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The new scenario framework facilitates the coupling of multiple socioeconomic reference pathways with climate model products using the representative concentration pathways. This will allow for improved assessment of climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation. Assumptions about climate policy play a major role in linking socioeconomic futures with forcing and climate outcomes. The paper presents the concept of shared climate policy assumptions as an important element of the new scenario framework. Shared climate policy assumptions capture key policy attributes such as the goals, instruments and obstacles of mitigation and adaptation measures, and introduce an important additional dimension to

Climate change is a reality all over the world, and its complexity is increasing. Therefore, sustainability has become a national and international concern, ingrained in many organizational processes. The ability of organizations to respond to sustainability concerns is sometimes hindered by the complexity of integrating sustainability into business models and by the need to rethink their strategic directions. In Romania, sustainable development has become a priority for businesses, but even though companies are showing some concern, there are yet to demonstrate any full commitment (they are mainly concerned with areas such as society and the environment). This paper assesses Romania's involvement in the adoption of actions directed toward the reduction of pollutants and greenhouse gases, namely actions focused on reducing the main causes of pollution. This analysis compares the situation in Romania with that of the European OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 1638Union. The main concerns can be categorized according to four sectors, which produce the highest quantity of carbon dioxide emissions in the world: the energy sector, the transport sector, the waste sector and the industry sector. The last section of this paper deals with the carbon footprint of Romania and its implications.

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The persistent market failures and policy inertia due to the existence of carbon lock-in create barriers to the diffusion of carbon saving technologies. In spite of their apparent environmental and technological advantages, the renewable technologies cannot take off in the market. On an empirical level this paper studies the barriers to the market deployment of indigenously developed Arun TM 160 Solar Concentrator technology which has the potential to revolutionize the industrial restructuring by providing Solar Heat for Industrial Processes. This study classifies the barriers into micro, meso and macro barriers and analyses the impact of them by conducting two rounds of questionnaire: one with firms and other with experts.

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This paper analyses mass and energy balances of some Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Systems (IMSWS) focusing on MSW sorting, treatment and energy recovery conversion chains suitable for the last entries into the European Union (EU). In particular the Romanian case-study has been developed as reference scenario. In this context the actions timelines for the case-study are immediate (S1A), midterm (S1B) and long term (S2). In the scenarios S1A, S1B a poor selective collection (SC) is considered of 3.5% and 9.94% respectively from the total MSW stream. The Residual Municipal Solid Waste (RMSW) is always sent to a biodrying process. Advanced mechanical sorting (AMS) treatments are applied in order to obtain Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF). A final industrial exploitation of SRF (S1A) or a gasification option (S1B) are considered as final treatments. Scenario S2 includes a proficient SC implementation for paper and cardboard, plastics, glass, metals and wood, "Take back programs", RMSW biodrying, and SRF gasification. For the development of the calculations, one million tons of MSW were considered. The results show that the combination of proficient SC and "Take back programs" leads to a significant decrease in the annual waste disposal. Moreover the combustible material designated to energy recovery (S1A cement factory, S1B and S2 gasification) decreases by weight (S1A (53.7%), S1B (55.84%) and S2 (65.45%). In particular, without any pre-treatment (SC, Take back programs, mechanical sorting) of the RMSW stream by applying the its direct incineration, the Non Volatile Solids (NVS) landfill flow would be higher in comparison with all scenarios considered.

This paper describes a study conducted to evaluate the best scenario regarding the integrated management of municipal solid waste (MSW) in a large basin in North of Italy. Three different scenarios were defined with various technological solutions, having as principal core the selective collection, the energy recovery and the modality of final disposal. The comparison was done considering both mass and energy balance, trying to focus on the most suitable solution. The solutions cannot be definitive without having also developed a survey on the environmental and economic sustainability of the various alternative cases. However, an assessment made by developing balances of mass and energy demonstrates that the more interesting and favorable scenarios involve greater energy recovery, in particular with gasification and anaerobic digestion of the organic matter.