Are modern economies following a sustainable energy consumption path?

Recalde, Marína Yesica; Guzowski, Carina; Zilio, Mariana I.

doi:10.1016/j.esd.2014.01.005

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Even though most studies research dematerialization or decoupling (Recalde, et al, 2014) in relation to the reduction of materials/ resource use (e.g., energy, water, land (Fiksel, 2012)), it can also be applied for assessment of waste reduction, e.g. food waste (Van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2014;Guidat, et al, 2015).…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy efficiency in the transport sector in the EU-27: A dynamic dematerialization analysis

Ziolkowska

Ziółkowski

2015

Energy Economics

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Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy efficiency in the transport sector in the EU-27: A dynamic dematerialization analysis

Ziolkowska

Ziółkowski

2015

Energy Economics

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“…Nowadays, a large amount of research focuses on the decoupling of energy consumption [10,15,16], water usage [17,18], CO 2 emission [19][20][21][22][23][24], and other pollutants production (such as SO 2 , solid waste, wastewater, etc.) [4,6,10,[25][26][27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Decoupling of Resource Consumption and Environmental Impact from Economic Growth in China: Spatial Pattern and Temporal Trend

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Unprecedented economic achievement in China has occurred along with rising resource consumption and waste productions levels. The goal of sustainability requires the decoupling of economic growth from resource consumption (resource decoupling) and environmental degradation (impact decoupling). For this paper, the performances of resource decoupling (energy and water) and impact decoupling (wastewater, SO 2 and CO 2 ) in China were evaluated, and the spatial pattern and temporal trend of decoupling performance were investigated by using the rescaled range analysis (R/S). The results indicate the following. (1) The performance of resource decoupling during the investigated period is worse than that of traditional impact (SO 2 and wastewater) decoupling, but better than that of the CO 2 emission. Additionally, the decoupling performances of energy consumption and related pollutant emission (except CO 2 ) are better than that of water usage and wastewater discharge; (2) The decoupling performance of energy consumption, SO 2 and CO 2 , has substantially improved from the 10th Five-Year Planning Period (FYP) (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) to the 11th FYP (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010), which indicates that the decoupling performance is highly related the environmental policy; (3) The spatial disparities of the performance of resource and impact decoupling are declining, which indicates the existence of cross-province convergence in decoupling performance; (4) The decoupling performance of SO 2 and water usage in most of regions shows an improving trend. Inversely, the decoupling performance of energy consumption, CO 2 emission, and wastewater discharge in most regions show a decreasing trend; (5) China needs more stringent water-saving targets and wastewater discharge standards; better policy efforts to improve the water recycling level both in agricultural, industrial and municipal level are required to prevent the decreasing trend of the decoupling performance.

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“…This study uses the product generational dematerialization (PGD) indicator to investigate energy efficiency practices in Ghana. The PGD has been applied to dematerialization or decoupling (Recalde et al, 2014), resource use such as that of water (Fiksel et al, 2012) and waste reduction, for example of food waste (Guidat et al, 2015;Van Ewijk and Stegemann, 2014). The PGD indicator measures a change in population in relation to changes in the energy used by this specific population (Ziolkowska and Ziolkowski, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of energy efficiency practices of SMEs in rural Ghana: an application of product generational dematerialization method

Ackah¹,

Kizys

2018

Energy Efficiency

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Energy is a key input in industrial production, education and health, and is one of the main drivers of economic growth in developing economies. However, expanding energy access in the rural areas is one of the key challenges faced by policy makers in developing countries such as Ghana. In this regard, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries face the hydra-headed challenges of energy access, power outages, access to finance and access to market. In some cases, whilst energy efficiency appears to be improving at the national level, the story at the rural areas are different due to overdependence on biomass and other traditional forms of energy and relatively low access compared to urban areas. This research is structured in three steps. In the first step, the PGD method is applied to examine the energy efficiency consumption of electricity and fossil fuels. In a second step, the energy efficiency practices of small and medium scale enterprises are investigated. In a third step, the general unrestricted model (GUM) is employed to investigate the relationship between energy efficiency, productivity and carbon emissions. The key findings of the study i) confirm that the consumption of energy has not been efficient, ii) show that the reduction in energy consumption among SMEs can be attributed mostly to blackouts and not efficiency, and iii) productivity is a major driver of energy efficiency. In a nutshell, the national analysis shows that improved productivity from more energy efficient technologies is not responsible for energy reduction. Rather, an analysis of the rural energy situation, shows that that blackouts render energy reductions unintentionally. Moreover, energy efficient practices are observed to be nearly non-existent within rural SMEs. The study recommends that public education on energy efficiency is increased and that new appliances rather than secondhand one are used to save energy.

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Are modern economies following a sustainable energy consumption path?

Cited by 16 publications

References 64 publications

Energy efficiency in the transport sector in the EU-27: A dynamic dematerialization analysis

Energy efficiency in the transport sector in the EU-27: A dynamic dematerialization analysis

The Decoupling of Resource Consumption and Environmental Impact from Economic Growth in China: Spatial Pattern and Temporal Trend

Analysis of energy efficiency practices of SMEs in rural Ghana: an application of product generational dematerialization method

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