Towards circular economy indicators: Evidence from the European Union.

The European Union (EU) is moving towards sustainable development, and a key role is played by circular economy (CE) models geared towards reducing pressure on natural resources, generating jobs and fostering economic opportunities. Indicators are able to aggregate a variety of information and their use, through the use of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), allows the performance of alternatives to be monitored. This work aims to calculate the performance of the EU27 in the years 2019 and 2020 according to 15 CE indicators available on Eurostat. The results of the Analytic Hierarchy process show that the greatest impact on circularity is determined by the category 'competitiveness and innovation', which together with the category 'global sustainability and resilience' accounts for two thirds of the overall weight. The MCDA results show that Belgium prevails in both the baseline and alternative scenarios, ahead of Italy and the Netherlands respectively. In general, circular policies see western European countries excel, while the performance of eastern European countries is weaker. The implications of this work highlight the three main barriers to the development of CE models: (i) illegal waste management; (ii) lack of knowledge and low level of investment in circular technologies and (iii) low distribution of value among stakeholders. In this way, resource management based on circularity will enable Europe to meet the challenges of sustainability with less dependence on imported raw materials.

Environmental implications and levelized cost analysis of E-fuel production under photovoltaic energy, direct air capture, and hydrogen.

The ecological transition in the transport sector is a major challenge to tackle environmental pollution, and European legislation will mandate zero-emission new cars from 2035. To reduce the impact of petrol and diesel vehicles, much emphasis is being placed on the potential use of synthetic fuels, including electrofuels (e-fuels). This research aims to examine a levelised cost (LCO) analysis of e-fuel production where the energy source is renewable. The energy used in the process is expected to come from a photovoltaic plant and the other steps required to produce e-fuel: direct air capture, electrolysis and Fischer-Tropsch process. The results showed that the LCOe-fuel in the baseline scenario is around 3.1 €/l, and this value is mainly influenced by the energy production component followed by the hydrogen one. Sensitivity, scenario and risk analyses are also conducted to evaluate alternative scenarios, and it emerges that in 84% of the cases, LCOe-fuel ranges between 2.8 €/l and 3.4 €/l. The findings show that the current cost is not competitive with fossil fuels, yet the development of e-fuels supports environmental protection. The concept of pragmatic sustainability, incentive policies, technology development, industrial symbiosis, economies of scale and learning economies can reduce this cost by supporting the decarbonization of the transport sector.

Strategies for developing sustainable communities in higher education institutions.

Higher education institutions (HEIs), based on learning, innovation, and research, can support the progress of civil society. Many HEIs are implementing sustainability practices and projects to counteract climate change, often involving youth participation. The present study aimed at identifying how sustainable communities may be fostered in a university setting. To that end, a questionnaire was administered to engineering students at the start and end of a course on energy issues, assessing their perceptions of sustainability using multi-criteria decision analysis. The results showed that students placed greater value on sustainability at the end of the course. Additionally, the findings highlight that the implementation of projects aimed at tackling real problems may be useful for disseminating knowledge and sustainable practices. The main implications of this study indicate that sustainable communities in academia lay on six foundational pillars: sustainable education, energy (and resource) independence, subsidies in support of the green economy, initiatives aimed at reducing the carbon footprint, energy community development, and new green professional opportunities.

Circular solar: Evaluating the profitability of a photovoltaic panel recycling plant.

Photovoltaic (PV) panels have a crucial role in coping with the global warming mitigation and the energetic crisis currently affecting the European Community. However, from the circular perspective of end-of-life (EoL) management, there are still big issues to be solved in order to recover materials from this kind of e-wastes. Because of several reasons (e.g. type of embedded materials, illegal shipments, location of manufacturers) EoL businesses do not have the interest in approaching them. This poses a significant environmental concern in terms of their management. This work wants to assess the profitability of a specific PV module recycling plant, by evaluating several market contexts in which multiple scenarios of material price, investment and process costs will be considered. The results for a 3000 tonnes plant show that profitability is not verified in the absence of an avoided landfill cost. Instead, when a value of 200 €/tonnes is applied, the net present value is positive in 35.2% of the scenarios and at 87.6% when a value of 350 €/tonnes is considered. The policy choice of this value requires linking the PV module disposal fee to the circular benefits associated with its recovery.

The factors affecting Italian provinces' separate waste-collection rates: An empirical investigation.

This paper investigates the factors affecting Italian provinces' separate collection rates from 2007 to 2016, as these rates are relevant environmental performance indicators in urban waste management. We observe data spanning this decade from 103 Italian provinces and use panel data regressions to explore if and how some relevant socio-economic factors-including convictions for crimes committed against the public administration and many indicators of equitable and sustainable well-being that describe the quality of life in Italy-significantly affect provinces' capability to reach European and national regulators' separate collection rate targets. The results reveal that the greater the prosecuted crime committed against the public administration, average income, expected age, number of people with a diploma or a degree, and the percentage of female municipal administrators, the greater the separate waste collection rate. In contrast, the greater the number of household members, youth employment rate, total waste produced per capita, and the recourse for landfills, the lower the separate waste collection rate. These results highlight for policy-makers and waste utility managers the need to implement different strategies to increase the ability to meet expected targets and increase environmental performance, and thus, further increasing the quality of life.

Assessing regional performance for the Sustainable Development Goals in Italy.

The monitoring report on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a global context involves a large number of actors as it represents probably the biggest change that our society is implementing. Actions at all levels, from local, regional and national to the aggregation of multiple countries (e.g. EU 27) are needed to achieve a sustainable future. This work focuses on a national perspective (Italy) where multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is used to measure current performance. A sustainability score for each region is calculated from a set of 175 indicators contained in all 17 SDGs. Additionally, sustainability scores are disaggregated along the three pillars - social (1-5, 10, 16, and 17), environmental (6, 13-15) and economic (7-9, 11, and 12). The results highlight the positive performance of northern regions and, in particular, of Trentino Alto Adige, which ranks first in the two considered scenarios. In addition, the relevance of territorial specificities emerges for which the analysis of individual SDGs shows different leading regions. It is noteworthy to highlight the performance of the environmental sub-group of SDGs in southern regions, in contrast to the social and economic sub-groups. Evidently, policy actions are needed to reduce the long-lasting North/South divide-yet the highlighted heterogeneous sustainability performance along the three dimensions calls for well targeted policy measures necessary to regain competitiveness at a European and global level, without compromising with environmental sustainability.

The post COVID-19 green recovery in practice: Assessing the profitability of a policy proposal on residential photovoltaic plants.

The development of photovoltaic (PV) energy has been very significant in the last years, thanks to cost reductions brought about by policy actions favouring the transition from a fossil to a green society. As this transition is likely to stretch over the long term, policy support must be programmed accordingly. In light of the human and economic shock effected by COVID-19, the Italian government has offered a tax deduction of 110% over 5 years for the realization of new PV residential plants. We propose to integrate this tool with the application of a bonus for energy produced and self-consumed, in order to support the development of decentralized systems. In this paper, we provide an economic assessment of a 3 kW plant in the context of several policy scenarios. The results underline the great opportunity for consumers to tackle climate change whilst obtaining relevant economic profits. The study can be replicated on a global scale.

A multi-objective optimization strategy for energy plants in Italy.

In recent years, Europe has promoted a series of waste regulations to achieve greater protection of the environment. This objective can be obtained by adopting an integrated management system for the reduction of waste production and developing systems for waste sorting, energy recovery and waste recycling. Such interventions that find their justification in an environmental perspective must be also sustainable from an economic perspective. An analysis of the Italian situation highlights a dependency on landfills; this phenomenon must be reduced to identify actions aimed at safeguarding and protecting the environment. The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic and environmental benefits from diverting waste from landfills towards energy recovery in twenty Italian regions.

Municipal waste management and energy recovery in an Italian region.

Diverting waste from landfill is one of the basic priorities on improving the use of resources and reducing the environmental impacts of waste management. In order to achieve this goal it is necessary to limit the amount of materials sent to final disposal and promote energy recovery. In Italy the use of recycling is registering a growing trend but the recourse to landfill is still too high with respect to European Commission targets. The aim of the paper was to analyse the financial and economic benefits that energy recovery could produce by diverting waste from landfills in an Italian region, as landfilling cannot be a solution in the long term because of its finite capacity and for various other ecological reasons. A sensitivity analysis on the critical variables of this plan and a risk analysis are also provided.