HUN-REN KRTK Regionális Kutatások Intézete

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Browsing HUN-REN KRTK Regionális Kutatások Intézete by Author "Arlati, Alessandro"

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    Sustainability assessment of organic waste management in three EU Cities: Analysing stakeholder-based solutions
    (2021) Sanjuan-Delmás, David; Taelman, Sue Ellen; Arlati, Alessandro; Obersteg, Andreas; Vér, Csaba; Óvári, Ágnes; Tonini, Davide; Dewulf, Jo
    This study focuses on a comprehensive sustainability assessment of the management of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste in Ghent (Belgium), Hamburg (Germany) and Pécs (Hungary). A sustainability assessment framework has been applied to analyse social, environmental, and economic consequences at the midpoint level (25 impact categories) and at the endpoint level (5 areas-of-protection). For each case study, the reference scenario was analysed, along with three solutions to improve the sustainability performance, which were selected and developed with the collaboration of local stakeholders. The solutions focus on food waste prevention, collection (increasing separate collection and household composting) and/or valorisation treatment (insect breeding, bioplastic production and improvement of centralised treatment). The results show that food waste prevention results in substantial improvements in all areas of protection when a significant quantity of food is saved. Solutions proposing innovative treatments such as insect breeding do not show clear improvements at the endpoint level, given current technology development level, but appear promising for some categories such as Revenues, Ecotoxicity, Land Use or Particulate Matter if the substituted products compensate the impact of the treatment (e.g., energy and water use). Enhancing the separate collection of organic waste can improve sustainability, but trade-offs may arise, e.g., decreased environmental savings from energy recovery at incineration. For this, the influence of the electricity mix (more or less decarbonised) should be carefully considered in future studies. The application of the solutions proposed to other cities should also consider potential bottlenecks such as legislation barriers, public acceptance, or management costs.
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    Urban regions shifting to circular economy: Understanding challenges for new ways of governance
    (2019) Obersteg, Andreas; Arlati, Alessandro; Acke, Arianne; Berruti, Gilda; Czapiewski, Konrad; Dabrowski, Marcin; Heurkens, Erwin; Mezei, Cecília; Palestino, Maria Federica; Varjú, Viktor
    Urban areas account for around 50% of global solid waste generation. In the last decade, the European Union has supported numerous initiatives aiming at reducing waste generation by promoting shifts towards Circular Economy (CE) approaches. Governing this process has become imperative. This article focuses on the results of a governance analysis of six urban regions in Europe involved in the Horizon 2020 project REPAiR. By means of semi-structured interviews, document analysis and workshops with local stakeholders, for each urban area a list of governance challenges which hinder the necessary shift to circularity was drafted. In order to compare the six cases, the various challenges have been categorized using the PESTEL-O method. Results highlight a significant variation in policy contexts and the need for these to evolve by adapting stakeholders’ and policy-makers’ engagement and diffusing knowledge on CE. Common challenges among the six regions include a lack of an integrated guiding framework (both political and legal), limited awareness among citizens, and technological barriers. All these elements call for a multi-faceted governance approach able to embrace the complexity of the process and comprehensively address the various challenges to completing the shift towards circularity in cities.