Monetization of externalities has served to thrive sustainable technology transition towards a low carbon scoiety. However, regional monetization method is lacking in China. Herein, ChinataxRCP was built to enable an environmental-economic (E-E) integration and analysis of environmental externalities in different medium (air-water-soil-human), facilitating decision making after considering tradeoffs among environmental impacts or between environment and economics. As a case study, ChinataxRCP was applied on evaluating technology-transition risks from landfill for rural FW management in Zhejiang who is a pioneer practicing “zero-waste city” in China. E-E integration results using ChinataxRCP indicated that biodrying & maturity, and two biotransformation options were promising. However, after transition from landfill, environmental pollution in air-soil-water and resource-related indicators were mostly relieved but with compromise on human health, which indicates efforts are required to control potential risks. Furthermore, policy scenarios revealed that subsidies are crucial for FW management and extra leverage should be reinforced to decouple them.

Purpose: Transition to bioeconomy requires all actors and stakeholders to measure the impact of systems that use bioresources and technologies to provision society. There are however some challenges with integrating LCA into business development and management, which have important implications for bioeconomy. There have been many LCA studies published in the twenty-first century, but the question must be answered: how useful are these LCA studies to help understand and manage transition to sustainable bioeconomy? Method: This research used a structured literature review to identify 83 bioeconomy LCA studies published from January 2006 to June 2021 (excluding bioenergy). The studies were analysed for compliance with the ISO 14044 standard, with specific reference to the goal, commissioning perspective, system boundary, function and functional unit, impact methods and categories. Results and discussions: It was found that more than 85% of the studies reviewed failed to present the required goal statement and a description of the function of the system. Nearly 13% of the studies did not define the system boundary, and only 17% included a full life cycle including raw material extraction, production, use and end-of-life stages. The majority of the LCA studies surveyed from 2006 to 2021 were either (i) not in compliance with the ISO standards or (ii) space and style limitations of the publication process prevented competent practitioners from properly conveying their work. This suggests that the value and integrity of the literature are undermined by not rigorously addressing the first and most important stage of an LCA study. Conclusion: When interpreting the results, a major shortcoming noted was that most studies did not consider the industrial symbiosis needed between feedstock, technology, primary products, side streams, downstream valorisation and long-term circularity in order to properly understand the transition pathways required. Bioeconomy technologies were imagined as displacers for feedstocks and processes to adapt business as usual, rather than as transformers of the system to a sustainable footing. Recommendation: If LCA studies are going to provide meaningful information for actors and stakeholders to assess whether a system will be able to operate sustainably, studies should include a full, integrated system, standards should be adhered to and approaches should perhaps go beyond mere eco-efficiency, or doing less harm, as these are not necessarily indicative of sustainability. Historical bioeconomy LCA studies do not provide great insight into the transition to sustainable bioeconomy.

Contexto: El incremento poblacional y la demanda de alimentos generan mayores demandas en la productividad, lo que estimula el uso de fertilizantes inorgánicos como una práctica habitual en los sistemas agrícolas, generando potenciales riesgos de contaminación por lixiviación de nutrientes, además de altos costos que pueden afectar la rentabilidad de los sistemas productivos. La aplicación de materiales orgánicos procedentes del compostaje de sustratos orgánicos es una fuente de fertilización común en sistemas de producción limpia, orgánica y con menores costos. Método: En este estudio se evaluó el efecto de la fertilización con una enmienda orgánica (EO) procedente del compostaje de biorresiduos de origen municipal (BOM) mezclados con cachaza, sobre la mineralización del nitrógeno (Nmineralizado) de un suelo ácido, evaluando seis tratamientos (tres controles: T1: 100% suelo; T2: 100% EO; T3: 100% urea-fertilización inorgánica: F) y 3 proporciones EO ( %): F ( %) (T4: 50-50, T5: 75-25, T6: 25-75) en un periodo de incubación de 16 semanas. Resultados: Se aplicaron los modelos de mineralización de Stanford y Smith, Broadbent, Lineal y Polinomial-Exponencial, encontrándose que T4 permitió alcanzar un aporte de Nmineralizado (12.546,39 mg/kg), el cual es un valor muy cercano al resultado obtenido por fertilización inorgánica (T3: 13.931,05 mg/kg); los modelos de Broadbent (R2 >0,98) y Lineal (R2 >0,90) alcanzaron los mejores ajustes. Conclusiones: Esta estrategia de reemplazo parcial del fertilizante inorgánico puede lograr hasta un 50% de reemplazo del fertilizante inorgánico.

Small-scale intensive pig production systems account for over a half of the total number of pig farms in China, of which concerns have been raised relating to their environmental performances. This study explores the cradle-to-slaughterhouse gate environmental impacts using life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, with the purpose of identifying major hotspots to formulate mitigation strategies. The functional unit is defined as 1000 kg of pig carcass weight. Consistent with previous research, feed production makes up the largest contribution (56-95%) to all the six selected impact categories based on the ReCiPe 2016 framework. Of the feed ingredients, maize is identified as the principal hotspot mainly due to the large consumption as well as the heat usage in grain steaming to enhance availability of starch digestion. The results also indicate that changes of feed consumption and composition along the lifetime growth reveal a much higher contribution from the grower-finisher stage. Marked differences are observed in terms of greenhouse gas emissions from pig production between developing (including China) and developed countries. With lots of studies showing feasibilities, improvements suggested for small-scale intensive pig production systems include the optimization of feed formulas, the introduction of new feed technologies, and the upgrade of manure management system. Our results provide valuable and practical insight for the Chinese pig supply chain to mitigate environmental burdens and achieve future environmental sustainability.

The article presents the results of studies on parametric approximation in spaces R² (functions of one variable), R³ (functions of two variables) and Rⁿ(n>3) (functions of three or more variables). Various classes of functions satisfying a priori conditions were studied: f(0, 0, 0)=0, $\mathop {\lim 1}\limits_{{x_i} \to + \infty } \,\,({x_1},\, \ldots ,\,{x_n}) = {c_i}$, c_i = cont. Working algorithms and C/C++ software functioning in Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 system in Microsoft Windows 10 environment were developed. The main studies of the authors were aimed at developing effective computational algorithms for constructing approximating functions of two variables from various given classes of three-dimensional data samples (three-dimensional interconnected time series). The article provides a detailed description of the problem statement, introduces classes of approximating functions, provides algorithms for estimating the parameters of approximating functions and a description of the software. The estimation algorithm considered in the article is constructed according to the scheme of the coordinate descent method with optimization of the step length (Gauss-Seidel method).

The majority of the environmental impacts associated with the agri-food supply chain occur at the production phase. Interests in using life-cycle assessment (LCA) for accounting for agri-food supply chains as well as food losses and waste (FLW) has increased in recent years. Here, for the first time, we estimate production-phase embedded resources and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California specialty crops considering on-farm food losses. We use primary, survey-derived qualitative and quantitative data to consider on-farm food loss prevention and avoided GHG emissions through two different scenarios applied in an illustrative example for processing peach at the production stage. Further, we contribute a mathematical approach for accounting for discrete, unique flows within the net flow of loss in a supply chain, in LCA. Through the detailed LCAs, we identify the hotspots for the four crops as on-farm diesel use, fertilizer application, direct water use, and electricity for irrigation pumping. Impacts from cultivation practices and the additional impacts from on-farm food losses vary significantly by crop. Including the losses in the LCAs resulted in increases in overall resource use and GHG emissions by 4–38% (percent varies depending on the crop type). We used the LCA models and a set of straightforward calculations to evaluate the environmental impacts of a prevention action (a 50% reduction in on-farm food losses) and the secondary use of end-of-life (EOL) biomass from processing peach. The results of this evaluation showed an 11% reduction in GHG emissions compared to the baseline (full harvest). In conclusion, by explicitly including the impacts of on-farm food losses in LCA, we highlight challenges and opportunities to target interventions that simultaneously reduce these losses and the associated environmental impacts in agricultural systems.

Measuring the circularity of resources is essential to assessing the performance of a circular economy. This work aims at proposing an indicator that quantifies how effective a system is at extending the lifetime of its waste components after they have been discarded. The developed indicator was applied to study the circularity of nutrients within a system that handles the organic waste (OW) generated in the Spanish region of Cantabria. A superstructure was developed to determine the optimal configuration of the system. It is composed of alternative unit processes for (1) the management of OW and (2) the application of the recovered products as soil amendment to grow corn. A multiobjective mixed integer linear programming problem was formulated under two policy scenarios with different source separation rates. The problem was optimized according to six objective functions: the circularity indicators of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, which are maximized, and their associated environmental impacts to be minimized (global warming, marine eutrophication, and freshwater eutrophication). The model was fed with the life cycle assessment results obtained with the Environmental Assessment System for Environmental TECHnologies (EASETECH) version 2.3.6 and the nutrient flows in the agriculture subsystem, which were calculated with Denitrification–Decomposition (DNDC) version 9.5. It was concluded that improving nutrient circularity paradoxically leads to eutrophication impacts and that increasing the SSR of OW has a positive effect on the carbon footprint of the system.

The transport of excess manure to crop farming systems is a core measure of livestock farmers to comply with environmental regulations like the EU Nitrates Directive. The German implementation of the directive has recently been revised and will lead to a distinct increase of manure transport. We quantify the environmental impact of 1 m of pig manure excreted in scenarios with and without manure transport by life cycle assessment, focusing on farming systems in North-West Germany. Furthermore, we assess how the environmental impact is linked to the regulation which is causing the transport. Compared to a reference scenario without transport, manure transport lowers all assessed impact categories and no trade-off between environmental impacts is found. Major reductions are realized for global warming (39%), freshwater (61%) and marine eutrophication (54%) as well as particulate matter formation (10%). Furthermore, the depletion of fossil fuels and phosphate is lowered. Reductions are mainly caused by an increase of nutrient use efficiency and the savings in chemical fertilizer. However, in a scenario where manure transport is caused by strict regulations regarding phosphate, needed nitrogen leaves the exporting farm likewise and chemical fertilizer use rises at the exporting farm. Caused by the increased fertilizer use, the positive environmental effect of manure transport diminishes, even leading to a rise of fossil fuel depletion by 20% and slight rise of global warming potential by 3%. However, we find that the use of lorries which combine manure and grain transport and, thereby, reduce empty drives, can prevent this trade-off. Our results show the potential of manure transport to reduce the environmental burden caused by the geographical concentration of livestock production. However, the impact of manure transport on global warming and fossil fuel depletion highly depends on the transport distance. Agronomic measures are needed to prevent the increase of chemical N fertilizer use on the exporting farms and policy makers should be aware of possible trade-offs between strict regulations regarding phosphorus and fossil fuel depletion.

Handling of digestate produced by anaerobic digestion impacts the environment through emission of greenhouse gases, reactive nitrogen and phosphorus. Previous life cycle assessments (LCA) evaluating the extraction of nutrients from digestate using struvite precipitation and ammonia stripping did not relate synthetic fertilizer substitution (SFS) to nutrient use efficiency consequences. We applied an expanded LCA to compare the conventional management of 1 m3 of liquid digestate (LD) from food waste against the production and use of digestate biofertilizer (DBF) extracted from LD, accounting for SFS efficacy. Avoidance of CH4, N2O and NH3 emissions from LD handling and enhanced SFS via more targeted use of nutrients in the versatile DBF product could generate environmental savings of up to 0.129 kg Sb eq., 4.16 kg SO2 eq., 1.22 kg PO4 eq., 33 kg CO2 eq. and 20.6 MJ eq. per m3 LD, for abiotic resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, global warming and cumulative energy demand burdens, respectively. However, under worst-case assumptions, DBF extraction could increase global warming and cumulative energy demand by 7.5 kg CO2e and 251 MJ eq. per m3 LD owing to processing inputs. Normalizing these results against wider environmental loadings, we conclude that DBF extraction is environmentally beneficial.