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Rapid economic growth, urbanization and increasing population have caused (materially intensive) resource consumption to increase, and consequently the release of large amounts of waste to the environment. From a global perspective, current waste and resource management lacks a holistic approach covering the whole chain of product design, raw material extraction, production, consumption, recycling
Technological advances, with increasing numbers of products containing complex electronic circuitry, have resulted in e-waste becoming the fastest-growing global waste stream. High levels of embodied carbon in these products ensure that, to meet emissions reduction targets proposed by the United Nations Paris Agreement, tackling e-waste requires strategies to address climate change United Nations
Increasing global demand for durable goods prevents the decoupling of economic growth from natural resource use required to achieve sustainable consumption and production. Presently, most consumers in the United Kingdom (UK) exhibit a strong preference for purchasing new durable goods. Therefore, short-to-medium term strategies that seek to engender sustainable consumption of durable goods should
From an environmental perspective, a separate collection and recycling system for post-consumer discards could contribute to improved environmental protection as well as economic benefits. This paper investigates the environmental potential of a business model proposed in Sweden in order to improve the utilization of plastic shopping bags. The business model aims to reduce the consumption of plast
In the past few decades, e-waste has emerged as one of the fastest growing and increasingly complex waste flows world-wide. Within e-waste, the life cycle of the mobile phone product system is particularly important because of: (1) the increasing quantities of mobile phones in this waste flow; and (2) the sustainability challenges associated with the emerging economies of reuse, refurbishment, and
We qualitatively analysed how and why environmental improvement actions often lead to unintended environmental consequences. Different theories are integrated to delineate the underlying system structure causing this system behavior. Causal loop diagram technique is utilized to explore and visualize: how incremental improvements in material and energy efficiency can unintendedly cause consumption
Efforts to decouple environmental impacts and resource consumption have been confounded by interactions and feedback between technical-economic, environmental and social aspects not considered prior to implementing improvement actions. This paper presents a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio-economic drivers that result in changes in these flows, in order to reduce confl
Sustainability should encompass responsibility for unintended environmental consequences of modern developments. This study examined some pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products, namely: (i) product and consumption redundancies; (i) embodied environmental and social impacts occurring distant in time and space from the point of consumption; and (iii) production and c
A circular economy has been proposed as a sustainable alternative to our current linear economic system, mainly by recirculating material resources for new product development. To understand resource recirculation in practice, this paper analyses over 50 examples of products developed from discarded materials, categorising them into the recovery routes described in the circular economy literature.
Current low-carbon city initiatives were evaluated using the DPSIR (Driving forces-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses) causal-effect framework for investigating interactions between environmental issues and human activities. For effective management towards achieving a low-carbon city, integrating the pressure-based, driver-oriented DPSIR approach could help decision makers examine whether greenhou
Rapid economic growth, urbanisation and increasing population have caused (materially intensive) resource consumption to increase, and consequently the release of large amounts of waste to the environment. Numerous technological and operational approaches to resource management have been introduced throughout the system of production, consumption and waste management. This thesis concludes that th
Current physical resource management (PRM) was investigated in a global perspective in this thesis, to gain a deeper understanding of its implications in a sustainability perspective. In particular, the main challenges to the current PRM system and the kinds of systemic changes needed for sustainable PRM were examined. In five separate studies, different theoretical and practical challenges to cur
Global economies have been characterised by a large dependency of material inflows from natural stocks, an exponential growth of material stock-in-use in the built environment, and the extensive disposal of waste material outflows to anthropogenic sinks. In this context, the concept of the circular economy has emerged, promising to circulate the stock-in-use of materials and transforming output wa
This paper aims to present a recently started project about the heritage of subaltern people in Sweden. In the paper we focus on the parts of the project that concerns the rural history of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially crofters. The background to the project is the introduction of major changes in the Swedish Historic Environments Act in 2014. A radical novelty is that remains of human aThis paper aims to present a recently started project about the heritage of subaltern people in Sweden. In the paper we focus on the parts of the project that concerns the rural history of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially crofters. The background to the project is the introduction of major changes in the Swedish Historic Environments Act in 2014. A radical novelty is that remains of human a
Background: Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus is an attractive hydrogen producer suitable for growth on various lignocellulosic substrates. The aim of this study was to quantify uptake of pentose and hexose monosaccharides in anindustrial substrate and to present a kinetic growth model of C. saccharolyticus that includes sugar uptake on defined and industrial media. The model is based on Monod
Biogeochemical models use meteorological forcing data derived with different approaches(e.g. based on interpolation or reanalysis of observation data or a hybrid hereof) to simulateecosystem processes such as gross primary productivity (GPP). This study assesses theimpact of different widely used climate datasets on simulated gross primary productivity andevaluates the suitability of them for repr
