Suchergebnisse

Belgium has passed the 45% cap, mandated by the European Union, by achieving a collection rate of over 50% in 2012. Having such a collection rate, Belgium is amongst the frontrunners in battery recycling in Europe. However, despite the efforts, about 40% of used batteries are still not properly collected. Particularly troublesome according to the national producer responsibility organization are the battery packs. In this paper we therefore investigate the drivers and barriers to battery pack drop-off intention perceived by Belgian households using an integrative model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. An R2 of 0.64 was found, which according to the literature on partial least squares structural equation modelling signals a moderate yet very close to substantial coefficient of determination. We find that on average perceived behavioural control and moral norms have the largest influence on the intention to drop-off used battery packs as quickly as possible. Based on the insights gained, recommendations are made for both behaviour change interventions and future research. ; The corresponding author wishes to thank the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) for granting him a postdoctoral grant [grant number: 12G5415N]. Furthermore, the second author wishes to express her gratitude for funding her to the SUMMA policy platform. Furthermore, we wish to express our sincere gratitude to Peter Coonen and Nele Peeters of Bebat for their time and willingness to share information with us.

In this article we identified the factors which according to international experts will have substantial ef-fects on the general future developments and commercialization of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. A two round online Delphi study with 15 international experts in the field of CCU enabled us to explore the main items within five impact categories, being: (1) benefits, (2) risks, (3) future devel-opments, (4) demand and (5) supply constraints. Based on the results of the Delphi study we subsequently constructed four future scenarios which represent how the CCU sector could look like in 10 years using a local scenario development workshop with 9 experts from within Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands. We used a deductive, explorative scenario development method, which resulted in a 2x2 scenario matrix. The results of the Delphi study, all four scenarios and their implications for existing and future industry and governmental organizations are presented. Our insights are valuable and timely for facilitating the pro-cess of scenario planning for CCU development activities. Finally, although we worked with a regionally specific case study, the same method could be implemented in other regions, using the general findings from our Delphi study as a starting point for the scenario development. ; BOF, INTERRGEG, and FWO

Despite great advances, experiments concerning the response of ecosystems to climate change still face considerable challenges, including the high complexity of climate change in terms of environmental variables, constraints in the number and amplitude of climate treatment levels, and the limited scope of responses and interactions covered. Drawing on the expertise of researchers from a variety of disciplines, this Perspective outlines how computational and technological advances can help in designing experiments that can contribute to overcoming these challenges, and also outlines a first application of such an experimental design. ; We thank the Flemish government (through Hercules Stichting big infrastructure and the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders project G0H4117N) and LSM (Limburg Sterk Merk, project 271) for providing funds to build the UHasselt Ecotron; Hasselt University for both funding and policy support (project BOF12BR01 and Methusalem project 08M03VGRJ); and the ecotron research committee for comments on the experimental design. We also thank Regional Landscape Kempen and Maasland for its collaboration and support. N.W., S.L., A.N. and I.V. are funded by Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO).