Journal of Cleaner Production最新文献

In this study, the environmental impact of suberin and betulin production from birch outer bark was evaluated using life-cycle assessment (LCA), and the ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) method. The system boundary includes production of outer bark to betulin and suberin production, with bark residues utilized for energy production, including all inputs (materials and energy) and outputs. Three scenarios were used to examine using the allocation, extraction and hydrolysation of birch bark. In the baseline scenario (S1), the bark came from a biorefinery and processed in a separate unit, where the hydrolysed bark residue was incinerated to generate the heat; the integrated scenario (S2) and internal loop scenario (S3) considered production within a biorefinery but with different energy sources. The primary data were collected from laboratory experiments, and secondary data were taken from the literature and the ecoinvent 3.9.1 database. FU was 2.06 kg of polymer production that includes 1 kg of suberin and 1.06 kg of betulin production from the same process. The results showed that the global warming potential (GWP) for S1 was 15.5 kg CO₂ eq. per FU, 16.22 kg CO₂ eq./FU in S2 and 3.96 kg CO₂ eq./FU in S3. According to our results, increasing the recycling rate of ethanol (50%, 90% and 98%) in the process and using wood-based energy from the biorefinery instead of Finnish mixed electricity resulted in a significant reduction in the most important environmental impact categories except land use.

Accurately predicting the carbon emissions of urban street vehicles is a current challenge in the field of urban transportation. This study proposed a new SAGE-GSAN model (Graph SAmple and aggreGatE - Graph Spatial Attention Network) to solve this problem. It combines graph neural networks with streetscape features and road network structure to predict the traffic carbon monoxide emissions at the street level. The method takes the street view images, the 5075 roads network structure in Wuhan and 19 street visual elements as the input features, and the carbon monoxide emissions obtained from the driving trajectories as the prediction data. The method achieved an experimental accuracy of 81.4% in predicting carbon monoxide emissions from street cabs. This study also compares the prediction results of traditional neural networks and analyzes the effects of different street-level features and graph convolution layers on the prediction accuracy. The results of this study show that the graph neural network and attention mechanism techniques could solve the fine-grained carbon emission prediction problem at the urban street level effectively. The model code is shared at the: https://github.com/zou9229/CO_Predict_Code.

As a testing ground for China's institutional opening-up, Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZs) are of great significance in shaping a new global economic governance framework, addressing pollution and carbon reduction challenges, and fostering green economic development and transition. This study empirically assesses the influence of PFTZs establishment on urban green development (GD) using panel data from 284 Chinese cities between 2007 and 2020, using the asymptotic Difference in Differences (DID) method. The results indicate that the creation of PFTZs greatly encourages cities to develop green sustainably. In comparison to cities without PFTZs, the presence of PFTZs results in a notable average increase of 9.5% in urban green total factor productivity (GTFP). The impact of PFTZs on urban GD varies significantly across different geographical areas and city resource endowment conditions. Institutional innovation has a positive moderating effect on the PFTZs' promotion of urban GD. The influence mechanisms that PFTZs support urban GD mainly include the effects of green innovation, economic agglomeration, and environmental regulation. This paper provides crucial policy insights for advancing PFTZ construction, promoting urban green growth, and ultimately achieving the coexistence of human beings and nature in harmony.

Business action for sustainability is still mostly limited to ‘weakly sustainable’ activities that do not significantly change the way of doing business and only decrease negative environmental and societal impacts of doing business to a limited extent. Strongly sustainable business creates positive environmental, economic and social value and operates within the boundaries of the planet. Tools to help companies transform to this paradigm are still lacking. This research developed and tested the game-based tool “The Road to Flourishing”. The tool aims to raise knowledge and change intended behaviour of business sustainability. The tool evaluation used a Theory of Planned Behaviour lens to understand whether the game play could change players' attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control, intended behaviour, and knowledge of business sustainability. A pre-post-survey was filled in by 220 participants with background in academia, business, business studies and consultancy. It was evaluated using t-tests to find potential changes due to the gameplay. Statistically significant differences were observed in players' knowledge levels and some components of intended behaviour but not the behavioural intention itself. We suggest using insights from other research streams to test sustainable business tools and ensure that they meet their intended objectives. We furthermore support the call for ensuring that businesses incorporate a strong sustainability paradigm and hope that The Road to Flourishing can help in this endeavour.

Notwithstanding a growing scholarly interest in stakeholder governance, the issue of how stakeholder governance can motivate a firm's stakeholders to cooperate to the transition to circular economy (CE) is still underdeveloped. This study intends to contribute to advance knowledge in this field by investigating the comparative effectiveness of three stakeholder governance forms – hub-and-spoke, lead role, and shared governance – to motivate stakeholders of a focal company (FC) to cooperate to the development and implementation of circular business models.

Drawing on three case studies of Italian companies engaged in the transition to CE, we propose a contingent model of CE stakeholder governance. We found that the most effective stakeholder governance form at FC level depends on CE boundaries, the attitude of market forces to incentivise stakeholder cooperation to the CE, and the owners’ identity of the FC. We also found that a FC can adopt different stakeholder governance forms for the diverse CE-enhancing projects it has undertaken, appropriately tailoring the governance arrangements to the nature of activities of each project and to the value, uniqueness, and complementarities of the resources held by the stakeholders involved.

This papers makes both theoretical and practical contributions. From a theoretical point of view, it advances knowledge at the intersection of stakeholder theory and governance of the CE in two main ways: first, by pointing out that the transition to the CE requires a shift from a perspective of a company responsibility to its stakeholders to that of stakeholders’ responsibility to a company, a supply chain or a local community they belong to. Second, by proposing some conditions under which shared forms of stakeholder governance are likely to foster this transition. From a pratical perspective, this paper suggests how stakeholder governance can be a tool to achieve CE targets at local community, industry, supply chain or individual firm level.

Due to high investment costs and technological uncertainties, the large-scale deployment of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies faces significant challenges. Consequently, effective policy incentives are essential for catalyzing its growth. As a critical incentivization policy within the dual-carbon strategic objectives, carbon emissions trading can provide crucial support for the investment and operation of CCUS projects. This study aims to identify optimal flows of CO₂ and allocation of carbon allowance, integrating carbon tax and carbon emissions trading policies, while minimizing the regional emission reduction costs. Coal-fired power plants are taken as carbon capture objects, enhanced coal bed methane reservoirs, enhanced oil recovery formations, deep saline aquifers and depleted gas fields are taken as storage objects, and pipelines are taken as transportation mode, respectively. A mixed-integer linear programming model allowing for inter-source carbon allowance trading is developed to minimize the total annualized investment and operational costs of CCUS during the project's operational phase. The proposed model is applied to a specific case study and solved using GAMS solver. The results indicate that, under a framework that permitted carbon allowance trading among emission sources, the case achieves geological storage and utilization of 25.72 million tons of CO₂ annually, with a marginal CO₂ abatement cost of 139 CNY/t. This validates the reliability of the proposed CCUS model under the established carbon emissions trading policy and underscores the effectiveness of permitting inter-source carbon allowance trading measures in reducing the overall costs of carbon abatement projects.

The Saussurea species, renowned for its biodiversity and medicinal significance in high-elevation regions, faces endangerment due to climate change and human activities. Despite this, conservation research on Saussurea has been limited. To fill the knowledge gap, this study employed the optimized MaxEnt model to simulate Saussurea's habitat suitability and analyze key environmental factors influencing its distribution. Additionally, considering the sensitivity of Saussurea habitats to climate change, this research also simulated the changes in suitable habitat and distribution centroid shifts of Saussurea under different climate scenarios (SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585) for the periods 2040s, 2060s, 2080s and 2100s. Findings indicated that Saussurea's suitable habitat was primarily located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, notably within the Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains. The areas of extremely and moderately suitable habitats were 1.106 × 10⁵ km² and 3.436 × 10⁵ km², respectively. Elevation, Isothermality (Bio3), and Temperature Annual Range (Bio7) were identified as the main environmental factors. Future projections suggest severe habitat fragmentation and a decrease in suitable habitat areas. By 2100, the total area of suitable Saussurea habitat will decrease under the SSP126, SSP245, SSP370, and SSP585 scenarios to 8.658 × 10⁵ km², 6.971 × 10⁵ km², 5.811 × 10⁵ km², and 5.979 × 10⁵ km², respectively. Additionally, a slight southeastward shift in the distribution centroid was observed. This study is expected to provide guidance for the conservation of Saussurea and alpine plant biodiversity.

Urban water environment pollution is a global concern, in developing countries, sewage infiltration resulting from urban drainage pipelines breakage is an essential element in the urban groundwater pollution and the recurrence of black odor water bodies, it is crucial to accurately and efficiently detection and localisation of urban drainage pipelines breakage to protect the urban water resources. In this paper, a device for detecting defects in drainage pipelines was developed and assembled using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) inertial sensors as the core components, and the improved cumulative sum (CUSUM) model was used for anomalous detection of the pitch angle of the device's movement along the course of the pipeline as a method of detecting pipeline breakage. In the laboratory simulation of drainage pipeline tests, the CUSUM peaks (0.709, 1.102, 3.038, 7.990) for the case of external water infiltration rates into the pipeline at the point of pipe breakage (2.9%, 4.6%, 5.8%, 9.2%), and for the cases of sewer exfiltration rates in the pipeline of 4.2% and 6.4% (0.760, 1.382). CFD simulations of the water flow in the laboratory pipeline show a high degree of overlap between the trend of the water surface near the point of breakage and the anomalous fluctuations in the pitch angle of the device motion in the laboratory tests. Finally, the authors tested the device on municipal drains in the city of A. The results demonstrated the reliability and high accuracy of the device. The device enables to improve the ecological quality of urban water environment by accelerating the rate of defect detection in urban drainage pipelines and reducing the detection expenses.

The widespread amines have been found to generate carcinogenic nitro-dimethylamine (NDMA) during ozonation, it's urgent to search effective methods to control its formation. This work investigated the performance and mechanisms of bimetallic organic framework (MIL-100(Fe-Mn)) on reducing NDMA production during ozonation of daminozide (DMNZD). The results demonstrated that NDMA concentration raised from 27.6 to 248.4 μg/L when ozone dosages enhanced from 0.5 to 4 mg/L; while just slightly increased from 0.9 to 3.7 μg/L when MIL-100 (Fe-Mn) was added, with a reduction rate up to 98.5 %. When catalyst dosages increased from 0 to 200 mg/L, NDMA reduction rates enhanced from 54.5 to 97.4%. Moreover, neutral conditions facilitated the exploitation of MIL-100(Fe-Mn) during ozonation. Water bodies containing high concentrations of CO₃²⁻, HA, and Br⁻ should be avoided to prevent high NDMA risk. MIL-100(Fe-Mn) enhanced the transformation of ozone molecular (O₃) to hydroxyl radical (·OH) other than superoxide radicals (·O₂⁻) and singlet oxygen (¹O₂). EPR and scavengers quenching experiments verified that ·OH played important roles in NDMA reduction. Except ·OH, hydrogen radicals (·H) were detected in catalyzed ozonation system for the first time. The results would provide new insights for NDMA risks control during ozonation.

Agriculture is among the major contributors to soil and groundwater pollution, primarily through the widespread leaching of pesticides and fertilizers from crops, as well as accidental releases from point sources. Therefore, alongside restrictions on the use of highly soluble agrochemicals and enhanced application guidelines, there is a significant demand for low-impact and cost-effective solutions aimed at reducing the mobility of agrochemicals in the soils. This study evaluates the potential of soil amendments—commonly used to enhance soil structural properties, water holding capacity, and fertility—to also absorb highly soluble pesticides, thereby controlling their leaching into the subsoil. Specifically, zeolite, biochar, and milled corncob were examined in laboratory tests under static (batch tests) and dynamic (column leaching tests) conditions to assess their effectiveness in adsorbing two widely used pesticides, copper sulphate and dicamba. Batch adsorption tests were performed using the amendments as pure materials and in mixtures with sand at various application rates (1–20% by weight). The highest affinity to copper sulphate was recorded for biochar, while dicamba exhibited a higher affinity to corncob, thanks to its higher content of organic carbon. Column leaching tests, performed at an amendment application rate of 5%, confirmed the different affinity observed in batch tests among pesticides and amended soil. Less than 2% of copper sulphate leached out from biochar- and zeolite-sand columns, while a recovery of 10% and 56% was observed for the corncob-sand mixture and for pure sand, respectively. Dicamba leaching from biochar- and corncob-sand columns was halved compared to pure sand. In conclusion, the tested soil amendments resulted highly effective in reducing pesticide leaching, opening the way for their possible applications in agriculture to reduce or prevent both diffuse and punctual contamination.