Explore the vast range of titles available.

The need for sustainable development underscores the role and importance of integrating environmental concerns in non-environmental policies because it is evident that environmental regulations only are insufficient to manage all environmental issues. Law enforcement on environmental protection in Vietnam clearly demonstrates this situation. Vietnam’s legal system of environmental protection is incompatible or overlapped with other sectoral laws and in fact many environmental matters have been implemented in accordance with sectoral laws while disregarding environmental considerations due to the lack of specific and explicit environmental provisions or requirements in sectoral laws and regulations. From that situation, the paper emphasizes the need to integrate environmental protection requirements into the sectoral laws of Vietnam and proposes some fundamental criteria and procedures to integrate environmental requirements into sectoral laws.

Harvesting energy from the environment offers the promise of clean power for self-sustained systems 1 , 2 . Known technologies—such as solar cells, thermoelectric devices and mechanical generators—have specific environmental requirements that restrict where they can be deployed and limit their potential for continuous energy production 3 – 5 . The ubiquity of atmospheric moisture offers an alternative. However, existing moisture-based energy-harvesting technologies can produce only intermittent, brief (shorter than 50 seconds) bursts of power in the ambient environment, owing to the lack of a sustained conversion mechanism 6 – 12 . Here we show that thin-film devices made from nanometre-scale protein wires harvested from the microbe Geobacter sulfurreducens can generate continuous electric power in the ambient environment. The devices produce a sustained voltage of around 0.5 volts across a 7-micrometre-thick film, with a current density of around 17 microamperes per square centimetre. We find the driving force behind this energy generation to be a self-maintained moisture gradient that forms within the film when the film is exposed to the humidity that is naturally present in air. Connecting several devices linearly scales up the voltage and current to power electronics. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of a continuous energy-harvesting strategy that is less restricted by location or environmental conditions than other sustainable approaches. A new type of energy-harvesting device, based on protein nanowires from the microbe Geobacter sulforreducens , can generate a sustained power output by producing a moisture gradient across the nanowire film using natural humidity.

The article examines the essence of civil society and reveals its main components in cooperation with business and government. The place and role of civil organisations and public are considered in the context of modern environmental requirements. An analysis of national features in the formation and development of civil society is provided. Trends in interactions of civil society, business and government in Ukraine have been revealed through the comparison with other countries. An attempt was made to understand the national civil movement as a prerequisite for the formation of civil society in Ukraine during the years of independence. Tools for assessing the sustainability and general viability of the civil society sector are classified according to various criteria. Global indicators of trust in various institutions of society and its institutional activity are analysed. There was carried out an analysis of the dynamics of the sustainability index for Ukraine. Guidelines for the institutional transformation of the interactions between domestic civil society, business, government have been worked out in order to substantiate the information and analytical provision.

Nowadays, the market competition becomes increasingly fierce due to diversified customer needs, stringent environmental requirements, and global competitors. One of the most important factors for companies to not only survive but also thrive in today’s competitive market is their logistics performance. This paper aims, through a systematic literature analysis of 115 papers from 2012 to 2020, at presenting quantitative insights and comprehensive overviews of the current and future research landscapes of sustainable logistics in the Industry 4.0 era. The results show that Industry 4.0 technologies provide opportunities for improving the economic efficiency, environmental performance, and social impact of logistics sectors. However, several challenges arise with this technological transformation, i.e., trade-offs among different sustainability indicators, unclear benefits, lifecycle environmental impact, inequity issues, and technology maturity. Thus, to better tackle the current research gaps, future suggestions are given to focus on the balance among different sustainability indicators through the entire lifecycle, human-centric technological transformation, system integration and digital twin, semi-autonomous transportation solutions, smart reverse logistics, and so forth.

A key focus in ecology is to search for community assembly rules. Here we compare two community modelling frameworks that integrate a combination of environmental and spatial data to identify positive and negative species associations from presence–absence matrices, and incorporate an additional comparison using joint species distribution models (JSDM). The frameworks use a dichotomous logic tree that distinguishes dispersal limitation, environmental requirements, and interspecific interactions as causes of segregated or aggregated species pairs. The first framework is based on a classical null model analysis complemented by tests of spatial arrangement and environmental characteristics of the sites occupied by the members of each species pair (Classic framework). The second framework, (SDM framework) implemented here for the first time, builds on the application of environmentally‐constrained null models (or JSDMs) to partial out the influence of the environment, and includes an analysis of the geographical configuration of species ranges to account for dispersal effects. We applied these approaches to examine plot‐level species co‐occurrence in plant communities sampled along a wide elevation gradient in the Swiss Alps. According to the frameworks, the majority of species pairs were randomly associated, and most of the non‐random positive and negative species associations could be attributed to environmental filtering and/or dispersal limitation. These patterns were partly detected also with JSDM. Biotic interactions were detected more frequently in the SDM framework, and by JSDM, than in the Classic framework. All approaches detected species aggregation more often than segregation, perhaps reflecting the important role of facilitation in stressful high‐elevation environments. Differences between the frameworks may reflect the explicit incorporation of elevational segregation in the SDM framework and the sensitivity of JSDM to the environmental data. Nevertheless, all methods have the potential to reveal general patterns of species co‐occurrence for different taxa, spatial scales, and environmental conditions.

Soil bacteria are largely missing from future biodiversity assessments hindering comprehensive forecasts of ecosystem changes. Soil bacterial communities are expected to be more strongly driven by pH and less by other edaphic and climatic factors. Thus, alkalinisation or acidification along with climate change may influence soil bacteria, with subsequent influences for example on nutrient cycling and vegetation. Future forecasts of soil bacteria are therefore needed. We applied species distribution modelling (SDM) to quantify the roles of environmental factors in governing spatial abundance distribution of soil bacterial OTUs and to predict how future changes in these factors may change bacterial communities in a temperate mountain area. Models indicated that factors related to soil (especially pH), climate and/or topography explain and predict part of the abundance distribution of most OTUs. This supports the expectations that microorganisms have specific environmental requirements (i.e., niches/envelopes) and that they should accordingly respond to environmental changes. Our predictions indicate a stronger role of pH over other predictors (e.g. climate) in governing distributions of bacteria, yet the predicted future changes in bacteria communities are smaller than their current variation across space. The extent of bacterial community change predictions varies as a function of elevation, but in general, deviations from neutral soil pH are expected to decrease abundances and diversity of bacteria. Our findings highlight the need to account for edaphic changes, along with climate changes, in future forecasts of soil bacteria.

Environmental flows are defined as the flow required into a stream to maintain the river’s ecosystem. The notion of Environmental Flow Allocation (EFA) ensures that a sufficient amount of water is delivered to the stream to maintain ecological integrity. The objective of this study is to examine environmental flows and determine the best acceptable strategy for providing flows into the river in the Lower Tapi Basin. To achieve this objective, daily discharge data from three sites, Ukai (period 1975–2020), Motinaroli (period 1990–2021), and Ghala (period 1995–2005) were collected and analyzed using the Tennant, Tessman, variable monthly flow (VMF), and Smakhtin methodologies. A comparative analysis was carried out on all three sites using the four methodologies. The Tessman and VMF approaches have a strong connection with the computed environmental flow requirements (EFR), according to the results. The calculated EFR was found to be in the range of 30–35% of mean annual flows (MAF). The maximum EFR found at station Ghala is about 54.5% of MAF according to the Tessman method. Such research will help to prevent future degradation of the river by supplying flow in accordance with the EFR, and it will also be used by stakeholders and policymakers to allocate water to preserve the ecosystem.

Environmental requirements include sustainable materials with low investment costs and high performance for water treatment applications. The process of hydrothermal carbonization, on the other hand, offers a quick, economical, and green way to transform waste from natural resources into sustainable products. This study aims to produce a novel hydrochar-based material from pomegranate peel using NaOH cold-alkali activation. Extensive physicochemical characterization of the obtained material (NaOH-HCPP) was conducted. To assess the ability of NaOH-HCPP to remove acebutolol (ACE) drug from an aqueous solution, batch adsorption tests were performed, reaching (97.25 mg g−1) under optimal parameters. The isotherm fit best with the Freundlich model, whereas the kinetics were well described by both the PSO and Elovich models, indicating that the process was physicochemical. Moreover, thermodynamic studies stated that acebutolol uptake was distinguished by spontaneity (ΔG° < 0) and exothermicity ΔH° (− 31.91 kJ mol−1). Furthermore, a discussion of the empirical results and further analysis revealed that ACE adsorption onto NaOH-HCPP is controlled by pore filling, van der Waals forces, electrostatic attraction, hydrogen bonding, π–π, and n–π interactions. Thus, NaOH-HCPP has demonstrated high promise for removing acebutolol and possibly other pharmaceuticals from aqueous media.

PurposeThe 71st LCA forum was held on 18 June 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss the current status and future plans of environmental benchmarking for buildings in view of the 1.5 °C target stipulated in the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement requires a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in fact net zero by 2050. One of the priority areas is the building stock, as it is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. COP23, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and an increasing number of countries are extending their consideration from aspects such as energy consumption and emissions from building operation to the manufacture of construction materials and building construction. The event offered an excellent platform to exchange ideas and thoughts on existing and planned environmental benchmarking schemes for buildings.MethodsThe one day event dealt at first with life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches applied in European, Asian, Australasian and American countries to assess the environmental performance of buildings. Within a round robin test, organised within the IEA EBC (Energy in Building and Communities) Annex 72 project, 22 organisations from 21 countries assessed the environmental performance of one identical building, the be2226 office building located in Lustenau, Austria. The materials, the building technologies and the energy consumption were kept constant. This allowed to identify the main differences in LCA data used and LCA methodology applied in the national contexts. In the LCA forum, eight organisations presented the current state or future plans of an environmental benchmarking system in their home country. The systems were characterised in terms of scope, in particular (a) which types of buildings are covered; (b) which life cycle stages are included; (c) which building elements and which operational energy uses are considered; and (d) which environmental impacts are addressed. Furthermore, the default reference service life and the main source of LCA data were specified and the current or planned benchmark values for greenhouse gas emissions of residential buildings were reported.Results and discussionThe round robin test revealed the LCA background data as one major source of difference in assessment results. Methodological and modelling choices were less important except for the Danish assessment, which applies a comparatively long reference study period (80 years for office buildings, 120 years for residential buildings) and considering future changes in the electricity mix towards 100% renewables to describe the operational electricity demand during the lifetime of the building. Most benchmarking systems presented are applied on new and retrofit residential, office and school buildings. Other use types such as shops, restaurants, universities or hospitals are covered only in few or just one country. The greenhouse gas emission benchmark for residential buildings (construction and operation) revealed a significant gap between the current level of the building benchmarks on one hand and the target of net zero CO2-eq emissions derived from the 1.5 °C scenarios of IPCC on the other. An online inquiry carried out among the audience during the event showed a preference for a per capita overall budget of 500 kg CO2-eq per year to derive greenhouse gas emission benchmarks for buildings and that life cycle-based benchmarks for buildings should be legally binding.ConclusionsThe 71st LCA forum on environmental benchmarks for buildings showed that the experts present acknowledge the net zero CO2 emission target derived from the 1.5 °C scenarios. Several countries have expertise and experience in assessing the environmental impacts of buildings. However, the current (mostly voluntary) benchmarking schemes are way too weak to support the building sector in contributing significantly to the required CO2 emission turn off. The outlook given by several speakers showed that the current benchmarks will likely be tightened and oriented on the planetary boundaries and on the scientifically defined CO2 emission budgets rather than on the technical or economic feasibility. Finally, the responsibility of governments for defining environmental requirements and targets was stressed. The event, the exchange of ideas and the discussions helped to nurture and hopefully accelerate the developments in the construction sector of the home countries of the experts and government representatives. These developments will contribute to a society whose environmental impacts remain within the carrying capacity of our planet.

It can be challenging for organisms to achieve a good match between their phenotypic characteristics and environmental requirements that vary in space and time. The evolution of adaptive phenotypes can result from genetic differentiation at the population level. Individuals, however, could also change their phenotype (adaptive plasticity) or select an environment because it matches with their phenotype (matching habitat choice). It is poorly known under which conditions these different solutions to environmental heterogeneity evolve and whether they operate together. Using an individual-based simulation model, we assessed which solutions evolved depending on degree of temporal variation, costs of multiple underlying traits, and order of dispersal and development. Population genetic divergence was superseded by plasticity or matching habitat choice as temporal variation increased. Plasticity and matching habitat choice were limited by their trait costs, even when this involved only a part of the underlying traits. Independent of the order of dispersal and development, plasticity evolved more commonly than matching habitat choice, in part because the match a phenotype can achieve by matching habitat choice is limited by the types of environments available. Our results explain the apparent relative rarity of matching habitat choice in nature. At the same time, our results can be used to look for matching habitat choice in those biological systems where the conditions for other solutions seem unfavorable.