IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jenvss/v6y2016i1d10.1007_s13412-016-0370-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Closing the loop: integrative systems management of waste in food, energy, and water systems

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah C. Davis

    (Ohio University)

  • Derek Kauneckis

    (Ohio University)

  • Natalie A. Kruse

    (Ohio University)

  • Kimberley E. Miller

    (Ohio University)

  • Michael Zimmer

    (Ohio University)

  • Geoffrey D. Dabelko

    (Ohio University)

Abstract

Modern food, energy, and water (FEW) systems are the product of technologies, techniques, and policies developed to address the needs of a given sector (e.g., energy or agriculture). Wastes from each sector are typically managed separately, and the production systems underlying FEW have traditionally treated pollution and waste as externalities simply diffused into the ambient environment. Integrative management that optimizes resource use presents opportunities for improving the efficiency of FEW systems. This paper explains how FEW systems can be optimized to (1) repurpose or cycle waste products, (2) internalize traditional externalities, and (3) integrate wastes with resource inputs across systems by diverting waste by-products from one system to meet demands of another. It identifies the means for “closing the loop” in production systems. Examples include management of legacy wastes from fossil fuel industries (coal and natural gas) and integrative designs for advanced renewable systems (biogas from waste, bioenergy from CAM plants, and solar). It concludes with a discussion of how studying the governance of such systems can assist in tackling interconnected problems present in FEW systems. New governance arrangements are needed to develop solutions that can align with regulatory frameworks, economics incentive, and policies. Four aspects of governances (property rights, policy design, financing, and scale) emerge as tools to facilitate improved institutional design that stimulates integrative management, technology innovation and deployment, and community development. The conclusion offers a framework through which integrative management of FEW systems can be linked to value chains in closed-loop systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah C. Davis & Derek Kauneckis & Natalie A. Kruse & Kimberley E. Miller & Michael Zimmer & Geoffrey D. Dabelko, 2016. "Closing the loop: integrative systems management of waste in food, energy, and water systems," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 6(1), pages 11-24, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:6:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s13412-016-0370-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s13412-016-0370-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13412-016-0370-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s13412-016-0370-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hochman Gal & Sexton Steven E & Zilberman David D, 2008. "The Economics of Biofuel Policy and Biotechnology," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Elinor Ostrom, 2008. "Institutions And The Environment," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 24-31, September.
    3. Elinor Ostrom, 2016. "Nested Externalities and Polycentric Institutions: Must We Wait for Global Solutions to Climate Change Before Taking Actions at Other Scales?," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Graciela Chichilnisky & Armon Rezai (ed.), The Economics of the Global Environment, pages 259-276, Springer.
    4. Zhang, Cunsheng & Su, Haijia & Baeyens, Jan & Tan, Tianwei, 2014. "Reviewing the anaerobic digestion of food waste for biogas production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 383-392.
    5. Varun & Bhat, I.K. & Prakash, Ravi, 2009. "LCA of renewable energy for electricity generation systems--A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 1067-1073, June.
    6. Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney & Wallace E. Oates & Paul R. Portney, 2004. "The Political Economy of Environmental Policy," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 1, pages 3-30, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Stavins, Robert N., 2003. "Experience with market-based environmental policy instruments," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 355-435, Elsevier.
    8. Paul J. Ferraro, 2003. "Assigning priority to environmental policy interventions in a heterogeneous world," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 27-43.
    9. Leyden, Dennis Patrick & Link, Albert N., 2015. "Public Sector Entrepreneurship: U.S. Technology and Innovation Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199313853.
    10. Münster, Marie & Lund, Henrik, 2009. "Use of waste for heat, electricity and transport—Challenges when performing energy system analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 636-644.
    11. Wilson, James & Low, Bobbi & Costanza, Robert & Ostrom, Elinor, 1999. "Scale misperceptions and the spatial dynamics of a social-ecological system," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 243-257, November.
    12. Pehnt, Martin, 2006. "Dynamic life cycle assessment (LCA) of renewable energy technologies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 55-71.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria A. Barrufet & Elena M. Castell-Perez & Rosana G. Moreira, 2022. "Capture of CO2 and Water While Driving for Use in the Food and Agricultural Systems," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 1241-1252, September.
    2. Esmeralda Neri & Daniele Cespi & Leonardo Setti & Erica Gombi & Elena Bernardi & Ivano Vassura & Fabrizio Passarini, 2016. "Biomass Residues to Renewable Energy: A Life Cycle Perspective Applied at a Local Scale," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Kimberley E. Miller & Tess Herman & Dimas A. Philipinanto & Sarah C. Davis, 2021. "Anaerobic Digestion of Food Waste, Brewery Waste, and Agricultural Residues in an Off-Grid Continuous Reactor," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, June.
    4. Devi Buehler & Ranka Junge, 2016. "Global Trends and Current Status of Commercial Urban Rooftop Farming," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-16, October.
    5. Cai, Beiming & Jiang, Ling & Liu, Yu & Wang, Feng & Zhang, Wei & Yan, Xu & Ge, Zhenzi, 2023. "Regional trends and socioeconomic drivers of energy-related water use in China from 2007 to 2017," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muench, Stefan & Guenther, Edeltraud, 2013. "A systematic review of bioenergy life cycle assessments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 257-273.
    2. Mostafa Shaaban & Jürgen Scheffran & Jürgen Böhner & Mohamed S. Elsobki, 2018. "Sustainability Assessment of Electricity Generation Technologies in Egypt Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-25, May.
    3. Sokka, L. & Sinkko, T. & Holma, A. & Manninen, K. & Pasanen, K. & Rantala, M. & Leskinen, P., 2016. "Environmental impacts of the national renewable energy targets – A case study from Finland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1599-1610.
    4. Gao, Cheng-kang & Na, Hong-ming & Song, Kai-hui & Dyer, Noel & Tian, Fan & Xu, Qing-jiang & Xing, Yu-hong, 2019. "Environmental impact analysis of power generation from biomass and wind farms in different locations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 307-317.
    5. Song, Cuihong & Gardner, Kevin H. & Klein, Sharon J.W. & Souza, Simone Pereira & Mo, Weiwei, 2018. "Cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions from dams in the United States of America," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 945-956.
    6. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    7. Turconi, Roberto & Boldrin, Alessio & Astrup, Thomas, 2013. "Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 555-565.
    8. Jha, Sunil Kr. & Bilalovic, Jasmin & Jha, Anju & Patel, Nilesh & Zhang, Han, 2017. "Renewable energy: Present research and future scope of Artificial Intelligence," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 297-317.
    9. Jorge, Raquel S. & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2013. "Environmental evaluation of power transmission in Norway," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 513-520.
    10. Boemare, Catherine & Quirion, Philippe, 2002. "Implementing greenhouse gas trading in Europe: lessons from economic literature and international experiences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2-3), pages 213-230, December.
    11. Asdrubali, F. & Baggio, P. & Prada, A. & Grazieschi, G. & Guattari, C., 2020. "Dynamic life cycle assessment modelling of a NZEB building," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    12. Strantzali, Eleni & Aravossis, Konstantinos, 2016. "Decision making in renewable energy investments: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 885-898.
    13. Fridrik Baldursson & Jon Sturluson, 2011. "Fees and the Efficiency of Tradable Permit Systems: An Experimental Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(1), pages 25-41, January.
    14. Laleman, Ruben & Albrecht, Johan & Dewulf, Jo, 2011. "Life Cycle Analysis to estimate the environmental impact of residential photovoltaic systems in regions with a low solar irradiation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 267-281, January.
    15. Yang, Jin & Chen, Bin, 2013. "Integrated evaluation of embodied energy, greenhouse gas emission and economic performance of a typical wind farm in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 559-568.
    16. Buonocore, Elvira & Vanoli, Laura & Carotenuto, Alberto & Ulgiati, Sergio, 2015. "Integrating life cycle assessment and emergy synthesis for the evaluation of a dry steam geothermal power plant in Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 476-487.
    17. Lorente-Rubio, C. & García-Alcaraz, J.L. & Sáenz-Diez Muro, J.C. & Martínez-Cámara, E. & Bruzzone, A. & Blanco-Fernández, J., 2024. "Scenarios for replacement of electric resistive space heating by a geothermal heat pump - Environmental amortization," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    18. Bany Mousa, Osama & Kara, Sami & Taylor, Robert A., 2019. "Comparative energy and greenhouse gas assessment of industrial rooftop-integrated PV and solar thermal collectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C), pages 113-123.
    19. Nugent, Daniel & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2014. "Assessing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from solar PV and wind energy: A critical meta-survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 229-244.
    20. Baldursson, Fridrik M. & von der Fehr, Nils-Henrik M., 2008. "Prices vs. quantities: Public finance and the choice of regulatory instruments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1242-1255, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jenvss:v:6:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s13412-016-0370-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.