Floods are devastating natural hazards, which can cause loss of life and substantial damage to buildings and other infrastructure. Assessing future flood risk is complicated by the influence of climate change, land-use change and economic development in an area. A study on an Alpine valley suggests that land- use change and urbanisation will affect future flood risk by 2030 more than climate change, but risks can be reduced by adopting low-cost adaptation strategies, such as building restrictions in flood-prone areas and residents taking their own precautions against flooding.

Over half of a low-energy building’s environmental impact occurred before it was even occupied, a new case study from Italy calculates. The researchers recommend expanding the environmental assessment of buildings from just the operational stage of a building’s life, when it is in use, to include production and transport of materials, construction activities and building maintenance. A wide range of environmental impacts should also be considered, they argue, and not just energy use.

Although life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely accepted method for supporting decision-making, it can face difficulties when being translated into practical life cycle management. A recent case study on local waste management has led to the development of several principles to ensure that LCAs are understandable and applicable.

Recycling ships for scrap is a known asbestos exposure hazard, yet this study is one of few to trace asbestos-related cancer rates in shipbreaking workers. The results, obtained from former shipbreakers in Taiwan, show higher rates of cancer overall, especially oesophageal and lung cancers.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) can measure the environmental impact of the different stages of a ship’s life cycle, from design to dismantling. This assessment focused on the impact of recycling the metal parts of a ship and did not consider the crucial impact of the hazardous materials present on board. The results showed that re-use of metals had environmental benefits, but overall these were small compared to the environmental impact of other life cycle stages, such as operation.

Compared with traditional remediation techniques used to remediate brownfield sites, supporters of phytoremediation argue that it is cheaper and more environmentally-friendly. A new analysis has reviewed its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and suggests it is well suited to cleaning up sites with low to medium levels of contamination.

Identifying emerging research areas and technologies is important for decision makers, but notoriously difficult to do. This study presents a new way of searching the literature to identify emerging topics, which will help policymakers, industry and funding bodies to make better decisions.

A new screening tool to assess the potential seismic risks (earthquake activity) from deep geothermal energy projects has been outlined in a recent study. The tool provides categories of seismicity risk for projects, which are dependent on factors including geological aspects, as well as social concern and location in relation to urban areas.

Researchers use life-cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool to evaluate the environmental impact of products and technologies across their entire lifetime — from extraction of raw material to end-of-life (disposal or recycling). It is challenging to apply the conventional LCA method to new or emerging technologies, however, due to the sheer quantity of data needed for such studies. This study proposes a screening-to-LCA method that uses available data to systematically evaluate the performance of such technologies, and support the uptake of those that are most environmentally sustainable.

The makers of Fevicol are leveraging this time to retrain staff and gear up technology infrastructure for the post-Covid world.

A new study has developed a system to assess the potential of ecosystems to supply ecosystem services in the EU-25 plus Switzerland and Norway. It is one of the first to use historical and projected data on land use change at a continental scale to estimate the provision of ecosystem services and to assess possible trade-offs between them.

Costs of installing, maintaining and disposing of some green wall systems may outweigh the value of some of their benefits for householders, a recent study suggests. While the researchers omitted some of the wider social benefits, they found that reductions in heating and air conditioning costs, longevity of green walls and increases in property values did not compensate for their costs. The researchers suggest that government incentives to lower set-up costs could significantly increase the walls' economic sustainability.

Public support grows for wind farms if they are located away from recreational areas and if they are either fully or partly owned by organisations within the local community. In addition, Swedish consumers would accept bigger bills for electricity generated by wind power if the local population were heavily involved in wind farm planning, a recent survey suggests. This article was updated 30.09.14 to correct an error in the cost of the REC scheme.

Ecosystems services — the benefits that nature provides to people — are inadequately accounted for in Environmental Impact Assessments, a new study suggests. The researchers used a case study in France to illustrate the substantial economic losses that are incurred as a result of infrastructure development that goes ahead without sufficient consideration of the impacts on ecosystem services.

Assessment (ERA), each with different goals. The researchers find that overlaps between the three assessments could be combined to create a more comprehensive form of ERA, usable by regulators and environmental decision makers.

Ocean acidification threatens marine ecosystems worldwide, but economic assessments of its impact are lacking. A recent study has predicted the future cost of ocean acidification on mollusc production in Europe and showed that the highest economic impacts would be in France, Italy and Spain. For Europe overall, the annual damage could be in the region of €0.9 billion by 2100.

From casual acoustic melodies at the coffee shop to throbbing electronic beats at teen clothing outlets, music is used to mold customer experience and behavior. But what impact does it have on employees?

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53 percent of Indian enterprises were least mature in the adoption of mobility solutions whereas 17 percent of enterprises are adequately mature in their strive to adopt mobility solutions

Micromax forays in the race of in-house mobile launcher driven by Machine Learning and AI to enhance the user experience.

Work from home is a cultural change that requires focus on technology, security, human resources and facilities.

The makers of Fevicol are leveraging this time to retrain staff and gear up technology infrastructure for the post-Covid world.

GSK Nutritional Healthcare chooses a BT Cloud Contact solution to improve service on vital customer help lines powered by Enghouse Interactive

A new method of assessing the sustainability of noise reduction devices (NRDs) used in transport infrastructure, such as noise barriers or absorptive claddings, is presented in a recent study. The new set of specially designed sustainability criteria allows NRDs to be easily and accurately evaluated, its developers suggest.

A ‘feebate’ can be an effective policy option to aid the transition to a more environmentally-friendly transport system, a UK study suggests. This combination of fees and rebates can increase the take-up of low-carbon cars, the researchers argue, which leads to reduced life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The measures available to reduce the noise and vibration produced by trains have been outlined in a recent study. The researchers say the most appropriate mitigation should be determined on a case-by-case basis and life-cycle assessments can help analyse the economic costs and carbon footprint of different methods.

In the automobile industry, the development and manufacture of increasingly complex technological components — catalytic converters, LEDs, electric motors, batteries — requires increasingly complex and diverse raw materials with specific qualities. The technological and economic importance of these materials, combined with their vulnerability to supply shortages and likelihood of supply interruptions, indicates their ‘criticality’. This study uses a new methodology to explore the criticality of 27 key metals used in the automotive industry and other sectors, and highlights six that are especially vulnerable: rhodium, dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium and praseodymium. The researchers found there was limited recycling and substitution of these metals and a high possibility of restrictions to their supply.

According to a new analysis by Swedish researchers, action to reduce the impact of several serious forest diseases is typically taken too late. The researchers call for better communication by biologists of how and why diseases spread, to help minimise economic and ecological losses.

Over 20% more carbon could be being released by tropical peatlands than previously estimated, a new study suggests. The research highlights the large quantities of carbon lost to rivers from deforested and degraded peatlands in Indonesia, in addition to carbon released as CO2 gas.

Researchers have developed a method to assess the sustainability of regeneration projects that could potentially be administered by a computer. The method tailors the universal goals of sustainability to specific local conditions.

Researchers have developed a new framework to assess the impact of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries. The framework integrates environmental, economic, social and institutional impacts through the use of multiple influences and indicators identified by a range of stakeholders.

The exact impact of environmental law on investment by EU industry is relatively unknown. A new study has explored the effects of regulation on four types of industry investment and the results indicate that, in general, regulation tends to encourage more investment, but if restrictions are too tight investment levels can start to fall.

A new tool has been developed to predict the effectiveness of a policy on the basis of its compatibility with the institutional context in place. It is the first of its kind and a recent study has evaluated its ability to identify factors that might affect the successful implementation of policies.

Converting algae into bioenergy is one option being considered to meet future demand for transport energy. However, a recent study suggests that some combinations of cultivation processes and conversion technologies for algae-derived energy consume more energy than is produced, although water use and greenhouse gas emissions are lower for the most promising options compared with bioenergy sourced from switchgrass and canola.

Despite the contribution that large-scale, intensive agriculture has made to global food production, food shortages still occur with particularly severe consequences for the poor. More investment in locally-led, small-scale farming would help ensure longer-term food security for the world’s most vulnerable under a changing climate and bring environmental benefits, according to a recent analysis of adaptation work in Uganda.

A new study has revealed the diversity in terminology and choice of indicators across eight major frameworks used to assess the environmental impacts of agriculture. The researchers call for further work to quantify and express uncertainty surrounding chosen reference values.

A standardised method to help choose the most cost-effective measures to remediate contaminated sites has been developed by Austrian researchers. The method takes into account a wide range of factors, including the principles of sustainability.

Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change relies on the services provided by nature; new research has now demonstrated the wide potential of urban ecosystem services to aid local adaptation efforts. This study developed and trialled a streamlined method for assessing ecosystem services, such as temperature reduction and carbon sequestration, in four European cities, providing a valuable tool to help city planners enhance ecosystem services.

Protecting ecosystems and the services they provide is increasingly thought to be a sustainable and effective approach to help society adapt to climate change. Islands states, at risk from a variety of different threats, including sea level rise, changes in rainfall patterns and ocean acidification, have been among the first to trial this approach. A new study examines measures taken in the Caribbean and highlights the importance of integrating local and external knowledge.

As buildings become increasingly energy-efficient in terms of heating and operation, researchers are highlighting the importance of reducing the energy needed to construct the buildings. However, there is a lack of accurate, consistent data, or a standard methodology to properly assess energy requirements at this stage, a new study has found.

Public support for pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) waste schemes is significantly higher among those who have actually experienced them, finds new research. The study indicates that there is less resistance to such schemes, which charge householders a fee that varies with the amount of waste collected, once they have been introduced.

Policies to promote low-carbon technologies are more likely to be successful if they are flexible, have clear timeframes, and are mandatory, a recent study suggests. The researchers reached their conclusions by studying cases of low-carbon policies from around the world.

There are adequate resources to implement the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in Europe, a recent study concludes. However, more clarity is needed on the roles of different institutions at EU, regional and national levels in implementing the Directive.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have well-reported ecological benefits, but may also have important socioeconomic effects on local communities. Existing methods to assess these effects have been hampered by a number of limitations. This paper describes a new framework to monitor and assess the socioeconomic effects of MPAs, which overcomes many of these limitations to provide greater value for decision makers.

Information about geodiversity — i.e. the variety of the material, non-biological parts of the natural world — could be better used and more integrated in environmental management in the UK, finds new research. The authors examined the inclusion of geodiversity information in UK assessments and identified a number of areas where geoscience knowledge is vital for informing ecosystem management.

Effective regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) calls for monitoring of the potential environmental risks. This study explored whether the German permanent soil monitoring programme could be a useful tool for this purpose. The researchers say the programme has potential to monitor the effects of GMOs on local soil communities, but that adaptations would be necessary.

Research assessments should focus more on engagement processes and less on impacts and outcomes, a new study suggests. The authors examined researchers’ intended impacts and motivational factors, and stated that a change in research evaluation methods, together with better direction from university managers, could help incentivise knowledge exchange and engagement between departments and non-academic entities.

The uncertain economic climate has severely affected companies’ decisions on whether to renew Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) certification in Spain, a recent survey indicates. The study suggests that a company is less likely to renew if initial certification was mainly motivated by government subsidies and grants than if certification is believed to improve business performance.

To better understand the social and ecological implications of the non- food sector of the EU’s expanding bioeconomy, an economy which is based on the production and conversion of renewable biological resources into products and energy, a study has assessed the global cropland footprint of the region’s non-food products. The results show that the EU was the world’s biggest consumer and importer of these products from 1995 to 2010: two-thirds of the cropland required to satisfy the EU’s non-food consumption is located elsewhere in regions including China, the USA and Indonesia, bringing potential impacts for distant ecosystems. These findings can inform EU policymaking and support the EU Bioeconomy Strategy.

Populations of organisms that live on the bottom of an aquatic ecosystem, the benthic community, can be assessed to determine the health of the ecosystem. New research explores the many existing methods for assessing benthic communities to ensure that the most appropriate and useful tests are used under the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

New research in harbours has explored the most influential environmental and human factors on the release of contaminants from sediment. The scientists suggest that the rate of release can vary considerably between locations and risk assessments of water pollution could be improved if they account for this.