ABSTRACT
The pressing global challenges, including global warming and climate change, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the Covid-19 pandemic, all are indicative of the necessity of a transition from fossil-based systems toward bioenergy and bioproduct to ensure our plans for sustainable development. Such a transition, however, should be thoroughly engineered, considering the sustainability of the different elements of these systems. Advanced sustainability tools are instrumental in realizing this important objective. The present work critically reviews these tools, including techno-economic, life cycle assessment, emergy, energy, and exergy analyses, within the context of the bioenergy and bioproduct systems. The principles behind these methods are briefly explained, and then their pros and cons in designing, analyzing, and optimizing bioenergy and bioproduct systems are highlighted. Overall, it can be concluded that despite the promises held by these tools, they cannot be regarded as perfect solutions to address all the issues involved in realizing bioenergy and bioproduct systems, and integration of these tools can provide more reliable and accurate results than single approaches. © 2022 BRTeam. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the dynamics and implications of gendered austerity in Ecuador in the context of the fiscal consolidation framework recommended in the country's International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan programme, through three channels. First, that of the public health sector and the experiences of women public health workers. Second, that of unpaid care work and significant augmentations in home-based health care of family members as well as education support. And third, increases in consumer debt incurred by women through extractive short-term lenders. To illustrate the lived experiences of women, interviews were conducted with a leader of a nurses' union in the capital city of Quito and results collected from external published focus group surveys with women engaged in unpaid and paid care work as well as in community savings organizations. Two key theoretical frameworks are employed within feminist political economy. First, the social provisioning approach, where economic activity encompasses unpaid and paid work, human well-being is the yardstick of economic success, and power inequities, agency and economic outcomes are shaped by gender. Second, the literature on gender, care work and. © 2022 Oxfam KEDV.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact worldwide by producing, especially in urban contexts, severe consequences not only in the healthcare field but also in socioeconomic terms with visible implications for food security. In this difficult context, Urban Agriculture (UA) stands as a valuable means to ensure social, environmental, and economic benefits for urban realities. Indeed, UA implementation’s multi-dimensional opportunities can also be read in terms of ecosystem services. However, despite this wide acknowledgment of UA’s multiple benefits, a gap exists between the number of policies already implemented to promote urban agriculture and the demand for these policies. The reasons for this gap can be found both in prejudice towards agriculture as a low-income activity, discouraging private investments, and in public administration’s reduced financial capacity. In this light, the paper proposes an evaluation approach based on a Sustainability Assessment to support agriculture-led implementation processes in urban spaces by dealing with financial constraints. This methodology is tested on the regeneration of Troisi Parks’ greenhouses in Naples, which have recently been the subject of the Urbanfarm design challenge within the EU H2020 FoodE Project. Thus, after describing the main features of the International Challenge and the project for Troisi Park, the paper delves into the application of the Sustainability Assessment to support Troisi Park’s regeneration. Finally, the opportunities stemming from such an evaluation approach to UA and its possible room for improvement are discussed. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
In order to achieve the CO2 targets stipulated within the Paris Agreement, future buildings must be constructed in such a way, that their emission profile will be close to zero. In order to achieve this, a radical shift towards a circular construction manner which encompasses topics like material reuse (i.e. design for multiple lifecycles), design-for-disassembly (allowing for maximum recovery of materials and minimization of construction waste) must be promoted against todays, conventional construction practices. Furthermore, the current Covid-19 pandemic has shown that buildings must be constructed in a more flexible manner, in order to be adaptable to changing needs as quickly as possible – including new types of needs. A transition to such a circular construction practice requires also new approaches for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), taking into account issues such as the circularity or multiple life cycle of materials. Conventional LCA methods fail to deliver trustworthy results as they are designed to assess products and buildings that have only a single life cycle. In this context, a newly constructed unit, set to be the embodiment of the circular construction principle that incorporates all the above-mentioned concepts in the form of a cluster of flexible office spaces, has been integrated into the research building NEST (Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies) – a platform located at the Empa campus in Dübendorf (Switzerland), where novel building technologies can be tested and validated under realistic conditions. Its name: Sprint. In this paper, the environmental performance of Sprint is assessed through LCA, using three different approaches – the EN15804 method, the Product Environmental Footprint method and the Linear Degressive approach – with the latter two approaches considering the circularity of materials, while each one having an own, distinctive allocation rule for the split of the impacts between the current, the previous and the subsequent lifecycles.
ABSTRACT
Today, changing framework conditions of living and working in cities drive urban planning processes for refurbishment, notably at the level of neighbourhoods, and provide a window of opportunity to enhance resource efficiency and sustainable urban development. Indicators, as part of sustainability assessment methods, may support the identification of the most beneficial planning alternatives or the selection of measures. However, the fact that a multitude of indicators are proposed in the literature discourages their actual use and hampers a sound application for decision support. To tackle these challenges, a manual has been developed proposing a framework for the use of indicators in urban planning. In this contribution, the theoretical foundations of the proposed framework are analysed. A conceptual outline of the framework is presented, which as its core has a typology of indicators, and its embedding in urban planning processes is discussed. The framework combines a theoretically concise unifying structure with a flexible practical approach for application in diverse areas of resource efficiency. Thus, it shall enhance transparency as well as comparability in the use of indicators, foster communication between stakeholders and in the long run support the application of indicators and use of sustainability assessment methods as regular parts of urban planning.
ABSTRACT
This article presents the first results of the project Architecture 360, which focuses on learning alternatives for developing working skills in higher education courses, and specifically construction competences for architecture students. The project aims to help teachers to choose the best learning solutions for their classes from numerous alternatives of strategies, dynamics and activities. The assistance is based on developing a new approach that combines several methods (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT);multi-criteria decision-making;Delphi;and the Knapsack problem) and draws from teachers’ experience, a panel of experts’ expertise, the revised Bloom Taxonomy and neuroscience for education. The new approach to assisting university teachers in choosing the best practical learning alternatives was successfully developed and validated for the case study of a course at Barcelona Architecture School. In general, the approach defined the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of 26 learning alternatives. In the case study, the following optimized set of alternatives were identified: blended learning, challenge-based learning, reflective learning, videos of real cases, case studies, site visits, interactive simulation and gamification. Moreover, 23 activities were analysed. It was concluded, for instance, that active alternatives would improve implementation, including teachers’ available teaching materials and dedication outside class.
ABSTRACT
A collection of twelve papers published in Energies, in a Special Issue on “Building Energy Audits-Diagnosis and Retrofitting”, was bound together and published in 2021, focusing on the built environment. The aim was to systematically collect and analyze relevant data for obtaining adequate knowledge on the energy use profile of buildings, and was extended for the sustainability assessment of the built environment. To date, all papers have been very well received, attaining a total of 97 citations and over 15,300 views. The papers addressed historic and various building types, baselines for non-residential buildings from energy performance audits and from in-situ measurements, monitoring and data analysis, assessment of indoor environmental quality, model calibration and verification of energy savings, along with an urban audit and rating method for assessing the sustainability of the built environment. Following on from the success of this Special Issue, the decision was made to reopen and extend it to include papers related to decarbonization and sustainability, at building, city, region, and national scales. This Editorial reviews the performance of the first Special Issue and outlines the second volume on Building Energy Audits-Diagnosis and Retrofitting Towards Decarbonization and Sustainable Cities, as a Special Issue in Energies.
ABSTRACT
During COVID-19, the building and service characteristics of residential buildings turned out to be more critical due to lockdowns. The present research assesses the importance of new sustainability indicators for residential buildings in three categories (e.g., Health and Safety, Environmental Resources Consumption, and Comfort) that provide resilience for pandemic periods. The opinions of stakeholders on the identified indicators were collected and then analyzed. 'Health and Safety' category is found to be the most critical among the others. The prevention of virus propagation, mental health, and building air quality are three crucial indicators playing essential roles in the health and safety category. In more detail, innovative smart technologies, including touchless technologies, are identified as a priority in preventing virus propagation. Outdoor spaces and safe indoor places for socialization are weighted as essential in supporting the well-being and mental health of the resident. Finally, air filtration and segregation of medical waste indicators are considered critical in preventing the spread of viruses. There was a consensus among the local and international experts since they did not significantly report differing opinions for the majority of the indicators. However, there was a shift in experts' opinions towards pandemic-oriented indicators compared to conventional sustainability indicators.