Sustainable Production and Consumption最新文献

As the low-carbon energy transition advances, various risks emerge, potentially causing delays in the transition process. Here, we presented a systematic literature review on low-carbon transition risks in the energy sector. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we identified 89 articles for analysis. In this review, we found that: (1) Research on low-carbon transition risks in the energy sector has attracted increasing attention, with many studies focusing on the exploration of risks in European countries. (2) Various risks may arise during the low-carbon transformation of the energy sector. These risks can be classified according to the causes/potential consequences of risk and the phase of risk occurrence. (3) Low-carbon transition risks differ in their triggering causes. (4) Case studies, optimization models, prediction models, and macroeconomic models are widely used to assess low-carbon transition risks. (5) A variety of risk mitigation strategies (e.g., applying technical and financial assistance, developing unbiased energy policies) can be adopted to cope with low-carbon transition risks. We concluded this review with an outlook on future research directions. Future research should be directed at expanding the research regions beyond the commonly studies European countries, formulating tailored risk mitigation strategies for neglected categories of risks, providing guidelines on the selection of appropriate assessment methods for specific categories of risks, etc.

Activity data from a 30-year on-farm experiment with six soil-management treatments were used to develop inventory data for environmental partial life-cycle assessment (LCA). The purpose was to compare the treatments based on environmental outcomes and evaluate conservation agriculture (CA) in Australia's dryland cropping zone. Multiple trade-offs were revealed that highlight the need for a nuanced approach to sustainable intensification and show that rules-based CA is not sufficient to guarantee low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nor low overall environmental impact. Nutrient mining in dryland cropping even under CA can lead to losses in soil carbon that can double GHG intensity. In these systems, additional nutrient inputs can reduce the loss of soil carbon as well as net GHG emissions, demonstrating the critical need to include the effects of soil carbon change in LCA to prevent perverse outcomes.

The treatment involving strategic tillage and nutrient balancing, along with stubble retention, had the lowest GHG intensity, but there was a trade-off with the higher embedded impacts across several other environmental categories. Higher fertiliser input could lead to toxicity impacts, due to heavy-metal content, that contribute significantly to the Human health endpoint. However, limitations in modelling such local, site-specific impacts were considerable and more research is needed to address this.

In general, trade-offs were found to exist between impacts from on-farm activities versus upstream manufacture of inputs; between GHG emissions and land use (yield) versus other environmental categories; and between different on-farm GHG emission sources. Despite these trade-offs, the treatments all had similar overall scores in the Human health and Ecosystems damage categories. There was no single treatment with low, or high, impact scores across all environmental indicators, indicating that trade-offs need to be carefully considered when making farm-management decisions in the context of net-zero or carbon-neutral farming.

In recent decades, the pressure from regulations and consumers for products with enhanced sustainability performance has escalated the implementation of sustainability actions by companies. For manufacturing companies specifically, Sustainable Product Development (SPD) is a key approach for reducing the sustainability impacts of the developed products, across their entire life cycle. Despite the availability of wide range of management practices for SPD to support embedding sustainability into the product development process, the extent of their application by companies remains underexplored. To fulfil this gap, an industry survey was conducted to investigate the capability of manufacturing companies to apply a consolidated set of 61 SPD management practices. The overall results which comprised 20 companies across 14 sectors revealed that most of the practices are still applied at a low capability level by most companies. This result indicates a large theory-practice gap particularly in understanding the influence of the type of business, variation in capability levels across different business processes and stages of the product development that influence the successful implementation of sustainability actions in companies. Hence, stronger collaboration between the academia and industry sectors are essential to transform new knowledge into actionable strategies.

Alternative protein sources (APSs) have emerged as a potentially healthy and, presumably, environmentally sustainable solution for meeting future food demand. Here we develop a new complex nutrient profile model to assess the nutritional quality of protein-rich foods, which, concurrently, allows to evaluate their environmental implications efficiently through the application of life cycle assessment (LCA). The development of the index was guided by the identification of priority nutrients in APSs and main deficiencies of similar models, which gave rise to the ‘quality Nutrient Rich Food 1.10.2’ (qNRF1.10.2). This model is the first nutrient profile system that combines various essential nutrients and a protein quality scoring system, namely Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS). From a nutritional perspective, its accuracy was proven and its application identified animal products as the most nutritionally complete food group, surpassing plant-based alternatives. However, when using the index as functional unit in LCA of protein-rich foods, we discovered that seeds, nuts, and mixtures of vegetable foods reported the lowest environmental impacts as a function of their nutrient density. Some exceptions were found for algae or insects, which performed worse than animal-derived foods in terms of resources consumption, or for cereals, which shown an important water deprivation potential. These results suggest that we should find a trade-off between the production of emerging and conventional foodstuffs, and that main environmental issues of each region should condition the location of production systems.

The sustainable production of cell-cultivated meat requires the use of environmentally friendly nutrients. Culture media, which provides the necessary nutrients for cell proliferation and differentiation is a major contributor to the environmental impacts of cultivated meat production. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is problematic due to animal sourcing, ethical concerns, and high cost. Beefy-R and Beefy-9 are experimentally validated, serum-free cell culture media designed for bovine myoblast culture. While both formulations include basal media, ascorbic acid, sodium selenite, recombinant proteins, and growth factors, Beefy-9 and Beefy-R contain recombinant albumin and rapeseed protein isolates (RPI) to replace FBS, respectively. While these culture media do not include animal-sourced components, their environmental impacts have not yet been investigated. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to estimate the environmental burdens of Beefy-9 and Beefy-R culture media production and identify hotspots for optimization. Uncertainty was assessed through sensitivity and scenario analyses, as well as Monte Carlo simulation. Our results demonstrate that Beefy-R has significantly lower environmental impacts compared to Beefy-9 in 13 out of 18 evaluated impact categories. For instance, the global warming potential (GWP) of Beefy-R was almost five times lower when compared against that of Beefy-9 production. In Beefy-R, despite the absence of recombinant albumin, recombinant proteins and growth factors were hotspots, accounting for 41 %, 5.9 %, and 12 % of GWP, land use, and water consumption impacts, respectively. This study confirms that RPI can be a more sustainable substitute for recombinant albumin in bovine myoblast serum-free media formulations. Additional research is required to identify low-impact alternatives for other recombinant proteins and growth factors in culture media.

The shift from fossil-based to alternative fuels has been identified as a means of reducing the maritime transportation sector's environmental footprint. However, deciding which alternative fuels will make up the future fuel mix requires comprehensive knowledge on the environmental impacts of these fuels, which can be assessed using life cycle assessment (LCA). A detailed review of 43 peer-reviewed scientific articles of maritime fuel LCAs was performed according to i) their coverage of fuels and fuel technologies, ii) the methodological choices made when conducting these LCAs, and iii) the transparency when documenting them. It was found that, despite an increasing focus on alternative, non-fossil fuels, there is no clear picture of the potential impacts of future fuel mixes due to a lack of transparent disclosure of the methodological choices and assumptions. Additionally, only 8 of the reviewed articles (19 %) provide a complete life cycle inventory. Uncertainty analyses, which are a key methodological element of LCAs and particularly relevant for emerging fuels and technologies, are only included in 16 % of the reviewed articles. Consequently, current LCA studies of maritime fuels are unable to provide clear guidance on the potential environmental impacts of maritime fuels, in particular those relating to emerging fuel types. To support this need and enhance the reliability of decision-making regarding fuel choices, practical recommendations for future maritime fuel LCAs are provided. These include a focus on emerging fuels for long-distance shipping, increased transparency in reporting choices and assumptions, and inclusion of key methodological elements such as uncertainty analyses.

Given the increasing global importance of low trophic level aquaculture (LTA) products (e.g. seaweed and mussels) for sustainable and healthy seafood supply, this study examined consumer intentions towards LTA products among European consumers. This study performed an extended theory of planned behaviour to focus on the influence of health consciousness, subjective knowledge, food neophobia, and sociodemographic and lifestyle factors on consumers' intentions to buy LTA products. We conducted an online questionnaire survey in Denmark, the United Kingdom and France (~500 respondents per country). Consumer segmentation analysis, based on food-related lifestyles, employing K-means clustering techniques, revealed five distinct segments, namely ‘Adventurous’, ‘Uninvolved’, ‘Foodies’, ‘Rational’, and ‘Conservative’, each reflecting unique consumer behavioural patterns. Furthermore, partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis revealed that subjective norms are the main predictor of LTA product buying intention, followed by attitude, food neophobia, subjective knowledge, and health consciousness. Furthermore, food neophobia seems to moderate the influence of subjective norms and subjective knowledge on LTA product buying intention. This dual approach explains the predictive power of the model while identifying targeted segments for sustainable aquaculture product marketing, ensuring that the distinction between the model's test and the subsequent segmentation analysis is clearly articulated. To enhance the adoption of LTA products, marketers should primarily target the ‘Foodies’ segment, characterised by high involvement and innovation, by emphasizing attitudes, health consciousness, subjective knowledge, and food quality attributes, while mitigating food neophobia and leveraging subjective norms.

In the transition to a circular economy, the supply chain plays a pivotal role in implementing successful circular models. While literature underscores the significance of social relationships and collaboration among supply chain stakeholders for this transition, there remains a gap in understanding how to effectively implement and enhance these collaborations in circular supply chains to improve sustainable performance. This study aims to address this gap by examining the factors that determine social relationships and collaboration within circular supply chains and their impact on sustainable performance, drawing from the perspective of Social Exchange Theory. Through a literature review (44 papers) and a multiple case study involving 10 companies, this research identifies trust, commitment, reciprocity, and power as key determinants in the collaborative relationships among stakeholders in circular supply chains and elucidates their influence on sustainable performance. Our results have enabled the creation of a conceptual model to better understand how social relationships within circular supply chains influence the quality of collaboration among stakeholders, which in turn affects overall supply chain performance. This model has implications for both academia and industry because it suggests that social relationships impact performance with partial mediation by collaboration quality and a moderating effect of circular economy strategies.

Regional symbiosis, based on industrial symbiosis principles, is one possible strategy for managing the environmental impact of human activities and the increasing risks associated with resource availability. An assessment is needed to ensure the benefits of implementing synergies in a region. Current research focuses on the environmental and structural analysis of symbiosis networks but lacks frameworks that consider the benefits of symbiosis at the regional scale. By combining ecological network analysis (ENA), circularity metrics and the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, this study intends to analyze the benefits brought by expanding industrial symbiosis to a broader region. Through the analysis of different symbiosis scenarios under two energetic cases (electricity and biomethane production), the study showed that implementing regional symbiosis was a lever to improve the robustness, the circularity and the environmental impact of the system. The environmental dimension was lowly affected by the scenario changes, but they provided a wider effect on regional metrics. The change in energetic production did not bring significant differences in the results. This study also showed that the structural metrics followed a different trend than the regional and environmental metrics, revealing the complementary views that were brought by the multidimensional analysis. It advocates for a holistic assessment of systems and highlights network structural organization, which should be accounted for in regional sustainability planning.

Iranian agriculture, the largest consumer of water, is highly vulnerable to sever climate change-induced droughts. This study aimed to analyze the impact of climate change on various sectors, with a focus on agricultural output and gross domestic product (GDP). To achieve this, a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model incorporating a climate damage function was utilized to project the consequences of climate change on various sectors of Iran's economy. The damage function is based on the temperature anomaly. This study simulated the impact of shocks caused by climate scenarios by 2060. The modified Social Accounting Matrix served as the primary dataset for CGE modeling. By simulating climate scenarios up to 2060, the findings indicated that certain agricultural products, such as cereals and livestock, have the potential for an annual output expansion of 2–3.5 % under the most severe climatic scenarios. This expansion is attributed to their lower reliance on capital inputs and their increased final demand for agricultural commodities. Conversely, the growth rates of output expansion and final demand for services products are lower than those for agricultural products. With climate change options, there may be a shift in output composition, favoring crops, agricultural industries, and energy products, while the growth of services output remains comparatively lower. The GDP growth path also deviates from the current path of 1.8 %, reaching rates of 1.5–1.7 %. In the most restrictive scenario, the GDP is projected to decline in the mid-2050s. Similarly, the range for consumption growth is estimated to be 1.8–2.1 %. Climate change does not significantly alter the income distribution within rural and urban income groups. However, it exacerbates rural-urban inequality by favoring urban households with higher consumption levels. The current state of the Iranian economy, especially the agricultural sector, faces increased vulnerability due to climate change. Nevertheless, certain agricultural activities may experience a relatively greater increase in output because of the growing demand for these products.