Search Results (22)

Sustainable intensification requires metrics that are able to capture both economic performance and the often-hidden environmental inputs that support agriculture. Emergy analysis (EmA) meets this need by converting all inputs—free environmental flows and purchased goods/services—into a common unit (solar emjoules, sej). We conducted a PRISMA-documented bibliometric review of EmA in agroecosystems (Web of Science + Scopus, 2000–2022) using Bibliometrix and synthesized farm-scale indicators (ELR, EYR, ESI, %R). Our results show output has grown but is concentrated in a few countries (China, Italy and Brazil) and journals, with farm-level assessments dominating over regional and national assessments. Across cases, mixed crop–livestock systems tend to show lower environmental loading (ELR) and higher sustainability (ESI) than crop-only or livestock-only systems. %R is generally modest, indicating continued reliance on non-renewables, with fertilizers (crops) and purchased feed (livestock) identified as recurrent drivers. Thematic mapping reveals well-developed niche clusters but no single motor theme, consistent with the presence of incongruous baselines, transformities and boundaries that limit comparability. We recommend adoption of the 12.1 × 10²⁴ sej yr⁻¹ baseline, transparent transformity reporting and multi-scale designs that link farm diagnostics to basin and national trajectories. Co-reporting with complementary sustainability assessment methods (such as LCA and carbon footprint), along with appropriate UEV resources, would increase its reputation among policymakers while preserving EmA’s systems perspective, converting dispersed case evidence into cumulative knowledge for circular, resilient agroecosystems. Full article

Mangoes are an important part of Hainan’s tropical characteristic agriculture. In response to the requirements of building an ecological civilization pilot demonstration zone in Hainan, China, green and sustainable development will be the future development trend of the mango planting system. However, the economic benefits and environmental impact during its planting and management process remain unclear. This paper combines emergy, life cycle assessment (LCA), and economic analysis to compare the system sustainability, environmental impact, and economic benefits of the traditional mango cultivation system (TM) in Dongfang City, Hainan Province, and the early-maturing mango cultivation system (EM) in Sanya City. The emergy evaluation results show that the total emergy input of EM (1.37 × 10¹⁶ sej ha⁻¹) was higher than that of TM (1.32 × 10¹⁶ sej ha⁻¹). From the perspective of the emergy index, compared with TM, EM exerted less pressure on the local environment and has better stability and sustainability. This was due to the higher input of renewable resources in EM. The LCA results showed that based on mass as the functional unit, the potential environmental impact of the EM is relatively high, and its total environmental impact index was 18.67–33.19% higher than that of the TM. Fertilizer input and On-Farm emissions were the main factors causing environmental consequences. Choosing alternative fertilizers that have a smaller impact on the environment may effectively reduce the environmental impact of the system. The economic analysis results showed that due to the higher selling price of early-maturing mango, the total profit and cost–benefit ratio of the EM have increased by 55.84% and 36.87%, respectively, compared with the TM. These results indicated that EM in Sanya City can enhance environmental sustainability and boost producers’ annual income, but attention should be paid to the negative environmental impact of excessive fertilizer input. These findings offer insights into optimizing agricultural inputs for Hainan mango production to mitigate multiple environmental impacts while enhancing economic benefits, aiming to provide theoretical support for promoting the sustainable development of the Hainan mango industry. Full article

This paper uses a perspective of life cycle ecological emergy and carbon footprint to quantitatively verify the sustainable status of building systems; it also employs a neural network model to predict and analyze their long-term ecological and carbon footprint effects. The research results show that the stages of building material production and building operation play a major role in the emergy and carbon emissions of the entire building system, and their changes show an inverse trend. As the building system operates, the greater the system loss and consumption, the environmental load rate (ELR) will gradually increase, and the sustainability parameter (ESI) will also gradually decrease. The integration of energy storage modules significantly improves the sustainability of the building system. When calculated over five time periods (5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and 50 years), the overall carbon emission reduction rates after adding the energy storage module are 39.4%, 33.6%, 39.2%, 42.5%, and 38.8% respectively, demonstrating that the energy storage module has a significant positive effect on the sustainability of the building system. This study reveals the energy efficiency and environmental impact of the building system throughout its entire life cycle, providing a scientific basis for optimizing building design. Full article

This study aimed to compare the environmental performance of plastic bags made of three different polymers, considering two product functions: carrying goods and packing municipal solid waste. The three polymers studied were HDPE, LDPE, and thermoplastic starch (TPS). Life cycle assessment and emergy accounting were used to evaluate the environmental performance of each scenario in analysis. To develop this research, eight scenarios were created to represent the customs of use and consumption in the Brazilian population. The LCA results showed that, in general, the scenarios with HDPE plastic bags presented the best environmental performances, while those with TPS presented the worst. The processes that contributed most to these results, representing 70% or more of the environmental impact in each impact category, are related to the use of raw materials, electricity, and water for the manufacture of plastic bags and the treatment in landfills. In other words, the fact that TPS has a mass around six times greater than that of HDPE and two times greater than that of LDPE ends up leaving this type of polymer with the worst environmental performance. In the comparative analysis of scenarios for the same polymer, scenarios that involve the use and reuse of plastic bags present the lowest potential environmental impacts. In contrast, those related to the use and disposal in landfills present the highest possible environmental impacts. The results of emergy accounting showed that the HDPE scenarios had the lowest total emergy flow, ranging from 1.77 × 10¹³ seJ to 2.40 × 10¹³ seJ. In contrast, the LDPE scenarios had the highest total emergy flow, ranging from 1.15 × 10¹⁴ to 1.21 × 10¹⁴ seJ. Although LDPE had the highest total emergy flow values, these results are similar to those obtained by the fossil resource scarcity impact category, which focuses on resource consumption analysis. Thus, through a real approach to the use of plastic bags and solid waste management in the Brazilian context, this study brings essential insights to direct public policies related to the consumption of plastic bags. Full article

The ecological landscape design of urban rivers plays a crucial role in mitigating the urban heat island effect and preserving urban ecology. This study focuses on the construction process data of key landscape nodes along Nanjing’s urban rivers. By employing a whole life cycle emergy approach and carbon emission method, the sustainable changes in the landscape system are quantitatively assessed. Furthermore, artificial neural networks have been used to conduct long-term sustainability analysis and predictions for the landscape system. The research findings reveal that over time, the maintenance investment in landscape projects gradually becomes dominant, increasing from 2% in the first year to approximately 75% after 30 years. This phenomenon signifies a decline in the efficiency of the landscape system. Sustaining the ecological balance of the landscape system necessitates continuous inputs of material flow, energy flow, and information flow. The major contributors to carbon emissions in the landscape engineering system are diesel fuel, cement, and steel. This highlights opportunities for sustainable improvement from a low-carbon perspective. To enhance the ecological sustainability of urban waterfront landscapes, three measures are proposed: sponge city construction concepts, coupled sewage treatment systems, and information flow monitoring systems. The effectiveness of these measures was preliminarily validated. Full article

Facing the abnormal climate changes and the goal of carbon neutrality, the ecological sustainability research of building systems has become a focus of attention for experts in this field. However, the definition of sustainable buildings is broad. This article discusses the quantitative analysis of sustainable buildings from the perspectives of an ecological emergy and carbon footprint. It also establishes the long-term sustainability of buildings through predictive neural networks. The research findings indicate that the emergy and carbon emissions during the operational and materials phases dominate the entire system. The calculation and analysis of the emergy sustainability indicator (ESI) demonstrate a decreasing trend in the sustainability of the building system over three time periods (10 years, 20 years, and 30 years), with results of 0.58, 0.238, and 0.089, respectively. As the operational time increases, carbon emissions from the building system also increase, further exacerbating the pressure on the building and reducing its overall sustainability. To address this dilemma, sustainable retrofit measures have been proposed, such as rainwater harvesting and embedded applications of distributed energy sources, which reduce the burden of emergy and carbon emissions. The effectiveness of these measures has been validated in this article, demonstrating their potential to enhance building sustainability and providing references for architects and building managers. Full article

Sustainable architecture holds research significance as a necessary approach to address climate change. However, the lack of a clear definition and diverse research methods present obstacles in this field. To overcome these challenges, this study adopts an integrated approach that combines ecological and low-carbon aspects and considers the entire life cycle system. The highlight of this article is the integration of two research methods to assess the sustainability of a building system from both ecological and carbon footprint perspectives. This approach has not been extensively explored by researchers thus far. The aim is to quantitatively explore and evaluate the sustainability performance of building systems. The research findings reveal that, among the five life cycle stages, the operational stage of a building exhibits the highest proportions of emergy consumption and carbon emissions, accounting for approximately 89.4% and 90%, respectively. From an emergy analysis perspective, newly constructed building systems demonstrate qualified sustainable parameters (Emergy Sustainability Indicator (ESI) = 2.7 > 1)). However, as the building system ages and operates over time, the overall sustainable parameters gradually decrease, eventually becoming unqualified. Furthermore, carbon emissions analysis indicates that total carbon emissions accelerate with the aging of the building, highlighting the necessity of continuous inputs of material flow, energy flow, and information flow to maintain the building system’s sustainability. The cross-feedback model emerges as the most effective correction method among the input processes, although data collection poses a challenge due to its nonlinearity. This study provides a fresh perspective for architects and building managers, offering insights that contribute to mitigating climate change and promoting sustainable practices in the built environment. Full article

In the face of the increasingly deteriorating global environment, the sustainability of building systems has become a major research topic. This paper presents sustainability research on large-scale building cases from the perspectives of ecological emergy value and carbon emissions. Specifically, by calculating the emergy value and carbon emissions throughout the entire life cycle of the building system, a quantitative analysis of sustainability based on the LCA–emergy–carbon-emissions framework is completed. The results indicate that from the perspectives of both emergy value (over 80%) and carbon emissions (over 90%), the operational stage and the building-material-production stage are the controlling factors. Retrofit design strategies help enhance the sustainability performance of the building system, but different types of design strategies have different effects. The landscape-transformation-design strategy (strategy A) significantly improves the ecological sustainability of the building system, the equipment-improvement strategy (strategy B) helps reduce the carbon emissions of the building system, while the infrastructure-renewal strategy not only has a weaker impact on sustainability improvement but also generates the highest carbon emissions. Additionally, with the aim of controlling carbon emissions, the integration of solar clean energy sources contributes to the overall sustainability of the building system, providing references for architects and building managers. Full article

Ecologically sustainable buildings and their carbon emissions are two popular ideas for building life cycle systems. It is a challenge to comprehensively assess the sustainability of building cases using two different methods. Based on over a decade of research, this paper attempts to explore the possibility of quantitatively integrating both approaches. In this study, we adopted the emergy method and carbon emission approach to assess and analyze a building system. In particular, similarities and differences have been identified through emergy and carbon emissions at each stage of the building’s whole life cycle. The results demonstrate that the building operation phase is the critical contributor (Approximately 79.6% of the total emergy and 97.9% of the entire carbon emission), which occupies the most emergy and carbon emission amounts of the whole building system. In order to improve the ecological sustainability of the building system, renewable energy subsystems are considered and explored. While the overall sustainability of the building system is enhanced, the new systems will aggrandize the carbon emissions. Therefore, the ecological sustainability of building systems and carbon emissions should be considered comprehensively, and the relationship between the two views needs to be balanced. Full article

This paper focuses on the sustainable exploration of building systems, which combines ecological concepts and low-carbon designs for a comprehensive sustainability assessment investigation. The study employed the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-Emergy and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-Carbon emission methods to discuss a range of topics, including the main contributing factors, sustainability index verification, sensitivity analysis, and potential improvement measures. From an ecological sustainability perspective, the results indicate that the building operation stage plays a critical role, accounting for approximately 45% of the entire emergy in the building commercial complex. The sustainable index (ESI) is 0.354, which is below the standard of 1. Moreover, the building operation stage also significantly contributes to carbon emissions, particularly in the 50th anniversary of operation. Based on these findings, the study recommends two potential strategies to improve the ecological state and low-carbon design which involve the use of renewable energy and carbon sink improvement, respectively. Full article

Rivers play a key role in regulating urban ecology, which can improve urban climate while slowing the heat island effect. As one of embodied energy in the field of ecology, emergy theory can be used to quantitatively evaluate the ecological characteristics of a system. This will help to further explore urban ecological sustainability in this article. In this study, four ecological riverbank reconstruction projects have been executed to restore the ecology along the banks of the Jinchuan River in Nanjing, China, which focus on the key river–lakeside and waterfront space in the main urban area. The LCA–emergy–carbon emission method was applied through a series of indicators, including emergy indexes and carbon emission indicators. It is important to distinguish prior research, and few have utilized this approach on urban waterways and waterscapes. The results illustrate that the reconstruction system has obvious improvement significance to the whole river ecology. This change can also be seen when using LCA–emergy analysis. In a 20-year cycle, the emergy of the material production stage and maintenance phase account for a major emergy share, followed by the construction stage, transportation process, and design process stage. The sustainability (ESI indicator) has been improved after carrying out the reconstruction projects. By choosing water and gravel as the primary material, the carbon emission can be reduced. The water treatment process accounts for the vast majority of carbon emissions. Secondly, gravel also plays an important role in carbon emission. Finally, an improved measure (clean energy reuse) was conducted to enhance the ecology of the reconstruction projects and obtained a significant ecological sustainability boost. Full article

From a global perspective, the ecological sustainability of building systems has always been a hot research topic, especially in China, where the annual amount of new construction is nearly half of the world. The difficulty is making a complete and accurate ecological assessment of the building system. This study has designed and adopted the LCA-Emergy-ANN framework to assess and analyze an airport building system for sustainability. The results demonstrate that building material emergy and operational stage emergy play a critical role and account for 92.4% of the entire emergy, which are the primary contributors. As the vital indicator, the emergy sustainability index (ESI) is 0.669, which is unsustainable (The eligibility standard is 1). Simultaneously, to ensure the accuracy of the data results, sensitivity analysis was performed. The artificial neural network (ANN) was used by integrating the LCA method and emergy approach to predict the sustainability trend in the long run. In the end, the optimization strategy is proposed to enhance the sustainability of the building system. Full article

This study proposes a framework of environmental and energy performance indicators identified and critically evaluated within the scientific literature and the Agricultural European Database for the monitoring and evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. The identified set of performance indicators encompasses the whole life cycle of agri-food systems from primary production stage until end-of-life stage in agreement with the circular economy and EU “farm to fork strategy” frameworks. In particular, the practices/goals/targets suggested in the latter (e.g., organic farming goals, more relevance assigned to plant-based diets, support for the creation of short supply chains, and reduction in food losses and waste) have guided the search for the main topics of interest in our analysis and the associated environmental and energy indicators. The results of this study evidence a proposed set of performance indicators selected from the literature among LCA and non-LCA indicators (midpoint LCA impacts, cumulative energy use, emergy accounting, and material flow accounting, among others) that could be helpful in integrating the EU CAP indicators for monitoring and evaluating efforts and achieved results toward implementing and controlling the effectiveness of the adopted “farm to fork” policy and related legislative measures, as well as the application of the circular economy model. Full article

As one of the highest energy and resource consumption industries in China, discussion on the sustainability of the cement production system has great significance. This study conducted sustainable calculations and analyses for cement production systems based on the emergy method. This study also considers the sustainability impact of clean energy on the overall cement production system. Through a series of sustainable indicator measurements, the results prove that: (1) the two primary sections, non-renewable resource and non-renewable energy, contribute 88.6% and 11.1% of the emergy proportion, respectively; (2) the emergy sustainability indicator (ESI) was only 0.058, which is significantly less than the standard; (3) through the analysis of eight hypotheses, a very small change between the absolute values was found, which demonstrates that the sensitivity changes are within acceptable limits for the cement production system; and (4) by integrating the biological power generation subsystem, sustainability has been optimized in the cement production system. Finally, two ameliorated strategies are discussed in this paper for the better sustainability performance of the cement production system in the future. Full article

Petrochemicals, which convert oil and gas into products such as plastics, are fundamental to modern societies. Chemists recognize their role in designing materials and the adverse effects that these may have on the environment, preventing sustainable development. Several methodological frameworks and sustainability assessment approaches have been developed to evaluate the resources used in the petrochemical sector in terms of environmental costs. Still, there is a need to evaluate these systems in terms of environmental costs deeply. A combination of life cycle assessment and emergy accounting—to assess the environmental support for resource use—is applied in this study of the PET production chain in Europe. The unit emergy values of several intermediates are calculated or updated to facilitate the discernment of the quality of energy used and the processes’ efficiency. Several routes for synthesizing renewable para-xylene and ethylene glycol from biomass are discussed and confronted with the efforts focused on recycling and recovering the final product, providing concurrently a procedure and a valuable data set for future CP actions. The results show that understanding the efficiencies changing across the production chain may help stakeholders decide where and when interventions to promote a circular economy are most effective along a petrochemical production chain. Full article