Additive sustainability footprint: Rationale and pilot evaluation of a tool for assessing the sustainable use of PVC additives

© 2019 The Authors. Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers. PVC compounds contain additives necessary for processing and stability, and to modify the plastic's properties. The Europe-wide VinylPlus® voluntary commitment includes a challenge to make progress toward sustainable use of additives. Additive Sustainability Footprint (ASF) was developed to assess sustainable use of additives across the whole societal life cycles of finished PVC articles, taking a risk-based approach rather than simplistic hazard assessment. ASF addresses impacts across six life cycle assessment (LCA) stages established by ISO Standard 14040, using the four System Conditions (sustainability principles) developed by The Natural Step (TNS) covering social as well as environmental factors. For each LCA stage/System Condition combination, seven generically similar questions cover negative impacts (many covered by existing tools and regulations) but also the additive's positive contributions to the sustainability of finished articles. Positive contributions include ethical sourcing, longevity of service life, low maintenance inputs, and recyclability. Answers to questions determine a score, which can be combined across the life cycle and with other additives. Testing on a generic EU PVC window profile supported ASF development and demonstrated applicability and potential benefits including use for sensitivity analysis of alternative additives from different geopolitical regions or from recycled as opposed to virgin sources. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 2019. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Plastics Engineers

You Want Me to Do What? Teach a Studio Class to Seventy Students?

Amidst widespread recognition of the need to enhance the student experience, built environment educators are facing increased pressure on their time and resources for teaching. Studio-based education, in which students apply ideas to a real site, has been seen as key to a well-rounded education in the built environment and planning professions. At the same time, traditional methods require a high degree of tutor time to be spent with students, which is increasingly impractical given resource constraints and increased class sizes. Drawing on research exploring the challenges posed by sustainable development and participatory processes in ecological planning, a core second year studio-based module at The University of Manchester was re-designed so as to meet these challenges. Key elements of the redesign include: use of the hands-on toolkit, Ketso, for creative thinking and synthesis of ideas within and across groups; mapping and layered spatial analysis; simulating aspects of community consultation, without directly contacting the community; effective use of Graduate Teaching Assistant time in giving feedback and assistance to students; and including an individual reflective learning journal as part of the assessment. The innovations trialled in this module enable an interactive studio experience with a high degree of feedback to be created for large classes. Feedback from students has been very positive. The innovations in the module re-design described in this paper jointly won the 2011 Excellence in Teaching Prize of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP)

Sustainability in an arctic context:resilience of the arctic marine environment

Abstract This chapter provides the theoretical basis of the book by outlining the framework of sustainability in an Arctic marine context. The chapter presents the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal 14 on conserving and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources, as well as Arctic States’ commitments to goal 14. The chapter explains the sustainability framework conditions and the concept of resilience, in the context of the Arctic marine environment. The chapter further discusses the concerns of cumulative impacts to the Arctic marine environment from multiple and concurrent natural and human perturbations, and the consequent weakening of the resilience of Arctic marine environment. Finally, the chapter summarizes the status of processes that influence the resilience of Arctic marine ecosystems

Sustainable Business Model Design: A review of tools for developing Responsible Business Models

Sustainable and Responsible Business has become a mainstream concept as organisations seek to adapt to a changing business environment and address social, environmental and economic challenges. However many academics and practitioners suggest that such efforts are prone to inevitable failure as they are peripheral, uneconomic, and incremental. It is common for businesses to innovate at the level of their products and services yet to be truly sustainable and responsible, activities should be linked with the core business of the firm and requires more radical innovation. There is then a need to that innovate at the level of a firm's value creation process, at the level of the business model. Whilst there is much research which present case studies of companies who utilise sustainable business model designs, only recently has attention turned to the development and application of tools and techniques which can assist business leaders in developing models to apply to their own organisations. This chapter discusses sustainable business model design before reviewing a range of toolkits designed to integrate sustainability principles into business strategic planning and assessing their applicability to sustainable and responsible business model design. The aim is to identify and review some of the key tools available for firms to utilise when developing new sustainable business model pathways