Pangasius production in Vietnam is widely known as a success story in aquaculture, the fastest growing global food system because of its tremendous expansion by volume, value and the number of international markets to which Pangasius has been exported in recent years. While certification schemes are becoming significant features of international fish trade and marketing, an increasing number of Pangasius producers have followed at least one of the certification schemes recognised by international markets to incorporate environmental and social sustainability practices in aquaculture, typically the Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue (PAD) scheme certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). An assessment of the environmental benefit of applying certification schemes on Pangasius production, however, is still needed. This article compared the environmental impact of ASC-certified versus non-ASC certified intensive Pangasius aquaculture, using a statistically supported Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). We focused on both resource-related (water, land and total resources) and emissions-related (global warming, acidification, freshwater and marine eutrophication) categories.

Tests with Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) have demonstrated that diesel cars emit several times more NOX on the road than during certification on the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Policy makers and scientists have attributed the discrepancy to the unrealistically low dynamics and the narrow temperature range of NEDC testing. Although widely accepted, this assumption was never been put under scientific scrutiny. Here, we demonstrate that the narrow NEDC test conditions explain only a small part of the elevated on-road NOX emissions of diesel cars. For seven Euro 4–6 diesel cars, we filter from on-road driving those events that match the NEDC conditions in instantaneous speed, acceleration, CO2 emissions, and ambient temperature. The resulting on-road NOX emissions exceed by 206% (median) those measured on the NEDC, whereas the NOX emissions of all unfiltered on-road measurements exceed the NEDC emissions by 266% (median). Moreover, when applying the same filtering of on-road data to two other driving cycles (WLTP and CADC), the resulting on-road NOX emissions exceed by only 13% (median) those measured over the respective cycles. This result demonstrates that our filtering method is accurate and robust. If neither the low dynamics nor the limited temperature range of NEDC testing can explain the elevated NOX emissions of diesel cars, emissions control strategies used during NEDC testing must be inactive or modulated on the road, even if vehicles are driven under certification-like conditions. This points to defeat strategies that warrant further investigations by type-approval authorities and, in turn, limitations in the enforcement of the European vehicle emissions legislation by EU Member States. We suggest applying our method as a simple yet effective tool to screen and select vehicles for in-depth analysis by the competent certification authorities.

Urban transportation is one of the leading causes of air pollution in big cities. In-use emissions of vehicles are higher than the emission control certification levels. The current study uses a roadside remote sensing emission monitoring campaign to investigate (a) fraction of high emitters in the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet and their contributions to the total emissions, (b) emission inspection (I/M) programs' effectiveness, and (c) alternate fuel (natural gas) encouragement policy. LDVs consist of passenger or freight transport vehicles with four wheels equivalent to classes M1 and N1 of European union vehicle classifications. The motivation is to assess the current emission inspection program's success rate and study the impact of the increased natural gas vehicle market share policy. It is also meant to present and validate remote sensing as a possible backup method to the current I/M program.The emission remote sensing campaign was conducted to measure emissions of CO, HC, and NO of the LDV fleet. Fleet age, engine size, and fuel type (gasoline or natural gas) were extracted and correlated with emissions. It was found that CO and HC emissions are five times higher for cars more than fifteen years old of age compared to those less than five years old. Analyses of high-emitters showed that almost 20% of the fleet were high-emitters and responsible for roughly half of CO, HC, and NO emissions.The correlation between the I/M program and the remote sensing to identify high-emitters was weak. Which indicates the need for an improved I/M program. It shows that even a limited remote sensing campaign is beneficial as a complementary monitoring tool to the I/M program. The study showed the same fraction of high-emitters in natural gas (methane) vehicles, despite the national policies to increase natural gas vehicle fraction in the market for reduced emissions.

Pangasius production in Vietnam is widely known as a success story in aquaculture, the fastest growing global food system because of its tremendous expansion by volume, value and the number of international markets to which Pangasius has been exported in recent years. While certification schemes are becoming significant features of international fish trade and marketing, an increasing number of Pangasius producers have followed at least one of the certification schemes recognised by international markets to incorporate environmental and social sustainability practices in aquaculture, typically the Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue (PAD) scheme certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). An assessment of the environmental benefit of applying certification schemes on Pangasius production, however, is still needed. This article compared the environmental impact of ASC-certified versus non-ASC certified intensive Pangasius aquaculture, using a statistically supported LCA. We focused on both resource-related (water, land and total resources) and emissions-related (global warming, acidification, freshwater and marine eutrophication) categories. The ASC certification scheme was shown to be a good approach for determining adequate environmental sustainability, especially concerning emissions-related categories, in Pangasius production. However, the non-ASC certified farms, due to the large spread, the impact (e.g., water resources and freshwater eutrophication) was possibly lower for a certain farm. However, this result was not generally prominent. Further improvements in intensive Pangasius production to inspire certification schemes are proposed, e.g., making the implementation of certification schemes more affordable, well-oriented and facilitated; reducing consumed feed amounts and of the incorporated share in fishmeal, especially domestic fishmeal, etc. However, their implementation should be vetted with key stakeholders to assess their feasibility.

In this study, we conducted an experimental panel survey in Norway, Germany and Portugal to explore consumers' willingness to pay more for products that are certified microplastic free. This is placed within the context of private certification schemes and private governance as mechanisms to increase consumer conscientiousness, establish a higher environmental standard in terms of microplastic and reduce marine pollution. We find that consumers in general are very conscious about the issue, would generally prefer products that are microplastics free, but would seldom choose these when there is a price premium on the label. This had a geographical offset though, with the results aligning with that of political trust in the nation, with Norwegians being less likely to purchase items with price premiums for private governance labels, and Portugal being most likely to – even with a price premium.

European maritime companies have adopted programs to limit operational impacts on the environment. For maritime companies in North America, the Green Marine Environmental Program (GMEP) offers a framework to establish and reduce environmental footprints. Green Marine (GM) participants demonstrate annual improvements of specific environmental performance indicators (e.g., reductions in air pollution emissions) to maintain certification. Participants complete annual self-evaluations with results determining rankings for performance indicators on a 1-to-5 scale. Self-evaluations are independently verified every two years to ensure rigor and individual results are made publicly available annually to achieve transparency. GM benefits the marine industry across North America by encouraging sustainable development initiatives. GM's credibility is reflected through a diverse network of environmental groups and government agencies that endorse and help shape the program. Merits of this relatively new maritime certification (not previously described in the academic literature), are discussed.

Since 2004, an international testing program has certified 53 shipboard treatment systems as meeting ballast water discharge standards, including limits on certain microbes to prevent the spread of human pathogens. We determined how frequently certification tests failed a minimum requirement for a meaningful evaluation, that the concentration of microbes in the untreated (control) discharge must exceed the regulatory limit for treated discharges. In 95% of cases where the result was accepted as evidence that the treatment system reduced microbes to below the regulatory limit, the discharge met the limit even without treatment. This shows that the certification program for ballast water treatment systems is dysfunctional in protecting human health. In nearly all cases, the treatment systems would have equally well “passed” these tests even if they had never been turned on. Protocols must require minimum concentrations of targeted microbes in test waters, reflecting the upper range of concentrations in waters where ships operate.

The International Maritime Organization and U.S. Coast Guard have implemented regulations to reduce introductions of non-indigenous species via ballast water (BW). For phytoplankton, regulations limit discharges to <10 live/viable cells mL⁻¹ (size: 10–50 μm), ignoring other size fractions. Additionally, challenge conditions of 100 (shipboard) and 1000 (land-based) cells mL⁻¹ are required in BW management system certification testing. How these requirements correspond to natural phytoplankton populations is poorly resolved. We analyzed phytoplankton samples from 31 major ports to evaluate: a) how natural communities compare to challenge requirements and b) abundances of unregulated size fractions (i.e., <10 and ≥50 μm). None of the ports met land-based challenge conditions, and only 32% met requirements for shipboard testing. Approximately 71% of organisms ≥50 μm were centric diatoms, also unregulated by current protocols. This study demonstrates that current regulations do not consider natural phytoplankton populations, limiting control efforts for potentially harmful non-indigenous species.

This paper presents the characterization and modeling of exhaust emissions released from the passenger cars on urban roads under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Onboard exhaust emissions measurement were made at selected corridors in a populous urban area of India. Exhaust emissions were characterized for different driving modes classified according to vehicle specific power (VSP). Results indicated that emissions at VSP modes under cruising speeds were 10–12 times less than idling (which is the mode used for emission standard certification), braking and accelerating conditions. Also it has been found that more than 20% of time vehicles were in idling conditions at most of the roads.Real-time exhaust emission prediction models for heterogeneous traffic conditions were developed using artificial neural network (ANN) technique. The vehicle characteristics such as revolutions per minute (RPM), speed, acceleration and VSP were used as input to the model. The onboard measurements of CO, HC and NOx concentrations were used to train the ANN based exhaust emission prediction models. Result showed good agreement with onboard measured emissions data (index of agreement = 0.9) of all driving modes. Further, ANN model's emissions were compared with emissions estimated from the COPERT model and emission factors recommended by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI). It was found that the ANN model emissions were edge over the ARAI and COPERT model emissions and useful for urban air quality management and traffic planning.

We aim at analyzing the influence of incentive policies on renewable energy deployment in European Union countries and Turkey over the 2000–2018 period. Applying both panel fixed effect and the dynamic panel estimation methods, we compared the results of these two different techniques. Moreover, we included “net metering” that has not been analyzed before, in our policy toolkit, that includes a large number of incentives. Our data cover longer time series than the previous studies in the literature, and it provides new results of different renewable energy policies and drivers for analyzed countries. Empirical findings show that while grants, Research and Development, tax, certification, and policy support have positive and statistically significant impacts on the renewable energy capacity, direct investments, loan, and net metering instruments have no stimulating effect on the renewable energy deployment. These results indicate the deterrent impact of regulations and direct investments on capacity of electricity generated from renewable energy. Moreover, our estimation results reveal that fossil energy consumption, nuclear energy, and GDP are important drivers of renewable energy deployment while net import (energy security) and CO₂ emissions are not. Our study highlights the importance of research and development activities, tax incentives, and efficient policy design in transition to green economy in the countries analyzed. Following the detailed discussion of the results, possible policy implications are presented at the end of the study.