Venice artistic glass: Linking art, chemistry and environment - A comprehensive emergy analysis

The sustainability of the renowned artistic glass sector of Murano island, in the Venice Lagoon (Italy), has been challenged in recent years by the evolution of several socio-economic dynamics as well as by environmental constraints. Actually, a renewal of the systemic structure of the artistic glass production is increasingly compelling. In this work, the Emergy Accounting method (EMA) is applied to evaluate the environmental sustainability of a Murano factory producing colored glass. The analysis, for which new Unit Emergy Values (UEVs) were calculated for some chemicals, shows that the activity relies mainly upon purchased resources, which is the most evident element of systemic weakness. An evaluation of the downstream ecosystem services required to dilute some heavy metal pollutants is also presented, again addressing the intrinsic fragility of the system. In particular, it is shown how the sustainability of the sector is indissolubly linked to the problems involved in the management of the entire Venice lagoon, underlining how the safeguard of Murano must be part of that of Venice and its lagoon. The UEV of semifinished artistic glasses results 2.31E+10 sej/g (with labor and services), and 1.87E+10 sej/g (without labor and services).