Search

• 4D GIS-MFA-LCA model was used to analyze the characteristic of BMS, BW and ECEs. • The consumption of metallic building materials in construction sector is increasing. • Tourism and entertainment area appears to have the fastest increasing rate of BMS. • Cement can capture about 517 kt CO 2 eq of ECEs, as a carbon sink source. • Economy and population are the driving force for urban BMS in Macao. Enhancing the understanding on the temporal and spatial distribution of urban building material metabolism is crucial for informing urban resource, waste, and environmental management. However, this endeavor is often impeded by inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the typology and material composition data of buildings. Taking Macao as a case, this study established a 4D GIS-MFA-LCA model and compiled a local material composition database to address these gaps, for a detailed characterization of the quantity, quality, and temporal-spatial distribution of the urban building stocks and flows in Macao. The results show that between 1980 and 2020, the building materials stock (BMS) in Macao increased from 6.3 to 55.1 Mt (equaling 1.1 to 14.7 Mt CO 2 eq of embodied carbon emission), accompanied by corresponding increases of 0.03 Mt to 0.7 Mt of building waste (BW). The tourism and entertainment area exhibited the fastest increasing rate of BMS in Macao. IPAT analysis shows that the economy, population growth and demographic changes have been the driving forces for BMS in Macao. The results of this study can help cities take effective measures toward achieving a circular economy and highlight the role of such information and urban planning in urban building resource, waste, and management strategies. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synergic reduction of VOCs and CO 2 emissions is significant for achieving sustainable development. The logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method, scenario analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation are used to investigate the socio-economic influencing factors of VOCs and CO 2 emissions and predict the future trends of VOCs and CO 2 emissions. The results show that during 1995–2020, the per capita GDP effect contributed the most to VOCs and CO 2 emission increase, followed by population effect. On the contrary, the energy intensity effect was the largest contributor for VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease, followed by energy structure effect. The synergic effect was evident in VOCs emission decrease, indicating that achieving a co-reduction in VOCs and CO 2 emissions has been increasingly possible. During different Five-Year Plan periods of China, per capita GDP maintained the largest driver of VOCs and CO 2 emission increase, while energy intensity kept the crucial driver of VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease. During 2020–2035, the synergic reduction of both VOCs and CO 2 emissions will be realized under lower-emission (LU) scenario, while the trajectories of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will show a synergic growth under higher-emission (HU) scenario. The future trends of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will show an opposite direction under business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. Based on such results, several policy implications are proposed, including developing energy-saving technologies, clean energy utilization, eco-friendly way of life, and optimized government management mechanism. • Key socio-economic drivers of VOCs and CO 2 emissions in China are uncovered. • Scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulation are used for projecting the emissions. • Energy intensity and energy structure effects drove VOCs and CO 2 emission decrease. • Synergic reduction of VOCs and CO 2 emissions will be realized under LU scenario. • Policy implications are proposed for synergic emission abatement of VOCs and CO 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normalization is applied to calculate the magnitude of an impact relative to the total impact of a given reference in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Normalized profiles of environmental impacts depend on geographical areas due to differences in the industrial and economic activities. So far, Normalization factors for China are not developed to conduct life cycle assessment analysis. The purpose of this research is to propose a database of normalization factors (NFs) covering 18 environmental impact categories in a Chinese context to fill the research gap. To establish the local database, we collected the domestic inventory of emission and resources extraction in China with necessary data extrapolation and then calculated the normalization factors based on the international model ReCiPe2016. Furthermore, normalization factors for each impact category are differentiated into individual and national levels, and the substance contribution proportion of the 18 environmental impact categories is quantified. In addition, we used the Data Quality Indicator (DQI) model to evaluate the data source of impact categories, while analyzing the uncertainty of normalization factors quantitatively based on the evaluation result. The results of the quantitative analyses showed uncertainty intervals for the normalization factors. It was found that ionizing radiation and toxicity got the largest uncertainty intervals among the normalization factors for all impact categories, owing to the low completeness of the inventory of substances in those two impact categories. According to the data quality indicators of impact categories, we located the data gap in domestic inventory and proposed measures to promote comprehensiveness of inventory. This China Normalization Factors Database provides the LCA researchers with a starting point for a subsequent weighing step and improves the accuracy of LCA study at the Chinese territory. • The domestic inventory of emission and resources extraction in China is collected. • A normalization factor database of LCA in China is established. • The characteristic pollutants identified in China are compared with those in the world. • A data quality matrix analysis of impact category is built for the uncertainty analysis. • Measures to diminish uncertainty are raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Five methods are applied to explore the carbon benefit allocation in waste recycling. • Incentive effects of allocation methods were studied by sensitivity analysis. • Allocation method selection framework is proposed for waste recycling. • The study offers industry-specific insights for assessing recycling's carbon benefit. Recycling is crucial to address environmental issues caused by increasing wastes. Recycled materials can replace primary materials and offset greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in a carbon benefit. The environmental burdens and benefits of recycling cause broad discussions about the allocation of the burdens and benefits in life cycle assessment. The recycling situations and recyclability of different materials may be different, therefore, different allocation methods shall be selected. However, a common procedure for selecting the allocation method is missing, which led to difficulty in fairly and reasonably assessing the recycling benefits of wastes from the end-of-life product. In this work, we investigated the impact of carbon emissions in the end-of-life stage with a case of construction wastes. Five allocation methods were selected. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify factors influencing carbon benefit outcomes. Based on the case studies, we summarized the strengths and limitations of different allocation methods. Finally, a policy-oriented framework for selecting an allocation method was proposed. Our work serves as a basis for allocation method selection and also as a reference for quantifying the carbon benefit of recycled wastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy-intensive manufacturing is a major source of GHG emissions and environmental impacts. Countries in the world are all facing challenges in green manufacturing transformation. The conceptual evolution and actual implementation of green manufacturing in China and other countries show some similarities but also discrepancy. This paper describes the green manufacturing system in China from four aspects: green factory, green product, green park and green supply chain. The comparison of the four aspects is carried out between China and world's major economics including Europe, the United States, Japan, etc. Our results show that the common challenges among countries in the process of promoting green manufacturing are absent of corresponding product baseline standards in evaluating green products and no sufficient life cycle planning within plant boundaries. China is faced with specific challenges that there is no clear green product evaluation standards in life cycle assessment methods, system boundaries and life cycle stages of products. Other countries such as Germany and the United States are faced with challenges that there is a lack of environmental and performance evaluation as well as concrete implementation of life cycle evaluation within the factory boundary, and that there is difficulty for the national manufacturing industry chain to achieve a closed loop since industrial migration. We suggest that China draw lessons from the European Union, the United States and Japan in the elaborate methods design of green products assessment. As such, China's green factory assessment framework and strict government guidance can be a reference for other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Review the Chinese EIP development, modification courses of the standard system, and management mechanism. • Main changes and corresponding reasons among the series of EIP standards. • Shortcomings of the existing standard and outlook of EIP standard development. Abstract Eco-industrial Parks (EIP) have become a central element in China's industrial strategy to combine industrial development while minimizing environmental impacts and improving resource efficiency. National standard system has been developed as a main tool for assessing EIPs. This paper provides a review of the development of China's EIP standard system. The focus of the analysis is the new national demonstration EIP standard (HJ/T274-2015), including a review of calculation methods for some key indicators. The analysis also provides a comparison with previous standards to identify the main changes and improvements in the assessment of EIPs. Comparison findings illustrate that the new standard provides a more consistent indicator system by providing a consolidated standard system, and offering more comprehensive and quantitative indicators. Moreover, the new standard aims to better manage environmental issues by supplementing more comprehensive environmental indicators. The standard also strengthens the emphasis of the industrial symbiosis dimension in the evaluation of EIPs. By offering optional indicators and giving distinct targets based on contextual conditions for a number of indicators, the flexibility and rationality of the EIP assessments are also enhanced. Although many positive changes have been identified, there are still some shortcomings exist in the new EIP standard. The paper proposes a number of recommendations based on analyzing shortcomings, for instance further improving of the industrial symbiosis indicators, offering social benefit evaluation indicators, and strengthening the reduction action evaluation. China's experience of setting EIP standards and indicators may provide lessons for other countries' attempts to develop industrial estate indicators. In order to observe and effectively promote industrial estates at the global range, several remaining research questions that need further exploration are put forward in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Combining LCA and MOO into the solar photovoltaic planning at regional level. • Electricity supply cost of photovoltaic is inversely related to environmental impact. • The monocrystalline silicon technology can be given priority in photovoltaic regional planning. • A collaborative optimization model of environment and economy of renewable energy is proposed. • Uncertainties should be considered in photovoltaic regional planning. Solar power is a crucial force in renewable energy. The production of solar photovoltaic (PV) has nonnegligible effects on the environment, and the economic properties of various PV technologies range. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Multi-objective Optimization (MOO) methodologies were utilized in this research to establish an optimization model of PV technology regional planning that took into account combined environmental impacts and Electricity Supply Cost (ESC). Through NSGA-II genetic algorithm, the Pareto optimal solution with the minimum environmental pollution and the lowest economic cost in the whole life cycle of solar PV technology is obtained. The results demonstrated that toxic environmental impacts are the primary categories of crystalline silicon PV panels' potential environmental impacts, and monocrystalline silicon PV technology is the more advantageous choice when considering environmental impact and ESC. Results of sensitivity analysis indicated that uncertain factors would affect the scheme selection. This research offers a planning methodology for regional sustainable development of solar PV technology considering both environmental and economic objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) accounts for 30% to 40% of the total amount of waste in China. CDW is usually randomly dumped or disposed in landfills and the average recycling rate of CDW in China is only about 5%. Considering there is big challenge in adoption of circular economy in CDW industry in China while related research is still limited, we conduct the CDW management analysis through 3R principle. Existing policies and management situations were investigated and analyzed based on the reduction, reuse and recycle principles. Results reveal that primary barriers of reducing CDW in China include lack of building design standard for reducing CDW, low cost for CDW disposal and inappropriate urban planning. Barriers to reuse CDW include lack of guidance for effective CDW collection and sorting, lack of knowledge and standard for reused CDW, and an under-developed market for reused CDW. As for recycling of CDW, key challenges are identified as ineffective management system, immature recycling technology, under-developed market for recycled CDW products and immature recycling market operation. Proposals to improve the current situation based on 3R principle are also proposed, including designing effective circular economy model, reinforcing the source control of CDW, adopting innovative technologies and market models, and implementing targeted economic incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary debate considering the use of natural resources in economic growth centres around the concept of ‘decoupling’ driven through improvements in resource efficiency. Many studies extrapolate future demand from a short time series of previous years. However, we believe there should be greater attention on the underlying demand assumptions and the possibility of long-term changes. Accordingly, this paper is concerned with a potential saturation in material use as a result of countries moving through stages of development over decades from early industrialisation, over mass production and into a mature stage. An observation of such saturation is relevant for global environmental change as future demand for resources could be lower than currently expected, leading to less associated environmental pressures. In particular, emerging economies are undergoing changing growth patterns, and their future resource use may be significantly lower than contemporary analysis suggests. This paper combines the analytical strands of resource economics and material flow analysis. It investigates both material-specific demand and stock build-up trends over an extended time horizon of a century. Four materials (steel, cement, aluminium and copper) are analysed applying an indicator called ‘Apparent Domestic Consumption’ (ADC) and using international trade data for four industrialised countries (Germany, Japan, UK, USA) together with China as the most preeminent emerging economy. Our results confirm the occurrence of a saturation effect for most materials considered. While the evidence is strong for the per capita apparent consumption of steel, copper and cement in the four industrialised countries, it is somewhat weaker for aluminium. Also, such saturation in material use can start at different income levels, with the saturation beginning to occur relatively early for steel and cement ($12,000 GDP/capita) and later for copper ($20,000 GDP/capita). The results suggest a time gap of around thirty+ years from the take-off of large-scale adoption of one type of material and any saturation occurring. We also shed light on the build-up of stocks in the economy, where our findings suggest there is a delayed saturation of at least twenty years compared to apparent consumption depending on the lifetimes of capital goods. With regard to China, a demand saturation for steel and copper has already started to occur, and our analysis suggests such saturation will soon take place for cement. These findings provide a more moderate outlook on China’s future material demand compared to an extrapolation of recent dynamics. Our new insights on the nexus between economic growth, development stages and the use of natural resources have implications for the decoupling debate and for investments into commodities. From a wider environmental policy perspective, one may expect China and other emerging economies to achieve a saturation effect soon and therefore also peak their industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, supporting the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the sixth largest energy consuming industry sector in China, the textile industry is encountering great challenges in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Considering the existing studies have the limitation of lacking updated data and include limited energy sources, this study will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the GHG emissions in China's textile industry and analyze the emission characteristics. The results show that coal consumption is the main source of GHG emissions in China's textile industry. The second largest GHG emission source is electricity consumption, which is primarily from the Eastern China, Central China and Northern China Power Grids. A driving force factor analysis reveals that the order of intensity for the driving forces is the production scale, the energy intensity, the energy structure and the emission factors. In particular, the increasing scale of production is the main factor driving increasing GHG emissions; however, energy intensity reduction and energy structure optimization can effectively reduce GHG emissions. This study also summarizes the main energy saving measures being used by the textile industry in China. The measures used in the spinning, weaving and wetting processes are found to have high energy saving potential and a short payback period. Scenario analysis indicates that under the optimal technology application scenario, GHG emissions would be 34.3% less than emissions under the baseline scenario in 2030. Furthermore, GHG emissions per unit output value would be 0.18 t/million RMB, which approaches the advanced international level of 0.14 t/million RMB. Corresponding polices for reducing GHG emission in the textile industry need to be considered based on the implications indicated in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's wide-ranging circular economy (CE) efforts have been studied multiple times from a range of perspectives. Synthesizing the relevant literature, this paper provides a critical reflection on the transition to a CE in China. Key factors for China's success in shifting towards a CE are seen in multi-level indicators and upscaling niches. This paper makes a novel contribution on limitations to progress, based on emerging evidence on CE projects that fail to sustain. Enriched by experts feedback, this paper critically addresses future challenges to a deep transition resulting from implementation gaps between early majorities and mass markets and coordination challenges arising through regional and sectoral differences. In light of China's commitments to climate neutrality by 2060, such challenges are considered serious. Based on feasible policy learning, the paper however proposes synergies between the CE and decarbonisation driven by efficiency improvements, comprehensive core indicators, upscaling and urban policies as trigger for deeper transformations. Finally the paper undertakes broader reflections and an outlook on evidence-orientated policy learning for a CE and decarbonisation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two main energy performance benchmarking methods under the National Public Buildings Energy-efficiency Design Standards and the Evaluation Standard for Green Building are adopted for saving energy consumption in the public buildings in China. However, several existing barriers and weaknesses in current benchmarking systems prevent the overall energy conservation and carbon reduction from being achieved. This paper explores a new comprehensive energy performance based benchmarking method for addressing the energy saving from both technical and non-technical measures. The overlooked base load energy use is also highlighted in the new method. More importantly, the approach of establishing accurate and efficient data bases and forming sound baselines for assessing and monitoring the energy performance in different types of China’s public buildings are recommended in the paper. Governments can play a vital role in improving current benchmarking systems for promote the comprehensive low carbon sustainable development in China’s public building sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]