The Superblock model: A review of an innovative urban model for sustainability, liveability, health and well-being.

INTRODUCTION: Current urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects. METHODS: We used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms. RESULTS: The implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities. CONCLUSION: The Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors.

Net-zero aviation: Transition barriers and radical climate policy design implications.

While air transport decarbonization is theoretically feasible, less attention has been paid to the complexity incurred in various 'transition barriers' that act as roadblocks to net-zero goals. A total of 40 barriers related to mitigation, management, technology and fuel transition, finance, and governance are identified. As these make decarbonization uncertain, the paper analyzes air transport system's growth, revenue, and profitability. Over the period 1978-2022, global aviation has generated marginal profits of US$20200.94 per passenger, or US$202082 billion in total. Low profitability makes it unlikely that the sector can finance the fuel transition cost, at US$0.5-2.1 trillion (Dray et al. 2022). Four radical policy scenarios for air transport futures are developed. All are characterized by "limitations", such as CO2 taxes, a carbon budget, alternative fuel obligations, or available capacity. Scenario runs suggest that all policy scenarios will more reliably lead to net-zero than the continued volume growth model pursued by airlines.

The Health Cost of Transport in Cities.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The study aims to provide an understanding of health cost assessments of different transport modes in urban contexts, and their relevance for transport planning and political decision-making. RECENT FINDINGS: There is strong evidence that motorized transportation imposes a high health cost on society, and specifically children. In contrast, active transport is a very significant health benefit. Economic analyses support urban change in favor of compact neighborhoods and public transit, as well as infrastructure exclusively devoted to active transport. Private cars need to be restricted because of the high cost they impose on society.

Risks, resilience, and pathways to sustainable aviation: A COVID-19 perspective.

This paper discusses the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to reconsider the foundations of the global aviation system. There is much evidence that air transport creates opportunities as well as risks. While the former accrue to businesses and individuals, risks are imposed on society. Pandemics, in which aviation has a role as a vector of pathogen distribution, as well as the sector's contribution to climate change are examples of long-standing negative externalities that continue to be ignored in assessments of aviation's economic performance and societal importance. As commercial aviation has shown limited economic resilience throughout its history, this short paper questions whether a return to business-as-usual, supported by very significant State aid payments, is desirable. The volume growth model championed by industry and aviation proponents may have to be replaced with an alternative model of a slimmed air transport system that is economically less vulnerable and accounting for its environmental impacts.

A socio-psychological conceptualisation of overtourism.

Tourist pressure on local populations, also termed 'overtourism', has received much attention in the global media, as tensions related to social, economic or environmental change have grown in many destinations. While protests against tourists and tourism development have existed for decades, these are now often more organised, vocal, and politically active. As a phenomenon associated with residents' negative views of tourism development outcomes, socio-psychological foundations of overtourism have so far been insufficiently considered. This paper summarises the historical background on crowding and attitudes of residents to tourism, to then discuss social psychological theories connected to place change in order to explain anti-tourism sentiment.

The global scale, distribution and growth of aviation: Implications for climate change.

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, global air transport demand was expected to triple between 2020 and 2050. The pandemic, which reduced global air travel significantly, provides an opportunity to discuss the scale, distribution and growth of aviation until 2018, also with a view to consider the climate change implications of a return to volume growth. Industry statistics, data provided by supranational organizations, and national surveys are evaluated to develop a pre-pandemic understanding of air transport demand at global, regional, national and individual scales. Results suggest that the share of the world's population travelling by air in 2018 was 11%, with at most 4% taking international flights. Data also supports that a minor share of air travelers is responsible for a large share of warming: The percentile of the most frequent fliers - at most 1% of the world population - likely accounts for more than half of the total emissions from passenger air travel. Individual users of private aircraft can contribute to emissions of up to 7,500 t CO2 per year. Findings are specifically relevant with regard to the insight that a large share of global aviation emissions is not covered by policy agreements.

Food waste management innovations in the foodservice industry.

There is growing evidence that a significant share of global food is thrown away, with concomitant detrimental repercussions for sustainability. Reducing food waste is a key sustainability challenge for the food service industry. Despite the significance of this issue to the global foodservice industry, the link between innovation practices and food waste management has received limited attention in the academic literature. This paper uses innovation management and social constructionism to investigate interrelationships of food service provisions and innovations in waste management. It is based on the evaluation of food waste solutions and innovations that combine strategic dimensions of waste management with practice-driven initiatives, including incremental (processes and technologies) and radical innovations. The paper presents a range of waste management initiatives, showing that their implementation in the foodservice sector varies depending on management's beliefs, knowledge, goals and actions. The concepts discussed here could help practitioners to become more aware of the factors that drive the adoption of food waste innovations.

Critical materials and dissipative losses: a screening study.

This study deals with dissipative losses of critical materials between the life-cycle stages of manufacturing and end-of-life. Following the EU definition for critical materials, a screening of dissipative losses for the respective materials has been performed based on existing data and the most significant data gaps have been identified. Furthermore, a classification scheme for dissipative losses (dissipation into environment, dissipation into other material flows, dissipation to landfills) and for assessing their degree has been developed and a first qualitative assessment applying this classification scheme has been performed. In combination with existing criticality assessments, the results can be used to generate a map of metals indicating future research needs for analyzing metal dissipation in detail. The results include quantitative estimates of dissipative losses (where feasible) along the chosen life-cycle stages, and discuss research needs for analysis and avoidance of dissipative losses for improved resource efficiency.