Enhancing engagement with community sector organisations working in sustainable waste management: a case study

Voluntary and community sector organisations are increasingly being viewed as key agents of change in the shifts towards the concepts of resource efficiency and circular economy, at the community level. Using a meta-analysis and questionnaire surveys across three towns in the East Midlands of England, namely Northampton, Milton Keynes and Luton, this study aimed to understand public engagement with these organisations. The findings suggest that these organisations play a significant and wide-spread role, not only with regard to sustainable environmental management, but also a social role in community development and regeneration. The surveys indicated that there were generally high levels of awareness of the organisations and strong engagement with them. Clothes were the items most donated. Key reasons for engagement included the financial value offered and the perception that it helped the environment. However, potential limitations in future public engagement were also determined and recommendations for addressing these suggested

Empirical test of an agricultural landscape model: the importance of farmer preference for risk aversion and crop complexity

Developing models to predict the effects of social and economic change on agricultural landscapes is an important challenge. Model development often involves making decisions about which aspects of the system require detailed description and which are reasonably insensitive to the assumptions. However, important components of the system are often left out because parameter estimates are unavailable. In particular, measurements of the relative influence of different objectives, such as risk, environmental management, on farmer decision making, have proven difficult to quantify. We describe a model that can make predictions of land use on the basis of profit alone or with the inclusion of explicit additional objectives. Importantly, our model is specifically designed to use parameter estimates for additional objectives obtained via farmer interviews. By statistically comparing the outputs of this model with a large farm-level land-use data set, we show that cropping patterns in the United Kingdom contain a significant contribution from farmer’s preference for objectives other than profit. In particular, we found that risk aversion had an effect on the accuracy of model predictions, whereas preference for a particular number of crops grown was less important. While nonprofit objectives have frequently been identified as factors in farmers’ decision making, our results take this analysis further by demonstrating the relationship between these preferences and actual cropping patterns

Urban and river flooding: Comparison of flood risk management approaches in the UK and China and an assessment of future knowledge needs

Increased urbanisation, economic growth, and long-term climate variability have made both the UK and China more susceptible to urban and river flooding, putting people and property at increased risk. This paper presents a review of the current flooding challenges that are affecting the UK and China and the actions that each country is undertaking to tackle these problems. Particular emphases in this paper are laid on (1) learning from previous flooding events in the UK and China, and (2) which management methodologies are commonly used to reduce flood risk. The paper concludes with a strategic research plan suggested by the authors, together with proposed ways to overcome identified knowledge gaps in flood management. Recommendations briefly comprise the engagement of all stakeholders to ensure a proactive approach to land use planning, early warning systems, and water-sensitive urban design or redesign through more effective policy, multi-level flood models, and data driven models of water quantity and quality

Antimicrobial resistance: a biopsychosocial problem requiring innovative interdisciplinary and imaginative interventions

To date, antimicrobials have been understood through largely biomedical perspectives. There has been a tendency to focus upon the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals within individual bodies. However, the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance demands we reconsider how we think about antimicrobials and their effects. Rather than understanding them primarily within bodies, it is increasingly important to consider their effects between bodies, between species and across environments. We need to reduce the drivers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at a global level, focusing on the connections between prescribing in one country and resistance mechanisms in another. We need to engage with the ways antimicrobials within the food chain will impact upon human healthcare. Moreover, we need to realise what happens within the ward will impact upon the environment (through waste water). In the future, imaginative interventions will be required that must make the most of biomedicine but draw equally across a wider range of disciplines (e.g. engineering, ecologists) and include an ever-increasing set of professionals (e.g. nurses, veterinarians and farmers). Such collective action demands a shift to working in new interdisciplinary, inter-professional ways. Mutual respect and understanding is required to enable each perspective to be combined to yield synergistic effects

Tidal energy machines: A comparative life cycle assessment

Marine energy in the UK is currently undergoing a period of exponential growth in terms of development and implementation. The current installed tidal energy capacity of around 4MW is expected to rise to provide up to 20% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2050 [5]. With this in mind, there is a huge range of energy devices, all seemingly promoted by their developers as the best method of extracting power from the ocean. Embodied energy is an important aspect of any power producing device or process, and is used to describe the amount of energy required to begin and maintain the process of energy generation. Until a device or process has generated this amount of energy it cannot be said to be a net contributor of energy. This work used Life Cycle Assessment to study four tidal energy devices, representing a cross section of the existing designs, and compares their embodied energy and carbon dioxide emissions. In order to ensure a fair comparison, a hypothetical installation site is used, with conditions typical of those found at potential array installation sites in the UK. The designs studied include a multi-blade turbine, two three blade horizontal axis turbine machines, and an Archimedes’ screw device. These machines were chosen to represent a cross section of device, foundation, installation and operation designs. They have all been developed to prototype stage, meaning that actual manufacturing data is available. Embodied energy is considered over the entire lifetime of each device, beginning with extraction of raw materials. Energy use from fabrication, transport, installation, lifetime maintenance, end-of-life decommissioning and recycling are all calculated, and compared to the energy generation from each device at the test site. Finally, the embodied energy; CO2 intensity; and energy payback periods are compared to those of conventional power generating systems as well as other renewable energy sources. A range of data sources are used. Embodied energy of steel has been provided by the World Steel Association. Of the four devices studied, all were found to achieve CO2 and energy payback within the first 12 years of their lifetime, and exhibited CO2 intensity of between 18 and 35 gCO2/kWh. This compares favourably to many current energy sources, and is likely to fall as technology improves, array size increases and industry experience progresses