphasize its appropriate manifestation in the Nowdan anticline (an area in the Zagros Mountains near the cities of Shiraz and Kazeroon), which is suggested as a geosite. Hydrocarbon-related industrial tourism and geotourism activities can be coupled for their mutual benefit. The Nowdan anticline geosite should be used for the purposes of tourism, but it requires some simple infrastructure building and involvement in excursion programs coordinated by a local museum or visitor centre. Full article

Achieving a “carbon neutral” world by 2100 or earlier in a context of economic growth implies a drastic and profound transformation of the way energy is supplied and consumed in our societies. In this paper, we use life-cycle inventories of electricity-generating technologies and an integrated assessment model (TIMES Integrated Assessment Model) to project the global raw material requirements in two scenarios: a second shared socioeconomic pathway baseline, and a 2 °C scenario by 2100. Material usage reported in the life-cycle inventories is distributed into three phases, namely construction, operation, and decommissioning. Material supply dynamics and the impact of the 2 °C warming limit are quantified for three raw fossil fuels and forty-eight metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources. Depending on the time horizon, graphite, sand, sulfur, borates, aluminum, chromium, nickel, silver, gold, rare earth elements or their substitutes could face a sharp increase in usage as a result of a massive installation of low-carbon technologies. Ignoring nonfuel resource availability and value in deep decarbonation, circular economy, or decoupling scenarios can potentially generate misleading, contradictory, or unachievable climate policies. Full article

The concept of a “circular economy”, in which material in society is regarded as “a transient phase in anthropogenic resource utilization”, is a growing topic for discussion. The primary motivations for supporting a circular economy include a reduction of environmental impacts and conservation of natural resources. Australia is a vivid example of a country whose large metal extraction capacity is not balanced as it has neither an extensive product manufacturing capability nor a large domestic market. Consequently, Australia must rely on the global resource network to achieve circularity and carbon neutrality. This work illustrates this situation with quantitative material flow cycles for Australian aluminum, nickel, copper, zinc, and stainless steel, and comments on the implications of the results for Australia and for circular economy prospects more generally. Full article

Since the eighties, the concern for sustainability has been increasing from several dimensions and depending on different socio-economic, political, geographical and cultural factors. In the last few years, local development has incorporated the concept of sustainability, as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals strategy, highlighting the relevance of this process. The purpose of this research is to show the state of the art of this subject, for what a bibliometric analysis has been carried out based on the two most important online databases: Web of Science and Scopus. This article identifies the latest trends that characterize the concept of sustainable local development, where resilience is the new perspective to include in the variables that influence the development of territories. The results show a positive trend in this field of research, with both the number of articles published and citations increasing exponentially in the last ten years. In addition, the analysis of keywords has shown a tendency towards terms such as resilience, rural tourism or ecological agriculture. In essence, the concept has reached such a point that it is necessary to establish new mechanisms that soften and even negate the economic disruption caused by globalization. Full article

After years of conventional approaches to solid waste management (SWM), in 2009, Bulawayo City Council adopted a non-conventional approach in the form of community-based solid waste management (CBSWM). The success of a CBSWM depends on the participation of members of the public as well as private sector organisations. Yet there is no information documented about their involvement in such activities in the study area. This study provides an analysis of citizen knowledge, participation and their attitudes in SWM in Nkulumane suburb following implementation of a CBSWM project. Door-to-door surveys were undertaken in December 2017 and January 2018 during which interview-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 375 randomly-selected households. Semi-structured interviews were also used to gather data from officials responsible for CBSWM. The study found that the CBSWM has not been successful in changing the waste disposal behaviour of citizens. It was also found that the community-based organisations (CBOs) have made no effort to implement alternative waste management practices of waste recycling and composting. Furthermore, lack of funds to improve waste infrastructure and infighting between the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Bulawayo City Council have undermined the principles of CBSWM. The study concludes by suggesting strategies that could improve CBSWM in developing countries. Full article

The transition from a fossil fuel base to a renewable energy system relies on materials and, in particular, metals to manufacture and maintain energy conversion technologies. Supply constraints shift from fossil fuels to mineral resources. We assess the availability of metal reserves and resources to build an energy system based exclusively on renewable energy technologies. A mass balance of 29 metals embodied in renewable energy technologies is compiled in order to satisfy global energy demand, based on five authoritative energy scenarios for 2050. We expand upon these scenarios by modeling the storage capacity needed to support high shares of intermittent renewables (wind and solar). The metal requirements are then compared with the current demand and proven reserves and ultimate mineable resources. This allows us to distinguish between constraints related to renewable energy sources from those linked to technology mixes. The results show that proven reserves and, in specific cases, resources of several metals are insufficient to build a renewable energy system at the predicted level of global energy demand by 2050. The comparison between reserves and resources shows that scarcity relates sometimes more to techno economic supply than to raw material availability. Our results also highlight the importance of substitution among technologies and metals as well as the limited impact of recycling on the depletion of scarce metals. Full article

Understanding forestry practices cost is important for predicting the financial outcome of forest management activities. Assessing costs of practices that will be used in the future can be difficult and may result in over or underestimations of financial returns depending on the values used. We used historic real average rates of cost change for the southern United States to assess changes in the values of several loblolly pine plantation management scenarios over time through the use of discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. Additionally, we analyzed the impact of certain practices cost changes on the financially optimal number of thinnings and rotation age. Findings indicated that declining costs for herbicide site preparation could all but offset the increasing costs of other practices and that a relatively slight increase in timber prices would more than compensate for increasing costs. Also, increasing thinning costs could exacerbate the effects of low sawtimber prices, further decreasing the viability of regimes with multiple thinnings. In the face of stagnant timber prices, the use of operator-select thinnings, and herbicide site preparation could stabilize the long-term financial value of plantation management. Full article

This paper presents a holistic innovative solution for the transformation of the current district heating and cooling systems to automated more efficient systems. A variety of technological advancements have been developed and integrated to support the effective energy management of future district heating and cooling sector. First, we identify and discuss the main challenges and needs that are in line with the EU objectives and policy expectations. We give an overview of the main parts that our solution consists of, with emphasis on the forecasting tools and an advanced control system that addresses unit commitment and economic load dispatch problems. The proposed control approach employs distributed and scalable optimisation algorithms for optimising the short-term operations of a district heating and cooling plant subject to technical constraints and uncertainties in the energy demand. To test the performance and validate the proposed control system, a district heating plant with multiple energy generation units and real-life heat load data were used. Simulation experiments were also used to evaluate the benefits of using thermal storage units in district heating systems. The results show that the proposed method could achieve significant cost savings when energy storage is employed. The proposed control strategy can be applied for both operating optimally district heating plants with storage and supporting investment planning for new storage units. Full article

Global manufacturing firms are engaging distant suppliers of critical raw materials to participate in responsible sourcing. Downstream firms are concerned about risks in mineral supply chains of violent conflict, human rights violations, and poor governance, but they are limited in seeing their suppliers. Descriptive data on 323 smelters and refiners of tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold (the “conflict minerals”) were complemented by interviews with downstream firms in the electronics industry. Results provided a narrative of supplier engagement, describing tactics used to identify “deep suppliers” at chokepoints in metals supply and to persuade producers into joining due diligence programs. Top-tier firms collaborate through a standards program to overcame barriers of geography and cultural distance in supply chain management beyond the visible horizon. Curiously, manufacturers do not need line-of-sight transparency to lower-tier suppliers. Rather, top-tier firms are “jumping the chain” to engage directly with “deep suppliers” who may—or may not—be their own actual physical suppliers. The research contributes empirical evidence to understanding multi-tier supply chains, examines how power is exercised by top-tier firms managing suppliers, and provides insights on supply chain transparency. Responsible sourcing, based on due diligence guidance and standards, is becoming expected of companies that are involved in supply chains of raw materials. Full article

This paper explores how policy structure, institutions, and political climate impact the ability of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) to ensure the reclamation of surface coal mines. We conduct a policy review that traces the impacts of the three parts of SMCRA; Reclamation Standards, Reclamation Bonding Requirements, and the Abandoned Mine Land fund. We examine the implications the act and its approach have for the mining industry and their ability to reclaim mining areas. We find that each of the three parts of SMCRA’s approach face substantial problems in their implementation. Though largely a positive force for internalizing the environmental costs of surface mining, those issues commonly elucidated in the public choice literature reduce the efficacy of the policy approach and call into question the act’s ability to ensure reclamation occurs. Both in the structure of the bonding requirements and in the regulatory structure created by the act, misaligned incentives sometimes hamper effective reclamation. Further, the funds created under SMCRA to reclaim and restore mined lands have often been directed towards projects that are politically expedient for politicians instead of those that would best serve the fund’s original reclamation purpose. After revealing these problems and putting them in the context of the public choice literature, we suggest updates to the current policy that would align reclamation incentives and better ensure that the reclamation of surface mines occurs. We emphasize the cooperative elements of SMCRA and suggest how other countries, especially those without major existing frameworks for handling reclamation, can emulate the successes of SMCRA while avoiding its implementations snags. Full article

The municipal biowaste anaerobic digestate of a typical waste treatment plant is pyrolyzed under a mild condition (i.e., 540 °C) to directly yield N-doped biochar without performing any subsequent functionalization process. The results confirmed the integration of nitrogen heteroatoms within the carbonaceous framework. The morphological characterization, instead, evidenced the formation of a rather dense biochar with a very low surface area. Full article

The marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea subsp. caffra), a common species in sub-Saharan Africa, grows naturally in both protected and communal land. Although considerable research has been undertaken on these trees in southern Africa, to the authors’ knowledge, the attitudes of local communities towards the protection of marula trees, particularly in communal land, has not been researched. This study intends to fill this gap in knowledge by examining the attitudes of local people towards conservation of marula trees. Studying the attitudes of people can provide insights on how they behave and how they are willing to coexist with S. birrea. The case study is set in Limpopo Province of South Africa in the villages of Ha-Mashau (Thondoni) and Ha-Mashamba where marula trees grow naturally. To fulfil the aim of this study, door-to-door surveys were carried out in 2018 and questionnaire interviews were used as the main data collection tool in 150 randomly selected households. The study revealed that local communities in the study area had positive attitudes towards conservation of marula trees. Strategies that are used by local communities to protect marula trees in communal land are discussed. Full article