An evaluation of the impact of mitigation policies on health and the economy by managing social distancing during outbreaks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated various unavoidable social restrictions, leading to questions about the effectiveness of public emergency interventions and their impact economic growth. Block et al. (2020) conducted a notably study using an agent-based model to evaluate policies for reducing contact and demonstrated how choices in contact behavior can influence the rate and spread of the virus. However, their approach did not consider the economic consequences of these social restrictions. In response, we propose a set of strategies for governments to plan and evaluate policies during emergencies, aiming to contain infections while minimizing negative economic consequences. Our results indicate that there is no trade-off between containment strategies and economic output loss, making containment measures necessary policy instruments. However, potential trade-offs do emerge when selecting the most effective strategy. In this context, we propose and evaluate various policy alternatives to extreme "social distancing" measures, which can partially restore essential social interactions while preventing economic disasters induced by productivity losses.

Interacting locally, acting globally: trust and proximity in social networks for the development of energy communities.

In this article, we analyze the role of social capital in the formation of sustainable energy communities. Specifically, we study the impact of different dimensions of social capital (i.e., structural, relational, cognitive) in determining willingness to participate in an energy community. Our survey data suggest that social contexts contribute to the development of energy communities, via (at least) two channels: (i) a family path, with individual perspectives showing a partial correlation with those of at least one relative, and (ii) a social channel, with higher social trust and greater interaction with neighbors favoring the propensity to participate in an energy community. The social coordination required for the formation of sustainable energy communities is determined by the quality of social interactions, and the spread of virtuous behavior is determined by not only economic policies (i.e., incentives), but also forward-looking policies favoring local aggregation and the creation of high-quality social capital. Thus, local actions and interactions can contribute to solving global climate change challenges.

A review of the effects of COVID-19 on food waste.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant vulnerabilities in systems of production and consumption. In particular, the economic and social implications of the pandemic highlighted the urgent need for more sustainable and less impactful practices of food production and consumption. Through a systematic literature review, this paper seeks to assess how the pandemic affected the phenomenon of food waste, with the aim of assessing whether the pandemic stimulated changes amongst food system actors, especially consumers. The findings indicate that consumers generally reported behavioural changes during the pandemic and claimed to have adopted sustainable practices that could contribute to reducing food waste. The results also reflect the rapid diffusion of practices such as food delivery during the pandemic, which requires further investigation in terms of its effects on the environment. Simultaneously, supply-demand shocks and disruptions were reported in the areas of production, processing, and retailing, suggesting the occurence of ripple effects. A call is made for greater resilience in the food system, through the adoption of sustainable and less impactful practices, supported by policy.

Assessing the relation between waste management policies and circular economy goals.

The European Union has recently prioritized waste policies by embedding them in the new Horizon Europe work programme. Here, circular economy (CE) and digitalization are matching together in order to support all the industrial sectors in increasing their sustainability level. One of the main impacts expected from the EU is a better exploitation of wasted resources. However, waste streams are very different in terms of volumes, embedded materials and management policies. Considering only those waste streams with highest volumes, this study focuses on End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV), Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). Starting from some policy recommendations and analyses identified through a literature review and the support of the experts, a survey has been conducted to identify the most critical items for each waste stream. Results of the survey show that, on the one hand, end of waste strategies has the highest importance for WEEE and ELV categories. On the other hand, social change has the highest importance for MSW. Consequently, end of waste strategies and social change should be considered as enablers of reuse and recycling practices in their reference contexts. In order to counteract the significant socio-economic issues already caused by delays in taking clear decisions about climate change mitigation strategies, policymakers should focus on these policy implications urgently if even more imminent environmental catastrophes are to be avoided.

Towards the circular economy in the fashion industry: the second-hand market as a best practice of sustainable responsibility for businesses and consumers.

The transition to a circular economy is a key concern for the fashion industry. The emerging second-hand market is a practice that could enable the circular economy in the fashion industry. As this is an emerging trend, the literature has not yet sufficiently explored how it is possible to simultaneously meet consumer and industry expectations in the management of second-hand garments within the value chain. This article aimed to fill that gap with the analytic hierarchy process, which demonstrated that garment collection and recycling are not necessarily best practices for the circular economy. For this to happen, close collaboration between manufacturers and retailers in the value chain is needed to move the industry towards responsibly sustainable production and consumption models. The results emphasise that harvesting management and internal competition on low-cost collection are critical business drivers, while responsible consumption and benefits are opportunities for consumers.

Reconciling human health with the environment while struggling against the COVID-19 pandemic through improved face mask eco-design.

Surgical masks have become critical for protecting human health against the COVID-19 pandemic, even though their environmental burden is a matter of ongoing debate. This study aimed at shedding light on the environmental impacts of single-use (i.e., MD-Type I) versus reusable (i.e., MD-Type IIR) face masks via a comparative life cycle assessment with a cradle-to-grave system boundary. We adopted a two-level analysis using the ReCiPe (H) method, considering both midpoint and endpoint categories. The results showed that reusable face masks created fewer impacts for most midpoint categories. At the endpoint level, reusable face masks were superior to single-use masks, producing scores of 16.16 and 84.20 MPt, respectively. The main environmental impacts of single-use masks were linked to raw material consumption, energy requirements and waste disposal, while the use phase and raw material consumption made the most significant contribution for reusable type. However, our results showed that lower environmental impacts of reusable face masks strongly depend on the use phase since reusable face masks lost their superior performance when the hand wash scenario was tested. Improvement of mask eco-design emerged as another key factor such as using more sustainable raw materials and designing better waste disposal scenarios could significantly lower the environmental impacts.

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 bioeconomy in Italy and the new national strategy for a more competitive and sustainable country.

Italy has the third largest bioeconomy in Europe (€330 billion annual turnover, 2 million employees), making it a core pillar of the national economy. Its sectors of excellence are food and biobased products, and it is a consistent presence in research and innovation projects funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme (Societal Challenges 2) and the European Public Private Partnership "Biobased industry" (BBI-JU). The bioeconomy reduces dependence on fossil fuels and finite materials, loss of biodiversity and changing land use. It contributes to environmental regeneration, spurs economic growth and supports jobs in rural, coastal and abandoned industrial areas, leveraging local contexts and traditions. In 2017 the Italian government promoted the development of a national Bioeconomy Strategy (BIT), recently updated (BIT II) to interconnect more efficiently the pillars of the national bioeconomy: production of renewable biological resources, their conversion into valuable food/feed, biobased products and bio-energy, and transformation and valorization of bio-waste streams. BIT II aims to improve coordination between Ministries and Italian regions in alignment of policies, regulations, R&I funding programmes and infrastructures investment. The goal is a 15 % increase in turnover and employment in the Italian bioeconomy by 2030. Based on Italy's strategic geopolitical position in the Mediterranean basin, BIT II also includes actions to improve sustainable productivity, social cohesion and political stability through the implementation of bioeconomy strategies in this area. This paper provides an insight into these strategies and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the sectors involved and the measures, regulatory initiatives and monitoring actions undertaken.

Survey data for assessing the socio-economic performance of End of Life options of a bio-based product based on expert knowledge.

This data article aims at providing a data description about the manuscript entitled "A socio-economic indicator for EoL strategies for bio-based products" [1]. Data regarding the socio-economic assessment of End of Life (EoL) options for the specific case of PLA-based film for food packaging are presented, with a special emphasis on policy recommendations and actions for the EoL practices in the bioeconomy sectors. A new framework, based on data gathering and validation through experts involvement, is proposed in order to calculate a new indicator to measure the socio-economic performance of EoL practices (SEI-EoL) for bio-based products. Experts were identified from the Horizon 2020 LIFE-funded projects and/or Scopus databases. Two rounds of survey were carried out to determine the weights of socio-economic criteria for bio-based products and the values for the selected case study. The aggregation of these data enabled us to obtain a final ranking of different EoL alternatives. Finally, a third round of survey was conducted to further deepen our understanding of actions and recommendations needed to improve EoL practices in bio-based sectors. Resulting data have a mix of quantitative and qualitative characterization. A potential reuse of these data can allow future estimations, empirical analyses or a direct comparison with the use of experimental observations.

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 Combined method to model policy interventions for local communities based on people knowledge.

Policy interventions to promote innovative industries in peripheral regions are often hampered by lack of information on the functioning of the local socio-economic systems, due to their complexity. This might result in mismatches between policy objectives and the actual needs and capability of local communities. To overcome this drawback, it is crucial to obtain appropriate knowledge on the local system, which nevertheless is typically embedded in local actors' minds in uncodified and tacit form. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs) have been employed to decode this kind of knowledge in a reproducible manner. However, some problems remain as to how to integrate the necessary vagueness of local actors' heuristic with experts' knowledge into a rational framework. The following methodology customization is proposed: • Combine the FCMs with the Discourse Analysis to obtain relevant narratives (i.e. concepts, visions, insights, etc.) needed to define system boundaries and variables. • Employ individual interviews - rather than a participatory approach - to define the causal relations among system variables. • Integrate tacit and uncodified knowledge embedded in local actors within experts' scientific knowledge.

The transition towards a bio-based economy: A comparative study based on social network analysis.

This paper focuses on the development of a bioplastics innovation niche as an important sector of the bio-based economy and a viable solution to promote sustainable long-term growth. Relying on the Strategic Niche Management framework, the following niche mechanisms are analysed: (1) convergence of expectations, (2) learning processes, and (3) networking with powerful actors in the sector. We conducted a comparative analysis, looking at Italy and Germany, two frontrunner countries in the bioplastic production who have enacted divergent policies in support of this sector. The comparative perspective has brought some interesting insights into the maturity level of the two respective niches, as well as into the emerging architectural properties of the underling social networks. Core findings show a general high level of expectations in the bioplastics sector in both countries, whereas key elements undermining the niche development refer either to the lack of policy support or to the changing and unstable institutional and regulatory framework. Regarding the architectural structure, the Italian network of actors was largely characterized by an active exchange of knowledge among firms, whereas the German network was characterized by the presence of several institutional actors actively participating in knowledge flows. This last result relates, in the authors' view, to the different policy strategies followed by national governments in the two countries: the German case being characterized by large public investment in R&D, whereas the Italian case is mostly characterized by demand side policies that effectively created a market for bioplastic shoppers.

Securing support for eye health policy in low- and middle-income countries: identifying stakeholders through a multi-level analysis.

This article empirically evaluates advocacy in low- and middle-income countries as a key tool for raising policy priority and securing high-level decision maker support in eye health. We used a unique data set based on a survey conducted by World Health Organization in 2011 on eye care and prevention of blindness in 82 low- and middle-income countries. The theoretical framework derives from the idea that a plethora of stakeholders at local and global level pressure national governments, acting in economic and the political spheres. Previously, eye care has not been investigated in such a framework. We found structural differences across countries with different income levels and proposed policy recommendations to secure high-level decision makers' support for promoting eye health. Three case studies suggest that, in order to secure more support and resources for eye health, domestic and international stakeholders must strengthen their engagement with ministries of health at political and above all economic levels.