Suchergebnisse

This data article aims at providing a data description about the manuscript entitled "The post COVID-19 green recovery in practice: assessing the profitability of a policy proposal on residential photovoltaic plants". The definition of a business plan is a complex decision because the choice of the input data significantly influences the economic assessment of a project. An Excel file is used to construct an economic model based on the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) methodology using Net Present Value (NPV) as an indicator. The choice of input data is defined by literature analysis, and policy proposals are identified by the Revival Decree adopted by Italian Government to contrast human and economic shock effected by COVID-19. The aggregation of these data enabled us to obtain both baseline and alternative scenarios to define if the realization of a residential photovoltaic (PV) plant is economically feasible. Similar data can be obtained for other countries according to the policy actions adopted, and this work can be easily replicated in different geographical contexts and considering varying categories of stakeholders (e.g., consumers, which are called upon to implement a green transition).

The European Commission supports the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into value added products and bio-energy. A new bioeconomy strategy aimed at promoting a sustainable Europe was launched in October 2018. However, little work has been done to monitor, model and appraise the impacts and developmental trajectories of bioeconomy sectors. To gauge the current sustainability performance of individual European countries, the present study proposes a new indicator – the "socio-economic indicator for the bioeconomy" (SEIB) – to measure the socio-economic performance of bioeconomy sectors. Drawing on Eurostat data and the analytic hierarchy process, multi-criteria decision analysis is employed with the aim of providing a direct comparison between member states (MSs). However, bioeconomy involves a large number of sectors and, therefore, it is useful to propose two versions of this indicator in order also to single out the impact of most innovative sectors: the first version considers all bio-based sectors ("SEIB for overall sectors") while the second version excludes all primary sectors ("SEIB for manufacturing and bio-energy sectors"). The results identify three groups of MSs (virtuous, in-between and laggard) with reference to the European average. Ireland occupies the first position in the ranking, and only three other MSs (Denmark, Portugal and Austria) qualify as "virtuous" countries in both rankings.

The monitoring report on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a global context involves a large number of actors as it represents probably the biggest change that our society is implementing. Actions at all levels, from local, regional and national to the aggregation of multiple countries (e.g. EU 27) are needed to achieve a sustainable future. This work focuses on a national perspective (Italy) where multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is used to measure current performance. A sustainability score for each region is calculated from a set of 175 indicators contained in all 17 SDGs. Additionally, sustainability scores are disaggregated along the three pillars – social (1–5, 10, 16, and 17), environmental (6, 13–15) and economic (7–9, 11, and 12). The results highlight the positive performance of northern regions and, in particular, of Trentino Alto Adige, which ranks first in the two considered scenarios. In addition, the relevance of territorial specificities emerges for which the analysis of individual SDGs shows different leading regions. It is noteworthy to highlight the performance of the environmental sub-group of SDGs in southern regions, in contrast to the social and economic sub-groups. Evidently, policy actions are needed to reduce the long-lasting North/South divide—yet the highlighted heterogeneous sustainability performance along the three dimensions calls for well targeted policy measures necessary to regain competitiveness at a European and global level, without compromising with environmental sustainability.