Despite the knowledge gained in recent years regarding the use of acoustic emissions (AEs) in ecologically friendly, natural fiber-reinforced composites (including certain composites with bio-sourced matrices), there is still a knowledge gap in the understanding of the difference in damage behavior between green and biocomposites. Thus, this article investigates the behavior of two comparable green and biocomposites with tests that better reflect real-life applications, i.e., load-unloading and creep testing, to determine the evolution of the damage process. Comparing the mechanical results with the AE, it can be concluded that the addition of a coupling agent (CA) markedly reduced the ratio of AE damage to mechanical damage. CA had an extremely beneficial effect on green composites because the Kaiser effect was dominant during cyclic testing. During the creep tests, the use of a CA also avoided the transition to new damaging phases in both composites. The long-term applications of PE green material must be chosen carefully because bio and green composites with similar properties exhibited different damage processes in tests such as cycling and creep that could not be previously understood using only monotonic testing.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that has been widely used to evaluate the environmental impact of products and processes throughout entire life cycles. In this context, the reuse of waste in paved road construction is a practice that has received increasing attention as a sustainable alternative to solid waste disposal. This article presents a systematic review of existing studies on the LCA of paved roads that incorporate waste reuse and proposes a guideline for LCA in this context. Several criteria were analyzed in the articles, and the results showed that only 5% of the articles followed all the recommendations set out in ISO 14040. The proposed guideline aims to provide guidance for future research and includes recommendations for each of the steps involved in LCA, from defining the objectives and scope of the study to interpreting the results.

Green products are crucial for a sustainable future. Without a strong understanding of consumer intent toward green products and research gaps, translating the availability of green products into actual consumer and market acceptance is hampered. This article reviews the available literature on green products and their relationship to consumers through bibliometric analysis. We used VosViewer to globalize the topic mapping and Scimat for longitudinal analysis. The results show that the available literature can be divided into four clusters, and five periods representing four distinct eras can be defined. Published studies were found in only 15 of the 36 calendar years constituting the first era. The second era started a wave of increasing green product research. In the third era, the number of journals with publications related to green products peaked. After the diversification of the third era, the fourth era saw the consolidation of the main vectors of publication. Despite a slow start in 1974, the research on eco-friendly products has expanded significantly over the past decade. Nonetheless, one persistent weakness of the literature is that most studies use customer intent, not the purchase itself, as the dependent variable. Consequently, there is still enormous potential for further research.

Proper management of wood waste (WW) from the furniture industry has become an important issue. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool that is widely used for identifying environmental gains in WW management strategies. Thus, the aim of this research was to perform a comparative LCA, analyzing the environmental aspects and impacts of different WW management scenarios generated in the furniture industry in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. To conduct the study, five scenarios were designed: medium-density fiberboard (MDF) production (Scenario 1), medium-density particleboard (MDP) production (Scenario 2), solid ceramic brick production (Scenario 3), heat production in the ceramics industry (Scenario 4), and landfill disposal (Scenario 5). The results showed that compared to Scenarios 3 and 4, Scenarios 1 and 2 are potentially more favorable for disposing of WW. Scenario 1 achieved more environmental benefits in all of the impact categories evaluated. Notably, 1 m³ of MDF stores 1080 kg CO₂ eq/m³, which results in a net impact of −849 kg CO₂ eq/m³ of MDF. Scenario 5 is the least favorable practice. This research designs scenarios that contribute to reductions in the demand for virgin sources and increases in environmental gains.