Sustainability and Consumerism

The Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future in 1987 gave birth to the concept of sustainable development. The meaning is benefitting the present without compromising the future. It was felt that, unless conventional growth and development are replaced by sustainable development through environmentally friendly actions, doomsday is very near. However, such sustainable development was followed by a global spree of consumerism that only added to the environmental burden. This dichotomy needs to be understood, and for the same purpose, one needs to go back to that point of Earth's history when ecology and economy were synonymous. From then on, the drift between the ecology and economy that has brought us to today's scenario needs to be understood. In this background, the chapter raises questions on how green the green sectors are. Furthermore, can sustainable development and consumerism be captured as one body of ‘sustainable consumerism'?

Opportunities for Catalytic Reactions and Materials in Buildings

Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for over 30% of global final energy consumption and accounts for ~40% of annual direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficient and sustainable technologies are necessary to not only lower the energy footprint but also lower the environmental burden. Many proven and emerging technologies are being pursued to meet the ever-increasing energy demand. Catalytic science has a significant new role to play in helping address sustainable energy challenges, particularly in buildings, compared to transportation and industrial sectors. Thermally driven heat pumps, dehumidification, cogeneration, thermal energy storage, carbon capture and utilization, emissions suppression, waste-to-energy conversion, and corrosion prevention technologies can tap into the advantages of catalytic science in realizing the full potential of such approaches, quickly, efficiently, and reliably. Catalysts can help increase energy conversion efficiency in building related technologies but must utilize low cost, easily available and easy-to-manufacture materials for large scale deployment. This entry presents a comprehensive overview of the impact of each building technology area on energy demand and environmental burden, state-of-the-art of catalytic solutions, research, and development opportunities for catalysis in building technologies, while identifying requirements, opportunities, and challenges.

Green library: Reducing carbon footprints towards Sustainable Development in libraries: A Case Study of Federal College of Education Library, Zaria, Nigeria

Carbon footprint has become a popular way of communicating climate change issues and the need to change behaviour. Reduction of environmental burden or everyday environmental actions played an important role in the day-to-day activities of libraries. Libraries are in an excellent position to be both an ecological operator and promoter of environmental awareness. The methodology employed is survey. data collected was analyzed using decision mean of 3.00. findings from the study revealed that, libraries in Nigeria are not well ground on green library requirements, due to insufficient manpower, and tools. As a result of this, this study recommends that librarians must faces the challenge of finding solutions that adequately address these issues without compromising its economic development goals and the living standards of its people through environment awareness, communication strategies and reduction on environmental burden.

Flood Hazard Calculation by Using a Digital Terrain Model

Due to the global warming and the high environmental burden to the country, the risk of flood hazards increases hand in hand with the climate changes. It is not the only hazard, but parts of this hazard may be eliminated by using flood barriers, flood defences, etc. There are anthropogenic possibilities of the flood barriers’ application, such as dams, bags, regulated riverbeds. There are also protections with natural elements that can used, namely water gardens, water stages, balanced vegetation planting. The strength, dimension and position may be calculated from the proper terrain data.

Life Cycle Assessment as a Methodological Framework for the Evaluation of the Environmental Sustainability of Pig and Pork Production in Ecuador

Pork is one of the proteins of greatest demand worldwide. This study has evaluated the environmental sustainability of pig production by applying the life cycle assessment methodological framework. The system boundaries include feed production, pig production, slaughtering, and slaughterhouse by-product management. Within this context, three scenarios have been proposed: the first related to the management of slaughter by-products in an open dump, the second contemplates a model for using these by-products in a rendering plant, and a third where the environmental burden of slaughterhouse co-products is portioned according to economic allocation. The primary data collected correspond to the period of 2019 for the facilities of a producer in a coastal province of Ecuador. Three functional units were used—“1 kg of pig carcass at the slaughterhouse gate”, “1 kg pig live weigh at the farm gate”, and “1 kg of feed at the plant gate”. The impact categories included were global warming, fossil depletion, marine eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, particulate matter formation, photochemical oxidation formation, and terrestrial acidification. The results revealed that the production of ingredients for feed is the largest contributor to the environmental burden of pig and pork. The rendering of slaughter by-products that avoid the production of other fats and proteins results in a lower environmental impact than the other scenarios in almost all categories.

Performance Improvement for Multi-recycling HTGR Incorporated with MA burning

Multi-recycling HTGR has been investigated by JAEA in order to reduce the environmental burden and non-proliferation of Pu. In the previous study, it is found that all actinoids except neptunium, which is not problematic from the viewpoint of toxicity and proliferation, can be recycled. However, the cycle length is slightly decreased compared with uranium fueled core due to the cumulated fertile TRU in the fuel composition. In the present study, Pu recycling HTGR is designed to incorporate with MA burning. As a result, the cycle length is increased by approximately 15% compared with TRU multi-recycling core, and if the MA burner can be achieved by IFR, the cost is decreased by 0.14 yen/kWh.

New Metakaolin-Based Geopolymers with the Addition of Different Types of Waste Stone Powder

The search for new alternative raw materials and their subsequent use supports the sustainability of natural resources. This article describes the use of waste stone powder (WSP) in geopolymer synthesis. Five different types of WSP (feldspar, limestone, marlstone, dolomite, marble) were comprehensively characterized and their influence on the resulting properties (especially mechanical and textural properties, setting time and structure) of metakaolin-based geopolymer composites was investigated. Their comparison with a geopolymer composite containing only quartz sand has revealed that WSP additions have a small but positive effect on the mechanical or textural properties of geopolymers. Moreover, setting time measurements have shown that waste stone powders can be used as an accelerator of geopolymer reaction solidification. The results demonstrated that the mentioned types of WSP, previously landfilled, can be used for the preparation of geopolymers. This can help reduce the environmental burden.