Sustainable Production and Consumption最新文献

The current food system is a major driver of global environmental change. Despite significant research interest in the environmental impacts of alternative diets, most studies estimate the effects of dietary shifts based on assumed changes in the consumption of raw agricultural commodities instead of simulating changes in the actual food and beverages consumed. In response to increasing consumer demand for product-specific health and sustainability labelling on packaged food products, it is necessary to develop robust environmental footprinting approaches to estimate the environmental impacts of foods and beverages available through retail outlets. This study quantifies the environmental impacts of 63,926 packaged food products in Australian supermarkets across five indicators including greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water use, acidification, and eutrophication potential. We integrated cradle-to-retail environmental estimates from life cycle assessment databases with ingredient proportions derived through a linear programming algorithm to measure product-specific impacts. Meat products consistently showed the highest impacts across all environmental indicators, while fruits, vegetables, plant-based meat alternatives, and non-alcoholic beverages had the lowest impacts. This study also shows that the dietary environmental footprints of Australian consumers can be significantly reduced by switching from high-impact to low-impact products within the same food category (e.g., meat products). Transitioning from high-impact to low-impact products across all food categories could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 96 %, with synergies across all other environmental indicators. The comprehensive results of this study can empower consumers, producers, and governments to identify context-specific opportunities for improving food system sustainability in Australia.

This study critically evaluates a BECCS-Hub within the North-West Industrial Carbon Capture cluster using advanced digital twin modelling via the Carbon Navigation System and detailed biomass mapping. It investigates five distinct BECCS supply chains at the Protos site, each reflecting novel configurations that closely align with upcoming BECCS projects within the UK. This research highlights significant carbon performance and scalability variations, crucial for aligning with evolving BECCS business models. A key finding is the essential role of biomass security and adaptability in uncertain future biomass availability and heightened intra-BECCS competition. The study reveals potential gridlock scenarios where intense competition for biomass could severely limit the scalability and efficiency of BECCS operations, especially under high competition scenarios. These gridlocks could significantly hinder strategic BECCS deployments by constraining resource availability and complicating logistics, thus impacting the pursuit of the UK's Net-Zero goals. The findings underscore the need for diverse and adaptable deployment strategies that account for biomass availability, technological feasibility, and local infrastructure—factors pivotal to achieving scalable and efficient BECCS operations. Advocating a nuanced, integrated approach to managing biomass competition and optimise resource use, the paper calls for proactive strategic planning and adaptability in BECCS deployment. By leveraging modelling innovations, the study aligns BECCS operations with the UK's stringent Net-Zero objectives and specific business models for BECCS. Such an approach will enhance the sustainable and efficient deployment of BECCS technologies in a competitive and rapidly evolving energy landscape.

Adaptive façades, which can manipulate the physical properties of buildings, represent a promising approach to reducing the environmental impacts of buildings, which are usually assessed using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. However, the inclusion of additional fields of engineering with their corresponding simulation tools and inclusion of additional adaptive components in building designs leads to an increased number of possible design configurations – in the order of several millions – as well as stronger dependencies between the design and the use phase. This paper proposes a workflow to automatically generating, analysing and evaluating LCA results of all potential configurations within a defined parameter space. It combines and processes data from multiple sources, including process-based LCA models, generic LCA databases, and simulation tools. Various methods for combining and analysing the data are provided in the form of parameter sensitivity and statistical evaluations as well as visualisations. Depending on the area of interest, dynamic benchmarks can be derived and visualised. The results can be structured according to the life cycle phases and exported in common spreadsheet formats. This enables comparison to other LCA results and ensures seamless integration in existing reporting structures. The primary beneficiaries are LCA experts who require ex-ante evaluations for (building) products with a large number of potential configurations and complex interactions between the design and use phases. Identifying hotspots and assessing the sensitivity of parameters at an early stage of product development enables product designers to consider environmental aspects and optimise the product in this respect.

Predicting future food demand and understanding its environmental and dietary ramifications are vital for ensuring food system sustainability in an equitable manner. Existing forecasting methods often overlook societal diversity and do not connect projected food demand with its socio-environmental implications. This paper introduces a framework for forecasting a nation's future food demand with considerations for socio-demographics and dietary preferences, along with potential dietary and environmental implications. Israeli household expenditure surveys spanning two decades (1997–2017) representing over 120,000 households were used to explore a series of potential food purchase scenarios for the period up to 2030 and the nutritional and environmental footprints of subgroups. These subgroups included small and large families, young couples, the elderly, and wealthy adult households. Three dietary scenarios based on expected socio-demographic changes were then examined: “Environmental,” “Healthy,” and “Mediterranean” scenarios. All examined scenarios predicted a surge in food demand by 18 to 22 % for the period of 2018–2030. The “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario emphasizes the expected rise in the consumption of meat, oil products, and food outside the home, leading to a 20 % rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In comparison, in the case of the Healthy scenario, emissions are expected to rise by 22 %, and according to the Environmental scenario by only 10 %. Significant differences were also discovered across various social groups in regard to the analyzed dietary and environmental indicators. Although the study focuses on Israel, the proposed framework's universality makes it adaptable to any country. This could empower policymakers and stakeholders to craft food security informed decisions and targeted interventions that address the needs of diverse social groups while considering socio-environmental implications both presently and in the future.

A significant challenge within our present food system is the vast quantity of food that is wasted. Insect farming has emerged as a potential solution, providing a means to convert waste into valuable agricultural resources, such as livestock and aquaculture feed. Through a literature review and publicly available data from companies in the sector, we examine the types of materials currently used to raise insects at commercial scales, and analyse whether those materials compete with conventional animal agriculture or other economic sectors. While the idea of turning trash into treasure for insect agriculture may be appealing in theory, the reality appears to be more challenging. Only some species of insects can be farmed using food waste, while others perform poorly. The inconsistent availability and quality of food waste pose significant obstacles to the establishment of large-scale insect farms aimed at consistently yielding high-quality products. Consequently, insect-farming companies often resort to utilising high-quality feeds already in demand by other sectors. Moreover, competition intensifies for the limited pool of food waste suitable for insect agriculture, as various industries, including agriculture, aquaculture, pet food production, and biogas manufacturing, vie for the same resources. Additionally, concerns regarding food safety due to contamination risks constrain the types of food waste viable for insect cultivation. Realising the potential of food waste in insect agriculture necessitates substantial logistical investments, particularly given the decentralised nature of household and municipal waste management systems. Overall, turning food waste into insect feed faces a range of persistent challenges that makes the widespread use of insects in addressing food waste an uphill climb.

Power generation systems are crucial to national energy transitions, such as Spain's, which stands as a notable example. However, this profound transformation could have multifaceted implications, leading to unintended consequences on society. The present work is the first to understand the social impacts of the Spanish power sector and their technology supply chains using the social life cycle sssessment methodology. The functional unit is 1 kWh of electricity produced by the technologies in the Spanish electricity mix. A cradle-to-gate approach is taken using a supply chain protocol to complete the system boundaries. The social life cycle inventory, comprising data on national suppliers, working hours and social flows, was integrated into the PSILCA database to derive the social profile of each power technology and, consequently, to obtain a comprehensive view of the Spanish power sector. The results reveal that social impact associated with the Spanish electricity mix has increased or remained stable from 2010 to 2022. Analysis of four indicators (child labour, contribution of the sector to the economic development, frequency of forced labour and women in the sectoral labour force) reveals significant differences, highlighting three main social hotspots: i) solar PV panel production in East and Southeast Asia, particularly China, ii) natural gas extraction and refining in North Africa, concentrated in Algeria, for natural gas combined cycle and cogeneration plants, and iii) construction and operation of hydropower and nuclear plants in Spain. This study demonstrates that current strategies for Spain's power sector transition may not guarantee a favourable social performance, emphasizing the need for balanced environmental and social considerations in energy policy making, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

The packaging sector and the environmental impacts stemming from its various materials and applications are currently at the forefront of scientific and political debate. To estimate the environmental impacts associated with raw materials and identify the role of industrial processes, this study presents a cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment applied to two distinct packaging formulations for chocolate bars, namely oriented polypropylene-based and paper-based packaging. The product systems related to the two alternatives were compared by focusing on the contribution of each resource input and emission of the production phase, to identify respective environmental trade-offs and potentials for future improvements throughout the life cycle. Our study also proposes a laboratory-based approach to develop robust assumptions concerning the modeling of end-of-life material treatment and provide support to decision-making toward environmentally sustainable waste management practices. From the outcomes, a relative preference emerges for paper-based packaging, from a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 16 out of 18 environmental categories, depending on the evaluated scenario. The hotspot analysis highlighted a significant influence of the processing phases, with raw materials being generally characterized by lower percentage contributions to the final impact. In conclusion, the findings underscore the importance of considering the entire life cycle when assessing packaging sustainability. Moreover, the proposed laboratory approach offers valuable insights for policymakers and industry stakeholders to optimize end-of-life strategies and minimize the overall environmental footprint of packaging materials.

Municipal waste incineration in China reached 232 million tonnes in 2022, with increasing problems in treating waste leachate (WL). However, significant uncertainty exists in the emission performances, cost, and optimization strategies of city-level WL treatment. Herein, a bottom-up approach is utilized to investigate the WL status across over 300 cities and a life cycle thinking is employed to compare the environmental and economic effects of various WL and waste leachate concentrate (WLC) management options. Analysis reveals national production of WL has reached 57 million tonnes, with the top ten cities, including Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing, contributing 20.6 %. Biological coupled chemical treatment (BCT) demonstrates the best environmental performances in WL treatment technologies, while biologically coupled membrane treatment (BMT) offers the lowest economic expenses, and Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) evaporation excels in treating WLC. In a business-as-usual scenario, the national carbon emissions, energy consumption, and economic costs of WL treatment are 24 million tonnes CO₂ eq, 264 million GJ, and RMB 19 billion, respectively. Under the WL and WLC technology optimization scenarios, estimations indicate a reduction in carbon emissions by 80.7 % (equivalent to 55.1 million trees) and 19.7 % (equivalent to 13.5 million trees), respectively. Viewed holistically, replacing BMT with BCT emerges as the optimal mitigation strategy, with the synergistic optimization of BMT and MVR evaporation systems following closely. In the formulation of the technology transition strategies, the urban economy, strategic positioning, and geographic location also should be considered apart from the technological aspects, to steadily achieve sustainable co-benefits across environmental and economic dimensions.