Green financing, interrupted. Potential directions for sustainable finance in Luxembourg

in Local Environment (2018), 23(7), 717-733

This paper has a quintessentially explorative character. It aims at identifying existing as well as potential (yet missing) links between the finance industry and local businesses that aspire to more ... [more ▼]

This paper has a quintessentially explorative character. It aims at identifying existing as well as potential (yet missing) links between the finance industry and local businesses that aspire to more sustainable economic practices. Building on the observation that green investments have been gaining weight in global investors’ strategies, we analyse how sustainable – in the most comprehensive sense of the word – green investments could ultimately be(come), when green assets are still managed according to the logic of “financialised finance”. This latter’s technologies of commodification, securitisation and derivatives-trading allegedly oppose alternative economic practices that pursue economic sustainability through social and environmental gains. In contrast, we investigate how the finance industry relates to alternative financial practices, products and organisations that offer sustainability-oriented financing services, – for example, regional banks, cooperatives and the like, – with a specific focus on green, social and solidarity businesses. Both approaches subscribe to apparently contradictory ideologies. We establish a beneficial dialogue between the opposing models of “green capitalism” and “alternative economies” so as to identify potential points of intersection. The context of Luxembourg’s local/regional economies provides a great opportunity to empirically access three levels of investigation: the private sector, the public sector and an international financial centre, a key facilitator for green finance, thus utilising insights from the concept of bricolage. Whilst supporters of Luxembourg’s emerging green finance profile recognise its positive impact on the small country’s national branding, in combination with economic stimuli, more critical commentators point to pure “green washing” effects. [less ▲]

Green Flexible Opportunistic Computing with Virtualization

in Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE 11th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology, CIT'11 (2011)

Energy efficiency and High computing power are basic design considerations across modern-day computing solutions due to different concerns such as system performance, operational cost, and environmental ... [more ▼]

Energy efficiency and High computing power are basic design considerations across modern-day computing solutions due to different concerns such as system performance, operational cost, and environmental issues. Opportunistic grid infrastructures offer computational power at low cost focused on harvesting idle computing cycles of existing commodity computing resources. Other than allowing to customize the end user offer, virtualization is considered as one key tech- niques to reduce energy consumption in large-scale systems and contributes to the scalability of the system. This paper presents an energy efficient approach for opportunistic grids based on virtualization. The experimental results show that virtualization significantly improves the energy efficiency of opportunistic grids compared with dedicated computing sys- tems without disturbing the end-user. [less ▲]

Green growth in the Benelux: Indicators of local transition to a low-carbon economy in cross-border regions

Report (2013)

This paper discusses the results of a study of measuring green growth in the Benelux countries (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). The study paid particular attention to the challenges of measuring ... [more ▼]

This paper discusses the results of a study of measuring green growth in the Benelux countries (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). The study paid particular attention to the challenges of measuring the transition to a low-carbon economy in cross-border areas as they have additional levels of complexity when it comes to measuring and monitoring their low-carbon transition. In cross- regions data collection hardly ever coincide with any single data gathering ‘institution’. Moreover, Belgium (Flanders, Brussels, Wallonia), the Netherlands, and Luxembourg have different indicator systems at the national level, and even more so at the more decentralised level which creates problems of data availability, data (in)consistency, and hence comparability. Progress is already noticeable in the two crossborder areas analysed in the study. In Ghent-Terneuzen the bio-base economy is contributing to the value of turnover and growth in employment in the environmental goods and services (EGS) sectors. In Alzette-Belval the construction industry is engaging in resource-efficient building design and certification. In other aspects there is evidence of progress, but this evidence is anecdotal, or patchy in its collection, and not able to be included in the dashboard metrics developed during the study and discussed in the paper. [less ▲]

The Green Stock Market Bubble

in Circular Economy and Sustainability (2023)

Green Urban Areas

E-print/Working paper (2019)

This paper studies the size and location of urban green areas across city spaces. Urban green areas offer amenities that affect residential choices, land consumption and land rent. This paper discusses ... [more ▼]

This paper studies the size and location of urban green areas across city spaces. Urban green areas offer amenities that affect residential choices, land consumption and land rent. This paper discusses the socially optimal sizes and locations of urban green areas within a city and their decentralized allocation through land markets. The main result is that the share of land dedicated to urban green areas is a concave function of the distance to the city center. This result is confirmed by the empirical study of urban structures in the 305 largest EU cities. The importance of urban green areas is finally assessed by a counterfactual analysis, where 50% of urban green areas are removed in each city. [less ▲]

GreenCloud: a packet-level simulator of energy-aware cloud computing data centers

in Journal of Supercomputing (2012), 62(3), 1263-1283

Cloud computing data centers are becoming increasingly popular for the provisioning of computing resources. The cost and operating expenses of data centers have skyrocketed with the increase in computing ... [more ▼]

Cloud computing data centers are becoming increasingly popular for the provisioning of computing resources. The cost and operating expenses of data centers have skyrocketed with the increase in computing capacity. Several governmental, industrial, and academic surveys indicate that the energy utilized by computing and communication units within a data center contributes to a considerable slice of the data center operational costs. In this paper, we present a simulation environment for energy-aware cloud computing data centers. Along with the workload distribution, the simulator is designed to capture details of the energy consumed by data center components (servers, switches, and links) as well as packet-level communication patterns in realistic setups. The simulation results obtained for two-tier, three-tier, and three-tier high-speed data center architectures demonstrate the effectiveness of the simulator in utilizing power management schema, such as voltage scaling, frequency scaling, and dynamic shutdown that are applied to the computing and networking components. [less ▲]

Greener and larger neighbourhoods make cities more sustainable! A 2D urban economics perspective

in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (2015), 54

We analyse urban growth forms by means of a 2D microeconomic model where households value green space at neighbourhood scale. We analytically demonstrate that cities can grow more densely when households ... [more ▼]

We analyse urban growth forms by means of a 2D microeconomic model where households value green space at neighbourhood scale. We analytically demonstrate that cities can grow more densely when households have the possibility to enlarge the neighbourhood in which they value green space, thus emphasizing the importance of neighbourhood planning in particular for facilitating short trips and views of green amenities. We also show by simulation that the size and form of the city, relative to the size and form of neighbourhoods, impact on the decision of households to leapfrog land or not, thus impacting on the emergence of scattered urbanisation patterns. We conclude that carefully addressing the spatial arrangement of green space and buildings and facilitating trips within neighbourhood units constitute an effective policy lever and an attractive way to deliver more sustainable cities. We further argue that our theoretical experiment with complementary analytical and computer-based simulation provides micro-economic reasoning to the main elements of the Garden City and neighbourhood unit planning concepts. [less ▲]

Greening Local Economies: Nature Parks as Instruments for Sustainable Regional Development

Doctoral thesis (2015)

ABSTRACT The proliferation of Nature Parks in Europe and the change in the function of these areas has brought forth questions about the meaning and extent to which Nature Parks encourage practices for ... [more ▼]

ABSTRACT The proliferation of Nature Parks in Europe and the change in the function of these areas has brought forth questions about the meaning and extent to which Nature Parks encourage practices for regional sustainable development. As such, research into this subject is ongoing. Since the creation of the first Nature Park in Europe some five or six decades ago, today, the functions of many of these areas have metamorphosed; triggered by increasing knowledge about the importance of existing ecosystem services in park areas, on adjacent local inhabitants. Consequently, parks have moved from areas of pure conservation to areas that combine environmental preservation with other socioeconomic demands in regional development. When this multifunctional characteristic is fixed into various regional policies, Nature Parks are generally interpreted by policy makers as necessary tools for realizing sustainable development in local areas. For the fact that parks have assumed new functions, it is certain, there are modifications in the strategies adopted for managing these areas. As a result, this study holds that the strength of Nature Parks in mitigating resource depletion, to improve socioeconomic prosperity and participatory regional processes, in rural areas in Luxembourg, is explicitly linked to the development strategies intended for these areas. The study draws on two official Nature Parks in Luxembourg (Haute Sûre and Our), to explain contemporary strategies to simultaneously integrate activities of ecological conservation, economic development, social well-being and resource governance. Therefore, the study sticks on the concept of green economy, an integrated notion in the framework of sustainable development, as for example, promoted by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2011), to draw a line between theory and practice of Nature Park development in Luxembourg. To comprehend the role and impacts of Nature Parks in regional development, the study has been guided by a qualitative methodology. Methods were chosen based on flexibility and the strength to provide useful insights about parks’ activities. This provided responses to the main research question; to what extent are strategies contributing to the appreciation of Nature Parks by local, regional and national stakeholders, as instruments for greening local economies, for the purpose of attaining sustainable regional development in Luxembourg? The dissertation presents different dimensions in which Nature Parks in Luxembourg are trying to promote regional sustainability. It made use of chapters that describe and analyse ecological policies for improving ecosystem services. This is mainly guided by schemes for environmental education, biodiversity contracts and agricultural advice that convey modernisation into traditional agricultural practices. Undeniably, approaches affixed for the development of Nature Parks have been contributing in reshaping local economies. Not only are these strategies important in integrating economic development and ecological conservation, but also, the outcomes via innovative and diversified projects have fairly improved approaches for local production. A new rural identity is now being developed, standing tall as the main strength behind the marketing of locally branded Nature Park products. Apart from the fact that organic production is still a matter of controversy, concrete social policies are lacking while local participation in Nature Parks’ activities is a critical challenge and absolutely insufficient. Away from researching on the ecological, economic, social and governance approaches for greening Nature Parks, the study has also explained certain challenges caused mainly by, but not limited to, differences between stakeholders in conceptualising Nature Parks as tool for local/regional development. The emerging drawbacks from these limitations vis-à-vis regional projects are enough reason to rethink the extent to which Nature Parks in Luxembourg encourage sustainable regional development. The research reasons that attaining sustainable development in Nature Parks is a critical challenge. This can be most effective if predestined strategies logically integrate aspects of environmental conservation, economic prosperity and social well-being, including attractive policies of regional governance. [less ▲]

Grensarbeiders, meertaligheid en het gebruik van Luxemburgs op het werk in Luxembourg

in De Internationalisering van de Vlaamse Rand Rond Brussel [Internationalisation of the Periphery of Brussels] (2012)

Grenzänderungen in der Großregion SaarLorLux vom Wiener Kongress bis heute

E-print/Working paper (2010)

Untersucht werden die Grenzänderungen, die in der Großregion SaarLorLux im Verlauf der letzten 200 Jahre stattgefunden haben. Als Anfangsdatum wurde der Wiener Kongress, der die Neuord-nung in Europa zum ... [more ▼]

Untersucht werden die Grenzänderungen, die in der Großregion SaarLorLux im Verlauf der letzten 200 Jahre stattgefunden haben. Als Anfangsdatum wurde der Wiener Kongress, der die Neuord-nung in Europa zum Ziel hatte, genommen. Als vorläufiges Ende wurde das Jahr 2006 herangezo-gen. Die Geschichte dieser Region, die sich aus unterschiedlichen Ländern zusammensetzt, soll anhand der Entwicklung der Grenzen beschrieben werden. [less ▲]