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The emerging global tourism geography—an environmental sustainability perspective

The current development of tourism is environmentally unsustainable. Specifically, tourism's contribution to climate change is increasing while other sectors are reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. This paper has two goals: reveal the main structural cause for tourism's emission growth and show the consequences thereof for (mitigation) policies. It is reasoned that the main cause for tourism's strong emission growth is the time-space expansion of global tourism behavior. Contemporary tourism theory and geography fail to clearly describe this geographical development, making it difficult to understand this expansion and develop effective policies to mitigate environmental impacts. Therefore, this paper explores some elements of a 'new tourism geography' and shows how this may help to better understand the causes of the environmentally unsustainable development of tourism with respect to climate change and devise mitigation policies.

Trends and developments in the renewable energy sector in Ukraine

The government of Ukraine has adopted the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) with clear goals and a roadmap to facilitate its energy transition towards renewable sources. This is done because of both climate concerns as well as reasons related to Ukraine’s foreign policy which led the government to decide that Ukraine should work more on its own energy independence. Currently the percentage of renewable energy sources in Ukraine is among the lowest of the entire Europe and there is only slow development in terms of the growth of the sector, even though there is a lot of available biomass, given the large and flat surface of the country with a well-developed agricultural sector. As in most countries in the world, there is a quite intensive and well-developed debate in Ukraine about the energy sector, energy usage and the necessary transition towards more renewable types of energy. One of the consequences of it is that Ukraine is one of the partner countries in the Paris agreement and committed itself to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the future. That means that a transformation towards renewable energy is needed, even though currently in Ukraine only a low percentage of energy is generated by sustainable sources. The general picture is that in Ukraine the development of the renewable energy sector is going not as fast as could have been. In other words, there are several barriers present that hinder the energy transition. One of the issues behind such a barrier may be a limited access to technology, or problems with legislation or other issues which may be unknown so far, but certainly relevant for foreign investors. The Ukrainian government adopted the so-called Renewable Energy Directive (RED), set goals for the energy transition and support the transition itself. In some areas progress was made, for example in the growing number of biomass fired boilers, but still Ukraine remains one of the European countries with the lowest percentage of renewable energy production. Therefore, in order to identify currently existing barriers and help to find possible applications of new technologies in Ukraine, the Dutch Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemerschap) commissioned this study. It was done within the framework of the Partners in Business on Bioenergy program. The focus of this study is on analysing the renewable energy sector, with special attention for biomass, in the form of biomass-based heating and biomass for biofuels. Of course, other parts of the renewable energy sector such as solar and wind energy are also taken into consideration. The second part consists of a case study to determine the business case for direct processing of sugar beets with Betaprocess as a possible application of biomass to biofuel production in Ukraine. The third study is aiming at determining the amount of biomass that can safely be taken from the fields, without negatively affecting the fertility of the soil. These sub-studies mentioned in the previous paragraph offer a better understanding of the renewable energy market in general and biomass/biofuel applications in particular. This study sheds light on several important questions that entrepreneurs and/or other foreign investors may have about investing in Ukraine. Even though it is well-known that doing business in Ukraine is challenging, it is also very important to have a clear picture of the opportunities that this country offers, within the limits that nature sets, in order to avoid negative consequences like soil degradation. The objective of this report is to find out about which opportunities and barriers exist in the Ukrainian transition towards renewable energy generation, to calculate the profitability of new biomass-processing technologies as well as finding out limitations of biomass usage.

Tourism and climate change mitigation : methods, greenhouse gas reductions and policies

European Renewable Energy: Applying circular economy thinking to policy-making

This article addresses European energy policy through conventional and transformative sustainability approaches. The reader is guided towards an understanding of different renewable energy options that are available on the policy making table and how the policy choices have been shaped. In arguing that so far, European energy policy has been guided by conventional sustainability framework that focuses on eco-efficiency and ‘energy mix’, this article proposes greater reliance on circular economy (CE) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) frameworks. Exploring the current European reliance on biofuels as a source of renewable energy, this article will provide recommendations for transition to transformative energy choices. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/2331 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

Simulating waste separation policies for the circular economy

This research contributes to understanding and shaping systems for OFMSW separation at urban Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs, such as offices, shops and service providers). Separating SMEs’ organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is both an opportunity and a serious challenge for the transition towards circular cities. It is an opportunity because OFMSW represents approximately 40% of the total waste mass generated by these companies. It is challenging because post-collection separation is not feasible for OFMSW. Therefore, SMEs disposing of waste should separate their solid waste so that processing the organic fraction for reuse and recycling is practical and attainable. However, these companies do not experience direct advantages from the extra efforts in separating waste, and much of the OFMSW ends up in landfills, often resulting in unnecessary GHG emissions. Therefore, governments and waste processors are looking for ways to improve the OFMSW separation degree by urban companies disposing of waste through policies for behaviour change.There are multiple types of personnel at companies disposing of waste. These co-workers act according to their values, beliefs and norms. They adapt their behaviour continuously, influenced by the physical environment, events over time and self-evaluation of their actions. Therefore, waste separation at companies can be regarded as a Socio-Technical Complex Adaptive System (STCAS). Agent-based modelling and simulation are powerful methods to help understand STCAS. Consequently, we have created an agent-based model representing the evolution of behaviour regarding waste separation at companies in the urban environment. The model aims to show public and private stakeholders involved in solid waste collection, transport and processing to what extent behaviour change policies can shape the system towards desired waste separation degrees.We have co-created the model with participants utilising literature and empirical data from a case study on the transition of the waste collection system of a business park located at a former harbour area in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. First, a conceptual model of the system and the environment was set up through participatory workshops, surveys and interviews with stakeholders, domain experts and relevant actors. Together with our case participants, five policies that affect waste separation behaviour were included in the model. To model the behaviour of each company worker’s values, beliefs and norms during the separation and disposal of OFMSW, we have used the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) Theory by Stern et al. (1999). We have collected data on waste collection behaviour and separation rates through interviews, workshops and a literature study to operationalise and validate the model.Simulation results show how combinations of behaviour profiles affect waste separation rates. Furthermore, findings show that single waste separation policies are often limitedly capable of changing the behaviour in the system. Rather, a combination of information and communication policies is needed to improve the separation of OFMSW, i.e., dissemination of a newsletter, providing personal feedback to the co-workers disposing of waste, and sharing information on the (improvement of) recycling rates.This study contributes to a better understanding of how policies can support co-workers’ pro-environmental behaviour for organic waste separation rates at SMEs. Thus, it shows policymakers how to stimulate the circular transition by actively engaging co-workers’ waste separation behaviour at SMEs. Future work will extend the model’s purpose by including households and policies supporting separating multiple waste types aimed at various R-strategies proposed by Potting et al. (2016).

Developing a transnational biofuels refueling infrastructure: EU biofuels corridors

This article outlines issues to be tackled when considering increases in biofuel usage in the European Union (EU) and examines a potential scheme to increase the use of biofuels in the road transport sector; the development of biofuels corridors. An EU biofuels corridor is defined as a long-distance and cross-border route on the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) Network roads on which blends with a high biofuel content (referred to as high blends) are offered at regular intervals along the entire route. The article first defines the current framework of EU biofuels development. A case study on the feasibility of one possible EU biofuels corridor, from Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Constanta, Romania, is analyzed along four potential biofuels corridor designs (under different future scenarios). The case study includes interviews with key stakeholders, transport flows analysis, refueling infrastructure, and biofuels policy in the relevant member states. The results are extrapolated to the complete EU level in order to assess the potential effect of the biofuels corridor approach as a measure of stimulating the use of biofuels. It is concluded that EU biofuels corridors can increase the use of biofuels. However, if applied as a stand-alone measure a maximum contribution is limited. The effectiveness of biofuels corridors is not larger mainly due to the fact that the transport flows on the TEN-T Network roads are not representative of actual fuel sales at stations on this network (i.e., motorway stations). In addition, various recommendations are made for further research. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.