Beyond energy efficiency in evaluating sustainable development in planning and the built environment

The EU has set the policy target of reducing energy use by 20% by the year 2020. Therefore, a substantial consumption decrease is needed in the built environment sector. Despite the great energy efficiency improvements in households, recent energy consumption data analyses show that these targets will unlikely be reached. The general aim of this study is to point out the need to define new indicators and evaluation approaches in urban planning and the built environment which are based on the concept of ‘energy subsidiarity', focusing on local renewable resources rather than on current approaches based on energy efficiency. This concept correlates energy consumption with the energy supply from local renewable resources and is here proposed as the new urban planning evaluation approach toward a sustainable built environment. In the paper, the ‘Jevons Paradox' concept and the ‘energy rebound effect' phenomenon are used to demonstrate how current approaches based on energy efficiency, alone, cannot lead to a remarkable reduction of energy consumption. This is also supported by data on European energy consumption and European energy efficiency in the built environment. Finally, a number of well-known European ecological districts (‘eco-districts') are analysed in terms of sustainable energy strategy as well as energy efficiency and energy balance. This study shows that there is a contradiction between the purpose of some of the eco-districts to be low consumption (or low impacts), and the district renewable energy balance. Only a few of the analysed eco-districts are able to cover energy needs by using renewable energy obtained in the surrounding area. In most of the cases, the focus of the districts' activities is on energy efficiency. According to the ‘Jevons Paradox' and ‘energy rebound effect' paradigm, energy efficiency alone will unlikely lead to an effective reduction in resources' consumption. These results point out the need for a radical shift toward the development of new approaches in the assessment and management of the built environment for sustainabilit

Implications of Oil Prices Shocks for the Major Emerging Economies: A Comparative Analysis of BRICS

This study analyses the implications of oil prices shocks for the BRICS economies. We employed a time-varying structural vector autoregressive (TV-SVA) framework in which the sources of time variation are the coefficients and variance-covariance matrix of the innovations. The quarter frequency data for the period of 1987QII – 2017QII is used for the empirical analysis. The key findings suggest that there are substantial differences and asymmetries in the response of these economies to oil shocks. These differences were profound between, and even within, oil exporters and importers. It shows that between major oil exporters i.e. Russia and Brazil the former’s economy is rather more intensively influenced by oil prices shocks. Between the two largest net oil importers i.e. India and China, comparatively, the Indian economy seems to be rather more vulnerable to oil prices shocks in terms of their adverse effects on GDP, inflation and balance of trade. The dependence of economies on oil and an increasing level of consumption continue to pose policy challenges for prices and economic stability. The analysis on South Africa also shows negative impacts of oil prices shocks, however, the effects are comparatively more time-variant than other BRICS members. While these asymmetries indicate significant differences in the structure of these economies they also indicate venues of cooperation and stronger trading relationships to overcome the adverse shocks and mutual development

Globalisation, economic growth and energy consumption in the BRICS region: the importance of asymmetries.

This paper examines the asymmetric impact of globalisation and economic growth on energy consumption in BRICS countries, applying the NARDL bounds approach to explore the presence of asymmetric cointegration across variables. The empirical results reveals that energy consumption is positively and negatively affected by the positive and negative globalisation shocks, respectively. A positive shock in economic growth promotes energy consumption, while a negative shock reduces energy consumption.N/

Competing coalitions: The politics of renewable energy and fossil fuels in Mexico, South Africa and Thailand

This paper analyses why middle-income countries incentivize renewable energy despite inexpensive domestic fossil fuel resources and lack of international support. We examine the politics of renewable energy programs in Mexico, South Africa and Thailand. All three countries hold abundant local fossil fuel and renewable energy resources. We argue that renewable energy programs become implementable policy options in fossil fuel resource-rich middle-income countries when coalitions of powerful political actors support them. This study presents an analysis of the domestic coalitions in support of and those in opposition to renewable energy policies from a discourse network perspective. Discourse networks reflect actors and the arguments they share to advance or hamper the policy process. The analysis draws on a data set of 560 coded statements in support or opposition of renewable energy from media articles, policy documents and interviews. Findings show similar structures of competing coalitions in all three countries, with the discourse in all three countries revealing strong linkages between environmental and economic considerations

Globalisation, economic growth and energy consumption in the BRICS region: the importance of asymmetries.

This paper examines the asymmetric impact of globalisation and economic growth on energy consumption in BRICS countries, applying the NARDL bounds approach to explore the presence of asymmetric cointegration across variables. The empirical results reveals that energy consumption is positively and negatively affected by the positive and negative globalisation shocks, respectively. A positive shock in economic growth promotes energy consumption, while a negative shock reduces energy consumption.N/

Synergies in the co-location of food manufacturing and biorefining

In food and drink manufacturing, costs must be relentlessly minimised because margins for most products are low. At the same time, the business case for biorefining of lignocellulosic feedstocks has been positive in only a small number of cases. Since the two industries use similar feedstocks and processing equipment, there should be potential for significant sharing of resources for economic and environmental gain, particularly with regard to energy, if they were co-located. This paper reviews the nature, issues and opportunities for this sort of resource sharing between food industries and biorefineries. It then illustrates the opportunity by modelling a food product (coffee bean roasting) co-located with lignocellulosic biorefining of its downstream by-product (spent coffee grounds) where biofuels are not the target output, identifying and evaluating the resource efficiencies and economics involved. The analysis shows that there can be significant benefits, but that the exact nature of the food and biorefinery products and the biorefining pathways are the key dependencies. Further research should produce a comprehensive league table of co-location opportunities for the benefit of both industries to enhance both their economics and their sustainability metrics through well-targeted synergies