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The use of renewable energies and energy efficiency improvement systems is sometimes constrained by the investment needed for devices and its installation. However, governments have developed policies to reduce the initial costs to end-users. The increasing number of renewable energy systems can help in the reduction of the global dependency on fossil energy sources, and simultaneously can help to ensure that the carbon dioxide emissions quota is not exceeded, aiming a reduction of the green-house effect. In this sense, this paper presents two best practise case studies. One of them is in the industrial context and other in the residence context, concerning the use of renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvement strategies. The best practice case study in industrial context involves the renewable energy systems design in an automotive sector factory, making use of solar thermal panels and energy efficiency measures. The non-industrial case study covers the analysis of the energy efficiency improvement using a thermal energy recovery system from hot water used in daily baths or showers. The direct benefits (savings) and indirect (impacts) are analysed for both case studies. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

UID/CPO/04058/2019 UIDB/00667/2020 ; Digitizing public services is, at the moment, an essential necessity for numerous governments around the world. An improved government through digitization will not only have a growing effect on businesses, but it will also be able to intensify citizen engagement and push for economic growth. During the last 10 years more countries have progressively begun to provide digital services to their citizens. Therefore, in order to address this development, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the digital government literature in order to describe the aspects of digital transformation in the public sector and how it is related to knowledge management. In this study the methodology is quantitative and it is based on a review and a survey made with the main goal being the estimation from several collected data on how the digital transformation process in the Public Administration takes place and what its relationship is with knowledge management. The review study is based on articles found on Scopus database and it addresses the role that digital government research plays in the theory and practice of knowledge management. In the survey study, 54 employees working for the services of the two governmental areas of the Portuguese Ministry of the Environment were surveyed. The results show that the research on the theme is still at an exploratory stage due to the lack of studies relating digital government to knowledge management effectiveness in the public sector. The results also show that the success of digital government seems to be related with the quality of the organizations' knowledge management, complementing each other for significant improvements in the public sector. In terms of originality, this study aims to contribute and stimulate data-driven discussions regarding the impacts of the digital transformation in the public sector and their relation with the implementation of knowledge management practices. The results offer insights into future research needs. ; publishersversion ; published

UID/EMS/00667/2019 UID/CPO/04058/2019 ; Industrial symbiosis, which is characterised mainly by the reuse of waste from one company as raw material by another, has been applied worldwide with recognised environmental, economic, and social benefits. However, the potential for industrial symbiosis is not exhausted in existing cases, and there is still a wide range of opportunities for its application. Through a comprehensive literature review, this article aims to compile and analyse studies that focus on potential industrial symbiosis in real contexts, to highlight the margin of optimisation that is not being used. The cases reported in the publications identified here were characterised and analysed according to geographic location, type of economic activity, waste/by-products, main benefits, and the methods employed in the studies. From this analysis, we conclude that there is great potential for applications involving industrial symbiosis throughout the world, and especially in Europe, corresponding to 53% of the total cases analysed. Manufacturing stood out as the sector with the highest potential for establishing symbiosis relationships, and the most common types of waste streams in potential networks were organic, plastic and rubber, wood, and metallic materials. This article also discusses the main drivers and barriers to realising the potential of industrial symbiosis. The diversity of industries, geographical proximity, facilitating entities and legislation, plans, and policies are shown to be the main drivers. ; publishersversion ; published