The Role of Renewable Energy in the Promotion of Circular Urban Metabolism

Barragán-Escandón, Antonio; Terrados-Cepeda, Julio; Zalamea-León, Esteban

doi:10.3390/su9122341

Cited by 35 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 117 publications

(228 reference statements)

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“…On the supply side, the scale of financial investment for the new infrastructure required to support looping actions (materials, energy and water) is significant. In cities, this has to be considered alongside the vested interests and sunk costs in existing urban infrastructure [43][44][45].…”

Section: Economic and Financial Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Circular Cities: Challenges to Implementing Looping Actions

Williams

2019

Sustainability

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Currently cities consume 60–80% of natural resources globally. They produce 50% of global waste and 75% of green-house gas emissions. The UN estimates that 66% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050 while the global urban footprint will triple over the years to 2030. Thus cities, as a system of production and consumption, threaten the environmental sustainability of the globe. Looping actions—reuse, recycling and recovery of resources (materials, energy, water, land and infrastructure)—can help to address resource scarcity and wastage in cities. However, there are many challenges to implementation. Much of the literature explores the challenges to looping actions within resource sectors and for specific actions (i.e., challenges to adaptive reuse of buildings, recycling of material waste, energy recovery from sewage). It often does so without any clear reference to context. Nexus solutions are becoming a popular resource looping response to tackling wastage in cities. Some of the challenges to implementation have been explored, but influence of context has not been investigated. In this paper we explore the challenges facing the implementation of looping actions in cities. Using a mixed methods approach, we identify 58 challenges to looping actions across eight themes. We also establish the challenges to implementing a nexus solution. The research identifies five common implementation challenges. Addressing these challenges could enable looping actions across resource types in cities. The research also demonstrates how context affects the challenges to implementing looping actions and nexus solutions in cities. Nevertheless, the analysis suggests that there are some common levers for promoting looping actions and nexus solutions in cities, regardless of context.

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Section: Economic and Financial Challengementioning

confidence: 99%

Circular Cities: Challenges to Implementing Looping Actions

Williams

2019

Sustainability

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“…In terms of ownership, there is a preference for the private sector to have a role, but not to the extent that state monopoly becomes private monopoly or oligopoly: it is diversity that is sought, for its presumed resilience and dynamism. The participants' views favour micro, small-and medium-scale energy supply at different subnational levels, paralleling the results of the United Nations Habitat III meeting that was held in Quito-Ecuador in 2016, where the need to decentralise energy systems to municipal levels was highlighted [46,47]. Stakeholders were similarly concerned about the lack of development of the microgeneration and/or distributed generation to date in Ecuador.…”

Section: Process and Contentmentioning

confidence: 84%

Collaborative energy visioning under conditions of illiberal democracy: results and recommendations from Ecuador

2018

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Background: Sociotechnical transitions require pressure to be exerted from inside or outside of the prevailing 'regime', without which various path dependencies combine to maintain the status quo. Change agents including policy entrepreneurs within the regime, or civil society voices outside, can be sources of such pressure. However, in illiberal democracies or authoritarian regimes, these voices may be little heard or even suppressed. With the premise that this situation calls for protected transition spaces for policy development that are outside of formal institutions, so that policy windows may be taken advantage of should they arise, this paper applies a transdisciplinary transition management arena (TTMA) process (Noboa and Upham, Energy Res Soc Sci 46:114-124, 2018), whereby civil society and other stakeholders can be engaged in the envisioning of new energy futures. Results: With an example of such an arena in Ecuador and presenting a rationale and design that draws on transdisciplinary research and transition management theories, problem statements, visions and strategies for a more decentralised energy system were set out, as generated by participants from government, NGOs, business and academia. The visioning process was evaluated and an analytical framework is proposed, by which to guide energy transition policy analysis in similar contexts in the future. Conclusions: Although compromised in illiberal democracies, sociotechnical transitions benefit from the voices of change agents through the building of new alternative discourses, stimulating policy entrepreneurship and crafting readiness for policy windows. The new alternative energy visions that were produced by participants in the process described here emphasise distributed renewable and sustainable generation, decentralised decision-making at subnational level, participatory energy planning governance and heterogeneous poly-technological solutions at small and medium scales.

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“…It is measured in kWh/€. It measures the ability of a company to conserve energy consumption in products and services that generate revenue, reducing energy loss [128]; the renewable energy indicator: this represents the percentage of energy in a process that derives from renewable energy sources in relation to the total energy consumption of a company or process. Renewable energy resources determine a focal role in upholding low-carbon or GHG principles, one of the main issues for the loop closing, as demonstrated with the choice of the next indicator [84,129];…”

Section: Quantification Methods: Materials Flow Analysis Sankey Diagrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming the Main Barriers of Circular Economy Implementation through a New Visualization Tool for Circular Business Models

2019

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There is a huge gap between the broad concept of circular economy (CE) and its practical implementation in the industrial sector due to several types of barriers, which shall be led back to the lack of consistent and precise information about resources, products, and processes. Without a proper information flow, it is impossible to quantify circular initiatives, both in comparison with the actual linear situation or with circular alternative opportunities. A proper quantification of circular initiatives allows the assessment of economic, environmental and social benefits and the preventative identification of potential barriers and relative solutions, monitoring the risk associated with circular investments and supporting the decision-making process. This paper describes a new tool to ensure the quantification of circular initiatives and the method to define it. It is a new Circular Business Model (CBM) visualization tool, which overcomes the main limitations of the existing models able to explain CE concepts but not to boost its practical implementation in industry. The new CBM visualization tool can be adopted in every industrial sector to highlight circular opportunities that are still hidden or unexploited or to select the best CE strategy. The proposed CBM visualization tool differs from the previous diagrams in two main characteristics: (i) the possibility to quantify resource flows and important indicators representing energy consumption, environmental and social impact, and (ii) the focus, which is not only on the product, but on the whole system, involving also the process, the company and the entire supply chain. The methodology to adopt and adapt the proposed model to different scales is described in detail. To provide a practical example, the model was qualitatively applied to a generic technical product to highlight its potential in the identification and quantification of circular activities.

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The Role of Renewable Energy in the Promotion of Circular Urban Metabolism

Cited by 35 publications

References 117 publications

Circular Cities: Challenges to Implementing Looping Actions

Circular Cities: Challenges to Implementing Looping Actions

Collaborative energy visioning under conditions of illiberal democracy: results and recommendations from Ecuador

Overcoming the Main Barriers of Circular Economy Implementation through a New Visualization Tool for Circular Business Models

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