Proposal to Foster Sustainability through Circular Economy-Based Engineering: A Profitable Chain from Waste Management to Tunnel Lighting

Valentín Molina-Moreno, Juan Carlos Leyva-Díaz, Jorge Sánchez-Molina and Antonio Peña-García
Additional contact information
Valentín Molina-Moreno: Department of Management, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Juan Carlos Leyva-Díaz: Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Oviedo, 33006 Oviedo, Spain
Jorge Sánchez-Molina: Department of Chemistry, University of Francisco de Paula Santander, San José de Cúcuta 540003, Colombia
Antonio Peña-García: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-9

Abstract: The increasing demands of infrastructures in terms of energy consumption, raw material demand, greenhouse gas emissions, waste management, treatment of components after their lifetime period, and financial costs are nowadays a serious threat for sustainability. Given that the resources are limited, it is difficult to ensure an accurate level of well-being for future generations. For this reason, new perspectives in design, production and consumption are necessary. In this work, the principles of circular economy are applied to concrete branches of engineering. Departing from a design orientated to new uses after life period of infrastructures, a circular economy-aimed engineering makes possible the connection and mutual profit of such different branches like waste management and tunnel lighting. The benefits in environmental and financial terms are a strong argument in favor of a stronger link between engineering and circular economy.

Keywords: sustainability; lighting; waste management; infrastructures; energy savings; raw materials; CO 2 emission; circular economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2229/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/12/2229/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:12:p:2229-:d:121300

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().