Green spaces in cities can have a cooling influence which helps reduce the ‘urban heat island effect’. New research from Portugal has demonstrated that even a small community garden can provide a significant cooling impact that can help efforts to adapt to climate change.

When assessing the environmental impacts of new ‘green’ concretes, care should be taken to ensure that a range of impacts are considered, such as ecosystem damage and water depletion, rather than a sole focus on CO2 emissions, a recent study concludes. It demonstrates that cement incorporating industrial by-products performs substantially better than Portland cement when rated across several classifications of environmental impact.

The world’s ocean ecosystems will suffer warming, increased acidity, low oxygen and reduced primary food supply as a result of rising CO2 and this is likely to have dramatic environmental and social impacts, a new study concludes. It predicts that the most vulnerable low-income countries, where 870 million people are dependent on marine ecosystems, would be affected if CO2 emissions are not tackled.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced during the decommissioning phase of nuclear power plants may have been underestimated in previous assessments, new research suggests. The study estimated that the decommissioning process for a German plant resulted in 1 651 265 tonnes of CO₂ (or equivalent) emissions, or 0.825 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per tonne of waste. While the researchers acknowledge that impact is highly dependent on the unique characteristics of each decommissioning project, these results raise questions as to whether this phase has been accurately assessed in earlier research.

Policies to reduce packaging are effective as long as they remain in place for at least five years and aim for an absolute reduction in packaging volume, experiences from the Netherlands suggest. A study of Dutch packaging policy found that packaging levels fell when such policies were in place, but that the amount of packaging has since risen as policies have become more short-term and focused on reducing packaging levels relative to changes in GDP.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, which consist of everyday consumer items, are potential long-term sources of emissions that could threaten the environment and human health if they are not managed carefully after closure. New research has presented a methodology to estimate future emission levels for closed MSW landfills and the impact of different aftercare strategies.

A new study has shown that contamination of groundwater by hazardous substances contained in waste liquid from landfill sites – known as leachate - could be significantly reduced by choosing specific types of material to line the landfill reactors.

Life-cycle indicators to monitor selected waste streams' impacts on the environment have been developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). These are presented in a recent study which describes a method for analysing waste's impacts using these indicators. The study also reveals the need for better statistics and more detailed categorisation of waste streams to effectively inform decision making in waste management.

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.

Researchers have examined environmental and economic impacts of supermarket food waste in a new study. Bread and meat products made the largest contribution to the environmental footprint of the supermarket assessed. Alternative waste strategies, such as using bread waste as animal feed, have the potential to reduce these impacts.

The development of future recycling technologies must be informed by data about products and materials that will enter the waste stream, but such forecasts are subject to a high level of uncertainty. In this study, researchers have proposed a methodology for predicting emerging waste materials, applying it to silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) panels. The findings show that closed-loop recycling — when post-consumer waste is recycled to make new products — of PV panel materials could mitigate up to 0.2% of the annual environmental impact of Flanders1, Belgium, if suitable technology was developed.

Consumers in France, Germany and the USA perceive ‘environmentally friendly’ packaging to be reusable, recyclable and ‘biodegradable’1, finds a new study. These results suggest that producers should emphasise the end-of-life merits of packaging to appeal to consumers’ environmental concerns, and design packaging that is reusable, recyclable and ‘biodegradable’. However, they also indicate a need to raise public awareness of packaging’s true life-cycle environmental impacts, such as those during production and transport, which are greater than consumers generally perceive them to be.

Food packaging waste is currently under scrutiny. In the context of its Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU is addressing this through, among others, its Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) initiative , which aims to enhance the reliability of environmental claims — both in a business-to-consumer and in a business-to-business context. The initiative aims, therefore, to boost the market of green and circular products. However, a review of the methods available for assessing the environmental sustainability of packaging now highlights the difficulty of clearly characterising packaging's environmental impact. The study suggests a new, fully quantifiable framework that could help to standardise assessment methods and bring 'environmental footprint labelling' to fruition.

Moving to an area with good access to green spaces has a positive, lasting effect on residents' mental health, new research suggests. The study shows that people who move to greener areas report considerably improved mental health three years after leaving their previous neighbourhood.

Regular use of green space in a city setting may be linked to reduced risk of heart disease, a new Lithuanian study suggests. The authors found that people who lived closer to green spaces suffered fewer symptoms of heart disease over a four-year period, and that regular park users were at lower risk based on factors such as weight, physical activity and diabetes.

Adding compost to compacted urban soils can provide a lasting effect that aids tree growth, new research indicates. Urban soils improved with added organic material are less compacted after five years compared with soils that have not been treated with organic composts, the study suggests.

Living near to green spaces may reduce likelihood of death due to any cause, and especially due to cardiovascular disease, according to a new study. The review is the first to systematically evaluate the evidence linking green spaces to risk of death.

Researchers have devised a blueprint to integrate the efficient use of waste wood throughout a bioeconomy system — part of the economy that uses renewable biological resources from land and sea. This study assessed the environmental sustainability of three scenarios for increasing targeted levels of industrial symbiosis within the wood-based bioeconomy of central Germany, and found that, in most cases, the three alternative future bioeconomy networks outperformed the selected fossil-based reference systems, mitigating environmental impacts by 25 to 130%.

As Indian firms realign their focus on revenue growth, they need to leverage customer and market behaviour to place their bets on long-term, sustainable growth, a new report said.

Injecting light-reflecting particles into the atmosphere to counteract rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions cannot stabilise both temperatures and rainfall in all regions of the world at the same time, according to recent research. This raises serious questions about how such a process could be managed.

New research indicates that large-scale wind farms may influence local weather. It suggests the impact can be minimised by changing the design of the rotors or positioning wind farms in regions with high natural turbulence. These strategies could also make the farms more productive.

A recent study has assessed some of the environmental impacts of the production of batteries used with low carbon systems, such as photovoltaic cells and wind turbines. The results indicate that lithium-based batteries have the most significant impact, in terms of metal depletion and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but more complete data are needed on possible toxic impacts to conduct a full comparison between batteries.

A new tool for minimising offshore wind energy's impacts on other activities in the North Sea has been developed. The tool identifies space for wind farms based on their priority compared to other marine activities, such as sand extraction or fishing.

Construction of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants – electricity generation which concentrates sunlight to generate heat – can have a range of negative effects on wildlife, but these effects are short lived, new research has found. Once in use, CSP plants can even have some positive effects, reducing soil erosion, for instance.

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.

Genpact sees over 100 clients closing their financial quarter digitally while others are doubling the pace of adoption of digital transformation.

Some of the mysterious grooves on the surface of Mars' moon Phobos are the result of debris ejected by impacts eventually falling back onto the surface to form linear chains of craters, according to a new study.

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A recent report has assessed the latest research on the adverse affects of noise on health, focusing on approaches to estimating the economic cost of noise. This information could help policy makers tasked with designing cost-effective noise reduction and management policies.

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.

Mental health and supply problems, such as loss of electricity, were perceived by residents as the most serious impacts of 2013 flooding in Germany, according to new research. The most frequent effect of the flooding on companies was interruption to their business. The researchers say that focusing on impacts that can be measured in financial terms does not fully describe the effects of flooding, and make recommendations for improving flood data collection.

A new study has estimated how changes to climate might affect the value of European farmland. Based on data for over 41 000 farms, the results suggest that their economic value could drop by up to 32%, depending on the climate scenario considered. Farms in southern Europe are particularly sensitive to climate change and could suffer value losses of up to 9% per 1 °C rise. The researchers say policy, on water and land use, for example, will be crucial to help farmers adapt to climate change and mitigate economic losses.

A third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, and the EU alone wastes an estimated 88 billion tonnes of food every single year. This is equivalent to 76 kilograms per person per year. This is an unsustainable level of waste which threatens food supply and the environment. The EU is taking several actions against food waste, as a critical part of efforts to achieve a circular economy, where resources are used more sustainably.

Onymos has transformed the art of mobile apps development, where open standards HTML, JavaScript and CSS technologies are made use of, which in turn, cuts down the development time from months to days.

Industry executives say most plants will work at low capacity at least until the festive season

A recent study has assessed the lifecycle environmental impact during the production and use phase of three battery types for plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and full performance battery electric vehicles (BEV). The study indicates that newer lithium-ion (Li-ion) technologies outperform current nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries and identifies processes contributing to 13 environmental impacts.

A new report indicates that some progress has been made towards meeting key sustainable transport targets, but challenges remain. Improvements in passenger vehicle efficiency has led to reductions in emissions, however, reductions in oil consumption are not sufficient to meet targets, with more policy initiatives and continued monitoring needed to ensure that sustainability goals are achieved.

The promotion of diesel-fuelled cars in Europe may not have had the beneficial environmental effects that were expected, research suggests. It has been assumed that they help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the transport sector, but studies show that their fuel efficiency is lower than previously believed, while their black carbon and nitrogen oxides emissions are higher. The consequent reduction in global warming effects from diesel cars may therefore be negligible, perhaps even negative.

Large imports of low-cost Russian wood to Finland up until 2007 increased pressure on Russian forest ecosystems, whilst reducing harvest pressure on Finnish forests and those of other European countries that consume wood-based products made in Finland, according to research. This highlights the need to take the international dimension of environmental impacts into account when designing sustainable production and consumption policies.

Countries that appear to have reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through reforestation may have simply “displaced” the emissions to another country, by increasing their imports of food, timber and wood. A new EU study highlights the need to recognise this ‘loophole’ in ongoing emission targets.

The impacts of drought on European trees are of high concern, especially under a changing climate. New research has indicated that, if summers become continually drier, sensitive species, such as larch and spruce, will suffer reduced growth in some Alpine areas. This could potentially compromise ecosystem services provided by forests in these areas.

A new study has examined how recent policy developments, such as the EU Habitats and Water Framework Directives, have resulted in wider and more integrated management of river estuaries, using the Severn Estuary in the UK as a case study.

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.

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.

Environmental targets for sustainable agriculture can usually be met in a variety of ways, but their exact impacts are rarely known. A new study has compared the social, economic and environmental impacts of different policy approaches to hitting conservation targets in Australia, to help regional governments understand the costs, benefits and trade-offs of different policy options.

Researchers have recently compared strategies to limit urban sprawl in four European city regions. The ‘compact city’ concept in spatial planning is used to improve sustainability, but there can be trade-offs, especially between environmental and social aspects of sustainability, which vary according to the planning strategy used.

Researchers in Lithuania have assessed and ranked the sustainability of buildings on a wide range of criteria, from pollution caused by the building materials to the running costs of the building. An overall sustainability index based on these criteria allows the comparison of different buildings and, using this index, the study estimated that a wood-based building is 7.5% more sustainable than a house made of bricks.

Many EU businesses are failing to cover the net cost of recycling packaging waste, new research suggests. Industry is required to take responsibility for treating and recycling waste packaging in the EU; however, this study shows that producers in France, Portugal and Romania do not fully cover waste management costs.

A Portuguese waste management system for packaging has brought a range of environmental, economic and social benefits, according to a recent study. One of the scheme’s main achievements was that it avoided around 116 kilotons (kt) of CO2 equivalent emissions in a single year, equal to the emissions associated with the electricity use of 124 000 households. These emissions were largely circumvented because the system recovers large amounts of energy and materials from the waste packaging.