ABSTRACT
Apart from the many social and health problems it has caused, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on most sectors of the economy worldwide. One of the areas where such impact is noticeable is the textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industry. The lockdowns and limited access to retailer outlets resulted in a considerable drop in consumption, creating problems related to the excess of stock, the decrease of sales, and the disposal of non-used items. This paper outlines the implications of the COVID-19 on the TAF sectors and European retailers. It analyzes how the current supply chains exacerbated stock control problems, and it reports on the changes in consumption during the pandemic. The worldwide restrictive measures implemented to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic were responsible for significant profit losses. Also, the decrease in consumption, caused by several geographically wide lockdowns, prompted a subsequent reduction in orders and sales, resulting in a significant number of constraints. The implementation of more environmentally friendly processes, including sustainable circularity as a competitiveness source to keep the TAF sectors in the loop and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may help address the problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the sustainability context, as reported in this paper. © The Author(s) 2022.
ABSTRACT
The traditional use of biomass is still the reality in the world. In 2019 the traditional use of biomass represented 6.5% in total final energy consumption and the modern bioenergy was 5.1% in the world. The modern use of biomass involves the use of advanced and efficient technological processes such as liquid biofuels, production of briquettes and pellets, cogeneration from sustainably sourced biomass and the traditional use of biomass involves inefficient processes of biomass transformation as burning with low technology and use of non-sustainable biomass. In Brazil, the use of firewood as residential fuel has been increasing since 2018 and is currently the second most used source in the residential sector. This is due to the change in the cooking gas price policy that took place in 2017, increasing the price of this fuel, and this combined with the covid pandemic made many families in vulnerable economic situations replace cooking gas with firewood and others kind of the waste and materials. The burning of firewood and other materials in improvised stoves, inefficient with low technology, exposes these families, mostly women and children, the smoke, causing various types of diseases and domestic accidents. In addition, the increase in the use of firewood as fuel causes regression to the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs, in particular to goal 7 that calls for “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030. This paper aims to present is compiling data and technical information about the use of the forest residues consumption by households in large urban centres in Brazil. © 2022, ETA-Florence Renewable Energies., All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Apart from the many social and health problems it has caused, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on most sectors of the economy worldwide. One of the areas where such impact is noticeable is the textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industry. The lockdowns and limited access to retailer outlets resulted in a considerable drop in consumption, creating problems related to the excess of stock, the decrease of sales, and the disposal of non-used items. This paper outlines the implications of the COVID-19 on the TAF sectors and European retailers. It analyzes how the current supply chains exacerbated stock control problems, and it reports on the changes in consumption during the pandemic. The worldwide restrictive measures implemented to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic were responsible for significant profit losses. Also, the decrease in consumption, caused by several geographically wide lockdowns, prompted a subsequent reduction in orders and sales, resulting in a significant number of constraints. The implementation of more environmentally friendly processes, including sustainable circularity as a competitiveness source to keep the TAF sectors in the loop and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may help address the problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the sustainability context, as reported in this paper. © The Author(s) 2022.