Purpose At present, many urban areas in Mediterranean climates are coping with water scarcity, facing a growing water demand and a limited conventional water supply. Urban design and planning has so far largely neglected the benefits of rainwater harvesting (RWH) in the context of a sustainable management of this resource. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the most environmentally friendly strategy for rainwater utilization in Mediterranean urban environments of different densities. Materials and methods The RWH systems modeled integrate the necessary infrastructures for harvesting and using rainwater in newly constructed residential areas. Eight scenarios were defined in terms of diffuse (D) and compact (C) urban models and the tank locations ((1) underground tank, (2) below-roof tank, (3) distributed-over-roof tank, and (4) block tank). The structural and hydraulic sizing of the catchment, storage, and distribution subsystems was taken into account using an average Mediterranean rainfall, the area of the harvesting surfaces, and a constant water demand for laundry. The quantification of environmental impacts was performed through a life cycle assessment, using CML 2001 Baseline method. The necessary materials and processes were considered in each scenario according to the lifecycle stages (i.e., materials, construction, transportation, use, and deconstruction) and subsystems. Results and discussion The environmental characterization indicated that the best scenario in both urban models is the distributed-over-roof tank (D3, C3), which provided a reduction in impacts compared to the worst scenario of up to 73% in diffuse models and even higher in compact ones, 92% in the most dramatic case. The lower impacts are related to the better distribution of tank weight on the building, reducing the reinforcement requirements, and enabling energy savings. The storage subsystem and the materials stage contributed most significantly to the impacts in both urban models. In the compact density model, the underground-tank scenario (C1) presented the largest impacts in most categories due to its higher energy consumption. Additionally, more favorable environmental results were observed in compact densities than in diffuse ones for the Global Warming Potential category along with higher water efficiencies.Conclusions The implementation of one particular RWH scenario over another is not irrelevant in drought-stress environments. Selecting the most favorable scenario in the development of newly constructed residential areas provides significant savings in CO 2 emissions in comparison with retrofit strategies. Therefore, urban planning should consider the design of RWH infrastructures using environmental criteria in addition to economic, social, and technological factors, adjusting the design to the potential uses for which the rainwater is intended. Recommendations and perspectives Additional research is needed to quantify the energy savings associated with the insulation caused by using the tank distributed ov...
Goal, scope and background The industrial packages sector has great importance for the transport sector in Europe. These containers, mainly wooden pallets and spools, are subject to European legislation, which promotes their reuse and recycling. This study uses life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the environmental impact of the current management system in this sector and the benefits and drawbacks of different reuse intensities as a waste prevention strategy as opposed to the recycling option. Materials and methods In this paper, four case studies located in Spain and representative of the wooden package sector in Europe are analysed: high reuse pallet, low reuse pallet, low reuse spool and null reuse spool. For the LCA study cases, the functional unit is that required to satisfy the transport necessity of 1,000 t by road. The impact and energy consumption assessment methods used are CML 2 Baseline 2000 and Cumulative Energy Demand. Data are mostly provided by the leading enterprises and organisations in this sector.Results The paper provides, as a first result, a comprehensive inventory of the systems under study. Secondly, our assessment shows that the systems with higher reuse intensity show a reduction in energy and wood consumption and all the environmental impact categories except for the global warming potential from 34.0% to 81.0% in the pallet study cases and from 50.4% to 72.8% in the spool ones. This reduction is at the expense of the maintenance stage, which on the contrary increases its impact, although it is still relatively small-less than 7% in all the impact categories and flow indicators of the study cases. The highest impact stages are transport, raw material extraction and the process chain. The final disposal and maintenance stages are the lowest impact, contributing at most to less than 30% of the impact in the pallet study cases and 10% in the spool cases. Discussion Wood consumption (WC), directly related to the number of containers needed to satisfy the functional unit, is the main factor in determining the impact of the stages, especially in the raw materials extraction and process chain stages, assuming that these are undertaken with the same technologies in all the case studies. Other variables, such as the management system, the maintenance index and the final disposal scenario, affect the impact of the remaining stages: transport, maintenance and final disposal. The global warming potential results obtained demonstrate the environmental benefits of using containers made of a renewable resource such as wood instead of using other materials, but these results are not expected to prioritise the lower reuse systems because of their better performance in this category. Conclusions Reuse, a strategy capable of reducing the environmental impacts of the wooden container systems, is preferable to recycling, while the package maintenance tasks are still feasible. Therefore, reuse, combined with recycling as final disposal, should be encouraged to reduce the demand for natural resources and ...
a b s t r a c tThe Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certification has gained popularity amongst companies as a way to distinguish more environmentally friendly products. This article analyzes the C2C certification by determining how successful this eco-labeling scheme is in distinguishing environmentally preferable products in order to probe if the certification informs correctly to the consumer about the environmental performance of products. Furthermore, we identify for which product types the C2C certification really results in environmental impact reduction. First a review is done in order to detect the debilities, if any, of C2C. Secondly, the fact that C2C requirements do not tackle environmental aspects of products from a life cycle approach, and concentrates exclusively on raw materials and end of life phases, is further analyzed in depth. To do so, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) already published results for different product categories are used to determine if the life-cycle stages considered under the C2C approach coincide with the most relevant stages in terms of life-cycle environmental impacts. This helps ascertain if and when C2C can be considered an appropriate ecolabel.It is concluded that for products with high-energy consumption during use, C2C does not guarantee relevant environmental improvements, since it does not account for a substantial part of the product's environmental impact. For these reasons, we argue that C2C is not always an appropriate scheme to distinguish environmentally preferable products.
Abstract:The increase of tourism to the Antarctic continent may entail not only local but also global environmental impacts. These latter impacts, which are mainly caused by transport, have been generally ignored. As a result, there is a lack of data on the global impacts of Antarctic tourism in terms of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. This paper presents and applies a methodology for quantifying CO 2 emissions, both for the Antarctic vessel fleet as a whole and per passenger (both per trip and per day). The results indicate that the average tourist trip to Antarctica results in 5.44 t of CO 2 emissions per passenger, or 0.49 t per passenger and day. Approximately 70% of these emissions are attributable to cruising and 30% to flying, which highlights the global environmental relevance of local transport for this type of tourism.
Despite covering only 2.7% of the world's total surface area, the world's cities are responsible for 75% of the world's energy consumption and 80% of greenhouse-gas emissions. For this reason, the redesign of cities is essential in the transition towards sustainability. However, planning and designing sustainable neighbourhoods is not a simple task, given that there is no agreement on what the sustainable settlement should be, nor on how this should be achieved. Furthermore, planners have to strive to achieve a balance between Financial, environmental, and social goals, and must deal with multiple actors and stakeholders and with site-specific characteristics. The aim of this work is to describe the key determining factors-both opportunities and constraints-found in the process of designing and planning a neighbourhood, based on a case study in the city of Barcelona. In this practical experiment, led by the authors, the ecodesign methodology was applied on an urban scale in the neighbourhood of Vallbona, Barcelona, which occupies an area of 32.6 ha and will host 2120 dwellings. From this neighbourhood ecodesign exercise, it was found that territorial (urban form, urban fabrics, and density; availability of local resources), financial, legal, and political (local government's wishes and leadership) determinants are the most important. It is concluded that there is no single path to achieve urban sustainability, since the design of neighbourhoods in different locations will lead to différent results.
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