Solar Water Heaters (SWHs) can have extremely short greenhouse gas emission payback periods as shown in various life cycle studies. Thus, it is believed that replacing electric geysers with SWHs will reduce a household\'s carbon footprint. This conclusion, however, does not take the rebound effect into account, where money saved from spending less on electricity for water heating, is spent eventually, either on more electricity, or on other goods and services with an associated carbon footprint. Previous studies conducted on the low-income areas of Kuyasa (Cape Town) and Zanemvula (Nelson Mandela Bay) confirm that for this income bracket the suppressed demand for electricity is so great that the installation of SWHs fails to produce a significant reduction in electricity consumption, confirming the "suppressed demand hypothesis" which provides an accepted basis to classify such projects as sustainable development cases worthy of receiving climate finance. An optimistic assumption about the future of South African cities must however recognise significant upward mobility, which leads to the question of whether SWHs result in a significant decrease in the carbon footprint of households in higher income brackets. The "gap" housing market consists of households that earn ZAR 3500 - 7500 per month: they earn too much to qualify for a Government housing subsidy, but most cannot afford housing in the private sector. Recent social housing projects, providing rental stock for this market, including Steenvilla and Drommedaris in Cape Town, have included SWHs. This work aims to answer the following questions: Does the installation of SWHs in gap social housing schemes result in these households consuming less electricity than households of the same income using electric geysers? If so, what do these households spend this saved money on and how does the carbon footprint of these new goods and services compare? The methodology includes surveys to investigate the electricity consumption and spending habits between Cape Town social housing schemes that use solar water heaters and those that have conventional geysers. Quantitative data on electricity purchases are also used. Preliminary results suggest that for households earning an average of ZAR 6000 per month, electricity consumption is reduced by approximately 120 kWh/month when SWHs are installed. Survey data suggests that saved money is spent on a wide range of goods and services. The household carbon footprint is however reduced as these goods and services have a lower carbon intensity (at ~ 0.3 kg CO_2eq/ZAR) than South African electricity (at ~ 1 kg CO_2eq/ZAR).

p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Hundreds of tonnes of hazardous waste are released to the air, water, and land by industry every hour of every day. The chemical industry is the biggest source of such waste and the number of agent considered toxic is continuosly increasing due also to a series of more restrictive laws and regulamentations (REACH).The term Green Chemistry was coined in the 1990s, to bring focus to an increasing interest in developing more environmentally friendly chemical processes and products. In this term the Green Chemistry represents the most concrete answer of the scientific community to the pressing enviromental needs and sustainability. There is a pool of clean technologies that are becoming widely studied or used from wich catalysis is a well established one, well proven at the largest volume end of the chemicals industry. Green Chemistry begin by design and design derive from inspiration. Nature is the biggest chemical laboratory in the world and produces , every days tonnes of chemicals in absolutely eco-friendly and sustainable way. The secret of natural chemistry are the enzymes, "Why don\'t take ispiration from the enzyme to setup new green chemical processes. An example of oxidative reactions inspired by the enzyme Gluatione Peroxidase will be discussed to highlight the reduction of produced waste, the reduction of energy requirement and the mild and ecofriendly confitions used.

Buildings have a large impact on the environment, economy and society: they consume 40% of the energy, produce 30% of the green house gas emissions, generate 25% of the solid waste, use 25% of the potable water, dissipate 12% of the land use, spend up to 40% of the countries´ gross domestic product [1]. Furthermore people spend about 90% of their time in buildings, what makes it important to provide them a healthy and comfortable indoor environment. For the management and implementation of all these aspects a lot of tools have been developed. Important examples are methods of the first generation like the "British Research Establishments Environmental Assessment Method" (BREEAM) [2] in 1990 or the American label "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design" (LEED) [3] in 1996, as well as methods of the second generation, like the DGNB Certificate [4] 2009. These concepts differ from each other and nowadays worldwide, as well as in Europe, there is still no common understanding of the concept of sustainable building. With projects like OPEN HOUSE [5] , SuPerBuildings [6] – both promoted by the European Commission – or the standards from ISO TC 59/SC 17 as well as CEN/TC 350 a process has been initialized to harmonise all these approaches. This paper will give a worldwide overview how sustainable buildings are currently assessed. As well as an insight in the development of the OPEN HOUSE methodology with the actual model, upcoming case studies and implementation in the building market. [1] United Nations Environment Programme: Common Carbon Metric. http://www.unep.org/sbci/pdfs/Common-Carbon-Metric-for_Pilot_Testing_220410.pdf. (07.11.2010) [2] http://www.breeam.org/ (30.9.2011) [3] www.usgbc.org/LEED/ (30.9.2011) [4] http://www.dgnb.de/ (30.9.2011) [5] http://www.openhouse-fp7.eu/ (30.9.2011) [6] http://cic.vtt.fi/superbuildings/ (30.9.2011)

Each economical cycle consists of a rise, peak, fall and crises. Year after year this curve has been studied by the scientists. It is attempted to explain the reasons of these phenomena, to foresee their range, to reduce the negative impact or to use the positive benefit of the range. Constantly repeated downturns, crises require new market researches and these researches help to develop theories that explain the crises. In this article both classic and new theories of financial and economical crises were reviewed and compared. The representatives of these theories are K. Marx, J. Keynes, H. Minsky, F Muth, R. Lucas, Blanchard, C. P. Kindleberger, F. Fama, R. Shiller, A. Johansen, D. Sornette, S. Girdzijauskas. The professor of Vilnius University, Stasis Girdzijauskas established a well-developed theory of logistic management of capital, which reveals the reasons of financial and economical crises, unnamed paradoxes in economy, innovatively evaluated inflations, the sources of other phenomena, closed and open markets and development of their capacity. The theory of logistic management of capital as the biggest problem emphasizes and indicates the filling of system capacity by capital, in which it is invested. It is shown that the economical downturns can be prevented by invoking the theory of logistic management of capital.

In sustainable agriculture it is getting more important the need of reducing environmental burden duo to agrochemical use. To carry out environmental protection, the responsible use of natural resources and keep rural development for the future generation is our taskThe term "sustainable development" includes the current and long-run sustainable production and the controversies of environmental protection that assurance the right quality of life, and hard-preventable, but rather tolerated conflicts. Sustainability must include the farming that allow for easy reproduction the assets needed for production not only business management level, but also on a national level management irrespectively of the source of capital necessary for farming. It is also important to maintenance of rural areas. Precision farming is one of the farming strategies in crop production which can increase farmer\'s efficiency and can reduce the chemical use – especially in plant protection – and also the burden of environment. Here in this research we have examined the economic relations between potential savings in chemicals on EU level and in Hungary by analyzing scenarios for implementing the site-specific technology in weed management. It has been found that after switching to precision farming, the active ingredient savings in herbicide use can be 30 thousand tons (calculating with the current dose-level) in EU-27. If approximately 30% of the crop producing and mixed farms over 16 ESU adopt this new technology, this will diminish environmental loads by up to 10-35%. In Hungary the expected area on which precision plant protection can be used is about 400 000 ha if 25 % of the farms operating over 16 ESU apply the technology. That means 229-587 to pesticide savings per year depending on the savings in dose of pesticide per hectare (that were: 25-30-50%), assuming the nowadays pesticide usage. The majority of farms characterized by greater output and size can be based on their own equipment but it might as well be presumed that smaller farms can turn to precision farming not based on their own investment, buying the technical service, establishing machinery rings. At a certain farm size and farming intensity precision crop production is a real, environmentally friendly farming strategy, with the help of which the farm can reach earnings that cover at least the economic conditions of simple reproduction.

Official protection plays a major role in the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable management of endangered species habitat. Bozin and Marakhil Forest is a protected area in the Kermanshah province of Iran, and covers 23,724 ha of semi-arid Zagros forests. It was designated a protected area in 1999 to protect habitat for roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). However, debate has surrounded the efficiency and effectiveness of protected areas for species\' habitat conservation in the region due to the ongoing socioeconomic problems in the area. Using remote sensing data from 2001 and 2009, we evaluated the effects of this protected designation on forest area and structure at two spatial scales. We processed and classified Landsat images of the two dates covering the protected area and the adjacent unprotected areas for the broad scale analysis. We classified IKONOS and GeoEye images of the two dates covering a part of protected and unprotected areas for fine scale analysis. The fine scale analysis showed a higher forest loss in unprotected area. The difference between spatial pattern metrics at the fine scale at the beginning and the end of the study period showed that no structural change occurred as result of protection. Broad scale analysis showed no change in forest area in either the protected or unprotected areas during the study period. Spatial pattern analysis at broad scales showed that the protected area had a higher forest patch contiguity and patch extent, and lower patch isolation, at the end of study period (p-values: 0.002, 0.014, and 0.002). A temporal analysis demonstrated that these differences were not due to the improvement of habitat in the protected area, since no change in structure occurred in that area through time. Instead, changes occurred due to fragmentation in the unprotected area through time. At the fine scale, protection improved the area of forests while at broad scale its effect was observed on forest structure. These results demonstrate that eliminating or reducing human activity in an area through official protection may prevent further degradation within the area, but may have substantial impact on habitat at multiple scales in the surrounding area. This presents a risk of isolating populations within the park, further placing them at risk of stochastic extinction. The practice calls into question the efficiency of protected areas from both the ecological and socioeconomic viewpoints.

Climate change is a global phenomena that carries strong and sensitive effects at local scales, especially in cities, where more than 50% of world population is nowadays settled (Harlan and Ruddel, 2011). Urbanization is featured by intensive building, specifically by edification density and shape (Emmanuel, 2005, Hasenack, 1989), as well as by high rates of vehicles circulation in cities (Gu et al., 2011), two dynamic systems whose combination can contribute for temperatures increasing in crowded areas, as registered by Bentley (2007), Kim and Kim (2011) and several other authors. We studied the situation of Porto Alegre, placed in the Southern Brazilian State, at 30°2\'0" South and 51°12\'0" West coordinates, regarding these three aspects. Analysing side by side statistical data of real estate local institution (SINDUSCON) on building indexes, vehicles fleet and temperatures variation, given respectively by State Traffic Authority (DETRAN) and the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), it was possible to identify expressive rising in these variables along the last decade. Building data were available for the 12 past years. They have shown an increase of 52,72% from 1998 to 2008 taking in account the number of new edifications in the city. Data from 2009 and 2010 for building were overlooked as atypical because of the impact suffered from financial global crisis. Vehicle fleet has experimented an increase of 54,37% with respect to the number of circulating unities from 2000 to 2010. Annual average temperatures grew 0,3ºC – from 19,5ºC between 1990 and 1999 to 19,8ºC between 2000 and 2009. In order to face constraints related to missing data, and to understand the changing patterns of land occupation in the last decade, we compared satellite images captured by Landsat in 2000 and 2010. Using geoprocessing techniques, we identified patterns of expansion in built area of the whole city, markedly to South direction. Considering that the population of Porto Alegre is keeping an average growth rate of 6% from decade to decade since 1990, reaching to 1,4 million of indwellers in 2010, according the Sate Economic and Statistical Foundation (FEE/RS), we can take population growth as not so relevant as the increase observed in building and vehicles fleet. Although any strong conclusion cannot be stated from this analysis regarding temperatures rising determinants, we suggest that building and fleet vehicles variation deserve more attention in terms of monitoring by local authorities responsible for urban planning in order to avoid losses for quality of life in the city.

Promotion of use of renewable energy sources are among the priorities of energy policy in Lithuania. District heating (DH) technology is promising tool for implementing energy and environment policy goals. Lithuania acceded to the European Union (EU) in 2004. Integration of new member states to the EU has created a new situation in the frame of implementation of EU sustainable development. At the moment the use of renewable energy is relevant for Lithuania not only for sustainable development targets, but also for practical reasons. After the closure of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Lithuanian energy sector development faced with significant challenges. Energy sector, including district heating, became dependent on natural gas. Lithuania imports natural gas from the sole energy supplier - Russia (Gazprom). New challenges for district heating sector are related to the possibilities of integration of renewable and local energy resources. A wider use of renewable energy can help to diversify of energy supply and to meet the targets of sustainable development. The paper presents an overview of the present Lithuanian and EU legal regulation of the use of renewable energy sources. Also the problems related to the use of renewable energy sources in district heating supply and measures that promote the use of these sources are analysed in the article.

With climate change, heat waves (HWs) are predicted to increase, particularly in areas where HWs have historically occurred. A multitude of studies have demonstrated that human mortality increases during HWs. California has suffered a number of HWs. The "Great" California HW of July 2006 was unprecedented in duration and occurred statewide, lasting ten days in much of the state and longer in some areas. We calculated the ratio of deaths during the heat wave period (July 15 – Aug 1, 2006) to deaths on non-heat wave days in the same summer. We calculated these rates by California\'s sixteen building climate zones. These zones were outlined in 1982 based on climate, elevation, and estimated energy consumption. HW mortality ratios were higher: i) in the northern coastal zone (a 19% excess of mortality) compared to other coastal zones ofCalifornia (-0.1 to 6% excess); and ii) in the southern and northern zones of the Central Valley (a 11 to 12% excess) compared to the central zone of the Central Valley (a 2% excess). We examined available meteorological, census, and other data, and discuss whether these differences may be related to zonal differences in HW intensity or duration, air conditioning use, building insulation requirements, or other factors such as occupation. Notably, the northern and southern zones of the Central Valley are farming areas. In contrast, the central zone of the Central Valley includes the state capitol, where a higher percentage of workers are office workers. Identifying resilient (low health impact) and vulnerable (high health impacts) zones, and factors that may mitigate the health impact, may ultimately inform climate change mitigation and adaptation policies.

The relationship between governance, sustainability and decision making is receiving increasing attention in academic and policy circles. Governance and sustainability are, however, contested and somewhat imprecise concepts. Both concepts are inextricably linked to local circumstances and therefore need to be defined in terms of the characteristics of the people living in a given place at a given moment. In this paper we present an alternative idea of governance in which the importance of the notion of place is highlighted and the degree of interaction and cooperation between local actors is given more relevance than in conventional definitions. We base our understanding of governance on a previously defined conceptual framework for sustainability build on the three pillars of "place" (the spatial dimension), "permanence" (the temporal dimension) and "persons" (the human dimension), instead of the classic triple bottom line of economy, environment and society. This conceptual framework is arguably more sensitive than the triple-bottom-line approach to understand complex, long-term issues such as environmental governance and inter-generational justice. It also makes the idea of sustainability more adaptable to specific settings and more appropriate to understand local, regional, and global processes. Interactions between persons in a given place are usually triggered by specific problems. These interactions directly affect the overall situation in the future, constantly reshaping the temporal dimension in a continuous process of change. To test the conceptual framework presented we analyzed the governance of the water and sanitation management system in the city of Salta, Argentina. We briefly describe the system, analyze institutional changes in recent yeards and discuss the relevance of differents stakeholders acting therein in order to identify key features that might be useful to detect governance failures and succeses. We organized our finding in a semi-quantitative index that allows a more in-depth analysis of the complex links of governance and sustainability. The index is calculated by aggregating descriptors, indicators and variables in a weighted matrix. Data used to build the index come from literature reviews, information provided by the water company, field visits, and interviews with key actors. We compare our approach with other governance analytical frameworks, highlighting similarities and differences. Some specific recommendations are made to promote a better governance of the system studied.