Limiting temperature rise below 2 °C requires large deployment of Negative Emission Technologies (NET) to capture and store atmospheric CO2. Compared to other types of NETs, biochar has emerged as a mature option to store carbon in soils while providing several co-benefits and limited trade-offs. Existing life-cycle assessment studies of biochar systems mostly focus on climate impacts from greenhouse

Electricity generation heavily relies on water. Growing electricity demand globally inevitably leads to water availability concerns. This study proposes a means to quantify the indirect water usage embodied in electricity and assesses the holistic impact of water consumption on available water resources. First, the energy water intensity factor (EWIF), which quantifies the amount of water used to produce

Garbage classification technology is not only an important basis for the harmless treatment of waste and resource recovery, but also the inevitable trend of social development. The current garbage classification methods rely on manual classification in the garbage collection stage, and it is difficult to achieve satisfying results in consistency, stability, and sanitary conditions. For this reason

The prescribed buyback schemes as a part of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) of companies are believed to be an effective practice to eliminate the landfill of packaging materials. The coercive measures include the reuse and recycling of plastic packaging material. The lack of awareness, motivation, concern and enforcement of rules are major concerns of the government in implementing the

China's carbon neutrality target before 2060 requires a significant CO2 emissions reduction for the power industry. The application of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology in coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) can significantly reduce the CO2 emissions while avoiding stranded assets loss; however, its contribution to carbon neutrality remains unclear. Based on a CCUS source-sink matching

Growing public interest in environmental, social, and governance issues requires all organizations to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Because the metals industry has been less likely to report engagement with the SDGs than other sectors, exploring its relationship with the SDGs is essential in accelerating its engagement with these goals. This study examines the relationship

Existing electric power systems have been being faced with great concerns on climate change mitigation through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in recent decades. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are considered the next generation of power technologies, offering stable, safe, and environmental-friendly power. This research initially establishes a multi-stochastic SMR siting model (SSMRS) based

Numerous indicators have been suggested as tools for assessing progress towards the circular economy (CE). However, it is unclear what specifically is captured by CE indicators and few studies have tested them on real cases. This review addresses this gap by describing and comparing the resource-related effects captured by existing resource-based product-level indicators and suggesting recommendations

Demand for new buildings and infrastructure continues to grow and will only increase in coming years to cater for forecast growth in global population. This demand will result in considerable strain on the natural environment, resulting from the operation of these new built assets as well as the demand for resources required to construct and maintain them. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can be

European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy draws new shapes of economy in order to protect the environment and reduce marine pollution, GHGs and countries’ dependence on imported fossil fuels. The core of EU Strategy is also to try to transform the way plastic products are designed, produced, used and recycled in the EU. Italy is the first country in Europe and the second in the world for

Recycling end-of-life (EoL) reverse osmosis (RO) membrane modules into forward osmosis (FO) membranes is an innovative alternative to approach membrane science into Circular Economy (CE). Membrane modules are chemically modified and disassembled. This strategy achieves the valorisation of 69% of the membrane area and 63.7% of the plastic components. This study aims to assess the environmental potential

In developing countries, urbanization and demographic changes are increasing food waste generation at household levels. However, it remains unclear how behavioural and personal characteristics influence the behaviours of urban consumers in developing countries regarding food waste. In this study, we extended the integrative model of behavioural prediction to examine the determinants of food waste behaviour

As one of the major bay areas in the world, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) has been experiencing a remarkable urbanization process, accompanied by the deterioration of the thermal environment quality. This study tried to explore how urbanization dynamically and regionally affects the thermal environment, by examining the spatiotemporal variation of the local climate zone (LCZ)

Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) is currently the primary technology to allow the use of fossil fuels with deep CO2 reduction. One technology utilizes captured CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). For developing countries which rely heavily on fossil fuels, CCUS with EOR can serve as a potential solution for national climate change abatement strategies while still sustaining energy security

As electrification becomes one of the most promising ways for low carbon transition in the transport sector, electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) has been widely perceived as a vital public service and strategic asset for supporting the transition in China. Considering the massive investments required by EVCI deployment and the urgent need to mitigate climate change, it is significant to

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies have been hailed as a solution to climate change with capacity not only to reduce atmospheric carbon di-oxide (CO2) but also to achieve net-zero emission by the mid-21st century. CO2 captured (either directly from the atmosphere or from large point sources), is compressed and transported to storage sites, either via pipelines or through shipping. Often

Currently, many countries around the world face serious problems related to coastal erosion. The use of natural fillers extracted from shallow areas as well as from rivers for coastal regeneration and beach nourishment generates additional environmental impacts that affect plants and animal communities, water circulation and coastal dynamics, amongst others. On the other hand, construction and demolition

The aim of this research was using a new chemical devulcanizing agent (i.e. VitaX) in devulcanization of NR/SBR blend as a model compound of tire rubber by microwave (MW) irradiation. For this purpose, the rubber compounds were prepared at different natural rubber (NR) to styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) ratios (40:60, 50:50, 60:40, 70:30 and 80:20). The rubbers were cured and then ground to particles

Cobalt is widely recognized as a strategic mineral especially for current energy and low carbon revolution. Nonetheless, the geographically concentrated supply makes reliable access to cobalt more of a strategic concern. Understanding the systemic impacts of epicenter economies, and how crises propagate if these economies were hit by negative shocks, are thus important for policy makers. To explore

To promote diatom-based biofuel productions in clean energy, this paper explores the potential of using biosilica as a renewable and regenerative byproduct from diatom-based biofuel production in cementitious materials. High-purity diatomite (DE), a biosilica model compound, is selected to investigate the microstructure and durability performance of diatom-based cementitious composites. The replacement

With significant efforts made to consider water reuse in cities, a robust and replicable framework is needed to quantify the degree of urban water circularity and its impacts from a systems perspective. A quantitative urban water circularity framework can benchmark the progress and compare the impacts of water circularity policies across cities. In that pursuit, we bring together concepts of resource

Expanding the curbside collection system for household plastic packaging could help in accomplishing the ambitious recycling targets set by the European Union. In this study, the effects of such expansion in terms of quality and quantity of sorted plastic waste fractions were investigated. By applying a validated sorting model, the flows of packages in Belgium from their use phase until the output

The construction industry plays an essential role in a country's economic growth. The industry has been criticised for activities and processes that generate high volumes of waste, whilst obstructing sustainable development goal (SDGs) targets. The circular economy (CE) increases waste minimisation by keeping materials and resources in a closed loop. This concept has continued to gain positive traction

China consumes 28% of the world's N fertilizer and produces 17% of global wheat, and is currently self-sufficient. At issue is whether it will remain self-sufficient with the increases in wheat demand and the decreases in fertilizer N usage and harvested area. Here we quantified the detailed benefits of N management technique for wheat production and predicted the potential of China's wheat production

Resource efficiency was selected as an important SDG indicator because it is closely related to resource utilization with its environmental impacts. Considering China's massive resource consumption and great environmental pressure, we need to understand the status of resource utilization by exploring the resource efficiency of China. Resource consumption per unit of GDP (also called resource intensity)

This paper explores the disjuncture between consumers’ expressed preferences for ecologically benign packaging and their subsequent purchase decisions. We investigate consumers’ attitudes towards compostable bio-based food packaging, in contrast to fossil-based plastic packaging, framing our study within analysis of implicit attitudes. We address a gap in knowledge about the moderating effects of consumers’

Timely and accurate recognition of construction waste (CW) composition can provide yardstick information for its subsequent management (e.g., segregation, determining proper disposal destination). Increasingly, smart technologies such as computer vision (CV), robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are deployed to automate waste composition recognition. Existing studies focus on individual waste

As global and local actors seek to address climate concerns, municipalities, regions, and countries are developing policies for the built environment to reach carbon neutrality. In most cases, however, current policies target new construction and operational carbon emissions only, thus omitting the significant carbon emission saving potential resulting from the reactivation of embodied carbon in existing

Analyses of the future for manufacturing and heavy industries in a climate constrained world many times focus on technological innovations in the early stages of the value chain, assuming few significant changes are plausible, wanted, or necessary throughout the rest of the value chain. Complex questions about competing interests, different ways of organising resource management, production, consumption

Refurbishment is an effective strategy to extend product lifetimes in a circular economy. However, consumers believe that refurbished products are contaminated with traces of prior use, which can be indicated by the appearance (e.g., scratches) or functionality (e.g., lower battery capacity) of refurbished products. This research explores strategies to improve consumer adoption of refurbished products