Best Environmental Management Practice in the Tourism Sector

The tourism sector has a large potential to reduce its environmental impacts and many measures are already effectively implemented by companies of this sector. This document describes what are the best practices employed by frontrunners in all aspects under their direct control or on which they have a considerable influence. They cover cross-cutting issues, destination management, tour operators and travel agents, water and energy consumption and waste production in accommodation, restaurant and hotel kitchens, and campsites management. The document also contains sector-specific environmental performance indicators and benchmarks of excellence. These can be used by all the actors involved in the tourism sector to monitor their environmental performance and to benchmark it against the performance of frontrunners in each given specific area. Overall, this document aims at supporting all actors in the tourism sector who intend to improve their environmental performance and seek for reliable and proven information on how best to do it.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Carbon footprint of calcium sulfoaluminate clinker production

Peer reviewedPostprin

Sequestering CO2 by Mineralization into Useful Nesquehonite-Based Products

The work described here was supported financially by GORD, the Gulf Organisation for Research and Development, based in Doha, Qatar. It forms part of the “Green Concrete” project at the University of Aberdeen.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Impact of Pay-As-You-Throw Schemes on Municipal Solid Waste Management:The Exemplar Case of the County of Aschaffenburg, Germany

The “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) scheme is an economic instrument for waste management that applies the “polluter pays” principle by charging the inhabitants of municipalities according to the amount of residual, organic, and bulky waste they send for third-party waste management. When combined with well-developed infrastructure to collect the different waste fractions (residual waste, paper and cardboard, plastics, bio waste, green cuttings, and many recyclables) as well as with a good level of citizens’ awareness, its performance has frequently been linked to an increase in the collection rates of recyclables. However, the establishment and operation of PAYT systems can require significant resource inputs from municipalities. In this paper, PAYT is analysed through a case study from the German County of Aschaffenburg, covering nearly 20 years of implementation across 32 municipalities with 173,000 inhabitants. Key performance indicators include temporal trends in the county’s recyclables collection rate, waste treatment fees for residents, and municipal waste management costs, benchmarked against German municipalities not implementing PAYT. We conclude that PAYT could make an important contribution towards material reuse and recycling objectives for the new circular economy

Best Environmental Management Practice in the Retail Trade Sector

Retailers have a large potential to reduce their environmental impacts and many are already implementing effective actions. This document describes what are the best practices implemented by frontrunner retailers in all aspects under their direct control or on which they have a considerable influence. They cover the energy performance of retailers, the sustainability of retail supply chains, transport and logistics, waste and other areas including engaging with consumers. The document also contains sector-specific environmental performance indicators and benchmarks of excellence. These can be used by retailers to monitor their environmental performance and to benchmark it against the performance of frontrunner retailers in each given specific area. Overall, this document aims at supporting all actors in the retail trade sector who intend to improve their environmental performance and seek for reliable and proven information on how best to do it.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Identified best environmental managament practices to improve the energy performance of the retail trade sector in Europe

The retail trade sector has been identified as a target sector for the development of sectoral reference documents on best environmental management practices under the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. This paper focuses on the important energy-related needs in retailers' stores such as for food refrigeration and lighting, as well as heating, ventilation and air conditioning of the building. For the definition of best environmental management practices in the European framework, frontrunner retailers have been identified as those retailers integrating energy minimization and saving measures as standard practice systematically across stores. These best performers also integrate a comprehensive monitoring system in the energy management of every store or building belonging to the company, enabling the rapid identification of energy saving opportunities. An integrative approach is needed to define how best practices should be implemented in combination to optimize energy management within stores: building aspects such as insulation of the building envelope or the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, should be optimized in combination with best options for refrigeration in food retailers. Refrigeration systems are responsible for half of the final energy use in stores and of their carbon footprint. Natural refrigerants, heat recovery from the condensation stage and covering of display cases are measures with high environmental benefits to reduce the impact of refrigeration. Finally, practices for lighting, as optimal lighting strategies, and the integration of renewable energy sources in overall zero energy building concepts can save considerable amounts of fossil energy, reduce the carbon footprint and produce significant cost-savings in the long term.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Environmental improvement of product supply chains: proposed best practice techniques, quantitative indicators and benchmarks of excellence for retailers

Retailers are strategically positioned to leverage environmental improvement over product supply chains through actions targeted at suppliers and consumers. Informed by scientific evidence on environmental hotspots and control points across 14 priority product groups, and a review of 25 major European retailers' actions, this paper proposes a framework to guide and assess retailer best practice in supply chain environmental improvement. Commonly used product standards and improvement measures are classified into "basic" or "good" levels of environmental protection. A hierarchy of eight Best Environmental Management Practices (BEMPs) is proposed to systematically identify and improve the most environmentally damaging supply chains across retail assortments. Widespread third party environmental certification is the most transparent and verifiable mechanism of improvement but may not be appropriate for some supply chains. The enforcement of retailer-defined environmental requirements, and supplier improvement programmes based on performance benchmarking and dissemination of better management practices, are alternative BEMPs that may be used in combination with third party certification. Facilitating consumer selection of frontrunner ecological products is a lower priority BEMP owing to the well documented limitations of this approach. From available data, the highest current or credible-target sales shares of products improved according to the highest priority BEMP and environmental protection level were used to derive "benchmarks of excellence" for each of the 14 product groups. The assessment framework is demonstrated through application to three retailers.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Best Practice Application of LCM by Retailers to Improve Product Supply Chain Sustainability

Retailers are strategically positioned to leverage environmental improvement across product supply chains. This paper condenses retailer best practice into a proposed framework for systematic supply chain improvement based on eight Best Environmental Management Practice (BEMP) techniques. Third party product environmental certification is the preferred mechanism of improvement owing to transparency and credibility advantages, followed by use of retailer-defined environmental requirements, and implementation of supplier improvement programmes based on benchmarking and dissemination of better management practices. A BEMP to encourage consumption of front-runner ecological products is defined based on use of front-runner ecolabels. The performance of front-runner retailers is used to derive benchmarks of excellence for each technique, primarily expressed as sales shares of improved products within priority product groups. Lifecycle management underpins best practice.JRC.J.6-Sustainable production and consumptio

Environmental improvement of product supply chains: a review of European retailers' performance

Retailers are beginning to accept responsibility for the environmental impacts of their product supply chains. This paper: (i) summarises the challenges faced by retailers to drive environmental improvement across private-label food, textile, furniture and household chemical products; (ii) provides a review of 25 major European retailers' best practice actions. Retailers drive environmental improvement of supply chains using third party environmental certification (e.g. Forest Stewardship Council), product performance labelling, environmental requirements for suppliers, supplier improvement programmes. Proactive retailers go beyond product labeling to use widespread product certification and extensive collaboration with suppliers to drive systematic environmental improvement across product groups associated with high environmental burdens. Quantitative data on sales shares of improved products are patchy but indicate large variations in performance across retailers. Specialist retailers and smaller cooperative retailers tend to be frontrunners in supply chain improvement, whilst very large and price-led grocery retailers tend to be laggards. These differences partly reflect logistical and market positioning difficulties for the latter types of retailer to shift towards sustainable sourcing, but also different perspectives on responsibility. Frontrunner retailers accept a high degree of responsibility for supply chain sustainability compared with laggard retailers who tend to place the onus on consumers to drive environmental improvement across supply chains.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio