Exploring the nexus between economic and environmental issues in the tourism sector at the country level. A replicable framework.

In recent years, the tourism activities take experienced a steady growth in demand, yet it causes ecological damages, such as waste production and carbon dioxide emissions. This paper provides a theoretical framework for testing the interactions among sustainable development and economic growth in the tourism context and demonstrates that sustainability depends on both environmental impacts and some relationships among different factors. In particular, considering some of the key indicators proposed by Agenda 2030 and integrated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the authors focused on the direct influence of tourism to Gross Domestic Product (TGDP), Environmental Performance Indicator (EPI) score, and Carbon Footprint (CF) as indicators that were used together with GDP and Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to test five hypotheses and analyze their interactions for a sample country. The results reveal the statistical significance among these indicators in the light of Sustainable Development Goals n. 8, n. 12, and n. 13. Finally, Municipal Solid Waste, the first visible human effect due to tourism, presents a strong interaction with Carbon Footprint.

Wastewater recovery for sustainable agricultural systems in the circular economy - A systematic literature review of Life Cycle Assessments.

Water availability and quality are known to affect agricultural production and nutrition. The aim of this study was to elaborate a systematic literature review of the most sustainable ways of wastewater treatment towards achieving circular economy (CE) in agro-industry activities. From the SLR, the authors selected twenty-seven papers that they classified into the three research themes of recovery of wastewater into irrigation water, extraction of sludge for production of bio-based compounds, and recovery of nutrients for soil amendment, including recovering of feeds for aquaculture, and recovery of nutrient biosolids for soil amendment. Results underlined that the recovery of nutrients biosolids for soil amendment can generate a GWP gain up to - 37 kg CO2-eq. So, the review highlighted that wastewater recovery for multiple purposes can be truly effective for the environmental sustainability of agricultural systems, and that LCA is a valid tool to assess and improve that sustainability. Under this perspective, this SLR's findings can stimulate public administrations at national and local scales in their planning and funding activities towards implementing circular bioeconomy paths based upon wastewater recovery for a sustainable, resilient agriculture. Overall, the authors believe that their article was effective in overviewing the current wastewater recovery paths in the CE context, and in highlighting key methodological aspects and findings of the reviewed LCAs, to advance the specialised literature and knowledge, and to guide practitioners for future LCA applications in the field. Finally, through its main findings, the article effectively contributes to the whole research project which it is part of and which the authors are deeply involved in. That research is performed under the Progetto GRINS "Growing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable" thanks to a PNRR M4C2- Investment 1.3 - GRINS with the aim of "Building a dataset for the circular economy of the main Italian production systems".