The traditional water supply management approach focuses on (perceived) community requirements that must be met, but not on community demands, which are variable. Therefore a paradigm-shift is required to the way water is considered. In this paper the impact of two distinct approaches for managing the urban water demand, thus daily water consumption, within residential and office buildings are examined through a futures framework. The two fundamental management measures to influence water demand are: 1) structural and technical measures (via adopting water-saving devices); and 2) socio-political measure (via changing users’ behaviour). Both align well with UK policy drivers and results show each in isolation has similar impacts (i.e. 55% reduction) on domestic water consumption per capita, although the ranges over which user behaviour can operate appears to be far more diverse. Most strikingly, when these measures are considered in combination greater impact (i.e. 80% reduction) could be achieved. Conclusions are drawn as to how far water demand management, through a dual track approach, can go in terms of reducing indoor water consumption of both residential and office users and discusses what else is needed in this respect to help contribute to securing sufficient, sustainable supplies within a ‘liveable’ future.

In its last revision EMAS Regulation has encouraged a cluster approach to increase the participation of the organizations and to involve local stakeholders in a cluster sustainability process. Our research activity, conducted by the Department of Business Studies of Roma Tre University and ISPRA (High Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), intends to partially fill the literature gap in the field by investigating the Italian cluster approach for EMAS, characterized by the creation of a cluster Managing Committee (MC) – which has received a dedicated EMAS certificate – that coordinates the implementation of the scheme. If in a first phase we investigated the effectiveness of support given to registered EMAS organizations inside the cluster by the MCs that possess an EMAS certificate, the main objective of the second step here presented has been to verify the impact on different stakeholders categories of the actions taken by the various MCs in 12 Italian clusters. In this paper we present the results of a survey conducted through the distribution of a specifically designed questionnaire on different categories of stakeholders in the considered clusters. These three categories are the 67 organizations certified ISO 14001 in the cluster’s areas, the 100 municipalities of the areas and the 9 chamber of commerce involved in the Managing Committee of the clusters. The main two goals of the investigation are: to determine the impacts of the action put in place by the Managing Committee inside the clusters, in terms of environmental performance enhancements and network creations to improve the cluster competitiveness; to evaluate how the tools offered to cluster organizations have effectively contributed to a widespread knowledge of EMAS and environmental concerns.

In 2012 a group of volunteering University of Canterbury (UC) staff, students and alumni worked in partnership with the Kingdom of Tonga Ministry of Education and Training (MET), Tongan State-owned enterprise Tonga Power Ltd (TPL) and local contractors, to design, procure and install photovoltaic (PV) systems of 8 kW peak in five Tongan High Schools. The project was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in an effort to assist Tongan high schools to reduce their relatively expensive utility related costs and to enable schools the financial freedom to invest in educational resources. The project was implemented in a unique multi party Pubic Private Non Profit Partnership model to utilise the resource pool of UC and provide practical academic opportunities to university students while providing overseas development assistance to Tonga. This paper presents the planning and execution of this project, and discusses the areas of challenges, opportunities, success and failure by revisiting the unique partnership model, in concept and in practice. To understand schools’ expectations and perspective from a beneficiary point of view, staff and students from each school were interviewed during the installation. Subsequently, staff from each school were surveyed as part of a monitoring and evaluation study. Analysis of stakeholder interviews and recipient schools' survey results are presented and discussed with recommendations to execute similar multi-party sustainable development projects effectively, particularly in small island developing countries.

The unirrigated Mediterranean region of Central Chile is characterized by high levels of soil degradation and rural poverty. However, in most cases, these issues have been approached and analyzed separately. In one hand, soil degradation has been mainly attributed to “poor agricultural practices” conducted through the years by the small farmers and peasant communities that inhabit the region. In the other hand, rural poverty is commonly attributed to the low access to economic opportunities and quality education. The public proposals to address these problems have taken a linear and common path; promoting the entrance of the forest industry and the migration to urban areas. Besides these actions, from a macro point of view, it has been established the introduction of agricultural machinery and intensive agricultural methods as an answer for development, which are far from being suited for the ecological and cultural context. This paper analyze the main historical and socio-cultural factors behind this socio-environmental issue, emphasizing in how qualitative factors related to the loss of social capital and the disintegration of communities have had fundamental implications in the environmental problem of soil degradation. Also it attempts to propose causes and solutions that go beyond the technical and neo-Malthusian explanations for this case, presenting social cohesion and territorial empowerment as the bases for a sustainable agriculture in environmentally vulnerable regions.

The prevailing global livestock industry relies heavily on natural capital and is responsible for high emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). In recent years, nations have begun to take more of an active role in measuring their resource inputs and GHG outputs for various products. However, up until now, most nations have been recording data for production, focusing on processes within their boundaries. Some recent studies have suggested the need to also embrace a consumption approach. It follows that in a globalizing interconnected world, to be able to generate a sustainable food policy, a full systems approach should be embraced. The case of Israeli meat consumption is especially unique, as the country does not have the sufficient resources or climatic conditions needed to produce enough food to support its population. Therefore, Israel relies on imports to meet demand, displacing the environmental impact of the system to other countries. This research embraces a multi-regional consumption perspective, aiming to measure the carbon, land, and water footprints demanded by Israeli cattle and chicken meat consumption, following both domestic production and imports of inputs and products. Further, it discusses the current national policies relating to the meat system, and presents scenarios of how to increase efficiency while working within the limited biophysical capacity available. The results of this research show that the "virtual land" required for producing meat for consumption in Israel is equivalent to 70% of the geographical area of the country. Moreover, almost 80% of meat consumption is provided by locally produced chicken products but the ecological impact of this source is inconsequential compared to the beef supply chain; beef imports comprise only 13% of meat consumption in Israel but are responsible for 71% of the carbon footprint and 84% of the land footprint. The sources of Israel's meat supply are currently excluded from environmental impact assessments of Israeli processes. However, they constitute a measurable percent to the system's natural capital usage, so they must be included in a comprehensive assessment of Israel's consumption habits. Only then can policy be created for a sustainable food system, and inter-regional sustainability be achieved.

This paper addresses environmental, social and economic sustainability in the Brazilian Amazon from an archaeological perspective. This reflection follows three main themes: evidence of ancient indigenous environmental management and transformation, the productive dialogue between archaeologists and local residents resulting from public archaeology, and the economic and social benefits of the current production of objects inspired by archaeological artifacts. First, ecological conservationists denounce humans’ negative impacts on the Amazonian rainforest and advocate the preservation of a pristine forest. The discovery of multiple archaeological sites in the Brazilian Amazon demonstrates the region’s long history of dense human occupation and transformation. Archaeologists suggest that these environmental modifications helped preserve and even increase biodiversity rather than destroy it. Thus, archaeology can uncover sustainable ecological ways of living in the Amazon. Furthermore, sustainability efforts are not only linked to environmental preservation but also focus on more social facets through the recent emphasis given to public archaeology. Indeed, since 2002 the Historic and Artistic National Heritage Institute in Brazil made public archaeology a requirement for all contract archaeology programs. Thus, archaeologists now work with communities living on or close to archaeological sites. This practice enables archaeologists to include various interpretations of the archaeological record in their research and increases the communities’ knowledge about the indigenous past. Finally, local industries benefit from the creation of archaeological knowledge. Indeed, the production of handicrafts inspired by the material culture of past famous complex indigenous societies of the Brazilian Amazon recently emerged in the state of Pará. This not only has economic consequences; it contributes to identity construction. In sum, this paper discusses three themes to demonstrate how archaeological research can contribute to the present environmental, social, and economic development of the Amazon.

The national demand for water in the UK is predicted to increase, exacerbated by a growing UK population, and home-grown demands for energy and food. When set against the context of overstretched existing supply sources vulnerable to droughts, particularly in the SE of the UK, the delicate balance of matching minimal demands with resource secure supplies becomes critical. Whilst demands can be decreased through changes in user behaviour and adoption of technological efficiency and supplies can be supplemented with additional local sources (e.g. rainwater harvesting – RWH and greywater – GW), careful consideration of future water use performance, particularly in increasingly dense city centres needs to be considered. For this purpose indicators and benchmarks are particularly useful, although any system, once adopted, must be robust and fully understood in terms of its sensitivity to future changes. This paper presents a new benchmarking system for measuring the water using performance of domestic dwellings and considers the impact(s) therein when making changes to ‘internal’ demands either through technological efficiency or user behaviour alone. The sensitivity of water performance is then tested further when combining these changes with additional localised supplies (i.e. RWH and GW) and ‘external’ gardening demands. Therein the impacts (in isolation and combination) of the following are considered: occupancy rates (1 to 4); roof size (12.5 m² to 100m²); garden size (25 m² to 100m²); geographical location (NW, Midlands, SE) and yearly temporal effects. Lessons learnt from analysis of the proposed benchmarking system are made throughout this paper, in particular its compatibility with the existing code for sustainable homes accreditation system. Conclusions are subsequently drawn for the robustness of the proposed system.

District energy (DE) systems provide an important means of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the significant related concerns associated with global climate change. DE systems can use fossil fuel, renewable energy and waste heat as energy sources, and facilitate intelligent integration of energy systems. In this paper, solar thermal and geothermal energy are compared as energy sources for a district energy system which serves a community including commercial and educational buildings. The DE system is assessed for the considered energy resources in two main ways, by considering CO₂ emissions and economic aspects. The results obtained for the solar and geothermal energy sources are compared to detect trends. The results indicate that solar thermal energy is the most advantageous energy technology for a DE system from an environmental perspective, while geothermal energy is more beneficial from a financial point of view. An examination of the cost distribution for the technologies shows that when solar thermal energy is the main energy supply for a DE system, the system exhibits the highest loan payments and the lowest fuel costs (FCs) and insurance and maintenance (I&M) payments. With geothermal systems, loan payments are lower while the total cost over the life of the technology is higher for the DE system. Using solar thermal and geothermal technologies as the energy supply for a DE system also yields environmental benefits which can lead to financial advantages through such instruments as tax breaks. The research reported here is intended to allow energy technology suppliers to work with communities while accounting appropriately for economic issues and CO₂ emissions associated with these energy technologies.

This paper examines the options and benefits of hydrogen utilization in various segments of the wind energy market. A parametric analysis is done to determine the feasibility and optimal size of wind farms and an electrolysis system producing hydrogen to be distributed via several means including the natural gas pipeline grid. This paper examines the wind farms available in Southern Ontario, Canada. Infrastructure requirements, wind farm size, pipeline capacity, geographical dispersion, cost and hydrogen production rate are used as performance measures throughout the study. The results indicate the feasibility and economic factors of the size of wind farms, electrolysis systems and production rates of hydrogen that can utilized for a community vehicle fleet fuelling, industrial demand, natural gas augmentation and stored energy applications. “Straw man” systems are examined, centered on a wind farm size of 100 MW integrating a 16 MW capacity electrolysis system producing 4,700 kg of hydrogen per day.

Growing energy demands and climatic changes, exacerbated through rapid increases in CO₂ emissions, are two major global issues facing nations. Therefore ongoing research is being conducted on projecting supply / demand scenarios that look to match future energy demands against energy supply mixes. This requires energy providers to foresee the impact of various electricity generation scenarios on CO₂ emissions and to assess the sustainability of, and risks involved with each so that an attitude of energy provision ‘whatever the cost’ does not prevail decision-making in the face of a plethora of electricity supply mixes and/or energy demand predictions is a complicated procedure which requires in depth consideration of the various scenarios that are being developed. This requires a high level of knowledge that is available only within a team of experts. Furthermore forecasting the possible impacts of various electricity scenarios on climate change as well as considering the associated cost just adds more complexity. This paper explores the features and choices available to decision-makers through the development of an Excel-based tool. The tool acts as a database for existing energy supply/demand scenarios and allows the user to look up existing scenarios or mix and match existing scenarios for the UK leading to a range of new possibilities. The benefits of creating and using the developed tool are explored within the paper and it is concluded that the tool begins to address the complex issues of projecting the most appropriate electricity supply mix and electricity demand by using a range of existing energy studies. In so doing it facilitates greatly decision-makers in beginning the process of further assessing the risks that might be involved. An example of using tool for developing three very different supply mix scenarios for the UK (including one with high share of interconnections) is provided.