Search Results (10)

As an important part of green building, green housing (GH) has become a strategic priority in many countries. However, the market share of GH remains limited due to conflicting interests and divergent strategic choices among stakeholders. To address this challenge, various low-carbon policy tools, such as financial subsidies (FS), carbon taxes (CT), and carbon emissions trading (CET), have been introduced. Despite these efforts, the influence of low-carbon policies on stakeholders’ strategies remains inadequately understood. This study aims to bridge this research gap by constructing an evolutionary game model that incorporates the government, developers, and consumers while considering relevant policy factors. The model identifies evolutionary stable strategies (ESS) for each stakeholder. Then, based on MATLAB 2021b, several simulations are carried out for initial, development, mature, and stable stage. The simulation results show the dynamic changes in stakeholder behavior over time. This study also analyzes how key parameters affect the system’s evolution and puts forward suggestions from each stakeholder’s perspective. The results show that (1) consumer subsidies are more effective than those for developers. (2) Subsidies for developers cause more significant financial pressure on governments than subsidies for consumers. (3) The CET policy helps developers adopt GH more quickly. (4) Proper CT promotes developers to make greener choices. (5) Reducing the difference between green and traditional housing supports the stable development of the GHM. This study offers theoretical insights to guide stakeholder decision-making and provides practical recommendations for government aiming to play a role in fostering GHM development. Full article

The interdependence of various energy forms and flexible cooperative operation between different units in an integrated energy system (IES) are essential for carbon emission reduction. To address the planning problem of an electric–thermal integrated energy system under low-carbon conditions and to fully consider the low carbon and construction sequence of the integrated energy system, a low-carbon-oriented capacity optimization method for the electric–thermal integrated energy system that considers construction time sequence (CTS) and uncertainty is proposed. A calculation model for the carbon transaction cost under the ladder carbon trading mechanism was constructed, and a multi-stage planning model of the integrated energy system was established with the minimum life cycle cost, considering carbon transaction cost as the objective function, to make the optimal decision on equipment configuration in each planning stage. Finally, a case study was considered to verify the advantages of the proposed capacity optimization method in terms of economy and environmental friendliness through a comparative analysis of different planning cases. Simulation results show that, compared with the scenario of completing planning at the beginning of the life cycle at one time, the proposed low-carbon-oriented capacity optimization method that considers construction time sequence and uncertainty can not only reduce the cost of the integrated energy system, but also help to enhance renewable energy utilization and reduce the system’s carbon emissions; the total cost of phased planning is reduced by 11.91% compared to the total cost of one-time planning at the beginning of the year. Full article

This paper addresses the highly topical issue of the digitalisation of the port community through the development of advanced port communication systems (PCSs). The efficient and sustainable operation of container terminals (CTs) plays a key role in global trade and in ensuring the sustainable functioning of transport chains. While larger container terminals utilise PCSs, smaller container terminals often face challenges when implementing similar systems due to resource constraints and unique operational characteristics. This research analyses the impact of PCSs on the operational processes and information exchange between the smaller CT in the Port of Koper and the local port community. The aim of this study is to identify the possibilities of upgrading PCSs with modern information technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchains, internet-of-things (IoT), etc., that will lead to more efficient execution of operational processes, reduced congestion and a lower carbon footprint for the port community as a whole. The paper provides guidelines for the possible coordinated development of PCSs in the Northern Adriatic to ensure the most harmonised operation of stakeholders in different ports or CTs. Full article

As urbanization continues to expand in China, carbon emissions (CE) from the construction industry and the amount of construction and demolition waste (C&DW) are rapidly increasing. In order to reduce CEs and environmental hazards, this paper constructs a Stackelberg game model to explore the evolution of carbon emissions reduction (CER) and recycling strategies in the construction material supply chain (CMSC) under the carbon cap–trade (C&T) mechanism. The monotonicity analysis on important variables and model comparison simulation are then conducted. The results show the following: (1) A contractor’s green preference positively correlates with the CER level and recycling rate, while the CER cost exerts the opposite effect. (2) The C&T mechanism incentivizes low-emission manufacturers to actively participate in CER. However, excessive carbon trading prices may put high-emitters in a dilemma, making the whole supply chain profitless. (3) The recycler’s decision to recycle C&DW tends to follow the manufacturer’s CER decision. These findings not only help policy makers understand stakeholders’ behavior in CMSC under C&T mechanism, but also provide a basis for the government to formulate CER policies and introduce low-carbon management. Full article

Exploring the trade-off/synergy among ecosystem services (ESs) of agroecosystems could provide effective support for improving agricultural resilience for sustainable development. The construction of ecological tea gardens is emerging, aims to achieve a win-win situation for the tea industry and ecological environment protection. However, the effect of ES trade-offs/synergies on tea production is still not clear. In this study, we selected Fuzhou city, China, as a case study and explored the relationship among tea production and ESs in 2010 and 2020. Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) and Intelligent Urban Ecosystem Management System (IUEMS) models were used to assess the ecosystem (dis)services, which were tea production, water yield, soil retention, net primary productivity (NPP), climate regulation, soil erosion and carbon emissions. Then, the sum of trade-off/synergy coefficients of ESs (C_ts) were defined to reveal the trade-off/synergy in tea gardens and areas except tea gardens (ETG areas). K-means clustering was used to assess the spatiotemporal change of traditional tea garden and ecological tea garden, reflecting the effect of ecological tea garden construction. The results showed that: (1) the high-value areas of tea production were mainly distributed in Lianjiang County, with yields up to 3.6 t/ha, and the low-value areas in Yongtai County, with yields from 0.1–1.0 t/ha. Other ESs showed spatial heterogeneity. (2) The trade-offs in ETG areas intensified from 2010 to 2020, with C_ts decreasing from −0.28 to −0.73, and the synergy in tea garden was at risk of decline, with C_ts decreasing from 4.46 to 1.02. (3) From 2010 to 2020, 96.72% of traditional tea gardens (Area I) were transformed into ecological tea gardens (Areas IV and V). (4) Further, we classified the tea garden into five zones based on tea yield, with Zone I as the low tea yield areas and Zone V as the highest. From Zone I to Zone V, the C_ts increased from 2.6 to 7.5 in 2010, and from 1.9 to 6.5 in 2020, respectively. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the construction of ecological tea gardens in Fuzhou and provide a reference for subsequent studies on the ESs of tea gardens and governance of ecological tea gardens. Full article

Mineral building materials suffer from weathering processes such as salt efflorescence, freeze–thaw cycling, and microbial colonization. All of these processes are linked to water (liquid and vapor) in the pore space. The degree of damage following these processes is heavily influenced by pore space properties such as porosity, pore size distribution, and pore connectivity. X-ray computed micro-tomography (µCT) has proven to be a valuable tool to non-destructively investigate the pore space of stone samples in 3D. However, a trade-off between the resolution and field-of-view often impedes reliable conclusions on the material’s properties. X-ray dark-field imaging (DFI) is based on the scattering of X-rays by sub-voxel-sized features, and as such, provides information on the sample complementary to that obtained using conventional µCT. In this manuscript, we apply X-ray dark-field tomography for the first time on four mineral building materials (quartzite, fired clay brick, fired clay roof tile, and carbonated mineral building material), and investigate which information the dark-field signal entails on the sub-resolution space of the sample. Dark-field tomography at multiple length scale sensitivities was performed at the TOMCAT beamline of the Swiss Light Source (Villigen, Switzerland) using a Talbot grating interferometer. The complementary information of the dark-field modality is most clear in the fired clay brick and roof tile; quartz grains that are almost indistinguishable in the conventional µCT scan are clearly visible in the dark-field owing to their low dark-field signal (homogenous sub-voxel structure), whereas the microporous bulk mass has a high dark-field signal. Large (resolved) pores on the other hand, which are clearly visible in the absorption dataset, are almost invisible in the dark-field modality because they are overprinted with dark-field signal originating from the bulk mass. The experiments also showed how the dark-field signal from a feature depends on the length scale sensitivity, which is set by moving the sample with respect to the grating interferometer. Full article

With the increasingly serious problem of environmental pollution, reducing carbon emissions has become an urgent task for all countries. The cap-and-trade (C&T) policy has gained international recognition and has been adopted by several countries. In this paper, considering the uncertainty of market demand, we discuss the carbon emission reduction and price policies of two risk-averse competitive manufacturers under the C&T policy. The two manufacturers have two competitive behaviors: simultaneous decision making and sequential decision making. Two models were constructed for these behaviors. The optimal decisions, carbon emission reduction rate, and price were obtained from these two models. Furthermore, in this paper the effects of some key parameters on the optimal decision are discussed, and some managerial insights are obtained. The results show that the lower the manufacturers’ risk aversion level is, the higher their carbon emission reduction rate and utilities. As the carbon quota increases, the manufacturers’ optimal carbon reduction rate and utilities increase. Considering consumers’ environmental awareness, it is more beneficial for the government to reduce the carbon quota and motivate manufacturers’ internal enthusiasm for emission reduction. The government can, through macro control of the market, make carbon trading prices increase appropriately and encourage manufacturers to reduce carbon emissions. Full article

Climate warming caused by carbon emissions is one of the most serious problems faced by human beings, and the carbon trading (CT) mechanism is an effective way to promote carbon emission reduction and achieve green and low-carbon development. Scholars have mainly studied the impact of CT on the energy economy system, and few scholars studied the game process and behavior strategies of government and power producers in the implementation of a CT mechanism. This paper will fill this gap. This paper firstly constructs the evolutionary game model of government and power producers based on CT, and then simulates the evolutionary process of game behavior strategies by establishing a system dynamics (SD) model, and finally studies the influence of government controllable key factors on system stability. The combination of evolutionary game and SD in our study not only clearly reveals the complex and dynamic evolution process of game models under bounded rationality, but also provides a qualitative and quantitative simulation platform for analyzing the dynamic game process between government and power producers. The results show that: (1) There is no evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) in the game system between government and power producers under CT, and the system evolution is characterized by periodicity; (2) When the government implements dynamic subsidies or punitive measures, the mixed strategy of the game system has ESS; (3) Reducing the unit subsidy and raising the unit fine can both promote the participation of power producers in CT, but the former increases the probability of government supervision; thus, it is best to increase the fines when the government makes strategic adjustments, followed by reducing subsidies. Full article

The implementation of the carbon trading (CT) mechanism is important for the transformation of China’s renewable energy industry, thereby affecting the structure of energy, economy, and the environment, and determining the sustainable development of China’s economic-energy-environment (3E) system in the future. This paper constructs a 3E system simulation model under the CT mechanism based on the theory of system dynamics and taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as an example. We study the internal operation mechanism of the carbon emissions trading system and its impact on 3E by combing the related mechanisms of the CT market, CO₂ emissions, energy consumption, and gross domestic product (GDP), thereby helping to provide references for policy-making institutions. The results show that the implementation of CT can effectively reduce energy consumption growth and carbon emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the negative impact of CT implementation on GDP is significantly lower than its positive impact on reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. Thus, the CT mechanism is conducive to the sustainable development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region’s 3E system. In addition, reducing the total amount of quota, reducing free quota, and increasing CT price can effectively promote carbon emission reduction, thus promoting the sustainable development of the 3E system. Full article

The objective of this study is to seek better policy options for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction in Korea’s international aviation industry by analyzing economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness with a system dynamics (SD) model. Accordingly, we measured airlines sales and CO₂ emission reductions to evaluate economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness, respectively, for various policies. The results show that the average carbon emission reduction rates of four policies compared to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario between 2015 and 2030 are 4.00% (Voluntary Agreement), 7.25% (Emission Trading System or ETS-30,000), 8.33% (Carbon Tax or CT-37,500), and 8.48% (Emission Charge System or EC-30,000). The average rate of decrease in airline sales compared to BAU for the ETS policy is 0.1% at 2030. Our results show that the ETS approach is the most efficient of all the analyzed CO₂ reduction policies in economic terms, while the EC approach is the best policy to reduce GHG emissions. This study provides a foundation for devising effective response measures pertaining to GHG reduction and supports decision making on carbon tax and carbon credit pricing. Full article