Research article The economic case for low carbon waste management in rapidly growing cities in the developing world: The case of Palembang, Indonesia Effie Papargyropoulou a, * , Sarah Colenbrander b, c , Andrew Heshedahl Sudmant b, c , Andy Gouldson b, c , Lee Chew Tin d a Malaysia Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 54100, Malaysia b School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK c ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, UK d Department of Bioprocess Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia article info Article history: Received 6 January 2015 Received in revised form 30 July 2015 Accepted 2 August 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Waste management Carbon emissions Cities Economic evaluation Sustainable development abstract The provision of appropriate waste management is not only an indicator of development but also of broader sustainability. This is particularly relevant to expanding cities in developing countries faced with rising waste generation and associated environmental health problems. Despite these urgent issues, city authorities often lack the evidence required to make well-informed decisions. This study evaluates the carbon and economic performance of low-carbon measures in the waste sector at a city level, within the context of a developing country. Palembang in Indonesia is used as a case of a medium-sized city in a newly industrialized country, with relevance to other similar cities in the developing world. Evidence suggests that the waste sector can achieve substantial carbon emission reductions, and become a carbon sink, in a cost effective way. Hence there is an economic case for a low carbon development path for Palembang, and possibly for other cities in developing and developed countries facing similar challenges. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The absence of reliable, city specific data is a major obstacle for city authorities when formulating their climate change mitigation strategies (Kennedy et al., 2009; Sovacool and Brown, 2010). The aim of this research is to provide evidence on the most economi- cally attractive ways to shift urban waste management services on to a more low carbon development path. More specifically, the study assesses the carbon emission reduction potential and eco- nomic performance of a number of low carbon measures in the city of Palembang, Indonesia. It provides a prioritized list of the most cost and carbon effective measures that could realistically be adopted in the waste sector of the city. The research presented in this paper, is part of a larger study covering the electricity, commercial buildings, domestic buildings, industry, transport and waste sectors in Palembang, Indonesia (Colenbrander et al., 2015a). This paper presents only the findings and discussion relevant to the waste sector. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the background to this study and Section 3 the methods employed for data collection and analysis. Section 4 provides the results and Section 5 offers a discussion on the findings. Finally, the conclusions are presented in Section 6, along with the wider im- plications of the study. 2. Background Appropriate waste management is recognised as an essential prerequisite for sustainable development, especially in the fast growing urban centers of low and loweremiddle income countries (UNHSP, 2010). Global waste generation is growing faster than the rate of urbanization, and in the next twenty years waste generation will more than double in loweremiddle income countries such as Indonesia (The World Bank, 2012). This prediction has very * Corresponding author. Malaysia Japan International Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Semarak, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. E-mail addresses: epapargyropoulou@yahoo.gr, effrosyni.kl@utm.my (E. Papargyropoulou). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.08.001 0301-4797/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Environmental Management 163 (2015) 11e19