A simplified approach to determine the carbon footprint of a region: Key learning points from a Galician study

Carbon footprint of a conventional wastewater treatment plant: An analysis of water-energy nexus from life cycle perspective for emission reduction

Identifying a sustainable rice-based cropping system via on-farm evaluation of grain yield, carbon sequestration capacity and carbon footprints in Central China

Determination of the carbon footprint of all Galician production and consumption activities: Lessons learnt and guidelines for policymakers

Whole-farm systems modelling of greenhouse gas emissions from pastoral suckler beef cow production systems

Aktualnie ważnym wyzwaniem dla sektora rolniczego jest redukcja emisji gazów cieplarnianych (GHG) w celu złagodzenia skutków zmian klimatycznych. Istnieje potrzeba dokładnej identyfikacji źródeł emisji oraz upowszechnienia praktyk rolniczych, które przyczyniałyby się do zmniejszenia emisji we wszystkich ogniwach produkcji roślinnej. Do przeprowadzenia obiektywnych porównań i wyboru najlepszych rozwiązań technologicznych według kryterium emisyjności potrzebna jest szczegółowa ocena ilościowa emisji GHG. W opracowaniu przedstawiono ocenę emisji GHG w produkcji roślinnej za pomocą śladu węglowego (CF). Udział operacji technologicznych w powstawaniu CF scharakteryzowano na przykładzie rzepaku ozimego. Wyniki badań wskazują, że największe znaczenie w kształtowaniu CF ma proces nawożenia mineralnego. Wpływ pozostałych procesów na CF jest wielokrotnie mniejszy. Miejscem głównych emisji GHG w nawożeniu mineralnym rzepaku są emisje bezpośrednie i pośrednie GHG z pól. Po emisjach GHG z pól, produkcja nawozów stanowi drugie źródło emisji z nawożenia. Zmiany praktyk rolniczych polegających na zwiększeniu efektywności nawożenia azotowego oraz stosowaniu nawozów o niskich współczynnikach emisji stwarzają obecnie możliwość redukcji emisji GHG i przez to, tym samym mogą przyczynić się do zmniejszenia CF produktów roślinnych.

Carbon footprint calculation in telecommunications companies – The importance and relevance of scope 3 greenhouse gases emissions

SummaryThis research reports on a multivariate analysis that examined the relationship between direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and socioeconomic and well‐being variables for 1,920 respondents living in Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada, using results from the Halifax Space‐Time Activity Research Project. The unique data set allows us to estimate direct GHG emissions with an unprecedented level of specificity based on household energy use survey data and geographic positioning system–verified personal travel data. Of the variables analyzed, household size, income, community zone, age, and marital status are all statistically significant predictors of direct GHG emissions. Birthplace, ethnicity, educational attainment, perceptions of health, life satisfaction, job satisfaction, happiness, volunteering, or community belonging did not seem to matter. In addition, we examined whether those reporting energy‐efficient behaviors had lower GHG emissions. No significant differences were discovered among the groups analyzed, supporting a growing body of research indicating a disconnect between environmental attitudes and behaviors and environmental impact. Among the predictor variables, those reporting to be married, young, low income, and living in households with more people have correspondingly lower direct GHG emissions than other categories in respective groupings. Our finding that respondents with lifestyles that generate higher GHG emissions did not report to be healthier, happier, or more connected to their communities suggest that individuals can experience similar degrees of well‐being regardless of the amount of GHG emissions associated with his or her respective lifestyle.

Climate-smart livestock production at landscape level in Kenya

A plant-wide wastewater treatment plant model for carbon and energy footprint: Model application and scenario analysis

基于生命周期评价的上海市水稻生产碳足迹研究

The Paris agreement (2015) seems a significant achievement towards a global mitigation policy to climate change. However, implementing the promised Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) targets by the participating countries has become a real challenge. In this aspect, the input-output life cycle assessment (IO-LCA) model provides an important assessment mechanism to design suitable abatement policies limiting the rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The present paper develops an IO-LCA model for Pakistan and estimates all the direct and indirect GHG emissions caused by all the production activities during all the stages of production. This task is achieved in three phases. In phase 1, the Pakistan input-output table (IOT) is constructed. In phase 2, the GHG environmental satellite accounts are created for each sector in the economy. In phase 3, the GHG emissions are linked to different categories of final demand.

Conversion from double-season rice to ratoon rice paddy fields reduces carbon footprint and enhances net ecosystem economic benefit

BackgroundClimate change poses a serious threat to the planet, mainly driven by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Dental laboratories contribute to GHG emissions through staff travel, waste, energy and water consumption, and procurement. Carbon footprinting is the process of quantifying the direct and indirect GHG emissions associated with a service. This study aimed to assess the Carbon Footprint (CFP) of private dental laboratories in Egypt.Materials and methodsData were collected from private dental laboratories in Cairo, Alexandria, and Elbeheira, Egypt in August 2024 through interview questionnaires. A CFP calculator was used to estimate carbon emissions from staff travel, waste, energy and water consumption, and procurement. The data of all laboratories was summed and divided to determine the average CFP per laboratory and per prothesis/appliance, both with and without the depreciation of dental equipment.ResultsData from 21 dental laboratories were collected. An average private dental laboratory in Egypt worked 309 days with a staff of around 7 persons and makes around 7119 prostheses/appliance per year. The CFP of dental laboratories was around 20,820 kg CO2e, equal to 2.9 kg CO2e per prosthesis/appliance. The largest contributor to the CFP was staff travel (43.6%), followed by procurement (27.8%), energy consumption (25%), waste (3.3%), and water consumption (0.1%). After including the depreciation of dental equipment, the CFP increased by 7.7%.ConclusionPrivate dental laboratories in Egypt produce a significant amount of carbon emissions. Staff travel was the major contributor to the carbon emission because each laboratory hired several couriers to deliver the prostheses/appliances and impressions. The CFP of electricity consumption was significant, likely because the air conditioning ran throughout the year to cool the machines down. Future studies are needed to develop customized country-specific CFP calculators to accurately measure the carbon emissions of dental laboratories in various settings. Preventing oral diseases, educating technicians on sustainable dental practices, optimizing public transportation, using bulk delivery services, shifting to renewable energy, and adopting circular economy are essential to mitigate the carbon emissions of dental laboratories.

Mājsaimniecību Ietekme uz Klimatu Latvijā: Oglekļa Pēdas Rādītājs People more and more recognize climate change as one of the main environmental problems and the term ‘carbon footprint’ (CF) has become popular and is now in widespread use. In this paper, the CF concept has been applied to analyse average per capita household Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in Latvia. We explore household CF in housing (heating and electricity consumption), transport, food and goods and service sectors, which are the main household environmental pressure areas. This paper provides an understanding of both direct and indirect (embodied) GHG emissions. Results from the study suggest that the average Latvian exceeds its global fair share of GHG emissions - the average per capita GHG in 2006 was 4.35 t CO2e. The highest household emissions arise from housing (37%), mobility (26%) and food consumption (25%), goods and services together account only for 12% of total household GHG emissions. This study, however, does not cover capital investments in infrastructure (roads, public buildings etc.) which could increase total emission by almost a ton. The study emphasizes that attention must be paid to the lifestyles, infrastructure and institutions that result in considerable amounts of carbon being locked up in the household activities through which people meet their everyday needs. The findings also indicate that policies should be targeted at the segments in society responsible for the highest carbon footprints, ie. housing, food and mobility.

Ensuring a universal access to a reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy by 2030 would require electrifying around 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. The International Energy Agency estimates that one third of the future electricity connections would be met by mini-grids (MG). This electrification must be compatible with the objective of the Paris agreement and global pathways expected to limit warming to 1.5°C have to reach net-zero CO2 emission as soon as 2050. Autonomous MGs based on solar PV are there a promising solution to electrify rural areas. They have a low cost and allow to significantly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions compared to diesel generators.Many different MG configurations hybridizing solar PV, diesel genset and batteries can supply the production required for a given community, and the sizing of MG is usually done by minimizing criteria such as the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and/or the carbon footprint (CFP) of the system. The goal of this study is to quantify the distance between the CFP optimum and the LCOE optimum configurations, and the potential to find compromising configurations between.To do so, we consider fictitious hybrid MG for a large range of configurations (PV and diesel share, storage capacities) to supply typical load profiles for 93 different locations over Africa. The solar PV production is simulated using meteorological data at a 15min resolution (ERA5, Heliosat SARAH2) and we ensure that the electrical consumption is fully supplied with simple dispatch rules for the batteries and the genset.We show that the least LCOE (LCOE*) and the least CFP (CFP*) configurations and values are mainly driven by the mean capacity factor of the solar resource and by its co-variability with the electric load profile. The larger the capacity factor, the lower the LCOE and the CFP, and the nighttime energy consumption strongly influences the CFP values for both configurations.We show that, even in a configuration where all the production is obtained from solar, the CFP of a MG is non-negligible. If the CFP of a MG is obviously determined by the direct greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions related to fuel combustion, it indeed also results from the indirect GHG emissions obtained for solar PV and batteries production. For the studied locations, the CFP* values cannot go below a minimum threshold between 180 𝑔𝐶𝑂2/𝑘𝑊ℎ and 250 𝑔𝐶𝑂2/𝑘𝑊ℎ depending on the climatic zone and the load profile considered.For almost all locations, the LCOE* configuration is obtained with a hybrid MG. We also show that this configuration usually allows a CFP reduction by more than 50% compared to a genset only configuration, and that, relatively high increases (often >20%) of the LCOE are needed to reduce further MG emissions at the level of the CFP* configuration. We however also show that significant CFP reduction can be obtained at low cost by choosing a configuration between the CFP* and the LCOE* configurations.