[en] The energy performance and carbon footprint associated with the fluidized bed drying of petals of Echium amoenum Fisch. and C.A. Mey are experimentally evaluated at three temperatures (40,50,60°C) and air velocities (0.50,0.75,1.00m/s). The maximum and minimum specific energy consumption are observed to occur at 40°C and 1ms-1 (79.18MJ/kg) and 60°C and 0.5m/s (22.60MJ/kg), respectively. The greenhouse gas emission is in the range, 0.10-8.40kg CO2 eq, varying with drying conditions in the same manner as energy consumption, with natural gas-fired systems performing better than oil-fired systems. High-temperature, low-air velocity drying is thus, favourable for energy-efficient and sustainable fluidized bed drying of the petals. (Author)

[en] France has been ranked first among 146 countries for the quality and availability of its electrical power by the Choiseul Institute and KMPG. This classification is made according to 3 categories: first, the quality of the energy mix, secondly quality and availability of the electrical power, and thirdly the environmental footprint. France ranks first for the second category because of its important fleet of nuclear reactors, but ranks 93 for the quality of its energy mix, its poor performance is due to its large dependence on oil as primary energy. The performance of France for the environment footprint is only in the world average for despite is low-carbon electricity production, French households release great quantities of CO₂. (A.C.)

No abstract available

[en] Nowadays an increasing attention of public and private agencies to the sustainability performance of events is observed, since it is recognized as a key issue in the context of sustainable development. Assessing the sustainability performance of events involves environmental, social and economic aspects; their impacts are complex and a quantitative assessment is often difficult. This paper presents a new quali-quantitative method developed to measure the sustainability of events, taking into account all its potential impacts. The 2014 World Orienteering Championship, held in Italy, was selected to test the proposed evaluation methodology. The total carbon footprint of the event was 165.34 tCO_2eq and the avoided emissions were estimated as being 46 tCO_2eq. The adopted quali-quantitative method resulted to be efficient in assessing the sustainability impacts and can be applied for the evaluation of similar events. - Highlights: • A quali-quantitative method to assess events' sustainability is presented. • All the methodological issues related to the method are explained. • The method is used to evaluate the sustainability of an international sports event. • The method resulted to be valid to assess the event's sustainability level. • The carbon footprint of the event has been calculated.

[en] The article summarises a report by France's General Economic Council (CGE) on the 'carbon footprint'. It is based on a benchmarking study of eight different countries, with interviews of a wide range of 60 stakeholders. The report provides recommendations on methods for calculating emissions trajectories and improving the effectiveness of global emissions reductions. It notes the growing expectations with respect to climate policies and the value of the carbon footprint in setting up emission reduction trajectories, with major challenges in terms of competitiveness, consistency and transparency

[en] The Danish diet is characterized by a high content of sugar, fat dairy products and red meat, and a low content of fruits and vegetables. As it is considered unhealthy and environmentally unfriendly, various alternatives to the standard Danish diet have been investigated and promoted in Denmark, such as the New Nordic Diet. By using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), this study estimates the carbon footprint (CF) of four different diet scenarios in Denmark: standard, carnivore, vegetarian and vegan. The LCA is applied to build a dataset of the 47 most widely eaten food and beverage products, which represent the average Danish eating habits and grouped into six food categories. Unlike most past LCA-based studies, where system boundaries are limited to the farm gate, this study covers all activities and relative use of materials and energy, from the food production phase to the final consumption (namely ‘from-cradle-to-fork’). We find that the highest CF value is associated with the carnivore diet, which has the highest impact (1.83 t CO₂eq person⁻¹ year⁻¹). The vegan and vegetarian diets record the best profiles (0.89 and 1.37 t CO₂eq person⁻¹ year⁻¹, respectively), whereas the standard Danish diet has a CF value of 1.59 t CO₂eq person⁻¹ year⁻¹. We find that the food production phase is the most significant in terms of CF (65–85%). This study confirms that dietary preferences are a strong driver of CF. A comparison with CF associated with other diets suggests that a further research could provide a guidance to promote healthy eating patterns with adequate nutritional values and better environmental performances.

[en] The paper looks at a non-exhaustive set of the possible materials and technologies that are in commercial production or those that are potentially viable, for application within large-scale nuclear infrastructure projects looking to benefit from a lower carbon footprint in the context of a net zero world. (author)

[en] Highlights: • A novel framework is proposed for inter-regional energy-water-carbon nexus. • Direct and embodied W-energy, E-water and W-carbon flows are quantified. • Nexus footprint intensities are much higher than the total footprint intensities. • Inter-regional trade plays a significant role in energy-water-carbon nexus. -- Abstract: Energy, water and carbon flows are highly intertwined in economy and influence urban and regional sustainability. Few insights have been acquired for energy-water-carbon nexus at inter-regional scale considering both in- and trans-boundary flows. Here we propose an interactive framework to assess inter-regional energy-water-carbon nexus, encapsulating both direct nexus flows within territory and nexus flows embodied in final consumption. An inter-regional input-output model is established to account for energy-related water footprint, water-related energy footprint and water-related carbon footprint from a consumption-based perspective. Using Guangdong-Hong Kong as a case study, we find that though these nexus footprints contribute a small fraction of the total energy, water and carbon footprints of both regions in 2012, their impacts should not be neglected due to higher intensities. The direct intensities of water-related energy and water-related carbon are more than 2 times higher than the total energy and carbon intensities, while their embodied intensities are over 6 times higher. Inter-regional trade plays an important role in controlling energy-water-carbon nexus of both sides. About 29–44% of the consumption-based nexus footprints of Hong Kong’s consumption are outsourced to Guangdong and other regions, while 21–24% of Guangdong’s footprints are from production elsewhere. These are strong signals showing the importance of managing energy-water-carbon nexus on a cross-border and fully-interactive basis.

[en] Recently, application of high strength steel sheets for automobiles has increased in order to meet a demand of light weighting of automobiles to reduce a carbon footprint while satisfying collision safety. The formability of steel sheets generally decreases with the increase in strength. Fracture and wrinkles tend to occur easily during forming. The springback phenomenon is also one of the issues which we should cope with, because it makes it difficult to obtain the desired shape after forming. Advanced high strength steel sheets with high formability have been developed in order to overcome these issues, and at the same time application technologies have been developed for their effective utilization. These sheets are normally used for cold forming. As a different type of forming, hot forming technique has been developed in order to produce parts with ultra high strength. In this report, technologies developed at NSSMC in this field will be introduced

[en] The French energy policy that is featured by both a strong commitment towards low-carbon energies and a reduction of the part of the nuclear power in the production of electricity is contradictory. France is with Sweden one of the industrialized countries whose carbon footprint is the lowest. The annual emission of CO₂ per inhabitant are 5.5 tonnes in France, 9.3 tonnes in Germany, 7.5 tonnes as a mean value in the European Union and 10.4 tonnes as a mean value for the developed countries. France's good figure is due to its fleet of nuclear reactors that provide the country with 75% of its electricity production and in the same time avoid the release in the atmosphere of hundreds of million tonnes of CO₂. The reduction from 75% to 50% of the contribution ratio of nuclear energy to the production of electricity, as wished by French government, will generate an increase of CO₂ releases as it is unrealistic to think that the energies that will replace nuclear energy will release no CO₂. A striking example is Germany, where the progressive exit of nuclear energy led to an increase of 2.9% of CO₂ emissions between 2011 and 2013. (A.C.)