Cleaner Environmental Systems最新文献

{"title":"Assessment of technologies and water circularity in mining processes: An innovative methodological approach","authors":"Marco A. Vargas ,&nbsp;Luis A. Cisternas ,&nbsp;Daniel Calisaya-Azpilcueta","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100356","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100356","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapid expansion of mining operations has accelerated water resource depletion and increased energy consumption. To tackle these issues, the circular economy provides a framework for managing resource use and reducing environmental impacts. This study introduces an innovative method for assessing circularity in mineral processing, supported by a case study that demonstrates the methodology. The approach is based on circularity indices and employs Monte Carlo simulations to account for epistemic uncertainties that are typical in this field. If the results are not sufficiently robust, global sensitivity analysis is utilized to pinpoint critical variables that require refinement to enhance the outcomes. Additionally, multicriteria decision analysis methods are applied to further the study. In a case study focused on copper concentration through flotation, optimizing water recovery methods significantly improved water circularity metrics. Furthermore, dewatering technologies increased the system's circularity by 28 %, with similar improvements across different setups, reducing water extraction by approximately 42 % and lowering water loss from 0.56 in the base case to 0.29, a 48.6 % decrease. This highlights the effectiveness of dewatering technologies in circular resource management. Then, by applying multicriteria decision-making methods and giving more weight to general indicators related to the water–energy nexus, paste tailings thickening technology was identified as the best option for improving circularity and advancing sustainability. This methodology provides a solid foundation for assessing the transition from a recirculation-based economy to a truly circular model, offering global applicability for comparing technologies, companies, and other relevant factors in mineral processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100356"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145325794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Financial feasibility and optimization of anaerobic digestion systems for sustainable waste management: A comprehensive global analysis","authors":"Ali Marefat ,&nbsp;Abooali Golzary ,&nbsp;Fumitake Takahashi ,&nbsp;Donald Huisingh","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100339","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100339","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effective management of organic waste plays a vital role in addressing environmental challenges and advancing sustainable development goals. This review article provides a comprehensive financial assessment of anaerobic digestion (AD) systems for treating the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). Previous studies on AD systems have largely been confined to local case studies with findings that cannot be generalized beyond their specific regions, and they have often overlooked the combined influence of technical, economic, and political factors on financial performance. The study begins by identifying the gaps and limitations in existing financial models for AD systems. It then develops an enhanced financial framework and uses scenario-based analyses to assess the financial feasibility of AD technologies. The model outputs indicate that the financial feasibility of AD systems is heavily influenced by national energy policies and environmental regulations. It is revealed that insufficient government support for energy tariffs—particularly in countries experiencing economic instability—serves as a major barrier to the cost-effectiveness of AD systems. In contrast, in economically stable regions, the financial sustainability of these systems is primarily challenged by stringent environmental regulations specifically related to digestate disposal. To overcome these challenges and further strengthen the financial performance of AD systems, future research should prioritize AI-driven optimization to enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, increase energy output, and ultimately improve financial sustainability. By addressing existing barriers and proposing actionable recommendations, this review aims to foster the adoption of AD technologies as a cornerstone of sustainable waste management practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100339"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Relationship between R&D investment, financial development, energy use, and carbon dioxide emissions in USA: New insights from ARDL methodology","authors":"Vu Ngoc Xuan ,&nbsp;Pham Xuan Hoa ,&nbsp;Nguyen Thi Phuong Thu","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100362","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100362","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examines the dynamic relationship between research and development (R&amp;D) investment, financial development, energy use, and environmental pollution in the United States over the period 1990–2023, using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The results confirm a significant long-run cointegration among the variables. Specifically, a 1 % increase in R&amp;D investment reduces CO₂ emissions by approximately 0.45 %, whereas a 1 % rise in financial development and energy use increases emissions by 0.21 % and 0.55 %, respectively. The error-correction term indicates that about 63 % of short-run disequilibrium adjusts to the long-run equilibrium annually. These findings highlight that while innovation significantly mitigates environmental degradation, unregulated financial and energy expansion exacerbate it. Policy implications suggest that US authorities should intensify green R&amp;D incentives, promote sustainable financing instruments, and accelerate the transition toward clean energy to achieve national decarbonization targets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100362"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unlocking sustainable production pathways: Digital transformation driving green dual innovation in Chinese enterprises","authors":"Tian Xia ,&nbsp;Xudong Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100301","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100301","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the context of accelerating digital transformation and increasing environmental pressures, this study investigates how enterprise digitalization influences green dual innovation—comprising green exploratory innovation (EI) and green developmental innovation (DI)—within Chinese A-share listed firms from 2016 to 2023. Drawing upon fixed-effects and triple difference models, we empirically examine the mechanisms through which digital transformation (DCG) enhances green innovation and assess the mediating role of R&amp;D investment and the moderating effect of government subsidies (GS). Results reveal that digital transformation significantly promotes both EI and DI, with a stronger effect on EI. R&amp;D investment fully mediates this relationship, indicating that digital capabilities boost green innovation primarily through enhanced research capacity. Government subsidies exhibit a dual effect: they positively moderate the impact of digital transformation on EI, while dampening its influence on DI, possibly due to over-reliance on external funding. Heterogeneity analysis through triple difference methods uncovers substantial regional and industry-level variation—particularly among high-tech and heavily polluting firms in Eastern China—where digital transformation's green effects are constrained by strategic short-termism or technological limitations. These findings offer theoretical insights and practical implications for firms and policymakers aiming to align digital strategy with green transformation objectives under sustainability mandates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100301"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145107621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A dynamic framework for benchmarking sustainability in water utilities","authors":"María Molinos-Senante ,&nbsp;Alexandros Maziotis","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ensuring the sustainability of water utilities (WUs) is crucial for improving long-term water and sanitation services. This study proposes a novel methodological framework for dynamic sustainability benchmarking through the development of the Sustainability Change Index (SCHI). The SCHI is decomposed into two components: the Sustainability Internal Change Index (SII) and the Sustainability External Change Index (SEI), which allow for a detailed analysis of the underlying drivers of sustainability performance. The methodology is applied to a panel of 28 Chilean WUs over 2013–2023. Results highlight the ability of the proposed framework to capture dynamic sustainability trajectories in water utilities, revealing significant heterogeneity across utilities and over time. Beyond quantifying changes, the SCHI offers insights into whether improvements stem from internal operational progress or from shifts in external benchmarks, which is particularly relevant for regulatory evaluation and utility management. The empirical application in Chile demonstrates the framework's usefulness in identifying drivers of sustainability change and also provides reflections that can inform targeted policy interventions. The proposed model, grounded in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and incorporating stakeholder and expert preferences through the Best-Worst Method, is broadly applicable to other contexts, offering regulators and water service managers a robust tool for monitoring, benchmarking, and fostering sustainability transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100368"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145474091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Holistic sustainability assessment of textile-reinforced concrete compared to structural concrete using the example of a roof construction","authors":"Fabian Kufner,&nbsp;Julian Steinhauer,&nbsp;Petra Rucker-Gramm,&nbsp;Michael Horstmann","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100331","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100331","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Concrete construction faces growing sustainability challenges due to increasing climate requirements and changing labor conditions. Textile-reinforced concrete offers substantial potential by enabling lighter and more resource-efficient components. However, assessing such systems requires holistic methods that go beyond material-based environmental indicators. Existing frameworks often neglect the interactions between manufacturing, structural design, and broader economic and social aspects. This study presents a holistic evaluation model that integrates 36 criteria across ecological, economic, and social dimensions within a transparent multi-criteria decision-making framework. A dominance matrix enables flexible weighting based on stakeholder-specific priorities. The model is applied to five roof component variants: cast-in-place and precast flat roofs with steel reinforcement, a precast shell with steel reinforcement, and two textile-reinforced concrete shells—one manually sprayed on-site, the other produced robotically manufactured using adaptive formwork. The results show that textile-reinforced concrete shells offer major ecological benefits, with up to 90 % material savings compared to conventional flat roofs and the lowest global warming potential among all variants. The precast textile-reinforced shell achieves the highest overall sustainability score due to automated precision production. The precast steel-reinforced shell ranks second under equal weighting of sustainability dimensions and requires 60 % less material than conventional flat slabs, emphasizing the sustainability potential of efficient structural geometry. While cast-in-place flat roofs remain economically advantageous, precast methods—both steel- and textile-reinforced—offer notabel social benefits by improving working conditions and minimizing site disruptions. The developed model demonstrates robustness and transferability, supporting early design decisions and detailed sustainability assessments for diverse components and construction strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100331"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145107620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Environmental sustainability requirement specification levels for comprehensive requirements engineering","authors":"Niklas Quernheim,&nbsp;Benjamin Schleich","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100366","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100366","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The consideration of sustainability early in product development presents significant challenges for the field of mechanical engineering. Linking broad corporate strategies to specific product attributes such as dimensions and functions requires repeated, case-by-case evaluations. This article introduces a novel approach for systematically integrating sustainability into requirements engineering by establishing specification levels for environmental sustainability requirements. These levels offer a structured method to address sustainability at different stages of product design and development, regardless of data availability. By defining aspects such as sustainability assessment methods, data quality, reference products, and verification processes, these levels extend traditional requirements engineering practices to tackle the unique challenges of sustainable design. The scientific novelty of this paper lies in its structured approach to formulating sustainability requirements. It presents a framework for classifying sustainability requirements with varying levels of data quality while simultaneously identifying potential areas for improvement. These include enhancing data quality and establishing evaluation and validation processes for sustainability metrics. By providing a systematic method for defining and refining sustainability requirements, the paper supports more precise and actionable sustainability assessments, ultimately facilitating more robust decision-making in sustainable product development and manufacturing. The specification levels enable the verification and traceability of sustainable development. The effectiveness of the specification levels is illustrated in this article by performing the requirements development in a case study, developing an iteration of a mechanical engineering product with a focus on sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100366"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145417286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Artificial intelligence and sustainable development: Public concerns and governance in developed and developing nations","authors":"Mehrdad Maghsoudi ,&nbsp;Navid Mohammadi ,&nbsp;Mohammadreza Bakhtiari","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100340","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100340","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology with the potential to accelerate progress toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, its adoption and societal implications vary significantly between developed and developing nations, shaped by differing priorities, socio-economic realities, and governance capacities. This study systematically analyzes global public discourse on AI and its alignment with the SDGs using natural language processing and a graph-based multi-label classification framework. By analyzing over 249,000 posts on social media (Twitter/X) and categorizing them into SDG-related concerns, we reveal shared global priorities, such as the emphasis on SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), and key contextual divergences. Developed nations focus on optimizing advanced systems and ethical governance, while developing countries highlight AI's potential to bridge infrastructural gaps and promote digital equity. Notably, SDGs addressing essential human needs, such as Zero Hunger (SDG 2) and Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6), remain underrepresented globally. Using expert-driven Delphi panels, we provide context-sensitive governance strategies tailored to regional priorities. This study highlights the necessity of inclusive, adaptive AI policy frameworks that reflect global disparities while fostering equitable development. The findings offer actionable insights for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners seeking to align AI governance with sustainability and equity goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100340"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovating eco-efficiency metrics: The concept of weight-related carbon intensity in the automotive sector","authors":"Kai Rüdele ,&nbsp;Till Justus Niemann ,&nbsp;Christoph Herrmann ,&nbsp;Christian Ramsauer","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100351","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100351","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Large and listed companies must publish annual reports to inform about financial figures and commercial success. In recent years, these companies have also increasingly been issuing sustainability reports to provide insights into their current environmental performance and progress. However, these reports lack key figures that integrate both efficiency and environmental perspectives. Therefore, a novel indicator is proposed and tested. The weight-related carbon intensity (<em>ciw</em>) relates cradle-to-gate emissions to the aggregated production weight of passenger cars. Using publicly available data from five global OEMs, we demonstrate that <em>ciw</em> provides more robust insights into production efficiency and sustainability performance than conventional CO₂ per vehicle metrics. Our findings show that <em>ciw</em> can uncover inefficiencies that remain hidden under traditional reporting. The results highlight the need for weight-adjusted benchmarks in the automotive sector and suggest that <em>ciw</em> can serve as a complementary metric for corporate reporting, enhance emissions tracking and support climate action by expressing another CO₂ truth.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100351"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145324759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing vineyard sustainability through a Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems Nexus indicator using System Dynamics Modelling","authors":"Ali Rhouma ,&nbsp;Nikolaos Mellios ,&nbsp;Floor Brouwer ,&nbsp;Gil José Maria ,&nbsp;Chrysi Laspidou","doi":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100346","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cesys.2025.100346","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Optimizing agricultural inputs at the farm scale requires a holistic understanding of water, energy, food, and ecosystem (WEFE) interdependencies. This study develops a composite Water–Energy–Food–Ecosystem Nexus Indicator (WEFENI) and applies System Dynamics Modelling (SDM) to assess vineyard sustainability in northern Spain. This study is the first to introduce WEFENI at a fine spatial resolution, applying it at the grape variety and small-plot level to capture sustainability differences within a single farm. Five key indicators water footprint, carbon footprint, energy footprint, income, and productivity were selected based on their relevance to environmental and socio-economic performance. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaires and field measurements, complemented by secondary data from meteorological and governmental databases. The indicators were normalized, weighted using the CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method, and aggregated into a composite WEFENI. The dynamic model was constructed to simulate monthly interactions within the WEFE nexus, enabling scenario-based analysis and capturing feedback-driven behaviour across resource systems.</div><div>Results show substantial variation in WEFENI scores across agro-climatic zones and grape varieties. The Low Zone achieved the highest score (0.739) due to gravity-fed irrigation and low energy demand, while the High Zone scored lowest (0.556) because of energy-intensive pumping. At the variety level, 15 grape varieties demonstrated a balance between high sustainability and profitability demonstrating the added value of WEFENI in identifying optimal crop choices. Scenario analysis revealed that precision agriculture produced the greatest improvement in WEFENI (+0.102), followed by improved energy efficiency (+0.056), whereas reduced precipitation decreased the score (−0.056).</div><div>The proposed framework enhances the replicability of farm-level sustainability assessments by explicitly defining indicator selection, system boundaries, and calculation procedures. The integration of WEFENI with SDM enables dynamic, scenario-based evaluation of trade-offs and synergies, providing a robust decision-support tool for sustainable resource management in agriculture.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34616,"journal":{"name":"Cleaner Environmental Systems","volume":"19 ","pages":"Article 100346"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145324761","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}