High-frequency sectoral carbon and environmental analysis based on monthly input-output tables compilation during 2018-2021.

This paper proposes a process for updating monthly input-output tables with monthly macroeconomic statistics and published input-output tables. Reasonable assumptions are set up and 48 monthly input-output tables are prepared from 2018 to 2021 with the combination of the row range series method and nonlinear mathematical planning. The Weaver-Thomas composite index is used to analyze the role of the sector in the economic network, and the sectoral correlation indicators are used to analyze the correlation change of the sector's monthly electricity emissions to show an environmental application effect of the monthly input-output table. The results show that the monthly input-output tables can be prepared with acceptable accuracy, and they can reveal the sectoral network structure changes and sectoral carbon emissions changes in continuous monthly time series. The proposed approach contributes for the compilation of high-time-frequency input-output tables, so as to support high-frequency industrial environmental impact analysis.

How robust are current narratives to deal with the urban energy-water-land nexus?

Current energy, water, and land (EWL) nexus research treats all resources equally, causing bias in complicated nexus studies. To make the analysis robust, we consider resource endowment and significance. Here, we provide a methodological framework where the urban industrial resource nexus strength is constructed and assign weights to resources according to policies, describing resource efficiency and representing it in ternary diagrams to assess the urban industrial nexus innovatively. Results showed that energy drives urban development under all weights, with energy resource efficiency exceeding 60%. From consumption-based accounting, energy continues to dominate most industries under physical weightings but emphasizes the significance of water and land. While, under economic weightings, land supplants energy's dominance in specific sectors. Setting weights helps understand resource interaction, establish synergy based on urban development objectives, and minimize robustness. Our findings provide quantitative evidence for assessing urban resource efficiency to highlight priority sectors for intervention in urban decision-making.

A multi-criteria approach to assess interconnections among the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of circular economy.

The debate about the negative impacts that production and consumption cause on the environment is in vogue. Strategies that point to a sustainable, healthy, and resilient path are being sought. One of these paths is the Circular Economy, which emerges as an alternative to reduce the socio-environmental impacts caused by the linear model of production-use-disposal, presenting opportunities to generate revenue, income, and wealth with circular processes. However, despite the circular economy being considered an essential strategy to improve overall performance toward sustainability in its three dimensions, recent research has shown that the predominant focus of circular approaches is on the economic and environmental dimensions. At the same time, the social aspects still need to be explored. This article addresses this problem, aiming to explore circular economy environmental, economic, and social elements in three economic blocs from 2000 to 2020 using the Five Sector Sustainability Model, establishing a baseline to co-create an equitable and regenerative future. The results showed that ASEAN in 2000 occupied the first position in the general ranking. The European Union had the best classification in the economic sector, and Mercosur was the best regarding social benefits. In 2020, while the European bloc was better positioned in the general ranking, the South American bloc occupied the last post in almost all sectors. Comparatively, the highest-ranked bloc in 2020 in overall sustainability is more in line with the UN SDG due to circular actions oriented towards the three fundamental pillars of sustainability.

Energy constrains to increasing complexity in the biosphere.

Thirty years ago, the systems ecologist Howard T. Odum introduced the concept of transformity, which is a thermodynamic measure of quality within the trial and error evolutionary dynamics of ecosystems, namely an indicator of rank in the hierarchical system structure of the biosphere. Based on a global database of individual processes and whole economies, this paper extends, refines, and updates Odum's idea, demonstrating the strength of the postulated relation. In particular, an inverse linear logarithmic relationship is shown to hold between resource quantity (exergy) and quality (emergy), which is the result of an overall energetic efficiency characteristic of energy transformation processes of the biosphere. This relation extends from natural renewable energy sources to human information (including global internet data flows) and know-how embedded in national economies, thus identifying a consistent theory of hierarchical organization of the biosphere grounded in energetics and ultimately setting constraints to illusions of unlimited growth.

From payments for ecosystem services to eco-compensation: Conceptual change or paradigm shift?

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is an effective policy in conserving ecosystem services and is increasingly applied globally. The concept of PES was firstly defined in 2005, researches with various terminologies, concepts, and practices emerged since then. This paper analyzed the research patterns of PES studies through bibliometric methods, with a special focus on the trends of terminology, location (geographical research hotspot), types of PES, and PES effectiveness evaluation based on author keywords analysis. The results showed that PES started to receive considerable academic attentions from 2005, and the number of PES publications have relatively kept an increasing trend since then. The most influential journal, country, research organization, and author were Ecological Economics, USA, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, China), and Dr. Wunder. Further analysis revealed that there were various terminologies in PES studies, notably "ecological compensation" and "eco-compensation" (EC) were primarily adapted by Chinese research community. China was the geographical research hotspot and developing countries (Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil) have received growing academic interests in last decade. "Forest and Carbon" PES was the most concerned types of PES in last five years. There were 125 articles evaluated the effectiveness of empirical PES initiatives, and the majority focused on the social aspect. We proposed two suggestions for future research: (1) adapting EC as an alternative term for PES studies because of its inclusiveness and representation of empirical practices; (2) enhancing integrated evaluation of PES programs to achieve multiple benefits.

Sustainability assessment procedure for operations and production processes (SUAPRO).

Sustainability assessment is a fundamental step to support decisions towards sustainable development, and several procedures to assess the sustainability of antrophic production systems have been suggested. However, most of them lack a scientific-based construct supporting their conceptual model of sustainability, which usually results in a choice of indicator(s) without criterion that can best represent a fraction of the larger and deeper concept of sustainability. This work proposes a novel framework, named Sustainability Assessment Procedure for Operations and Production Processes (SUAPRO), supported by the PDCA four-step management method (plan, do, check, and act) and the five sectors sustainability (5SEnSU) model. Grounded on scientific bases, SUAPRO provides the steps for a sustainability assessment, including its contextualization (objectives, functional unit, boundaries, energy diagram), the choice of indicators based on the 5SEnSU model, the quantification step including goal programming as a multicriteria tool, and conclude the first cycle with a sensitivity analysis. To illustrate an application of SUAPRO, the road and railroad transportation options for soybean in Brazil are considered as a case study. Results show that the railroad mode has better performance as for the Sustainability Synthetic Indicator (SSIS of 3.6 ±â€¯0.4) than the road mode (SSIS of 4.0 ±â€¯0.3). Towards a SSIS improvement, the sensitivity analysis highlights that public policies or even private actions should be mainly focused on reducing the emergy invested in the railroad system, while the road transportation option claims effort in reducing its global warming and acidification potentials. SUAPRO is the main contribution in this work, as it tries to overcome shortcomings as usually found in scientific papers aiming to assess the sustainability of antrophic systems. The subjectivity inherent in any multicriteria method is present as the main limitation, thus all criteria used in choosing weights must be clearly presented.