Social, economic, and environmental impacts of biomass and biofuel supply chains

2016 ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Sacchelli
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Social Economic

scholarly journals Prospective Environmental Impacts of Passenger Cars under Different Energy and Steel Production Scenarios

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6236
Author(s):  
Michael Samsu Koroma ◽  
Nils Brown ◽  
Giuseppe Cardellini ◽  
Maarten Messagie
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Electric Vehicles ◽  
Reduction Potential ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Direct Reduction ◽  
Steel Production ◽  
Passenger Cars ◽  
Co2 Intensity

The potential environmental impacts of producing and using future electric vehicles (EVs) are important given their expected role in mitigating global climate change and local air pollutants. Recently, studies have begun assessing the effect of potential future changes in EVs supply chains on overall environmental performance. This study contributes by integrating expected changes in future energy, iron, and steel production in the life cycle assessment (LCA) of EVs. In this light, the study examines the impacts of changes in these parameters on producing and charging future EVs. Future battery electric vehicles (BEV) could have a 36–53% lower global warming potential (GWP) compared to current BEV. The change in source of electricity generation accounts for 89% of GWP reductions over the BEV’s life cycle. Thus, it presents the highest GWP reduction potential of 35–48%. The use of hydrogen for direct reduction of iron in steelmaking (HDR-I) is expected to reduce vehicle production GWP by 17% compared to current technology. By accounting for 9% of the life cycle GWP reductions, HDR-I has the second-highest reduction potential (1.3–4.8%). The results also show that the potential for energy efficiency improvement measures for GWP reduction in vehicle and battery manufacture would be more beneficial when applied now than in the distant future (2050), when the CO2 intensity of the EU electricity is expected to be lower. Interestingly, under the same conditions, the high share of renewable energy in vehicle supply chains contributed to a decrease in all air pollution-related impact categories, but an increase in toxicity-related categories, as well as land use and water consumption.

scholarly journals Subnational mobility and consumption-based environmental accounting of US corn in animal protein and ethanol supply chains

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (38) ◽  
pp. E7891-E7899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Smith ◽  
Andrew L. Goodkind ◽  
Taegon Kim ◽  
Rylie E. O. Pelton ◽  
Kyo Suh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Food System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Accounting ◽  
Animal Protein ◽  
Corn Production ◽  
Supply Networks

Corn production, and its associated inputs, is a relatively large source of greenhouse gas emissions and uses significant amounts of water and land, thus contributing to climate change, fossil fuel depletion, local air pollutants, and local water scarcity. As large consumers of this corn, corporations in the ethanol and animal protein industries are increasingly assessing and reporting sustainability impacts across their supply chains to identify, prioritize, and communicate sustainability risks and opportunities material to their operations. In doing so, many have discovered that the direct impacts of their owned operations are dwarfed by those upstream in the supply chain, requiring transparency and knowledge about environmental impacts along the supply chains. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) have been used to identify hotspots of environmental impacts at national levels, yet these provide little subnational information necessary for guiding firms’ specific supply networks. In this paper, our Food System Supply-Chain Sustainability (FoodS3) model connects spatial, firm-specific demand of corn purchasers with upstream corn production in the United States through a cost minimization transport model. This provides a means to link county-level corn production in the United States to firm-specific demand locations associated with downstream processing facilities. Our model substantially improves current LCA assessment efforts that are confined to broad national or state level impacts. In drilling down to subnational levels of environmental impacts that occur over heterogeneous areas and aggregating these landscape impacts by specific supply networks, targeted opportunities for improvements to the sustainability performance of supply chains are identified.

scholarly journals Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4853
Author(s):  
Edward Majewski ◽  
Anna Komerska ◽  
Jerzy Kwiatkowski ◽  
Agata Malak-Rawlikowska ◽  
Adam Wąs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Food Distribution ◽  
Large Variability ◽  
Food Supply Chains ◽  
Short Food Supply Chains ◽  
Efficiency Indicators

Improving the eco-efficiency of food systems is one of the major global challenges faced by the modern world. Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are commonly regarded to be less harmful to the environment, among various reasons, due to their organizational distribution and thus the shortened physical distance between primary producers and final consumers. In this paper, we empirically test this hypothesis, by assessing and comparing the environmental impacts of short and long food supply chains. Based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, we calculate eco-efficiency indicators for nine types of food distribution chains. The analysis is performed on a sample of 428 short and long food supply chains from six European countries. Our results indicate that, on average, long food supply chains may generate less negative environmental impacts than short chains (in terms of fossil fuel energy consumption, pollution, and GHG emissions) per kg of a given product. The values of eco-efficiency indicators display a large variability across analyzed chains, and especially across different types of SFSCs. The analysis shows that the environmental impacts of the food distribution process are not only determined by the geographical distance between producer and consumer, but depend on numerous factors, including the supply chain infrastructure.

scholarly journals Environmental Impacts of Infrastructure Development under the Belt and Road Initiative

Environments ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoong Chen Teo ◽  
Alex Mark Lechner ◽  
Grant W. Walton ◽  
Faith Ka Shun Chan ◽  
Ali Cheshmehzangi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Spatiotemporal Scales ◽  
The Belt And Road

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China’s ambitions, especially since there is little precedent for analysing and planning for environmental impacts of massive infrastructure development at the scale of BRI. In this paper, we review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts. We first address the ambiguity around how BRI is defined. Then we describe our interdisciplinary framework for considering the nature of its environmental impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts. We also propose a typology of BRI infrastructure, and describe how economic and socio-political drivers influence BRI infrastructure and the nature of its environmental impacts. Increasingly, environmental policies associated with BRI are being designed and implemented, although there are concerns about how these will translate effectively into practice. Planning and addressing environmental issues associated with the BRI is immensely complex and multi-scaled. Understanding BRI and its environment impacts is the first step for China and countries along the routes to ensure the assumed positive socio-economic impacts associated with BRI are sustainable.

Prospects for the euro-area in 2020

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Member States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Area Growth ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Export Industries

Subject Prospects for the euro-area in 2020. Significance The main factors that could weaken euro-area growth in 2020 include further damage to Germany’s export industries, which would hit the extensive supply chains and jobs across many smaller and less resilient member states, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as specific social, economic and political challenges in individual countries.

scholarly journals The Media of Washatiyah Dakwah in Quranic Exegesis Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 932-946
Author(s):  
Julius M. Huho ◽  
Rose C. Kosonei ◽  
Peter, K. Musyimi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Food Waste ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Bakery Products ◽  
Sociodemographic Determinants ◽  
The Media ◽  
Global Concern ◽  
Capita Food ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Per Capita Consumption

Food waste occurs when food is ready for consumption but not consumed. Food waste has considerable social, economic and environmental impacts. Even though it has become a global concern, no comprehensive studies on food waste in Kenya is available. This study sought to establish the sociodemographic determinants of households’ food waste in Garissa sub-county, in Garissa County, Kenya. A total of 165 consumers were involved in the study. Bakery products were the most wasted. The per capita food wasted was 6.1 kg/person/year or approximately 5.1 tonnes (equivalent to 39,352,110 Kcal) for Garissa County. At a per capita consumption of 2360 Kcal/ person/day, the food wasted was enough to feed 16,674 people for one day. Males were more wasteful than females. Food waste was higher in households: headed by people aged 25 – 34 years; with higher income; with urban residency and with large sizes. Annually, Kshs 9600 (US$96) per household was lost from the wasted food translating to a loss of Kshs 1.4 billion (US$ 13.6 million) from the 141,353 households in Garissa County. With guidance and good policies, food waste can be managed since the majority of the consumers were concerned about food waste and had intentions to reduce it.

scholarly journals HOW THE SIGNALS USED BY CAPITALIST SUPPLY CHAINS COULD SERVE A MUTUAL COORDINATION ECONOMY

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Haugen
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Advanced System ◽  
Advanced Capitalist

Mutual Coordination Economy is a phrase and idea that arose from the P2P Foundation and their Mutual Coordination Economics Working Group. This essay explores the coordination signals used by the most advanced capitalist supply chains, and suggests how those signals could be transformed to become useful for a very different, non-capitalist, social-economic system based on human and ecological needs. It also suggests some even more advanced coordination signals that could be used for that more advanced system. It concludes with some ideas about how to start to implement such a system.

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