Understanding and valuing the economic, social and environmental components of System Harmonisation

The aim of the Products and Markets component of the System Harmonisation project is to value the economic and environmental outcomes from an irrigation scheme that is operated by and in the interests of society. In this conceptual note the thinking underlying this component of the project are outlined. The aim of this note is to provide elements for debated. The nature and requirements of System Harmonisation demands that a 'systems approach' be taken throughout the project. What becomes important within this approach is how the different elements within a system are isolated and yet linked with one another. In many instances the extent and nature of irrigation systems are defined by the relevant Regional Irrigation Business Partnership (RIBP) under investigation. It is recognised that society has multiple uses for the water (agriculture, industry, households, recreation and the environment) as well as non-use (intrinsic) values for which it derives benefits from and incurs costs in distributing the water in any select manner. Further, it is assumed that the irrigation schemes are run for the benefit of society as a whole. Thus, there is a necessity to evaluate both the private and public costs and benefits associated with irrigation schemes. In order to identify what society values from an irrigation scheme, it is argued that a social matrix approach is needed. This analysis allows for a clustering of the issues people feel is important to them regarding the use of an irrigation scheme. Such an analysis will allow identification of the perceived most and least beneficial activities connected to water allocation, economic modelling of the most productive activities, evaluation of externalities and Cost Benefit Analysis. The net economic benefits that arise from irrigation need to be evaluated. The sectors where benefits are derived can be segregated into agriculture, households, the environment, recreation and industrial uses. The largest of these, by pure scale of the use of water, is agriculture. A gross margins approach is used to evaluate the returns for water in the agricultural sector. In the industrial and household sectors, a simple evaluation approach is used where the quantity of water demanded is multiplied by the price paid in each sector. Non-market valuation techniques are used to evaluate the recreational and environmental uses of water. The difficulty that arises in this analysis is how to evaluate the performance of irrigation schemes, where the outcomes are multifaceted. A 'meta' model approach is suggested in which the different elements from the project are brought together and assessed using a technique derived from the theory surrounding production possibility frontiers. This technique can be used to hypothesise a value for the ecosystem services derived from an irrigation scheme. The performance of an irrigation scheme is evaluated in terms of the suggestions raised to change it. Cost Effective Analysis is to be utilised to evaluate this performance. Then two issues need to be addressed. First, it is necessary to converse with those from other components, particularly those involved in the hydrological programs, to determine the nature of the schemes to be investigated. Second, it is necessary to implement the approach in each of the RIBPs. This work needs to commence with the evaluation of the social values in each region

Demand response within the energy-for-water-nexus - A review. ESRI WP637, October 2019

A promising tool to achieve more flexibility within power systems is demand re-sponse (DR). End-users in many strands of industry have been subject to research up to now regarding the opportunities for implementing DR programmes. One sector that has received little attention from the literature so far, is wastewater treatment. However, case studies indicate that the potential for wastewater treatment plants to provide DR services might be significant. This review presents and categorises recent modelling approaches for industrial demand response as well as for the wastewater treatment plant operation. Furthermore, the main sources of flexibility from wastewater treatment plants are presented: a potential for variable electricity use in aeration, the time-shifting operation of pumps, the exploitation of built-in redundan-cy in the system and flexibility in the sludge processing. Although case studies con-note the potential for DR from individual WWTPs, no study acknowledges the en-dogeneity of energy prices which arises from a large-scale utilisation of DR. There-fore, an integrated energy systems approach is required to quantify system and market effects effectively

Judgement and supply chain dynamics

Forecasting demand at the individual stock-keeping-unit (SKU) level often necessitates the use of statistical methods, such as exponential smoothing. In some organizations, however, statistical forecasts will be subject to judgemental adjustments by managers. Although a number of empirical and ‘laboratory’ studies have been performed in this area, no formal OR modelling has been conducted to offer insights into the impact such adjustments may have on supply chain performance and the potential development of mitigation mechanisms. This is because of the associated dynamic complexity and the situation-specific nature of the problem at hand. In conjunction with appropriate stock control rules, demand forecasts help decide how much to order. It is a common practice that replenishment orders may also be subject to judgemental intervention, adding further to the dynamic system complexity and interdependence. The system dynamics (SD) modelling method can help advance knowledge in this area, where mathematical modelling cannot accommodate the associated complexity. This study, which constitutes part of a UK government funded (EPSRC) project, uses SD models to evaluate the effects of forecasting and ordering adjustments for a wide set of scenarios involving: three different inventory policies; seven different (combinations of) points of intervention; and four different (combinations of) types of judgmental intervention (optimistic and pessimistic). The results enable insights to be gained into the performance of the entire supply chain. An agenda for further research concludes the paper

Performance optimization of a leagility inspired supply chain model: a CFGTSA algorithm based approach

Lean and agile principles have attracted considerable interest in the past few decades. Industrial sectors throughout the world are upgrading to these principles to enhance their performance, since they have been proven to be efficient in handling supply chains. However, the present market trend demands a more robust strategy incorporating the salient features of both lean and agile principles. Inspired by these, the leagility principle has emerged, encapsulating both lean and agile features. The present work proposes a leagile supply chain based model for manufacturing industries. The paper emphasizes the various aspects of leagile supply chain modeling and implementation and proposes a new Hybrid Chaos-based Fast Genetic Tabu Simulated Annealing (CFGTSA) algorithm to solve the complex scheduling problem prevailing in the leagile environment. The proposed CFGTSA algorithm is compared with the GA, SA, TS and Hybrid Tabu SA algorithms to demonstrate its efficacy in handling complex scheduling problems

The changing tide: Federal support of civilian-sector R and D

The involvement of the Federal government in civilian sector research and development is discussed. Relevant policies are put in an historical perspective. The roles played by industrial research and public funding are reveiwed. Government support of basic an generic research, clientele-oriented applied research, and research with commercial ends is studied. Procurement, anti-trust, and patent policies, all of which affect the climate for private research and development, are examined

Panel I: Connecting 2nd Law Analysis with Economics, Ecology and Energy Policy

The present paper is a review of several papers from the Proceedings of the Joint European Thermodynamics Conference, held in Brescia, Italy, 1–5 July 2013, namely papers introduced by their authors at Panel I of the conference. Panel I was devoted to applications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to social issues—economics, ecology, sustainability, and energy policy. The concept called Available Energy which goes back to mid-nineteenth century work of Kelvin, Rankine, Maxwell and Gibbs, is relevant to all of the papers. Various names have been applied to the concept when interactions between the system of interest and an environment are involved. Today, the name exergy is generally accepted. The scope of the papers being reviewed is wide and they complement one another well

Imagining Corporate Sustainability as a Public Good Rather than a Corporate Bad

Corporations have been criticized for their environmental misdeeds for over a century, so it is not surprising that many view corporate approaches to sustainability with skepticism. Reports of green-washing and other forms of misleading advertising by a handful of corporations only serve to reinforce this negative perception.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects