The Soy Moratorium is an initiative to reduce deforestation rates in the Amazon biome based on the hypothesis that soybean is a deforestation driver. Farmers that planted soybean in that biome in opened areas after its declaration, July 24th, 2006, would not have their production commercialized nor supported with any financial aid through purchases or crop financing by the associated companies to the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE) and the National Association of Cereal Exporters (ANEC). ABIOVE and ANEC represent about 90% of the Brazilian soybean market. Brazil has a long term project to monitor the deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon Biome using remote sensing images. Every year a map with new deforested polygons is available on the Internet (www.prodes.inpe.br). Therefore, it is possible to monitor the deforested polygons after the Moratorium date in order to identify annual crops in these polygons using remote sensing images. The crop detection method based on satellite images facilitate and reduce costs of the monitoring procedure to select possible soybean fields. The MODIS satellite images are not able to classify soybean crop at early growth stages with high accuracy, however, they play an important role in the pre-selection of these possible soybean fields. Therefore, crop detection method also uses Landsat like images, aerial survey and, field work. In the last crop, 3,571 deforested polygons with more than 25 ha and deforested after the Moratorium declaration were identified nearby the soybean producing region in the Amazon Biome. Using satellite imagery analysis procedure, 293 of these deforested polygons were selected, indicating to have annual crops. Soybean was detected in 147 of 293 polygons, covering an area of 11,698 ha. In 2011, the soybean was cultivated only in 0.39% of the recently deforested areas in Amazon Biome during the Moratorium period. In terms of the total soybean area cultivated in Brazil and in the Amazon Biome, 11,698 ha represents 0.05% and 0.60%, respectively. It seems that the Soy Moratorium is having an inhibitory effect on recent deforestation in the Amazon Biome, but the soy crop certainly has not been a major driver of deforestation during the last four years as indicated by the numbers. The quantitative geospatial information provided by an effective monitoring approach is paramount to the implementation of a governance process required to establish an equitable balance between environmental protection and agricultural production.

London Plan is the London mayor\'s long term plan for tackling different shortcomings of the London city. Tackling climate change is been outlined in one of its policies named Policy 4A.x. Making energy use more efficient, using renewable energy sources and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) are proposed for the challenge. The plan has been out since 2004 for review and many scholars have commented on many aspects of the plan. This paper evaluates the Policy 4A.x since 2004. This paper longitudinally analyses the environmental, financial and social aspects of the policy. Moreover it discusses the financial domain of the plan in more depth.

Environmental implications of the whole supply-chain of products, both goods and services, their use, and waste management, i.e. their entire life cycle from "cradle to grave" have to be considered to achieve more sustainable production and consumption patterns. In the Communication on Integrated Product Policy (IPP), the European Commission committed to produce a handbook on best practice in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Action Plan (EC, 2008) confirmed that "(…) consistent and reliable data and methods are required to assess the overall environmental performance of products (…)". In this context, JRC led a "science to policy" process which resulted in the ILCD International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook ILCD Handbook is a series of detailed technical documents, providing guidance for good practice in Life Cycle Assessment in business and government, serving as. "parent" document for developing sector- and product-specific guidance documents, criteria and simplified tools. For Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), the Handbook provide guidelines to methods and assessments to analyse the emissions into air, water and soil, as well as the natural resources consumed in terms of their contributions to different impacts on human health, natural environment, and availability of resources. Several methodologies have been developed for LCIA and some efforts have been made towards harmonisation. In order to support the selection of the methods, criteria for good characterisation modelling practice were developed in advance to be used in the evaluation and comparison of the selected methods. The criteria include scientific, applicability and stakeholder acceptance issues. Methods and models for LCIA were reviewed, covering different impact categories such as climate change, ozone depletion, photochemical ozone formation, respiratory inorganics, ionising radiation, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, land use and resource depletion. The guidelines for LCIA come from a comprehensive process of selection of methods based on a set of scientific and stakeholder acceptance criteria and involving extensive hearings of domain experts, advisory groups and the public, during a public consultation. In this "from science to policy support" process a number of research needs, critical issues and challenges for Life Cycle Impact Assessment emerged. Robustness of models and reliability of characterisation factors must be the basis for further development in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA).

In this study, the self sufficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) system installed on the roof of a single house is assessed in its response to the particularly severe weather conditions of Canada. Since the local climate presents large daily and yearly temperature fluctuations, in addition to the presence of snow, drizzle and freezing rain the design of renewable energy systems is very challenging. This research presents the investigation of both passive and active solar designs for a Canadian house. Self and transfer admittances of all surfaces were calculated. Furthermore, the zone admittance matrix has been derived for three different harmonics of the weather inputs. An explicit finite difference model is used to calculate the temperature of the all nodes which are considered. Further, the equations resulted from the finite difference model are solved by MathCAD. The passive response of the house shows around 20°C difference between room-air and ambient average temperature in a winter day. The second part of this study includes the simulation of the PV system and house energy consumption. It has been carried out by use of PVSOL. Consequently, by making a comparison between total consumption of the house and the electricity production by a PV system, the self sufficiency of a PV system was evaluated. This system is theoretically self-sufficient since the designed PV system provides 70 kWh in a sunny winter day when the maximum required energy for the building is 30 kWh approximately.

Sustainable development is paid more and more attention all over the world nowadays. Kitchen environmental improvement and energy saving are closely related to national economy, household consumption and people\'s health, which is one of the important contents in the sustainable development. The conventional ventilation mode is only installing a range hood in a residential kitchen. The distribution law of contaminants in a residential kitchen in conventional ventilation mode is studied via experimental test, and the results are shown in tables and figures in the paper. We found that locations of contaminants accumulation are high near to ceiling above the location of cooking utensil (range) in kitchen section planes with range in it, and closer to the walls in horizontal planes. According to the contaminant distribution patterns, for creating a clean and energy saving kitchen, this project set three different control schemes: (1) installed a range-hood only; (2) installed a range-hood and a natural air make-up system (a fresh air inlet under one of walls); (3) installed a range-hood, a natural air make-up system, and an exhaust system (a louver in the ceiling for mechanical ventilation). When energy consumption is the same, the contaminant removing capabilities of three schemes are compared with exergy theory and exergy intensity and sustainable development analysis. The results are: (1) To keep the kitchen cleanness, the best effectively control method is scheme 3, followed by scheme 2, and then scheme 1; (2) It conforms to the sustainable development strategies that the scheme 3 is proposed as an alternative of the conventional scheme 1, since the scheme 3 is the best effective and does not increase energy consumption compared with others.

Sustainable development is an important symbol of civilization. When people improve the life standards gradually，it becomes a challenge to the sustainable development of energy sources. Due to the important influence of the IAQ in residential building on human body, more and more people pay attention to air exhaust in kitchen and toilet and the supply of fresh air. There is no doubt that additional fresh air can improve the room IAQ, but the energy consumption will increase greatly, which is opposite to the objective of sustainable development, so it is necessary for us to seek a suitable way to resolve this problem. In this paper, in order to deal with the contradicting problem of energy saving and also keeping IAQ in the residential buildings, we simulated different kinds of operation conditions of air exhaust in kitchen and toilet and fresh air supplement in heating period in a residential building in northern China; analyzed the energy consumption caused by entered outdoor fresh air in different conditions, and economical efficiency of the heat-recovery-system for fresh air. According to different control conditions in kitchen ventilator and toilet exhaust system, the paper presents the quantitative analysis results of energy consumption in different ways in fresh air system, the projects are as follows: （1）Change of indoor fresh air through natural ventilation mode Case 1: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when both the kitchen ventilator and the toilet exhaust system turn on; Case 2: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when neither the kitchen ventilator nor toilet exhaust system turns on. （2）Indoor fresh air indraught through a fresh air supplement system Case 1: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when both the kitchen ventilator and the toilet exhaust system turn on; Case 2: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when neither the kitchen ventilator nor toilet exhaust system turns on. （3）Change of indoor fresh air through using whole-heat-exchange fresh air system Case 1: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when both the kitchen ventilator and the toilet exhaust system turn on; Case 2: analyze energy consumption of fresh air indraft when neither the kitchen ventilator nor toilet exhaust system turns on. Through calculating the fresh air energy consumption above modes, predicting the scope of the energy consumption values, some suitable methods are obtained to deal with the poor IAQ problems within the kitchen and the toilet，which could make different residents need in the different requirements to fresh air quality and quantity in the building preferably. To guarantee an excellent IAQ and provide optimal energy use within residential buildings, we could supply a sustainable residential building.

The last decade of the XX century consolidated a new vision of development that involved not only the natural environment, but also socio-cultural aspects in a prominent position, argued that the quality of life of human beings became the condition for progress. This proposal is based on sustainable development considering the preservation for future generation\'s current use of natural resources. We cannot imagine the functioning of the developed societies without major hospitals, shopping malls, sports facilities, public transport stations, public institutions, schools, waste treatment plants etc.. The construction of such equipment involves huge amounts of money and produces a significant impact on the neighbourhood. These impacts on the economy, called externalities, can be positive or negative. Looking at the issue of community facilities from a macroeconomic point of view, a proper functioning of such equipment is essential for the development of local communities and general society. Amidst the global crisis, the best and most profitable use of such equipment enhances its positive impacts on society, which is supposed to be inclusive, and creates the structural conditions for social and economic growth. Many of those items can be better managed taking into consideration social sustainability by creating conditions for local and country development. A more inclusive and participatory societyis one of the key objectives of Europe 2020. The EU commission has identified three elements for the growth of the European state in the coming years: smart growth, sustainable growth (making our production more efficient in terms of resources, while boosting our competitiveness), inclusive growth (increased rate of participation in the labour market, acquiring skills and the fighting poverty). For the success of this strategy for the next decade, it is essential to have a social vision of the market. Improved management of such equipment can create opportunities for civic engagement of local citizens, for education and even for the creation of micro-business around the equipment. The greater involvement of citizens also allows to channel the energies of many social groups to make the social goals comprehensive, providing the appearance of a more participatory society. Companies today face many management problems of social sustainability in its various dimensions such as: demographic changes, social justice, education, health, among others. The proper management approach has to be an answer on how to deal with these problems. The objective of our work is the introductory analyses of the state of art of the management for social sustainability objectives of the sports facilities in Portugal. After this introductory analysis, we will propose the creation of a methodological guide for managers of these public facilities, in order to include the social sustainability aspects on their task and management objectives.

Country-wise variation in availability of different natural energy resources (renewable and non-renewable) critically affects the intra-country resource management policies and international relations as well as treaties towards resource sharing and utilization. Since human consumption is at the core of world natural resource debate, it is critical to understand public interest perspectives towards fossil energy resources, alternative renewable resources and parameters related to them. In this paper, first public interest towards these key issues is evaluated using online trends analysis. It is found that public interest for such key issues vary considerably from country to country, many times, irrespective of the criticality of such issues. Public interest perspective have also been found to vary at different time points, irrespective of the criticality. Further, some natural and renewable resources have been found to rank higher in terms of public interest as compared to others, even though they may be equally critical. Second Feedback models have been developed to understand endogenous relationships between parameters which could be critical building blocks of sustainability in renewable resource based energy technologies, for example, algae biodiesel system. Using online trends analyses and systems oriented investigation, through feedback models, it is shown how this approach could help in understanding sustainability scenarios and devising informed, optimal policies and mechanisms for sustainable development of new renewable resource based technologies. .

The bovine beef cattle in Brazil are predominantly extensive, what turns great natural areas into grazing. An alternative to reduce the occupied area is to intensify cattle creation, increasing productivity, but it demands a bigger use of water and animals supplements, that are based principally in soy. The deviation of high quantities of water to economic activities can cause a shortage of it on the future, and intensifies cattle raising could mean an increase of soy production. This work realized a study using a mathematical model in fuzzy language to accomplish a simulation of two Brazilian areas in risk because of beef cattle expansion: Pantanal and Legal Amazon. The results indicate that the intensification strongly decreases the grazing areas, what theoretically reduces deforestation. However, analyzing the socio-economical context , the intensification doesn\'t solve the deforestation problem, because in Legal Amazon, it revolves around the estate speculation, not linked to beef production, and in Pantanal, the extensive beef cattle have caused less impact on environment, because it is developed by small creators that produce without going beyond ecosystem capacity. Besides, simulations indicate that intensification means strong pressure on hydrics sources.

Although recent studies in Ghana show that the overall poverty in coastal areas is decreasing, considerable challenges still face government and communities in their bid to improve living conditions in fishing communities. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable fishing livelihoods and possibly diversification in fishing communities, the economic conditions and actual benefits accruing to fishermen from small-scale fishing needs be assessed in the interest of broader fisheries management agenda. This paper presents reference data for addressing these issues relative to long term sustainability of fishing from an economic perspective. The specific objectives are to conduct an economic assessment of the small-scale fisheries to determine major fish species of economic importance at the Elmina landing beach. Secondly, estimate the net economic benefit to the fishermen and suggest possible conservation or management interventions. The method mainly based on interviews using a questionnaire, conducted randomly among a total of 60 fishermen at the landing site for a period of four weeks from February 6 to March 6, 2010. The economic benefits derived from the fishery were estimated based on monetary gains from quantities of fish caught, the market prices and their investment costs. The results indicate that that Sardinella aurita constituted the most dominant fish species caught by majority of the fishermen (16%) followed by Dentex angolensis and Epinephelus aeneus each represented by 15.43%of the fishermen. Caranx crysos and Sepia officinalis were among the least common fish species caught. The most valuable fish species landed include Epinephelus aeneus, Sparus caeruleostictus, Dentex angolensis, and Lutjanus goreensis valued at US$2.97, US$2.87, US$2.85 and US$2.63 per kilogram respectively. The least valuable species include Dasyatis margarita, Pseudotolithus senegalensis and Caranx crysos valued at US$0.34, US$0.62 and US$0.66 per kilogram respectively. We recommend that efforts should be made improving the value through processing of heavily caught but less valuable fish species such Sardinella aurita. Studies should be instituted into the biology (reproduction and growth) of the highly valuable species for aquaculture purposes and to explore the economic feasibility of culturing these valuable species since their present economic value and demand could drive their over-exploitation.