Design of production systems with hybrid energy and water generation for sustainable value creation

Abstract

Population growth, connected with rising incomes, urbanization, fidelity to dogmas and climate change, places pressure on the food industry. This significantly increases the inextricably-linked demand of production systems for water and energy. Technological solutions-such as increasing accessibility and further reducing costs-can be employed to overcome the limitations created by the local availability of resources. This paper develops a new methodology generating sustainable value, and thus achieving a competitive advantage in business ecosystems. The methodology addresses both the key requirements of sustainable development and the preferences of stakeholders. A set of design conditions are proposed to develop eco-efficient, socio-eco-effective, and adaptable production systems under changing limitations. An international project is launched to demonstrate the superiority of the design methodology and to create awareness about interdependencies among the prevalent design conditions and regional limitations. The task aims at developing technological solutions, which can be retrofitted in existing production systems to increase the sustainable local added value and capacity for regions affected by climate change. The impact of climate change is more obvious in semi-closed ecosystems. Cyprus is one of the Mediterranean islands with such a semi-closed ecosystem. Combined with water scarcity and rising prices in electricity, this made Cyprus an ideal testing ground for the methodology. The selected solution includes the use of hybrid energy and water generation to process agricultural products and to recycle organic waste. This solution achieves a nearly zero emission, zero water footprint and increases the local added value by product-service systems. To support decision-makers, various technologies and their feasibility are considered, evaluated and recommendations are made for implementing the modular solutions.

Toward an Organizational Theory of Sustainability Vision

“…The knowledge-sharing practice is also endorsed by the corporate sustainability strategy of coopetition, whereby competitors concurrently cooperate with each other to secure mutual benefits [114][115][116]. In today's corporate world, information exchange between competing corporations is regarded as a way through which corporations cooperate to improve overall performance for all competing corporations via coopetition [117].…”

Energy Recovery in Existing Water Networks: Towards Greater Sustainability

“…These new techniques have raised interesting environmental and economic advantages. Therefore, a deep knowledge of the water-energy nexus is crucial for quantifying the potential for energy recovery in any water system [3], and defining performance indicators to evaluate the potential level of energy savings is a key issue for sustainability, environmental, or even management solutions [4].…”

Calibrating a flow model in an irrigation network: Case study in Alicante, Spain

“…Water management becomes more efficient when a deep knowledge of the network is done by modelling (Carravetta et al, 2012;Pardo et al, 2013;Cabrera et al, 2014;Butera & Balestra, 2015;Emec et al, 2015;Delgoda et al, 2016), increasing the sustainability of the whole system and decreasing the water footprint (Corominas, 2010;Ramos et al, 2010a,b). This knowledge of the network (mainly flows and pressure) allows the design of strategies to transform the WDNs in multipurpose systems (Choulot, 2010).…”