Simulating early adoption of alternative fuel vehicles for sustainability

We quantify the conditions that might trigger wide spread adoption of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) to support energy policy. Empirical review shows that early adopters are heterogeneous motivated by financial benefits, environmental appeal, new technology, and vehicle reliability. A probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation model is used to assess consumer heterogeneity for early and mass market adopters. For early adopters full battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are competitive but unable to surpass diesels or hybrids due to purchase price premium and lack of charging availability. For mass adoption, simulations indicate that if the purchase price premium of a BEV closes to within 20% of an in-class internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, combined with a 60% increase in refuelling availability relative to the incumbent system, BEVs become competitive. But this depends on a mass market that values the fuel economy and CO2 reduction benefits associated with BEVs. We also find that the largest influence on early adoption is financial benefit rather than pro-environmental behaviour suggesting that AFVs should be marketed by appealing to economic benefits combined with pro-environmental behaviour to motivate adoption. Monte Carlo simulations combined with scenarios can give insight into diffusion dynamics for other energy demand-side technologies. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

Risk-based approaches to sustainability in civil engineering

Infrastructure project sustainability assessment typically entails the use of specialised assessment tools to measure and rate project performance against a set of criteria. This paper looks beyond the prevailing approaches to sustainability assessments and explores sustainability principles in terms of project risks and opportunities. Taking a risk management approach to applying sustainability concepts to projects has the potential to reconceptualise decision structures for sustainability from bespoke assessments to becoming a standard part of the project decisionmaking process. By integrating issues of sustainability into project risk management for project planning, design and construction, sustainability is considered within a more traditional business and engineering language. Currently, there is no widely practised approach for objectively considering the environmental and social context of projects alongside the more traditional project risk assessments of time, cost and quality. A risk-based approach would not solve all the issues associated with existing sustainability assessments but it would place sustainability concerns alongside other key risks and opportunities, integrating sustainability with other project decisions.

Trust-Level Risk Evaluation and Risk Control Guidance in the NHS East of England

In recent years, the healthcare sector has adopted the use of operational risk assessment tools to help understand the systems issues that lead to patient safety incidents. But although these problem-focused tools have improved the ability of healthcare organizations to identify hazards, they have not translated into measurable improvements in patient safety. One possible reason for this is a lack of support for the solution-focused process of risk control. This article describes a content analysis of the risk management strategies, policies, and procedures at all acute (i.e., hospital), mental health, and ambulance trusts (health service organizations) in the East of England area of the British National Health Service. The primary goal was to determine what organizational-level guidance exists to support risk control practice. A secondary goal was to examine the risk evaluation guidance provided by these trusts. With regard to risk control, we found an almost complete lack of useful guidance to promote good practice. With regard to risk evaluation, the trusts relied exclusively on risk matrices. A number of weaknesses were found in the use of this tool, especially related to the guidance for scoring an event's likelihood. We make a number of recommendations to address these concerns. The guidance assessed provides insufficient support for risk control and risk evaluation. This may present a significant barrier to the success of risk management approaches in improving patient safety. © 2013 Society for Risk Analysis.

Effects of damming on population sustainability of Chinese sturgeon, Acipenser sinensis: evaluation of optimal conservation measures

The numbers of spawning sites for Chinese sturgeon have been drastically reduced since the construction of the Gezhouba Dam across the Yangtze River. This dam has blocked migration of Chinese sturgeon to their historic spawning ground causing a significant decline of the Chinese sturgeon population. We conducted a VORTEX population viability analysis to estimate the sustainability of the population and to quantify the efficiency of current and alternative conservation procedures. The model predicted the observed decline of Chinese sturgeon, resulting from the effect of the Gezhouba Dam. These simulations demonstrated the potential interest of two conservation measures: increasing spawning area and reducing predation on sturgeon eggs. The simulations also demonstrated that the actual restocking program is not sufficient to sustain sturgeon population as the artificial reproduction program induce the loss of more wild mature adults that the recruitment expected by the artificial reproduction.

Sustainability: A new imperative in contaminated land remediation

Land is not only a critical component of the earth's life support system, but also a precious resource and an important factor of production in economic systems. However, historical industrial operations have resulted in large areas of contaminated land that are only slowly being remediated. In recent years, sustainability has drawn increasing attention in the environmental remediation field. In Europe, there has been a movement towards sustainable land management; and in the US, there is an urge for green remediation. Based on a questionnaire survey and a review of existing theories and empirical evidence, this paper suggests the expanding emphasis on sustainable remediation is driven by three general factors: (1) increased recognition of secondary environmental impacts (e.g., life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, energy consumption, and waste production) from remediation operations, (2) stakeholders' demand for economically sustainable brownfield remediation and "green" practices, and (3) institutional pressures (e.g., social norm and public policy) that promote sustainable practices (e.g., renewable energy, green building, and waste recycling). This paper further argues that the rise of the "sustainable remediation" concept represents a critical intervention point from where the remediation field will be reshaped and new norms and standards will be established for practitioners to follow in future years. This paper presents a holistic view of sustainability considerations in remediation, and an integrated framework for sustainability assessment and decision making. The paper concludes that "sustainability" is becoming a new imperative in the environmental remediation field, with important implications for regulators, liability owners, consultants, contractors, and technology vendors. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Mired in the meaning: Sustainability in consultancy

This paper explores sustainability as it relates to the services, operations and management of engineering and design (E&D) consulting firms, revealing how sustainability has been adopted by the engineering consulting industry as a key influence on its business. The motivations behind sustainability as a business priority for E&D consulting do not appear to reflect a corporate belief or endorsement of sustainability principles, but rather a reflection of market, employee and government drivers. Through interview-based reporting, the implications of these motivations are the focus of this paper through an exploration of the meaning, understanding and operationalising of sustainability in engineering design, assessment of design and in-firm management and strategy.

Re-engineering Manufacturing for Sustainability

This edited volume presents the proceedings of the 20th CIRP LCE Conference, which cover various areas in life cycle engineering such as life cycle design, end-of-life management, manufacturing processes, manufacturing systems, methods and ...