We surveyed economics and finance professionals on the transition to a low-carbon economy, assessing risks, opportunities and stakeholder responsibilities. Findings reveal that respondents view the transition as an opportunity for the financial sector, with a modest increase in banking risks. Most respondents agreed that governments hold the primary responsibility for climate mitigation policies, with carbon tax as the favoured solution. Additionally, respondents perceived the COVID-19 pandemic to have a neutral or positive impact on the transition, while the Ukraine war to have a strong negative impact. Notably, opinions differ based on environmental consciousness and professional roles, with environmentally conscious individuals expressing more optimism.

The political consequences of climate change have been topics at numerous political science conferences. Contrary to the plurality of discussions at these meetings, it is striking that there is no systematic account of the carbon footprint of political science conferences themselves. Applying a GIS-based approach I estimate the travel induced greenhouse gas emissions of the last six ECPR General Conferences (2013–18). The results show that for the five conferences that took part in Europe the average emissions per attendee were between 0.5–1.3 tons CO2-equivalents. At the 2015 conference in Montreal it were even 1.9–3.4 tons. Compared to estimations based on the latest IPCC reports which call for a reduction of per capita emissions to 2.5 tons by 2030 and even 0.7 tons by 2050 in order to keep on track with the 1.5-degree goal, the travel induced GHG-emissions of ECPR conferences are very high. Yet, further estimations demonstrate that significant emission reductions are possible: by choosing more central conference venues, promoting low-emission landbound means of transportation and introducing online participation for researchers from far away, the carbon footprint could be reduced by 75–90 per cent. The article also gives concrete recommendations how the carbon footprint of conferences could be reduced.

Electrochemical systems are rapidly evolving beyond traditional water electrolysis, including cathodic hydrogen evolution (HER) and anodic oxygen evolution (OER) reactions, to enhance energy efficiency and generate value-added products simultaneously. Cathodic reactions now facilitate multifunctional reductions – ranging from CO2 conversion into oxygenates and hydrocarbons to nitrogen (N2) fixation, and nitrate (NO3−) reduction – by tuning operational parameters. Hybrid co-reduction approaches, such as CO2/nitrile or CO2/nitrate, further enable the synthesis of valuable amines, amides and urea derivatives, among many others. Notably, even in the most advanced electrochemical configurations, the inclusion of the OER – or a functionally equivalent alternative – remains the most convenient oxidation reaction for maintaining charge balance within the cell. As highlighted in recent studies, alternative oxidation reactions (AORs) coupled with cathodic reduction reactions, such as CO2RR, HER, N2RR and NO3RR, are essential for overcoming the limitations of OER. These AORs include oxidation of biomass-derived alcohols and aldehydes, chlorine and water contaminants. In this perspective, we discuss the emerging promise of AORs – with a particular focus on aldehyde electrooxidation – as innovative alternatives to traditional OER. This strategy not only reduces the energy requirements for electrochemical hydrogen production by circumventing the sluggish and energy-intensive OER, but also enables concurrent hydrogen generation at both electrodes. Additionally, integrating AORs into electrolyzer design enables the direct coupling of CO2 reduction at the cathode with high-value chemical transformations at the anode, offering new opportunities for process intensification and enhanced economic viability in the synthesis of sustainable fuels and chemicals.

Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, and there is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture for mitigation purposes. Modern industrial agriculture has been recognized as a significant source of agricultural GHG emissions, whereas the adoption of regenerative organic agriculture has been proposed as a solution with the potential to reduce GHG emissions from agricultural production. However, there is a lack of on-the-ground studies reporting on the climate impacts of organic agriculture. To remedy this, a carbon footprint (CF) analysis was conducted comparing regionally representative organic and conventional arable cropping systems at Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial in Pennsylvania, USA. Two separate modeling approaches were used to construct CFs for three agricultural systems (two organic and one conventional). The baseline CF analyses used an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Tier 3 model (COMET-Farm) and Tier 2 model (Cool Farm Tool) for comparison purposes. Secondary analyses were conducted on the effects of CO2 emissions from composting manure on CFs. Emission metrics were generally higher (+27%) using the Tier 3 model compared with the Tier 2 model. In the baseline analysis, absolute area-scaled emissions were highest in the conventional system, ranging from 1.25 to 1.72 tons CO2-eq ha−1 yr−1. In comparison, emissions in the organic manure-based system were 25%–37% lower (0.94–1.09 tons CO2-eq ha−1 yr−1), while the organic legume-based system had the lowest emissions, which were 52%–74% lower (0.33–0.83 tons CO2-eq ha−1 yr−1). Yield-scaled emissions of maize in the baseline analyses were highest in the conventional system (0.19–0.26 kg CO2-eq kg−1), followed by the organic manure (0.13–0.16 kg CO2-eq kg−1) and organic legume (0.07–0.17 kg CO2-eq kg−1). Yield-scaled emissions on a feed digestible energy basis were highest in the conventional system (0.014–0.020 kg CO2-eq MJ−1) but were similar between organic manure (0.009–0.010 kg CO2-eq MJ−1) and organic legume (0.006–0.015 kg CO2-eq MJ−1). Including estimates of CO2 emissions due to composting increased emissions for the manure-based organic system substantially (+103%–122%). Our results imply that regenerative organic farming can help mitigate climate change. Future research should focus on more accurately measuring emissions from compost production and other sources of organic fertility, conducting a full life-cycle assessment of these systems, and verifying the results using in-situ field measurements.

Food production represents a complex sustainability challenge, including climate change and freshwater scarcity. In order to promote the incorporation of sustainable prepared protein dishes into the agrifood market, this study aims to assess the environmental performance of three different burgers: a beef burger, a plant-based burger (soy, beans, and rice), and a hybrid burger (50–50 composition) by comparing the water use and the CO2 emissions relative to their nutritional value. The environmental indicators used to perform the current study were the water footprint, the carbon footprint (CF), and their respective nutritional productivity indexes (considering fats, proteins, and carbohydrates). The water needed to produce the beef burger was 1.8 times greater than the quantity needed to produce the hybrid burger, and 21 times greater in the case of the plant-based one. In turn, regarding the CF, the beef burger emitted approximately 2 times more kgCO2e along the supply chain when compared with the hybrid burger, and 13 times more than the plant-based one. However, because the meat burger comes from cattle raised on grasslands, the greenhouse gas emissions are likely lower than those from other, less sustainable forms of beef production. The plant-based burger was, therefore, more sustainable in terms of water use and carbon emissions relative to the nutrition productivity index than the meat and hybrid options.

Analysing customer loyalty card data is a novel method for assessing nutritional quality and changes in a population’s food consumption. However, prior to its use, the thousands of grocery products available in stores must be reclassified from the retailer’s original hierarchical structure into a structure that is suitable for the use of nutrition and health research. We created LoCard Food Classification (LCFC) and examined how it reflects the nutritional quality of the grocery product groups. Nutritional quality was considered the main criterion guiding the reclassification of the 3574 grocery product groups. Information on the main ingredient of the product group, purpose of use and carbon footprint was also used at the more granular levels of LCFC. The main challenge in the reclassification was a lack of detailed information on the type of products included in each group, and some of the groups included products that have opposite health effects. The final LCFC has four hierarchical levels, and it is openly available online. After reclassification, the product groups were linked with the Finnish food composition database, and the nutrient profile was assessed by calculating the Nutrient-Rich Food Index (NRFI) for each product group. sd in NRFI decreased from 0·21 of the least granular level to 0·08 of the most granular level of LCFC indicating that the most granular level of LCFC has more homogeneous nutritional quality. Studies that apply LCFC to examine loyalty card data with health and environmental outcomes are needed to further demonstrate its validity.

Mexico is going through an environmental and nutritional crisis related to unsustainable dietary behaviours. Sustainable diets could solve both problems together. This study protocol aims to develop a three-stage, 15-week mHealth randomised controlled trial of a sustainable-psycho-nutritional intervention programme to promote Mexican population adherence to a sustainable diet and to evaluate its effects on health and environmental outcomes. In stage 1, the programme will be designed using the sustainable diets, behaviour change wheel and capability, opportunity, motivation, and behaviour (COM-B) models. A sustainable food guide, recipes, meal plans and a mobile application will be developed. In stage 2, the intervention will be implemented for 7 weeks, and a 7-week follow-up period in a young Mexican adults (18–35 years) sample, randomly divided (1:1 ratio) into a control group (n 50) and an experimental group (n 50), will be divided into two arms at week 8. Outcomes will include health, nutrition, environment, behaviour and nutritional-sustainable knowledge. Additionally, socio-economics and culture will be considered. Thirteen behavioural objectives will be included using successive approaches in online workshops twice a week. The population will be monitored using the mobile application consisting of behavioural change techniques. In stage 3, the effects of the intervention will be assessed using mixed-effects models on dietary intake and quality, nutritional status, physical activity, metabolic biomarkers (serum glucose and lipid profile), gut microbiota composition and dietary water and carbon footprints of the evaluated population. Improvements in health outcomes and a decrease in dietary water and carbon footprints are expected.

This paper presents a novel approach to multi-criteria sustainability performance assessment of horticultural crops. The crops are ranked by the decision-making method ELECTRE IV with environmental, energy and technological criteria. In total eight indicators are taken into consideration and calculated based on primary data collected from over 260 farms in northern Iran. Additionally, Data Envelopment Analysis is used to calculate the technical efficiency and potential for energy saving by different management of the production units. The novel contribution of this study is the comparison of several horticultural products (oranges, kiwis, persimmons and tangerines), when most of the previous studies have focused on one product. Moreover, novel calculations of the carbon footprint are presented for oranges, tangerines and persimmons. This paper also includes the first study on the environmental impact of persimmon fruit's production. The obtained results show that energy efficiency for orange, tangerine, kiwi and persimmon products: 1.1, 0.84, 0.53 and 1.22, respectively. In each hectare of kiwi orchards, the amount of CO2 emissions of 1219 kg and the ecological footprint of 3.21 hectares have been calculated, which is statistically significant compared to orange, tangerine and persimmon. The chemical and fuel inputs have the greatest potential for reducing energy consumption in the studied products. Results of ELECTRE IV showed that kiwi is the most sustainable selection for the studied region followed by orange, persimmon and tangerine, respectively. Kiwi has also relatively low technical efficiency. This means that this product has the greatest potential for a reduction of energy consumption, while maintaining the same amount of crop. It is recommended to include the development of kiwi orchards in the policies of Guilan, but with more careful management of the production inputs.