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Abstract: Agriculture and food production can cause a variety of adverse environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the only standardised method so far that provides a comprehensive assessment of the environmental burden of products. LCA results can be expressed as environmental impacts (midpoint level) or environmental damage (endpoint level). Communication on environmental impact is mostly carried out as a part of the Carbon Footprint (CF) or Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), while reporting on environmental damage is rarely used. Due to the growing interest of consumers in ‘healthy’ food, it is important that food producers address the environmental damage. Therefore, an overview of existing Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods that provide insight into endpoint indicators describing damage to human health has been performed and presented in this paper. The application of the selected LCIA methods is demonstrated for the case of food products, highlighting the fact that the results obtained by different LCIA methods are not directly comparable due to a variety of methodological limitations, such as the existence of different environmental indicators and their structure. Finally, the usage of the LCA method for designing food products is presented, with the aim of enabling consumers to choose diets with lower environment and human health impacts.
Keywords: sustainable food consumption, eco-conscious choices, life cycle assessment, environmental impact, human health
Published in DKUM: 23.09.2025; Views: 0; Downloads: 3
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Abstract: The aim of this research was to identify energy saving instructions effect on household’s electricity consumption. The research was conducted using Randomized Control Trials, which implied defining a treatment and control group on a sample of 330 households. The research was carried out in Republic of Serbia, where electricity prices are the lowest in Europe and electricity is used inefficiently. For quantitative analysis of data, the Difference in Difference method was used, which compares the changes in electricity consumption over time between the treatment and control group and estimates the overall impact of the energy saving instructions. The research showed that in situations where electricity price is very low, energy saving information does not have the significant impact on change in consumer behavior. However, inefficient use of electricity might be due to the different efficiency of heating devices used. Not only that the low impact of information on energy saving habits may be a consequence of the low will to change habit, but also of the impossibility to change the habit (unless changing the heating device, but this implies expenditures). Results can be used for consideration of changes in organization and regulation of the electricity market in all South Eastern European countries (SEE).
Keywords: electricity consumption, consumersʹ behavior, randomized control trials method, difference method, case study, Serbia
Published in DKUM: 10.10.2024; Views: 0; Downloads: 7
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Abstract: The manuscript discusses the investigation of vehicle flow in a predesignated junction byan appropriate traffic flow management with an effort to minimize fuel consumption, the productionof CO2, an essential greenhouse gas (hereinafter referred to as GHG), and related transport costs.The particular research study was undertaken in a frequented junction in the city of Celje, located in the eastern part of Slovenia. The results obtained summarize data on consumed fuel and produced CO2 amounts depending on the type of vehicle, traffic flow mixture, traffic light signal plan, andactual vehicle velocity. These values were calculated separately for three different conditions of traffic flow management. Amounts of fuel consumed were experimentally investigated in real traffic situations, whereas CO2 production was calculated by applying the actual European standardentitled EN 16258:2012 associated with a guideline for measuring emission values, as well as by examining specific traffic flow parameters. The key objective of the manuscript is to present multiple scenarios towards striving to minimize environmental impacts and improve transport operation's economic consequences when implementing proper traffic flow management. As for crucial findings, we quantified fuel consumption and CO2 emissions based on real data on the number and type of vehicles crossing the examined intersection and traffic light switching intervals. The results show that most of the CO2 was produced while waiting and in the accelerating phase in front of traffic lights, whereby in the running phase through the intersection, significantly less fuel was used. This study represents a mosaic fragment of research addressing endeavors to reduce CO2 production in urban transport. Following the experiments conducted, we can see a notable contribution towards reducing CO2 production with known and tested interventions in the existing transport infrastructure. A procedure embracing individual research steps may be deemed as an approach methodology dealing with traffic flow management with an aim to decrease the environmental and economic impacts oftraffic and transport operation; this is where the novelty of the research lies.
Keywords: traffic flow management, urban transport, CO2 production, greenhouse gas, fuel consumption, methodology, logistics, crossroads
Published in DKUM: 19.08.2024; Views: 82; Downloads: 12
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Abstract: Logistics and transport are major sources of energy consumption that still rely heavily on fossil fuels. Especially in the freight sector, finding means to optimise fuel consumption and energy efficiency are increasingly important. Digital twins’ adaptation in logistics and transport is not as frequent as in production, but their implementation potential is immense. This technology can replicate real environments, allowing verification of various scenarios without real-life application, leading to optimal implementation outcome faster and more efficiently. This paper aims to research digital twins’ use in logistics and transport, focusing on digital twins’ potential and effects to optimise energy consumption. Firstly, previous research on digital twins in specified fields was identified, followed by a quantitative literature review. The latter focused on codifying the selected publications based on criteria such as modality, specific environment, energy consumption, etc. Furthermore, a qualitative overview of 57 relevant publications on digital twins’ use in logistics and transport was made. The main contribution of this paper is the systematic overview of digital twins from the viewpoint of energy optimisation in one of the most energy-dependent sectors. This gives researchers a good starting point for further research and digital twins’ practical implementation cases.
Keywords: logistics, transport, digital twin, energy consumption, optimisation, literature review, bibliometrics
Published in DKUM: 22.04.2024; Views: 129; Downloads: 37
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Abstract: The wet flue gas cleaning process in thermal power plants uses limestone reagent, which is ground and mixed with process water, before coming in contact with flue gases, in order to form a homogeneous suspension, which then absorbs the gaseous acid components in the flue gas cleaning process in thermal power plants (mainly sulphur dioxide) from the flue gas stream. The purity of the limestone has a significant effect on its consumption, as cleaner limestone enables the absorption of a larger amount of acidic components from the flue gas stream, with lower total consumption of the reagent - i.e. limestone.
Keywords: flue gas desulphurisation, limestone, limestone purity, limestone consumption
Published in DKUM: 13.11.2023; Views: 501; Downloads: 32
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