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| 2. |
- Brändström, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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How circular is a value chain? Proposing a Material Efficiency Metric to evaluate business models
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 342
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of Circular Economy is a principle aiming to improve sustainable development by reducing resource use and impact on ecological systems. An increasing number of companies are applying this theory on design strategies and business models in order to close, slow and narrow material loops. To highlight the importance, guide practitioners, and evaluate the progress of circular economy, a high number of circularity metrics (C-metrics) have been developed. However, little attention has been given to creating a connection between quantification of circularity and environmental performance. Existing metrics also do not highlight the interplay between micro (product), meso (industrial symbiosis), and macro (regional) level circularity. Moreover, existing metrics do not capture all material loops and do not adopt a value chain perspective on material flows. To improve the connection between C-metrics and environmental performance, a framework connecting circular economy strategies and material flows was developed. Based on this framework, a material flow-based C-metric was designed aimed at converting mechanisms of closing, narrowing and slowing material loops into a single-point value. To evaluate its feasibility, the metric was tested on three circular business models that represent all three mechanisms in a value chain perspective. The results showed that the metric is feasible in more situations than existing metrics and that the circularity value is highly dependent on assumptions. In future studies, the metric should be tested and compared to Life Cycle Assessments on multiple system levels to ensure that it generates valid results. Furthermore, user input assumptions should be standardized to ensure metric reliability.
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| 3. |
- Börjeson, Fia Christina, et al.
(författare)
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Ger koppling av kunskapsinlärning och färdighetsövning ökad djupinlärning? : "Utveckling av kursmoment i ”Miljö- och resursanalys för hållbar utveckling V2”
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Kursen ”Miljö- och resursanalys för hållbar utveckling V2”, som är en av de obli-gatoriska kurserna under andra året i civilingenjörsutbildningen (Väg och Vat-ten) vid Chalmers tekniska högskola har omfattats av ett pedagogiskt utveck-lingsarbete. Utgångspunkten till de förändringar som prövats har varit grundade i och inspirerade av Experiential Learning Theory1. Lärarlaget utvecklade, med stöd av en gemensamt producerad begreppsmodell, metoder för att intervenera på olika stadier, och på olika sätt, i studenternas lärprocess. Arbetet har handlat om att skapa goda förutsättningar för att förstärka studenternas lärande. Ett så-dant lärande innebär att studenterna tillägnar sig en ökad förståelse och fördju-pade kunskaper, genom att koppla samman färdigheter som reflektion och kommunikation med tillägnandet av ett relativt abstrakt stoff (miljö- och resurs-analys). Detta har skett med hjälp av att modifiera kursens organisation och struktur, genom att utveckla återkommande och varierande typer av reflektions-övningar samt genom att arbeta fram återkommande och varierande former för olika typer av återkoppling till studenterna. En viktig del av arbetet har också va-rit att försöka utvärdera utfallet av de förändringar som genomförts i kursen. Ut-ifrån de begränsningar som det empiriska materialet innebär är det inte helt klart om titelns fråga besvarats i undersökningen, men studenternas resultat liksom deras utvärdering av kursen pekar tydligt på positiva effekter ifråga om lärandet.
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| 4. |
- Colding, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Urban Commons and Collective Action to Address Climate Change
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social Inclusion. - : Cogitatio. - 2183-2803 .- 2183-2803. ; 10:1, s. 103-114
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change and the coupled loss of ecosystem services pose major collective action problems in that all individuals would benefit from better cooperation to address these problems but conflicting interests and/or incomplete knowledge discourage joint action. Adopting an inductive and multi‐layered approach, drawing upon the authors’ previous research on urban commons, we here summarize key insights on environmentally oriented urban commons and elaborate on what role they have in instigating climate‐proofing activities in urban areas. We deal with three types of urban commons, i.e., “urban green commons,” “coworking spaces,” and “community climate commons.” We describe how allotment gardens, community gardens, and other types of urban green commons contribute to environmental learning that may boost understanding of environmental issues and which constitute important learning arenas for climate‐change mitigation and adaptation. We also deal with the newly emerging phenomenon of coworking spaces that share many essential institutional attributes of urban commons and which can work for climate‐change mitigation through the benefits provided by a sharing economy and through reduction of domestic transportation and commuting distance. Community climate commons represent commons where local communities can mobilize together to create shared low‐carbon assets and which hold the potential to empower certain segments and civil society groups so that they can have greater influence and ownership of the transformation of reaching net‐zero carbon goals. We conclude this article by identifying some critical determinants for the up‐scaling of environmentally oriented urban commons.
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| 5. |
- Eriksson, Ola, et al.
(författare)
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Enhancement of biogas production from food waste and sewage sludge : environmental and economic life cycle performance
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0301-4797 .- 1095-8630. ; 175, s. 33-39
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Management of municipal solid waste is an efficient method to increase resource efficiency, as well as to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources due to that (1) waste to a large extent is renewable as it consists of food waste, paper, wood etc. and (2) when energy and materials are recovered from waste treatment, fossil fuels can be substituted. In this paper results from a comprehensive system study of future biological treatment of readily degradable waste in two Swedish regions are presented. Different collection and separation systems for food waste in households have been applied as well as technical improvements of the biogas process as to reduce environmental impact. The results show that central sorting of a mixed fraction into recyclables, combustibles, biowaste and inert is a competitive option compared to source separation. Use of pellets is beneficial compared to direct spreading as fertiliser. Fuel pellets seem to be the most favourable option, which to a large extent depends on the circumstances in the energy system. Separation and utilisation of nitrogen in the wet part of the digestion residue is made possible with a number of technologies which decreases environmental impact drastically, however to a substantial cost in some cases.
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| 6. |
- Eriksson, Ola, et al.
(författare)
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Integrated waste management as a mean to promote renewable energy
- 2014
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Ingår i: Renewable energy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0960-1481 .- 1879-0682. ; 61, s. 38-42
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Management of municipal solid waste is an efficient method to both increase resource efficiency (material and energy recovery instead of landfill disposal) and to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources (waste is renewable in itself to a large extent as it contains paper, wood, food waste etc.). The paper presents the general outline and results from a comprehensive system study of future waste management. In the study a multifunctional waste management system integrated with local energy systems for district heating and electricity, wastewater treatment, agriculture and vehicle fuel production is investigated with respect to environmental impact and financial economy. Different waste technologies as well as management strategies have been tested. The treatment is facilitated through advanced sorting, efficient treatment facilities and upgrading of output products. Tools used are the ORWARE model for the waste management system and the MARTES model for the district heating system. The results for potential global warming are used as an indicator for renewable energy. In all future scenarios and for all management strategies net savings of CO2 is accomplished. Compared to a future reference the financial costs will be higher or lower depending on management strategy.
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| 7. |
- Finnveden, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Policy instruments towards a sustainable waste management
- 2013
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - Basel : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 5:3, s. 841-881
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to suggest and discuss policy instruments that could lead towards a more sustainable waste management. The paper is based on evaluations from a large scale multi-disciplinary Swedish research program. The evaluations focus on environmental and economic impacts as well as social acceptance. The focus is on the Swedish waste management system but the results should be relevant also for other countries. Through the assessments and lessons learned during the research program we conclude that several policy instruments can be effective and possible to implement. Particularly, we put forward the following policy instruments: “Information”; “Compulsory recycling of recyclable materials”; “Weight-based waste fee in combination with information and developed recycling systems”; “Mandatory labeling of products containing hazardous chemicals”, “Advertisements on request only and other waste minimization measures”; and “Differentiated VAT and subsidies for some services”. Compulsory recycling of recyclable materials is the policy instrument that has the largest potential for decreasing the environmental impacts with the configurations studied here. The effects of the other policy instruments studied may be more limited and they typically need to be implemented in combination in order to have more significant impacts. Furthermore, policy makers need to take into account market and international aspects when implementing new instruments. In the more long term perspective, the above set of policy instruments may also need to be complemented with more transformational policy instruments that can significantly decrease the generation of waste.
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| 8. |
- Holmgren, Mattias, Doktorand, 1991-, et al.
(författare)
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Deceptive sustainability : Cognitive bias in people's judgment of the benefits of CO2 emission cuts
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Environmental Psychology. - : Elsevier. - 0272-4944 .- 1522-9610. ; 64, s. 48-55
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People's beliefs in the actions necessary to reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are important to public policy acceptability. The current paper addressed beliefs concerning how periods of small emission cuts contribute to the total CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, by asking participants to rate the atmospheric CO2 concentration for various time periods and emission rates. The participants thought that a time period with higher emission rates combined with a period of lower emission rates generates less atmospheric CO2 in total, compared to the period with high emission rates alone – demonstrating a negative footprint illusion (Study 1). The participants appeared to base their CO2 estimates on the average, rather than on the accumulated sum, of the two periods' emissions – i.e. an averaging bias (Study 2). Moreover, the effect was robust to the wordings of the problem presented to the participants (Study 3). Together, these studies suggest that the averaging bias makes people exaggerate the benefits of small emission cuts. The averaging bias could make people willing to accept policies that reduce emission rates although insufficiently to alleviate global warming.
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| 9. |
- Molin, Jonas, 1972-
(författare)
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Business Streamlining : Toward a Substantive Theory of the Streamlining of Outsourced Business Processes
- 2014
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research comparing public-private services outsourcing applying a longitudinal approach including the production/delivery processes (life after purchase) in services sourcing contexts is scarce. In addition, prior studies on service sourcing tend be under conceptualized.To address the above this licentiate thesis presents the results of a comparative and grounded theory inspired case study of two major Swedish FM services outsourcing projects, a public and a private case of operational partnering. Client-provider interaction processes on management level have been followed regularly over time utilizing participant observation as a core element combined with interviews and documentary studies. Observed variations in relational orientation over time, are problematized and discussed. A substantive theory – Business streamlining - of Facility Management outsourcing processes, including the seldom-researched life after purchase processes, is outlined and contextualized. It is argued that existing relational classifications, such as operational partnering, do not capture the life after purchase dynamics of the studied relationships. Business streamlining rests on four main categories, which have major influence on how Facility Management relationships evolve over time.
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