In 2017, over 320 million tons of polymers, excluding fibers, were manufactured across the globe. The excessive amounts of plastics produced today pose a threat to both man and nature. Urgent ...approaches towards reducing plastic consumption and increasing its recyclability are needed. This paper discusses the matter of accelerating the circularity of plastic-based material systems. It investigates a sample of plastics-converting companies in Emilia Romagna region (Italy), which stand out for radical innovations in business models, with the aim to catalyse changes in current manufacturing practices. The findings provide empirical support for a positive relationship between business strategies and the use of non-virgin plastic materials. The innovative value of this paper relies on the fact that it elaborates on the vision established within the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy that sets ambitious targets about achieving high plastic recycling targets by 2025. Legislative, economic, technological and social barriers can only be tackled by radically revising the current philosophy of designing, producing, distributing and consuming plastic as part of goods and services. A systemic thinking perspective is an essential building block in this context: moving from a micro to a meso-scale analysis can represent a useful means supporting the creation of viable management approaches towards achieving environmental and economic gains, especially in European plastic conversion industry, where SMEs are the majority (about 50000). Thanks to its analysis and scope, this paper provides useful insights to the plastic industry: it shows that this substantial improvements in this sector will require innovative solutions and major efforts by key decision makers, producers, recyclers, manufacturer, retailers as well as consumers.
•Plastics pose a major pressure to the natural and human environment.•The use of non-virgin plastic materials should be reduced.•Integrated plastic value chain leads to environmental and economic gains.•Innovative solutions are needed to better integrate plastics as part of the circular economy.
Energy efficiency, which is one of the pillars of the EU's Energy Union strategy, has been proposed as a solution, namely as a highly effective pathway to improve economic competitiveness and ...sustainability of the European economy, lower emissions, reduce energy dependency and increase security of supply, and job creation. The paper reviews the EU strategies and policies on energy efficiency and argues that further focus should be placed on industrial energy efficiency. Despite a decline in energy consumption in recent years in industry, this sector is one of the largest users of energy in the EU. Therefore, the paper reviews the extent to which the European and national policies in the selected jurisdictions, such as Italy and the UK address energy efficiency in industry and whether there are any measures in place to promote it.
•Legal certainty is required in industrial energy efficiency policies.•White Certificates play a major role in industrial energy efficiency in Italy.•Yet, constant changes in the WC regulations can act as an investment barrier.•The UK's Energy Efficiency policy is underpinned with decarbonisation of the industry.
Die Arbeit von Harald Bodenschatz (2011) und seinen Mitautor:innen zum Städtebau im faschistischen Italien hat vor zehn Jahren Wegweisendes in der Städtebauhistoriographie geleistet. Nun wurde das ...seit Jahren vergriffene Buch neu aufgelegt und behutsam erweitert. Es hat viele Folgestudien inspiriert. Eine davon ist die Arbeit der Denkmalpflegerin Birgit Knauer (2022), die sich mit der „Assanierung“ der Stadt Wien im Austrofaschismus auseinandersetzt. Die Werke zeigen, wie Städtebau durch diktatorische Regime benutzt wurde, um Repression auszuüben oder Konsens herzustellen, und als wirtschaftspolitisches Programm der beschleunigten industriellen Entwicklung sowie zur volkswirtschaftlichen Erholung in und nach Krisenzeiten diente. Dabei spielen Propaganda, Geschichtsbilder, Zukunftsverheißungen und nicht zuletzt europäische Netzwerke eine Rolle.
A methodology based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and an Analog Ensemble (AnEn) is presented to generate 72 h deterministic and probabilistic forecasts of power generated by photovoltaic (PV) ...power plants using input from a numerical weather prediction model and computed astronomical variables. ANN and AnEn are used individually and in combination to generate forecasts for three solar power plants located in Italy. The computational scalability of the proposed solution is tested using synthetic data simulating 4450 PV power stations. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Yellowstone supercomputer is employed to test the parallel implementation of the proposed solution, ranging from one node (32 cores) to 4450 nodes (141,140 cores). Results show that a combined AnEn + ANN solution yields best results, and that the proposed solution is well suited for massive scale computation.
•Real power generation data from three solar farms are used.•A combination of ANN + AnEn outperforms each method run individually.•Probabilistic forecasts have high statistical scores using different verification measures.•Optimization parameters for the AnEn are investigated.•The scalability is tested using extreme scale (>150,000 cores) supercomputer simulations.
The aim of the paper is to present renewable energy market development with particular regard paid to biofuels in the EU. The analysis included data on the share of renewables in Gross Island energy ...consumption, changes of renewable energy in the years 2004–2016 and the amount of liquid biofuels. The authors of the paper used descriptive and statistical methods to describe the changes in bioenergy development in the European Union (EU). The biggest share of biofuels and renewable waste can be seen in Latvia (31.2%), Finland (26.7%) and Sweden (24.8%). The highest percentage of wind energy in 2015 was found in: Denmark (7.2%), Portugal (4.3%), Ireland (4.0%) and Spain (3.5%). The highest share of solar energy in 2015 was found in Cyprus (3.5%), Spain (2.6%) and Greece (2.2%). The highest contribution of geothermal energy was found in 2015 in Italy (3.5%), Portugal (0.8%) and Slovenia (0,7%). Hydropower was the biggest in 2015 in Sweden (14.2%), Austria (9.6%) and Slovenia (5.0%). The highest coefficients of variation of the share of electricity from renewable energy sources were found in the years 2004–2017 in Malta (140.3%), Cyprus (101.1%) and United Kingdom (71.9%). In addition, the highest coefficients of variation of share of renewable energy sources in heating and cooling in the years 2004–2017 were found in Malta (72.4%), United Kingdom (69.81%) and Hungary (44.91%). Moreover, the highest coefficients of variation of share of renewable energy sources in transport in the years 2004–2017 were found in Finland (113.78%), Malta (115.52%) and Belgium (96.53%).
The biggest producers of ethanol and biodiesel in EU were Germany, France and Poland. Cluster analysis data show that Germany and France are of key importance in the production of biodiesel and ethanol. The biodiesel production increased in the years 2003–2017 from 719,32 million liters to 13323 million liters (increase 1852.2%). However, in the years 2014–2017 a stagnation in biofuel production was observed from 13673 million liters to 13323 million liters (−2,56%). The situation on the market and the increasing demand for green energy suggest that the production of ethanol and esters of vegetable oils will increase by 2030, which will contribute to the development of this sector.
This study adopts a resilience perspective to explain how companies managed to contribute innovative solutions to fight the COVID‐19 crisis. We studied how five companies operating in different ...industries (three in automotive, one in printing, and one in rubber and plastic products manufacturing) managed to reorganize activities and employ their R&D and innovation capabilities to enhance their resilience. Simultaneously, they increased the health system’s capacity to cope with the outbreak. Through a qualitative inductive study, based on interviews with company managers, we found that the firms mobilized their resources and capabilities to expand their ability to adapt and cope with adversity at the organizational level. In addition, moved by the sensitivity to the extreme context and a perceived sense of urgency, the firms deployed the same endowments to strengthen the community’s response to a crisis. Our study shows that an organization can directly and positively foster the broader social system’s resilience. This study contributes to the innovation literature by identifying innovation capabilities as fundamental antecedents of resilience building for organizational response, paving the way for strengthening the link between resilience and innovation.
This study explores the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the so-called European Union 5 (EU-5) countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom) for the ...1985–2016 period. In doing so, we employ a carbon emission function to investigate the environmental Kuznets curve phenomenon, which describes a relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. The empirical results confirm the existence of an N-shaped relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the EU-5 countries. We incorporate additional variables such as renewable electricity consumption, trade openness, natural resource abundance, and energy innovation to augment the carbon emission function. Renewable electricity consumption, natural resources, and energy innovation improve environmental quality, while trade openness and the interaction between economic growth and renewable electricity consumption exert a positive impact on CO2 emissions. This study is novel in that it presents an interaction between economic growth and renewable electricity consumption. We also confirm the need for renewable energy regulations related to increasing renewable sources and promoting energy innovation to reduce the negative effects of energy and fossil energy resources on environmental degradation.
•The N-shaped EKC relationship exists between economic growth and CO2 emissions.•Renewable electricity consumption exerts negative effect on carbon emissions.•Natural resource availability improves environmental quality.•Economic growth/renewable electricity consumption relation increases CO2 emissions.
Bioeconomy is seen as a key strategic innovation pillar in the European Union, and this involves, among other things, mobilizing biomass resources. This study presents a geo-localized methodology in ...order to quantify the overall (theoretical) residual biomass potential for each NUTS-3 region of the EU-27 + Switzerland (NUTS-3 is the smallest regional division in Eurostat's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics). Estimates were made for biomass residues stemming from 4 main activities: i) agriculture (straw, manure, residues from pruning permanent plantations); ii) forestry (forestry residues); iii) urban greenery management (residues from managing urban green areas and roadside vegetation); and iv) food waste (agri-industrial food process waste and municipal biodegradable waste). A review of earlier assessments using a variety of spatial coverages is also presented. Our results reveal the importance of residual biomass as a key feedstock for the European bioeconomy: we found that 8500 PJ y−1 are available for these streams (theoretical potential), which corresponds to the whole annual (2015) primary energy consumption of Italy and Belgium combined. Straw (3800 PJ y−1) and forestry residues (3200 PJ y−1) were shown as the top-two contributors. Our geo-localized approach uncovered outliers in terms of regional trends, revealing very specific opportunities for these regions. This includes the NUTS-3 region of Paris (France) where the highest biomass density was found with ca. 25 TJ km−2 (essentially food waste), and the NUTS-3 of Jaen (Spain), the main region of olive oil in the world, with great opportunities stemming from the olive oil industry.
•A methodology is presented to geo-quantify the residual biomass potential of EU-27.•At maximum, 8500 PJ/y is available; way above the 2015 energy consumption of Italy.•Straw (3800 PJ/y) & forestry residues (3200 PJ/y) are the top-two contributors.
•Wine industry is one of the food industries that most generate residues around the world.•Environmental benefits can be achieved with a waste management policy.•Grape pomace can be a source of ...healthy and technological compounds.•Seedless grape pomace is generally rich in phenolic compounds and fibres.•Grape seeds are mainly explored for their oil and phenolic compounds.
Grape is the main fruit crop in several countries. Although many grape-based food products can be found in the market, studies have shown that around 75% of the world grape production is destined for the wine industry. Grape pomace is an abundant by-product from the wine industry, which consists of the remaining skin, seeds and stalks and represents around 25% of total grape weight used in the winemaking process. In countries such as Italy, France and Spain, where wine production is more relevant, the annual grape pomace generation can reach nearly 1200 tonnes per year. In order to reach a sustainable winemaking process there is a need of a waste reduction policy. Several studies explore this subject using grape pomace as a source of healthy and technological compounds that could be applied in animal feed, pharmaceutical, cosmetic or food industry to improve stability and nutritional characteristics, and in cosmetic industry, where grape seeds oil is widely used. This review aims to approach the recent winemaking scenario and the benefits achieved when a waste management policy is implemented, as well as to compare available extractive technologies and a wide alternative of uses for grape pomace.
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