Environmental Evaluation Criteria Research Articles

Hydrogen Production using a Hybrid System Built with Renewable Energy Resources in Yenice

Benefits of hybrid renewable energy; has a continuous power supply, has a better return on investment, is independent of the grid, has fewer operating hours of the diesel generator, requires less maintenance than a diesel generator system, and does not need frequent refueling, one-time initial capital required, protects from ever-increasing grid electricity tariffs. On the other hand, the demand for renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydrogen, biomass, and geothermal, which are the least harmful to nature and natural life, has increased due to the depletion of fossil fuels used in energy production and the greenhouse gases they have released to the environment. Thus, with the inclusion of renewable energy sources in the system, a rich structure in terms of energy diversity has emerged. An area that simulates a system consisting of renewable energy sources using HOMER Pro software and has an annual average electrical energy need of 3997104 kWh/day was selected. Solar radiation and wind data belonging to the region were taken from NASA Surface and used. The energy system of the area where the feasibility study was conducted consists of a generator, wind turbine, solar panel, hydrogen tank, electrifier inverter, and battery system. The energy produced by the resulting system will be used by 11.26 kg/day hydrogen load and 3997104 kWh/day electrical load. The economic evaluation criteria of the hybrid renewable energy system are the energy unit cost of energy production, the net present value (NPC), and the payback period; The environmental evaluation criteria were determined as the renewable energy rate and emission values evaluation criteria. When the renewable energy rate is at the lowest level, the most economical system is the Gen/PV/WT/Bat/300Htank/ H loaded hybrid system when emissions are not considered, while the Gen/PV/WT/Bat hybrid system has the lowest emissions without considering the cost. When the renewable energy rate is high, the most economical system has been the PV/WT/Bat hybrid system when emissions are not considered.

특수트럭용 중간변속기의 신뢰성 평가에 관한 연구

Purpose: The transfer cases for special trucks must have reliability criteria because military vehicles with high off-road and cross-country ratios must perform various missions accurately in harsh environments. In this paper, reliability criteria for special truck transfer cases are presented and the reliability of transfer cases is evaluated based on them.BR Methods: The performance, safety, and environmental evaluation criteria were prepared based on the field use conditions of the special trucks and accelerated life test method was designed using load conditions and life time of the transfer cases.BR Results: Several kinds of test equipments and evaluation criteria were designed and manufactured for reliability test of transfer cases. As a result of tests using them, it was verified that the transfer cases satisfied the evaluation criteria of the performance tests and the accelerated life test.BR Conclusion: The transfer cases are guaranteed the B10 life of 12,000km at a 90% confidence level because no failure was found in the product after accelerated life testing of two samples.

Integrating ecological and socioeconomic criteria in a GIS-based multicriteria-multiobjective analysis to develop sustainable harvesting strategies for Mexican oregano Lippia graveolens Kunth, a non-timber forest product

Mexican oregano is a non-timber forest product harvested in natural vegetation and represents an important source of income for rural families. Recent reports have highlighted decreases in natural populations caused by increased harvest intensity. Oregano leaf harvesting is a complex problem, involving different components and views, and has a clear spatial dimension. We proposed an analytical framework based on multi-criteria-multi-objective analyses. GIS tools were used as the platform for managing, displaying and analyzing ecological and socioeconomic information from different sources in order to evaluate land suitability of three different management strategies for two competing land objectives: oregano Harvest and oregano Regeneration.The incorporation of environmental evaluation criteria in the analysis allowed the identification of new potential oregano harvesting areas which were neither reported by harvesters, nor registered during harvesting trips. Socio-economic criteria, such as land tenure, highlighted the fact that a substantial proportion of current oregano harvesting areas are located outside ejido limits resulting in potential conflicts for resource access. The proposed Balanced oregano management strategy, in which the same proportion of suitable area (50%) was assigned to both objectives, represents the most favorable management strategy. This option allows harvesters to continue earning an income from oregano leaf harvest; and at the same time helps in the selection of the best areas for oregano regeneration. It also represents a management strategy with a smaller impact on oregano populations and on the harvesters´ income, as well as lower monitoring costs. The proposed analytical framework may contribute to advance the application of systematic approaches for solving decision-making problems in areas where oregano leaves and other NTFP are harvested.

Sustainable Global Sourcing: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Sustainable Global Sourcing (SGS) is a rapidly emerging field with a geometric growth that is evidenced by the number of articles published within this field. The aim of this paper is to develop a systematic study quantitatively depicting the knowledge structure of the SGS field. A bibliometric analysis in conjunction with citation analysis and co-citation analysis is adopted to evaluate a total of 287 journal articles identified from systematic selection of influential work. A further content analysis is performed to obtain the detailed insights on the results of bibliometric analysis. Findings show five research clusters that constitute the SGS field, i.e., (i) Global Sourcing (GS) practice and environmental performance; (ii) Social sustainability/ethical sourcing practice in GS; (iii) Environmental evaluation criteria and certification; (iv) Fuzzy modelling of environmental practice in GS; (v) Effects of environmental and social sustainability practice on economic performance. On this basis, eight research directions are outlined for future research. This study provides an innovative method for systematic literature review work and robust indications for future investigations in the SGS field.

Multi-criteria decision analysis to assess the environmental and economic performance of using recycled gypsum cement and recycled aggregate to produce concrete: The case of Catalonia (Spain)

The production of virgin raw materials used in construction and the generation of construction and demolition waste (CDW) are key environmental issues in the construction industry. Portland cement and concrete are used extensively in the construction sector. Processing of CDW to produce recycled gypsum cement and recycled aggregates (RA) and their use in the production of structural and non-structural concrete are one way of slowing natural resource depletion and reducing the amount of CDW landfilled. This study proposes the application of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to compare the production of “green” concretes made from recycled gypsum cement (RGC) and RA with the production of conventional concrete made from natural aggregate and ordinary Portland cement. The VIKOR MCDA method was employed to determine the best or a set of good alternative(s) for concrete production, considering environmental and economic criteria. The life cycle assessment method was used to select the environmental evaluation criteria, and the reference cost of producing concrete alternatives in Spain was used to determine economic criteria. The results of this study, in which environmental and economic criteria were considered of equal weight, or one of the two criteria was given greater weight, showed that the best option for structural and non-structural concrete was the use of RGC and RA. In both cases, the worst alternative was conventional concrete. In conclusion, we found that the use of RGC and RA in concrete production is positive because it replaces the original raw material, reduces the environmental impact, and lowers the economic costs.

A Comprehensive Multi-Criteria Decision Making Model for Sustainable Material Selection Considering Life Cycle Assessment Method

How to evaluate negative effects of automotive parts on environment in life cycle and select optimal sustainable material are intricate issues. A multi-criteria decision making model combining Techniques for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Information Entropy Method (IEM) for material selection considering life cycle assessment (LCA) method is proposed. This paper starts from establishing LCA technical framework and determining five environmental evaluation criteria. TOPSIS is utilized to rank materials and IEM is employed to assign criteria weights. Then, an automotive door outer panel is taken as an example to select the optimal material from 16 candidates utilizing proposed method. Here, the environmental equivalents of life cycle are calculated by GaBi software from acquisition of raw materials, manufacturing, using to end-of-life. In comparisons with the results of only considering environmental criteria and traditional evaluation criteria, it indicates that LCA is essential for material selection. Therefore, the environmental criteria, materials’ properties, manufacturing techniques, and durability properties are all considered to select the optimal candidate for obtaining parts with superior performance and less environmental impacts. Finally, the ranking results are obtained. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis is executed to prove that the IEM-TOPSIS method has outstanding robustness.

Multicriteria evaluation of carbon-neutral heat-only production technologies for district heating

Climate change mitigation requires reducing dependence on fossil fuels and transition to low carbon energy production technologies. Nearly half of the global final energy consumption is thermal energy produced from technologies with high carbon dioxide emission. As such, it is imperative to employ carbon-neutral heat production to achieve a sustainable energy system.This paper presents a real-life case of applying multicriteria decision analysis for evaluating carbon-neutral heat-only production technologies in a major district heating system in Finland. A group of 10 experts from the energy company contributed in defining the alternative technologies and multiple economic, technological, and environmental evaluation criteria. The experts also provided the criteria measurements and preference information for different criteria. The alternatives were compared using Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA). SMAA is a simulation based method for decision problems where different kind of uncertain information is represented by probability distributions. Because the preferences of the experts were highly conflicting, the SMAA method was extended within this study to treat conflicting preferences.The most preferred alternatives were short-term heat storages and electric boilers based on renewable power. These alternatives may be considered attractive future solutions particularly in balancing peak load heat consumption and production.

Embedding carbon impact assessment in multi-criteria supplier segmentation using ELECTRE TRI-rC

In the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in green supply chain management, which integrates environmental thinking into supply chain management. Assessing a supplier’s potential for improvement is very important when an organization wants to achieve certain environmental targets concerning their supply base, taking into account the limited resources available. In this paper, incorporating environmental evaluation criteria into a comprehensive supplier segmentation approach called ‘supplier potential matrix’ (SPM), a green supplier segmentation is proposed to segment the suppliers. Two overarching dimensions—supplier’s capabilities and supplier’s willingness—are used to evaluate the supplier’s green potential. The two dimensions are measured by multiple criteria. A sorting method called ELECTRE TRI-rC is used to solve the resulted multi-criteria decision-making problem. In order to make a more meaningful distinction, a simple method is also proposed to assess the suppliers with respect to the carbon footprint of the raw materials they supply. The results of this assessment are combined with the ones of the SPM, resulting in a more useful segmentation. The proposed model is applied to a sample containing the suppliers of a large international company.

Plug-in electric vehicles as dispersed energy storage interactions with a smart office building

Renewable energy resources (RESs) with plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are being gradually accepted by society for their low carbon emission merits. However, reverse power from the RES will result in the grid node's voltage rise and cause protection malfunction. As large amount of PEVs plug in the grid, their overall charging power tends to be uncertain due to their complex charging behavior. At the same time, if the renewable energy is integrated into the same grid, the gird will face a great technological challenge. In this paper, a smart building energy management system (SBEMS) is proposed to mitigate negative impact of RES and PEVs to power grid and optimize the operation of the building. The proposed SBEMS is also capable with PEVs system integration, photovoltaic (PV) power forecasting, optimization algorithm implementation, and environmental evaluation criteria. Since PV's output is sensitive to the meteorology, a 1-day-ahead power forecasting model is needed and presented. The economic system of PEVs is particularly complex, because it needs optimization across multiple time steps and is strongly influenced by tariff structures. Furthermore, the optimization problem to minimize the total building operational cost including PEVs charging cost is formulated while satisfying the supply and demand balance and complicated operating constraints of every energy supply equipment and devices. The simulation results have shown that the SBEMS can effectively reduce the PEVs charging cost, building operation cost, and the environment punishment fee. It is also important for the SBEMS to be responsible for the power grid operational indices. So the trade-off between economic consideration and load factor should be made. It is verified that the SBEMS is beneficial to the PEVs owners, building operator, environment, and grid.

Sustainability Assessment Studies of Recreational Buildings

Sustainability Assessment Systems (SAS) quantify the value of sustainability the buildings have become popular not only in planning a sustainable real estate development, but also in scientific research. The main weakness of these tools is a lack of financial aspects, such as Building life-cycle cost analysis (LCC); inflexibility, complexity, unsound weights of the system and natural resources and environmental evaluation criteria dominance over the social and economic problems. Given this background, recommended Lithuania's recreational building sustainability assessment system is a modified BREEAM system which is complemented with social and economic criteria. Their importance is determined using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Estimated Druskininkai “Snow Arena” sustainability's value according to the modified system is 66.54%, which equals “very good” result. According to BREEAM New Construction 2011 scheme 57.80% score was reached, which also corresponded to “very good” rating. The higher rating in the modified system was due to increased social and economic criteria weights, as well as the fact that the arena well satisfied these criteria.

Basic Satisfaction Survey on External Environment of South Huangxing Road Pedestrian Street in Changsha

Through analysis of users’ characteristics of South Huangxing Road Pedestrian Street in Changsha, and the investigation of satisfaction degree and psychological demands for external environment, the research tried to find out the best program for the external environment of city pedestrian street. Questionnaires and on-site interviews included gender, age, academic qualification, occupation, place of residence, the frequency and purpose of pedestrian street visiting. The external environment of the pedestrian street was analyzed in the prospects of environmental behavior and environmental psychology. Through the assessment of the users' satisfaction and behavior characteristics, it is observed that people have a great demand for rest seats and toilet facilities, and that most people prefer more leisure and cultural facilities but pay no attention to the morphology and interface of the structure. The paper originally established an external environmental evaluation criteria and a scoring system of respondents for commercial pedestrian street.

Materials selection for cleaner production: An environmental evaluation approach

This paper demonstrates an integrated approach to the selection of materials for cleaner production, using binary dominance matrix and grey relational analysis to aid decision-making by engineers. The starting point of this study is to determine the environmental evaluation criteria and to assign weights reflecting their relative importance. In order to assist engineers in the application of the grey evaluation process, and to simplify the computational complexity, a calculating tool based on spreadsheet application has been developed. A case example is provided, in which five poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) materials are subjected to environmental evaluation to determine their sustainability for handbag manufacture. The result of the grey relational analysis and the limitations of the approach are discussed, laying a foundation for further work.

Investigating consistency of judgement across sustainability analyst organizations

AbstractWe compare seven major European and North American sustainability analyst organizations on how they rank‐order the same set of companies with regards to environmental performance. We also compare the analyst organizations' environmental rating schemes with regards to which evaluation criteria they include. Two industries are investigated: automobile and paper/forestry. Although there is fairly broad consensus on which automobile companies have the worst environmental performance, there is considerable disagreement about best‐performers. The pattern is less clear for paper/forestry companies. With some notable exceptions, and for both industries, all rating schemes contain evaluation criteria targeting those aspects of company performance associated, according to life‐cycle assessments, with the largest potential environmental impact. There are, however, significant divergences as to how many, and which, criteria of medium to low relevance are applied. Sustainability analyst organizations should make explicit to investors and evaluated companies on which theoretical and empirical grounds environmental evaluation criteria are selected. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Environmental consideration in procurement of construction contracts: current practice, problems and opportunities in green procurement in the Swedish construction industry

Research and initiatives concerning green procurement have to a great extent focused on products. This article, however, explores the current practice, problems and opportunities of green procurement of construction contracts. In particular, the application of environmental criteria for contract awarding is targeted. The findings of the study indicate that both public and private clients in the Swedish construction industry take environmental issues into consideration in their procurements. The environmental preferences are often formulated as environmental requirements. However, environmental criteria in tender evaluation are less common and seldom affect the award decisions. The environmental evaluation criteria that do occur often relate to the contractors' capabilities of managing the environmental work in the project.