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This study focuses on British Sustainability-inspired Business Startups (SiBS) from two sectors of the creative industry: fashion clothing and gifts. These two sectors are some of those that motivate most entrepreneurship, by using distinct elements of business models to attract their consumers. While price and style have led consumers to look for products with short lifespans, reducing sustainability impact is a growing concern in the fashion clothing and gifts sectors, what motivates some sustainable initiatives to be taken in place. However, although some sustainable initiatives have emerged, there is no clear understanding of how they are based in the business drivers or in the business models, and if these initiatives are contributing to startups to succeed. This research aims to provide new understanding of the role of sustainability in the business startups from the fashion clothing and gifts sectors which offer manufactured green products. In order to narrow the presenting study, specific research questions are: What are the drivers of SiBS and do they differ from generic-mainstream startups? What business models are adopted by SiBS, how and why? and What are the factors affecting the longevity of the startups investigated and why? Case study method was chosen to allow in-depth investigation and analyses of multiple variables in each startup investigated. Then, qualitative data from each startup was collected by different sources: interviews, direct observation and documentation. The use of multiple sources of evidence allowed triangulation between data collected. Fifteen British startups were examined, covering generic-mainstream and SiBS, business lifetimes up to ten years, and two sectors in the experimental group (fashion clothing, with four startups; and gifts, with six startups) and one sector in the control group (energy, with five startups). Data analysis consisted of within-case study and multi-case study. In-depth investigation provided richness of information from each startup and the identification of similarities and differences between groups of startups investigated. Accordingly, the findings of this research suggest that: Regarding business drivers, startups in the gifts and fashion clothing sectors are more motivated by lifestyle and less motivated by money than energy firms; Also, SiBS are driven by the founder’s motivation when aiming to incorporate sustainability aspects into their business activities, while generic- mainstream startups are driven by money with focus on profits; Regarding business models, iii SiBS prioritise environmental and social issues as main elements of their business models; Furthermore, business models do not really change throughout the growth of startups; Regarding business longevity, most startups in the gifts and fashion clothing sectors do not have clear financial strategies but this is commonly clear in the energy firms. Important differences in outlook between different groups and types of business startups (generic-mainstream and SiBS) investigated in this study lead to the conclusion that: The awareness of two financial aspects (financial literacy and financial importance) provide an opportunity to increase chances of success in the early days of SiBS; The dissemination of the types of business models innovation for sustainability may motivate the development of more sustainable practices into the SiBS operations; And the emphasis on sustainability in business startups, either as through the business drivers or the business models adopted, is a central and long-term strategy that may increase the significance, the number and the importance of SiBS.

It is well accepted that the technical, financial and environmental performance of a chemical process is largely determined during design. Therefore, the development of tools that integrate environmental considerations would enable the design of more environmentally friendly processes at a lower cost. This research investigates how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be applied at any stage in the design process to produce useful information for design, not just after the plant is operating, which is the norm for LCA. The tools have been applied to the development of a novel process (the RT7000): thermal cracking of mixed plastic waste to produce several hydrocarbon products with the potential to displace crude oil, naphtha, or refinery wax or be used as a fuel. To allow LCA to guide the design process, a toolkit methodology was developed including comparisons of design changes, hotspot analysis, identification of key impact categories, environmental break-even analysis, and decision analysis using ternary diagrams. The results of applying these tools justified continuing with the development by confirming that the novel process is likely to be a better environmental option than landfill or incineration. At the later stages of design, advanced tools such as process simulations become attractive and allow a more accurate estimation of material and energy flows. A simulation of the RT7000 in Aspen Plus® was developed that provided data for a wide range of feed compositions. The RT7000 continued to have lower environmental impact to incineration offering a saving equivalent to 969-1305 kgCO2/tonne plastic processed. It was also ascertained that variation in feed composition does influence environmental performance, but not enough to affect the outcomes of decision making. The general approaches used in this work to assess the RT7000 should be applicable to the development of any new process. Benefits and insights similar to those obtained in the case study can realistically be expected when these methodologies are applied to any new processes. Therefore the results have been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production (Gear et al., 2018).

The chill-on-demand system is a technology designed to provide cooled products on demand, thereby avoiding any requirement for chilled storage. It uses the cooling effect provided by the endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon contained in an inner component of the self-chilling product. This has the potential to be applied to any type of product that needs to be cold at the point of consumption. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage can, with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium can to contain the adsorbent. The primary aim of this research is to devise a way to ensure that the self-chilling can supplies the best cooling performance with minimal global environmental impact. First, the adsorption/desorption process as a means of cooling was investigated, together with its application to the specific case of carbon dioxide adsorbed on a bed of activated carbon obtained from coconut shells. A specific experimental activity was designed and supported by the implementation of a transient heat exchange model. Next, the potential environmental impacts of the product were evaluated by using a Life Cycle Assessment tool. The analysis considered all the life cycle stages of a self-chilling can: from the manufacture of each part of the beverage container, to its utilization and end-of-life management. The results, compared with those of a conventional beverage can, highlight the importance of using activated carbon derived from biomass and locating its production in countries with a low carbon-intensity electricity supply. More substantial environmental and technical improvements would depend on finding adsorbents with much larger capacity, and developing a system with very high rates of recovery and re-use.

Phosphorus (P) is an essential non-substitutable nutrient for all living organisms, but it is also a dwindling non-renewable resource. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s supply of phosphate rock is located in China, Morocco, and the USA. Phosphate rock is included in the EU list of ‘critical raw materials’ and is ranked 20th in an index of commodity price volatility. P recovery from waste water can help alleviate reliance on imported phosphate and reduce vulnerability to fluctuating prices. This project explored the options for P recovery from wastes produced across Thames Water’s waste water treatment plants (WWTPs), the main foci being sludge dewatering liquors and incineration/pyrolysis residues. The research focussed specifically on the Slough WWTP and the operation of a newly installed Ostara system for recovery of P as struvite from dewatering liquors. The Ostara process is designed to operate with centrate PO4-P concentrations above 100 mg/l; to obtain these concentrations chemical coagulant dosing in the enhanced biological nutrient removal process must be reduced. Centrate monitoring following this change showed that Fe concentrations must measure consistently below 1.5 mg/l for PO4-P concentrations to remain steadily above 100mg/l. Following these changes onsite, operational savings and revenue can be produced onsite. Significant operational and maintenance savings totalling to £113K can be made in the first year of operation of the P recovery system in Slough WWTP. Sale of P rich struvite fertiliser produces annual revenue of £20K. Moving beyond the local benefits of P recovery, national benefits of P recovery were quantified. In a national context, a total of 28±1 kt P/year can be recovered from all WWTP waste streams, reducing P fertiliser imports by 36±1%. P recovery from WWTP influent and incinerated sewage sludge ash would reduce P losses to water bodies by 22±2%. Sewage sludge may be incinerated, producing incinerated sewage sludge ash (ISSA), or alternatively pyrolysed to produce sewage sludge char (PSSC). The possibility of recovering P from these residual solids was also investigated. PSSC samples contained significantly more nitrogen and lower heavy metal concentrations than ISSA samples due to the process conditions. The % P extractions from both ISSA and PSSC plateaus at 0.6M and 0.8M H2SO4 acid concentrations, respectively, due to the formation of gypsum on the particles, so that further increase in acid concentrations does not increase P recovery. The knowledge gained through this research has been used to improve the understanding and efficiency of the P recovery system at Slough WWTP. The information learned about pyrolysis residues will be used by Thames Water to develop a novel P recovery process from PSSC. Combined, these findings can impact the industry by creating incentives and inform policies regarding P recovery.