Historical trends in abiotic and biotic resource flows in the EU (1990-2010)

In its Communication “Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe” the European Commission defined a vision for EU resource consumption by 2050: the economy will have grown compatibly with resource constraints and planetary boundaries, preserving a high standard of living and lowering the environmental impacts. Such vision entails the sustainable management of natural resources, i.e. raw materials, energy, water, air, land and soil as well as biodiversity and ecosystems. In this paper, we focus on analysing the trends of abiotic and biotic resource consumption within the EU27 over the past 20 years, beyond traditional mass-based approaches to resource accounting (e.g. Domestic Material Consumption DMC and total material requirements, TMR). In fact, our assessment is performed at inventory level (thus accounting for the biophysical flows of resources) and at impact assessment level, using different life-cycle impact assessment methods (LCIA) for resource depletion and scarcity. The resources considered in the analysis include only those extracted in EU territory, including: raw materials (metals and minerals), energy carriers, biotic and water resources and the timeframe is 20 years (1990-2010). The final aim is the assessment of the evolution of resource flows in the economy (LCI) and the related resource depletion (LCIA) due to European production and consumption. Trends of resource consumption and associated depletion as well as other existing indicators for monitoring resource efficiency are reported and analysed with the aim of: highlighting the occurrence of decoupling over time, both in absolute and relative terms and giving a comprehensive overview of trends related to different resources, usually handled separately in the existing literature. To complete the sustainability assessment of resource consumption research needs are listed, particularly concerning the need of complementing the study with the analysis of socio-economic drivers underpinning the resource consumption trends.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Development of Sustainability Scenarios

The purpose of the report is twofold. To begin with, it seeks to set out the objectives of, and methodologies for, the development of socio-economic and environmental scenarios for the European Union up until 2050f. In addition, the report undertakes to place scenario building in a wider political and socio-economic context. The report is structured as follows. In section II, the report compares forecasts and scenarios with a view to highlight common aspects and differences. In section III, the report discusses in more detail the purpose of scenario building against the background of the policy objective to reach sustainability. Section IV, finally, examines some of the methodological issues involved in scenario building and sketches out how scenarios can be built in a meaningful and feasible manner. The report is largely exploratory in nature as it seeks to identify critical issues and questions. The report is, in this respect, akin to one of the key purposes of scenario building itself. Accordingly, scenarios are not only developed as long range planning tool, but also with a view to foster and facilitate communication and reflection.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Integrated assessment of environmental impact of Europe in 2010: data sources and extrapolation strategies for calculating normalisation factors

Purpose. Assessing comprehensively the overall environmental impacts of a region remains a major challenge. Within life cycle assessment (LCA), this evaluation is performed calculating normalisation factors at different scales. Normalisation represents an optional step of LCA according to ISO 14040/44 which may help in understanding the relative magnitude of the impact associated to a product when compared to a reference value. In order to enhance the robustness and comprehensiveness of normalisation factors for Europe in 2010, this paper present a methodology for building an extended domestic inventory of emission and resources to be used in the context of Product Environmental Footprint Material and methods. The normalisation factors (NFs) for EU 27 in 2010 are based on extensive data collection and the application of extrapolation strategies for data gaps filling. The inventory is based on domestic emissions into air, water and soil and on resource extracted in EU, adopting a production based approach. A hierarchy hasebeen developed for data sources selection based on their robustness and data quality. Data gap filling has been based on proxy indicators, capitalizing existing statistics on pressure indicators. To calculate NFs, the inventory has been multiplied by the characterization factors at midpoint as recommended in International reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook (EC-JRC, 2011). Results and discussion. The resulting NFs presents several added values compared to prior normalization exercises, namely: more complete inventory; robustness evaluation of the data sources; more comprehensive coverage of the flows within each impact category; overall evaluation of the robustness of the final figures. Few flows (NOx, SOx, NH4 etc) are driving the impacts of several impact categories, and the choice of the data sources is particularly crucial, as this may lead to differences in the NFs. The adoption of domestic NFs may results in overestimating the relative magnitude of certain impacts, especially when those impacts are associated with traded goods from or to outside the EU 27. Conclusion. Normalisation factors may help identification of the relative magnitude of the impact. Nonetheless, several limitations still exist both at the inventory and at the impact assessment level. Those limitations should be clearly reported and understood by the users of normalisation factors in order to correctly interpret the results of their study. Indeed, the efforts towards more robust normalization reference are needed both at the inventory and at the impact assessment side, including more robust impact assessment methods as well as better coverage of substances for which an inventory data is available but the characterization is missing. Strenghts and limitations of the current exercize have, then, implications also in other application context where integrated assessment of impacts is needed and were data gap filling and estimation of potential environemntal impacts is needed.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Bioeconomy and sustainability: a potential contribution to the Bioeconomy Observatory

In response to the need for further clarifications concerning the emerging concept of the “bio-economy”, the present study scrutinizes this concept in order to better delineate its analytical scope. It also describes methodologies of potential relevance to evaluation and monitoring of the bio-economy. Although not directly intended to prepare the ground for the future EU Bio-economy Observatory (BISO), the material presented herein may also meaningfully inform the design of monitoring activities which will be undertaken within the BISO framework. The introductory section sheds some light on the bio-economy’s multi-dimensional nature, scope, drivers, challenges and economic potential. In order to clearly distinguish between their specific features and coverage, a comparative description of eco-industries versus the bio-economy is included here. The current EU policy approach to the bio-economy is sketched in the second section of this report. With the purpose of defining the bio-economy’s scope and its internal flows, the third section advances an integrated analytical perspective on the EU bio-economy. This perspective builds upon descriptions provided in the related Commission documents. Its potential use in support of the future Bio-economy Observatory is elaborated, together with several associated methodological aspects. In the fourth section, the datasets, methods and models which could be used for measuring and monitoring the bio-economy’s drivers, development and impact are identified and grouped into five inter-related methodological modules. Further methodological clarification is provided as to i) the need for complementing a sectoral approach to the bio-economy with other perspectives, including the product-chain approach, and ii) the usefulness of inventory data from the European Commission’s life-cycle based resource efficiency indicators. Other relevant data sources are also described. In addition, in light of the limited availability of statistical data on new bio-based products and processes, the need for further disaggregated product-level statistics for bio-based products and company-level research is also discussed. Current standardization and research activities on issues such as harmonization of sustainability certification systems for biomass production, conversion systems and trade, sustainability assessment of technologies, and environmental performance of products are reviewed in the fifth section. Based on the observation that it would be impossible to obtain all required data for bio-economy monitoring from official statistical sources, we propose in the sixth section a general-purpose questionnaire which could serve as a basis for prospective surveys. It is intended to be further refined and adjusted, in collaboration with the sector-relevant European technology platforms and industry associations and other relevant stakeholders, according to the specific profile of each sector, product group or firm type to be included in any future surveys.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Continuous Infusion of Flumazenil in the Management of Benzodiazepines Detoxification

An effective approach in the treatment of benzodiazepine (BZD) overdosing and detoxification is flumazenil (FLU). Studies in chronic users who discontinued BZD in a clinical setting suggested that multiple slow bolus infusions of FLU reduce BZD withdrawal symptoms. The aim of this study was to confirm FLU efficacy for reducing BZD withdrawal syndrome by means of continuous elastomeric infusion, correlated to drugs plasma level and patients\u2019 compliance. Methods: Seven-day FLU 1 mg/day subcutaneously injected through an elastomeric pump and BZDs lormetazepam, clonazepam, and lorazepam were assessed by HPLC-MS/MS in serum of patients before and after 4 and 7 days of FLU continuous infusion treatment. Changes in withdrawal severity were assessed by using the BZD Withdrawal Scale (BWS). Results: Fourteen patients (mean age \ub1 SD 42.5 \ub1 8.0 years, 5 male and 9 female), admitted to the hospital for high-dose BZD detoxification, were enrolled in the study. Serum FLU concentrations significantly decreased from 0.54 \ub1 0.33 ng/ml (mean \ub1 SD) after 4 days of treatment to 0.1 \ub1 0.2 ng/ml at the end of infusion. Lormetazepam concentrations were 502.5 \ub1 610.0 ng/ml at hospital admission, 26.2 \ub1 26.8 ng/ml after 4 days, and 0 at the end of treatment. BWS values decreased during FLU treatment temporal period. FLU was well-tolerated by patients. Conclusions: Elastomeric FLU infusion for BZD detoxification is a feasible administration device to maintain adequate, constant, and tolerated FLU concentrations for reducing BZD withdrawal symptoms

Lightweight Neural Architecture Search for Temporal Convolutional Networks at the Edge

Neural Architecture Search (NAS) is quickly becoming the go-to approach to optimize the structure of Deep Learning (DL) models for complex tasks such as Image Classification or Object Detection. However, many other relevant applications of DL, especially at the edge, are based on time-series processing and require models with unique features, for which NAS is less explored. This work focuses in particular on Temporal Convolutional Networks (TCNs), a convolutional model for time-series processing that has recently emerged as a promising alternative to more complex recurrent architectures. We propose the first NAS tool that explicitly targets the optimization of the most peculiar architectural parameters of TCNs, namely dilation, receptive-field and number of features in each layer. The proposed approach searches for networks that offer good trade-offs between accuracy and number of parameters/operations, enabling an efficient deployment on embedded platforms. We test the proposed NAS on four real-world, edge-relevant tasks, involving audio and bio-signals. Results show that, starting from a single seed network, our method is capable of obtaining a rich collection of Pareto optimal architectures, among which we obtain models with the same accuracy as the seed, and 15.9-152x fewer parameters. Compared to three state-of-the-art NAS tools, ProxylessNAS, MorphNet and FBNetV2, our method explores a larger search space for TCNs (up to 10^12x) and obtains superior solutions, while requiring low GPU memory and search time. We deploy our NAS outputs on two distinct edge devices, the multicore GreenWaves Technology GAP8 IoT processor and the single-core STMicroelectronics STM32H7 microcontroller. With respect to the state-of-the-art hand-tuned models, we reduce latency and energy of up to 5.5x and 3.8x on the two targets respectively, without any accuracy loss.Comment: Accepted for publication at the IEEE Transactions on Computer

Rethinking the Area of Protection “Natural Resources” in Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) in classical life cycle assessment (LCA) aims at analyzing potential impacts of products and services typically on three so-called areas of protection (AoPs): Natural Environment, Human Health, and Natural Resources. This paper proposes an elaboration of the AoP Natural Resources. It starts with analyzing different perspectives on Natural Resources as they are somehow sandwiched in between the Natural Environment (their cradle) and the human-industrial environment (their application). Reflecting different viewpoints, five perspectives are developed with the suggestion to select three in function of classical LCA. They result in three safeguard subjects: the Asset of Natural Resources, their Provisioning Capacity, and their role in Global Functions. Whereas the Provisioning Capacity is fully in function of humans, the global functions go beyond provisioning as they include nonprovisioning functions for humans and regulating and maintenance services for the globe as a whole, following the ecosystem services framework. A fourth and fifth safeguard subject has been identified: recognizing the role Natural Resources for human welfare, either specifically as building block in supply chains of products and services as such, either with or without their functions beyond provisioning. But as these are far broader as they in principle should include characterization of mechanisms within the human industrial society, they are considered as subjects for an integrated sustainability assessment (LCSA: life cycle sustainability assessment), that is, incorporating social, economic and environmental issues