Modeling Innovation Sustainability and Technologies

The article elaborates the background thinking and path for Open Innovation 2.0 conceptual innovation model. It is based on virtual enterprises, Holonic enterprises and fractal enterprises theory, combined with MIT Living Lab concept developed by Bill Mitchell (Me++: the cyborg self and the networked city. MIT Press; 2003). Combining this with the internet/connectivity revolution the need to have faster pace and more successful innovation rate led to the thinking of the quadruple helix, including the citizens as active agents in the innovation process, not only as verificators as they were used to be in the previous triple helix thinking.

Based on the work of New Club of Paris (Lin and Edvinsson. National intellectual capital: a comparison of 40 countries. Springer; 2011) the structural intellectual capital (IC) is a key for national prosperity. Open innovation integrating the crowd into the innovation process seamlessly seems to increase the structural IC. Hence, integrating all these components: quadruple helix, non-linear innovation, fractal and dynamic organizations into innovation processes in real world with real market creation with the users who become co-creators seem to be the key for future success.

The new open innovation 2.0 paradigm seems to be serving the innovation needs very well in time—if we dare to take it on board.

Traditionally, there is an important role that external conditions such as establishment of tax rules can play in fostering innovation process in companies. When considering Innovation Union in the European Union context, we need to take into consideration the fact that companies meet twenty-eight different tax systems. While the differences concerning the nominal tax rates are obvious, another aspect comprising tax base rules differences is less visible, although they can play a relevant role in stimulating innovation activity. In some countries, the tax base composition is affected by the existence of R&D tax incentives concerning the company’s income tax, but the situation differs according to the EU member state.

Our study questions the existence of the link between the above-mentioned aspects of national tax regulation and a country’s innovation performance with a special emphasis on the entrepreneurial innovation activity. In accordance with a broader definition of innovation activity, both the R&D expenditure and the non-R&D innovation expenditures in the business sector are taken into account in our analysis. For empirical testing, the Granger causality methodology and panel fixed-effect regression analysis are applied.

Our results find evidence that countries proposing more generous possibilities in the statutory or effective tax rates don’t meet more suitable performances in entrepreneurial innovation activity. Similar results can be found in estimating the impact of different tax base rules, approximated by the difference between the statutory and the effective tax rate. Another important aspect of our study concerns testing of correlation between different forms of R&D tax incentives and enterprise innovation activity. Our results indicate a positive relationship between R&D tax incentives and enterprise R&D expenditures while a negative relationship between such incentives and enterprise non-R&D innovation activities can be identified as well. It seems that tax incentives affecting the income tax base composition (enhanced allowances and accelerated depreciation) do not indicate considerably different results from those proposed by the tax incentives affecting the income tax rate (tax credits and patent boxes). In conclusion, the results we have identified are interpreted in the context of the European Commission initiative of the rebirth of the Common and Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) proposal, announced in 2016. Thus, the chapter tries to contribute to the renewal debate concerning the consequences of CCCTB from the perspective of business innovation activities.

This paper addresses R&D acceptance in a spatial-economic system. We assume that the absorptive capacity of firms in a region is positively influenced by territorially-dependent factors. We analyze the effects of various spatial factors that explain the differences between territories to access and absorb external knowledge on the innovative performance of regions as well as the possibility of rising local increasing returns. Our pedagogical model shows that cognitive determinants associated with the spatial organization and culture of a territory—when combined with cognitive factors related to the organization of R&D and the culture of firms—help to understand the productivity paradox observed in regions with a considerable level of innovative effort.

Main drivers of innovation in the economy are undoubtedly businesses. Entrepreneurs are expected to be inventive, to have initiative in discovering new products, methods, markets and be willing to take risks, which is also a prerequisite for successful business. Our research, while accepting the crucial role of enterprises in innovation, focuses on the role of regional authorities, which through innovation policies can greatly influence the development of innovation potential in the region. In our research, we rely primarily on existing studies of regional policy in general and we highlight the reasons for which the regional policy started to address the innovation potential. Next, we have analyzed the situation in Slovak Republic compared with the innovative potential of 28 EU countries and the changes that occurred in the years 2004–2013. In order to evaluate the innovation performance we have used six selected indicators that are part of a composite indicator—the Summary Innovation Index (Hollanders et al., Innovation Union Scoreboard: The European Commission Report, 2015. http://​ec.​europa.​eu/​enterprise/​policies/​. Accessed 16 June 2015). Finally, this chapter shows the importance and role of regional territorial authority in creating the innovative potential of the region, focusing on the Košice region. We present a specific case of cross-border innovation regional policy, common to the Kosice region in Slovakia and Northern Hungary region, and we summarize the results that this policy has made.

At present, the efficiency of allocating funds from public budgets is an issue that is being increasingly debated in the public sector. Mainly, this is due to increasing debt but also to changes in the way public services are provided. Good decisions regarding allocations, however, are prevented by the inability to measure output volume and the benefits for consumers provided by various services. Outcomes of public libraries are benefits of a system or service producer to its users (Vakkari and Serola, Library Inf Sci Res 34(1):37–44, 2012). Their value is more complex in the public sector than in the private sector and can therefore be harder to measure (Bloch and Bugge, Struct Chang Econ Dyn 27:133–145, 2013). This paper provides evidence that it is possible to analyse the effectiveness in the public sector—which provides library services—of both providers (libraries) and individual components of the services. This can be done through the application of a methodology that allows the consumers themselves to determine the perceived value of the services being used. The result of the analysis of these selected services’ effectiveness at the biggest Czech library is a determination of its degree of effectiveness, which fluctuates around a value of one. The next step is to further divide individual standardized services into groups by whether they are effective or ineffective. A completely unique representative survey carried out in the Czech Republic in 2012 has been used throughout the analysis.

Innovation represents one of the key factors in achieving competitive advantage of companies, hence the whole economies. Therefore, managers aim to acquire knowledge. Likewise public policy makers understand an importance of creating innovations and thus promote the generation and spread of positive effects through knowledge diffusion. In the context of modern innovation, the science-industry collaboration comes into its importance. Many foreign studies pointing to the fact, that this cooperation cannot be successful in each sector and that not every kind of innovation depends on the same knowledge flows. Therefore, we can notice inefficient attempts to cooperate in a number of cases, which are frequently accompanied by excessive use of national and European funds. The article aims to compare situation of companies in manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic and Hungary to analyze how is their growth of total turnover affected by (i) implementation of innovation (product and process); (ii) university-industry and government-industry collaboration; (iii) provision of public subsidies (national and European). We show, by using the multiple linear regression models, that cooperation with universities and with other enterprises within enterprise groups positively influences innovation activities. The results also show that public funds are more effectively provided in Hungary, more specifically the European funds. We provide comparison between Czech and Hungarian manufacturing industries and proposals how to improve the efficiency of national funds provision, which is not sufficient in these countries.

Corporate treasury management becomes much more complex and hence more difficult as globalisation increases, cross border activities grow, and companies choose to adopt a multinational status. Multinational companies (MNCs) need to organise their treasury management activities and their main aim is to choose the model that will maximise value added. The range of possibilities includes a centralized form of treasury i.e. a treasury centre operating in a certain geographical region as the centre of expertise, knowledge and innovation in financial management. MNCs often centralize their treasury management by setting up regional treasury centres in locations that offer optimal conditions for the effective management of treasury activities having regard to local needs. The recent trend of nearshoring has focused multinationals’ attention on Central European countries. The paper concentrates on the factors and criteria considered in MNCs’ location decisions for treasury centres, and on the ability of a selected group of Central European countries to become the appropriate location for such centres. Location decisions commonly depend on both the local tax environment and other factors. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the suitability of the Visegrad countries as sites for corporate treasury centres.

This chapter deals with the effect of open innovation on innovation activity in Czech manufacturing firms. We analyze the European CIS 2010 data using the methodology of Laursen and Salter (Strateg Manag J 27(2):131–150, 2006), Van de Vrande et al. (Technovation 29(6):423–437, 2009) and Ebersberger et al. (Res Policy 43(3):495–504, 2012) based on the depth (intensity) and breadth (variety) for open innovations. In our paper we focus on measuring the depth and breadth in various manufacturing industries (from low to high-tech firms) oriented on different markets (from local to non-EU regions). We distinguish two types of innovation, new-to-market and new-to-firm, respectively. To analyze the indirect effect of open innovation (measured via the depth and breadth of knowledge acquisition and innovation cooperation), we use structural equation models. The results confirm that open innovation mediates the effect of public support (mainly government and EU) on innovation activity. We also show that firms oriented on new-to-market innovation report significantly higher breadth of open innovation. We propose several important implications for innovation policymakers, stressing that the variety (breadth) of open innovation is the critical determinant to promote innovation activity.

The analysis presented here focuses on the latest German legislation changes introduced in order to make the planning and building of infrastructure projects more harmonious and more effective.

From a due-process perspective, International and European Environmental law played a pioneer role by leading the German legislators to introduce an earlier public participation in its extremely complex system of spatial and sectorial planning. At first it mainly addressed sustainability. Then, after a few major infrastructure projects were confronted with massive resistance by the population affected, a rethinking about the citizens’ involvement at an early stage became necessary, aiming at streamlining and speeding up legally binding decisions on the more controversial infrastructure projects. As a result, the Administrative Procedure Code was expanded to incorporate the “Law for broadening the public participation and for the standardization of the procedures for determining sectorial plans.”

In order to debate, in an interdisciplinary way, the role that the law is able to play in communication procedures, this article discusses the essential factors impacting the different types of plans and planning. It then questions the strategies leading to acceptance of certain projects and the trade-offs between speed of implementation and the respect for public participation rights.

Innovations are the drive of economic development advancing the possibilities of future competitiveness in the form of new knowledge and increasing economic efficiency and performance, particularly within small and medium enterprises (SME). To strengthen innovation activities is one of the main tasks of SME nowadays. The objective of this chapter is to give a critical view on innovation activity in the SME sector in Slovakia. Because of the need to use a systemic approach the stress will be given to identifying main factors influencing innovation activity of Slovak SME. The results of our own empirical research are devoted to the identification of the main barriers to develop innovation activity identified among SMEs. Recommendations for relevant public institutions as well as for SME to overcome the barriers will be discussed.

In the current concept of regional politics as an activity, the main purpose of which is to reduce disparities in development of individual regions and to ensure their harmonious development, emphasis is also laid on cooperation of towns and municipalities in development of a given area. Local initiative thus gains more and more on significance and under certain circumstances becomes the most important factor in regional development. This contribution analyses the ways to measure the intensity of intermunicipal cooperation in the individual regions of South Bohemia Region and it also attempts to describe all relevant relations between these variables in order to better understand the significance of processes and elements of cooperation using an originally created data-base of towns and municipalities in the South Bohemian Region after the year 2001.

Nowadays innovations are considered as one of the key sources of performance and competitiveness among tourism destinations. As tourism development is primarily based on their natural sources, the innovation process should respect the criteria of sustainable development. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the implementation of innovations in mountain destinations and examine their effect on sustainable tourism development. The research adopts in-depth analysis of the Central European destination High Tatras, concerning primary and secondary data from a survey and interviews with destination managers, tourism stakeholders, local inhabitants and annual reports. The novelty of this analysis lies in examining the connection of implementing different categories of innovations within different stages of the destination life cycle. The chapter concludes that various categories of innovation with different effects on sustainability are implemented in different stages of the destination life cycle.

The main aim of the chapter is to define the process of identification, creation, building and exploitation of the local competitive advantage based on internal resources and cooperation of local private and public subjects, networking and participation via creation of unique tourism local production system and its influence on sustainability and ecological awareness. On the example of being a pioneer in developing a tourism industry in a hidden corner of the world without any tourism experience, this chapter tells an inspirational story of building a tourism destination from inauspicious beginnings, almost no trust and zero support from local, regional and national authorities through the slow building of a tourism industry until a sustainable, competitive and environmentally aware tourist destination of the twenty-first century.

Over the last decade the term “event marketing” has become both popular and ambiguous. It is used to describe small community initiatives gathering dozens of people as well as cyclic mass events with multimillion-dollar budgets. There is a variety of reasons why many people and organizations are using events as a marketing tool. For enterprises they are one of the instruments of corporate branding as well as ways of building relations with stakeholders. Public organizations perceive events as an instrument of building positive image among the public, as well as a way to convince people of certain social and political ideas. From the participants’ (users) point of view, events are more and more alternatives for spending free time or building a culture of participation in social life.

Thus, a complex and multifaceted relation between an event and the place where it is held can be a very interesting subject to analyze. To what extent a given territory is a source of the event’s specificity? How much do organizing events (especially mega-events) and event marketing contribute positively to local economic development? What are the costs and benefits of organizing events not only for its organizers but also for the territory and the community involved? Is it more effective to organize huge mega-events or rather smaller projects prove to be more beneficial and efficient from the place-marketing point of view? These questions arise more and more often among local policy makers, MICE sector representatives, local activists, and so on. This chapter, by presenting the development potential of event hosting in the post-industrial city of Łódź, is an attempt to answer some of them in this particular local context.

This study investigates the role and opportunities of gastronomy within the cultural re-branding of a city. Entrepreneurs and tourism authorities can emphasize the uniqueness of local cuisine but the common offer by different companies also requires alignment and standardization in order to define what they have in common, to assure product and service quality, and to communicate the service offer to potential customers. This creates a tension between standardization and authenticity: both concepts seem to contradict each other but these are needed in combination. This paradox is explored using the case of an alternative food network in the Italian city Torino. Our findings show the potential of this combined approach of authenticity and local standardization.

This chapter studies the relationship between innovations, use of Information and Communication Technologies and labor productivity in the Polish enterprises. The research framework takes advantage of the Crepon–Duguet–Mairesse (CDM) model and the new firm paradigm, which focuses on the co-innovative productivity sources. Within this study, factors determining implementation of innovations (product, process-organizational and marketing) are identified and joint impact of innovations, ICT use and complementary factors on labor productivity, are evaluated.

Estimation of the simultaneous discrete choice model revealed that there is complementary relationship between ICT and all types of innovations. We also showed that human capital positively influences product and marketing innovations, while organizational readiness enhances product and process-organizational innovations. These two types of innovations have positive impact on labor productivity in the Polish firms. The results confirm the mediating role of co-innovative productivity sources - ICT alone do not enhance labor productivity, but we recorded productivity gains if ICT were complemented by other mediating factors.

With the recent evolution of Information and Communication Technologies, the widespread usage of applications to assist in multiple tasks has increased exponentially in the industry. This was made possible by switching from the older paper based management to dematerialized management. For most companies this is achieved using simple databases and applications that manage daily work. However, for some companies this is not enough. Those who deal with a large number of warehouses, most of them with a large storage space, have a need for more complex and evolved management applications, specifically in the area of logistic operations. To address this need, applications were developed to manage equipment and parts in a warehouse, also supported on mobile devices, helping the companies to plan and manage the operations more efficiently and achieving significant cost benefits. These management applications are essential in modern company’s business, but for the most part are still limited to managing operations in the warehouse, only controlling the incoming, the stock and the outgoing of the equipment.

For other companies that have the requirements for further interventions on equipment outside the warehouse, such as managing procurement, maintenance or occurrences, it is vital to be able to follow the equipment lifecycle to anticipate and react efficiently to any situation that might occur. To harness this benefit, the companies need an application that can compile all the information needed from the suppliers and can directly collect data from the equipment while its being used, including, for example, life expectancy of the equipment, the effects of working in different environments and the number of hours of usage, among others. This information, when merged in a defined framework, helps to specify and forecast the equipment needs, allowing for example to plan equipment replacement or the need of preventive maintenance.

In this chapter we propose a definition of an Equipment Lifecycle Management Framework, thus enabling the design and creation of an application that will be able to deliver all the benefits of the Operational Dematerialized Management.

In a society in which Information Systems and Information are considered like important assets for most companies, the realization of IT audits to measure its efficiency and prevent IT support breakdowns, is required. To this aim, this paper analyzes the evolution of the IT audit practice in Spanish companies, reporting the percentages of realization and the amount of professionals that execute such audit, and how it correlates with the importance that these companies give to Internet and the use of e-commerce. Our longitudinal study, encompassing the period 2001–2011, has shown substantial increase in the awareness of Spanish companies towards the realization of these audits: almost doubling the percentage of companies that performed them in this decade. We have also found that the realization of IT audits usually involves several types of professionals of the same company. Finally, we were able to analyze the association between the adoption of Internet and the use e-commerce in surveyed companies, and the realization of these IT audits.

2015 was proclaimed as the ‘International Year of Soils’ (IYS) at the 68th UN General Assembly. While soil is recognized as an essential, finite and non-renewable natural resource, it is increasingly degraded or irreversibly lost due to poor management and urban and infrastructure expansion, both in the EU and at a global level.

Soil contamination in particular has not only negative impacts on human health and ecosystems but also on economy, by the reduction in environmental services as a result of loss of natural soil capital and costs of land rehabilitation. The number of contaminated sites in the EU may exceed half a million. However, only a few EU Member States have specific legislation on soil protection. While the European Commission decided in May 2014 to withdraw the proposal for a Soil Framework Directive, the 7th Environment Action Programme, which entered into force on 17 January 2014, recognizes that soil degradation is a serious challenge and provides that by 2020 land is managed sustainably, soil is adequately protected and the remediation of contaminated sites is in good progress in the EU.

In Portugal draft legislation on the prevention of contamination and remediation of soils that seeks to eliminate major gap in the national legislative framework and comply with international commitments, was submitted for public consultation and is now being discussed. Among several innovations, for the definition of reference values for evaluation and remediation of soil, natural background values can be used instead of those adopted from the Ontario Standards [MOE (Soil, Ground Water and Sediment Standards for Use Under Part XV.1 of the Environmental Protection Act., April 15, 2011. Ministry of the Environment, 2011)], or other international standards, for the most common contaminants, if duly justified and accepted by the Environmental Portuguese Agency.

This paper reports a case study in which the conducted site investigation, sampling and interpretation of results confirmed the existence of a neat relationship between the presence of vanadium and geological background of the region where the Trajouce Ecopark (TRATOLIXO) operates, which allowed to classify the soil resulting from the treatment of several areas affected by the inadequate disposal of urban solid waste as suitable for environmental rehabilitation of the site [EGIAMB (Estudo das Concentrações Naturais de Vanádio na Envolvência do Ecoparque de Trajouce. Final Report, 2014)].

Soil contamination can be defined as the presence of pollutants above certain levels which cause the deterioration of its environmental functions (European Commission. http://​esdac.​jrc.​ec.​europa.​eu/​themes/​soil-contamination.​. Accessed 30 Sept 2015). This contamination may be due to industrial chemicals or changes on the soil’s environmental features. Between 2003 and 2005 there was an improper waste disposal on Trajouce’s Ecopark. In 2012, Tratolixo began the recovery and rehabilitation of those areas through the “Environmental Rehabilitation Plan of Trajouce’s Ecopark”. In 2012, Tratolixo started removing and sending the residues from the “Waste Deposit” to its final destination. In June 2013, the company tested a new solution—sorting the materials and reusing them “in situ” maximizing the reuse principle. This new method allowed for a substantial reduction on amounts of waste sent to the appropriate destination, and it also reduced the initially estimated costs of the Rehabilitation Plan by approximately 85%.

This chapter describes a real case of soil contamination and its demanding process of remediation.

In Portugal, as in Europe, there are several different technologies to sort and treat the different components of municipal solid waste (MSW). For treatment of the organic fraction of MSW (OFMSW) there are also several technological options. The Anaerobic Digestion (AD) technology is a well-known solution in Portugal, with several AD plants working at their full capacity. However, the technology between plants differs, and with it, its operation, maintenance and biogas production results.

To control and operate an anaerobic digestion process a lot of factors have to be taken into account. As with all biological processes, the optimum conditions are essential. The AD process has a rapid response to any changes, such as changes in the feeding, temperature and O2 addition (sometimes needed in small quantities (less than 1%) to decrease the H2S amount in the digesters). If the feeding stops, for any maintenance of the pumping system or an unforeseen problem, the pH decreases, the volatile fatty acids increase and the biogas production abruptly decreases, also decreasing, if the normal feeding is not restored in a short period, the methane content and increasing the H2S content. This kind of instability, as common as it can be in a plant operation, is highly unfavorable for the process and increases the operating costs by reducing plant revenue.

Other factors, mainly in the pretreatment, have to be considered, such as a good system of glass and grit removal especially in a wet treatment, which will prevent damaged pumps, clogging, and extremely high maintenance costs.

If the AD technology is based on a low solids content feeding, the plant will have a lot of piping and pumps, so the right project calculations for size and capacity are mandatory to decrease the costs. Arranging the different equipment in the plant to decrease the pumping distance will prevent capital costs in pumps and piping and will also prevent difficult clogging situations. To plan and design a simple piping system, with as little curves and short piping as possible, will prevent high maintenance costs and a lot of plant stops due to clogging.

The anaerobic digestion (AD) of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is a subject approached in different ways across Europe, as a result of the various national waste management and energy policies and other issues such as the typology of the waste. The Southern European countries, like Portugal, are among those that bet the most on AD for treating MSW from undifferentiated collection, instead of biowaste, the selective collection of the organic fraction of MSW, typical of Northern European countries.

The difficult pretreatment of this waste, which allows the separation of organic matter from all other fractions to AD, as well as the inert elements, that cause abrasion in the process, make the operation/maintenance costs high. Therefore, the AD of MSW is losing popularity in comparison with the lower operation costs and higher electrical production (most times) of landfills, still the dominant infrastructure in MSW management in Portugal.

It is therefore important to look beyond the obvious environmental benefits of this technology (reduction of greenhouse gases and landfills, renewable power generation and compost production), if it could represent an important contribution to the national grid. What is the true potential of organic residues from the undifferentiated MSW to generate biogas by AD and then electricity? Is it an economic asset? The plants operating in Portugal have been attaining their full capacity in recent years, therefore it is now possible to deliver concrete results that will help understand how much production is liable to be yielded.

This chapter intends to present actual data on the AD of MSW, taking as a case study the intercity system of AMTRES (Association of Municipalities of Cascais, Oeiras, Mafra and Sintra) and the AD plant (ADP) of Abrunheira, in Mafra, managed by Tratolixo.

Despite the difficulties associated with the operation of these plants, this work demonstrates that it is possible to carry out improvements in AD technologies, adapting them to the reality of waste management and the characteristics of geographical areas which they are a part of, reaching beyond the projected production.

Increasing pressure on water resources and technological development of water treatment systems, coupled with savings from water reuse, have prompted the urgency of wastewater recycling and reuse.

Based on this premise, Tratolixo has built an Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant in Abrunheira (IWTP)—Mafra, a system that reuses 60% of effluent for industrial purposes. The final effluent shows a significant reduction on its pollutant parameters, leading to a reuse in the Anaerobic Digestion Plant.

Since it started working the Abrunheira’s IWTP has saved more than 25,000 m³ of water that was reintroduced into the industrial process. This chapter describes a real case of successful investment on wastewater reuse.

This paper intends to present a study about the costing of construction and operation of a particular branch of wastewater treatment: the use of activated sludge systems. There are three classical options of this process taken into consideration: extended aeration, conventional aeration with standard rate sludge digestion and conventional aeration with high rate sludge digestion and energy valorization.

In a large range of served population the treatment alternatives were evaluated, designed according to the current parameters.

The economic study of the treatment alternative used a geometrical pre-design, followed by measured work and quotation. This technical-economical modeling allows for the obtainment of interesting conclusions for the future design of wastewater treatment plants, whether they be new facilities or installations that need enlargement and/or rehabilitation.

Based on practical assumptions there’s a definition of the served population which brings advantages to the use of one or other alternatives, considering almost exclusively economical and financial criteria. The designer must have the responsibility to consider other factors that are discussed widely.

The purpose of the present study, being an academic dissertation, was to offer a general tool for decision. Since it was based on actual average market conditions, it may present deviations when applied to real situations, requiring adaptation from qualified technicians.

As it is well-known a wider range of contributing equivalent population should be served, with advantages, by a treatment that incorporates biogas use from mesophilic anaerobic digestion, to produce heat and/ or electricity. On the other hand, smaller equivalent populations use to their advantage extended aeration systems, without separated digestion. The question to answer was for what population there was no doubt about the decision to take without making too many design exercises.

In this study the range of populations where one or other system is obviously a good option are divided by a middle range, called “the doubt region”, that has to be studied with more accuracy, due to local and particular characteristics. This “doubt region” includes activated sludge systems with conventional aeration using standard rate anaerobic digestion or treated digestion or extended aeration ones, competing according to actual local conditions.

These qualitative results were expected, being the present dissertation a contribution to delimit these results in a quantitative way. It was concluded that the conventional aerated systems with standard rate digestion start to compensate, comparing with the extended aeration systems costs, in 15 years, for served equivalent populations higher than 10,000 inhabitants. The activated sludge conventional aeration system with heated and mixed digesters and energy production from biogas becomes economically viable for the same project duration, from about 35,000 inhabitants served (according to this study, from 33,500 inhabitants), regarding average Portuguese conditions.

In between, deep studies must be done, wherein there is the possibility of using separate digestion of primary and secondary sludge in standard rate digesters, a type of solution that is falling into disuse, because of the exploration´s disadvantages, but whose study should be performed to reduce the inconveniences, decrease the energetic consumptions in comparison with extended aeration systems, for a range of equivalent population where the implementation of high rate digestion with energy production is not yet justified.

This article analyses the contribution to the systematic assessment of sustainability in major real estate projects, both at the environmental level and its interactions with the various infrastructures that constitute the project or in which they are integrated. Hence, the adoption of sustainability policies as an instrument of paradigm change, enabling better use of new technologies and allowing significant waste reduction is reducing the ecological impact.

Aiming to assess qualitative and quantitative impacts and to propose a set of measures that can reduce these ecological impacts it is increasingly urgent to consider the actual and potential impacts associated with the construction environment of large buildings . The analysis of the situation should be held in a preliminary phase, in order to facilitate the identification of the adequate measures that minimize the impacts and, if possible, its complete elimination.

The creation of more sustainable environments where urban green spaces play a key role in the citizens' quality of life is a common concern and priority for all stakeholders, including not only industry and governments but also citizens.

This Vila Nova de Santo Estêvão enterprise (VNSE) is a real case project whose impacts’ assessment has been done for the infrastructures of the golf course, the WWTP (Wastewater Treatment Plant) and the reservoir, according to an adaptation of the LiderA classification, widely used in Portugal.