This paper uses a novel approach to re-examine the relationship between income inequality and pollution and shows that protecting the environment can have an added advantage of creating a just and inclusive society. Pollution threatens health and livelihoods of vulnerable groups, in turn making them even more vulnerable, creating a vicious cycle. We investigate if sustainable environmental policies can mitigate the impact of pollution on these vulnerable groups, while addressing inclusion.
Background: Natural outdoor environments including green spaces play an important role in preserving population health and wellbeing in cities, but the number of deaths that could be prevented by increasing green space in European cities is not known. We aimed to estimate the number of natural-cause deaths among adult residents that could be prevented in cities in 31 European countries, if the WHO recommendation for universal access to green space was achieved.
Agriculture is fundamental to all three pillars of sustainability, environment, society, and economy. However, the definition of sustainable agriculture and the capacities to measure it remain elusive. Independent and transparent measurements of national sustainability are needed to gauge progress, encourage accountability, and inform policy. Here, we developed a Sustainable Agriculture Matrix (SAM) to quantify national performance indicators in agriculture and to investigate the trade-offs and synergies based on historical data for most countries of the world.
Anthropogenic activity is a major driver of seabird injury and mortality in the 21st century. Although most seabirds perish within the natural environment as a result of human activities, some are rescued and admitted to rehabilitation centres. Despite the considerable number of admissions, little is known regarding the physiological response seabirds have to specific admission reasons and the rehabilitation process.
This Viewpoint supports SDGs 3, 6, and 7 by discussing some of the reasons why many of the innovations and technologies for WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) and household air pollution developed in recent decades have not led to the expected improvements in health outcomes, and why many of these interventions have either been inconsistently adopted by low-income households, or not adopted at all.
This short communication describes the climate change impacts of using cellulose, and more precisely cellulosic fiber-based materials, in food packaging, representing current and emerging industrial state of the art technology, without specific reference to current scientific advances. First, the different types of cellulosic fiber-based packaging materials, which can be used to replace fossil-based packaging materials, are presented for flexible and rigid applications. The focus is on technological solutions with packaging properties that enable the protection of commonly sold food products.
The principal motivations for the worldwide trend towards reducing meat consumption are health, the environment and animal welfare. The present study investigated the willingness of omnivores to introduce mixed (beef-vegetable protein) and 100% vegetable protein products into their diet. The participants (n = 251) were young adult omnivores who consumed meat at least once a week. The stimuli were images of six different products representing two beef burgers, two mixed-protein burgers (50% beef and 50% seitan or soy) and two 100% vegetable protein burgers (seitan and soy).
Although numbers are still low compared to cattle rearing, intensive dairy goat farms have been widely spreading in the Italian livestock systems. Since goats are quite rustic, they can easily adapt to different management practices; however, improving the efficiency can make the difference, both in productivity and on the environmental impact attributed to goat milk production. In the present study, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was used to quantify the potential environmental impact of goat milk production system in 17 farms in Lombardy (Northern Italy).
The recovery of resources from waste streams including food production plants can improve the overall sustainability of such processes from both economic and environmental points of view. This is because resource recovery solutions will be instrumental in overcoming the grand societal challenges in relation to the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus in one of many aspects.
Objective: Attention is drawn to the potential of global warming to influence the health and wellbeing of the human race. There is increasing public and governmental pressure on healthcare organisations to mitigate and adapt to the climate changes that are occurring. The science of anaesthetic agents such as nitrous oxide and the halogenated anaesthetic agents such as greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting agents is discussed and quantified. Additional environmental impacts of healthcare systems are explored.
