scholarly journals Increasing the Sustainability of a Fruits and Vegetables Market in South of Italy Through Combined Solar Power Production and Byproducts Valorization

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 279-284
Author(s):  
Simone Pedrazzi ◽  
Enrico Morini ◽  
Marika Nasti ◽  
Simone Pizzileo ◽  
Alberto Muscio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Photovoltaic System ◽  
Green Economy ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
Residual Flows ◽  
Environmental Labels

The future is moving towards an energy system different from the current one: highly efficient, renewable and immediate. For this reason, it is necessary to promote innovative technologies to pursue the development of a green economy connected to the environmental sustainability and the reduction of food waste. This study lays the basis of a different approach on the interaction between solar production and bio enhancement of organic residual flows of a fruit and vegetable market in Southern Italy. The proposed method consists in the installation of a photovoltaic system to cover the energy needs, including the electricity demand for the use of forklifts. This innovation is linked to the sustainable management of residual agri-food waste that, properly treated, allows the production of a soil improver usable in the early stages of the product life cycle. Therefore, the optimization of the entire agri-food chain permits the achievement of the requirements needed to obtain important environmental labels, signs of transparency and safety for the market products.  The results emerged from an economic analysis justify the investment for the realization of the system: the optimal exploitation of the renewable source allows an annual profit which drastically reduces the payback periods of the investment.

scholarly journals Analysis and Research on the Key Success Factors of Marketing Ugly Fruits and Vegetables

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2783 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jui-Che Tu ◽  
Yi-Lin Lee ◽  
Miao-Yu Wei
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Nutritional Value ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Key Success Factors ◽  
Industry Professionals ◽  
Agricultural Organization

According to the 2011 research report of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, one-third of the world’s edible fruits and vegetables are wasted every year, totaling about 1.3 billion metric ton. A source of such waste is ugly fruits and vegetables, which have the same nutritional value as that of normal fruits and vegetables, but are discarded due to poor appearance for selling. If consumers can rediscover their value, it will be one of the ways to change food waste. This study first explored related topics through the literature; then, it drew up an interview outline, obtained and ranked the key success factors for the evaluation indices through education and interviews with industry professionals, and summarized the key success factors of marketing ugly fruits and vegetables through questionnaire and experts interview perspectives that targeted consumer groups as the questionnaire respondents. The conclusion of the study provides suggestions for enterprises to innovate service marketing through the blueprint of service design, which hopes to reduce food waste and maintain a balance with the environment, in order to achieve the goal of environmental sustainability. The results show that if consumers understand the relevant issues and pay attention to the truth of vegetable and fruit production, they can use their consumption power to protect their own and environmental rights. However, the trust between producers and consumers requires strengthening. Reducing the unnecessary waste of food and labor is expected to create more ecological and environmental consumption patterns in the future.

scholarly journals Sustainability Requirements of Digital Twin-Based Systems: A Meta Systematic Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5519
Author(s):  
Rui Carvalho ◽  
Alberto Rodrigues da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Data Communication ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Reducing Costs

Sustainable development was defined by the UN in 1987 as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and this is a core concept in this paper. This work acknowledges the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., economic, social, and environmental, but its focus is on this last one. A digital twin (DT) is frequently described as a physical entity with a virtual counterpart, and the data, connections between the two, implying the existence of connectors and blocks for efficient and effective data communication. This paper provides a meta systematic literature review (SLR) (i.e., an SLR of SLRs) regarding the sustainability requirements of DT-based systems. Numerous papers on the subject of DT were also selected because they cited the analyzed SLRs and were considered relevant to the purposes of this research. From the selection and analysis of 29 papers, several limitations and challenges were identified: the perceived benefits of DTs are not clearly understood; DTs across the product life cycle or the DT life cycle are not sufficiently studied; it is not clear how DTs can contribute to reducing costs or supporting decision-making; technical implementation of DTs must be improved and better integrated in the context of the IoT; the level of fidelity of DTs is not entirely evaluated in terms of their parameters, accuracy, and level of abstraction; and the ownership of data stored within DTs should be better understood. Furthermore, from our research, it was not possible to find a paper discussing DTs only in regard to environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals Food Waste in Da Nang City of Vietnam: Trends, Challenges, and Perspectives toward Sustainable Resource Use

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7368
Author(s):  
Ngoc-Bao Pham ◽  
Thu-Nga Do ◽  
Van-Quang Tran ◽  
Anh-Duc Trinh ◽  
Chen Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
African Swine Fever ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Typical Feature ◽  
City Government ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Waste Generation ◽  
Pig Feed

Food waste has become a critical issue in modern society, especially in the urbanized and fast-growing cities of Asia. The increase in food waste has serious negative impacts on environmental sustainability, water and land resources, and food security, as well as climate and greenhouse gas emissions. Through a specific case study in Da Nang City, Vietnam, this paper examines the extent of food waste generation at the consumption stages, the eating habits of consumers, food waste from households and service establishments, as well as prospects for the reuse of food waste as pig feed. The results of this study indicate that per capita food waste generation in Da Nang has increased from 0.39 to 0.41kg in 2016, 0.46 in 2017, and reached 0.52kg in 2018. According to the results of our consumer survey, 20% of respondents stated that they often generate food waste, 67% stated they sometimes do, and 13% stated they rarely do. Furthermore, 66% of surveyed households stated that their food waste is collected and transported by pig farmers to be used as feed for pigs. The use of food waste as feed for pigs is a typical feature in Da Nang. The study also found that there is a high level of consumer awareness and willingness to participate in the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) program, which was being initiated by the city government. In service facilities such as resorts and hotels, daily food waste reached 100–200 kg in large facilities and 20–120 kg in small facilities. This waste was also collected for use in pig farming. However, there has been a fall in demand for pig feed in line with a decrease in the number of pig farms due to the African swine fever epidemic that occurred during the implementation of this study. This paper suggests that there is a strong need to take both consumer-oriented waste prevention and waste management measures, such as waste segregation at source and introduction of effective food waste recycling techniques, to ensure that food waste can be safely and sustainably used as a “valuable resource” rather than “wasted.”

scholarly journals Implications for Sustainability of the Joint Application of Bioeconomy and Circular Economy: A Worldwide Trend Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7182
Author(s):  
Emilio Abad-Segura ◽  
Ana Batlles-delaFuente ◽  
Mariana-Daniela González-Zamar ◽  
Luis Jesús Belmonte-Ureña
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Green Economy ◽  
Economic Knowledge ◽  
Joint Application ◽  
Bibliometric Review ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
The Impact

The joint application of bioeconomy (BE) and circular economy (CE) promotes the sustainable use of natural resources, since by applying a systemic approach, it improves the efficiency of these resources and reduces the impact on the environment. Both strategies, which belong to the area of green economy, provide a global and integrated approach towards environmental sustainability, as regards the extraction of biological materials, the protection of biodiversity and even the primary function of food production in agriculture. The objective was to analyze the implications for sustainability of BE and CE joint application. A systematic and bibliometric review has been applied to a sample of 1961 articles, selected from the period 2004–May 2021. A quantitative and qualitative advance is observed in this field of study. The expansion of scientific production is due to its multidisciplinary nature, since it implies technical, environmental and economic knowledge. The main contribution of this study is to understand the state of research on the implications for sustainability that BE and CE have when combined, in relation to their evolution, the scientific collaboration between the main driving agents, and the identification of the main lines of research developed.

scholarly journals Temporal load resolution impact on PV/grid system energy flows

2018 ◽  
Vol 240 ◽  
pp. 04003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Jaszczur ◽  
Qusay Hassan ◽  
Janusz Teneta
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Estimation Error ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Photovoltaic System ◽  
Acquisition Time ◽  
Storage Unit ◽  
Time Step ◽  
Energy Flows ◽  
Pv Grid

In this paper, an investigation of the electrical load temporal resolution on the PV/Grid energy system flows, and self-consumption is done in order to determine the optimum parameters for modelling and simulation. The analysed PV/Grid power systems include a photovoltaic system with the nominal power of Pmax@STC=1.5, 2.5, 3.5 kW without storage unit connected to the grid. The results show that the temporal load resolution may have a high impact on energy flows as well as can be a critical issue for the system analysis accuracy even for the single household. It has been found that the load temporal resolution for energy consumption of 1-min yields reliable results, while data resolutions of 5 and 15 min are still sufficient, however, in that case, the daily electrical energy flows and in consequence energy self-consumption estimation error for selected days may exceed 15%. Acquisition time step longer than 15-minutes may increase error above 20% and from the designer’s point of view should not be used. The high and low temporal resolution experimental data of the electricity consumption (load) for a household are available in digital form on the author’s website http://home.agh.edu.pl/jaszczur.

In pursuit of diverse energy futures: The political economy of electricity in Senegal

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110348
Author(s):  
Mara van den Bold
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
The Political ◽  
Oil Markets ◽  
Rural Access

In recent years, Senegal has proactively pursued the expansion of renewable energy generation, particularly from solar and wind. In addition to starting exploration of offshore liquefied natural gas, the expansion in renewable energy is posited as a way to help the country move toward low(er) carbon development, reduce dependence on volatile oil markets, and improve reliable (and especially rural) access to electricity. To achieve these objectives, the electricity sector has continuously undergone structural reforms to improve its financial viability and to achieve objectives around universal access to electricity, particularly by increasing private sector participation in electricity generation. Through the lens of “electricity capital,” this paper examines the implications of reforms in the electricity sector for processes of accumulation, in a context of efforts to improve environmentally sustainable development. It asks how capital in the electricity sector is constituted and operates in the Senegalese context, who has power in shaping how it operates, and how this has influenced the potential for achieving a fair and equitable transition to a low(er) carbon energy system. This paper draws on recent work in political ecology on energy transitions and emerging literature on the political economy of electricity, as well as on analysis of policy and technical documents and semi-structured interviews carried out with those involved in the energy sector between 2018 and 2020. Findings suggest that even though the Senegalese government has set clear objectives for the electricity sector that are based on principles of equity, environmental sustainability, and justice, the current power relations and financing arrangements taken on by the state and other actors active in the sector has, paradoxically, led to an approach that risks undermining these very principles.

The prioritization of renewable energy technologies in Pakistan: An urgent need

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-103
Author(s):  
Leezna Saleem ◽  
Imran Ahmad Siddiqui ◽  
Intikhab Ulfat
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Resources ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Energy System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Energy Needs ◽  
Environmental Criteria ◽  
Populous Country ◽  
Selection Of

Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country, currently facing the worst energy crisis. Although rich in renewable resources, Pakistan's energy system relies mainly on fossil fuels and imported energy for its energy needs. This study aims to use an analytical hierarchy pro-cess to prioritize six renewable technologies for Pakistan, with four criteria and thirteen subcriteria. The results indicate that solar power is particularly well suited for Pakistan, as it gained 42% priority weightage in the final aggregation. Wind energy is ranked second with a priority weight of 24%, followed by hydro 13%, biomass 9%, ocean 8% and geothermal en-ergy 3%. Solar and wind energies accounted for nearly 66% of the total weightage. This result highlighted the significance of economic criteria for the selection of renewable technologies in Pakistan, with around 43% priority weightage. Environmental criteria gained 19% whereas socio-political criteria registered 14% and technical criteria 23% priority weightage. During the potential assessment of the research, it was concluded that although renewable resource development has not been allocated sufficient attention in Pakistan in the past, if the correct decisions are taken regarding the exploitation of these resources, this can remedy the country's hazardous dependence on fossil fuel and imported energy.

scholarly journals Mudanças Climáticas no Semiárido Brasileiro: Experiências e Oportunidades para o Desenvolvimento (Climate Change in the Brazilian semiarid: Experiences and Opportunities for Development)

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francislene Angelotti ◽  
Diana Signor ◽  
Vanderlise Giongo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Green Economy ◽  
Environmental Services ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Brazilian Semiarid

A comunidade científica, ao longo dos últimos anos, tem buscado soluções para o desenvolvimento sustentável do Semiárido. Os estudos dos impactos das mudanças climáticas subsidiam medidas de mitigação e adaptação frente às futuras alterações no clima. Adicionalmente, o desenvolvimento e adoção de processos e tecnologias voltados para o desenvolvimento sustentável, tendo em vista a viabilidade econômica, social e ambiental são fundamentais, para aumentar a segurança alimentar, gerenciar os recursos hídricos e erradicar a pobreza. O avanço do conhecimento obtido nos últimos anos e a interação entre as instituições de ensino e pesquisa assumem um papel importante na proposição e adoção de políticas públicas que visam aumentar a capacidade adaptativa da sociedade e da economia regional frente às mudanças climáticas, criando espaços de oportunidades e caminhos para a resiliência climática. Nesse sentido, a busca de soluções e oportunidades para o desenvolvimento do Semiárido brasileiro é estratégico, razão pela qual mantem-se um fórum de discussão permanente traduzido no Simpósio de Mudanças Climáticas e Desertificação no Semiárido Brasileiro, realizado bianualmente. A adoção de ações voltadas para o desenvolvimento sustentável é estratégica. A economia verde e o pagamento por serviços ambientais se tornaram oportunidades, pois atualmente o desenvolvimento econômico não pode estar dissociado das preocupações com relação às mudanças no clima e a preservação do ambiente. Para o Semiárido brasileiro é necessário fortalecer as ações em andamento e buscar soluções inovadoras para reduzir os impactos e riscos inerentes às mudanças climáticas, criar oportunidades na economia de baixo carbono e promover a inclusão social. The scientific community over the last few years has been sought solutions for sustainable development of the semiarid. The research about impacts of climate change is subsidizing mitigation and adaptation measures facing future changes, in semi-arid region. In addition, the development and adoption of processes and technologies for sustainable development, in view of economic, social and environmental sustainability are essential to increasing food security, manage water resources and eradicate poverty. The knowledge progress achieved in recent years and the interaction between education and research institutions play an important role on proposition and adopting public policies that aimed to increase the adaptive capacity of society and the regional economy to climate change, creating opportunities spaces and directions for climate resilience. In this sense, the search for solutions and opportunities for the development of the Brazilian semiarid is strategic, which is why keeping a permanent discussion forum translated at the Symposium on Climate Change and Desertification in the Brazilian semiarid carried out every two years. The adoption of actions for sustainable development, in view of economic, social and environmental viability is strategic. The green economy and payment for environmental services have become opportunities because currently the economic development cannot be dissociated from concerns about climate change. For the Brazilian semiarid is necessary to strengthen actions in progress and seek innovative solutions to reduce the impacts and risks posed by climate change, creating opportunities in the low carbon economy and promoting social inclusion. Key-words: adaptation, mitigation, environmental services, research.   

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