Related papers: The Prosumer Economy -- Being Like a Forest
In this paper, the problem of smart grid energy management under stochastic dynamics is investigated. In the considered model, at the demand side, it is assumed that customers can act as prosumers who own renewable energy sources and can…
The discussions around the unsustainability of the dominant socio-economic structures have yet to produce solutions to address the escalating problems we face as a species. Such discussions, this paper argues, are hindered by the limited…
This paper presents a conceptual model describing the medium and long-term co-evolution of natural and socio-economic subsystems of Earth. An economy is viewed as an out-of-equilibrium dissipative structure that can only be maintained with…
The Anthropocene is characterized by close interdependencies between the natural Earth system and the human society, posing novel challenges to model development. Here we present a conceptual model describing the long-term coevolution of…
The popularization of distributed energy resources transforms end-users from consumers into prosumers. Inspired by the sharing economy principle, energy sharing markets for prosumers are proposed to facilitate the utilization of renewable…
Much of today's sustainability discourse emphasizes efficiency, clean technologies, and smart systems, but largely underestimates fundamental physical constraints relating to energy-matter interactions. These constraints stem from the fact…
While technology and trade have made modern food systems increasingly resilient to disruptions, it is unknown if human society could survive the most extreme threats to agriculture, such as from severe climate change or nuclear/biological…
Previously, in underdeveloped countries, people tried to keep the prices of food products artificially low, in order to help the poor to buy their food. But it became soon clear that such system, although helpful for the city poor, was…
The premise of industrial symbiosis IS is that advancing a circular economy that reuses byproducts as inputs in production is valuable for the environment. We challenge this premise in a simple model. Ceteris paribus, IS is an…
Tourism is a major contributor to global carbon emissions and over-tourism, creating an urgent need for recommender systems that not only inform but also gently steer users toward more sustainable travel decisions. Such choices, however,…
Social, biological and economic networks grow and decline with occasional fragmentation and re-formation, often explained in terms of external perturbations. We show that these phenomena can be a direct consequence of simple imitation and…
Platform giants in China have operated with persistently compressed margins in highly concentrated markets for much of the past decade, despite market shares exceeding 60\% in core segments. Standard theory predicts otherwise: either the…
Humankind has spread worldwide supported by cultural and technological knowledge, but the environmental sustainability on the human niche evolution depends on a new human beings relationship with the biosphere. Human lifestyles nowadays are…
The spotlight is on the intertwined nature of sustainability and energy transition. As the world grapples with environmental challenges, the push for a green approach to energy is more crucial than ever. This transition promises not just a…
In this paper, we examine both stability and sustainability of a network-based model of natural resource consumption. Stability is studied from a dynamical systems perspective, though we argue that sustainability is a fundamentally…
We use multi-regional input-output analysis to calculate the paid labour, energy, emissions, and material use required to provide basic needs for all people. We calculate two different low-consumption scenarios, using the UK as a case…
Local coexistence of species in large ecosystems is traditionally explained within the broad framework of niche theory. However, its rationale hardly justifies rich biodiversity observed in nearly homogeneous environments. Here we consider…
The Circular Economy (CE) is regarded as a solution to the environmental crisis. However, mainstream CE measures skirt around challenging the ethos of ever-increasing economic growth, overlooking social impacts and under-representing…
This paper explores the feasibility of social cooperation between prosumers within an energy network in establishing their sustainable participation in peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading. In particular, a canonical coalition game (CCG) is…
Control systems will play a pivotal role in addressing societal-scale challenges as they drive the development of sustainable future smart cities. At the heart of these challenges is the trustworthy, fair, and efficient allocation of scarce…