AbstractEcological economics is an emerging field that offers significant room for creativity and innovation at the conceptual level on how to operationalize sustainability. It integrates economics with ecology and many elements from both the natural and social sciences to provide an integrated perspective on environment-economy interactions. A major policy dilemma that ecological economics addresses is how policy-makers can influence markets, so that they receive the 'right' signals from the na...
Autori: Kes McCormick
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25106

AbstractOne of the basic principles in the European policy to cope with the growing challenge of water scarcity is that water demand management should be considered before opting for additional water infrastructure. The implication of this is that water must be treated as an economic good, which means that the "user's pays' principle"has to be implemented. At the same time there is much political consensus that the water price has to be "equitable". Water can be subsidized without violating the ...
Autori: Lars Hansson
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25155

AbstractTitanium alloys show attractive properties for biomedical applications where the most important factors are biocompatibility, corrosion resistance, low modulus of elasticity, very good strength-to-weight ratio, reasonable formability and osseointegration. The aim of present study was to evaluate the electrochemical behaviour of Ti6Al7Nb alloy in Ringer’s solution of different pH. This evaluation was carried out through the analysis of the potentiodynamic polarization curves, and electr...
Autori: Daniel Mareci, Julia Claudia Mirza Rosca, Marina Garcia Falcon
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25363

Abstract The mass of usage of secondary plastics are mostly determined by their quality and price. Therefore it was essentially to collect and evaluate the related aspects and expectations from the potential secondary-plastics users. To enable this in the frame of the W2Plastics EU7 project (Magnetic Sorting and Ultrasound Sensor Technologies for Production of High Purity Secondary Polyolefins from Waste) an adequate questionnaire was worked and sent out to automotive plastics end-product man...
Autori: Andrea Toldy, Brigitta Bodzay, Mircea Tierean
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25443

Abstract: The paper focuses on eutrophication due to nutrients load into a reservoir. A thermally stratified reservoir water body is divided in vertical layers and horizontal zones according to water temperature and depth. The layers show different compositions of limiting nutrient because of the density of flow and due to inhabitants on the bottom of the reservoir exposed to sunlight. The bioassay for algal growth potential test (AGPT) is the most direct and effective way to determine a limitin...
Autori: Dimitri Solomatine, Ioana Popescu, Jae-Ki Shin, Nahm-Chung Jung, Peter Kelderman, Roland K. Price
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25798

AbstractThe preliminary assessment of a cost-effective flow-sheet for the production of biodiesel from microalgae lipid fraction wascarried out. The study was based on approximated cost-estimation methods integrated with the simulation software Aspen PlusŽ.Several scenarios were investigated to compare costs regarding the main steps of the biodiesel production process. Ranges ofinput variables from downstream literature and experimental data were used to simulate the sections that define concret...
Autori: Antonio Marzocchella, Giuseppe Olivieri, Piero Salatino, Teresa Guida
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=25973

AbstractTraditionally, sanitary papers are obtained from virgin cellulosic fibers. Because the production of virgin fibers requires largequantity of wood it is an unsustainable process. In addition, virgin fiber pulp is expensive and deficient, being unattractive forpaper producers. Using of virgin fiber is a waste, because sanitary papers cannot be recovered. Due to the fact that the price ofsanitary papers must be as low as possible, the paper mills focused on the use of recovered fiber as raw...
Autori: Dan Gavrilescu, Iftimi Viorel, Roxana Vlase
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26067

Mother Earth Investments AG, is actively working onthe development 2nd generation bioenergy feedstocks.In this book, Mr. Jansen generously shares hisknowledge in the field, in particular, regarding thechallenges and opportunities in development ofbiomass-derived fuels. This essential guide toinvesting in bioenergy commodities details secondgeneration biofuels from a scientific, technical andeconomic perspective, and discusses their globalenvironmental, political and financial impact.The book is ...
Autori: Roland A. Jansen
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26100

The book edited by Haibo Xie and NicholasGathergood focuses on one of the most importantscientific issues of the 21 century which is thereplacing fossil fuel with sustainable alternatives suchas biomass. Fossil fuels are conventional rawmaterials for many industrial sectors includingchemical and energy production. Usage of fossil fuelis limited by their availability, price and carbonfootprint. Biomass is a renewable resource globallyavailable, cheaper and carbon sequestering. Step bystep shiftin...
Autori: Adrian Catalin Puitel
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26101

Abstract The paper presents several aspects regarding the optimization of the operation for a mixed cycle gas turbine, Titan 130S type, installed at S.C. CET S.A. Bacau, during the warm season. The optimization entails the partial loads operation and has been done using the multicriterial analysis, taking into consideration the operation restrictions required for this type of gas turbine. The criteria that regard this analysis are: thermal energy requirements, the global efficiency...
Autori: Marius-Ion Stanila
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26145

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact on rooms pricing of environmental management practices in the hotels ofAndalusia (Southern Spain). Empirical evidence is obtained using a database that was created as part of the project Quality,Productivity and Competitiveness in the Hospitality Industry for Andalusia (PO7/SEJ-02889). From this database, we use asample statistically representative of hotels in the region and applied a hedonic pricing model. The main reason for using thi...
Autori: Alejandro García-Pozo
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26192

AbstractSupply of heat energy is of the high importance in the northern countries of the Europe. EU energy policy and high prices of theheat energy resources takes a challenge to find any alternative resources for generation of heat energy. Therefore in this paper the integration of renewable energy source - solar energy into the existent heat energy supply system is analyzed as the alternative or additional source of heat energy. The case study of the Girionys boiler-house (at Kaunas district, ...
Autori: Jolanta Dvarionienė
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26201

AbstractMonitoring an unstable slope is quite important for environmental safety. Based on our previous studies, this paper presents athird-generation distributed optical fibre transducer. The operating mechanism of this novel transducer was analysed for itsresponse to a single concentrated and uniform load, and a theoretical study was conducted on the elongation of the bottomsurfacefibres of a bending resistance model at the phases of linear elasticity and total cross-section cut-off stage. A b...
Autori: Bang Liu, Dong-Yan Liu, Hu Luo, Jing-Cheng Liu, Qiao-Ying Yuan, Yun-Ju Luo, Zheng-Wei Zhu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26348

AbstractUsing the provincial panel data of China during 1995-2009, this paper focused on the effects of carbon taxes on economy andcarbon emissions in China based on different scenarios. Our research makes the following conclusions: Carbon taxes will restraineconomy growth and curb carbon emissions, but the effects will continually decrease with the enhancement of carbon taxes.Increasing carbon taxes will increase output elasticities of capital and labour, but decrease output elasticity of energ...
Autori: Ru-yin Long, Shi-Chun Xu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26360

AbstractBased on the improved C-D production function model, the relationship of China’s energy consumption, economic growth andcarbon emissions are comprehensively studied in this paper through the panel data in China from1991 to 2009. The researchshows that energy consumption and economic growth have a long-term equilibrium and a one-way causality relationship fromenergy consumption to economic growth. In both elasticity coefficients and contributive rate, energy consumption plays the mostimpo...
Autori: Huifeng Pan, Jian-Min Wang, Li Yang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26370

AbstractThe adoption of Carbon tax is usually thought to be one kind of important economic measures to reduce carbon emissions. Onthe one hand, the adoption of carbon tax can reduce the use of fuels that contain high percentage of carbon, and promote thedevelopment and use of renewable energy. On the other hand, the measure will affect energy prices, supply and demand, andincome distribution, thus causing negative effects on economic growth. This paper discusses the design of the basic taxations...
Autori: Yan-bing Cai
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26371

AbstractThe energy and environmental regulations of thermal power plants became crucial issues in China due to the coal dependence ofelectricity generation. The regulation costs, which are distributed differently between the plants are evaluated based ondirectional distance functions approach using the input and pollution data of the main thermal power plants in 2008. The resultsof our analysis show that potential cost for complying with the regulations entailing coal consumption for power gener...
Autori: Jinyi Li, Wei Zhang, Xiaohua Xia
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26376

AbstractFeed-In-Tariff (FIT) mechanism is an important measure for government to incentive photovoltaic (PV) industry development. Inorder to secure the appropriate implementation of the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) mechanism, this paper explores in the first place anoptimal bidding contract price by establishing a bidding model between government and photovoltaic power generationcompanies. On this basis, the paper adopts the Net Present Value (NPV) method and studies the impacts of the fluctuations ofd...
Autori: Hong Li, Juanrui Lou, Tingting Zhang
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26378

AbstractIn the last decades, the surface of Romanian forests decreased due to an intensive harvesting and, as a consequence, the price ofpulpwood significantly increased. In the same time, the regulations for environmental protection were successively hardened inRomania, so that all chemical pulp mills were closed for economic and environmental reasons. In these circumstances, Romanianpaper producers shifted to recovered paper as raw material. This decision is in accordance with trends of Europe...
Autori: Adrian Cătălin Puiţel
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26462

AbstractThe electricity consumption of a country is influenced by several parameters of the national economic structure, the level ofsocietal advancement and the economic climate. Indicators based on the rate of GDP and electricity consumption are widely usedfor characterizing the productivity of an economy. In this paper, the electricity consumption of the household and productivesectors is analyzed based on reference electricity consumption (proportional to GDP) and the relationship between co...
Autori: Judit T. Kiss
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26540

Abstract In the Netherlands green gas is seen as a sustainable alternative to natural gas. However, green gas is still not competitive to natural gas in terms of pricing, and production volumes are remarkably low. Currently, there is a lot of attention to green gas which stems from upgraded biogas, which is produced by manure-based anaerobic co-digestion by livestock farmers. In this article the central question is to understand green gas demonstration projects from stakeholders’ persp...
Autori: Thomas Hoppe
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26603

Abstract The interest in waterborne paints amelioration increased lately due to the toxicological effect of certain ingredients on human health, the restrictive environmental legislation and the depletion and escalation in price of raw materials. Research efforts in formulating waterborne paints are directed to insure low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission while maintaining and even improving their properties. This paper presents a waterborne paint formulation process. The required ...
Autori: Andrei Ionut Simion
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26639

Abstract The development of biodiesel industry in the recent past brought into discussion the valorization of glycerol as the byproduct of this technology. Dehydration of glycerol leads to acrolein, mainly used as a raw material in the production of acrylic acid and its esters. Several research efforts dealing with the synthesis of acrolein from glycerol are reported in the literature. However, they are limited to catalyst testing on laboratory scale, no attention being paid to the process f...
Autori: Ionut Banu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26666

Abstract One of the changes in marketing refers to the redirection of focus from profit to sustainable development. Sustainability marketing can influence sustainable development. The key contribution of the paper is the presentation of holistic approach to sustainable development and sustainability marketing through three dimensions: goals, actors and capital. Holistic management of sustainability marketing in the process of sustainable development is focused on economic, environmental and ...
Autori: Beba Rakic
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26711

Abstract Currently, conventional energy sources i.e. fossil fuels represent the main segment as regards electricity generation. Thus, their contribution to global CO2 emissions is considerable. This study considers carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a promising solution for the environmental problems we are now facing. Based on previous research, post-combustion capture (PCC) has been recognized as being the more appropriate technology for CO2 capturing from the existing power plants. The m...
Autori: Ales Hribernik
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26714

Abstract In the context of biogas sustainability assessment, a promising way to reach greenhouse gases (GHG) reduction and fossil energy savings is the anaerobic digestion (AD) of both animal manure and energy crops. Nowadays, more than 1,100 AD plants are working in Italy, mostly located in Northern Regions. To those plants with an electrical power lower than 1 MW, strong public incentives were given, therefore, several of them have been put into operation; this entailed increasing cereal ...
Autori: Jacopo Bacenetti
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26771

Abstract The recent awareness about recycling also involves the resources used in civil engineering. The use of Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC) has several advantages in terms of conservation of natural resources and of reduction of pollution. Although the interest on the use of structural concrete with recycled aggregates is increasing, extensive studies on the mechanical behaviour of such materials that can allow their use in alternative to standard concrete are still lacking. As a conse...
Autori: Marco Breccolotti
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26776

Abstract The relation between the level of implementation of environmental practices and corporate financial performance (CFP) becomes important, especially when environmental policies, with corresponding standards and regulations, are adopted by the company on a voluntary basis and when companies’ economic activities affect stakeholders. In our research, we relate environmental practices with CFP by designing a way of measuring a particular environmental rating for which we didn't...
Autori: Dalina Dumitrescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=26920

Tourism and the environment are two closely related concepts. Environmental abuse can result in deteriorating environments with dramatic implications for tourism, which is why more tourism organisations and hotels have been gradually implementing environmental management policies. The objective of this study was to analyse the impact of market positioning as a green hotel on room prices in large cities. The hedonic pricing method was applied to hotels in two locations: Madrid and Barcelona. D...
Autori: Ismael P. Soler
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27076

The green products market is growing up fast, but there is still a strong need to provide clear and verified information about their environmental performances in order to create a real consuming preference. The main preliminary results of a market survey conducted in Romania in 2010-2013 within the LIFE+ project -Promoting green products, aimed at evaluating the availability of eco-labeled products and at promoting their use, are presented in this paper. A national Green Register of type I e...
Autori: Antonina Temea
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27114

This paper examined some physical and mechanical properties of wood from thin trees of sessile oak collected from thinning operations, in order to recommend this secondary wood resource for potential superior applications (as solid wood panels and furniture components). Swelling, shrinkage, modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) and compression strength parallel to the grain were examined and compared with data from literature reported for mature trees. The variation of the abo...
Autori: Alin M. Olărescu
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27210

Sustainable development of the companies could be enhanced by the inclusion of the environmental information in annual financial statements in order to support the investors’ decisions, with direct impact on the companies’ market value and implicitly on their global performance. Environmental information describes the activities carried out by companies, their impact on the environment, as well as the measures taken to protect the environment and they can guarantee the sustainable de...
Autori: Costel Istrate
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27341

Because of increased environmental consciousness, pollution emissions reduction has been stressed by more and more governments these days, and the environmental management system (EMS) has become one approach for many firms to comply with environmental regulations. However, with rapidly changing technologies along with increasingly complicated environments, how to select a suitable EMS project has become an important issue that has never been discussed comprehensively. First, tolerating vague a...
Autori: Hsing Hung Chen
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27391

Continuously increasing energy prices, as well as the increasing number of legal stipulations, bring to the attention of scientists the necessity of finding solutions for energy saving by using different heat sources. According to the EU Action Plan, the highest potential of energy savings (27-30% until 2020) will be applied to the existing buildings. Under the circumstances of environmental issues, research on the use of secondary energy resources is of great interest, being a concern in the...
Autori: Timea Gabor
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27395

In recent years, increasing temperatures and extreme weather conditions have had a significant impact on quality of life, especially in terms of the environment. Governments have made environmental preservation a priority and have received public support in turn. We formulate models to investigate a company’s optimal production quantities over two periods, including green technology efforts, to examine the impact of a carbon trading policy. We build separate inter-temporal production mode...
Autori: Changsong Ma
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27469

This study focuses on some mechanical properties resulted from the tensile testing of a set of green composites with a Dammar-based matrix and reinforcement material of silk, flax, cotton and hemp fabrics. To be precise, we have ascertained the characteristic curve, the resistance to and the elongation at fraction, as well as the modulus of elasticity for each set of samples from these composites and for a set of bioresin samples. With the help of an Electronic Scanning Microscope we captured im...
Autori: Ion Ciucă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27516

Livestock production is under growing public and scientific scrutiny for its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article contains a preliminary assessment of the inclusion of upstream life-cycle GHG emissions in concentrated feeds design, using the most common nonlinear programming optimization algorithms to determine feed composition. First, GHG emissions are included as costs in a single criteria optimization problem. The unit price of GHG emissions was obtained using a genetic algorithm. Sec...
Autori: Ricardo F.M. Teixeira
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27572

Timber harvesting activity represents one of the major sources of the forest terrain erosion. Several studies have been performed in order to quantify the rate of soils erosion by considering the practices used in forestry, and some of them concluded that the associated erosion can be regarded as the price of having roads. The current study focused on the used practices in developing skidding trails and the associated erosion phenomena. There was found that some of the used practices (the lon...
Autori: Cristian Ionuţ Duţă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27673

Real estate is an industry sector with high potential to increase energy efficiency. However, many of the existing green building investment opportunities (GBIO) are not utilized because economic valuation tools are complex and oftentimes difficult to understand. For this reason, we develop a formal, but comprehensible bottom-up model to determine the optimal investment amount from an economic perspective, placing particular emphasis on the descriptive valuation of risk, and point out the applic...
Autori: Hans Ulrich Buhl
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27687

In this paper, we determined some mechanical properties of a new category of green composites, based on tensile tests. More precisely, we selected a set of samples from a new bio-resin based on Dammar and two sets of samples from green-composites with matrix by bio-resin and reinforced with almost compact layers of Typha latifolia or Schoenoplectus lacustris. For these built materials, we obtained the characteristic curve, tensile strength, percentage elongation after fracture and elasticity mod...
Autori: Ion Ciucă
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=27980

Slags are the main by-products from steelmaking cycle, which are currently recycled inside the steel industry as well as in other sectors with significant environmental and economic benefits. As in Italy slags application is not yet allowed in agriculture, the paper aims at evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of a slag treatment plant, to obtain a product to be sold in the fertilizer market as soil amendment. A preliminary assessment of the fate of some trace metals (Cr, V, Sb a...
Autori: Teresa Annunziata Branca
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28012

To ensure that green growth are achieved and socially optimal, we develops an endogenous growth model featuring a directed technological innovation, environmental taxation and economic activity. Our model investigates the inner dynamic interactions of green growth. Then, a numerical analysis is presented to trace how the green growth will be achieved by the four parameters: the size of tax distortions, the rate of capital tax, the elasticity of pollution conversion and the cost of carbon abateme...
Autori: Yuzhe Zhao
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28066

The paper highlights the problem of assessing the level of environmentally acceptable green transport in modern supply chains. Cargo owners put the elements of time and price of service into the forefront, where the degree of pollution (CO2, NOx, SO2, PMs) and the need for energy efficiency is too often ignored. Various studies highlight the lack of methodological approaches to the standardized evaluation of the environmental impacts of intermodal transport, thus the aim is to formulate a modul...
Autori: Bojan BeĹĄkovnik
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28237

Due to the environmental deterioration because of pollution and excessive consumption of natural resources, governments are driving efforts to limit pollution emissions and to encourage cleaner manufacturing. The most common interventions governments adopted are providing subsidy to green products and taxing non-green products. With the green consciousness improving gradually, consumers prefer to buy products based on greenness of products with price and quality level together. In order to inve...
Autori: Yitong Ma
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28258

TDue to the environmental deterioration because of pollution and excessive consumption of natural resources, governments are driving efforts to limit pollution emissions and to encourage cleaner manufacturing. The most common interventions governments adopted are providing subsidy to green products and taxing non-green products. With the green consciousness improving gradually, consumers prefer to buy products based on greenness of products with price and quality level together. In order to i...
Autori: Yitong Ma
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28259

Based on the carbon dioxide emission-dependent market represented by the traditional energy, electricity, petroleum and chemical industries, this paper studies the optimal price and competitive decision in the duopoly competition market under the constraints of three carbon emission reduction policies: carbon cap, carbon cap-and-trade and carbon tax, and verifies the relevant conclusions through numerical analysis. The results show that because of the competition between the two oligarchic mark...
Autori: He Hua
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28272

In order to study how to effectively green the logistics capability, we establish a Stackelberg game model of logistics service demand side and logistics service provider. Taking the logistics service provider as the leading factor, this paper analyzes the coordination effect of revenue-sharing contract, cost-sharing contract and combination contract of revenue-sharing contract and cost-sharing contract on the enthusiasm of logistics service providers to rebuild green logistics capability. At t...
Autori: Zhigang Song
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28273

From the perspective of Micro-Low-Carbon Economy, this paper studies the low-carbon manufacturing decision model of manufacturing enterprises considering carbon emission trading and green technology input under the carbon cap. The paper shows that the manufacturing enterprises have optimal output and this is unique under the carbon cap. The low-carbon manufacturing decision is addressed under three situations: carbon emission trading, green technology input and joint decision. The research shows...
Autori: Ma Changsong
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28279

A circular economy system will allow company to directly operate an effective re-cycling policy. Establishing a new “zero waste” impact scheme, in order to recover by-products from the production process, thus leading to an increased market price in comparison to their economic value, and by doing so with full respect of the blue and circular economy standards applied to the product. The main objective of the PVC upcycling project is to facilitate the transition of R.ED.EL.’s ...
Autori: Consuelo Nava
ISSN: 1843 - 3707
http://www.ecozone.ro/reviste.php?RID=28304