Micro-sustainability

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A person recycling a glass bottle into a bin. Utilizando el contenedor de Ecovidrio.JPG
A person recycling a glass bottle into a bin.

Micro-sustainability is the portion of sustainability centered around small scale environmental measures that ultimately affect the environment through a larger cumulative impact. [1] Micro-sustainability centers on individual efforts, behavior modification, education and creating attitudinal changes, which result in an environmentally conscious individual. [2] Micro-sustainability encourages sustainable changes through "change agents"—individuals who foster positive environmental action locally and inside their sphere of influence. Examples of micro-sustainability include recycling, power saving by turning off unused lights, programming thermostats for efficient use of energy, reducing water usage, changing commuting habits to use less fossil fuels or modifying buying habits to reduce consumption and waste. [3] [4] The emphasis of micro-sustainability is on an individual's actions, rather than organizational or institutional practices at the systemic level. [5] [6] These small local level actions have immediate community benefits if undertaken on a widespread scale and if imitated, they can have a cumulative [7] broad impact. [4]

Contents

History

Individual actions

Micro-sustainability is the result of individuals and communities practicing sustainable living. Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to conserve natural resources. [12] Within an individual household, this can include reducing the water footprint and domestic energy consumption of the building. [13]

Water footprint

The Global Water Footprint, averages of how much water is used around the world World Water Footprint.png
The Global Water Footprint, averages of how much water is used around the world

Like the common concept of the carbon footprint, people can also have a water footprint. Water footprint helps with determining how much fresh water is used and polluted by a given person. [14] [15] With a typical American single-family home using 70 US gallons (260 L) per person per day indoors, household appliances such as toilets, showers, dishwashers, and washing machines can be upgraded to reduce water usage. [16]

Energy consumption

The Energy Star logo can be found on certified energy-efficient appliances. Energy Star logo.svg
The Energy Star logo can be found on certified energy-efficient appliances.

The residential sector accounts of 21% of total U.S. energy usage, with approximately 40% of the energy used in homes being used for heating. Individuals can reduce their heating loads by improving their building insulation, improving building airtightness and installing smart thermostat. [17] Other measures outside of reducing the heating load include purchasing energy-efficient appliances and recycling energy intensive materials. [10]

Consumer preferences

As individuals become more aware of environmental problems that exist, their consumption decisions can promote green designs and ultimately affect the types of products on the market. [6] [18] In a study that looked at consumer preferences for sustainability with respect to mobile phones, it found that consumers are not only interested in the physical product but also raw material sourcing and end of life product disposal. [18] As a result, the study found that major manufacturers consider sustainability in their marketing and products. [18]

Other studies have looked at consumer preferences regarding sustainably sourced food. Food sustainability can reduce the use of natural resources and limit waste. [19] These improvements in food sustainability can have larger, global benefits such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and waste. [19] One study found that consumers who spent more time looking at the sustainability labels were individuals who cared more about sustainably sourced food, and who were more likely to select products with this labeling. [20] Another study showed that not only does sustainable labeling cause consumers to look at the product for longer, but that the consumer choices as a result of that labeling is significant and positive. [21] This means that if consumers value sustainable products that are verified through labeling and are more likely to purchase these products, then food producers and marketers can use this information to provide products that consumer is interested in. [20] Additionally, if consumers are buying more of a product, they are also incentivizing and rewarding producers that are willing to responsibly source food. [22]

Group and community actions

A community in the context of micro-sustainability is a group of people in the same geographic location that interact with one another. [23] These can range from rural communities with low population density to highly dense urban communities. [23] These communities are able to tackle a wider range of initiatives that range in scale from unaligned, independent affairs to organized networks. [24] While small community initiatives can take many forms, they can be generalized as an organized collective bundle of actions stretching several years or decades intended to transform a community into a sustainable state. [24]

Rural communities

Although there is no exact population size to define a rural community, they are typically seen as areas with lower population density. [23] Green rural communities are places where people value a supportive social network and a low-impact, ecologically sustainable life. [23] These can be defined as transition towns, Low Carbon Communities, or eco-villages.

Urban communities

Urban communities do not necessarily mean a larger population than rural communities, but that they are more densely populated and more influenced by the effects of urbanization. [23] [25]

Especially with transition towns and low carbon communities, the goal is to see if fundamental changes to society in these niches can lead to a wider acceptance of the innovation. [9] This can occur by replicating, scaling, and translating successful practices. [24] Although the goal is to see if changes on micro scale can ultimately lead to a successful macro-level change, 89% of transition towns were created by individual citizens coming together—not governments or larger organizations. [9]

Types of work

Depending on the size, wealth, and organization of a community, a variety of sustainable actions can be achieved. These can be broken down into following categories:

Land use

Sustainable land use can be achieved when communities reduce greenhouse gas emissions by limiting development of roads, parking lots, etc., and focus on promoting green building design technologies and green spaces. [26]

Transportation

The amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere due to the number of cars on the roads can be minimized by increasing the number of safe bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, and making public transportation easily accessible. [26]

Green spaces

High Point Community Garden in Seattle, Washington High Point community garden.jpg
High Point Community Garden in Seattle, Washington

Green spaces within a community protect the habitats of the wildlife in the area. These spaces can be gardens, parks, green alleys, green roofs, and green buffer zones. [26] They can exist successfully when a community provides resources such as land, equipment, knowledge and standards regarding care of the green space, and some sort of governance to ensure that the space is well kept. [24]

Renewable energy and waste management

Renewable energy can include hydropower, biomass energy, geothermal energy, wind power, and solar energy. [26] Additionally, communities can educate and promote individual sustainable practices mentioned in part 2. This can be in the form of providing information such as directions to resources and household energy performance feedback, monitoring performance like annual surveys of energy usage, or initializing community challenges such as a goal to reach carbon neutrality. [24] Communities can practice sustainable waste management such as incineration, biological treatment, zero waste, and recycling. [26]

Methods for success

The following are themes seen across micro-sustainable groups that have resulted in increased success:

Community learning

Effective sustainable intervention occurs in small communities because these spaces allow for greater learning opportunities. [24] One study showed that socialization encouraged learning and innovation which lead to 20% reduction in energy usage sustained over four years. [24] With community gardening, it was found that it transformed an isolated, private task into one that was social, educational, and had a positive impact on the town. [24] They claim that having a group of people in charge of the garden required social interaction and cooperation, and having many members resulted in a collective responsibility that promoted skill sharing and cohesion. [24]

Goal setting

Another key factor was the community working together around a clear, well defined goal as group members are willing to participate when they know they are contributing to the good of the community. [24] Towns that would offer similar goals such as a community gardens achieved very different levels of success based on the level of structure, goals, and plans that can unite a community and gain interest. [24]

Criticisms

There have been concerns about the effectiveness of micro-sustainability. Much of the research into individual and small community practices are only able to analyze a limited amount of data and cannot fully conclude if the small community changes will result in changes at a larger scale. [24] Additionally, due to its complex nature, it is almost impossible to model or keep track of all aspects of sustainability, and studies that do attempt to model this found that successful situations at a micro level will either not work, or will worsen environmental impacts at a larger scale. [27]

Additionally, some raise questions about the magnitude of change that needs to occur. In the book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air authored by British physicist and mathematician David J.C. MacKay, MacKay advocates against small changes with respect to sustainability and gives the example that if everyone unplugged their chargers from the outlet, this would save enough energy to power 66,000 homes for one year. [28] MacKay warns that these types of statements can be misleading, as 66,000 homes out of approximately 25 million homes participating in this action is a quarter of one percent. [28] In other words, each household is only saving one quarter of one percent by unplugging their phones. [28]

A study that surveyed transition towns across the UK found that 76% of them struggle to grow after initial interest fades. [9] This indicates that scaling up beyond committed environmentalists may not be the best approach. [9]

Macro-sustainability

In contrast to micro-sustainability, the remaining large-scale plans for sustainability, are categorized under the term macro-sustainability. [11] [29] Macro-sustainability is a large systematic addressing of sustainability in most cases by the United Nations, governments, multi-national corporations or smaller companies. They discuss global issues including climate change, and reliance upon fossil fuel hydrocarbon based energy sources. Global organizations like the United Nations have included sustainable development goals (SDGs) to set a standard of 17 goals for countries around the world to take action on climate change and other related issues. [30] Businesses primarily focus on the return of investment of changes such as their source of energy, consumption patterns or how they transport or manufacture products. Governments confront these larger issues through regulation of natural resources, improved practices, providing subsidies and directly investing in new technologies and renewable energy sources. [31]

Fashion Industry

Landfill, where a majority of discarded clothing ends up Landfill face.JPG
Landfill, where a majority of discarded clothing ends up

The fashion sector is a major contributor to air, land, and water pollution. This industry accounts for 10% of carbon emissions. [32] In textile production, there is a high use of chemicals and water, which then find their way back into waterways. [33] In the US, over 85% of discarded clothes end up in landfills. [34]

The industry's main goal is obsolescence: [35] new trends are constantly being put out to encourage consumption. Fast fashion has become increasingly popular, as it allows consumers to keep up with and then discard these trends at a low cost. [36]

Companies often outsource their manufacturing to less developed countries to further reduce costs for consumers, which has led to the exploitation of workers, a complex supply chain, and pollution due to transportation. [37] Insourcing products to their own facilities that they can maintain a strict standard over would lessen these issues.

Textile waste can be reduced by making higher quality garments that are built to last. A general rule of thumb for fast fashion companies is a "10 wash mark", in which clothes are made to last about ten cycles through a washer and dryer. [38] By extending the practical life of a garment, people can use their clothes for longer periods of time before having to discard them, and thus consume and waste less. Textile waste may also be reduced through recycling and upcycling textile initiatives. [39]

Research and development can also be invested into more eco-friendly dyeing methods. ColorZen, for example, has developed a process of dyeing cotton using 75% less energy and 90% less water. [40]

Agricultural Sector

The agricultural sector is a major source of food waste, and also contributes to air, land, and water pollution. Food waste is a major component of landfills, which are in turn a major source of methane (a major global warming contributor). [41]

Implementing a variety of sustainability measures would allow for the redistribution of edible food that would have otherwise been wasted, the reduction of competition for limited resources, and the reduction of pollution. [42]

Crop diversification and crop rotation are more sustainable farming practices. They allow for healthier soil, which in turn reduces the need for fertilizers, which then reduces the amount of fertilizer runoff. It also helps in reducing the amount of insects and weeds, which would reduce the use of pesticides. Fertilizer runoff and pesticides both have the potential to disrupt and harm ecosystems. Having multiple crops, as opposed to monoculture, reduces the potential of entire crop yields failing- particularly in a time of climate change. [43]

Pesticides being sprayed over crops Pesticide spraying in spring.jpg
Pesticides being sprayed over crops

Alternative forms of pesticides also contribute to sustainability. Birds, for example, play an important ecological role in the reduction of insect populations; using birds as a natural way of getting rid of insects could decrease the amount of pesticides used. [44]

Water usage in agriculture can also be reduced, which would allow for the resource to be redistributed elsewhere. One method of this is drip irrigation, in which water is delivered directly to the roots of crops. This allows for less water to be used, since less water is lost to evaporation. [45]

Although some food waste is unavoidable, such as bones or peels, there is a large component of avoidable waste. This is due to issues with over purchasing, poor preparation, and inadequate storage. [46] In the US, "10.1 million tons [of food] are left unused on farms and in packing facilities each year." [47] Implementing government tax deductions may provide an incentive for those in the agricultural sector to donate food that would have otherwise been wasted. [48]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food engineering</span> Field of applied physical sciences

Food engineering is a scientific, academic, and professional field that interprets and applies principles of engineering, science, and mathematics to food manufacturing and operations, including the processing, production, handling, storage, conservation, control, packaging and distribution of food products. Given its reliance on food science and broader engineering disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical, industrial and agricultural engineering, food engineering is considered a multidisciplinary and narrow field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biorefinery</span> Refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts

A biorefinery is a refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts. The International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 42 defined biorefining as "the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of bio-based products and bioenergy ". As refineries, biorefineries can provide multiple chemicals by fractioning an initial raw material (biomass) into multiple intermediates that can be further converted into value-added products. Each refining phase is also referred to as a "cascading phase". The use of biomass as feedstock can provide a benefit by reducing the impacts on the environment, as lower pollutants emissions and reduction in the emissions of hazard products. In addition, biorefineries are intended to achieve the following goals:

  1. Supply the current fuels and chemical building blocks
  2. Supply new building blocks for the production of novel materials with disruptive characteristics
  3. Creation of new jobs, including rural areas
  4. Valorization of waste
  5. Achieve the ultimate goal of reducing GHG emissions

A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has a minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism." Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, a business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:

  1. It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.
  2. It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replace demand for nongreen products and/or services.
  3. It is greener than traditional competition.
  4. It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food loss and waste</span> Food that is discarded, lost or uneaten

Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about one-third of the world's food is thrown away. A 2021 meta-analysis that did not include food lost during production, by the United Nations Environment Programme found that food waste was a challenge in all countries at all levels of economic development. The analysis estimated that global food waste was 931 million tonnes of food waste across three sectors: 61 percent from households, 26 percent from food service and 13 percent from retail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Textile recycling</span> Method of reusing or reprocessing used clothing, fibrous material and rags

Textile recycling is the process of recovering fiber, yarn, or fabric and reprocessing the material into new, useful products. Textile waste is split into pre-consumer and post-consumer waste and is sorted into five different categories derived from a pyramid model. Textiles can be either reused or mechanically/chemically recycled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Upcycling</span> Recycling waste into products of higher quality

Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial symbiosis</span>

Industrial symbiosis a subset of industrial ecology. It describes how a network of diverse organizations can foster eco-innovation and long-term culture change, create and share mutually profitable transactions—and improve business and technical processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable fashion</span> Part of design philosophy and trend of sustainability in fashion

Sustainable fashion is a term describing products, processes, activities, and people that aim to achieve a carbon-neutral fashion industry built on equality, social justice, animal welfare, and ecological integrity. Sustainable fashion concerns more than fashion textiles or products, rather addressing the entire process in which clothing is produced, consumed and disposed of. The movement looks to combat the large carbon footprint that the fast fashion industry has created by reducing the environmental impact such as air pollution, water pollution and climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable food system</span> Balanced growth of nutritional substances and their distribution

A sustainable food system is a type of food system that provides healthy food to people and creates sustainable environmental, economic, and social systems that surround food. Sustainable food systems start with the development of sustainable agricultural practices, development of more sustainable food distribution systems, creation of sustainable diets, and reduction of food waste throughout the system. Sustainable food systems have been argued to be central to many or all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental impacts of animal agriculture</span> Harms to nature from farming meat, eggs, and dairy

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Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products and services that gives special consideration to the environmental impacts of a product over its entire lifecycle. Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan define it as "any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes." Ecological design can also be defined as the process of integrating environmental considerations into design and development with the aim of reducing environmental impacts of products through their life cycle.

Sustainable consumption is the use of products and services in ways that minimizes impacts on the environment. Sustainable consumption is done in a way that needs are met for present humans but also for future generations. Sustainable consumption is often paralleled with sustainable production; consumption refers to use and disposal not just by individuals and households, but also by governments, businesses, and other organizations. Sustainable consumption is closely related to sustainable production and sustainable lifestyles. "A sustainable lifestyle minimizes ecological impacts while enabling a flourishing life for individuals, households, communities, and beyond. It is the product of individual and collective decisions about aspirations and about satisfying needs and adopting practices, which are in turn conditioned, facilitated, and constrained by societal norms, political institutions, public policies, infrastructures, markets, and culture."

The term food system describes the interconnected systems and processes that influence nutrition, food, health, community development, and agriculture. A food system includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, distribution, and disposal of food and food-related items. It also includes the inputs needed and outputs generated at each of these steps. Food systems fall within agri-food systems, which encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities in the primary production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as in food storage, aggregation, post-harvest handling, transportation, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal, and consumption. A food system operates within and is influenced by social, political, economic, technological and environmental contexts. It also requires human resources that provide labor, research and education. Food systems are either conventional or alternative according to their model of food lifespan from origin to plate. Food systems are dependent on a multitude of ecosystem services. For example, natural pest regulations, microorganisms providing nitrogen-fixation, and pollinators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circular economy</span> Regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage, are minimised

A circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. CE aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems." CE is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy. The idea and concepts of circular economy (CE) have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. CE has been gaining popularity because it helps to minimize emissions and consumption of raw materials, open up new market prospects and, principally, increase the sustainability of consumption and improve resource efficiency.

Sustainable consumer behavior is the sub-discipline of consumer behavior that studies why and how consumers do or do not incorporate sustainability priorities into their consumption behavior. It studies the products that consumers select, how those products are used, and how they are disposed of in pursuit of consumers' sustainability goals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotton recycling</span>

Cotton recycling is the process of converting cotton fabric into fibers that can be reused into other textile products.

Green consumption is related to sustainable development or sustainable consumer behaviour. It is a form of consumption that safeguards the environment for the present and for future generations. It ascribes to consumers responsibility or co-responsibility for addressing environmental problems through the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors, such as the use of organic products, clean and renewable energy, and the choice of goods produced by companies with zero, or almost zero, impact.

A circular economy is an alternative way countries manage their resources, where instead of using products in the traditional linear make, use, dispose method, resources are used for their maximum utility throughout its life cycle and regenerated in a cyclical pattern minimizing waste. They strive to create economic development through environmental and resource protection. The ideas of a circular economy were officially adopted by China in 2002, when the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party legislated it as a national endeavour, though various sustainability initiatives were implemented in the previous decades starting in 1973. China adopted the circular economy due to the environmental damage and resource depletion that was occurring from going through its industrialization process. China is currently a world leader in the production of resources, where it produces 46% of the worlds aluminum, 50% of steel and 60% of cement, while it has consumed more raw materials than all the countries a part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) combined. In 2014, China created 3.2 billion tonnes of industrial solid waste, where 2 billion tonnes were recovered using recycling, incineration, reusing and composting. By 2025, China is anticipated to produce up to one quarter of the worlds municipal solid waste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental impact of fashion</span>

The fashion industry, particularly manufacture and use of apparel and footwear, is a significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions and plastic pollution. The rapid growth of fast fashion has led to around 80 billion items of clothing being consumed annually, with a large number going to landfill.

Cold pad batch (CPB) is a method of dyeing textiles, typically cellulosic fibers such as cotton, in which the textile is impregnated with dye in a cold state, rather than being heated. High dye fixation and no thermal energy are the advantages of the CPB process. CPB-dyed fabrics are less expensive, have a softer hand feel, and have a cleaner surface than exhaust dyed materials. The process may take up to 12 hours in the batching process, depending on the depth of the shade. The disadvantage is that batching is a time-consuming and lengthy process. The process was developed in 1960.

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  32. ↑ Sustainability in the textile and apparel industries : consumerism and fashion sustainability. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Miguel Ángel Gardetti. Cham: Springer. 2020. ISBN   978-3-030-38532-3. OCLC   1147258468.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  33. ↑ Rafi-Ul-Shan, Piyya Muhammad; Grant, David B.; Perry, Patsy; Ahmed, Shehzad (2018-05-14). "Relationship between sustainability and risk management in fashion supply chains: A systematic literature review". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 46 (5): 466–486. doi:10.1108/IJRDM-04-2017-0092. ISSN   0959-0552.
  34. ↑ Sustainability in the textile and apparel industries : consumerism and fashion sustainability. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Miguel Ángel Gardetti. Cham: Springer. 2020. ISBN   978-3-030-38532-3. OCLC   1147258468.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  35. ↑ Fast fashion, fashion brands and sustainable consumption. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu. Singapore. 2019. ISBN   978-981-13-1268-7. OCLC   1041931248.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  36. ↑ Zamani, Bahareh; Sandin, Gustav; Peters, Greg M. (2017-09-20). "Life cycle assessment of clothing libraries: can collaborative consumption reduce the environmental impact of fast fashion?". Journal of Cleaner Production. 162: 1368–1375. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.128. ISSN   0959-6526.
  37. ↑ Rafi-Ul-Shan, Piyya Muhammad; Grant, David B.; Perry, Patsy; Ahmed, Shehzad (2018-05-14). "Relationship between sustainability and risk management in fashion supply chains: A systematic literature review". International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 46 (5): 466–486. doi:10.1108/IJRDM-04-2017-0092. ISSN   0959-0552.
  38. ↑ Fast fashion, fashion brands and sustainable consumption. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu. Singapore. 2019. ISBN   978-981-13-1268-7. OCLC   1041931248.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  39. ↑ Textiles and clothing sustainability : recycled and upcycled textiles and fashion. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu. Singapore. 2016. ISBN   978-981-10-2146-6. OCLC   956376348.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  40. ↑ "Better way to dye". Crain's New York Business. 2018-06-18. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  41. ↑ Yevich, Rosemarie; Logan, Jennifer A. (2003). "An assessment of biofuel use and burning of agricultural waste in the developing world". Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 17 (4): n/a. Bibcode:2003GBioC..17.1095Y. doi: 10.1029/2002GB001952 . ISSN   1944-9224. S2CID   15112465.
  42. ↑ Yevich, Rosemarie; Logan, Jennifer A. (2003). "An assessment of biofuel use and burning of agricultural waste in the developing world". Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 17 (4): n/a. Bibcode:2003GBioC..17.1095Y. doi: 10.1029/2002GB001952 . ISSN   1944-9224. S2CID   15112465.
  43. ↑ Roesch-McNally, Gabrielle E.; Arbuckle, J. G.; Tyndall, John C. (2018-01-01). "Barriers to implementing climate resilient agricultural strategies: The case of crop diversification in the U.S. Corn Belt". Global Environmental Change. 48: 206–215. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.12.002. ISSN   0959-3780. S2CID   158821915.
  44. ↑ "Gale - Institution Finder". galeapps.gale.com. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  45. ↑ Laib, K.; Hartani, T.; Bouarfa, S.; Kuper, M.; Mailhol, J. C. (2018). "Connecting Drip Irrigation Performance to Farmers' Practices: The Case of Greenhouse Horticulture in the Algerian Sahara". Irrigation and Drainage. 67 (3): 392–403. doi:10.1002/ird.2228. ISSN   1531-0361. S2CID   116781424.
  46. ↑ Yevich, Rosemarie; Logan, Jennifer A. (2003). "An assessment of biofuel use and burning of agricultural waste in the developing world". Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 17 (4): n/a. Bibcode:2003GBioC..17.1095Y. doi: 10.1029/2002GB001952 . ISSN   1944-9224. S2CID   15112465.
  47. ↑ "Food and Tech: Solutions to Recover and Redistribute Food Waste". NYC Food Policy Center. 2019-06-26. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  48. ↑ "Food and Tech: Solutions to Recover and Redistribute Food Waste". NYC Food Policy Center. 2019-06-26. Retrieved 2021-03-01.

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