The 100 most-cited articles in Sustainability, 2018

Thermal energy storage (TES) is a technology that stocks thermal energy by heating or cooling a storage medium so that the stored energy can be used at a later time for heating and cooling applications and power generation. TES systems are used particularly in buildings and in industrial processes. This paper is focused on TES technologies that provide a way of valorizing solar heat and reducing the energy demand of buildings. The principles of several energy storage methods and calculation of storage capacities are described. Sensible heat storage technologies, including water tank, underground, and packed-bed storage methods, are briefly reviewed. Additionally, latent-heat storage systems associated with phase-change materials for use in solar heating/cooling of buildings, solar water heating, heat-pump systems, and concentrating solar power plants as well as thermo-chemical storage are discussed. Finally, cool thermal energy storage is also briefly reviewed and outstanding information on the performance and costs of TES systems are included.

The implementation of Industry 4.0 has a far-reaching impact on industrial value creation. Studies on its opportunities and challenges for companies are still scarce. However, the high practical and theoretical relevance of digital and connected manufacturing technologies implies that it is essential to understand the underlying dynamics of their implementation. Thus, this study examines the relevance of Industry 4.0-related opportunities and challenges as drivers for Industry 4.0 implementation in the context of sustainability, taking a differentiated perspective on varying company sizes, industry sectors, and the company’s role as an Industry 4.0 provider or user. A research model comprising relevant Industry 4.0-related opportunities and challenges as antecedents for its implementation is hypothesized. In order to test the model, partial least square structural equation modeling is applied for a sample of 746 German manufacturing companies from five industry sectors. The results show that strategic, operational, as well as environmental and social opportunities are positive…

In less than two years, the concept of overtourism has come to prominence as one of the most discussed issues with regards to tourism in popular media and, increasingly, academia. In spite of its popularity, the term is still not clearly delineated and remains open to multiple interpretations. The current paper aims to provide more clarity with regard to what overtourism entails by placing the concept in a historical context and presenting results from a qualitative investigation among 80 stakeholders in 13 European cities. Results highlight that overtourism describes an issue that is multidimensional and complex. Not only are the issues caused by tourism and nontourism stakeholders, but they should also be viewed in the context of wider societal and city developments. The article concludes by arguing that while the debate on overtourism has drawn attention again to the old problem of managing negative tourism impacts, it is not well conceptualized. Seven overtourism myths are identified that may inhibit a well-rounded understanding of the concept. To further a contextualized…

Blockchain technology is an inchoate technology whose current popularity is peaking. Some of the most pervasive blockchain technology use cases exist for supply chains. Sustainable, and especially green, supply chains can benefit from blockchain technology, but there are also caveats. The sustainability and environmental management research and academic literature is only starting to investigate this emergent field. This paper seeks to help advance the discussion and motivate additional practice and research related to green supply chains and blockchain technology. This viewpoint paper provides insight into some of the main dimensions of blockchain technology, an overview of the use cases and issues, and some general research areas for further investigation.

In the era of industrial digitalization, companies are increasingly investing in tools and solutions that allow their processes, machines, employees, and even the products themselves, to be integrated into a single integrated network for data collection, data analysis, the evaluation of company development, and performance improvement. To study the impact of Industry 4.0 on the company we used Porter’s (1985) value chain model, which is particularly useful when paying particular attention to corporate areas which have a primary role in customer value creation. Since the primary impact of Industry 4.0 is perceived in value-creating processes, and has so far had the greatest transformative effect in this area, the model can be considered to be appropriate. The objective of our research is to discover how companies operating in Hungary interpret the phenomenon of Industry 4.0, what Internet of Things (IoT) tools they use to support their processes, and what critical issues they face during adaptation. We applied a dual methodology in our investigation: We sent an online questionnaire…

Recent studies advocate that digital technologies are key enabling factors for the introduction of servitized business models. At the same time, these technologies support the implementation of the circular economy (CE) paradigm into businesses. Despite this general agreement, the literature still overlooks how digital technologies enable such a CE transition. To fill the gap, this paper develops a conceptual framework, based on the literature and a case study of a company implementing a usage-focused servitized business model in the household appliance industry. This study focuses on the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and analytics, and identifies eight specific functionalities enabled by such technologies (improving product design, attracting target customers, monitoring and tracking product activity, providing technical support, providing preventive and predictive maintenance, optimizing the product usage, upgrading the product, enhancing renovation and end-of-life activities). By investigating how these functionalities affect three CE value drivers (increasing resource…

With the rapid development of “Internet plus”, medical care has entered the era of big data. However, there is little research on medical big data (MBD) from the perspectives of bibliometrics and visualization. The substantive research on the basic aspects of MBD itself is also rare. This study aims to explore the current status of medical big data through visualization analysis on the journal papers related to MBD. We analyze a total of 988 references which were downloaded from the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Science Citation Index databases from Web of Science and the time span was defined as “all years”. The GraphPad Prism 5, VOSviewer and CiteSpace softwares are used for analysis. Many results concerning the annual trends, the top players in terms of journal and institute levels, the citations and H-index in terms of country level, the keywords distribution, the highly cited papers, the co-authorship status and the most influential journals and authors are presented in this paper. This study points out the development status and trends on MBD. It can help…

The new evolution of the production and industrial process called Industry 4.0, and its related technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data analytics, and cyber–physical systems, among others, still have an unknown potential impact on sustainability and the environment. In this paper, we conduct a literature-based analysis to discuss the sustainability impact and challenges of Industry 4.0 from four different scenarios: deployment, operation and technologies, integration and compliance with the sustainable development goals, and long-run scenarios. From these scenarios, our analysis resulted in positive or negative impacts related to the basic production inputs and outputs flows: raw material, energy and information consumption and product and waste disposal. As the main results, we identified both positive and negative expected impacts, with some predominance of positives that can be considered positive secondary effects derived from Industry 4.0 activities. However, only through integrating Industry 4.0 with the sustainable development goals in an eco-innovation…

This paper presents an analysis of the literature concerning the impact of corporate sustainability on corporate financial performance. The relationship between corporate sustainable practices and financial performance has received growing attention in research, yet a consensus remains elusive. This paper identifies developing trends and the issues that hinder conclusive consensus on that relationship. We used content analysis to examine the literature and establish the current state of research. A total of 132 papers from top-tier journals are shortlisted. We find that 78% of publications report a positive relationship between corporate sustainability and financial performance. Variations in research methodology and measurement of variables lead to the divergent views on the relationship. Furthermore, literature is slowly replacing total sustainability with narrower corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is dominated by the social dimension of sustainability, while encompassing little to nothing of environmental and economic dimensions. Studies from developing countries…

We analyze whether a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a significant role in promoting its market value in an emerging market, namely Korea. We employ environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) scores to evaluate CSR performances and examine their effect on firm valuation. We find that CSR practices positively and significantly affect a firm’s market, in line with previous studies on developed countries. However, its impact on share prices can differ according to firm characteristics. For firms in environmentally sensitive industries, the value-creating effect of CSR is lesser than for firms that do not belong to sensitive industries. Specifically, corporate governance practice negatively influences the firm value of environmentally sensitive firms. Further, governance practice significantly promotes market value only for chaebols, while investors do not significantly value governance practice carried out by other firms. This finding suggests the value-enhancing effects of governance structure reformation in the former. This work mainly contributes to the…

Recent developments in production processes and their automation have led to the definition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, commonly known as “Industry 4.0”. Industry 4.0 is a very broad domain that includes: production processes, efficiency, data management, relationship with consumers, competitiveness, and much more. At the same time, obviously, Industry 4.0 has become a new theme for management scholars and business economics disciplines and a number of contributions covering various issues and aspects have been published. However, a systematic formulation of all these contributions is still lacking in management literature. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to analyze and classify the main contributions published on the topic of Industry 4.0 in management literature, seeking to give it a unique definition, discover the gaps still remaining in literature and outline future avenues of research in this domain. A systematic review of the literature of the major academic and research databases has been used as methodology to achieve the aim of the paper. This work contributes…

A circular economy (CE) aims at decoupling value creation from waste generation and resource use by radically transforming production and consumption systems. Recent reviews on the topic of the circular economy have indicated that cultural barriers are a significant factor hindering the diffusion of so-called ‘circular’ business models, particularly the lack of consumer—or user—acceptance. However, none of them has provided an overview of the existing literature addressing such issues that can help academics and practitioners better understand consumption considerations when addressing the circular economy. Motivated by these observations, this paper presents the results of a literature review that summarises and discusses insights from 111 articles in terms of the problem area, theoretical approaches, methods, and tools that have been used to collect and analyse data, the main issues, and identified research gaps. The results show that most of the existing scientific work on the circular economy and circular solutions addressing consumption has focussed on identifying factors that…

Best management practices (BMPs) for reducing agricultural non-point source pollution are widely available. However, agriculture remains a major global contributor to degradation of waters because farmers often do not adopt BMPs. To improve water quality, it is necessary to understand the factors that influence BMP adoption by farmers. We review the findings of BMP adoption studies from both developed and developing countries, published after (or otherwise not included in) two major literature reviews from 2007 and 2008. We summarize the study locations, scales, and BMPs studied; the analytical methods used; the factors evaluated; and the directionality of each factor's influence on BMP adoption. We then present a conceptual framework for BMP adoption decisions that emphasizes the importance of scale, the tailoring or targeting of information and incentives, and the importance of expected farm profits. We suggest that future research directions should focus on study scale, on measuring and modeling of adoption as a continuous process, and on incorporation of social norms and…

This paper aims to explore a research question: what are the drivers and barriers to fostering a creative climate in POGs in China and how to improve POGs towards a better sustainable pedagogy? Theoretically, this paper bridges studies on creativity, collaborative learning, creative climate, and sustainable pedagogy in one framework. Empirically, mixed methods of quantitative questionnaire survey (n = 126) and qualitative interviews (n = 15) were used to collect data. The findings demonstrate that the drivers to a creative climate include the challenge of the task, openness, trust between peers, experts’ help, and group diversity, etc. However, some group problems, such as poor management, lacking of supervision supports, and students’ fear of authority, etc., are barriers to a creative climate. This implies the needs of restructuring the relationships between teachers and students in POGs in order to improve it as a better sustainable pedagogy.

Nowadays, listed companies around the world are shifting from short-term goals of maximizing profits to long-term sustainable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. People have come to realize that ESG has become an important source of the corporate risk and may affect the company’s financial performance and profitability. Recent research shows that good ESG performance could improve the financial performance in some countries. Yet, the question of “how does ESG affect financial performance” has not been thoroughly discussed and studied in China. In this article, we study China’s listed power generation groups to explore the relationship between ESG performance and financial indicators in the energy power market based on the panel regression model. The results show that good ESG performance can indeed improve financial performance, which has significant meanings for investors, company management, decisionmakers, and industry regulators.

In this paper, a review of the recent scientific literature contributions on innovative strategies for last mile logistics, focusing on externalities cost reduction, is presented. Transport is causing problems in urban areas, in particular in freight transport: modern cities need solutions to reduce externalities costs such as congestion, pollution and others, which have increased in the last few years, especially due to the growth of goods delivery. Online sales and globalization lead to new trends in freight transport, and moreover, a larger quantity of goods is expected to be delivered in the next future. In this context, most of the delivered goods end up in the city centers. Last mile logistics is the least efficient stage of the supply chain and comprises up to 28% of the total delivery cost. Therefore, the improvement of last mile logistics and a significant externalities reduction are very important challenges for researchers. New technologies and transport means, innovative techniques and organizational strategies allow handling in a more effective way the last mile…

A growing body of research suggests that the composition of a firm’s board of directors can influence its environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. In the banking industry, ESG performance has not yet been explored to discover how a critical mass of women on the board of directors affects performance. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by testing the impact of a critical mass of female directors on ESG performance. Other board characteristics are accounted for: independence, size, frequency of meetings and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee. We use fixed effects panel regression models on a sample of 108 listed banks in Europe and the United States for the period 2011–2016. Our main empirical evidence shows that the relationship between women on the board of directors and a bank’s ESG performance is an inverted U-shape. Therefore, the critical mass theory for banks is not supported, confirming that only gender-balanced boards positively impact a bank’s performance for sustainability. There is a positive link between ESG performance and…

The design of airport queuing networks is a significant research field currently for researchers. Many factors must to be considered in order to achieve the optimized strategies, including the passenger flow volume, boarding time, and boarding order of passengers. Optimizing these factors lead to the sustainable development of the queuing network, which currently faces a few difficulties. In particular, the high variance in checkpoint lines can be extremely costly to passengers as they arrive unduly early or possibly miss their scheduled flights. In this article, the Monte Carlo method is used to design the queuing network so as to achieve sustainable development. Thereafter, a network diagram is used to determine the critical working point, and design a structurally and functionally sustainable network. Finally, a case study for a sustainable queuing-network design in the airport is conducted to verify the efficiency of the proposed model. Specifically, three sustainable queuing-network design solutions are proposed, all of which not only maintain the same standards of security,…

Multi-temporal Landsat images from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) acquired in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) from 2017, are used for analysing and predicting the spatio-temporal distributions of land use/land cover (LULC) categories in the Halgurd-Sakran Core Zone (HSCZ) of the National Park in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The aim of this article was to explore the LULC dynamics in the HSCZ to assess where LULC changes are expected to occur under two different business-as-usual (BAU) assumptions. Two scenarios have been assumed in the present study. The first scenario, addresses the BAU assumption to show what would happen if the past trend in 1993–1998–2003 has continued until 2023 under continuing the United Nations (UN) sanctions against Iraq and particularly Kurdistan region, which extended from 1990 to 2003. Whereas, the second scenario represents the BAU assumption to show what would happen if the past trend in 2003–2008–2017 has to continue until 2023, viz. after the end of UN sanctions. Future land use changes are simulated to the year…

The excessive use of inorganic fertilizers causes serious environmental degradation, resulting in lower crop yields in Bangladesh. Seventy percent of Bangladesh farmers practice traditional fertilizer broadcasting. In the 1960s, the Bangladesh state authority launched a ‘Grow More Food’ campaign to feed the country’s increasing population. Farmers were supplied with chemical fertilizers and pesticides at a subsidized price. Farmers increased the frequency of fertilizer applications to enhance yields. These practices are still used and have caused significant environmental degradation. In this study, we examined the effects of fertilizer broadcasting on excessive use of fertilizer and environmental risks. We collected data from 211 Bangladesh infield farmers in 2016. Respondents were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed by applying a binary logistic regression model to test the degree of effects between the testable variables. The study found that the effect of broadcasting on the excessive use of fertilizers is strongly significant, at 1%. It also…

As research on smart cities garners increased attention and its status consolidates as one of the fanciest areas of research today, this paper makes a case for a cautious rethink of the very rationale and relevance of the debate. To this end, this paper looks at the smart cities debate from the perspectives of, on the one hand, citizens’ awareness of applications and solutions that are considered ‘smart’ and, on the other hand, their ability to use these applications and solutions. Drawing from a detailed analysis of the outcomes of a pilot international study, this paper showcases that even the most educated users of smart city services, i.e., those arguably most aware of and equipped with skills to use these services effectively, express very serious concerns regarding the utility, safety, accessibility and efficiency of those services. This suggests that more pragmatism needs to be included in smart cities research if its findings are to remain useful and relevant for all stakeholders involved. The discussion in this paper contributes to the smart cities debate in three ways.…

Responding to environmental challenges is a new manifestation of innovation for organizations, which enables firms to gain competitive advantages by conducting innovative activities for not only themselves, but also for the whole society. In this context, much attention has been paid to “green creativity.” However, few studies have explored the impact of green creativity from the perspective of interactions between individuals and organizational contexts. Therefore, we aimed to explain the variance in employees’ green creativity by examining three factors outside the organizational context: transformational leadership, green human resource management (GHRM), and individual factors including employees’ green passion. Drawing from the ability–motivation–opportunity theory, we found that transformational leaders can inspire employees’ green passion through influencing GHRM, and ultimately positively affect employees’ green creativity. Data collected from two sources (employees and human resources managers) in medical firms in northeast China at two time points demonstrated the…

This article presents estimations of the energy and carbon footprint of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Entertainment & Media (E&M) sectors globally for 2010–2015 including a forecast to 2020. It builds on three previous global studies (2007, 2011, and 2018) and a Swedish study (2015) by the same authors. The study is based on an extensive dataset which combines primary and secondary data for operational (use stage) energy consumption and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e) for the included sub-sectors, including energy and carbon footprint data from about 100 of the major global manufacturers, operators, and ICT and E&M service providers. The data set also includes sales statistics and forecasts for equipment to estimate product volumes in addition to published LCA studies and primary manufacturing data to estimate the embodied carbon footprint of products. The result shows that the ICT and E&M sectors have turned their previously growing footprints into shrinking ones despite a continuous increase in subscriptions and data traffic. Furthermore, the…

There is a dearth of research on corporate governance and total sustainability disclosure (economic, environmental, and social) in developing, particularly South Asian, countries. This is unique cross-country research on South Asian countries’ corporate governance elements and total sustainability disclosure practices. The study considers a set of insightful theories, namely, the signaling and agency theories of understanding the motives and drivers of sustainability reporting. Based on data from the Global Reporting Initiative database, the study analyzes Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. We have collected annual report and sustainability reports from the GRI database for the period between 2009 and 2016. Based on the signaling and agency theories, the study investigates how board and shareholding structures convey signals to the market and different stakeholders. Our empirical results find that total sustainability disclosure has a positive and significant relationship with foreign shareholding, institutional shareholding, board independence, and board size. On the other hand, we…

This paper contains a theory review of value creation and the implementation of next-generation sustainable business models to profit in the circular economy. While previous research has pointed to the influence of society and regulatory policy on companies’ ability to address larger sustainability concerns and to change their ways of working, the field suffers from little theoretical guidance outlining how undertake circular business mode transformation in practice. By reviewing the field’s main theories, we illustrate significant implications for how future research can study profitability and competitiveness in the circular economy. This paper introduces the central components of circular business models and discusses links to contingency theory, transaction cost theory, resource-based theory, theory on networks and industrial economics, and agency theory. Understanding the circular economy and the ways companies can compete in the circular economy based on these theories is important for establishing important new research directions for scholars of sustainable business and…

This paper aims at examining the relationship between energy consumption deriving from renewable energy sources, and countries’ economic growth expressed as GDP per capita concerning 25 European countries. The used dataset involves European countries’ data for the period from 2007 to 2016. The statistical analysis is based on descriptive statistics, cluster analysis, and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), and reveals that all variables are related; this suggests a correlation between the dependent variable of GDP and the independents of renewable energy sources (RES) and Non-RES energy consumption, gross fixed capital formation, and labor force in the long-run. Furthermore, the results show that there is a higher correlation between RES’ consumption and the economic growth of countries of higher GDP than with those of lower GDP. The obtained results are consistent with other papers reviewed in this study.

The Energy Internet has become a hot topic for the integration of sustainable energies. However, as a result, there are numerous sustainable energy forms and participants, the system is extremely complex, and some key issues are difficult to overcome, such as the control and management of distributed sustainable energy forms. On the other hand, blockchain technology consists of distributed data storage, peer-to-peer transmission, a consensus mechanism, encryption algorithms, and smart contracts. Applying the technical advantages of the blockchain to the Energy Internet can solve many of the problems that hinder its development. The purpose of this paper is to review the development of blockchain and the Energy Internet, and provide some references for the possible applications of blockchain technology to the Energy Internet. Firstly, the definition and characteristics of blockchain and the Energy Internet are introduced in detail. Secondly, the compatibility of the two is analyzed. Then, several application scenarios of blockchain in the Energy Internet are put forward. Finally, the…

Plant-mediated green synthesis of nanomaterials has been increasingly gaining popularity due to its eco-friendly nature and cost-effectiveness. In the present study, we synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by using an aqueous solution of Saudi Origanum vulgare L. plant extract as a bioreducing agent. The as-synthesized AgNPs were characterized using various microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The results indicated the formation of crystalline face-centered cubic (fcc) AgNPs. Additionally, FT-IR study confirmed that the O. vulgare L. extract not only functioned as a bioreductant but also stabilized the surface of the AgNPs by acting as a capping agent. Moreover, the effect of the amount of the plant extract on the size and the antimicrobial activity of the NPs was also assessed. It was found that with increasing amounts of plant extract, the size of the NPs was decreased. Moreover, as-synthesized AgNPs as well as O. vulgare L. plant extract were separately tested to examine their antimicrobial activities. The activities were tested against various bacterial and fungal…

The “environmental pollution–economic development” circle is a problem in the process of national sustainable development. As a complex concept of environmental protection and technology innovation, green technology innovation is the key to cracking this strange circle. This paper divides green technology innovation into green product innovation and green process innovation and measures green technology innovation based on the perspective of energy saving and emission reduction. Furthermore, we examine the effects of environmental regulation and government R&D funding on green technology innovation. The empirical findings are as follows: (1) from the dynamic point of view, we test whether there is a significant ”U-shaped” relationship between environmental regulation and green technological innovation, and we find there exists an “inflection point” in the role of environmental regulation in green technology innovation, and China is at the stage of inhibition before the “inflection point”; (2) direct government funding and tax incentives can promote green technology innovation, but…

There is an increasing interest in sustainability practices for organizations. Organizations act sustainably when they support the three dimensions \of the triple bottom line. Industry 4.0 (I40) promises to afford organizations to act sustainably. However, few empirical pieces of research targeted the impact of I40 on the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Our investigation considered the adoption of I40 in a manufacturing company which we analyzed as a single case study. We describe the level of I40 adoption and the process through which the unit has adopted them. Our case confirms that I40 applications support the triple bottom line through the improvement of productivity and product quality (economic), continuous energy consumption monitoring (environmental), and safer work environment and less intense work-load and job enrichment (social). We contribute to the literature by identifying two trajectories of interaction among the three dimensions of the triple bottom line in the shift from a traditional manufacturing company to a knowledge-intense…

The growing role of sustainable development and, above all, its ecological aspect, in the development of modern company competitive edge leads to the popularization of the question of incorporating environmental practices into the area of human resource policy, referred to as Green HRM. The objective of the research was to identify pro-environmental HR practices embraced by young Polish enterprises and to prioritize them in accordance with their effect on company sustainable development. To attain these goals, a survey was conducted among a random, representative population of 150 young enterprises. The study revealed that the Green HRM concept in the Polish reality is relatively. However, there is a strong positive correlation between the evaluation of the impact of individual activities within Green HRM on sustainable company development and their practical implementation. Research demonstrated that the higher the evaluation of the impact of a given activity, the more frequent its implementation in the studied companies. This allowed the formulation of the following conclusion: in…

More than forty states worldwide currently pursue explicit political strategies to expand and promote their bioeconomies. This paper assesses these strategies in the context of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our theoretical framework differentiates between four pathways of bioeconomic developments. The extent to which bioeconomic developments along these pathways lead to increased sustainability depends on the creation of effective governance mechanisms. We distinguish between enabling governance and constraining governance as the two fundamental political challenges in setting up an effective governance framework for a sustainable bioeconomy. Further, we lay out a taxonomy of political support measures (enabling governance) and regulatory tools (constraining governance) that states can use to confront these two political challenges. Guided by this theoretical framework, we conduct a qualitative content analysis of 41 national bioeconomy strategies to provide systematic answers to the question of how well designed the individual national bioeconomy strategies are…

Intellectual capital (IC) is considered to be a wealth generator and driver of financial performance thus creating competitive advantage and sustainability in business. This paper empirically investigates the impact of IC on financial performance and sustainable growth in the Korean manufacturing industry. Multiple regression models are applied with data collected from 390 manufacturing companies listed on the Korean Stock Exchange during 2012–2016. The results of the analysis show that IC has a positive impact on financial performance and companies’ sustainable growth. In addition, companies’ performance and sustainable growth are positively related to physical capital, human capital (HC), and relational capital (RC). RC is found to be the most influencing factor. Finally, innovative capital captures additional information on structural capital (SC) which negatively affects the performance of Korean manufacturing companies. The results extend the understanding of IC in creating corporate value and building sustainable advantages in emerging economies.

Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break with unsustainable norms, habits, practices, and structures, there is a need for learning for transformation, not only adaption. Based on a critical literature review within the field of learning for sustainable development, our approach is a development of the concept of transformative learning, by integrating three additional dimensions—Institutional Structures, Social Practices, and Conflict Perspectives. This approach acknowledges conflicts on macro, meso, and micro levels, as well as structural and cultural constraints. It contends that transformative learning is processual, interactional, long-term, and cumbersome. It takes place within existing institutions and social practices, while also transcending them. The article adopts an…

The analysis of urban sustainability is key to urban planning, and its usefulness extends to smart cities. Analyses of urban quality typically focus on applying methodologies that evaluate quality objectives at environmental, urban, and building levels. Research has shown that a system of indicators can be useful for developing qualitative and quantitative descriptors of urban environments. The first step in this study was to formulate a methodology to measure the quality of urban life based on investigative checklists and objective and subjective indicators, aggregated to develop an index to evaluate a city’s level of smart urban quality. The second step was to apply this methodology to evaluate the city of Cagliari (Italy) at the neighbourhood scale, which is considered by literature the most suitable as a self-sufficient spatial unit for showing redevelopment results. In addition to sharing its research findings, this study aims to verify whether the methodology can be applied to similar urban contexts. The main outcomes of this research pertain to opportunities to numerically…

This study proposes a new model by partially combining personality traits (PT) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) attributes to examine the influences of personality characteristics (conscientiousness, openness) and perception of technology (perceived usefulness, perceives ease of use) on e-purchase intention. We use truncate sampling technique and survey questionnaire to target the sample of Taiwanese online consumers and collect data. We find that consciousness (CON) (personality attribute) significantly influences perceived usefulness (PU) (technology perception attributes), perceived ease of use (PEOU) (technology perception attributes) and openness to experience (OPE) (personality attribute). PU, PEOU and OPE have significant impacts on e-purchase intention (INT). PEOU has the strongest positive impact on (INT). In addition, PU, PEOU and OPE combined together mediate the relationship between CON and INT. Further post hoc analysis of the mediation shows that both PU and PEOU are sustainable mediators. However, OPE is not a significant mediator.

With recent advances in computing technology, massive amounts of data and information are being constantly accumulated. Especially in the field of finance, we have great opportunities to create useful insights by analyzing that information, because the financial market produces a tremendous amount of real-time data, including transaction records. Accordingly, this study intends to develop a novel stock market prediction model using the available financial data. We adopt deep learning technique because of its excellent learning ability from the massive dataset. In this study, we propose a hybrid approach integrating long short-term memory (LSTM) network and genetic algorithm (GA). Heretofore, trial and error based on heuristics is commonly used to estimate the time window size and architectural factors of LSTM network. This research investigates the temporal property of stock market data by suggesting a systematic method to determine the time window size and topology for the LSTM network using GA. To evaluate the proposed hybrid approach, we have chosen daily Korea Stock Price Index…

In a wider understanding, shared mobility can be defined as trip alternatives that aim to maximize the utilization of the mobility resources that a society can pragmatically afford, disconnecting their usage from ownership. Then, shared mobility is the short-term access to shared vehicles according to the user’s needs and convenience. The contributions and added value of this paper are to provide an up-to-date and well-structured review on the area of shared mobility to researchers and practitioners of the transport sector. Hence, this paper presents a bibliographical review of shared mobility and its diverse modalities, as an alternative to individual transportation, especially in cases of individual automobiles or short trips restricted to an urban city. The present literature review on shared modes of transportation has discovered that the introduction of these modes alone will not solve transportation problems in large cities, with elevated and growing motorization rates. However, it can among the strategies employed to help alleviate the problems caused by traffic jams and…

The world’s oceans are a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The biological carbon pump plays a vital role in the net transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to the oceans and then to the sediments, subsequently maintaining atmospheric CO2 at significantly lower levels than would be the case if it did not exist. The efficiency of the biological pump is a function of phytoplankton physiology and community structure, which are in turn governed by the physical and chemical conditions of the ocean. However, only a few studies have focused on the importance of phytoplankton community structure to the biological pump. Because global change is expected to influence carbon and nutrient availability, temperature and light (via stratification), an improved understanding of how phytoplankton community size structure will respond in the future is required to gain insight into the biological pump and the ability of the ocean to act as a long-term sink for atmospheric CO2. This review article aims to explore the potential impacts of predicted changes in global temperature and the…

Urbanization and achieving sustainable agriculture are both major societal challenges. By reducing food miles and connecting people with nature, food cultivation in cities has several major advantages. However, due to further urban development (peri-) urban agriculture (UPA) is under threat. To strengthen UPA, we argue for considering UPA as a nature-based solution (NbS) supporting systemic approaches for societal challenges. However, academic knowledge on UPA’s contribution to various societal challenges of urbanization is still fragmented. This study addresses the gap by conducting a systemic literature review, incorporating 166 academic articles focusing on the global north. The results of the review show that UPA contributes to ten key societal challenges of urbanization: climate change, food security, biodiversity and ecosystem services, agricultural intensification, resource efficiency, urban renewal and regeneration, land management, public health, social cohesion, and economic growth. The value of UPA is its multifunctionality in providing social, economic and environmental…

There is extensive literature on the value relevance of social responsibility for companies that operate in developed countries. However, little is known about the influence of these practices on the price of assets listed on emerging economies, such as Brazil. In this context, the aim of this study is to analyse whether social responsibility activities carried out by companies listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange during the 2010–2015 period play a significant role in enhancing firm value. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish between the three modern pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). Our overall results support the value enhancing theory rather than the shareholder expense theory. However, it is important to note that the results also show that the market does not significantly value the three ESG pillars. Specifically, the market positively and significantly values the environmental practices carried out by companies not related to environmentally sensitive industries. In contrast, the market positively and significantly values…

This study conducted a systematic and thematic review on existing literature in robotics education using robotics kits (not social robots) for young children (Pre-K and kindergarten through 5th grade). This study investigated: (1) the definition of robotics education; (2) thematic patterns of key findings; and (3) theoretical and methodological traits. The results of the review present a limitation of previous research in that it has focused on robotics education only as an instrumental means to support other subjects or STEM education. This study identifies that the findings of the existing research are weighted toward outcome-focused research. Lastly, this study addresses the fact that most of the existing studies used constructivist and constructionist frameworks not only to design and implement robotics curricula but also to analyze young children’s engagement in robotics education. Relying on the findings of the review, this study suggests clarifying and specifying robotics-intensified knowledge, skills, and attitudes in defining robotics education in connection to computer…

Artificial upwelling (AU) is considered a potential means of reducing the accumulation of anthropogenic CO2. It has been suggested that AU has significant effects on regional carbon sink or source characteristics, and these effects are strongly influenced by certain technical parameters, the applied region, and the season. In this study, we simulated the power needed to raise the level of deep ocean water (DOW) to designated plume trapping depths in order to evaluate the effect of changing the source DOW depth and the plume trapping depth on carbon sequestration ability and efficiency. A carbon sequestration efficiency index (CSEI) was defined to indicate the carbon sequestration efficiency per unit of power consumption. The results suggested that the CSEI and the carbon sequestration ability exhibit opposite patterns when the DOW depth is increased, indicating that, although raising a lower DOW level can enhance the regional carbon sequestration ability, it is not energy-efficient. Large variations in the CSEI were shown to be associated with different regions, seasons, and AU…

This research paper aims to understand the impact of corporate governance (CG) on economic, social, and environmental sustainability disclosures. This paper adopted an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach. The data regarding corporate governance and sustainability disclosure were collected from top 100 companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE) for the period ranging from 2012 to 2015. In addition to the quantitative data, we collected qualitative data through interviews with five board members of different companies. Overall, our results indicate that CG elements enhance sustainability disclosures. This study concludes that a large board size consisting of a female director and a CSR committee (CSRC) is better able to check and control management decisions regarding sustainability issues (be they economic, environment, or social) and resulted in better sustainability disclosure. This paper, through quantitative and qualitative analysis, provides a methodological and empirical contribution to the literature on corporate governance and sustainability reporting in…

Environmental regulation and green innovation are two main fulcrums in the realization of green transition of industrial growth. However, few studies have done an empirical analysis of the impact of environmental regulation and green innovation on green development. Based on the theory of systematic interduality, regional industrial green development is regarded as a dynamic system composed of two subsystems: the state and the process subsystem. Using provincial industrial panel data from 2007–2015 and the spatial Durbin model under the unified analysis framework, this paper examines the role and mechanism of environmental regulation (divided into administrative environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, and public participation environmental regulation) in the impact of green innovation (divided into green product innovation and green craft innovation) on industrial green development. The results indicate a sharp fluctuating trend in China’s overall industrial green development performance, and that China’s 30 provinces can be divided into four categories,…

The abundance of waste plastic is a major issue for the sustainability of the environment as plastic pollutes rivers, land, and oceans. However, the versatile behavior of plastic (it is lightweight, flexible, strong, moisture-resistant, and cheap) can make it a replacement for or alternative to many existing composite materials like concrete. Over the past few decades, many researchers have used waste plastic as a replacement for aggregates in concrete. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the engineering properties of waste recycled plastic. It is divided into three sections, along with an introduction and conclusion. The influence of recycled waste plastics on the fresh properties of concrete is discussed first, followed by its influence on the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. Current experimental results have shown that the mechanical and durability properties of concrete are altered due to the inclusion of plastic. However, such concrete still fulfills the requirements of many engineering applications. This review also advocates further study of…

Urban agglomeration, an established urban spatial pattern, contributes to the spatial association and dependence of city-level CO2 emission distribution while boosting regional economic growth. Exploring this spatial association and dependence is conducive to the implementation of effective and coordinated policies for regional level CO2 reduction. This study calculated CO2 emissions from 2005–2016 in the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration with the IPAT model, and empirically explored the spatial structure pattern and association effect of CO2 across the area leveraged by the social network analysis. The findings revealed the following: (1) The spatial structure of CO2 emission in the area is a complex network pattern, and in the sample period, the CO2 emission association relations increased steadily and the network stabilization remains strengthened; (2) the centrality of the cities in this area can be categorized into three classes: Chengdu and Chongqing are defined as the first class, the second class covers Deyang, Mianyang, Yibin, and Nanchong, and the third class includes…

Citizens and urban policy makers are experimenting with collaborative ways to tackle wicked urban issues, such as today’s sustainability challenges. In this article, we consider one particular way of collaboration in an experimental setting: Urban Living Labs (ULLs). ULLs are understood as spatially embedded sites for the co-creation of knowledge and solutions by conducting local experiments. As such, ULLs are supposed to offer an arena for reflexive, adaptive, and multi-actor learning environments, where new practices of self-organization and novel (infra-) structures can be tested within their real-world context. Yet, it remains understudied how the co-creation of knowledge and practices actually takes place within ULLs, and how co-creation unfolds their impacts. Hence, this paper focuses on co-creation dynamics in urban living labs, its associated learning and knowledge generation, and how these possibly contribute to urban sustainability transitions. We analyzed empirical data from a series of in-depth interviews and were actively involved with ULLs in the Rotterdam-The Hague…

In a linear economy, a product is manufactured and sold to a customer. Then, little concern is given to what the user actually does with it when they have it. However, in a circular economy where the aim is to circulate products at their highest level of value, the customer’s behaviour can become an important part of the system. Circular design strategies have tended to focus on the physical aspects of a product (e.g., disassembly, material selection), but the design of products and services can also have an influence on user behaviour and, to date, this aspect of circular design has not been fully explored. This project aims to define what key user behaviours are required for circular business models to work and to outline how design can enable these ‘circular behaviours’. This research project consists of a literature review, case study analysis and expert interviews with practitioners. A theoretical framework for designing products and services to encourage circular behaviour is developed. This work provides an initial step towards a better understanding of the user’s role in the…

New tourism trends, such as vacation rentals websites and low-cost tourism, have generated a new environment of interactions between tourism and the citizens. To this, we must add the fortuitous increase in demand in some touristic destinations. This has derived in situations of rejection in traditionally tourism-dependent environments. In this study, which is focused on the city of Barcelona, we use work-field data to analyze the elements that lie behind the popular aversion to tourism. Assuming a non-forced analysis that takes the Social Exchange Theory as a framework, we have determined that the negative economic effects derived from the increase in the number of accommodations destined for vacation rentals and in the demand lie behind this rejection. The main impacts that are perceived directly from these factors are: the increase in residential rentals prices and a shift from a traditional market to one oriented to the tourist with higher prices. It has also been determined that the most vulnerable population groups are those who manifest a stronger rejection, tenants of…

Non-financial disclosure has become increasingly popular, as it can satisfy the information needs of a growing range of stakeholders. Because traditional financial reports cannot provide comprehensive accountability, several frameworks and guidelines for facilitating non-financial information disclosure have been developed. Recently, the European Union issued Directive 2014/95/EU (EU Directive) and subsequent guidelines (EU Guidelines 2017/C215/01 [EUG]) to mandate European entities of public interest to convey non-financial information to improve such organizations’ accountability toward their stakeholders. This paper studies the European stage of non-financial reporting from a regulatory and practical point of view. To this end, the first research objective is to analyze the elements that the EUG have in common with the IIRF and the GRI 4 guidelines. Second, the paper proposes a first analysis to assess the compliance to the EUG by performing a content analysis on a sample of annual reports and integrated reports (IR) drafted by the 50 biggest European companies. The results…

This paper offers a critical assessment of the value and utility of the evolving City Region Food Systems (CRFS) approach to improve our insights into flows of resources—food, waste, people, and knowledge—from rural to peri-urban to urban and back again, and the policies and process needed to enable sustainability. This paper reflects on (1) CRFS merits compared to other approaches; (2) the operational potential of applying the CRFS approach to existing projects through case analysis; (3) how to make the CRFS approach more robust and ways to further operationalize the approach; and (4) the potential for the CRFS approach to address complex challenges including integrated governance, territorial development, metabolic flows, and climate change. The paper begins with the rationale for CRFS as both a conceptual framework and an integrative operational approach, as it helps to build increasingly coherent transformational food systems. CRFS is differentiated from existing approaches to understand the context and gaps in theory and practice. We then explore the strength of CRFS through…

The aim of our review is to critically analyze the urban agriculture and urban food systems literature in order to understand the impact of urban-produced foods on community food security. We examine the role of city planning, food policy, and civic engagement in creating spaces for urban agriculture in cities across the United States, and whether (and how) these spaces promote food justice and food security. Bringing together multidisciplinary literature on access to urban agriculture and the distribution of urban-produced foods in a thematic, systematic review, we point out gaps in the academic research that would benefit from further study. The review integrates academic literature generated from Web of Science searches with gray literature identified through Google Alerts. We find that while there is a strong focus on elucidating the multiple benefits of urban agriculture, there are few studies that robustly measure the impact of urban farms on improving food security in low-income communities. Much of the literature is theoretical, focused on the production potential of urban…

This study explores China’s green credit policy from a credit risk perspective. Green finance has been growing rapidly in China since the government issued its Green Credit Policy. The objective of this study is to explore whether green loans are less risky than non-green loans. Based on a five-year dataset of 24 Chinese banks, we used panel regression techniques, including two-stage least square regression analysis and random-effect panel regression to examine whether a higher green credit ratio reduces a bank’s non-performing loan ratio (NPL ratio). The results suggest that allocating more green loans to the total loan portfolio does reduce a bank’s NPL ratio. We conclude that institutional pressure by the Chinese Green Credit Policy has a positive effect on both the environmental and the financial performance of banks. The study contributes to the literature on the correlation between green lending and credit risks, as well as to the literature on the impact of institutional pressure on environmental and financial risks.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have a significant role to play in a country’s sustainable development. The measures of a country’s sustainable development include economic and social factors. The sustainability of small and medium enterprises is vital to job creation, poverty reduction, and sustainable economic growth. The high failure rate of SMEs negatively impacts on South Africa’s sustainable development. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial resilience and the success of SMEs in South Africa. Success was measured using both organisational and individual criteria. The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale 10 (CD-RISC 10) was used to measure entrepreneurial resilience. Data was collected from 170 small business owners through the survey method. The self-administered questionnaire method was used to collect data from the participants. Convenience and snowball methods were used for sampling. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation, and regression analysis were used for data analysis. Cronbach’s alpha was used…

The quality of the constructed social infrastructure project has been considered a necessary measure for the sustainability of projects. Studies on factors affecting project quality have used various techniques and methods to explain the relationships between particular variables. Unexpectedly, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) has acquired very little concern in factors affecting project quality studies. To address this limitation in the body of knowledge, the objective of this study was to apply the SEM approach and build a model that explained and identified the critical factors affecting quality in social infrastructure projects. The authors developed a quantitative approach using smart-PLS version 3.2.7. This study shed light on the views of different experts based on their experience in public construction projects in Pakistan. Particularly, the authors aimed to find out the relationships between construction, stakeholders, materials, design, and external factors, and how these relate to project quality. The findings of this study revealed that the R2 value of the model was…

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is an increasingly popular trend in modern economy concomitant with the development of the Internet. E-commerce has developed considerably, making Vietnam one of the fastest growing markets in the world. However, its growth rate has not matched its potential, leading to the question how online retailers could improve their practices and thus contribute to the sustainable development of emerging markets such as Vietnam. Therefore, with the goal of providing online retailers with many methods to improve their online shopping service, this study examined the direct and indirect influence of the dimensions of online shopping convenience on repurchase intention through customer-perceived value. A survey of 230 Vietnamese customers was conducted to test the theoretical model. A structural equation model was used for data analysis. The results determined that the five dimensions of online shopping convenience are: access, search, evaluation, transaction, and possession/post-purchase convenience. All dimensions have a direct impact on perceived value and…

Digitalization is changing society by the increased connectivity and networking that digital technologies enable, such as enhancing communication, services, and trade. Increasingly, policymakers within various national governments and international organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are examining the original sustainability policy concepts applied within the Brundtland Report of 1987 through the lens of digitalization. While the growth of a digital economy may increase productivity and benefit local and global economies, digitalization also raises potential sustainability challenges pertaining to social (i.e., the benefits or costs imposed by disruptive digital technologies upon social networks and ways of life, including threats to economic sustainability and the rise of economic disparity) and environmental wellbeing (i.e., natural resource stewardship and concern for future generations) driven by the automation of information processing and delivery of services. Various perspectives have been raised…

With buildings around the world accounting for nearly one-third of global energy demand and the availability of fossil fuels constantly on the decline, there is a need to ensure that this energy demand is efficiently and effectively managed using renewable energy now more than ever. Most research and case studies have focused on energy efficiency of ‘new’ buildings. In this study, both technical and financial viability of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) for ‘existing’ buildings will be highlighted. A rigorous review of open literatures concerning seven principal areas that in themselves define the concept of NZEB building is carried out. In practice, a suitable option of the NZEB solutions is needed for the evaluation and improvement for a specific geographical area. The evaluation and improvement has been carried out using a novel hierarchy-flow chart coupled with a Building Information Model (BIM). This BIM or digital twin is then used to thoroughly visualize each option, promote collaboration among stakeholders, and accurately estimate associated costs and associated technical…

This study explored the consumer behavior of intention to purchase green products based on a decision-making model that integrates cognitive attributes, affective attributes, and behavioral intentions in Belt and Road countries. The questionnaires were collected from customers who previously purchased green products; this study distributed the questionnaires at the appliance section of the department stores and collected 227 valid responses. Environmental attitude, product attitude, social influence, and perceived monetary value positively affected purchase intention; among these attributes, product attitude most substantially affected purchase intention. Cognitive values (collective and individual) significantly and positively affected environmental and product attitudes. Regarding individual environmental literacy, objective knowledge did not significantly affect environmental attitude, whereas subjective knowledge positively and significantly affected product attitude. In addition, both environmental awareness and government role (extrinsic motivating attributes) significantly…

By-products and waste from olive production (agriculture) and the olive oil industry (mills and refineries) are an important environmental issue in Mediterranean areas. Industrial waste and by-products contain highly valuable components that can also be phytotoxic. This article reviews recent research on the valorisation of olive by-products under the bioeconomy strategy. The alternatives are classified according to the ‘bioeconomy value pyramid’, which prioritises higher value uses over the current energy and compost valorisation. Special attention is paid to the use of these by-products for animal feed that can be improved by reducing the content of saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and increase the polyunsaturated fatty acids amount considered beneficial in response to their use; this makes the food healthier for humans while simultaneously reducing feeding costs and the environmental impact of livestock.

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) have started to incorporate sustainable development (SD) into their system. A variety of sustainability assessment tools (SATs) have been developed to support HEIs to systematically measure, audit, benchmark, and communicate SD efforts. In recent years, stakeholders have increasingly asked HEIs to demonstrate their impacts on SD. These impacts are the direct and indirect effects an HEI has outside of its organizational boundaries on society, the natural environment, and the economy. This study analyzes to what extent SATs are capable of measuring the impacts that HEIs have on SD. A mixed-method approach, using descriptive statistics and an inductive content analysis, was used to examine 1134 indicators for sustainability assessment derived from 19 SATs explicitly designed for application by HEIs. The findings reveal that SATs largely neglect the impacts HEIs have outside their organizational boundaries. SATs primarily use proxy indicators based on internally available data to assess impacts and thus tend to focus on themes concerning the…

The rise of sustainable development as a field of applied research has been observed across a wide range of disciplines. Successful change towards sustainability in organizations and societies requires leadership to provide a vision, set direction, and motivate people to move towards new goals. Thus, sustainable leadership is emerging as a new domain of study within the field of management. This review of research employed science mapping tools to examine 952 Scopus-indexed documents explicitly concerned with sustainable leadership. The goals of the review were to document the size, growth trajectory, and geographic distribution of this literature, identify key journals, authors, and documents, analyze the intellectual structure of this knowledge base, and highlight emerging topics. The review documented a modest-sized knowledge base of recent vintage, concentrated in Western developed societies but global in scope. Six Schools of Thought were identified within this knowledge base, one of which—Sustainable Leadership—was singled out for attention. As the first bibliometric review of…

Over recent decades, people’s (rural and urban) communities are facing numerous social and economic changes and challenges. Some of those challenges have been increasingly addressed through the lenses of technological developments and digitalization. In this paper, we have made a review of already existing practices while focusing on the existing implementations of the Smart Village concept and the importance of digital transformation for rural areas. We give special attention to EU policies that we are using as an already existing framework for understanding our own forthcoming examples. We have shown the parallels between the findings and insights from different regions and made an evaluation of presented practices. Our main argument stems from our own previous experiences and experiences of other research approaches, and is grounded on the argument that rural areas are not uniform, and that smart rural development has to be applied in combination with place-based approach. We present the cases of Slovenian pilot practices and support our argument by proposing the FabVillage…

The accelerated development of information and communication technology (ICT) over the past two decades has encouraged an increasing number of researchers to examine and measure the impact of this technology on economic growth. Our study aims to identify and evaluate the effect of using ICT infrastructure on economic growth in European Union (EU) countries for a period of 18 years (2000–2017). Using panel-data estimation techniques, we investigate empirically how various indicators of ICT infrastructure affect economic growth, proxied in our study by GDP per capita. Within the estimates, we have included some macroeconomic control variables. Our results indicate a positive and strongly effect of using ICT infrastructure on economic growth in the EU member states, but the magnitude of the effect differs depending on the type of technology examined. Regarding the impact of macroeconomic factors, our estimates indicate that inflation rate, unemployment rate, the degree of trade openness, government expenditures, and foreign direct investments would significantly affect GDP per capita…

Environmental awareness and changing attitudes toward “green consumption” are becoming evident in emerging countries’ markets. Using an extended theory of planned behavior, this paper aims to examine emerging countries’ business students’ intentions to purchase green vehicles. Stratified random sampling was used to select study participants, and data were collected through face-to-face interviews. Results revealed that environmental knowledge and awareness have a significant influence on business students’ favorable attitudes toward green vehicles. Further, a significant association between attitudes toward green vehicles, perceived behavioral controls, and intentions to purchase green vehicles was observed. Findings serve to inform managers and policy makers who are formulating strategies for maximizing value creation in an era of increasingly environmentally aware consumers in emerging markets. Ultimately, this policy will help to promote green technology initiatives, and encourage higher rates of adoption of eco-friendly vehicles in emerging countries.

Developments in technology have enabled envisioning the derivation of materials and products from renewable biomass, as an alternative to finite fossil-based resource consumption. Therefore, bioeconomy is regarded as an opportunity for sustainable economic growth. Countries are formulating strategies in accordance with their goals to attain from bioeconomy. Proper measurement, monitoring and reporting of the outcomes of these strategies is crucial for long-term success. This study aims to critically evaluate the national methods used for the measurement, monitoring and reporting of bioeconomy contribution to the total economy. For this purpose, research and surveys have been conducted on selected countries (Argentina, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United States). The results reveal that the bioeconomy targets set up in the strategies often reflect country’s priorities and comparative advantages. However, comprehensive approaches to measure and monitor bioeconomy progress are frequently lacking. Most countries only measure the contribution to gross domestic…

The Internet revolution has led to the advancement of online business all over the world. The environmental, social, and economic aspects are significant to the e-commerce sector, on both the retailer and consumer sides. It cannot be over-emphasized how important the sustainability of e-commerce in all three dimensions is. E-commerce will allow consumers to shop online easily, at any hour of the day, using secure payment systems; furthermore, trust in retailers’ websites is of paramount importance to consumers. This calls our attention to the gap in previous studies, and consequently, the purpose of this study is to fill the gap, to ensure sustainable e-commerce in three dimensions; environmental, social, and economic. The question and aim under investigation are: How to integrate three dimensions into e-commerce to ensure that sustainability is achieved now and for future generations, while thriving as an industry? Collaboration is required, and all stakeholders in the virtual market must take appropriate responsibility. The methodology adopted is a review of previous studies done…

Real estate needs to improve its adoption of disruptive technologies to move from traditional to smart real estate (SRE). This study reviews the adoption of disruptive technologies in real estate. It covers the applications of nine such technologies, hereby referred to as the Big9. These are: drones, the internet of things (IoT), clouds, software as a service (SaaS), big data, 3D scanning, wearable technologies, virtual and augmented realities (VR and AR), and artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The Big9 are examined in terms of their application to real estate and how they can furnish consumers with the kind of information that can avert regrets. The review is based on 213 published articles. The compiled results show the state of each technology’s practice and usage in real estate. This review also surveys dissemination mechanisms, including smartphone technology, websites and social media-based online platforms, as well as the core components of SRE: sustainability, innovative technology and user centredness. It identifies four key real estate stakeholders—consumers,…

The role of a relatively small cadre of high-tech startup firms in driving innovation and economic growth has been well known and amply celebrated in recent history. At the same time, it is well recognized that, while the overall contribution of startups is crucial, the high-risk and high-reward strategy followed by these startups leads to significant failure rates and a low ratio of successful startups. So, it is curious to notice that literature tends to focus on successful startups and on quantitative studies looking for determinants of success while neglecting the numerous lessons that can be drawn by examining the stories of startups that failed. This paper aims to fill this gap and to contribute to the literature by providing a repeatable and scalable methodology that can be applied to databases of unstructured post-mortem documents deriving startup failure patterns. A further and related contribution is the analysis carried out with this methodology to a large database of 214 startup post-mortem reports. Descriptive statistics show how the lack of a structured Business…

The adoption of conservation agriculture among small-scale farmers is still low despite the proven economic and environmental benefits of the technology. This study was conducted in Ingwe Municipality in Kwa-Zashuke, Ward 8, in KwaZulu-Natal province. The main aim of the study was to determine the factors that influence the adoption of no-till conservation agriculture (CA) in the study area and to explore farmers’ perceptions of no-till CA and the impact of no-till CA on maize yield. A quantitative approach employing a cross-sectional design was used to gather data. Stratified random sampling was employed and a total of 185 small-scale farmers (97 adopters and 88 non-adopters) were sampled. Data analysis was done through descriptive and inferential statistics and econometric modeling using the logistic regression model. Findings show that farmers’ positive perceptions were positively correlated with higher maize yields. While an increase in extension visits, age, education and farmers’ positive perceptions significantly increased the likelihood of a farmer adopting no-till CA, an…

The common agreement in human resource management (HRM) literature suggests that organizations willing to attract and retain human resources for running business in the future must change the prevailing situation where human resources are rather consumed than developed. In doing this, sustainable HRM has been introduced recently as a response to changes on societal level, labor market, and employment relations. Sustainable HRM is seen as an extension of strategic HRM and presents a new approach to people management with the focus on long-term human resource development, regeneration, and renewal. However, the attributes of sustainable HRM, as compared to mainstream HRM, are not clear. The paper aims at closing this gap by proposing and revealing the characteristics of sustainable HRM, namely: Long-term orientation, care of employees, care of environment, profitability, employee participation and social dialogue, employee development, external partnership, flexibility, compliance beyond labour regulations, employee cooperation, fairness, and equality. This is a theoretical paper.

Cotton is the second largest crop of Pakistan in terms of area after wheat and is being suffered by multiple shocks over the time due to conventional agricultural management practices, climate change, and market failures. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) was introduced by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in 2010, as an innovative cleaner production alternative to conventional farming that aimed at increasing the efficiency of natural resources, resilience, and productivity of agricultural production system, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The adverse effects of climate change on cotton production at the farm and regional level can be minimized by using CSA practices and technologies. The present study investigated the financial performance and explored the impact of CSA through sustainable water use management on cotton production in Lower Bari Doab Canal (LBDC) irrigation system of Punjab, Pakistan by using Cobb-Douglas production function. The adopters of CSA in cotton cultivation were identified by conducting six focus group discussions. Data were collected…

Understanding the linkages between multiple targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may help to integrate different sectoral programmes and develop coherent cross-sectoral policy to explore synergies. Synergy is interaction among two or more actions, which will lead to an impact greater or less than the sum of individual effects. Therefore, synergy can be positive or negative (trade-off). This paper aims at developing an analytical framework to evaluate sectoral linkages and examine potential synergies and trade-offs among various SDGs’ goals and targets. Synergies and trade-offs related to energy access (SDG7), clean water and sanitation access (SDG6), food security and sustainable agriculture (SDG2) and poverty alleviation (SDG1) have been evaluated from the perspective of developing countries using examples from South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Ethiopia and Rwanda), and historical data for the period between 1990 and 2012. The analytical framework includes both qualitative and quantitative methods. Network analysis technique has…

The article aims to provide an overview of China’s agricultural development and itssustainability by focusing on the agriculture–environmental nexus. We first review literatureregarding trends in agricultural development and driving forces. China has made impressiveprogress at providing food for 22% of the world’s population. At the same time, severe environmentalimpacts have been incurred which not only affect future food security but also have impacts on othersocio-economic aspects. The agricultural policies that have been put into practice have direct orindirect impacts on such environmental outcomes. We review the impacts of agricultural policiesas well as conservation policies, their effectiveness, some unintended consequences and conflicts.The article concludes that technology and institutional innovation in China should emphasize moreintegrated sustainable development considering the agriculture–environment nexus, instead ofsetting incoherent and sometimes incompatible policy goals for each separate side.

The purpose of this study is to discover the factors shaping public opinion about renewable energy sources and investigate willingness to pay for expansion of renewable energy sources in the electricity mix. Data was collected through a questionnaire applied in Nikaia, an urban municipality of Greece. The respondents have a positive attitude towards renewable energy systems. Most of them have good knowledge of solar and wind energy systems and are using solar water heating, while several respondents own a solar PV system. Environmental protection is seen as the most important reason for investing in a renewable energy system. Willingness to pay for a wider penetration of RES into the electricity mix was estimated to be 26.5 euros per quarterly electricity bill. The statistical analysis revealed the existence of a relationship between RES perceived advantages and willingness to pay for renewable energy. Furthermore, by using a binary logit model, willingness to pay was found to be positively associated with education, energy subsidies, and state support.

Using a survey of 324 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of the Yangtze River Delta in China, this study discusses the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity, environmental dynamism, and corporate technological innovation performance. The results based on a moderated moderation model show that the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and innovation performance is significantly positive. The absorptive capacity can positively moderate this relationship. When the external environment is in high dynamism, the moderating effect of absorptive capacity will be stronger than when the environment is in low dynamism.

A growing population means an ever-increasing demand for food. This global concern has led to antagonism over resources such as water and soil. Climate change can directly influence the quality and availability of these resources, thereby adversely affecting our food systems and crop productivity, especially of major cereals such as rice, wheat and maize. In this review, we have looked at the availability of resources such as water and soil based on several modeling scenarios in different regions of the world. Most of these models predict that there will be a reduction in production rates of various cereal crops. Furthermore, all the major cereal crops are known to have a higher contribution to global warming than alternative crops such as millets which should be considered in mitigating global food insecurity. In this study, we have used the data to predict which regions of the world are most adversely affected by climate change and how the cultivation of millets and other crops could aid in the reduction of stress on environmental resources.

Cultural heritage embodied in traditional crafts is an integral part of any nation which reflects the culture and tradition of a particular region. Although the importance of handicraft has been widely recognized, the literature regarding preservation of traditional craft is scarce. The present paper aimed to explore and identify issues faced by traditional craftsmanship in developing countries and to address those issues in order to contribute to the sustainability of traditional craft heritage and ensure continuous transmission of craft skills and knowledge from generation to generation. Our study identified several key issues which poses substantial challenges to the preservation of traditional craft heritage in developing countries. In order to add empirical evidence, we examined the case of Pakistani handicraft industry that provided further understanding of highlighted issues which traditional craft heritage face. We have suggested some policies to promote, develop and preserve the traditional craft heritage. The significance of these policy suggestions is underlined with the…

The move towards a new Circular Economy (CE) economic model has been advocated and supported in Portugal, however, there is limited research on this topic. To address this gap, a quantitative research based on an online survey was carried out among 99 Portuguese organizations, encompassing a wide range of sectors and sizes. The results show that CE is regarded as a strategic and relevant issue for profitability and value creation. Furthermore, the perception that it requires the adoption of new business models in addition to the classical “reduce, reuse and recycle” approach is growing. Moreover, based on the hypotheses raised, results suggest that the level of CE adoption is positively impacted by the status of the EMS (Environmental Management System) certification and the willingness to improve the environmental performance and achieve a sustainable business model. However, CE activities are still relatively modest and a friendlier context (fiscal, legal, organizational, etc.) and the stronger support from supply chain agents and consumers are required. Future research should…

Agriculture is the basis for food production on a global scale. Sustainable agriculture tries to improve or maintain the quality of food without compromising the environment. As sessile organisms, plants cannot avoid adverse environmental conditions and contact with other living organisms. The damage caused to plants by other living organisms such as parasites and pathogens (virus, bacteria, fungi, nematodes or insects) brings about what is known as biotic stress. Plants are constantly exposed to biotic stress, which causes changes in plant metabolism involving physiological damages that lead to a reduction of their productivity. To fight biotic stress, plants have developed sophisticated defense mechanisms. Thus, understanding plant defense mechanisms might prevent important crop and economic losses. In this article, a bibliometric analysis of biotic stress is carried out. Different aspects of the publications are analyzed, such as publication type, research field, journal type, countries and their institutions, as well as the keyword occurrence frequency, and finally special…

Bio-based plastics are increasingly appearing in a range of consumption products, and after use they often end up in technical recycling chains. Bio-based plastics are different from fossil-based ones and could disturb the current recycling of plastics and hence inhibit the closure of plastic cycles, which is undesirable given the current focus on a transition towards a circular economy. In this paper, this risk has been assessed via three elaborated case studies using data and information retrieved through an extended literature search. No overall risks were revealed for bio-based plastics as a group; rather, every bio-based plastic is to be considered as a potential separate source of contamination in current recycling practices. For PLA (polylactic acid), a severe incompatibility with PET (polyethylene terephthalate) recycling is known; hence, future risks are assessed by measuring amounts of PLA ending up in PET waste streams. For PHA (polyhydroxy alkanoate) there is no risk currently, but it will be crucial to monitor future application development. For PEF (polyethylene…

Blockchain technology has been recommended for the sustainability in the manufacturing industry, owing to its benefits in terms of real-time transparency and cost savings. To verify this, we first examine how firms can employ distributed ledger technology by adopting blockchain technology to achieve real-time transparency and cost savings. We also review the current blockchain technology applications in the financial industry and supply chains to explain this technology’s mechanisms for enabling real-time transparency and cost savings in the manufacturing industry. Finally, we theoretically compare the profits of manufacturing firms in two managerial delegation games under a duopoly situation. This theoretical model suggests that the real-time transparency and cost savings secured by blockchain technology improve the profitability and competitiveness of manufacturing firms, which, in turn, assure the sustainability in the manufacturing industry.

Human resource management that aims to promote employee wellbeing calls for a new style of leadership. Such a strategy focuses on fostering flourishing and resilient workers to build up thriving businesses and robust and sustainable organizations. In this framework, we developed a new integrated construct of human capital sustainability leadership, and a scale to assess it. This leadership style has its roots in the existing definition of the term but aims to achieve higher integration of different functions and of the four dimensions of leadership, including ethical, sustainable, mindful and servant leadership. In this study, we analyze the psychometric properties of the new scale for assessing human capital sustainability leadership for Italian workers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis reveal a factor structure with the four dimensions that have good reliability and validity. The confirmatory factor analysis confirms this four-dimensional structure, which is integrated into the construct of human capital sustainability leadership as a single second-order factor.

Sustainability of water use in agriculture is a line of research that has gained in importance worldwide. The present study reviewed 25 years of international research on sustainable water use in agriculture. A bibliometric analysis was developed to sample 2084 articles. Results indicate exponential growth in the number of articles published per year, with research in this field having acquired a global scale. Environmental Science and Agricultural and Biological Sciences are the main categories. Three journals—Agricultural Water Management, Water Resources Management and Nongye Gongcheng Xuebao Agricultural Engineering—published the most of the articles. China, the U.S., Australia, India and Germany produced the most research. The three institutions that published the most articles were all Chinese (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Agricultural University and Northwest A&F University). The most cited authors were Ridoutt, Hoekstra and Zhang. The keywords most frequently used include: water-use, irrigation, water-management, water-supply, and sustainability. A network map shows…

Increasing environmental awareness among societies is motivating consumers to use green cosmetic products. Green skincare products are the fastest growing sector in the worldwide market compared with other green cosmetic products. However, compared with general cosmetic products, the market share of green cosmetic products in Indonesia is relatively low. The present research investigated consumers’ purchasing intentions toward green skincare products in Indonesia using the pro-environmental reasoned action (PERA) model. A total of 251 female consumers participated in this study. Structural equation modeling was conducted to reveal the relationships between the five factors in the PERA model. The results indicated that perceived authority support (PAS) has a positive effect on perceived environmental concern (PEC). PAS and PEC have positive effects on attitude (AT) and subjective norms (SN), and AT and SN have positive effects on behavioral intention (BI) to purchase green skincare products, with the key factor being attitude. The PERA model was able to describe 62.6% of the BI to…

To limit effluent impacts on eutrophication in receiving waterbodies, a small community water resource recovery facility (WRRF) upgraded their conventional activated sludge treatment process for biological nutrient removal, and considered enhanced primary settling and anaerobic digestion (AD) with co-digestion of high strength organic waste (HSOW). The community initiated the resource recovery hub concept with the intention of converting an energy-consuming wastewater treatment plant into a facility that generates energy and nutrients and reuses water. We applied life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment to evaluate the net impact of the potential conversion. The upgraded WRRF reduced eutrophication impacts by 40 percent compared to the legacy system. Other environmental impacts such as global climate change potential (GCCP) and cumulative energy demand (CED) were strongly affected by AD and composting assumptions. The scenario analysis showed that HSOW co-digestion with energy recovery can lead to reductions in GCCP and CED of 7 and 108 percent, respectively, for the…

Sustainability is a growing research topic in tourism due to the importance of environmental and social issues, and the maintenance of patrimony and other facilities to conserve the potential of tourism destinations. Specifically, sustainability in tourism is crucial in order to guarantee a consistent development of destinations, measured by growth in income and employment. This relevance has been translated into an explosive growth in the sustainability literature regarding tourism, income, and employment. However, there is a lack of bibliometric and visualization research on tourism sustainability (TS), and specifically on its relationship with income and employment. This paper aims to present a bibliometric overview of TS research, and specifically TS related to income and employment. The current work analyzed 2279 references collected from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database and used the visualization of similarities (VOS)viewer program to graphically map the material. The study used co-occurrence of keywords, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-authorship…

Electricity price is a key influencer in the electricity market. Electricity market trades by each participant are based on electricity price. The electricity price adjusted with the change in supply and demand relationship can reflect the real value of electricity in the transaction process. However, for the power generating party, bidding strategy determines the level of profit, and the accurate prediction of electricity price could make it possible to determine a more accurate bidding price. This cannot only reduce transaction risk, but also seize opportunities in the electricity market. In order to effectively estimate electricity price, this paper proposes an electricity price forecasting system based on the combination of 2 deep neural networks, the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and the Long Short Term Memory (LSTM). In order to compare the overall performance of each algorithm, the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root-Mean-Square error (RMSE) evaluating measures were applied in the experiments of this paper. Experiment results show that compared with other traditional…

Business as usual or transformative change? While the global agro-industrial food system is credited with increasing food production, availability and accessibility, it is also credited with giving birth to 'new' challenges such as malnutrition, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. We reviewed the potential of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops to bring about a transformative change to South Africa's food system. South Africa has a dichotomous food system, characterized by a distinct, dominant agro-industrial, and, alternative, informal food system. This dichotomous food system has inadvertently undermined the development of smallholder producers. While the dominant agro-industrial food system has led to improvements in food supply, it has also resulted in significant trade-offs with agro-biodiversity, dietary diversity, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic stability, especially amongst the rural poor. This challenges South Africa's ability to deliver on sustainable and healthy food systems under environmental change. The review proposes a…

The growing search for alternative energy sources is not only due to the present shortage of non-renewable energy sources, but also due to their negative environmental impacts. Therefore, a lot of attention is drawn to the use of biomass as a renewable energy source. However, using biomass in its natural state has not proven to be an efficient technique, giving rise to a wide range of processing treatments that enhance the properties of biomass as an energy source. Torrefaction is a thermal process that enhances the properties of biomass through its thermal decomposition at temperatures between 200 and 300 °C. The torrefaction process is defined by several parameters, which also have impacts on the final quality of the torrefied biomass. The final quality is measured by considering parameters, such as humidity, heating value (HV), and grindability. Studies have focused on maximizing the torrefied biomass’ quality using the best possible combination for the different parameters. The main objective of this article is to present new information regarding the conventional torrefaction…

The share of renewable energy is increasing throughout Europe. Yet, little is known about how much can be attributed to different actors, other than those commercially active. This paper provides empirical evidence of activities by energy cooperatives in the field of renewable energy in four different European countries. It draws from a database consisting of 2671 entries, contrasting results from current literature. We find that energy cooperatives are important enablers of the energy transition. However, their role is shrinking in recent years due to a tightening or removal of supportive schemes. We conclude that it is necessary to develop a systematic accounting system to properly track and make visible the contributions by different actors. In turn, this will help to better model the likely speed of Europe’s energy transition.

Although sustainability is of utmost importance, anecdotal evidence suggests that the concept is not adequately implemented in many developing countries. This paper investigates industry stakeholders’ awareness of the current state of, factors driving, and barriers hindering the adoption of sustainable construction (SC) in Cambodia. Using an empirical questionnaire survey targeting local construction professionals, respondents were invited to rate their level of awareness, knowledge and understanding of SC, as well as to rate the level of importance of 31 drivers and 10 barriers identified from the seminal literature. The data set was subjected to the relative importance index method. The results suggest that the industry-wide adoption of SC practices is poor, which is believed to be due to a lack of awareness and knowledge, and reluctance to adopt new sustainable technologies. Furthermore, more efforts must be put into the selection of more durable materials for the extension of buildings’ lives and to minimize material consumption, as well as to develop energy-efficient buildings…

In the modern competitive scenario, all companies seek to understand how to achieve success. One of the keys to conquer/maintain market shares is sustainability, which is a hot topic of numerous studies that have focused on its use as a solution to obtain social, environmental, economic, and cultural benefits. To this end, the present work aims to identify the variables able to guide consumers towards the choice of sustainable restaurants through the conceptual extension of a theoretical model known in literature as Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The authors propose an Extended Theory of Planned Behavior (ETPB), consisting of seven variables: attitude; subjective norm; perceived behavioral control; perceived usefulness; curiosity; behavioral intention; and behavior. The authors used a quantitative approach based on the test of a Structural Equation Model (SEM). Overall, 1023 questionnaires were analyzed. The results of the analysis provided empirical evidence for the hypotheses formulated suggesting that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, perceived…

On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—adopted by world leaders in 2015—came into force. They build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. Since the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 Goals. Countries thus have the primary responsibility for follow-up and review of the progress made in implementing the Goals, which will require quality, accessible and timely data collection. This will be instrumental for both regional and global follow-up analyses and assessments—several such major global assessments have already appeared. It might be supposed that the SDGs framework, including indicators, is conceptually and methodologically well-designed and tested in order to function reliably and provide guidance for such assessments. However, while it seems that the current structure of the SDGs has provided a firm policy framework,…

Green roofs and walls have recently emerged as conservation tools, and they offer promising additional opportunities to enhance biodiversity in cities. However, their ecological conditions remain poorly considered when planning wildlife corridors. To discuss the role of vegetated buildings in landscape connectivity, we reviewed the ecological and technical specificities of green walls and green roofs in light of the key factors concerning urban wildlife (patch size, quality, abundance, and isolation). Green roofs and walls show limited patch sizes, distinct habitat quality at the building scale, and limited redundancy of patch quality within the landscape. We also highlight that the abundance of roof and wall patches is often low. Future research is needed to establish if walls can be vertical corridors for wildlife, thereby reducing the isolation of green roofs. We argue that creating 3D ecological connectivity within the city requires substantial modifications of the design and maintenance of existing green building systems. We suggest that research is needed to integrate the…

International shipping has finally set a target to reduce its CO2 emission by at least 50% by 2050. Despite this positive progress, this target is still not sufficient to reach Paris Agreement goals since CO2 emissions from international shipping could reach 17% of global emissions by 2050 if no measures are taken. A key factor that hampers the achievement of Paris goals is the knowledge gap in terms of what level of decarbonization it is possible to achieve using all the available technologies. This paper examines the technical possibility of achieving the 1.5° goal of the Paris Agreement and the required supporting policy measures. We project the transport demand for 6 ship types (dry bulk, container, oil tanker, gas, wet product and chemical, and general cargo) based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) global trade projection of 25 commodities. Subsequently, we test the impact of mitigation measures on CO2 emissions until 2035 using an international freight transport and emission model. We present four possible decarbonization pathways which…

The adoption of green practices within and outside organizational boundaries is imperative to ascertain environmental and economic performance goals. This article examined whether internal and external green supply chain management (GSCM) practices have the same or different kinds of regulatory, market, or competitive pressures. We employed institutional theory to identify different kinds of pressures, and resource dependence theory to explore the impact of internal and external GSCM practices on performance. An empirical study was conducted by collecting data through a structured questionnaire administered in Pakistan to the executives in the manufacturing industry. A total of 207 responses were used for data analysis by employing the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. Normative pressures were found to be the most significant in both internal and external GSCM practices, while coercive and mimetic pressures positively affected internal and external GSCM practices, respectively. Internal GSCM practices proved to be more significant in improving…

Biodiversity loss undermines the long-term maintenance of ecosystem functions and the well-being of human populations. Global-scale policy initiatives, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, have failed to curb the loss of biodiversity. This failure has led to contentious debates over alternative solutions that represent opposing visions of value-orientations and policy tools at the heart of conservation action. We review these debates and argue that they impede conservation progress by wasting time and resources, overlooking common goals, failing to recognize the need for diverse solutions, and ignoring the central question of who should be involved in the conservation process. Breaking with the polarizing debates, we argue that biocultural approaches to conservation can guide progress toward just and sustainable conservation solutions. We provide examples of the central principles of biocultural conservation, which emphasize the need for pluralistic, partnership-based, and dynamic approaches to conservation.

Motivated by the recent blockchain technology originally built for bitcoin transactions, various industries are exploring the opportunities to redefine their existing operational systems. In this study, an innovative environmentally sustainable solution is proposed for the fashion apparel manufacturing industry (FAMI), which is energized by blockchain. Incorporating the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), and a novel “emission link” system, the proposed framework exposes carbon emission to the public and establishes a feature to reduce the emissions for all key steps of clothing making. Fully compatible with Industry 4.0, blockchain provides decentralization, transparency, automation, and immutability characteristics to the proposed framework. Specifically, the blockchain supported ETS framework, the carbon emissions of clothing manufacturing life cycle, and the emission link powered procedures are introduced in detail. A case study is provided to demonstrate the carbon emission evaluation procedure. Finally, a multi-criteria evaluation is performed to demonstrate the benefits and…