Sustainability assessment of entire forest value chains : integrating stakeholder perspectives and indicators in decision support tools

The optimization of value chains is an important process to promote sustainable development, since value chains are closely linked to the satisfaction of human needs and combine different driving forces for environmental change. This article presents a methodological approach for the participatory development of value-chain wide sustainability indicator sets and their integration into a decision support tool in the specific case study of the chain "construction and refurbishment with wood". There are numerous indicator sets for sustainable development of forests and sustainable forestry available at different levels, ranging from local, regional and national to global scale assessments. Some efforts were also made to integrate later production stages of forest value chains (such as wood processing) in the assessment scope (e.g. for chain-of-custody certification). However, no indicator set has so far been available covering environmental, social and economic aspects for the entire value chain of building with timber. This gap was closed through applied sustainability research in the project "Holzwende 2020: Sustainable future markets for wood in the building sector"

A Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry: Using Design Methods to Address the Challenge of Whole System Sustainability in a Unique Industrial Sector

The data centre industry (DCI) has grown from zero in the 1980s, to enabling 60% of the global population to be connected in 2021 via 7.2 million data centres. The DCI is based on a linear economy and there is an urgent need to transform to a Circular Economy to establish a secure supply chain and ensure an economically stable and uninterrupted service, which is particularly difficult in an industry that is comprised of ten insular subsectors. This paper describes the CEDaCI project which was established to address the challenge in this unique sector; this ground-breaking project employs a whole systems approach, Design Thinking and the Double Diamond methods, which rely on people/stakeholder engagement throughout. The paper reviews and assesses the impact of these methods and project to date, using quantitative and qualitative research, via an online sectoral survey and interviews with nine data centre and IT industry experts. The results show that the project is creating positive impact and initiating change across the sector and that the innovative output (designs, business models, and a digital tool) will ensure that sectoral transformation continues; the project methods and structure will also serve as an exemplar for other sectors

Design Thinking for Sustainability and the significance of Stakeholder Engagement in the development of the Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry

The World Wide Web developed during the 1980s and was formally introduced in 1989; since then it has facilitated rapid communication between people and objects and revolutionised business models and services across all major sectors. Such is the popularity of the technology that 59% of the global population is now ‘connected’ (1). Digital communication is facilitated by human-centred technology (e.g. laptop and desktop computers and mobile phones) and data centres (DCs) which house digital data processing, networking and storage (ICT) equipment. The sector has already expanded rapidly to manage the increasing volume of data and it is predicted to grow 500% globally by 2030 (2). DC operation is energy intensive and the sector currently consumes 1% global electricity (3). It is also resource intensive and although the mass of materials utilised across the sector is unknown, it is estimated to be millions of tonnes. Sectoral focus has always been provision of 100% uninterrupted service and performance and although economic and environmental considerations have encouraged operational energy efficiency, the impact of design and manufacture have been largely overlooked and consequently, most DC equipment is designed for a linear economy. This is becoming an increasing problem because the first life of much DC equipment is only 1 to 5 years; to date circular practices such as refurbishment, reuse and recycling at end-of-life are limited by human and technical factors and consequently the sector contributes to the growing global electrical and electronic equipment waste stream. The CEDaCI project was initiated to kick-start a sectoral Circular Economy ahead of the predicted growth, in order to simultaneously increase resource efficiency and reclamation of Critical Raw Materials and reduce waste. The DC sector is comprised of highly specialised sub-sectors; however it is silo-based and knowledge exchange between sub-sectors is rare. Conversely, a Circular Economy is holistic by default and therefore expertise from all constituent sub-sectors is essential to enable development. In order to overcome these and other challenges the CEDaCI project employs design-based methodologies, namely the four-stage Double Diamond design process model (introduced by the Design Council in 2004) and Design Thinking (developed and popularised by IDEO from 2009). The importance of stakeholder engagement to the development of the Circular Economy as a whole cannot be under-estimated and the presentation shares examples of tools and practice from the CEDaCI project to illustrate the value of design-process-based strategies to support development of the CE in other sectors. 1. Simon Kemp, Hootesuite Digital 2020 Global Overview Report, 30 January 2020, https://wearesocial.com/digital-2020 https://wearesocial.com/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media 2. Infiniti Research Ltd., August 2015, High Power Consumption is Driving the Need for Greener Data Centres. Available http://www.technavio.com/blog/high-power-consumpton-is-driving-the-need-for-greener-data-centers. [14 August 2018] 3. Masanet, E., Shehabi, A., Lei, N., Smith, S., and Koomey, J., Recalibrating global data center energy-use estimates Science 28 Feb 2020: Vol. 367, Issue 6481, pp. 984-986 DOI: 10.1126/science.aba3758 4. Brown, T., Change by Design: How Design Thinking Creates New Alternatives for Business and Society (2009) Harper Collins, New York 5. Design Council, Double Diamond Design Methodology (2004) and Evolved Double Diamond Design Methodology (2019) https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/double-diamond-universally-accepted-depiction-design-process https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/what-framework-innovation-design-councils-evolved-double-diamon

Does socio-economic status influence the effect of multimorbidity on the frequent use of ambulatory care services in a universal healthcare system? A population-based cohort study

Background: Frequent healthcare users place a significant burden on health systems. Factors such as multimorbidity and low socioeconomic status have been associated with high use of ambulatory care services (emergency rooms, general practitioners and specialist physicians). However, the combined effect of these two factors remains poorly understood. Our goal was to determine whether the risk of being a frequent user of ambulatory care is influenced by an interaction between multimorbidity and socioeconomic status, in an entire population covered by a universal health system. Methods: Using a linkage of administrative databases, we conducted a population-based cohort study of all adults in Quebec, Canada. Multimorbidity (defined as the number of different diseases) was assessed over a two-year period from April 1st 2012 to March 31st 2014 and socioeconomic status was estimated using a validated material deprivation index. Frequents users for a particular category of ambulatory services had a number of visits among the highest 5% in the total population during the 2014–15 fiscal year. We used ajusted logistic regressions to model the association between frequent use of health services and multimorbidity, depending on socioeconomic status. Results: Frequent users (5.1% of the population) were responsible for 25.2% of all ambulatory care visits. The lower the socioeconomic status, the higher the burden of chronic diseases, and the more frequent the visits to emergency departments and general practitioners. Socioeconomic status modified the association between multimorbidity and frequent visits to specialist physicians: those with low socioeconomic status visited specialist physicians less often. The difference in adjusted proportions of frequent use between the most deprived and the least deprived individuals varied from 0.1% for those without any chronic disease to 5.1% for those with four or more chronic diseases. No such differences in proportions were observed for frequent visits to an emergency room or frequent visits to a general practitioner

A circular economy for the data centre industry : using design methods to address the challenge of whole system sustainability in a unique industrial sector

The data centre industry (DCI) has grown from zero in the 1980s, to enabling 60% of the global population to be connected in 2021 via 7.2 million data centres. The DCI is based on a linear economy and there is an urgent need to transform to a Circular Economy to establish a secure supply chain and ensure an economically stable and uninterrupted service, which is particularly difficult in an industry that is comprised of ten insular subsectors. This paper describes the CEDaCI project which was established to address the challenge in this unique sector; this ground-breaking project employs a whole systems approach, Design Thinking and the Double Diamond methods, which rely on people/stakeholder engagement throughout. The paper reviews and assesses the impact of these methods and project to date, using quantitative and qualitative research, via an online sectoral survey and interviews with nine data centre and IT industry experts. The results show that the project is creating positive impact and initiating change across the sector and that the innovative output (designs, business models, and a digital tool) will ensure that sectoral transformation continues; the project methods and structure will also serve as an exemplar for other sectors

Creating sustainable meals supported by the NAHGAST online tool : approach and effects on GHG emissions and use of natural resources

Every diet has an impact on an individual’s health status, the environment, as well as on social concerns. A growing number of meals are consumed in the out-of-home catering sector, in which a systematic sustainability assessment is not part of common practice. In order to close this gap, an instrument was developed as part of the NAHGAST project. After more than one year of using the NAHGAST online tool, it needs to be assessed what positive environmental influences can be realized by using the tool. For this reason, this article deals with the question of whether an online tool can enable stakeholders from the out-of-home consumption sector to revise their meals with regard to aspects of a sustainable diet. In addition, it will be answered how precise recipe revisions of the most popular lunchtime meals influence the material footprint as well as the carbon footprint. In conclusion, an online tool can illustrate individual sustainability paths for stakeholders in the out-of-home consumption sector and enables an independent recipe revision for already existing meals. The results show that even slight changes in recipes could lead to savings of up to a third in carbon footprint as well as in material footprint. In relation to the out-of-home consumption sector, this results in the potential for substantial multiplication effects that will pave the way for the dissemination of sustainable nutrition

Nachhaltige Zukunftsmärkte am Beispiel Holz

Nachhaltige Zukunftsmärkte sollten zum Vorteil von Unternehmen, Gesellschaft und Umwelt schneller erschlossen werden. Auf Nachhaltigkeit ausgerichtete Methoden zur Markterschließung können für das Bauen und Sanieren mit Holz eine zentrale Rolle spielen