Currently, Russia is going through a global transformation in the field of waste management, which is mainly caused by the exhaustion of the capacities of existing landfills. The country’s goal is to reduce landfill and ensure 36 % recycling of all municipal solid waste (MSW) by 2024. Meanwhile, the discussion about the choice of disposal methods continues. We propose to look at the choice of the optimal MSW management strategy at the regional level through the prism of its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to determine the total carbon footprint of the regional MSW management system in order to consider the “contribution” of each of the methods of waste management and make the considered criterion suitable for assessing the sustainability of the whole regional waste management system under various scenarios of its development. To achieve this goal, the methodology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was used to assess the current situation in the field of MSW management in the Sverdlovsk region. Further, the study developed the conditions for three industry development scenarios (basic, inertial, innovative); substantiated the factors of direct and prevented GHG emissions; calculated GHG emissions from the MSW management sector in the Sverdlovsk region for 2023-2030 for each of the three scenarios. The calculations showed that, by 2030, the basic scenario (“as is”, business-as-usual) has the maximum carbon footprint of 1558.5 thousand tonnes of CO2-eq. The innovative scenario has minimum net emissions of 82.6 thousand tonnes of CO2-eq. by creating a full-fledged separate waste collection and recycling more waste. The findings can be useful in the formation of regional strategies for waste management, considering GHG emissions.
1 January 2020 in Journal of Applied Economic Research
The growing impact on the environment from industrial enterprises, the depletion of non-renewable natural resources and the associated risks make it relevant to take into account the environmental performance indicators of the enterprise along with economic ones. The authors believe that it is possible to conduct an environmental and economic assessment of the enterprise using an integrated indicator. The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodological toolkit for conducting an integrated environmental and economic assessment of the activities of a metallurgical enterprise, which makes it possible to make both a retrospective assessment of the enterprise's activities, and a predictive one based on the parity between the economic and environmental spheres of the enterprise. An analysis of domestic and foreign literature showed the absence of a unified approach to environmental and economic assessment of industrial enterprises based on standard financial and environmental reporting, and non-financial reporting standards. The methodology proposed by the author includes two blocks of indicators: an environmental and an economic one. The environmental block is represented by indicators related to the environmental impact. The economic block includes various indicators of the profitability of the enterprise. The authors propose an approach to standardizing indicators and calculating the integral indicator of environmental and economic assessment for the period. A distinctive feature of the author's methodology is the development of a single indicator that combines heterogeneous and multidirectional indicators of the environmental and economic blocks, which makes it possible to assess how the state of the enterprise changes over time, considering the action of various factors and their influence on the changes occurring at the enterprise. The proposed methodology was tested in application to the Seversky pipe plant for the period of 2016–2018. It showed a deterioration in the final environmental and economic assessment of the enterprise's activities as per the indicators of the economic block. At the same time, almost all indicators of the ecological block improved over the period of observation. The result is attributed to the ongoing large-scale technological overhaul at the enterprise, aimed, in many respects, at reducing the impact on the environment and increasing the efficiency of the enterprise. The authors believe that after the completion of the modernization project, an increase in the production volume and a decrease in unit costs with a minimum impact on the environment will help to achieve a balance between the ecological and economic spheres of the enterprise.
The achievement of the targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is ensured, among other things, through direct price regulation measures, for the implementation of which a necessary condition is the calculation of the carbon footprint of products. At the same time, carbon footprint targets can be used as driving parameters to set industry targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to provide government support measures for enterprises. The aim of the work is to develop a methodological approach to the use of the «carbon footprint of products» indicator as a parameter for assessing the current and forecast values of greenhouse gas emissions from enterprises in industries that are subject to carbon regulation. The hypothesis of the study is to justify the use of target values of the indicator «carbon footprint of products» for strategic estimates of greenhouse gas emissions in the process of industrial decarbonization. For this purpose, the paper considers the organizational and economic mechanism of the European emissions trading system. A methodical approach to determining the carbon footprint of metallurgical products is described, and calculations of the carbon footprint of metallurgical enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region are performed. Calculations based on average indicators of the carbon intensity of products of Russian metallurgical enterprises showed that the total carbon footprint of the metallurgical sector of the Sverdlovsk region in 2021 is 21.8 million tons of CO2-eq; its target value may be 16.7 million tons of CO2-eq . Differences in values are due to the existing structure of manufactured products and applied technologies. The development of standard metrics for assessing greenhouse gas emissions at the enterprise level, regularly conducting such an assessment and its verification by an independent organization may constitute a preparatory stage that makes it possible to launch a mechanism for trading greenhouse gas emissions at the regional or country level. Additionally, the carbon footprint of products can act as a control parameter while establishing quantitative values for the volume of greenhouse gas emission reductions. The proposed methodological approach can be used by decision makers to shape regional decarbonization policies.