Search

You will be informed about the selected presentation format as well as the session's details after the closing of the abstract submission, scheduled for 30 November 2021, and by 31 December 2021. We would like to remind you that for each accepted abstract, the registration of the presenting author is required. To register online, you can use the following link: https://weec2022.org/participation-registration/registration/ We would like also to remind you that you can find all the information about the congress in the official website: https://weec2022.org/the-congress/about-weec/ Do not hesitate to contact us for any further information or assistance you may need. Your sincerely

Additional file 2. Ecosystem services categorization.

Additional file 3. Soil ecosystem services.

Uit een duurzaamheidsattitudemeting aan de UHasselt bleek dat economiestudenten een minder positieve attitude hebben t.o.v. duurzaamheid dan bijvoorbeeld studenten ingenieurswetenschappen (Fonteyn, Medaer & Meuwis, 2016). Dit is ten eerste verontrustend aangezien veel economen de ondernemers van morgen zijn. Ten tweede zijn het vaak economen die bij bedrijven of bij de overheid een belangrijke rol spelen in investerings-en beleidsbeslissingen. Daarnaast vormen werknemers met geschikte competenties volgens Janssens en Kuppens (2018) een belangrijke vereiste voor de transitie naar een circulaire economie. Om meer richting circulair ondernemen te evolueren, dient er meer ingezet te worden op valorisatie-en transversale competenties (Janssens & Kuppens, 2018). Hierbij zijn kennis van de financiële aspecten, langetermijndenken, design thinking, … belangrijk. Er bestaat echter relatief weinig educatief materiaal om rond circulair ondernemen te werken. Het reeds bestaande materiaal is verspreid, theoretisch, praktisch weinig inzetbaar en spitst vaak toe op slechts één aspect. Binnen dit project werken de UHasselt, Vlajo, circulaire bedrijven en secundaire scholen samen om een begeleidend kader uit te werken dat leerkrachten conceptueel en inhoudelijk ondersteunt om met circulair ondernemen aan de slag te gaan bij het opzetten van een mini-onderneming, studentenbedrijf of andere werkvormen voor ondernemerschapseducatie. Door het thema al vroeg aan te raken, geraken de leerlingen sterker vertrouwd met het concept, de verschillende principes en businessmodellen die circulair ondernemen mogelijk maken. Het project heeft een hoge maatschappelijk relevantie aangezien er rechtstreeks geïnvesteerd wordt in meer sensibilisering en educatie rond circulair ondernemen. Concreet wordt onderzocht welke barrières leerkrachten ervaren bij het implementeren van circulair ondernemen. In dat opzicht geeft het dus een kijk op welke zaken de integratie van circulair ondernemen binnen het Vlaams onderwijs verhinderen en wordt een actieplan geformuleerd om aan deze barrières tegemoet te komen. Daarnaast wordt bestaand educatief materiaal geïnventariseerd en nieuw educatief materiaal gemaakt om tot de uitbouw te komen van één praktisch bruikbaar lessenpakket, dat leerlingen sensibiliseert over het belang van circulair ondernemen en inzet op de competenties en vaardigheden die hierboven beschreven worden. Bovendien worden evaluatietools ontworpen om de ontwikkeling van deze competenties te meten. Vervolgens worden in samenwerking met Vlajo trainingen uitgewerkt om van leerkrachten 'Circular Influencers' te maken. Tot slot wordt een 'Circular Community' netwerk uitgebouwd bestaande uit scholen, kennisinstellingen en circulaire bedrijven. Dit project wordt uitgevoerd en getest binnen Limburg gedurende schooljaar 2020-2021, maar is nadien opschaalbaar naar Vlaanderen.

Excessive amounts of stormwater, floods and the heat island effect in cities due the increasing urbanization, hence the loss of green areas is a worldwide problem. These issues could be altered by the use of green roofs. Nevertheless, green roofs still struggle with some serious problems nowadays, like an excessive amount of drainage water, an excess of nutrients in this water, plant mortality in dry periods and the fact that the production process of the components of these substrates, such as expanded clay, is not environmentally and energy-friendly. Therefore it is investigated in large scale field tests whether optimized biochar could be used as an additive in these substrates to counter these issues. As a first step, biochars are produced from 6 problematic, organic and nitrogen rich waste streams in a lab-scale pyrolysis reactor (40 g input/batch). After this, production is enlarged to a continuous pilot scale reactor (a few kg input/hour). The optimal pyrolysis temperature for the scale up was determined by producing and characterizing biochar at different temperatures (350, 450, 500 and 550 °C) in the lab-scale reactor. To evaluate the effect of upscaling and to compare the materials to each other, all biochars were characterized based on their yield, elemental composition and leaching, surface functional groups, morphology, water holding capacity and cation exchange capacity. Furthermore a techo-economic assessment for all biochars and their application in green roof substrates has been made. All biochars were tested in growth experiments in different ratios with commercially available substrates, both on small scale and large scale test fields. The results show up to double the amount of biomass on the green roofs for some of the fields with biochar. In this way two problems are being solved at once by using biochar that has been produced from a problematic waste streams as a soil amendment in green roof substrates.

Most algae cultivation systems can be described as either open or closed photobioreactors through which microalgae are able to take up CO2 as a carbon source during photosynthesis. This can be an example of carbon capture & utilization (CCU) technologies for which typically, the implications of CCU technologies are calculated in terms of economic and technical indices while social factors are usually neglected in the majority of impact evaluations in the past, as they are not easy to be quantitatively analyzed, although at the local scale the social impacts might be very remarkable. Given that, key gaps remain in terms of: first, how the social dimension is understood and second, how well it is integrated into sustainability assessments which are mainly focused on environmental performance and techno-economic assessments of such innovative technologies. This research aims to fill these gaps firstly through identifying the main social impacts of the CCU technologies in order to address the second gap by developing a suitable methodology for integrating this important dimension into a techno-economic assessment (TEA) model. There is only a limited perception of how companies understand the relevance of social performance concerns and what indicators they identify as specifically applicable in decision making. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study aims to assess social impacts of a Belgian case study working with algae cultivation systems. Firstly, a survey among European CCU experts were conducted to identify the social indicators of high importance. This was done using a modified- Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method, the relative importance of the social impact (sub)categories and their related indicators for measuring social impacts were identified based on the list of potential social impact categories suggested by UNEP/SETAC guidelines (2009). Three relevant stakeholders (workers, consumers and local community) were considered as the main social impact categories through the life cycle phases of CCU activities. Afterwards, a quantitative approach was developed for measuring and developing the social model for the case study. In order to integrate the social model into the TEA, a semi-quantitative approach was developed to determine how changes in social indicators might affect the economic variables within the TEA model.The results of our study can enable companies to pay more attentions to the most important social areas when implementing such innovative technologies at higher TRLs. The proposed approach can be a useful decision making platform for decision-makers to develop more effective policies and guide the offering of incentives to the right domains for sustainable CCU activities from social and economic perspectives.

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) technologies capture CO2 waste emissions and utilize them to generate new products (e.g., fuels, chemicals and materials) with various environmental, economic and social opportunities. However, as most of these CCU technologies are in the R&D stage, their technical and economic viability are examined with very little attention to the social aspects. Besides, the lack of systematic research into social impacts is mainly due to the difficulty in identifying as well as quantifying social aspects through the entire life cycle of CCU products. The first step within social life cycle assessment (SLCA) is to identify the relevant social indicators. Within SLCA it is common to involve stakeholders in indicating which social impact categories and related indicators are most relevant to them. As there are multiple social indicators and stakeholders’ opinions, the identification step is a multi-criteria decision making issue. To address this, in this study a Multi-Criteria Decision Making Technique called TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) is applied which is rarely utilized for the assessment of social performances within the biobased economy. TOPSIS is employed to empirically determine the relative importance of the indicators for measuring social impacts. To do so, first the relevant stakeholders, potential social impact categories and subcategories, and potential performance indicators are listed using UNEP/SETAC guidelines. Second, through an online questionnaire survey, CCU experts at international level provide linguistic instead of numerical ratings to the social sub-categories and their potential indicators. Afterwards, TOPSIS is used to generate aggregate scores for impact subcategories and to identify indicators of high importance. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the influence of criteria weights on the decision making process. The final set of main social indicators resulting from our study provides the basis forthe next steps in the social sustainability assessment of CCU technologies, i.e. data collection and impact assessment. Furthermore, our outcomes can be also used to inform the producers regarding the most and least important social issues for CCU technologies so that the potential social impacts caused by their production activities can be improved or prevented.

The objective of this work is to identify the crucial variables for rendering the production of alkali-activated materials (AAMs) based on Flemish phosphogypsum and blast furnace slag mineral wastes profitable. Therefore, a preliminary techno-economic analysis has been carried out for a process design especially developed for their valorisation. After developing a process diagram for the production of AAMs, the net present value of the cash flows generated has been determined. The minimum selling price of the produced building materials has been determined, taking into account uncertainties by performing Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis. Finally, this preliminary techno-economic analysis is used to identify the key variables for the profitability of the production of AAMs from phosphogypsum and blast furnace slag. The environmental aspects of the process are expressed in global warming potential (GWP). The evaluation of GWP is based on a life cycle assessment.

Interreg PhytoSudoe project