| 1. |
- Danielski, Itai, et al.
(författare)
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Heated atrium in multi-storey apartment buildings, a design with potential to enhance energy efficiency and to facilitate social interactions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Building and Environment. - : Elsevier. - 0360-1323 .- 1873-684X. ; 106, s. 352-364
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The design concept of conditioned atria gains increasing popularity in commercial and service buildings all over the world, but is still not a common building design in the residential sector. This study investigates the potential of such design in residential buildings in Nordic climates as means to enhance both energy efficiency as well as social interaction among residents. Energy modelling was used to compare energy efficiency among designs of residential buildings with and without atrium and to identify important design parameters. Social interaction was analysed, based on a survey evaluating the perception of residents living in an existing multi-storey apartment building designed with a heated atrium in the north of Sweden.The results show that heated atrium in Nordic climates have a potential to reduce the total final energy demand while at the same time increase the conditioned space of the building. To positively impact energy efficiency, the atrium should fulfil three requirements: (i) it should be designed to reduce the shape factor for the whole building; (ii) it should have the minimum glazed area that comply with the building requirements concerning natural light and visual comfort; and (iii) adjustable solar shading should be installed in the atrium’s façades to avoid unwanted overheating. The survey results indicate that the additional space created by the atrium has a potential to facilitate and promote social interaction among residents and to increases a sense of neighbourliness and belongingness, which are often discussed as important parameters in relation to social sustainability.
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| 2. |
- Danielski, Itai, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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In situ measurements of thermal properties of building fabrics using thermography under non-steady state heat flow conditions
- 2018
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Ingår i: Infrastructures. - : MDPI. - 2412-3811. ; 3:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study describes a quantitative method using thermography to measure the thermal properties of building fabrics that are subjected to non-steady state heat flow due to consistently changing meteorological conditions. The method includes two parts. First, the convection heat transfer coefficient is measured by thermography and heat flux meters on a small segment of the examined building fabric with uniform surface temperature. Then, thermal properties of large building fabrics are evaluated by thermography. The two parts are measured simultaneously. The method was tested on 140/160/190 mm thick massive laminated spruce timber walls of a test facility cabin located in Östersund, Sweden. The results varied by only a few percent in comparison to validation measurements performed with heat flux meters and in comparison, to values from the literature. Due to rapid changes in weather conditions the measured values had large disparity, but still a linear regression with low confidence interval was obtained. Obtaining an accurate value of convection heat transfer was important for achieving high measurement accuracy and, therefore, the value of this parameter should be measured. Other important factors to consider are solar radiation, reflected infrared (IR) radiation from nearby objects and the number of thermal images.
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| 3. |
- Fröling, Morgan, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Appearances of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment - learnings from two Swedish case studies
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Linnaeus Eco-Tech 2016.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ecosystem Services is an increasingly used concept to understand and describe the dependencies of socio-technical systems on the ecosystems in which they exist. We have studied to what extent ecosystem services are appearing in Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) in two Swedish cases, the improvement of ecological status in a river used for small scale hydropower and the mining operations of the MM mine. In neither of the two cases ecosystem services have been intentionally included in the work with the EIAs. The goal of the studies has been to examine to what extent ecosystem services are appearing anyway in the EIAs, to what extent data in the EIAs are sufficient to perform more structured ecosystem service assessments, and if the use of a more structured ecosystem services review during the EIA process could have contributed positively to the EIA work. Both EIAs in this study holds some information on impacts on ecosystem services, and more information on affected ecosystem functions that could be translated into ecosystems services and probably to full ecosystem service reviews with additional data gathering. Cases of ecosystem functions and services impacting other ecosystem functions and services, sometimes in several stages, were found, indicating that such functions or services could be of special importance to protect and / or support.
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| 4. |
- Fröling, Morgan, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Bio-CCS - a model based case study from the mid Sweden region
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of Global Cleaner Production and Sustainable Consumption, Sitges Barcelona, November 1-4, 2015.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In its 2014 report, IPCC recommend Carbon Capture and Storage not only for fossil power plants but also for bioenergy to beable to meet the 2 degree target. In a case study, models for CCS applied to a combined heat and power (CHP) plant inÖstersund, Sweden, using wood chips as main fuel was assessed. The goal was to gain knowledge to be prepared to takemore rapid action if policy instruments are implemented in future. More "traditional" technology with absorption inmonoethanolamine (MEA) and subsequent underground storage uses a significant part of produced electricity, and in anenergy system perspective it is not necessarily the most efficient use of a limited wood resource. For processes withcomparatively low net climate impact, like bio-CHP, alternatives significantly more energy efficient per unit of capturedcarbon dioxide but only able to capture part of the total emitted carbon can be considered. One such alternative is to capturecarbon dioxide using microalgae. Key issues for assessment of processes in this case are how to store the carbon captured inthe algae biomass (e.g. in products) and for how long the carbon will be withdrawn from atmosphere with such storage.
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| 5. |
- Fröling, Morgan, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Design Processes Releasing Creativity for Sustainability
- 2016
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Ingår i: Valuing and Evaluating Creativity for Sustainable Regional Development. - Östersund. ; , s. 223-225
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- To move toward sustainable societies and achieve the United Nations Global Goals changes are necessary at many levels and in many dimensions of human society. New creative methods in the design approach are necessary. The magnitude of change that is needed can be imagined by the fact that the world is so impacted by human activities that some discuss our present era on earth as the “Anthropocene”. To keep up and expand human wellbeing all over the world, it will be necessary to design new products and processes that are better adapted to fit within the planetary boundaries of the Earth. The ‘squary shape’ of most city components are badly adopted both to human body and our cognitive for stimulation. At the same time, social sustainability requires the development of these new products and processes in ways that are inclusive. In other words, our solutions toned to be available for use by as many individuals as possible worldwide.The design stage is when there are many degrees of freedom compared to later production and use phases of products or services. Unsustainable properties included at this stage are often hard or expensive (or both) to correct later on when infrastructure for production has been created.. Thus the design stage is one important area that can help create movement towards more sustainable societies.There are several development processes available to create more environmentally friendly products. These processes can be good in some cases but often are the requirement settled before designer are involved. Therefore they are not inspiring designers, and release of the expertise of designers can not be used in a significant way [1,2]. For example, in the corporate sector there is often a lack of clear vision and goals during specific design tasks, which can hamper leapfrog development.To develop products and solutions that are inclusive to large parts of the population is a challenge for sustained and increased human wellbeing, especially with an expected aging population. To meet such challenges design methods and approaches has been developed under the concept Design for All [3]. The Design for All approach is often thought of as handling human ergonomic challenges, but if used correctly this approach can also be helpful for inclusion of individuals facing a wide range of physical or cognitive challenges.Since more environmentally adapted design and more inclusive design are two parallel developments that is needed for the future, it is of interest to merge the thinking of such approaches. A widening of thinking regarding Design for All to take into account not only the ‘weakest humans’ but also the ‘weakest links in ecosystems’ could be such a road forward to design that fits in a future sustainable society. It has the possibility to be set up in a way to release and utilize the expertise of designers and thus opens for truly creative solutions for the problems of today and tomorrow.A new creative way to solve city, and other design issues by starting from the most demanding peoples and nature species needs instead of re-designing artefacts originated from industrial production indicates hope for sustainable solutions in the future. This is a possible starting point for a new era of creative cites.ReferencesGunilla Clancy; Morgan Fröling; Gregory Peters (2015): Ecolabels as drivers of clothing design. Journal of Cleaner Production, ISSN 0959-6526, Vol. 99, p.345-353.Gunilla Clancy; Morgan Fröling; Magdalena Svanström (2013): Insights from guiding material development towards more sustainable products. International Journal of Sustainable Design, ISSN 1743-8284, Vol. 2, no 2, p. 149-166.Lena Lorentzen; Johan Eklund (2011): Design for All (Published in Swedish: Design för alla: En ny metod för att bedöma produkters, tjänsters och miljöers användbarhet). Design Research Journal, ISSN 2000-3080, Vol. 1, no 1, 46-53 p.
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| 6. |
- Fröling, Morgan, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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From environmental problems to sustainable development and towards resilience : Development over time of a university program inenvironmental science aiming for action competences
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction:During the latest decades society has developed from an environmental awareness, with reactive thinking, of the “preBrundtland age” into having sustainability as the goal for human development after the Rio declaration. Lately, within the environmentalscientific sphere, the concept of resilience is increasingly superimposed on the sustainability paradigm. It is seen as important both forunderstanding of the present situation as well as a necessity for societies to survive in times of rapid change. During this period from “preBrundtland” until today when resilience is in focus, the environmental science program of Ecotechnology started, developed and changed inresponse to changes in society. A goal, from the very beginning of the educational program, has been to empower students to take action.The types of action and how action competence has been perceived, has changed over the three decades the program has been running.Objectives: Environmental science and sustainability is often difficult to teach since it demands an interdisciplinary approach stretching overthe traditional faculty division of natural, social, and engineering sciences. At Mid Sweden University these three branches have beenintegrated in Ecotechnology education for 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to describe the interdisciplinary teaching with special focuson the development of the student’s action competence for sustainable development, in the light of how the environmental issues havedeveloped.Methods: The paper has a descriptive approach exploring the experiences from the 30 years of interdisciplinary teaching.Results: Different teaching methods and strategies have been employed over time, partly in sync with changing overarching societal goals.Conclusion: Some observations are 1) a key element to develop action competence is to push students to a self-propelled learning behaviorrather than traditional teaching of facts, 2) to not too easily provide the students with answers will develop problem solving skills, 3) “doingbefore-reading” teaching is more time consuming but seem to give deeper knowledge.
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| 7. |
- Fröling, Morgan, 1966-
(författare)
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Integrated assessment for sustainable rural development in the Mid Sweden mountain region
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of SUSTAINABILITY OF RURAL AREAS IN PRACTICE (SURAP) 2015.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sustainable rural development have partly different challenges compared to urban areas, both in types of challenges and in solutions possible to implement. Ongoing work at Mid Sweden University addresses such issues in the Mid Sweden mountain region (county of Jämtland) through integrated assessment. The global development has now come to a critical state where humanity act as a new geological force and it is obvious that there are numerous of environmental problems which arise from the present geosphere-biosphere-anthroposphere interactions which urgently need to be addressed. Even though Jämtland is a sparsely populated area with large forests, a lot of hydro power, and only one major city, it is still not obvious how to reach long term sustainability. We can e.g. easily identify tradeoffs between increased biofuel harvesting and development of tourism based on experience of nature. Regional sustainability can be addressed with an ecological systems model based on carbon and energy balances. The model is supplemented with investigations of ecosystem services in the region, intended to capture additional dimensions of sustainable development. A regional model can serve as a support tool for regional decisions aiming for sustainable regional development.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Grönlund, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Emergy as a measure to assess sustainable development
- 2016
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Ingår i: Proceedings of 22nd International Sustainable Development Research Society Conference, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, 13 – 15 July 2016.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Emergy accounting is one of the methods in the sustainability assessment toolbox. In its use of stocks and flows of energy and matter it has similarities with Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Substance Flow Analysis (SFA), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), but Emergy accounting also includes stocks and flows of money and information. In its methodological approach of relating to a global baseline of renewable flows Emergy accounting is similar to Ecological footprints in that it is not just revealing which of two alternatives is using more or less of different stocks or flows but also comparing the use to available renewable flows on a global annual basis.This paper address the contribution of three different aspects of emergy accounting (emergy analysis, emergy synthesis) to the overarching goal of sustainable development. The discussed aspects were: 1) the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI), 2) emergy as a normalizing measure, and 3) emergy as a network measure.It was concluded that the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) is an interesting measure but does not catch the full range of the sustainability concept. The emergy accounting approach, with the ESI as part of it, has a lot more to say about sustainability than just what is captured by the ESI. An interesting outcome is that the traditional triple-bottom-line of environmental, economic and social sustainability emerges very easily from the emergy assessment conceptual diagram approach. Emergy accounting holds a promise of clarifying the fuzziness often connected to how to classify economic, social, and socio-economic domains of sustainability. These are in practice often difficult to distinguish between, as are their connections to the ecological/environmental sustainability. The reason why the ESI captures only a small part of what is interesting from a sustainability point of view in the full emergy assessment may be that it has the focus on the traditional load and yield components. Many of the interesting parts from emergy evaluation in the sustainability context may instead come from the capability of emergy accounting to capture network properties.
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| 10. |
- Haller, Henrik, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Application of ecological engineering within the framework for strategic sustainable development for design of appropriate soil bioremediation technologies in marginalized regions
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 172, s. 2415-2424
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores a systematic strategy to design appropriate bioremediation projects for marginalized regions that have the potential to contribute to sustainable development in that region. Ecological Engineering (EE) is of particular value for the development of appropriate bioremediation technology for such regions but a stricter planning tool than provided by EE itself, is also needed when the goal of the project goes beyond remediation targets. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) applies basic principles for sustainability and includes a stepwise strategic planning mechanism for their application. The inclusion of EE within the FSSD may steer soil bioremediation projects in rural areas in developing countries and sparsely populated regions in industrialized countries towards sustainability. The utility of the approach was tested on two cases of soil pollution in marginalized regions: the Chinandega region in Nicaragua (pesticide polluted agricultural soil) and a former filling station (diesel polluted residual area) in Gäddede, northern Sweden. The study demonstrates how the inclusion of the EE key concepts within the FSSD may increase the utility of EE for strategic sustainable development within the region. No difficulties in terms of conflicting suggestions were found in the proposed integrated approach; the two tools were found to contribute on different aspects to provide support to project management and decision making.
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