Energy Saving in Transition Economies: Environmental Activities in Manufacturing Firms

This study seeks to explore the relationship between active environmental activities and energy saving in firms operating in a set of Transition countries. For this purpose, we exploit the enterprise survey data collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group (WBG). Employing a probit regression model, the main finding shows a positive relation between environmental practices and energy saving, controlling several firms’ characteristics such as size, affiliation, credit line, ownership status and age. The results are also confirmed when we perform the robustness check. Interestingly, medium and small firms appear to save more energy than large ones

The Environmental Performance of Glass and PET Mineral Water Bottles in Italy

Worldwide the environmental weight of the packaging has overtaken the threshold, both due to the waste and the emissions generated. This issue stimulated the European Union (EU) to provide for a stringent regulation to tackle this burden. Particularly, the consumption of mineral water packed is very significant, as regards the use of plastic bottles, especially in the small size, which stresses the need for a boosted management of packaging by the governments, industries, and consumers (Botto et al. in Environ Sci Policy 14:388–395, 2011). Over the years, the EU has shown increasing consumption of mineral water-packed, and Italy, with 222 L per capita is the first European consumer country and the third worldwide. This chapter investigated the glass and Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) packaging to analyse their environmental impact and undertake a comparison among them (Vellini and Savioli in Energy 34:2137–2143, 2009). Particularly the research provides a twofold analysis. Firstly, it assesses the impacts of 1 kg of hollow glass through the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (Schmitz et al. in Energy Policy 39:142–155, 2011;Vinci et al. in Trends in beverage packaging 16:105–133, 2019;) and makes a comparison with a 1 kg of PET ( Marathe KV, Chavan K, Nakhate P (2017) Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Bottles—Indian Perspective. http://www.in-beverage.org/lca-pet/ICT Final Report on% 20LCA of PET Bottles_for P ACE_01_01_2018.pdf. Accessed 2 March 2021). Secondly, the Greenhouse gas emissions of still water bottled based on the current Italian consumption is evaluated using the Carbon Footprint methodology, to highlight which among the glass and PET mineral water bottles have the better environmental performance (Kouloumpis et al. in Sci Total Environ 727, 2020). Finally, according to the European 2030–2050 climate and energy framework, an improved eco-friendly performance scenario based on post-consumption options for both materials, was investigated regarding the Italian mineral water bottles consumption

Sustainable options for paints through a life cycle assessment method

In recent years, the paint industry has addressed the development of products, technologies, and packaging to build conditions to improve environmental performance in accordance to the circular economy goals. For these reasons, a life cycle thinking approach allows for the understanding of the most important steps for pursuing closed-loop strategies and related goals. This paper provides a twofold analysis: first, a comparison of two paints, characterised by different chemical compositions, has been carried out according to the current production cycle (baseline scenario); second, for each product, two additional and alternative scenarios have been hypothesised. These scenarios focus on the use of waste paint blended with virgin paint, and the use of a high rate of recycled inputs of packaging materials. The aim is first to assess the environmental impacts of the life cycles of the paints and identify feasible measures to reduce these impacts. The second aim is to choose the better option between scenarios, according to a circular economy approach. The results highlight that the production and supply of raw materials have the greatest impact on both paints, for all impact indicators. Consequently the use of waste paint reduces environmental impacts by roughly 48%, on average. Furthermore, the packaging options allow us to determine that the use of 50% recycled polypropylene had a better environmental performance than 100% recycled aluminium, although the contribution of packaging is negligible in the total impact indicators. Confirming the results, the sensitivity analysis on the waste paint use has been undertaken

Clustering of Customer Attitudes Towards Eco-Innovations - Evidence from Bulgaria

The research objective of the paper is twofold: firstly, to investigate how the adoption of innovative practices in the wine industry from the environmental, social, and conventional points of view influences consumers' choices in Bulgaria, and secondly, what is the connection between eco-innovation and consumer attitudes. Based on the results from the previous research study, we calculate index values for different types of innovations and we use the k-means clustering procedure to explore consumers' attitudes towards eco-innovations in Bulgaria by determining an optimal number of clusters. Bulgarian young consumers (under 26 age) are environmentally friendly and orientated towards eco-innovations in the wine industry with special emphasis on recycling (water, energy) and replacing materials. Our findings confirm other recent studies that preferences for eco-innovations in the wine industry are correlated with a willingness to pay more for organic wines. In the present paper, eco-innovation in the wine industry is studied from the demand side, which is traditionally neglected. To our knowledge, clustering analysis for customer attitudes regarding eco-innovations in the wine industry is applied for the first time in Bulgaria. The results of the study can be helpful for wine managers, technical specialists, and wine-producing companies to prioritize their green efforts for the youth generation in Bulgaria

Interrelation between eco-innovation and intra-industry trade- a proposal for a proxy indicator of sustainability in the EU countries

The “innovation–trade” interrelation has been a subject of research for decades. Nowadays, in the context of the growing importance of sustainable development, the role of eco-innovation is essential for promoting a rapid economic growth in each country. In this sense, eco-innovation influences the level of intra-industry trade stimulating international trade to adopt environmentally-friendly technologies. In general, the evaluation of eco-innovation in EU countries is done through indicators of their degree of performance and their impact on the welfare of nations. Using Eurostat data and WITS (World Integrated Trade Solution) database for the period 2010–2018, the authors of this paper give empirical evidence of a linkage between the two indicators. The Grubel–Lloyd index is selected as an appropriate tool to show that socio-economic performance has a significant weight in eco-innovation scoreboard measurement. The results confirm that intra-industry trade of each EU country is closely related to the level of its eco-innovation index. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to test for such a type of interrelation and to show that by verifying the usefulness of eco-innovation performance in EU countries through an intra-industry trade indicator (IIT) such as the Grubel–Lloyd index

New realities in management

In 2015 the European Union proposed the Circular Economy Package with the goal both to minimize management cost of prodcution process and to reduce environmental impact on the territory. The CE establishes a programme of action covering the whole product cycle – from production and consumption to waste management and the market for secondary raw materials. EU actions will contribute to closing the loop of the product lifecycles – through the improved recycling and re-use. Indication set by the Commission include improved recycling of the municipal and packaging wastes, reduction and ban on landfilling, economic incentives for producers put in the market sustainable products and promotion of re-use combined with industrial symbiosis – turning one’s industry waste to another’s raw material. The goal of this paper is to study how the production of syngas, which is a synthetic gas obtained through gasification process that has some heating value, can be a crucial link for closing the loop in the waste management. In details will be explored whether the conversion of waste, in particular municipal waste, into energy and valuable products will represents a possible solution to flank to the recycling process in order to fulfill sustainability from economic and environmental point of view ensuring a more efficient use of natural resources