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Abstract Water use and sustainable development are pressing issues that affect the overall global system. The economic analysis of water use has been receiving increasing attention among researchers and has become an important field of research in recent decades. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the worldwide dynamics of economic studies on water use in the last 30 years and especially on its sustainable use. A systematic review and a bibliometric analysis were developed to sample 1022 articles. The results indicate that the number of articles published has increased steadily each year, especially in the last five years, accounting for 45% of all the articles. The three most prominent journals in this field are Journal of Cleaner Production, Resources Conservation and Recycling and Ecological Economics. Of the articles studied, 23.5% were published in the United States, 13.6% in Australia and 8.1% in China. The need to create comprehensive and multidisciplinary frameworks of analysis has been detected in order to develop holistic models for a sustainable management of water resources. These models must analyse supply and demand, non-conventional water sources and a global approach to the questions of water. In short, this study is that it can be stated that the economic analysis of water use is a field of research which is growing worldwide, and within this research field the analysis devoted to sustainability is increasingly relevant. The findings of this study can be useful to water use researchers by providing an overview of the worldwide research on this line of investigation. Graphical abstract Image Highlights • 1022 articles on the Economics of Water Use are reviewed. • An analysis of the productivity, impact and structure of the research is carried out. • USA, Australia, China, Spain, Netherlands are the most productive countries. • UK, France, Netherlands and China are the most collaborative countries. • The analysis of water use efficiency evolves to the study of water use sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much research has been done on ways to provide better conditions of environment and cleaner production, little attention has been paid to the impact of the short lifetime of the current products in sustainability and also to the necessity of providing natural resources to supply goods to a human population with a growth rate never seen before. Using literature review, secondary data and field research to illustrate this work with examples, the objective of this paper is to study the necessity of changing the paradigm of planned obsolescence to the one of long-lasting products and to present some suggestions found in the literature review on how to keep them updated under so many changes and innovation to which the products are subject in the present days. The practical implications of this research are to propose two mechanisms of planned obsolescence to complement the theory: Design for fast consumption , showing how industry designs products to artificially increase consumption of olive oil, perfumes, sunscreens, moisturizing creams, shampoos and other related products, and alert how a simple design change in toothpaste tubes with a mouth of internal diameter of 8 mm decreased to 5 mm can reduce consumption by 61% if frequency of brushing and length of toothpaste can be maintained; and Design for restricted technological update, approaching how industry uses this mechanism to force people to exchange their cellular phones and electronics in general every year; and also to propose solutions for a better benefit for consumers and the environment, and to arouse interest that global developing based on a consumption society is no longer sustainable, so a new and less consumerist society must replace the current one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the economic feasibility and environmental sustainability of producing second-generation biofuel in Italy from Brassica carinata, a non-edible flowering plant of the Brassicaceae family, in a context of rotation with wheat (and eventually other crops). The framework considered allows to rule out issues of ILUC and is highly relevant in a country where extensive monoculture is extremely widespread and there is a high degree of dependence on foreign imports for both biofuels and biofuels-related raw materials, especially from countries such as Indonesia, where the adverse impacts of first-generation biofuel production on the environment are most felt. Using yield and cost data from 5 experimental fields in Italy and taking into account potential returns from the sale of biodiesel and its by-products, glycerine and expeller/meal, the economic sustainability of the entire biodiesel production chain (cultivation, oil extraction and oil refining) is established. Implementation of the Argonne National Laboratory's GREET life cycle model, suitably adjusted so as to apply it to the BC case, confirms also a high environmental sustainability. The range of positive economic effects and externalities that may be triggered by the development of a BC-derived biofuel production chain justifies some form of policy intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders are increasingly demanding transparency on food value chain sustainability performance. Today there is no standard framework to meet this demand and support defining indicators to be used to conduct an overall sustainable performance assessment. This paper mobilizes existing frameworks and indicators to build new sustainable performance metrics for actors willing to work together for their value chain sustainability. Popular methods or tools for assessing dimensions of agrifood products or activities are selected and analyzed to determine how they could contribute to this metric. The analysis aims to distinguish the sustainable development pillars addressed (economic, environmental and/or social), the frames concerned (life cycle thinking or not; multi-actor or not), and the focus of performance measured (drivers, pressures, states, impacts, responses). This categorization is then used to develop a proposal for specifications adapted to food value chain sustainability performance assessment. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated through a case study in a pork agrifood value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While hospitals, sustainable healthcare organizations, and recent peer-reviewed publications have assessed the sustainability of medical products and services, the healthcare industry lacks a framework to effectively inform environmental decision making and quantitatively assess the success of sustainability initiatives for medical products and services. Several recent publications have even expressed a need for better ways to quantify sustainable healthcare practices. To address these needs, this research compared the cradle-to-grave environmental and economic impacts of some of the most common recommendations from checklists: reusable versus disposable medical products, and changes to common medical services. Salient results and conclusions from recent studies focusing on the environmental and economic impacts of various reusable versus disposable medical products and different medical services were synthesized and prioritized. All relevant results related to environmental and economic impacts of reusable versus disposable medical products and the analyzed medical services were also correlated with existing sustainable checklists. The results showed that reusable products were less expensive their single-use disposable alternatives. The dental bur also required the least amount of water for its associated cleaning processes, had the lowest total embodied energy, and had the lowest associated greenhouse gas emissions. These outcomes were likely due to the fact the burs were, by far, the smallest examined product. Based on the results derived from the study, healthcare checklists should be updated to include: optimizing the reusability of medical products; reduce products utilized in custom packs; and evaluating energy recovery potential of utilized products. The results of this study indicate that sustainable healthcare checklists be further validated with more environmental and economic life-cycle analyses related to medical products and services. The primary aim of this paper is to assist hospital employees and administrators with making more informed decisions about the sustainability of their products and services. The scientific value of this paper is underscored by a novel aggregation of life cycle assessment studies pertaining to medical devices and services in order to draw conclusions regarding the overall sustainability of those medical devices and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the sustainability of urban ecosystem is becoming a key area in global sustainable development. Urban metabolism is an effective analysis tool for the study of urban ecosystem. In this regard, how to evaluate the level of urban sustainable development and identify the key factors that affect urban metabolism is critical. Many studies on urban metabolism have been explored during the past half century, but few concerns about the key factors that affect urban metabolism. Therefore, this paper fills such a gap by combining emergy and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) methods in order to analyze the sustainable development level and identify the driving forces of emergy utilization, respectively. A typical industrial city, Shenyang in northeast China, was chosen as a case study city in this paper. Results show that renewable resource utilization in Shenyang was very limited from 2000 to 2010, while nonrenewable resources and the imported resources increased rapidly. During this period, total emergy utilization of Shenyang increased from 8.52 × 10 22 sej to 21.53 × 10 22 sej, and emergy density increased with annual increasing rate of 10.34%, demonstrating a fast development of the economy and high level of resident's consumption. LMDI method was employed to analyze the driving forces of emergy consumption from the aspects of scale, structure and intensity. Results show that the rapid increase of emergy utilization in Shenyang was mainly caused by the expansion of economic scale, while emergy intensity greatly contributed to offset total consumption, and industry structure played a marginal role, with a minor value for its growth. Based upon these results, several policy recommendations were raised, including the use of more renewable and clean energy sources, a regenerative and preventative eco-industrial development approach, and capacity-building efforts, so that the overall environment pressure on urban development can be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study examining sustainability in the New Zealand horticulture industry. Despite the growing body of sustainability literature, there remains a lack of prior research focussed on sustainability views, practices, benefits and barriers. The study contributes to the sustainability literature by providing useful insights into views, practices, benefits and barriers in a specific setting – the New Zealand horticulture industry. In particular this paper focuses on grower views of sustainability, the types of sustainability practices adopted, the achievement of benefits from implementing these practices, and the barriers to implementation of additional practices. A mixed methods approach was taken for this study. First an online survey was conducted and then several follow-up interviews were held with survey respondents. The study finds that a number of common views about the term sustainability exist; a broad range of sustainability practices have been implemented by a number of growers; few benefits are expected from growers and even fewer have been achieved; and costs and time are the main barriers to additional implementation. The low survey response rate and resulting small sample means the results may not be generalisable to the entire horticulture industry. This study highlights the need for growers in the New Zealand horticulture industry to be better informed about the adoption process of sustainability practices and the benefits that can be achieved. A number of approaches are possible including the use of education through industry networks and the sharing of best practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The huge energy consumption and high pollutants emission have restrained the sustainable development of China's iron and steel industry. It is very necessary to explore those underlying obstacles which hinder the sustainable development of this industry from a systematic point. This paper adopted an improved emergy based method and a set of indicator system to evaluate the sustainability of steel production enterprises, in which dilution method, disability adjusted life years (DALY) method and potentially disappeared fraction (PDF) method were integrated into classic emergy analysis to quantify the impact of emissions, and then the related indicator system characterizing the industrial production process was put forward. One steel production enterprise in Sichuan Province, China, as a case, was studied using the proposed methods and indicator system. The research results show that this enterprise is not sustainable in the long term, due to large share of nonrenewable inputs and strong dependence on imported inputs; emissions' impact further aggravates this situation due to the increasing environmental loading; the proposed methods and indicator system can act as one of helpful tools for decision-making in steel & iron industry. Finally, this paper gives some corresponding suggestions so as to improve the comprehensive performance of this enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of various environmental problems and challenges concerning resource allocation, the utilisation of renewable resources is increasingly important for the efficient use of raw materials. Therefore, cascading utilisation (i.e., the multiple material utilisations of renewable resources prior to their conversion into energy) and approaches that aim to further increase resource efficiency (e.g., the utilisation of by-products) can be considered guiding principles. This paper therefore introduces the Special Volume "Improved Resource Efficiency and Cascading Utilisation of Renewable Materials". Because both research aspects, resource efficiency and cascading utilisation, belong to several disciplines, the Special Volume adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and presents 16 articles, which can be divided into four subjects: Innovative Materials based on Renewable Resources and their Impact on Sustainability and Resource Efficiency, Quantitative Models for the Integrated Optimisation of Production and Distribution in Networks for Renewable Resources, Information Technology-based Collaboration in Value Generating Networks for Renewable Resources, and Consumer Behaviour towards Eco-friendly Products. The interdisciplinary perspective allows a comprehensive overview of current research on resource efficiency, which is supplemented with 15 book reviews showing the extent to which textbooks of selected disciplines already refer to resource efficiency. This introductory article highlights the relevance of the four subjects, presents summaries of all papers, and discusses future research directions. The overall contribution of the Special Volume is that it bridges the resource efficiency research of selected disciplines and that it presents several approaches for more environmentally sound production and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable debate regarding the contribution to be made by higher education institutions and the researchers they employ in realising environmentally sustainable urban spaces, and the relationship between academic research and lay knowledge. Drawing on previous work, the paper identifies roles that may be played by academic researchers in building sustainable urban locations. Adopting a focus on sub-city scale phenomena the paper illustrates how the roles played are affected by structural and non-structural factors which also shape the nature of collaboration among university researchers and other participants in urban sustainability projects. The paper does this on the basis of analysis and reflection upon research and related activities taking place over the period 2007–2011 in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England, focussing on a project called Newcastle Low Carbon Neighbourhoods. The paper finds that academic researchers play multiple, sometimes conflicting roles in such initiatives, and that national structural and locally contingent factors affect the manner of collaboration with non-specialists and the durability of urban sustainability projects. It concludes that more conventional project arrangements may avoid some difficulties associated with such complex projects but potentially denude them of their richness and originality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nexus approaches, aiming at the complex connections among the correlative systems, provide an effective method for analyzing coevolution processes. In the context of urbanization, water, energy, and environment (W-E-E) systems are increasingly connected thus can be profiled as a W-E-E nexus. However, research on urban water-energy interactions and their impact on the environment is still in its infancy. In addition, a generic framework for modeling W-E-E nexus that includes dynamic feedbacks between human and natural systems remains elusive. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper proposes a sensitivity-based framework consisting of four components: the water balance model, the energy balance model, the environmental response model, and the urbanization model. Community sensitivity serves as the missing link, tying together two feedback loops driven by economy and environment respectively. To demonstrate how such a framework could be applied, Wuhan city was selected as a case study and analyzed for its coevolution under three scenarios: extensive development, common development, and sustainable development. The results show that the proposed framework is competent in modeling the W-E-E nexus in Wuhan. The coevolution process is broadly divided into four cyclic stages (expansion, degeneration, convalescence, and stabilization) and environmental recovery consumes decades or more regardless of the development pattern. However, development patterns exert a salient effect on community sensitivity, with +294.4%, +5.5%, and −17.4% for extensive, common, and sustainable development patterns during the simulation period respectively. And only under sustainable development, can Wuhan anticipate achieving the goal of carbon neutrality by the 2060s. It is hoped that this framework will aid our understanding of the fundamental interactions in this complex relationship and allow researchers to improve W-E-E nexus modeling through better capture of the key elements in the feedback loops. • Present a sensitivity-based framework for the water-energy-environment nexus. • Build the missing link that connects 2 key loops driven by economics and environment. • Provide urban development pattern decisions for achieving resource sustainability. • Assess Wuhan's development trajectory over the next 2 centuries quantitatively. • Propose a development pattern to achieve carbon neutrality in Wuhan in 2060s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses thermodynamic modeling of a power generation cycle, cooling, and freshwater with the employment of solar energy. The introduced system has different subsystems; solar dish collector, a re-compression sCO 2 Brayton cycle integrated with a combined Rankine power-ejector refrigeration system and humidification and dehumidification desalination unit driven with a solar dish system. The considered system is analyzed in the context of thermodynamics index and criteria such as irreversibility, freshwater production, energy and exergy efficiencies, and environmental metric. The performance-affecting primary variables are determined through a parametric evaluation of the suggested system. According to the results, the system is capable of producing 83.3 kW of electrical power at the design point and 3.1 kW of cooling as well as 41.54 kg/h of freshwater. A more accurate analysis of exergy destruction shows that solar dish and heat exchanger-4 have the most significant rate of exergy destruction. In addition, parameters such as solar radiation intensity, compressor pressure ratio, and entrainment ratio are parametrically analyzed. The results indicated that increasing entrainment ratio from 0.3 to 0.6, will increase the refrigeration capacity from 2.33 kW to 4.66 kW and the operation of Turbine 2 from 15.96 kW to 18.63 kW. Also, enhancing the solar radiation intensity from 650 W/m2 to 950 W/m2 has different influences the system outputs so that increasing the solar intensity will reduce the performance of the cooling cycle and increase the freshwater produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water, which is predicted to be one of the most critical resources for the near future, also plays a vital role in society's sustainable development. Wastewater treatment is a critical part of the circular water management system and offers various technological alternatives. Taking appropriate decision for the technology selection is, therefore, essential for a long-term perspective. A complex yet imperative process is the sustainable selection of the wastewater treatment process. This paper presents the use of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) in the sustainability assessment of wastewater treatment technologies that may be very relevant to the growing sector with many emerging options. A comparison of six wastewater treatment technologies based on four sustainability parameters using three MCDM techniques, namely FSWARA, FMOORA and FTOPSIS is presented in detail. FSWARA is used for weighting criteria and the other two for technology ranking. The detailed step-by-step comparison study is presented and the results were somewhat predictable for the study, and this confirms the reliability of the methodology. This paper's primary objective is to propose a well-defined increscent practice for making sustainable wastewater treatment decisions among state-of-the-art technologies. • Sustainability ranking of wastewater treatment technologies using multi-criteria decision making methods. • Combined Fuzzy SWARA-MOORA and fuzzy SWARA-TOPSIS methods. • While weighing the criteria, most significance is given to environmental factors. • Inclusion of both conventional and non-conventional technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depopulation is a major challenge for many rural inland areas, as is the case in a considerable number of rural municipalities in Galicia (north-western Spain). The pandemic had a considerable impact on internal migration in 2020, but it was far from being anywhere near high enough to reverse the ongoing trend of population decline, highlighting the need for further action. Thus, this paper has a twofold objective: firstly, to propose an index of rural sustainable development for the rural Galician municipalities, and secondly, to identify the factors related to it. In so doing, a composite index stemming from the Benefit of the Doubt methodology has been proposed in the first stage, an index built from four-dimension factors– economic, demographic, social, and environmental. The empirical evidence of this index has been compared with three additional ones (namely, common weights, super-efficiency, and geometric mean and logistic normalization models). In the second stage, the relationship between the composite index and a set of exogenous variables that affect rural development has been analyzed, the data confirming that the rates of female immigration and occupancy in the hospitality sector favors sustainable development, whereas the distance from the provincial capital hinders it. This paper paves the way for an assessment of the potentialities of each territory, and the evidence found allows actions to be supported that generate sustainable progress in rural Galician municipalities and that are useful for tackling this complex problem. • A new rural sustainable development index based on four dimensions is proposed. • Strengths and weaknesses for each Galician rural municipality are identified. • Environmental factors constitute a driver of rural development in Galicia. • Social aspects (i.e., health, education, services) stand out as main weaknesses. • Policies to boost social care and attract childbearing-age inhabitants are paramount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing pressures of global warming, population growth and epidemic occurrence are causing challenges in meeting the growing requirements for water, energy and food. In particular, the contradiction between the supply and demand for water, food, and energy is exacerbated by inefficient resource utilization and carbon emission increase. Incorporation of the interlinked aspects of water, energy, food and carbon emissions from agricultural systems into one water-food-energy-carbon nexus facilitates integrated resource management. Biochar application to farmland is a potential strategy for carbon management and agricultural productivity improvement. The integration of biochar systems and the water-food-energy-carbon nexus is an efficient and coordinated alternative method for sustainable agricultural management and a crucial strategy for addressing water, energy and food security issues. Accordingly, this paper proposes an approach for the synergistic regulation of water, land, energy, and carbon emissions in a circular agricultural system by balancing water supply and demand, land allocation, electricity consumption, and economic upgrading principles. A two-stage circular agriculture framework is constructed, with biochar and electricity generated from agricultural residues at the first stage and employed at the second stage. Economic-environmental-energy harmonization is considered in the methodology, and the agrotechnical potential of biochar is quantified via crop yield increase and greenhouse gas emission reduction functions. This approach can assist decision makers in providing the best policy options given certain agricultural resources to achieve the maximum economic performance of the system while minimizing environmental side effects. In this paper, the model framework is applied to the Sanjiang Plain in northeastern China to verify the feasibility of the approach. The results indicate that the external electricity demand is reduced by 87.8% due to the generation of biofuels. Cropland greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 34.09%–67.06% via the application of biochar. This study proposes an optimization method with important implications for the improvement of regional cropland management techniques and development of sustainable circular agriculture. This methodology can be extended to other agriculture-centered regions with limited resources and environmental problems. • Carbon cycle is integrated in agricultural water-food-energy-carbon (AWFEC) nexus. • An AWFEC nexus based model is developed for agricultural resources recycling. • Biochar and electricity are optimized sustainably for circular agriculture. • Analysis of resources recycling on economic-environmental balance is performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bicycles are a desirable form of transportation for many reasons, including the fact that taking a bicycle is environmentally-friendly, economically cost-effective, a way to keep fit and healthy and, on occasions, an enjoyable social activity. This paper explores the characteristics and commonalities between particular bike-sharing systems in urban areas, with a view to deriving influences on the sustainability of such systems. The empirical study is China and the paper analyses bike-sharing systems in five Chinese cities. China is suffering from the severe negative consequences of high private vehicle usage in large and densely populated cities. Nevertheless a long history of bicycle usage in the country provides great potential for such a green form of travel to be part of public and private transportation. The findings show that bike-sharing systems have varying degrees of success. The configurations which seem the most sustainable consider and integrate elements relating to transport planning, system design and choice of business model. Key conclusions are that those responsible for developing policy and practices in relation to bike-sharing systems need to understand the diverse aspects of value for the stakeholders wishing to engage with such a system. Public bicycle sharing, as a Product Service System, needs to be carefully developed to appreciate the quality and timely interplay between the physical design of the system and the provision of services being offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, product engineers have been under pressure to produce new strategies toward sustainable development, whether it involves materials or component recovery. The trend of product design development is shifting from ‘cradle-to-grave’ to ‘cradle-to-cradle’ which leads to the advent of multiple generation product life-cycles. This paper studies the design guidelines from Design for X which provides directional criteria on designing for multiple generation life-cycles. Therefore, in this paper, Design for Multiple Life-Cycles is defined as a combination of eco-design strategies including Design for Environment and Design for Remanufacture, which leads to other design strategies such as Design for Upgrade, Design for Assembly, Design for Disassembly, Design for Modularity, Design for Maintainability and Design for Reliability. This multiple life-cycles design thinking will pave the way for a more sustainable design and development of future products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of mineral resource constraints and radical transition in the energy sector, this paper reviews the extent to which a long-term view of production and use is adopted in both sectors. A long-term view including the mineral-energy nexus is deemed to be necessary (although not sufficient) for managing future resource constraints and energy transitions. Alarmingly, it identifies that the future of minerals resources and production is generally viewed only 5–10 years ahead rather than several decades or more as for energy. Additionally, the sectors are generally studied independently, rather than with a focus on the nexus. With these findings as evidence of an unaddressed problem, the paper then focusses on the current forces for change in the minerals industry: namely community drivers regarding social licence to operate, new technologies and consumer and government drivers on responsible minerals. As discussions of sustainable development become displaced by the emerging discourse of ‘responsible’ minerals, what is adopted and discarded? Whilst responsible minerals considers chain-of-custody, it does not adopt a long-term view and overlooks the mineral-energy nexus. Using three illustrative cases at the nexus of (i) rare earths-renewables, (ii) coal-steel and (iii) uranium-nuclear we extend the theoretical discussion on ‘responsible’ with a range of contemporary examples from the perspectives of producing (Australia) and consuming countries (Japan, Switzerland) and propose a research agenda for an expanded notion of responsible minerals which recognises the complexity of the mineral-energy nexus and connects it to progressing sustainable futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supply of minerals and energy is critical to global society. However, this supply is associated with social and environmental impacts, leading to concerns of generational and intergenerational equity. In light of these concerns, a call for papers for a special volume on the mining industry was issued with the view that such academic work could assist in reducing the negative impacts associated with this industry. This paper introduces the Special Volume “The sustainability agenda of the minerals and energy supply and demand network: an integrative analysis of ecological, ethical, economic, and technological dimensions”. The Special Volume contains 84 articles, divided into several themes; sustainability accounting and reporting, corporate social responsibility, future mining challenges, integrative frameworks for sustainability, management aspects, mining in a developing context and new frontiers in the oil and gas industry. The Special Volume also includes two letters on contemporary issues with commentaries on these from experts in the fields, viz., community conflict and land rehabilitation. Insights obtained across these themes are summarized and recommendations are made of what is needed to build upon the findings of this Special volume. A research agenda is proposed for the future from the gaps and synergies identified. The overall contribution of this Special Volume is that it renews the debate on the sustainability challenges for the mining industry and provides transdisciplinary insights into resolving some of these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the pressing research gap that demands an overarching framework to assess the progress of mining, minerals and energy supply and demand networks towards sustainable development. The framework proposes a hierarchy from Sustainable Development, which begins at the global scale, to Operating Sustainably, which begins at the level of unit operations. The two concepts overlap in the middle with a focus upon regional economies. Guidance is provided to assess the performance of both dynamic dimensions: Sustainable Development is assessed in terms of equity and Operating Sustainably is assessed in terms of the changing states of maturity of the activities being monitored. The papers from this Special Volume were the input sample to assess the extent to which these performance dimensions were being addressed. In analysing the progress towards Sustainable Development, it was found that papers were mainly focussed on equity within supply countries, but they provided little attention to the other three equity conditions proposed: demand met at a reasonable price; future needs met; and profitable transfer agents. The transition towards Operating Sustainably was promising; with results that revealed progress along the proposed four-stage maturity journey which includes: (1) Solely profit maximising; (2) Efficiency Focussed; (3) Integrating by Connecting and (4) Adaptable & Resilient. A comprehensive definition for Operating Sustainably is proposed for discussion and refinement. It is suggested that the definition proposed can be used for selecting appropriate indicators for measuring and documenting progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing needs for sustainability demand that porous asphalt (PA), one of the most critical types of asphalt mixtures, can be produced with high quality, low production temperature and using high percentages of reclaimed materials. With the support of the European Life+ program, a new decomposition technique was developed to decompose the reclaimed PA into the mortar sand (grain size ≤ 2 mm, bitumen content 10–14%) and the reclaimed stones in various fractions (bitumen content less than 1%). The reclaimed mortar sand can then be rejuvenated, enriched and homogenized to obtain a high quality mortar. When this mortar is mixed with the reclaimed stones, a high quality PA can be obtained with almost 95% reclaimed materials. This paper discusses the influence of different production techniques on the performances of this mixture. These techniques include (A) conventional hot production technique at 170 °C, (B) the cold feed of reclaimed mortar sand in combination with bitumen foaming obtaining a mix at 105 °C and (C) the hot production of mortar in combination with the newly developed mortar foaming method to obtain a mixture at 105 °C. Laboratory results indicate that the PA may be produced at 105 °C, containing up to 93% reclaimed materials and having a high quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the status of green buildings, their drivers and barriers have received significant attention, however little has been done to develop an integrated strategy that will lead to the development of green buildings. The present study is a conscious effort in that direction. On the basis of exhaustive literature review a ‘Green Building Sustainability Model’ has been developed and structural equation modelling is employed to verify the research framework. The study clearly state that the intentions to maintain green performance levels and adopt green practices has to come from all levels of society. The conceptual model establishes hypothesized relationship amongst nine constructs: issues, challenges, government, corporate, developers, buyers, private bodies, strategic-mix and sustainable development and develop twelve hypotheses. The data is collected by means of questionnaire survey method. The empirical results reveal that collaborative efforts of government and other stakeholders (corporate, developers, buyers, and private bodies) play a significant role in developing a strategic-mix that would lead to sustainable development however government as a regulatory body plays the most important role in developing the strategic-mix that will lead to resource efficient future. The contributions of the paper lies in developing an original Green Building Sustainability Model’ and fill the research gap. Though model has been developed and empirically tested in India, it can be further tested on green buildings in other developing or developed countries. The model is generic and can be further tested for commercial and residential green building. The research results are of great relevance to the academicians, environmentalist, practitioners, policy makers and helpful to future research as reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether employees attribute different motives to corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of the organization and if these motives predict employee creativity. In addition, the study aims to explore the underlying psychological mechanism by proposing work engagement as a mediator of the relationship between CSR attributions and creativity. Sample for the study consisted of 219 employees from various IT organizations in India known for their CSR engagement. Exploratory factor analysis, CFA and SEM bootstrapping procedures were used to test the study hypotheses with the help of SPSS AMOS 24. Results indicate that employees differentiate the motives behind organizational CSR engagement as intrinsic and extrinsic. These motives were found to differentially impact work engagement and creativity. Intrinsic CSR attributions related positively and significantly with creativity, and work engagement fully mediated the relationship. However, extrinsic CSR attributions failed to show any significant relationship with both work engagement and creativity. By highlighting the role of the attributions in the context of CSR, this research provides important information on why organizational CSR involvement may not always yield positive results for the organization. The study identifies managing employees’ skepticism as a critical success factor in the implementation of CSR to optimize the returns on CSR investments. The findings also carry significant implications for managers and policy makers of Indian IT industry in terms of how they devise, implement and communicate CSR plans and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of sustainability performance of a biomass supply chain is often compounded of a complex series of variables. The redundancies in variables often make the results become hard to be analysed and diagnosed. Therefore, principal component analysis (PCA) is introduced to reduce the redundancy of data series by converting a series of correlated variables into a set of uncorrelated variables known as principal components (PCs), without losing too much information. However, the optimisation of PCs is relatively difficult as PCs encompass of convex combinations of original variables. In this paper, a novel PCA aided optimisation approach is introduced to solve the multi-echelon biomass supply chain problem (i.e., technology selection and transportation design), with the consideration of economic, environmental (including various impact categories and environmental footprints) and social (including health aspect, safety aspect and job creation) dimensions. On top of that, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to determine the priority scale assigned to each objective. The model is illustrated by using a case study in Johor, Malaysia. In this case study, the original 13 variables (indicators) had been successfully reduced to less than 3 PCs. Besides, the obtained results are benchmarked with two other conventional optimisation approaches, namely weighted-sum approach and max-min aggregation approach. The results show that PCA optimisation approach can provide reliable and comparable results (degree of satisfaction of the obtained results, λ S C M are greater than 70%). In addition, sensitivity analysis is conducted to analyse the effect of relative priority of each objective on the technology selection and transportation design. This research is also expected to be useful for the big data (large volumes of extensively varied data that are generated and processed at high velocity) analysis in future supply chain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New trends in product development aim at integrating the improvement of all activities related to the products’ life-cycle, particularly when considering environmental issues. Within this context, Product-Service System (PSS) appears as a promising model, representing a win-win solution for both companies and customers. In particular, the medical devices industry is a sector where the PSS approach can assume a key role. However, despite the potential benefits deriving from the implementation of PSS solutions, few studies on PSS consider this sector. To accomplish this, the paper proposes a methodology based on the analysis of the market demand and customers’ needs by means of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method, and the simulation of life-cycle scenarios through the Screening Life Cycle Modelling (SLCM) method supported by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) tools. A case study performed in collaboration with a manufacturer of biomedical devices showed the benefits of the proposed methodology in the development of sustainable PSS solutions. Actually, the results demonstrate the validity of such an approach in enhancing customer satisfaction, while reducing environmental concerns and costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of small entrepreneurial companies and their partnerships with large corporations to advance the circular economy (CE). The authors provide insights from a U.S.-based empirical study that involved 12 companies and examined the emerging drivers, current challenges and future opportunities for advancing waste repurposing and product reuse. Many large companies fail to incorporate CE principles into their business strategy due to lack of mandates, costs, logistical hurdles and inertia. This presents an opportunity for entrepreneurial companies with innovative business models to fill the gap and provide critical links for corporations in reverse supply chains while creating new business opportunities with social benefits. The study found that despite the lack of federal regulations in the U.S. a growing number of corporations are partnering with entrepreneurs to reduce waste and advance product reuse. Key drivers for such trends include sustainability commitments and zero waste goals by companies and municipalities, European Union and U.S. state mandates, reputation and the growing focus on local sourcing. Technology, knowledge, and strategic partnerships between entrepreneurs and corporations play a critical role in reducing financial costs, time, energy, environmental impacts and resources, thus helping establish viable business models. The authors propose a new framework for corporate-entrepreneur collaborations to advance a CE. The study contributes to the research on the relationship between entrepreneurial innovation and the development of CE principles within corporate supply chains, a field that is still in its infant stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3 Meaningful collaboration among heterogeneous stakeholders is essential for achieving sustainability in agri-food supply chains. A substantial amount of research has been focused on examining factors that are critical in shaping characteristics and effectiveness of collaboration in sustainable supply chains from various perspectives. The divergence of such studies and their findings, however, has led to a great proliferation of collaboration behavioural factors proposed. As much as contributing to understanding, different terms and definitions of similar concepts or nature introduced in the literature often also add too much confusion of agri-food supply chain stakeholders in interpreting, evaluating and improving collaboration behaviour. So far, there is lack of a structured analysis on commonalities among those behavioural factors to cluster or consolidate for enhanced clarity and efficiency in assessing and managing collaboration performance toward sustainable agri-food supply chains. Aimed to address such a limitation, this paper applies a systematic review to investigate the landscape of extant literature via the lenses of Resource Dependency Theory and Content Analysis. As a result, 10 key behavioural factors to enable an effective collaboration system for sustainable agri-food supply chain management are identified, which are Joint Efforts, Sharing Activities, Collaboration Value, Adaptation, Trust, Commitment, Power, Continuous Improvement, Coordination and Stability. The findings from this study can be used as a guideline for future research in agri-food supply chain collaboration and help to model and measure collaboration performance more effectively and efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a realistic and practical model to evaluate sustainable supply chains has been an intricate challenge for decision makers. All previous network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) models deal with unidirectional connections. In this paper, for the first time, we develop an NDEA model to deal with bidirectional connections. In addition, for the first time, bounded connections are taken into account. In bounded connections, certain bounds are set for each criterion. We assess sustainability of an Iranian transport company’s branches. Our model can rank distributive supply chains and recommend improvement solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Global Mining Initiative, the mining industry came together to understand the industry's role in the transition to sustainable development and to ensure its long-term contribution. The industry has since then come a long way and improved its sustainable development performance in many areas. But how far has the industry been considering environmental (“strong”) sustainability in its approach? And how does this compare to companies in other sectors and leading organizations such as the United Nations, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Global Reporting Initiative? This paper presents results from a literature review, looking at how far the mining industry has considered environmental sustainability in its approach. It explores, if the current efforts of the largest mining companies are aligned with the efforts of companies from other industry sectors, as well as the position of leading organizations. We conclude that the mining industry is not setting on the wrong sustainability paradigm at this stage, but is at risk of falling behind societal expectations on climate change and the leaders from other industries on natural capital considerations. The industry can improve by considering the Paris Agreement in its approach to climate change, considering natural capital as an industry, e.g. through working with the Natural Capital Coalition and more broadly by pro-actively thinking about what the consequences of “strong sustainability” would mean for their business models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005–2014) was an important framework and catalyst for increasing Sustainable Development (SD) efforts within academic institutions, worldwide. Tertiary institutions began to embed sustainability into the curriculum, although the extent has varied within and between institutions with many adopting an ad hoc approach. Previous studies of student learning outcomes were generally limited in scope and reported mixed results. Few studies systematically investigated the influence of sustainability education (SE) on student views, attitudes and behaviour across a range of contexts. This study adds to the field by using a common instrument that explored how SE contributed to student learning across multiple disciplines, institutions and countries. A quasi-experimental approach was adopted with tertiary students in ‘intervention’ and ‘control’ units. Data was collected using an online two-stage pre-post survey and included the Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) and New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scales and measures of selfreported behaviour. A series of snapshots of pre-test and post-test perspectives were taken across various terms of study during 2013–2015. Students' initial sustainability perspectives were found to be influenced by personal and educational factors such as gender, age, “culture” and discipline of study. Environmental worldviews were characterised by jointly strong ecocentric and anthropocentric orientations that represented a “utilitarian” view of human-nature relations. After controlling for pre-test scores, SE significantly increased post-test scores for several NEP dimensions compared to the control group however, the effect was weak and moderated by students' personal and educational context. Students exposed to SE also reported a cognitive shift in their attitudes/perceptions to sustainability that was linked to an increased INS score. The ad hoc approach to SE, combined with students' strong utilitarian worldview and mixed effects of SE indicated learning outcomes were far from certain and probably weak. The paper argued for a rethink of current educational approaches towards a more coherent and targeted educational strategy and concluded with recommendations for policy and praxis to enhance student learning for sustainability in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This policy-oriented opinion paper, which has taken the form of a Manifesto, is co-authored by scientists and engineers from Southern European Union countries that are presently experiencing deep and complex systemic crises: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. With their Manifesto, the authors advocate the adoption of a new development model, focusing on the target of sustainable bioeconomy, around which other development themes and topics will crystallize. Implementing this model will act as a locomotive to get the economies and societies of these countries efficiently out of their crises, and smoothly into greener post-crisis pastures. The proposal is articulated in ten critical steps or theses for immediate action by the policy- and decision-makers, as well as industry, markets and other key actors within this troubled area of the European Mezzogiorno. Corroborating evidence of these theses comes in the form of short reports or “letters” on the key topics of this Manifesto from the countries and regions concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development (SD) are often used by policy-makers, stakeholders and the private sector, as a ‘selling point’ for their agendas and goals. Thanks to the wide, but also self-interpretive definition, the concepts allow various actors to make related pledges without necessarily undertaking any significant changes to their existing policies, strategies and actions. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the meaning of and approaches to sustainability and SD, which are being adopted and/or reformulated in the newly emerging bioeconomy policy debate of the European Union (EU). Understanding these concepts is crucially important given the growing importance of and adherence to bioeconomy-based policies and strategies by both individual EU Member States and the EU as a whole. The way bioeconomy policies perceive sustainability and SD as concepts will have profound implications not only on a practical level for policy implementation, but also on a conceptual level and for theoretical discourses surrounding sustainability and SD. The policy and narrative analyses illustrate that the current EU bioeconomy policy leans strongly towards prudentially conservationist, utilitarian and instrumental approaches to SD, as well as towards weak sustainability. We argue that a balance between environmental, social and economic dimensions – as introduced in the Brundtland report – is missing within the EU bioeconomy policy framework, since economic dimensions and concerns prevail over environmental and social dimensions. In the light of possible negative consequences of biomass production, we foresee an urgent need to define and broaden the scope of bioeconomy, as well as to include environmental and social concerns and safeguards. To tackle the shared challenges and constraints modern societies face today, a broader definition of sustainability needs to be adopted within the EU bioeconomy policy framework. Issues such as social justice, fairness and equity, social and environmental safeguards and local traditional knowledge in various concerned sectors should be taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1972, for the first time, the term “sustainable development” was coined at the Stockholm conference, and in 1987, the Brundtland report established the sustainability-innovation “binomial”. Since then, extensive research into sustainability-oriented innovation has been conducted, focused during the last decade on SMEs and recognizing these as the main actor of sustainable development, for which foreign direct investment (FDI) is considered, from a research and institutional point of view, as a vital source, although academic literature presents conflicting conclusions. In this context, this paper aims to perform a microeconomic analysis of how FDI influences the innovative process of SMEs and how this can lead to a process oriented towards sustainability. To this end, a panel of 4667 SMEs has been analyzed, spanning a sample period between 2004 and 2013, through a binary logit model, which compares and contrasts SMEs with FDI and equivalent SMEs without FDI, over time and, therefore, exposed to a changing economy. The most significant results are that FDI is attracted mainly by factors associated with technological supply, which, when coupled with being of medium size and located in a manufacturing sector of medium-high technology, generates positive spillovers. These depend, to a large extent, on public funding, which allows these companies to be more innovative and makes it more likely they focus their innovative process on sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on the interplay between sustainability and the adoption of various types of innovations. Little empirical research addresses how the valuation of sustainability affects the adoption of different types of innovations. This study contributes to this research gap by presenting the explanatory sustainability factors behind horse industry operators' willingness to adopt technological, service, and business model innovations. The study was executed in Finland, where currently only a fraction of horse manure's potential is utilized and the horse industry is asking for new business models, innovations, and sustainable development. Empirical results collected through a survey of 139 Finnish horse industry operators reveals that the more an operator values economic sustainability, the more likely it is to adopt technological innovations, service innovations, and business model innovations. Moreover, a high valuation of environmental sustainability diminishes the input needed to adopt technological innovations, and the more an operator values institutional sustainability, the more likely it is to adopt business model innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction industries have significant impacts on the economy, society and environment. To transform construction industry towards sustainability, construction enterprises' perceptions and performance on sustainability needs to be understood and evaluated, which has not be fully explored by existing studies. This paper holistically examines the Chinese construction enterprises’ attitude towards and performance on various aspects of sustainability (e.g. the economic, social and environmental aspects) in order to identify those aspects the firms perceive to be the most and least important and those aspects the firms perform best and worst on. The associations among the sustainability attitude, sustainability performance, and firm size are also explored. The findings show that quality management and customer service are perceived as the most important as well as the best-performed aspects by the firms while supporting community development is the least important and worst-performed aspect. Sustainability attitude is positively correlated with performance, and larger firms tend to have better sustainability performance than that of small ones. However, larger construction firms do not necessarily perceive sustainability more important. This study provides a useful reference for policy makers and researchers to understand how sustainability is perceived and implemented by the Chinese construction firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analytical design framework for sustainable future-proofing (DfSFP). The framework provides a systematic approach to deal sustainability and to address future requirements across the entire lifecycle of the system. Future-proof design is one way to obtain a design which defers obsolescence and extends the system's service life and generally includes additional elements in the current solution in order to accommodate future capabilities as projections of the future solutions required to meet those future requirements. However, not all long-life systems are sustainable. In the DfSFP process, future capability elements are integrated in the system capability model in such a way that the system is future-proofed and remains sustainable throughout the system lifecycle. We begin by examining the principles of future proofing and the principles of sustainable design and integrating them to obtain a set of sustainable future-proofing (SFP) design principles. The SFP principles address the entire system lifecycle and account for the impact on the system of additional future proofing elements. The impact is categorised in accordance with the system lifecycle and assessed using a rating system which has been developed to integrate future-proofing elements in the system ensuring overall system sustainability. In order to select the most-suitable design based on the principles developed in this work, a modified analytic hierarchy process is proposed. Finally, an illustrative example is presented where the proposed DfSFP methodology is used to design a house with sustainability and future-proofing requirements. It is shown that the framework provides a systematic analytical basis to assist the designer in addressing the future requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of the non-financial reporting mandate for business entities by the Government of India's Ministry of Environment and Forests in 1993, the manufacturing landscape has changed. The regulatory framework for checking the environmental impacts of chemical based manufacturing plants has strengthened with much of activity reported in the past decade. A thorough study of published literature revealed that the various manufacturing steps in pharmaceutical units involve a wide variety of chemical syntheses. These processes are associated with large amounts of energy consumption causing high green-house gas (GHG) emissions and waste generation. The purpose of this review article is to discuss how the pharmaceutical companies are approaching sustainability while considering environmental aspects along with economic and social welfare of the society. Accordingly, a comparative analysis, through an exploratory study of the trends followed in India and in other countries has been reported. The underlying endeavor is to provide a better understanding of the sustainability trend in the Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing sector and where it is headed. Apart from the extensive review of technical literature published in journals, various reports published by profit and non-profit making organizations have been studied for the purpose of developing a better understanding about sustainability practices in the Indian context, supported by examples from around the world. In addition, the benefits of various methodologies to achieve sustainability in pharmaceutical organizations have been discussed. The authors hope that the paper will enhance the understanding regarding how pharmaceutical setups can achieve sustainability by adopting various practices, what are the various performance metrics available and how reporting sustainability brings transparency and efficiency in an organization. The authors propose for a further study on integration of various approaches adopted by Indian pharmaceutical organizations' global counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marketing of remanufactured products has been receiving increasing attention from scholars and practitioners from the perspective of sustainable supply chain governance (SSCG) and extended producer responsibility (EPR). However, the research on remanufactured product marketing under EPR and SSCG mechanisms remains more new exploration. A mathematical model for remanufactured product marketing through the lenses of the Nash and Stackelberg game theory and the SSCG and EPR theories is proposed to deepen this issue in the literature based on the case of Caterpillar ® (CAT), which is a benchmark producer that markets remanufactured products successfully. Findings include the characterization of three marketing decision models with EPR, namely, decentralized marketing decision under the weak dependence relation model, decentralized marketing decision under the strong dependence relation model, and collaborative marketing decision under the strong dependence relation model. Furthermore, this paper includes a classification of marketing governance mechanisms on the basis of the relation between CAT and its retailer and the identification of factors that sustain collaborative marketing governance mechanisms. The managerial insights obtained are useful to practitioners who are seeking for sustainable collaborative marketing governance mechanisms for remanufactured products under EPR and to scholars for further theory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability is one of the most important challenges of our time. It is recognized that projects play a pivotal role in the realization of more sustainable business practices and a developing theme in project management research is the relationship between projects and sustainability. As the literature on this topic is evolving, this paper discusses the question whether the growing attention for sustainability in project management research represents a new ‘school of thought’ in project management? The study builds upon earlier work on schools of project management research, in which nine schools were identified. The question whether sustainability should be considered a new school of project management is answered by deriving the criteria for recognition as a school and performing a structured literature review on a sample of 71 articles on sustainability in project management, taken from the leading academic journals on this topic. As criteria for recognition as a school of project management, the criteria content, community and impact were found. After a content analysis of the articles in the sample, the conclusion is reached that sustainability qualifies a new, distinct and emerging school of thinking in project management. The defining characteristics of this sustainability school are: considering Projects in a societal perspective, having a Management for stakeholders approach, applying Triple bottom line criteria, and taking a Values based approach to projects and project management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there have been a considerable number of efforts to integrate sustainability into Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); however, there are still challenges that need to be overcome. A process that has received an increasing attention has been the Organisational Change Management for Sustainability. This article is aimed at reviewing the main drivers of the integration of sustainable practices and the barriers to change slowing or stopping it. A systematic literature review was carried out using Web of Science de Thomson Reuters and in Scopus databases focusing on retrieving all papers on sustainability in HEIs published between 2000 and 2016. The drivers of and barriers found for the integration of sustainability in HEIs were compared to those previously described for companies. The similarities on drivers to change found in HEIs and companies were greater for external ones. A lower number of barriers to change were reported in the literature for HEIs than those reported for corporations, nonetheless, it was found that HEIs and companies have several common barriers to change. The article proposes a list of main drivers of and barriers to change, some general and others context specific. The findings on the drivers of the integration of sustainable practices in HEIs can serve to identify additional good practices at companies and vice versa. The barriers to change detected for the process of integration can help into anticipating, preventing and overcoming them. This knowledge can help institutions better plan and use their resources in working to becoming more sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research on sustainability issues in supply chain collaboration has recently begun to focus more on a network-oriented view. Both horizontal and vertical relationships are being explored, which has led to recognition of the significance of the active participation of change agents in this process. This paper provides a practical example of how change agents shifted an entire chain (pig farming) towards sustainability over 17 years. The longitudinal study examined the mechanics of how change agents in a chain successfully engage others on sustainability issues. A sensemaking approach was used that focussed on three aspects: communication, action, and building relationships. The findings show that the change agents worked on different levels of supply chain collaboration in response to the evolution of the sustainability initiative. Their focus moved from producers controlling the entire chain to engaging in partnerships with other contributors both inside and outside the chain. They translated the abstract concept of sustainability into language understandable for the potential partners, fostering transparency, joined an eco-label certification program, and later invested in experiments to find solutions to new ideas as they arose through reflection. This stepwise construction of a netchain reveals the evolution of reciprocal interdependence in an informal, personal and trust-based way between organizations which can be applied to sustainability initiatives in other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of manufacturing capabilities in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, top management's competitive priorities, plants' manufacturing strategies, and plants' manufacturing performances are compared between old and new European Union member states. Internationally collected data are compared using various analyses of covariance. The findings are interpreted against the background of the sand cone model, which is extended by integrating sustainability twice—that is, in its proactive and reactive forms. The results indicate that old and new member states dwell on different steps of cumulative manufacturing capability development. It is hypothesized that this can be attributed to differing labor costs; the requirements imposed by supply chains; and the pressure from stakeholders, such as civil society organizations. Our study responds to various calls to refine the sand cone model through the use of contingency theory by considering the operating conditions of plants in the two country groups as environmental contingency factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of sustainable manufacturing (SM) is becoming increasingly mature due to the focus on many of its research topics for a long time. This research has undoubtedly extended the body of knowledge, yet the numerous definitions of SM in prior art still indicate a lack of consensus on the true meaning of the concept. It is thus to be expected that these discrepancies will constrain further development and use of the SM concept in industrial practice. The goal of this paper is to analyze the different definitions of SM and identify the current understanding of what researchers mean by the concept. We use an inductive content analysis of definitions published from 1990 to 2016 in a variety of academic journals. A total of 189 articles including a manifest definition of SM and 89 original definitions were identified. Our analysis revealed that the most commonly used definition is the one proposed by U.S. Department of Commerce in 2008; 63% of the analyzed articles cite or slightly rephrase this definition, while 86% of the identified definitions are used in less than three articles. Although the majority of researchers seems to agree upon eleven sub-categories of SM, a wide range of issues (67 sub-categories) associated with SM indicates inconsistency in the general understanding of the concept. It is proposed that the findings in this study can serve as a foundation for the development of a common language for SM in both research field and industrial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As commonly accepted, the stakes of sustainable development (SD) are altogether highly serious, complex, and diverse, spanning from changing living standards to the very future of mankind. Although it has long been argued that such complexity warrants radical change in the way “good” knowledge is conceived of and produced, it appears that much of sustainability research – including its grounding in social sciences – has yet to extend beyond the institutionalized precepts of natural science with regard to validity and credibility. In this context, this paper argues that crucial insights can be developed by opening social sciences’ theorizing process to undervalued forms of knowledge including art in general, and science-fiction literature in particular. To support this argument, current non-scientific productions of knowledge are reviewed in light of alternate conceptions of epistemological value. The potential of science fiction as thought experiments and inspiration for both problematizing and theory building in the social sciences is explored. In particular, certain science-fiction texts are thoroughly examined to illustrate how current problems pertaining to firm theories and management practice may be “discovered” (or made visible) only through science-fiction hindsight . Ultimately, the research shows how this hidden potential may be employed by social research to radically stimulate theoretical imagination and benefit sustainability research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pavements are one of the most energy-intensive infrastructure assets that depend on non-renewable natural resources. Against the background of restrictions on landfill disposal, the increased use of alternative materials such as industrial byproducts in pavement construction has gained great attention from academic and industrial sectors. However, comprehensive research covering various aspects of pavements incorporating different byproducts is lacking. The main purpose of this state-of-the-art study is to bridge this gap via the analysis of the performance of pavements incorporating two types of byproducts, blast furnace slag, and fly ash, from the perspectives of structural performance, energy saving potential, and greenhouse gas emission reduction at various phases of pavement life. Therefore, the contents of 150 published documents, including research papers, theses, and academic and industrial reports published over a span of 49 years (1968–2017) were analyzed. The major findings indicated that incorporation of the byproducts may have positive or negative consequences in various phases of pavement life. However, the new pavements are advantageous from the viewpoint of raw material processing because of low consumption of raw materials and pertinent environmental footprints. In addition, several scenarios are proposed for ranking the alternative materials on the basis of the technical and environmental requirements for a paving project; these scenarios can be useful for the preliminary selection of alternative materials. Finally, some gaps are highlighted for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gypsum plaster waste (GPW) represents a large fraction of the total construction and demolition wastes generated by society, which may contaminate the soil and water resources. Although previous studies have indicated the possibility of recycling GPW, it is not known so far, if the recycling process affects the rehydrated products and how many times the GPW can be recycled without changing its characteristics. The present paper evaluated the properties of recycled gypsum plasters produced from a GPW after 1, 3, and 5 recycling cycles, RGP-1, RGP-2, and RGP-3, respectively. The unhydrated and hydrated recycled products were characterized by EDX, XRD, DTA, TG, DTG, as well as by measuring the recycled plaster setting times and the mechanical properties of respective rehydrated products. The recycling process does not change the gypsum plaster chemical composition which is similar to the commercial gypsum plaster. Physical properties are changed: bulk density diminished, setting times were shorter due to the change in the grain size with the recycling process. The mechanical performance was good with similar results at longer ages. GPW recyclability has a great potential to be a successful industrial solution and it allows the production of new reusable products, with less negative environmental impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between innovation and sustainability in the context of higher education, with the purpose of investigating the fundamental barriers for innovation and sustainable development in universities around the world. The method used involves both a quantitative and a qualitative approach, gathering the views of 301 experts from 172 universities across all continents. The results show that there are similar barriers across different geographical regions that require greater support from university administrations and management. In particular, the willingness of leaders, policy makers and decision-makers to envisage a sustainable future inside universities is often missing. Yet, without the support of senior management within a university, bottom-up sustainable initiatives seem destined to fail in the longer term due to a lack of investment and administrative support. This study also identifies that in order to yield the anticipated benefits, the challenges listed should be taken seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fresh food cold supply chains (CSCs) feature high fresh food quality and safety, high energy consumption, and poor economic and environmental sustainability. Sustainable management of fresh food CSCs is critical. However, limited research has addressed the implementation of systematic good practices in sustainable fresh food CSCs in developing countries. Consequently, decision-makers lack empirical evidence to help them understand how companies successfully implement systematic good practices and how those good practices affect sustainability performance. This paper formulates a hybrid analytic hierarchy process-fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (AHP-Fuzzy TOPSIS) decision framework to systematically explore the impact of good practices on the sustainability performance of fresh food CSCs in the context of a developing country such as China. The results of the integrated methodology show that China's CSC industry pays more attention to economic sustainability and that employee training is the most impactful good practice for improving the sustainability performance of fresh food CSCs. • A systematic study of good practice and sustainability performance indicators. • A fresh food CSC sustainability performance assessment framework applied in China. • Order of importance of sustainability performance assessment indicators. • Ranking of good practices to improve fresh food CSC sustainability performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Organizing and managing new product development has been perceived as challenging issues in both academia and industry for several decades. The aspect of sustainability has often been neglected in new product development although new product development allows addressing sustainable characteristics upfront in the product life-cycle. The purpose of this paper is to link sustainability and new product development by providing a conceptual framework emphasizing the interconnections of sustainability and new product development with a life-cycle and product-focused perspective. Such a link of sustainable new product development with a life-cycle and product life-cycle point of view has not been presented so far. This paper intends to elaborate on this connection, so that it leads into the subjects of new product development and sustainability, culminating in a life-cycle approach supporting a sustainable new product development. The conceptual framework indicates that it is important to involve life-cycle management, and product life-cycle management to reach a sustainable new product development. The product-focused product life-cycle management approach gives the necessary structure for a jointly sustainable new product development on grounds of cross-departmental and cross-company processes, data, and people. The factor of collaboration integrates the life-cycle-based concepts to reach a sustainable new product development. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it offers a novel conceptual framework of a sustainable new product development by means of product life-cycle management and thus extends current research on green new product development. Second, it provides a life-cycle management focused approach to support collaboration by complexity reduction, process harmonization, and technology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a very important role in national production, and provide more than 60% of the employment opportunities for the society. The benign development of small and medium-sized enterprises determines the sustainability of economic operation. In recent years, small and medium-sized enterprises have faced increasing operational pressure. Due to scale limitations, insufficient funds and weak bargaining power, small and medium-sized enterprises are often at a disadvantage when dealing with suppliers. One the one hand, large suppliers rely on the imbalance of bargaining power to increase the transaction costs of small and medium-sized enterprises; On the other hand, small and medium-sized suppliers with poor reputation may use legal loopholes to commit fraud, which may even threaten the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises in severe cases. However, the existing literature focuses more on the situation of large organizations facing complex and diverse suppliers. Therefore, this paper constructed a supplier selection evaluation framework for small and medium-sized enterprises, and proposed an extended PROMETHEE Ⅱ method to achieve sustainable supplier selection process. First, establish a sustainable supplier selection evaluation framework from the three dimensions of product and service capability, cooperation degree and risk factors; Second, combine the PROMETHEE Ⅱ approach with subjective preference parameters and probability language term set (PLTS) to obtain an extended PROMETHEE Ⅱ approach; Last, use the methodology of this paper to implement sustainable supplier selection for a small and medium-sized enterprise (M company) in China. The practical case and sensitivity analysis showed that the evaluation framework and method proposed in this paper were applicable and effective. Actual cases and sensitivity analysis showed that cost, credit and corporate irregularities were the three most important aspects for small and medium-sized enterprises to evaluate supplier performance. [Display omitted] • Small and medium-sized enterprises face complex and diverse suppliers. • Establish a sustainable supplier selection criteria framework. • Improve the PROMETHEE Ⅱ method by combining probabilistic language term sets. • The study provides decision support for the supplier selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]