Cucchiella, F., D’Adamo, I., Gastaldi, M. et al. (2 more authors) (2017) A comparison of environmental and energetic performance of European countries: A sustainability index. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 78. pp. 401-413. ISSN 1364-0321
Abstract
Recently, European countries agreed on a new 2030-pact establishing challenging levels for a set of climate and energy indexes in order to achieve a more competitive, safe and sustainable energy system. In order to evaluate current sustainability performances of European countries from the environmental and energetic perspectives, this research proposes a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) that, starting from both Eurostat data and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), allows a direct comparison of nations. To this aim, multiple indexes are taken into account (e.g. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Government expenditures for environmental protection, Recycled and reused waste from electric and electronic equipments (WEEEs), Recycled and reused waste from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), Recycled materials from Municipal Solid Wastes (MSWs), Share of renewable energy (RE) in electricity, Share of RE in transport, Share of RE in heating and cooling and Primary energy consumption). This assessment model provides a sustainability value for each European country and the related ranking with the European average. Results show as, even nowadays, twelve out of twenty-eight European countries have a value greater than the European average in 2013. Top four nations (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Austria) have high indexes of sustainability and Sweden is the best country from both the environmental and energetic perspectives.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Energy; Environment; European Union; Multi-criteria decision analysis; Sustainability |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jan 2020 14:31 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jan 2020 14:31 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.rser.2017.04.077 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155973 |