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Buildings are Europe's biggest energy resource. By 2013, buildings made up more than 40 % of the final energy consumption in the European Union (EU). While the benefits of energy efficiency in the building sector are evident and many municipalities already have action plans in place, the implementation does not quite take off. Due to lacking capacities, many struggle to translate their plans into action. This manual is for municipalities seeking to kickstart their energy efficiency activities in the building sector. Following the principle of customised capacity building, it introduces tools and methods to assess the existing capacities, and to identify what still needs to be established. Furthermore, it describes the idea of Local Energy Efficiency Work Groups (LEEGs): a network of local stakeholders aggregating the knowledge, perspectives and capacities for an effective and sustained implementation of energy efficiency measures. In doing so, it lays the foundation for further activities described in separate guidelines.

This guideline serves as a support material for municipalities in the process of developing their local energy efficiency strategy for municipal buildings. The idea of this guideline is: how to find an optimal energy efficiency strategy for municipal buildings by the support of an organized and structured self-assessment tool made to define capacity constraints in energy management in municipalities. At best, this leads to defining specific Capacity Building Schemes. The starting point is the evaluation of the current strategic local energy plans (in terms of SEAP, SECAP or energy plans in municipalities). Further steps are dedicated to an organizational and process analysis at the administrative level in order to re-arrange workflows and municipal energy management systems. In this context, it is beneficial to build retrofitting strategies including either building refurbishment actions or IT solutions for energy monitoring which is harmonized with potential investments in energy efficiency projects. This guideline is created for local policy-makers, planners and experts contributing to the development and implementation of building energy efficiency strategies, policies and projects in municipalities. It is intended for representatives at various levels of local government: heads of local governments, heads and specialists of technical and development departments, heads and technical directors of municipal companies, as well as cooperating institutions and companies or other groups in society, eventually including citizens.

AbstractThis work aims to offer a contribution in the analysis and management, from an economic and financial point of view, of the flood risk, and extended to the hydrogeological risk, from the perspective of a public administration. As main responsible actor for containing the phenomenon through the maintenance of the territory, public administration is responsible for the cost of restoring of the services that have been damaged by this type of phenomenon. The assets of which the public administration must ensure the restoration are all public infrastructures (i.e. transportation, energy and water supply system, communication) together with the damage suffered by private property, if these affect services to be guaranteed to the population. In this work, the authors propose possible strategies that a public administration can put in place to deal with flood risk. Three main strategies are analysed: an absolute passivity that provides for the payment of damages as they occur (i.e. business-as-usual scenario), a classic insurance scheme, a resilient and innovative insurance scheme. The economic–financial profiles of these strategies proposed in this work put an emphasis on how the assumption of a time horizon can change the convenience of one strategy compared to the others. This study highlights the key role of the quantification of flood risk mitigation measure from an engineering perspective, and their potential issues to pursue these objectives in connection to the regulatory framework of the public administrations. This synergy is supported by the potential use of Blockchain-based tools. Within the paper is highlighted the key role that such platform IT data management platform could have within risk analysis and management schemes, both as a data collection tool and as certification of the various steps necessary to complete the process.

Abstract Community resilience to disaster is a concept that deals with different meanings depending on diverse disciplines and so far more attention has been given to its structural aspects. Only recently the social dimensions have sparked interests and its assessment is still a challenge dealing with the integration of quantitative variables and qualitative judgments. Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can provide a consistent methodology to deal with this aspect, creating indeed, the background for ranking and evaluating the effect of potential decision and policy strategies aiming to enhance the social resilience. In this work, we proposed a study for defining social resilience through the application of the Promethee method. Five social macro-indicators, characterized by specific sub-indicators, were analyzed in ten Italian case study areas involved in the EU LIFE PRIMES Project. The information for the definition of the sub-indicators were carried out through the delivering of anonymous questionnaires to a sample of citizens in each interested area. The approach provided both a classification of communities in term of social resilience and the individuation of the most important indicators influencing the final ranking. This method can be suggested as an effective tool for studying the various dimensions characterizing social resilience.

AbstractBiowaste treatment with Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae is an alternative option for organic waste valorization. Its environmental impacts should be assessed and compared with conventional treatment options. The research aims to evaluate the treatment of organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) with BSF larvae through a life cycle assessment (LCA). This study employed data inventories from literature and aimed to provide a wide range of production parameter values to identify the potentialities of BSF treatment in the best-case and worst-case scenarios. The SimaPro9, the database Ecoinvent3.5, and the impact assessment method IMPACT 2002+ have been employed for the analysis. A sensitivity analysis of relevant parameters was conducted, considering the avoided impacts that can be obtained thanks to the exploitation of larvae proteins for bioplastics or fishmeal production. Research findings highlight six main environmental impact indicators: respiratory inorganics (kg PM2.5-eq), ozone layer depletion (kg CFC-11-eq), terrestrial ecotoxicity (kg TEG soil), land occupation (m2 organic arable), global warming (kg CO2-eq), and non-renewable energy (MJ primary). The most relevant process generating impacts is BSF breeding, followed by boiling, storage, and OFMSW treatment. The environmental performance is better when the conventional fishmeal substituted, thanks to BSF larvae production, is made from areas 10,000 km far, implementing a 100% renewable energy scenario, reducing the energy consumption by 50%, increasing the lifespan of the equipment to 15 years, and products are employed locally. The current study represents the first attempt to evaluate the global higher or lower environmental impact scenario related to OFMSW treatment through BSF larvae.
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European and Italian incentive schemes promote small-scale biogas plant distribution using different types of biological and agricultural wastes as feedstock. A feed in tariff system is used in most of the European Union countries, and the incentive is paid on top of the market price capped at a maximum amount sold. The proposed study explores the feasibility of two-stage biogas plants for small-scale CHP, based on a two-phase bio-film process partially tested during the Biowalk4Biofuels (B4B) FP7 project implementing an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) based on a rotating biological contactor thus able to combine significant yields and reduced volume. The project developed a small pre-industrial biogas plant implementing a recovered 45 kWel CHP unit with 95 kWth thermal power. In the two-stage process, a high-temperature hydrolysis phase was followed by a continuously stirred methanogenesis bioreactor equipped with a rotating biological contactor. Main process performances were related to Organic Load Rate (OLR) up to 15 kg VS/m3; the overall reactor volume was 70 m3 for expected biogas production of 25 Nm3/h. Specifically, the aim of the present article is to address the use of the results and outcomes from some laboratory tests verified by the B4B system to model an overall feasibility evaluation. This allows to explore theoretical and economic feasibility of two ideal plants characterized by a 50 and 150 Nm3/h biogas production based on the overall system performances implementing a fixed biofilm for enhancing methanogenesis process. The feasibility study for the 50 Nm3/h biogas plants (equivalent to 100 kWel) shows profitable results, as well as evaluation of the 150 Nm3/h plants (300 kWe), that represent the biggest size for Italian incentives aimed at "small size" biogas plants.

Despite strong expectations regarding the role that forestry, with its multitude of potential benefits, could and should play in the 'bio-economy', little research has been done on the actual perceptions of influential actors on how to best address future forest land-use disputes. We want to shed light on whether and in which contexts expectations regarding the bio-economy, e.g., the strong role of markets, are likely. The paper analyses influential actors' core values and beliefs about the primary facilitators and the most appropriate instruments for resolving disputes over future forest land use. We used Social Network Analysis-based sampling and a quantitative semi-structured questionnaire, which included a preference analysis with twelve items covering broad issues and disputes related to future forest land use, to identify actors' beliefs about and preferences for facilitators and policy instruments within key issues for future land use. The respondents were asked to identify one of five 'primary facilitators' (state, market, society, individual citizens/owners, leave it to nature) and distribute six points to a maximum of three preferred instruments (eight items, covering a broad set of instruments, from dictates or bans to awareness raising). The results are based on the perceptions of the influential or most important actors from various innovative government and private forest initiatives in Bavaria (Germany), Slovenia, Castilla y León (Spain), Nordeste (Portugal), and Latvia (481 actor responses, 109 initiatives). The initiatives included participatory mountain forest initiatives, forest intervention zones, afforestation projects, forest owner associations, and model forest and labelling initiatives. The results provide insight into the similarities and differences between European countries and actor groups regarding the preferred facilitators and instruments for solving future forest problems. In light of disagreement in the literature on the role of the state or markets in future forest land use and the bio-economy, our results show that the market and its instruments are considered to play a dominant role in wood mobilisation. With respect to all other issues (socio-ecological, societal, other), the state or other institutions and their instruments gain priority. The state is considered to play a stronger role in developing new markets, e.g., for energy transition or new uses of wood, contrary to liberal market expectations. Ecological and social problems are considered to be outside of the market domain. Here, the state is called in, e.g., to steer recreational issues, the provision of ecosystem services, or the improvement of the protective function. The clearest preference across all regions is for the state to secure the provision of ecosystem services, in contrast to calls for future markets to regulate this field. ; This research has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under grant agreement No. 613762. No funds for covering the costs to publish in open access were received. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

CABARET (Capacity Building in Asia for Resilience EducaTion) is a co-funded by an EU Erasmus+ programme project run for three years and led by the University of Huddersfield's Global Disaster Resilience Centre, based in the UK. They are joined by a group of experts from a consortium of 14 European and Asian higher education institutions from Bulgaria, Indonesia, Latvia, the Maldives, Malta, Myanmar, the Philippines, Spain, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO), the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre and the Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities are Associate Partners helping to promote the benefits across Asia and beyond. http://cabaret.buildresilience.org/images/CABARET_flyer.pdf CABARET emphasises the role of Higher Education in supporting global priorities and targets on disaster risk reduction. The project provides capacity development to support regional cooperation on multi-hazard early warning systems (MHEWS) in coastal communities, with a particular focus on Asia. The paper deals with the main tasks of the project, their execution and outcomes and benefits after it finished. ; peer-reviewed