Global CO2 Emission-Related Geotechnical Engineering Hazards and the Mission for Sustainable Geotechnical Engineering

Global warming and climate change caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have rapidly increased the occurrence of abnormal climate events, and both the scale and frequency of geotechnical engineering hazards (GEHs) accordingly. In response, geotechnical engineers have a responsibility to provide countermeasures to mitigate GEHs through various ground improvement techniques. Thus, this study provides a comprehensive review of the possible correlation between GHG emissions and GEHs using statistical data, a review of ground improvement methods that have been studied to reduce the carbon footprint of geotechnical engineering, and a discussion of the direction in which geotechnical engineering should proceed in the future.

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Identifying Carbon Footprint Emitted by Geodetic Engineers in San Ildefonso Bulacan When Conducting Survey Activities

Engineering and Technology Journal ◽

10.47191/etj/v6i5.05 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 06 (05) ◽

Author(s):

Florencondia, Noel T. ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Global Climate Change ◽

Statistical Data ◽

Global Climate ◽

Ground Improvement ◽

Environmental Aspects ◽

Comprehensive Review ◽

Main Challenge ◽

A Company

Because of increasing concern about climate change and carbon emissions as a primary contributor, many companies and organizations are pursuing “carbon footprint” projects to estimate their contributions to global climate change. Calculating the carbon footprint is fundamental to understand how a company or organization’s activities impact global sustainability. The main challenge is how to calculate it when environmental aspects are intangible assets. This study aims to identify the frequency of carbon footprint emitted by geodetic engineers from San Ildefonso, Bulacan when they are conducting site surveying activities. Thus, this study provides a comprehensive review if GE’s from San Ildefonso, Bulacan are high contributors of emitted carbon using statistical data, a review of ground improvement methods that have been studied to reduce the carbon footprint, and the direction in which geodetic engineering should proceed in the future.

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The power of eco-labels: Communicating climate change using carbon footprint labels consistent with international trade regimes under the WTO

Climate Law ◽

10.1163/cl-120064 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 3 (3-4) ◽

pp. 209-230 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jane Kloeckner

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

International Trade ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Mass Communication ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Effective Response ◽

Labeling Schemes ◽

Trade Regimes ◽

Trade Measures

Information is power. At the intersection of culture, science, mass communication, and law, this paper argues that information provided by a transparent and internationally harmonized eco-label scheme serves to enhance understanding of public policy choices for mitigating climate change.Aproduct carbon footprint (PCF) label communicates climate change information to citizen consumers and can indirectly reduce GHG emissions. PCF labels are effective response measures that countries are taking to address global warming and are not obstacles to international trade. The international community should embrace domestic PCF labeling schemes, whether voluntary or mandatory. The PCF label and associated standards, which countries may use as domestic trade measures in response to the challenges of climate change, should be consistent with the rules and regimes of WTO agreements to ensure that these schemes support fair and free international trade. At some time in the future, the UNFCCC parties may reach agreement on a domestic response, including trade measures, to reduce GHG emissions, and PCF labeling schemes may be adapted as needed to assist developing countries’ participation. The WTO should support environmental trade measures that fight global warming, such as a domestic PCF label and associated standards.

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Renewable Energy and Carbon Footprint Emission at University Technology Malaysia (UTM)

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.734-737.1861 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 734-737 ◽

pp. 1861-1864 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zeynab Yazdani ◽

Amirreza Naderipour ◽

Mohd. Zaki Kamsah

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Co2 Emission ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Solar Power ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

University Technology ◽

Global Concern ◽

Photo Voltaic

The addition of renewable energy as the fifth source of Fuel Policy which was formulated under the 8th Malaysia Plan (20012005) to reduce dependency on fossil fuel and to address the rising global concern about climate change. This study is specifically on the GHG emissions from the consumption electricity are considered to be indirect emissions by the GHG Protocol guideline and effectiveness of using solar power Energy in order to calculate the current carbon footprint from electricity consumed at UTM and using Photo Voltaic (PV) as a renewable energy for reduce CO2 emission.

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There is a silver lining: carbon footprint reduction by holding Preventive Cardiology conference 2020 virtually

European Journal of Preventive Cardiology ◽

10.1093/eurjpc/zwab061.224 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 28 (Supplement_1) ◽

Author(s):

T Batool ◽

A Neven ◽

Y Vanrompay ◽

M Adnan ◽

P Dendale

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Co2 Emissions ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Carbon Emission ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Air Travel ◽

Co2 Production ◽

Scientific Conference ◽

Preventive Cardiology ◽

Transport Modes

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Other. Main funding source(s): Special Research Fund (BOF), Hasselt University Introduction The transportation sector is one of the major sectors influencing climate change, contributing around 16% of total Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. Aviation contributes to 12% of the transport related emissions. Among other climate change impacts, elevated heat exposure is associated with increased cardiac events and exposure to air pollution caused by GHG emissions has also well-known association with increased cardiovascular related morbidity and mortality. The global temperature rise should be restricted to less than 2 °C which requires keeping carbon emission (CO2) less than 2900 billion tonnes by the end of the 21st century. Assuming air travel a major contributing source to GHG, this study aims to raise the awareness about potential carbon emissions reduction due to air travel of international events like a scientific conference. Purpose Due to the global pandemic of COVID-19, the Preventive cardiology conference 2020 which was planned to be held at Malaga Spain, instead was held in virtual online way. This study aims to calculate the contribution of reduced CO2 emissions in tons due to ESC preventive cardiology conference 2020, which was then held online and air travel of the registered participants was avoided. Methods Anonymized participant registration information was used to determine the country and city of the 949 registered participants of the Preventive Cardiology conference 2020. It is assumed that participants would have travelled from the closest airports from their reported city locations to Malaga airport, Spain. At first, the closest city airports were determined using Google maps and flights information, then the flight emissions (direct and indirect CO2-equivalent emissions) per passenger for the given flight distances were calculated. The CO2 emissions (tons) were calculated for round trips in economy class from the participants of 68 nationalities (excluding 60 participants from Spain as they are assumed to take other modes of transport than airplane). Results In total, 1156.51 tons of CO2 emissions were saved by turning the physical conference into a virtual event. This emission amount is equivalent to the annual CO2 production of 108 people living in high-income countries. Conclusion The pandemic situation has forced us to rethink the necessity of trips by air and has shown us the feasibility of digitally organized events. The information from this study can add to the awareness about reduced amount of carbon emission due to air travel by organizing events in a virtual way when possible. Apart from only digitally organized events there are others options to reduce the carbon footprint of conferences such as limiting the number of physical attendees, encouraging the use of relatively sustainable transport modes for participants from nearby countries (e.g. international trains and use of active transport modes at conference venue etc.) and including CO2 emission offsetting costs.

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Tourism, Transport and Climate Change: The Carbon Footprint of International Air Traffic on Islands

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13041795 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 1795

Author(s):

Pedro Dorta Antequera ◽

Jaime Díaz Pacheco ◽

Abel López Díez ◽

Celia Bethencourt Herrera

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Canary Islands ◽

Fossil Fuels ◽

Average Distance ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Relative Weight ◽

Air Transport ◽

Small Islands ◽

The World

Many small islands base their economy on tourism. This activity, based to a large extent on the movement of millions of people by air transport, depends on the use of fossil fuels and, therefore, generates a large amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this work, these emissions are evaluated by means of various carbon calculators, taking the Canary Islands as an example, which is one of the most highly developed tourist archipelagos in the world. The result is that more than 6.4 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 are produced per year exclusively due to the massive transport of tourists over an average distance of more than 3000 km. The relative weight of these emissions is of such magnitude that they are equivalent to more than 50% of the total amount produced by the socioeconomic activity of the archipelago. Although, individually, it is travelers from Russia and Nordic countries who generate the highest carbon footprint due to their greater traveling distance, the British and German tourists account for the greatest weight in the total, with two-thirds of emissions.

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On the Ethics of International Religious/Spiritual Gatherings and Academic Conferencing in the Era of Global Warming: A Case Study of the Parliament of The World’s Religions Melbourne 2009 - Part 1

Worldviews Global Religions Culture and Ecology ◽

10.1163/156853511x575620 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 179-195

Author(s):

Almut Beringer ◽

Steven Douglas

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Global Climate ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Ecological Impacts ◽

Peak Oil ◽

Ethical Challenges ◽

Academic Events ◽

Special Responsibility

Global climate change and its impacts have ethical dimensions, for instance carbon footprint equity concerns. World issues, including the state of the ecosphere and biodiversity, regularly see political leaders, NGOs, business representatives, religious/spiritual organizations, academics, and others engage in international aviation-dependent meetings to address critical challenges facing humanity and the planet. Yet, climate scientists and advocates call for an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 to cap the increase in global temperatures to 2ºC. Aviation emissions resulting from international meetings raise questions that are not silenced by GHG emissions offsetting. The era of climate change and ‘peak oil’ poses ethical challenges for holding international in-person religious and academic events, especially when the events propound an environmentalist concern and when aviation use is assumed. This paper raises questions regarding the ecological impacts of large international events and focuses the ‘inconvenient truths’ associated with international aviation in the era of global warming. The Parliament of the World’s Religions, the largest multifaith gathering in the world, serves as a case study. The paper emphasizes the view that faith-based/faith-inspired organizations have a special responsibility for leadership in policy and praxis on the moral imperatives of sustainability, sustainable development and climate justice.

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Effects of climate change on environmental sustainability

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202125001005 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 250 ◽

pp. 01005

Author(s):

Manuela Tvaronavičienė

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Natural Resources ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Industrial Pollution ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Adaptation Strategies ◽

Viable Solution ◽

The World

Adaptation strategies to the climate change include measures that can be taken to take account of the new climatic conditions. This paper aims at assessing the effects of climate change on environmental sustainability. This sustainability constitutes a major problem in many countries and regions around the world that experience industrial pollution, degradation of land as well as natural disasters caused by the global warming. The paper shows that adaptation strategies are often parallel strategies that can be integrated simultaneously with the management of natural resources. They can make resources more efficient and resilient to climate change. The paper shows that reducing the carbon footprint by more than 50 percent by 2030 and eliminating it by 2050 might be a viable solution how to tackle the climate change and support the environmental sustainability.

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Assessing the long term effects on climate change of metallurgical slags valorization as construction material: a comparison between static and dynamic global warming impacts

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering ◽

10.3934/ctr.2021005 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 88-111

Author(s):

Andrea Di Maria ◽

◽

Annie Levasseur ◽

Karel Van Acker ◽

◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Building Materials ◽

Construction Material ◽

Steel Slag ◽

Construction Materials ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Stainless Steel Slag ◽

Environmental Evaluation

<abstract> <p>The interest in circular economy for the construction sector is constantly increasing, and Global Warming Potential (GWP) is often used to assess the carbon footprint of buildings and building materials. However, GWP presents some methodological challenges when assessing the environmental impacts of construction materials. Due to the long life of construction materials, GWP calculation should take into consideration also time-related aspects. However, in the current GWP, any temporal information is lost, making traditional static GWP better suited for retrospective assessment rather than forecasting purposes. Building on this need, this study uses a time-dependent GWP to assess the carbon footprint of two newly developed construction materials, produced through the recycling of industrial residues (stainless steel slag and industrial goethite). The results for both materials are further compared with the results of traditional ordinary Portland cement (OPC) based concrete, presenting similar characteristics. The results of the dynamic GWP (D_GWP) are also compared to the results of traditional static GWP (S_GWP), to see how the methodological development of D_GWP may influence the final environmental evaluation for construction materials. The results show the criticality of the recycling processes, especially in the case of goethite valorization. The analysis shows also that, although the D_GWP did not result in a shift in the ranking between the three materials compared with S_GWP, it provides a clearer picture of emission flows and their effect on climate change over time.</p> </abstract>

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Recycling Agricultural Wastes and By-products in Organic Farming: Biofertilizer Production, Yield Performance and Carbon Footprint Analysis

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11143824 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (14) ◽

pp. 3824 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Mariangela Diacono ◽

Alessandro Persiani ◽

Elena Testani ◽

Francesco Montemurro ◽

Corrado Ciaccia

Keyword(s):

Carbon Footprint ◽

Co2 Emission ◽

Agricultural Waste ◽

Organic Fertilizer ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Municipal Waste ◽

Total Carbon ◽

Energy Output ◽

Footprint Analysis ◽

Municipal Waste Compost

The Circular Economy concept implies the re-design of existing production systems in agriculture, by promoting agricultural waste recycling. In an organic zucchini—lettuce rotation, two different agroecological tools were considered: biofertilizer and presence or absence of green manure (GM+ and GM−). In particular, we compared: (i) anaerobic digestate from cattle manure, co-composted with vegetable wastes, with the presence of GM (AD GM+); (ii) olive pomace compost, re-composted, with the presence of GM (OWC GM+); (iii) municipal waste compost with GM (MWC GM+); (iv) municipal waste compost without GM (MWC GM−). These materials were tested with a commercial organic fertilizer without GM (COF GM−) as a positive control. The objectives were: (i) assessing the environmental sustainability of biofertilizers through carbon footprint analysis by greenhouse gas—GHG—emissions; (ii) evaluating the agronomic performance on the vegetable rotation, by energy output assessment. The total carbon emissions of biofertilizers production was 63.9 and 67.0 kg of CO2 eq Mg−1 for AD and OWC, respectively. The co-composting and re-composting processes emitted 31.4 and 8.4 kg CO2 per Mg of compost, respectively. In AD the ventilation phase of composting accounted for 37.2% of total emissions. The total CO2 emission values for the two-crop cycles were the highest in COF GM− and the lowest in OWC GM+, due to different fertilizer sources. On the average of the treatments, the input that induced the highest CO2 emission was irrigation (37.9%). The energy output assessment for zucchini and lettuce highlighted similar performance for all the treatments. Our findings demonstrated the validity of the tested processes to recycle agro-industrial wastes, and the potential of agroecological practices (GM) to mitigate GHG emissions.

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Evaluating the Link between Low Carbon Reductions Strategies and Its Performance in the Context of Climate Change: A Carbon Footprint of a Wood-Frame Residential Building in Quebec, Canada

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10082715 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 2715 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Alejandro Padilla-Rivera ◽

Ben Amor ◽

Pierre Blanchet

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Footprint ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Mitigation Strategies ◽

Quebec City ◽

Baseline Scenario ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Building Sector ◽

Change Mitigation

The design and study of low carbon buildings is a major concern in a modern economy due to high carbon emissions produced by buildings and its effects on climate change. Studies have investigated (CFP) Carbon Footprint of buildings, but there remains a need for a strong analysis that measure and quantify the overall degree of GHG emissions reductions and its relationship with the effect on climate change mitigation. This study evaluates the potential of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the building sector by evaluating the (CFP) of four hotpots approaches defined in line with commonly carbon reduction strategies, also known as mitigation strategies. CFP framework is applied to compare the (CC) climate change impact of mitigation strategies. A multi-story timber residential construction in Quebec City (Canada) was chosen as a baseline scenario. This building has been designed with the idea of being a reference of sustainable development application in the building sector. In this scenario, the production of materials and construction (assembly, waste management and transportation) were evaluated. A CFP that covers eight actions divided in four low carbon strategies, including: low carbon materials, material minimization, reuse and recycle materials and adoption of local sources and use of biofuels were evaluated. The results of this study shows that the used of prefabricated technique in buildings is an alternative to reduce the CFP of buildings in the context of Quebec. The CC decreases per m2 floor area in baseline scenario is up to 25% than current buildings. If the benefits of low carbon strategies are included, the timber structures can generate 38% lower CC than the original baseline scenario. The investigation recommends that CO2eq emissions reduction in the design and implementation of residential constructions as climate change mitigation is perfectly feasible by following different working strategies. It is concluded that if the four strategies were implemented in current buildings they would have environmental benefits by reducing its CFP. The reuse wood wastes into production of particleboard has the greatest environmental benefit due to temporary carbon storage.

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