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  1. Fulltext Data set and model code on the optimal operating state of a negative emission polygeneration system
    Aviso KB, Tan RR, Foo DCY, Lee JY, Ubando AT
    Data Brief, 2020 Apr;29:105140.
    PMID: 32083153 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105140
    This article contains the data set and model code for the negative emission polygeneration system described in Tan et al. (2019). The data was generated utilizing an optimization model implemented in LINGO 18.0 and includes information on the operating state of each process unit in the system. The maximum annual profit of the system was determined at different carbon footprint targets. The data set and model code can be utilized for further analysis on the interdependence between the process units of this polygeneration system, its operational and environmental performance, and the potential impact of integrating new process units into the network.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  2. The impact of electricity consumption on CO2 emission, carbon footprint, water footprint and ecological footprint: The role of hydropower in an emerging economy
    Bello MO, Solarin SA, Yen YY
    J Environ Manage, 2018 Aug 01;219:218-230.
    PMID: 29747103 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.04.101
    The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the isolated impacts of hydroelectricity consumption on the environment in Malaysia as an emerging economy. We use four different measures of environmental degradation including ecological footprint, carbon footprint, water footprint and CO2 emission as target variables, while controlling for GDP, GDP square and urbanization for the period 1971 to 2016. A recently introduced unit root test with breaks is utilized to examine the stationarity of the series and the bounds testing approach to cointegration is used to probe the long run relationships between the variables. VECM Granger causality technique is employed to examine the long-run causal dynamics between the variables. Sensitivity analysis is conducted by further including fossil fuels in the equations. The results show evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and real GDP. Hydroelectricity is found to significantly reduce environmental degradation while urbanization is also not particularly harmful on the environment apart from its effect on air pollution. The VECM Granger causality results show evidence of unidirectional causality running from hydroelectricity and fossil fuels consumption to all measures of environmental degradation and real GDP per capita. There is evidence of feedback hypothesis between real GDP to all environmental degradation indices. The inclusion of fossil fuel did not change the behavior of hydroelectricity on the environment but fossil fuels significantly increase water footprint.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint*
  3. Anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste: Energy and carbon emission footprint
    Fan YV, Klemeš JJ, Lee CT, Perry S
    J Environ Manage, 2018 Oct 01;223:888-897.
    PMID: 29996113 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.07.005
    Anaerobic digestion (AD) serves as a promising alternative for waste treatment and a potential solution to improve the energy supply security. The feasibility of AD has been proven in some of the technologically and agriculturally advanced countries. However, development is still needed for worldwide implementation, especially for AD process dealing with municipal solid waste (MSW). This paper reviews various approaches and stages in the AD of MSW, which used to optimise the biogas production and quality. The assessed stages include pre-treatment, digestion process, post-treatment as well as the waste collection and transportation. The latest approaches and integrated system to improve the AD process are also presented. The stages were assessed in a relatively quantitative manner. The range of energy requirement, carbon emission footprint and the percentage of enhancement are summarised. Thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment is identified to be less suitable for MSW (-5% to +15.4% enhancement), unless conducted in the two-phase AD system. Microwave pre-treatment shows consistent performance in elevating the biogas production of MSW, but the energy consumption (114.24-8,040 kWeh t-1) and carbon emission footprint (59.93-4,217.78 kg CO2 t-1 waste) are relatively high. Chemical (∼0.43 kWeh m-3) and membrane-based (∼0.45 kWeh m-3) post-treatments are suggested to be a lower energy consumption approach for upgrading the biogas. The feasibility in terms of cost (scale up) and other environmental impacts (non-CO2 footprint) needs to be further assessed. This study provides an overview to facilitate further development and extended implementation of AD.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint*
  4. Does globalization increase the ecological footprint? Empirical evidence from Malaysia
    Ahmed Z, Wang Z, Mahmood F, Hafeez M, Ali N
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2019 Jun;26(18):18565-18582.
    PMID: 31054053 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-019-05224-9
    This study focuses to investigate the relationship between globalization and the ecological footprint for Malaysia from 1971 to 2014. The results of the Bayer and Hanck cointegration test and the ARDL bound test show the existence of cointegration among variables. The findings disclose that globalization is not a significant determinant of the ecological footprint; however, it significantly increases the ecological carbon footprint. Energy consumption and economic growth stimulate the ecological footprint and carbon footprint in Malaysia. Population density reduces the ecological footprint and carbon footprint. Further, financial development mitigates the ecological footprint. The causality results disclose the feedback hypothesis between energy consumption and economic growth in the long run and short run.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint/economics*
  5. On the nonlinear effects of energy consumption, economic growth, and tourism on carbon footprints in the USA
    Xiangyu S, Jammazi R, Aloui C, Ahmad P, Sharif A
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Apr;28(16):20128-20139.
    PMID: 33405137 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-12242-5
    The present paper implements the quantile autoregressive lagged (QARDL) approach of Cho et al. (2015) and the Granger causality in quantiles tests of Troster et al. (2018) to explore the nonlinear effects of US energy consumption, economic growth, and tourist arrivals on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission. Our results unveil the existence of substantial reversion to the long-run equilibrium connectedness between the variables of interest and CO2 emissions. The outcomes show that tourist arrivals decrease CO2 emissions in the long term for each quantile. In addition, we found that the output growth positively influences the carbon emissions at lower quantiles but negatively influences the carbon emissions at upper quantiles. Moreover, our findings of short-term dynamics validate an asymmetric short-run effect of tourist arrivals and economic growth on CO2 emissions in the US economy. Further results and their corresponding policy implications are discussed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint*
  6. Determinants of voluntary carbon disclosure in the corporate real estate sector of Malaysia
    Kalu JU, Buang A, Aliagha GU
    J Environ Manage, 2016 Nov 01;182:519-524.
    PMID: 27529312 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2016.08.011
    Corporate real estate management holds the tent that risk which is not understood cannot be measured or managed. The effect of global warming on real estate investment and need for climate change mitigation through disclosures by companies of carbon emission information has becomes a sine-qua-non for the management of companies' carbon footprint and reducing its overall effect on global warming. This study applied the structural equation modeling technique to determine the determinants influencing Carbon Disclosure in Real Estate Companies in a developing economy. The analysis was based on 2013 annual reports of 126 property sector companies listed in Malaysia stock exchange market. The model was validated through convergent validity, discriminant validity, composite reliability and goodness of fit. The result reveals that social and financial market were critical determinant factors for carbon disclosure while the economic and institutional factors did not achieve significant effect on voluntary carbon disclosure. The result is consistent with legitimacy theory and agency theories. The implication of this finding is that increase in public education and awareness will enhance community demand for disclosure from companies and they will increase level of disclosure; also as financial institutions consider sustainability practice as a viable investment and term for credit financing, companies will be motivated to increase disclosure.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint*
  7. Uniting the Global Gastroenterology Community to Meet the Challenge of Climate Change and Non-Recyclable Waste
    Leddin D, Omary MB, Veitch A, Metz G, Amrani N, Aabakken L, et al.
    Gastroenterology, 2021 11;161(5):1354-1360.
    PMID: 34629165 DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2021.08.001
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint*
  8. Energy innovations and environmental sustainability in the U.S.: The roles of immigration and economic expansion using a maximum likelihood method
    Solarin SA, Bello MO
    Sci Total Environ, 2020 Apr 10;712:135594.
    PMID: 31787295 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135594
    Environmental degradation remains a huge obstacle to sustainable development. Research on the factors that promote or degrade the environment has been extensively conducted. However, one important variable that has conspicuously received very limited attention is energy innovations. To address this gap in the literature, this study investigated the effects of energy innovations on environmental quality in the U.S. for the period 1974 to 2016. We have incorporated GDP and immigration as additional regressors. Three indices comprising of CO2 emissions, ecological footprint and carbon footprint were used to proxy environmental degradation. The cointegration tests established long-run relationships between the variables. Using a maximum likelihood approach with a break, the results showed evidence that energy innovations significantly improve environmental quality while GDP degrades the quality of the environment, and immigration has no significant effect on the environment. Policy implications of the results are discussed in the body of the manuscript.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  9. Using low carbon footprint high-pressure carbon dioxide in bioconversion of aspen branch waste for sustainable bioethanol production
    Wu Y, Ge S, Xia C, Cai L, Mei C, Sonne C, et al.
    Bioresour Technol, 2020 Oct;313:123675.
    PMID: 32563796 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.123675
    An innovative approach was developed by incorporating high-pressure CO2 into the separate hydrolysis-fermentation of aspen leftover branches, aiming to enhance the bioethanol production efficiency. The high-pressure CO2 significantly increased the 72-h enzymatic hydrolysis yield of converting aspen into glucose from 53.8% to 82.9%. The hydrolysis process was performed with low enzyme loading (10 FPU g-1 glucan) with the aim of reducing the cost of fuel bioethanol production. The ethanol yield from fermentation of the hydrolyzed glucose using yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) was 8.7 g L-1, showing increment of 10% compared with the glucose control. Techno-economic analysis indicated that the energy consumption of fuel bioethanol production from aspen branch chips was reduced by 35% and the production cost was cut 44% to 0.615 USD L-1, when 68 atm CO2 was introduced into the process. These results furtherly emphasized the low carbon footprint of this sustainable energy production approach.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  10. Climate Change and Infant Nutrition: Estimates of Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Milk Formula Sold in Selected Asia Pacific Countries
    Dadhich JP, Smith JP, Iellamo A, Suleiman A
    J Hum Lact, 2021 May;37(2):314-322.
    PMID: 33586512 DOI: 10.1177/0890334421994769
    BACKGROUND: There is growing recognition that current food systems and policies are environmentally unsustainable. There is an identified need to integrate sustainability objectives into national food policy and dietary recommendations.

    RESEARCH AIMS: To (1) describe exploratory estimates of greenhouse gas emission factors for all infant and young child milk formula products and (2) estimate national greenhouse gas emission association with commercial milk formulas sold in selected countries in the Asia Pacific region.

    METHOD: We used a secondary data analysis descriptive design incorporating a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) concepts and methodology to estimate kg CO2 eq. emissions per kg of milk formula, using greenhouse gas emission factors for milk powder, vegetable oils, and sugars identified from a literature review. Proportions of ingredients were calculated using FAO Codex Alimentarius guidance on milk formula products. Estimates were calculated for production and processing of individual ingredients from cradle to factory gate. Annual retail sales data for 2012-2017 was sourced from Euromonitor International for six purposively selected countries; Australia, South Korea, China, Malaysia, India, Philippines.

    RESULTS: Annual emissions for milk formula products ranged from 3.95-4.04 kg CO2 eq. Milk formula sold in the six countries in 2012 contributed 2,893,030 tons CO2 eq. to global greenhouse gas emissions. Aggregate emissions were highest for products (e.g., toddler formula), which dominated sales growth. Projected 2017 emissions for milk formula retailed in China alone were 4,219,052 tons CO2 eq.

    CONCLUSIONS: Policies, programs and investments to shift infant and young child diets towards less manufactured milk formula and more breastfeeding are "Triple Duty Actions" that help improve dietary quality and population health and improve the sustainability of the global food system.

    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  11. Heterojunction photocatalysts for artificial nitrogen fixation: fundamentals, latest advances and future perspectives
    Lee J, Tan LL, Chai SP
    Nanoscale, 2021 Apr 21;13(15):7011-7033.
    PMID: 33889914 DOI: 10.1039/d1nr00783a
    As an indispensable energy source, ammonia plays an essential role in agriculture and various industries. Given that the current ammonia production is still dominated by the energy-intensive and high carbon footprint Haber-Bosch process, photocatalytic nitrogen fixation represents a low-energy consuming and sustainable approach to generate ammonia. Heterostructured photocatalysts are hybrid materials composed of semiconductor materials containing interfaces that make full use of the unique superiorities of the constituents and synergistic effects between them. These promising photocatalysts have superior performances and substantial potential in photocatalytic reduction of nitrogen. In this review, a wide spectrum of recently developed heterostructured photocatalysts for nitrogen fixation to ammonia are evaluated. The fundamentals of solar-to-ammonia conversion, basic principles of various heterojunction photocatalysts and modification strategies are systematically reviewed. Finally, a brief summary and perspectives on the ongoing challenges and directions for future development of nitrogen photofixation catalysts are also provided.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  12. Influence of foreign direct investment on indicators of environmental degradation
    Solarin SA, Al-Mulali U
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2018 Jun 21.
    PMID: 29931634 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-018-2562-5
    This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by looking at the influence of foreign direct investment on carbon dioxide emissions, carbon footprint, and ecological footprint. In order to realize the aim of this study, we have utilized the augmented mean group estimator, which is supported by common correlated effect mean group estimator in the analysis for 20 countries. The panel results reveal that foreign direct investment has no effect on environmental degradation indicators. The panel results further reveal that gross domestic product, energy consumption, and urbanization are the main contributors to environmental degradation. The results at country level show that foreign direct investment and urbanization increase pollution in the developing countries while they mitigate pollution in the developed countries. Moreover, gross domestic product and energy consumption increase pollution for both developed and developing countries, which includes China and the USA. The negative impact of foreign direct investment on environmental degradation in the developed countries can be explained on the basis that these countries have strong environmental regulations, which makes it almost impossible for dirty foreign industries to invest therein. From the output of this research, several policy recommendations are enumerated for the investigated countries.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  13. Convergence in CO 2 emissions, carbon footprint and ecological footprint: evidence from OECD countries
    Solarin SA
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2019 Feb;26(6):6167-6181.
    PMID: 30617875 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-018-3993-8
    The aim of this paper is to augment the existing literature on convergence of CO2 emissions, by adding carbon footprint per capita and ecological footprint per capita to the convergence debate. We use the residual augmented least squares regression to examine the stochastic convergence of the environmental indices in 27 OECD countries. Furthermore, in contrast to the previous studies which mainly used the conventional beta-convergence approach to examine conditional convergence, we use a beta-convergence method that is capable of identifying the actual number of countries that contribute to conditional convergence. The sigma-convergence of the environmental indices is also examined. The results suggest that conditional convergence exists in 12 countries for CO2 emissions per capita, 15 countries for carbon footprint per capita and also 13 countries for ecological footprint per capita. There is evidence for sigma-convergence for all the three indicators. The policy implications of the results are discussed in the body of the paper.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  14. Calculating carbon emissions from personal travelling: insights from a top-down analysis of key calculators
    Bekaroo G, Roopowa D, Zakari A, Niemeier D
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Feb;28(7):8853-8872.
    PMID: 33078355 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-11179-z
    Personal travelling unfavourably contributes to the emissions of greenhouse gases, which adversely causes long-term damage to the climate. In order to reduce the associated negative impacts of such activities on the environment, there is a wide consensus that enhancements and innovations in the efficiency of vehicles will not be enough, but behavioural changes are needed. For this, individuals should be able to measure their travel-related carbon emissions, and such emissions could be determined by using personal carbon footprint calculators, which proliferated during the previous decade. However, various research questions related to such calculators are yet to be answered in published literature. As such, this paper investigates how key transport-based calculators account for emissions from personal transport-related activities following a top-down analysis. In this endeavour, ten such calculators are investigated through a set of formulated research questions to analyse their scope, calculation approach used, transparency, consistency of results, communication methods utilized and platform differences. Results revealed that the calculators have varying granularity, have limited transparency, provide significantly inconsistent results in some cases and are not fully engaging end users. Based on limitations identified, recommendations have been proposed through a taxonomy to guide policy-makers towards improving such tools.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  15. Environmental assessment of casual dining restaurants in urban and suburban areas of peninsular Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic
    Sha'ari NSM, Sazali US, Zolkipli AT, Vargas RQ, Shafie FA
    Environ Monit Assess, 2023 Jan 31;195(2):346.
    PMID: 36717515 DOI: 10.1007/s10661-023-10937-z
    Food waste has been considered a global problem due to its adverse impacts on food security, the environment, and the economy; hence needs urgent attention and action. Its generation is expected to increase as the world population grows rapidly, leading to more global waste. This study sought the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 1-week operation of selected casual dining restaurants in urban (Ampang, Kuala Lumpur) and suburban areas (Kota Bharu, Kelantan and Jasin, Melaka) of Peninsular Malaysia, as the local community adjusted to life with COVID-19. The food waste in this study was classified into three categories: preparation loss, serving loss, and customer's plate waste. Our material flow analysis revealed that the highest food loss at these locations came from preparation loss (51.37%), followed by serving loss (30.95%), and preparation loss (17.8%). Meanwhile, the total average electricity consumption and its carbon footprint for Ampang were 127 kWh and 13.87 kgCO2e, Kota Bharu 269.8 kWh and 29.47 kgCO2e, and Jasin 142.2 kWh and 15.54 kgCO2e, respectively. As for water, Ampang exhibited 22.93 m3 total average consumption and 7.91 kgCO2e greenhouse emissions from this source, Jasin consuming 17.11 m3 of water and releasing 5.88 kgCO2e of carbon footprint, while Kota Bharu emitted 20.21 kgCO2e of greenhouse gases from its 58.71 m3 water consumption. Our findings indicate a major 'food leak' at the preparation stage, from which the waste could be utilised as livestock feed, and that electricity consumption is a greater carbon emitter than water consumption, suggesting a need for improvement to the kitchen practices and equipment.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  16. The global move toward Internet shopping and its influence on pollution: an empirical analysis
    Al-Mulali U, Sheau-Ting L, Ozturk I
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2015 Jul;22(13):9717-27.
    PMID: 25631741 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-015-4142-2
    This study investigates the influence of Internet retailing on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in 77 countries categorized into developed and developing countries during the period of 2000-2013. To realize the aims of the study, a model that represents pollution is established utilizing the panel two-stage least square (TSLS) and the generalized method of moments (GMM). The results for both regressions similarly indicated that GDP growth, electricity consumption, urbanization, and trade openness are the main factors that increase CO2 emission in the investigated countries. Although the results show that Internet retailing reduces CO2 emission in general, a disaggregation occurs between developed and developing countries whereby Internet retailing has a significant negative effect on CO2 emission in the developed countries while it has no significant impact on CO2 emission in the developing countries. From the outcome of this study, a number of policy implications are provided for the investigated countries.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint/statistics & numerical data
  17. Assessment of carbon footprint emissions and environmental concerns of solid waste treatment and disposal techniques; case study of Malaysia
    Malakahmad A, Abualqumboz MS, Kutty SRM, Abunama TJ
    Waste Manag, 2017 Dec;70:282-292.
    PMID: 28935377 DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2017.08.044
    Malaysian authorities has planned to minimize and stop when applicable unsanitary dumping of waste as it puts human health and the environment at elevated risk. Cost, energy and revenue are mostly adopted to draw the blueprint of upgrading municipal solid waste management system, while the carbon footprint emissions criterion rarely acts asa crucial factor. This study aims to alert Malaysian stakeholders on the uneven danger of carbon footprint emissions of waste technologies. Hence, three scenarios have been proposed and assessed mainly on the carbon footprint emissions using the 2006 IPCC methodology. The first scenario is waste dumping in sanitary landfills equipped with gas recovery system, while the second scenario includes anaerobic digestion of organics and recycling of recyclable wastes such as plastic, glass and textile wastes. The third scenario is waste incineration. Besides the carbon footprint emissions criterion, other environmental concerns were also examined. The results showed that the second scenario recorded the lowest carbon footprint emissions of 0.251t CO2 eq./t MSW while the third scenario had the highest emissions of 0.646t CO2 eq./t MSW. Additionally, the integration between anaerobic digestion and recycling techniques caused the highest avoided CO2 eq. emissions of 0.74t CO2 eq./t MSW. The net CO2 eq. emissions of the second scenario equaled -0.489t CO2 eq./t MSW due to energy recovery from the biogas and because of recycled plastic, glass and textile wastes that could replace usage of raw material. The outcomes also showed that the first scenario generates huge amount of leachate and hazardous air constituents. The study estimated that a ton of dumped waste inside the landfills generates approximately 0.88m3 of trace risky compounds and 0.188m3 of leachate. As for energy production, the results showed that the third scenario is capable of generating 639kWh/t MSW followed by the second scenario with 387.59kWh/t MSW. The first scenario produced 296.79kWh/t MSW. In conclusion, the outcomes of this study recommend an integrated scenario of anaerobic digestion and recycling techniques to be employed in Malaysia.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
  18. Fulltext Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations
    Crona BI, Wassénius E, Jonell M, Koehn JZ, Short R, Tigchelaar M, et al.
    Nature, 2023 Apr;616(7955):104-112.
    PMID: 36813964 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05737-x
    Blue foods, sourced in aquatic environments, are important for the economies, livelihoods, nutritional security and cultures of people in many nations. They are often nutrient rich1, generate lower emissions and impacts on land and water than many terrestrial meats2, and contribute to the health3, wellbeing and livelihoods of many rural communities4. The Blue Food Assessment recently evaluated nutritional, environmental, economic and justice dimensions of blue foods globally. Here we integrate these findings and translate them into four policy objectives to help realize the contributions that blue foods can make to national food systems around the world: ensuring supplies of critical nutrients, providing healthy alternatives to terrestrial meat, reducing dietary environmental footprints and safeguarding blue food contributions to nutrition, just economies and livelihoods under a changing climate. To account for how context-specific environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects affect this contribution, we assess the relevance of each policy objective for individual countries, and examine associated co-benefits and trade-offs at national and international scales. We find that in many African and South American nations, facilitating consumption of culturally relevant blue food, especially among nutritionally vulnerable population segments, could address vitamin B12 and omega-3 deficiencies. Meanwhile, in many global North nations, cardiovascular disease rates and large greenhouse gas footprints from ruminant meat intake could be lowered through moderate consumption of seafood with low environmental impact. The analytical framework we provide also identifies countries with high future risk, for whom climate adaptation of blue food systems will be particularly important. Overall the framework helps decision makers to assess the blue food policy objectives most relevant to their geographies, and to compare and contrast the benefits and trade-offs associated with pursuing these objectives.
    Matched MeSH terms: Carbon Footprint
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