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The goal of the work was to identify research and compare methods of portfolio management of energy saving projects and to develop software for optimizing portfolio investments using several methods. The key elements and strategies of creating an effective investment portfolio are considered: diversification, rebalancing, active portfolio management, passive portfolio management. Given the basic principles of investment theory, the task of portfolio investment is to form an investment portfolio with known shares of certain assets to maximize returns and minimize risk. To solve this problem, the method of Harry Markowitz, known as modern portfolio theory, was chosen. This is the theory of financial investment, in which statistical methods are used to make the most profitable risk distribution of the securities portfolio and income valuation, its components are asset valuation, investment decisions, portfolio optimization, evaluation of results. From a mathematical point of view, the problem of forming an optimal portfolio is the problem of optimizing a quadratic function (finding the minimum) with linear constraints on the arguments of the function. Methods of optimization of portfolios of energy saving projects taking into account the specifics of the subject area are analyzed. According to the results of the analysis, the methods of finding the maximum Sharpe’s ratio and the minimum volatility from randomly generated portfolios were chosen. A software application has been developed that allows you to download data, generate random portfolios and optimize them with selected methods. A graphical display of portfolio optimization results has also been implemented. The program was tested on data on shares of energy saving companies. The graphs built by the program allow the operator to better assess the created portfolio of the energy saving project., Метою роботи було: виявити, дослідити та порівняти методи управління портфелями проектів енергозбереження та розробити програмне забезпечення для оптимізації портфельних інвестицій за допомогою декількох методів. Розглянуто ключові елементи та стратегії створення ефективного інвестиційного портфелю: диверсифікація, ребалансування, активне управління портфелем, пасивне управління портфелем. Враховуючи основні принципи інвестиційної теорії, задачею портфельного інвестування є формування інвестиційного портфелю з відомими частками певних активів для максимізації віддачі та мінімізації ризику. Для вирішення даної проблеми було обрано методику Гарі Марковіца, відомої як сучасна портфельна теорія. Це теорія фінансових інвестицій, у межах якої за допомогою статистичних методів здійснюють якомога вигідніший розподіл ризику портфеля цінних паперів і оцінювання доходу, складовими елементами її є оцінювання активів, прийняття інвестиційних рішень, оптимізація портфеля, оцінювання отриманих результатів. З математичної точки зору задача з формування оптимального портфеля є задачею оптимізації квадратичної функції (пошук мінімуму) при лінійних обмеженнях аргументів функції. Проаналізовані методи оптимізації портфелів проектів енергозбереження з врахуванням специфіки предметної області. За результатами аналізу обрано методи пошуку максимального коефіцієнта Шарпа та мінімальної волатильності з випадково згенерованих портфелів. Розроблено програмний застосунок, що дозволяє завантажити дані, згенерувати випадкові портфелі та оптимізувати їх обраними методами. Реалізовано також графічне відображення результатів оптимізації портфелів. Програма була протестована на даних про акції енергозберігаючих компаній. Побудовані програмою графіки дозволяють оператору краще оцінити створений портфель проекту енергозбереження.

Renewable energy sources (RES) are not limited by geologically accumulated reserves. Their use and consumption will not lead to the inevitable depletion of the Earth's reserves, and they do not pollute the environment. The main motive for the accelerated development of renewable energy in Europe, the United States and many other countries is concern for energy independence and environmental safety. Thus, the EU has adopted a program to achieve the contribution of renewable energy sources to the energy balance by 2020 up to 20%, and by 2040 – up to 40%. Renewable energy is characterized by versatility and diversity. In the list of tasks arising in the implementation of renewable energy (RE) projects (except technological and technical), there are issues of assessing the possibility and efficiency of using RES for energy supply to the regions. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that often the user is interested in comprehensive assessments for various types of energy sources. In specific regions, the most effective can be either the use of hybrid power plants, or the creation of thermal power plants using various types of renewable energy. In connection with the complexity of this problem, as well as the geographic “regionality” of renewable energy, the topic of this article becomes possible and relevant. A heat and power plant is proposed for supplying: electricity, hot water, hot air and heating, in which, together with a wind power generator, a double-circuit solar installation, a heat pump, electricity and heat accumulators are used. This installation allows to reduce the cost of heat energy by reducing material consumption and costs of equipment used, to save fossil fuel; produce electricity and supply the surplus to the state power grid; reduce heat load and environmental pollution., Поновлювані джерела енергії (ПДЕ) не обмежені геологічно накопиченими запасами. Їх використання і споживання не призведе до неминучого вичерпання запасів Землі, і вони не забруднюють навколишнє середовище. Основним мотивом прискореного розвитку відновлюваної енергетики в Європі, США і багатьох інших країнах є турбота про енергетичну незалежність і екологічну безпеку. Так, в странах ЄС прийнято програму досягнення вкладу ПДЕ в енергетичний баланс до 2020 року до 20%, а до 2040 р – до 40%. Відновлювана енергетика характеризується багатогранністю, різноманітністю. У переліку завдань, що виникають при реалізації проектів відновлюваної енергетики (ВЕ) (крім технологічних і технічних), залишаються питання оцінки можливості та ефективності використання ПДЕ для енергозабезпечення регіонів. Одночасно слід враховувати, що найчастіше користувача цікавлять комплексні оцінки з різних видів джерел енергії. У конкретних регіонах найбільш ефективним може стати або використання гібридних енергоустановок, або створення теплоенергетичних установок на різних типах відновлюваної енергії. У зв'язку з комплексністю даної проблеми, а також географічною «регіональністю» відновлюваної енергетики, стає можливим і актуальним тема цієї статті. Пропонується теплоенергетична установка для постачання: електроенергією, гарячою водою, гарячим повітрям і опаленням, в якій спільно з вітроелектрогенератором, двухконтурною сонячною установкою, використовується тепловий насос, акумулятори електроенергії і теплоти. Ця установка дозволяє зменшити собівартість теплової енергії за рахунок зниження матеріаломісткості і витрат на обладнання, економити органічне паливо; виробляти електроенергію і надлишок її віддавати в державну електромережу; зменшити теплове навантаження і забруднення навколишнього середовища.

Small companies encounter difficulties to adapt to new markets with a sustainable perspective. The subject of this article is a paper transformation company which has been eager to develop the organic farming market by developing a new plant support. Alternatives made from plant fibres or plastics exist, such as jute and polypropylene. The main difficulty of this project was to ecodesign a paper product with a multicriteria approach. The factors considered have been divided into two categories. Firstly, the environmental impacts calculated according to the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (on raw material extraction, manufacturing and end-of-life) are summarised. Secondly, the characteristics of the product are discussed in regards to these results and sustainability questions as part of the interpretation phase. Finally, ways of improvement of the LCA methodology to improve the study in terms of geographical representativeness and societal considerations are discussed.

At the end of the 20th century, the future of the paper was not very optimistic due to the development of numerical technologies. Even if some paper grades have suffered, others like packaging boards, tissue papers and speciality papers have good economic trends. Furthermore, the environmental policies contribute to the development of natural fibre based materials and also to reuse a maximum of materials. Another important point to take into account is the climate warming, the fossil resources depletion and the trade globalization. All of that leads to new potential resources in order to produce greener paper and board. This chapter highlights the origin of natural fibres which could be used in the pulp and paper business, describes briefly the pulping and papermaking processes including some aspects about the specificity of the use of annual plants and to presents some new challenges for papermakers.

Wind farm control is an active and growing field of research in which the control actions of individual turbines in a farm are coordinated, accounting for inter-turbine aerodynamic interaction, to improve the overall performance of the wind farm and to reduce costs. The primary objectives of wind farm control include increasing power production, reducing turbine loads, and providing electricity grid support services. Additional objectives include improving reliability or reducing external impacts to the environment and communities. In 2019, a European research project (FarmConners) was started with the main goal of providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in wind farm control, identifying consensus of research findings, data sets, and best practices, providing a summary of the main research challenges, and establishing a roadmap on how to address these challenges. Complementary to the FarmConners project, an IEA Wind Topical Expert Meeting (TEM) and two rounds of surveys among experts were performed. From these events we can clearly identify an interest in more public validation campaigns. Additionally, a deeper understanding of the mechanical loads and the uncertainties concerning the effectiveness of wind farm control are considered two major research gaps.

Food and nutrition scientists, nowadays, need to manage an increasing amount of data regarding food composition, food consumption and Total Diet Studies (TDS). The corresponding datasets can contain information about several thousand different foods, in different versions from different studies. FoodCASE is a system that has been developed to manage these different datasets. It also support flexible means of linking between datasets and generally provide support for the different processes involved in the acquisition, management and processing of data. In this paper, the most important concepts to implement existing guidelines and standards for proper food data management are presented, as well as different use cases of data import and proofs of concepts demonstrating the ability to manage data in FoodCASE.

Libraries and archives house a majority of cultural heritage objects. The main purpose of libraries and archives is to provide suitable indoor climate conditions for preservation of their collection. In general, a large bulk of hygroscopic material is present which aids stable indoor climate conditions. Limited disturbances due to visitor presence occur in repositories and excludes to a large extent thermal comfort requirements. Library archives show potential of more tolerant setpoint control with permissible fluctuations. Little research is present into dynamic setpoint control and intermittent conditioning in libraries and archives. The aim of this study is to explore the possibility for intermittent conditioning and dynamic setpoint control on the energy impact and microclimate behavior in a library case study in The Netherlands. By means of a hygrothermal monitoring campaign from August 2016 to August 2017 the current indoor climate has been assessed under regular conditions and intervention periods (summer and winter) where the air handling unit was turned off. Both temporal and spatial measurements provided important information on microclimate behavior of the investigated repositories. A validated multi-zone model was used to investigate multiple setpoint strategies. Results show the potential of intermittent conditioning depending on whether dynamic setpoint conditions are used during operational hours (e.g. ASHRAE climate classes). If static conditions are applied, energy demand increases significantly, however, under dynamic setpoint control significant energy savings are possible. The lifetime multiplier is used to assess the chemical risks. The majority of investigated setpoint strategies show increased chemical risk.

The use of Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) was investigated in an exercise using a panel of local residents and stakeholders to assess the options for managing waste paper on the Isle of Wight. Seven recycling, recovery and disposal options were considered by the panel who evaluated each option against seven environmental, financial and social criteria. The panel preferred options where the waste was managed on the island with gasification and recycling achieving the highest scores. Exporting the waste to the English mainland for incineration or landfill proved to be the least preferred options. This research has demonstrated that MCDA is an effective way of involving community groups in waste management decision making.

Application for Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval and the conduct of medical research is paper intensive. This retrospective study examined all applications to a single REC in the south of England over one year. It estimated the mass of paper used, comparing the proportional paper consumption of different trial types and during different stages of the research process, quantifying the consumption in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. In 2009, 68 trials were submitted to the REC. Total paper consumption for the REC process and study conduct was 176,150 sheets of A4 paper (879 kg), equivalent to an estimated 11.5 million sheets (88 tonnes, 2,100 trees) a year for the UK; the REC process accounted for 26.4%. REC applica- tions and the conduct of approved trials generate considerable environmental impact through paper consumption contributing to the NHS's carbon footprint. Paper use might be reduced through the implementation of digital technologies and revised research methods, namely changing attitudes in both researchers and ethics committees.

The purpose of this study is to construct an approach and a methodology to estimate the future outflows of electronic waste (e-waste) in India. Consequently, the study utilizes a time-series multiple lifespan end-of-life model proposed by Peralta and Fontanos for estimating the current and future quantities of e-waste in India. The model estimates future e-waste generation quantities by modeling their usage and disposal. The present work considers two scenarios for the approximation of e-waste generation based on user preferences to store or to recycle the e-waste. This model will help formal recyclers in India to make strategic decisions in planning for appropriate recycling infrastructure and institutional capacity building. Also an extension of the model proposed by Peralta and Fontanos is developed with the objective of helping decision makers to conduct WEEE estimates under a variety of assumptions to suit their region of study. During 2007-2011, the total WEEE estimates will be around 2.5 million metric tons which include waste from personal computers (PC), television, refrigerators and washing machines. During the said period, the waste from PC will account for 30% of total units of WEEE generated.

Despite the essential role of ecosystem goods and services in sustaining all human activities, they are often ignored in engineering decision making, even in methods that are meant to encourage sustainability. For example, conventional Life Cycle Assessment focuses on the impact of emissions and consumption of some resources. While aggregation and interpretation methods are quite advanced for emissions, similar methods for resources have been lagging, and most ignore the role of nature. Such oversight may even result in perverse decisions that encourage reliance on deteriorating ecosystem services. This article presents a step toward including the direct and indirect role of ecosystems in LCA, and a hierarchical scheme to interpret their contribution. The resulting Ecologically Based LCA (Eco-LCA) includes a large number of provisioning, regulating, and supporting ecosystem services as inputs to a life cycle model at the process or economy scale. These resources are represented in diverse physical units and may be compared via their mass, fuel value, industrial cumulative exergy consumption, or ecological cumulative exergy consumption or by normalization with total consumption of each resource or their availability. Such results at a fine scale provide insight about relative resource use and the risk and vulnerability to the loss of specific resources. Aggregate indicators are also defined to obtain indices such as renewability, efficiency, and return on investment. An Eco-LCA model of the 1997 economy is developed and made available via the web (www.resilience.osu.edu/ecolca). An illustrative example comparing paper and plastic cups provides insight into the features of the proposed approach. The need for further work in bridging the gap between knowledge about ecosystem services and their direct and indirect role in supporting human activities is discussed as an important area for future work.

The Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA) launched a national Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system after integrating eight private recycling organizations in 1998. After that, the environmental performance of the EPR system brought a lot of attention to policy makers. Many studies show positive environmental effects of the EPR system in Taiwan. However, there are controversial questions remained, such as whether the performance indicators used are the right choice to estimate the environmental effects of the recycling policy? Can those estimated results really reflect the performance of the system? This paper would therefore like to more accurately evaluate the performance indicators of the EPR system based on data observed over the past decade in Taiwan. In the process of evaluating the performance indicators, we have found that the collection rates for durable goods are often ignored in countries that pursue a zero waste policy. This may affect the actual recycling outcome and resource direction targeted by producers. However, in order for the collection rate to be adopted as a policy indicator, how to estimate the amounts of retired or waste products during a period is critical. In this paper, we estimate the collection rate for electrical and electronic waste by using the survival analysis and ownership data analysis approaches. We also provide a comparison of both approaches and put forward suggestions for directions in the future in solid waste management.

Pulp and paper companies all over the world certify their environmental management systems assuming public commitments for the continuous improvement of their relationship with the environment. Once certified, they consider themselves having done their part. But is this enough? This work has been carried out with the clear intention of provoking the professionals who can give the much needed answers for the construction of environmental sustainability in the pulp and paper sector.

Taiwan's EPA has implemented a new guideline called the “Plastic Products Restriction Policy”, prohibiting some industries to use plastics as packaging materials for the sake of sustainable use of resources. The significant effect resulting from this policy is the substitution of plastic products with paper products. Is this policy beneficial to achieve future sustainability? I attempt to analyze the resource choice between renewable resources and exhaustible resources for production of final products and services in case of exhaustion of natural resources. In this paper, I develop a framework to examine the dynamic responsiveness of a socio-economical system in facing a continual depletion of natural resources provided by an environmental system. In this framework, the status of an environmental system in terms of carrying capacity is affected by the cumulative impacts caused from human activities, including environmental pollution and resource exploitation. Conversely, it also affects the growth of renewable resources. This framework can serve as a guideline to construct indicators to measure the status of the environmental system and the socio-economical system in order to support a policy planner that formulates an appropriate environmental policy. Based on this framework, I also develop a mathematical model to determine the optimal ratio of resources choice between renewable resources and exhaustible resources. Keywords: Renewable resources, Exhaustible resources, Carrying capacity, Resilience

Changes in material use, energy use and emissions profiles of industry are the result of complex interrelationships among a multitude of technological and economic drivers. To better understand and guide such changes requires that attention is paid to the time-varying consequences that technology and economic influences have on an industry's choice of inputs and its associated (desired and undesired) outputs. This paper lays out an approach to improving our understanding of the dynamics of large industrial systems. The approach combines engineering and econometric analysis with a detailed representation of an industry's capital stock structure. A transparent dynamic computer modeling approach is chosen to integrate information from these analyses in ways that foster participation of stakeholders from industry and government agencies in all stages of the modeling process-from problem definition and determination of system boundaries to generation of scenarios and interpretation of results. Three case studies of industrial energy use in the USA are presented-one each for the iron and steel, pulp and paper, and ethylene industry. Dynamic models of these industries are described and then used to investigate alternative carbon emissions and investment-led policies. A comparison of results clearly points towards two key issues: the need for industry specific policy approaches in order to effectively influence industrial energy use, fuel mix and carbon emissions, and the need for longer time horizons than have typically been chosen for the analysis of industrial responses to climate change policies.

A review of existing life cycle assessments (LCAs) on paper and cardboard waste has been undertaken. The objectives of the review were threefold. Firstly, to see whether a consistent message comes out of published LCA literature on optimum disposal or recycling solutions for this waste type. Such message has implications for current policy formulation on material recycling and disposal in the EU. Secondly, to identify key methodological issues of paper waste management LCAs, and enlighten the influence of such issues on the conclusions of the LCA studies. Thirdly, in light of the analysis made, to discuss whether it is at all valid to use the LCA methodology in its current development state to guide policy decisions on paper waste. A total of nine LCA studies containing altogether 73 scenarios were selected from a thorough, international literature search. The selected studies are LCAs including comparisons of different management options for waste paper. Despite claims of inconsistency, the LCAs reviewed illustrate the environmental benefits in recycling over incineration or landfill options, for paper and cardboard waste. This broad consensus was found despite differences in geographic location and definitions of the paper recycling/disposal systems studied. A systematic exploration of the LCA studies showed, however, important methodological pitfalls and sources of error, mainly concerning differences in the definition of the system boundaries. Fifteen key assumptions were identified that cover the three paper cycle system areas: raw materials and forestry, paper production, and disposal/recovery. It was found that the outcome of the individual LCA studies largely depended on the choices made in some of these assumptions, most specifically the ones concerning energy use and generation, and forestry

Local authorities throughout the UK are refining or implementing curbside recycling schemes as they attempt to achieve challenging statutory recycling targets. Despite the importance of curbside schemes there are few published studies that have reported on actual measured levels and frequency of participation by residents, hindering transferability of lessons learned nationally and internationally. This paper reports measurements and analysis over at least four weeks for three different curbside recycling schemes operating in England, with at least 1400 samples in each. It is found that the participation rate is higher in schemes that collect more types of materials. Participation rates of 38%, 49% and 65% were measured for schemes that collected 1, 2 and 3 material types, respectively. The increase appears to be related not only to extra participants setting out the additional materials, but also increased participation for the common materials. It is found that for one scheme, more households tend to set out plastics and cans compared to newspapers.

This paper discusses the relationship between environmental and economic performance and the influence of corporate strategies with regard to sustainability and the environment. After formulating a theoretical model, results are reported from an empirical analysis of the European paper manufacturing industry. New data are used to test hypotheses derived from the theoretical model, using environmental performance indices representing different corporate environmental strategy orientations. In particular, an emissions-based index largely reflecting end-of-pipe strategies and an inputs-based index reflecting integrated pollution prevention are distinguished. For the emissions-based index, a predominantly negative relationship between environmental and economic performance is found, whereas for the inputs-based index no significant link is found. This is consistent with the theoretical model, which predicts the possibility of different relationships. The results also show that for firms with pollution prevention-oriented corporate environmental strategies, the relationship between environmental and economic performance is more positive, thus making improvements in corporate sustainability more likely. Based on this last insight, managerial implications of this are discussed with regard to strategy choices, investment decisions and operations management.

Economic studies of proposed environmental regulations begin with estimates of compliance actions and their costs. The assumptions about compliance actions can be misleading. In economic studies pertaining to regulations for volatile organic compound emissions by Illinois paper coaters, three sources of shortcomings are particularly evident: 1) failure to appreciate linkages between regulations applying to closely allied industries; 2) emphasis on well-known technologies, despite strong evidence that they will be displaced; and 3) heavy reliance on EPA technical data, whether or not they fairly represent state or local conditions.