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Sustainability and green matters are emerging issues among youth in the 21st century. The European Union (EU) emphasises youth discourse on greener thinking and lifestyle, which aims to build an open-minded, green, and digital future. Therefore, it is crucial to provide appropriate education and shape attitudes towards green issues. Regarding this scope, four universities of the European Capitals of Cultures (ECoC), the University of Pannonia (Veszprém, Hungary), University of Tartu (Estonia) Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania), and West University of Timisoara (Romania), allied to develop a MOOC course interconnecting green related topics and communication skills and methods. The case study summarizes the main findings of the questionnaire (with 701 youth between 18-25 age), the desktop and focus group interviews research that gave the bases of developing the MOOC course material of GreenCool Erasmus projects. First the primary data, reflecting aspects of the involvement of young people in fighting climate crisis was analysed. The ultimate goal was to come up with a well-documented profile of students in tertiary education, reflecting their 'green' and 'communication' profiles as agents in fighting climate change. Second, taking the outcomes into consideration, the 4 universities carried out focus group interviews with 27 participants: influencers, green and communication experts and university students. As a result the green and communication topics were identified. This led to those methodological tools that were appropriate and effective in developing the GreenCool MOOC material and the corresponding blended Greenfluencer course with the provisional title: 'Attitudes shaping communication techniques and green related topics in the 21st Century'. The case study describes the process and the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green construction is a sustainable movement that aims to create environmentally friendly construction starting from the planning, implementation, to the use of construction materials that are environmentally friendly and efficient in the use of resources. This study aims to examine the implementation of green construction strategies in construction projects in Jakarta, as well as analyze the optimization of sustainable green construction strategies post Covid-19 pandemic. This research is qualitative research using a case study approach. Primary data was obtained through indepth interviews and FGD. Construction companies in Jakarta are expected to have concrete actions to optimize green construction strategies, one of which is strategic action by using green technology in construction. The strategy of green construction companies is to take innovative steps in creating environmentally friendly construction by using efficient resources to create environmentally friendly green construction. The next strategy is sustainability action, in which green construction companies try to create environmental sustainability so that the role of innovators in the field of green construction is needed, especially for construction companies that apply green technology. The main strategies are financial benefits for stakeholders, public policies in facilitating green construction, government support and knowledge development in green construction. Comprehensive and well-planned sustainable green construction management is a long-term investment for the construction industry. To achieve the sustainability of the green construction industry, companies that use green technology play an important role. Supported by using the ISPHI method, they can become leading innovators in implementing post-Covid-19 sustainable green construction strategies in Jakarta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, competition between supply chains occurs and the existence of SMEs as one of the players in the supply chain cannot be ruled out. In order to win the competition, all supply chain players must have the same direction and objectives. Lean-Green and Sustainability practices have been applied to large companies and provide benefits. However, to the best of our knowledge, only a handful of studies have addressed Lean-Green and Sustainability practices in the SME context. The literature review found that there is a lack of comprehensive empirical research studies investigating the impact of Lean-Green practices on the sustainability performance of SME supply chains. Thus, this paper proposes a conceptual model that is expected to provide an overview of the Lean-Green concept and the sustainability of the SME supply chain for further empirical study in developing deeper knowledge about these two practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current context of such high uncertainty in which supply chains are operating, implementing something from the Lean, Agile, Resilient, and Green (LARG) paradigms can promote competitive advantage in Supply Chain Management (SCM). However, the merge/mixture of paradigms implies trade-offs among the attributes of the supply chain, as some are positively related, generating synergies, while others are negatively related, generating divergences. The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships between LARG paradigms in SCM. A decision-support tool regarding the LARG paradigms is proposed based on the House of Quality relationship matrix. To do so, a set of requirements to satisfy customer expectations as well as a set of performance measures must be identified. The two most appropriate sets, defined and ranked by a panel of experts, are used to build the relationship matrix, which is used to explore how each performance measure is related to each customer's expectation. This work is an embryo of a new approach to the analysis of the interrelationships between the LARG paradigms in SCM. Such an approach will help academics and managers to better identify the trade-offs between the LARG paradigms, contributing to the development of more sustainable and competitive supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecotourism, a component of sustainable development, is also known as "green" tourism, "soft" tourism or "gentle" tourism in the sense that this form of tourism, with a wide range of activities, takes place in rural areas (programs, circuits, sports, tourist facilities and equipment, etc.), has the lowest implications in the degradation and pollution of natural ecosystems, natural and national parks, biosphere reserves, nature reserves. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) recommends, in the first instance, the development of this form of tourism in protected areas, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Similar Resources (IUCN) stated in 1992 that „ecotourism is the segment of tourism that involves traversing natural areas, relatively undisturbed, to admire the landscape and enjoy the world of plants and wildlife. In a narrower sense, ecotourism is based on nature observation, offering distinct tourism products, specific to the forms of cultural, scientific, tourism research, being practiced in countries with remarkable biodiversity, which have nature reserves, national parks and local communities that kept their customs and traditions unchanged. In ecotourism, the space is viewed in two ways, namely: quantitatively, by the „receiving ability of the territory” that can be natural or man-made and qualitatively, by activity or by the tourist value of the territory, natural or created. Both sides of the approach are part of the global policy of sustainable tourism development. Such a tourism policy aims to ensure an ecological, economic, socio-cultural functioning based on a rational and efficient use of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is 'sustainable'? What economic activity qualifies as green and should receive, accordingly, investments? Is nuclear energy green? Is gas green? The legal classification system defines a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities that aims at playing a significant part in facilitating sustainable investment in EU. The paper points the different views member states have on what green means, on the Hinkley Point C Case before the Court of Justice of European Union. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the legal base concerning the concept of sustainable development in EU law. In order to address this question the paper is divided into three parts. The first part is dedicated to the legal framework of EU primary and secondary law relating to the concepts of sustainable development, green and environmental law. The recent classification of sustainable activities in the Taxonomy Regulation is considered in the second part. The third part of the paper selects some interpretations of the Court of Justice of European Union case-law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve the sustainability goals of the EU and the UN, the adoption of innovation is essential. Although research has intensively dealt with sustainable innovations and their adoption, there are hardly any findings that consider the adoption triggers and motives of sustainable innovations using a multi-factor interaction. We attempt to fill this gap with an empirical quantitative study by analyzing adoption triggers (innovation attraction, knowledge, social system), individual adopter characteristics (openness, agreeableness) and motives (environmental values, perceived effectiveness) based on a sample of 248 consumers of sustainable innovations from Germany using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. We focus on the usage of sustainable innovations and identify three distinct profiles of adopters: socially driven, product-driven and environmentally driven adopters. Subsequently, we discuss the findings and provide theoretical as well as practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supply chain is among the factors that have contributed in climate change, whether through the set of environmental impacts resulting from its activities of transport, manufacturing, distribution etc., and due to the enormous number of worldwide companies, which continues to increase, and which involves further negative impact on the environment. The purpose of this paper is to provide the researcher and decision maker with a set of good practices of green supply chain modeling, and some discussions. Indeed, many scholars have carried out theoretical studies in this sense, by dealing with a set of methods and tools; but have not provided an overview of the best practices to be taken into consideration in order to achieve optimal modeling. The proposed framework is the focus of analysis in this paper. Firstly, this paper proposes a brief literature review on the main keywords of this paper, then at the end a conclusion with some direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of urban population and evolution of economy and technology has led to different challenges for our cities. Cities consume more than ¾ of natural resources, they spew more than 70% of carbon emissions, they produce more than of 80% of GDP. Problems with air pollution, traffic congestion, bad quality of water, the lack of biodiversity require green solutions in order to solve multiple problems and to achieve sustainable development of environment and urban ecosystems. In the last years questions for which strategies and policies can effectively contribute to make our cities greener have become urgent for communities. It is important to decide how we can manage urban expansion processes with the effects of climate change and to make cities more sustainable at the same time. So, the concept for green cities is one of approaches which aims to create denser, greener and more liveable cities. This concept aims to achieve environmental balance in supporting human activities in urban areas by considering capacities of natural resources. Green city concept encourages development in green technologies. The green city concept is a multidimensional concept which involves environmental, economic and social aspects. This article tries to provide an overview of theoretical developments by describing the evolution of green city concept, different definitions for green cities. This report tries to highlight the most workable and practicable approaches for planning and design cities in a green and resilient way. Focus is placed on methods and indicators for measurement of green city performance of different projects and strategies. Methods that are used in this article are: • For synthesis and analysis of information from different literature sources, a method of scientific synthesis is used, through which a selection of the used literature is made. • In the process of detailed study of the concept of green city and different scientific definitions, a descriptive method is used, through which the studied practices and the [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bitter experience of global warming has alarmed and compelled the mankind to change the way they operate on earth. Within the construction industry, the green building concept evolved and it is now gaining momentum rapidly across the world. Green Building involves a building which incorporates environmental considerations into every stage of the building construction with the objectives to protect occupant health, improve employee productivity, use wisely natural resources and reduce the environmental impact. This paper investigates the benefit of green buildings in Johannesburg using a detailed questionnaire. The study findings revealed that green buildings provide better health for building occupants due to the improved indoor quality, development of more energy efficient products and the use of less natural resources for the satisfaction and welfare of building tenants, also to protect the ecosystem. The outcome of this research shows that green building benefits should encourage clients, consultants and contractors invest in green buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lean tools have proven the importance for eliminating wastes, and improving process, however this methodology is not sufficient for sustainable progress. Sustainability takes a very important place in the overall strategy's companies. It is a response to the various issues for industrial companies as economic, environmental, social, and stakeholder’s pressure. The integration between green and lean can be a way to build greener health care system. The presentstudy proposes a self-assessment model to assess the degree of green lean maturity within organization, using the worst best method (BWM) as multi criteria decision-making framework. For this, a literature review was conducted to analyze the strengths and limitations of different frameworks and models of Green Lean approach. The proposed tool was implemented in manufacturing company operating in the pharmaceutical sector. The proposed assessment model provides guidelines and operating conditions to companies wishing implementing Green Lean. The outcomes of this study will help pharmaceutical companies to carry out the Green Lean initiatives in order to contribute to sustainability and then to the overall performance of the company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the threats to national security often not spoken about, or mentioned as an afterthought, are the threats and risks linked to environmental issues. This study assumes that, in the future, the worst threat will be environmental, either deriving from scarce resources such as water, energy dependence or even pollution. Most of the pollution around the world is being caused by logistic transportation. This study focuses on what is being done and can be done with military logistics in order to help fighting against this future threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The face of modern large cities has been changing and evolving in recent years in size, population density, activities, transportation, infrastructure, carbon emission, and sewage water, garbage production or needs. Asia and other fast developing economies and population may lead the way with the fastest population growth in the world in the coming decades and reach 70% of global population. Increasing attention and interest has being given to garden and parks. More recently, urban green spaces have been identified as being vital for balance in lifestyle, health. They also have a role to play in the social arena and community life, such as landscaping or enhancing the visual aesthetics of natural landscapes; trees and plants mitigate someway GHG by fixing Carbon emission; and moreover green spaces create relaxing recreational spaces in metropolitan areas provide opportunities for social activities for people living or working in the neighbourhood. When we look at recent history on East Coast of the United States, just a century ago we saw bitumen roads, concrete, steel, glass, buildings and infrastructures transforming cities. While suburbs came into existence expanded, replacing farmlands and fields into metropolis. There has been an interesting evolution of innovative and creative green solutions, such as the use of the balcony or roof for gardens or farms, green walls, small size orchards with water basins across the cities, vegetable garden parks open to public leisure gardening or, vertical farms inside building (Tokyo, Paris, Taiwan...). Green architectural microalgae bioreactors cultures on Paris left bank surface wall, on highways (Switzerland) producing value added biomass by using photonic energy to capture carbon dioxyde remediation obligation in the future; Microalgae multiple output and by- products may turn out as an important income contributor for skyscrapers management. Greening cities case studies might show promising results on paths to improve environment, quality life, simultaneously, create new perspectives and economical opportunities for sustainable societies. The case studies from Taiwan are interesting for other cities in both the East and West incite for further discussion and debate on what greening can be bring into urban infrastructure and on the right equilibrium component share to adopt for future planning, and the implications for building as a greening process [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that implementation of Green and Lean Six Sigma make a positive impact on economic, environmental and social performance. Many organizations have already started to integrate the two approaches. However, evidence suggests that these organizations find their implementation challenging, and in many cases they are unsuccessful. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of research on Green Lean Six Sigma focusing on success factors in its implementation through a systematic literature review combined with the lesson learned from authors' experiences and verified by a survey of organizations. The findings have led to the identification of five success factors and their ranking according to the organizations that had implemented this initiative. The findings also have led to development of framework for implementing Green Lean Six Sigma. Both academicians and professionals will find this paper useful, as it explore critical success factors for successful Green Lean Six Sigma implementation and provides a concise description of each success factors that will be very helpful for organizations to understand and implement Green Lean Six Sigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Lean Manufacturing (LM) focuses on minimization of wastes, Green Manufacturing (GM) emphasizes on achieving zero emissions. Little is known about the linkage between these two initiatives and their integration. Furthermore, it is also not clear whether these two initiatives can coexist in the same organization or not. To address the gaps, this paper highlights the potential synergic effect and proposes a multi-dimensional model based on assumptions (1) GM is represented by the soft aspects of Environmental Management System (EMS), (2) the EMS is the possible mediator in the relationship between LM and Sustainable Performance (SP), and (3) the mediating model can be examined using bootstrapping technique within Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The contributions of this paper are theoretical in nature which include (i) proposal of a conceptual approach comprising of three integrated models (ii) introduction of the lean manufacturing with four bundles namely, problem solving, process, philosophy and people (LM 4P). Four hypotheses were postulated for the research. The preliminary results indicate that the model is validated by conducting semi structured interviews in few industries in Malaysia. The future direction of this paper is to empirically investigate the model for hypotheses testing through the techniques employed in SEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio frequency identifications RFID is becoming a widely used technology in many sectors. Despite of its benefits from tracking humans and things, it raises ethical concerns. This paper will explore research related to the ethical issues of RFID technology like privacy and security, coercion and green RFID issues. It is important to raise awareness related to the importance and seriousness of this technology, where it requires more legal control and support. This paper proposes a framework for future research to help researchers understand the issues embedded in such phenomenon and facilitate future research. Conclusions and future proposed research are depicted at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing nature's impact on people with experiments like replacing bold geometrics with abstracted nature forms in the interior, hanging on walls pictures of trees and water. Limited amount of nature and forcing humans to stare at wall has impact on people, their complications and taking pain medication. Limited amount of wildness and greener settings nonetheless has a marked impact on children living nearby. Nature doesn't just have an effect on the mind. Nature helps the body. Views from windows have effects on people. Architects should work as sculptors. Leaving signature in nature and landscape. The green landscape is not what most people would call green. This paper is not talking only about isolated pockets of green containing just grass and a tree. Modern architecture has profound implications for human health and behavior. Small amounts of noise, lack of water can be harmful. City planners, architects and the others need to pay more attention to this. Instead of heading to the wildness, new city design should be giving the inhabitants easy access to the surrounding countryside, close gardens, vertical parks, non-expected wild areas. Facilities should incorporate such features as nature views and nature related areas. Aquariums, atriums with greenery and fountains, gardens where people can find relief. The goal of this paper is to determine whether nature can help mitigate the negative impact of living in bleak, urban environments. Achieving this is simply naturalizing places we live in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb." (Mary Oliver). Urban places such as empty facades and roofs in the city are very challenging places. Lofty idea of potential acres of green spaces that lie above our cities. Roofs as lifeless place of bituminous surface, violent temperatures contrasts, bitter wind and antipathy to water. Change happens when there is an unexpected green grass and blooming flower in front of us. The goal of this article is pointing out the importance of aesthetic appearance of the nature in modern city. Creating new ecozones, natural surfaces, improving quality of everyday life in the city, protecting nature and falling in love with instant wildness. Aim of this article is to show green roofs and living walls have positive impact on surrounding environment and people living in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing concerns towards environmental issues (transportation emissions, global warming, depletion of natural resources) in today's global economy has resulted in the need for businesses to be more environmentally friendly and act in an environmentally responsible manner. Like most developed nations, the UK has placed significant importance on the need for more sustainable business operations. However the smooth adoption and implementation of these green practices by businesses is slow due to challenges such as lack of awareness, cost, resourcing, legislation, and incorporation into existing business processes. Green practices are often assumed by SMEs to involve significant expense, and in some cases even unaffordable. Particularly during the recent time of recession, focus has been on keeping SMEs afloat rather than making substantial investment in what are perceived to be "nice to have" green initiatives. SMEs sometimes also cite lack of knowledge of how to implement green initiatives and lack of support for such activity. The focus of this research is Scottish food and drink sector, which plays a vital role contributing nearly £10bn yearly to the economy. However, this positive contribution of the sector to the economy sits in tension with the fact it also generates a substantial amount of waste (estimated to generate 2 million tonnes of waste annually), and thus has costly negative impacts on the environment. This paper forms part of a larger doctoral study on green supply chain initiatives in Scottish SMEs. Specifically, the research has been set up to explore the various factors motivating and inhibiting the adoption of green initiatives by food and drink businesses. In this paper, the focus is on a review of the literature that was undertaken to establish some initial motivators and inhibitors among SMEs across a range of sectors. These were then explored further in a pilot study among six small firms in the food and drink sector Scotland. This qualitative pilot study was undertaken using semi-structured interviews with the owner-managers. Arising from the findings of the pilot study, a scale of "green-ness" was devised to chart the extent to which the firms have innovated by incorporating green practices into their business processes. A more extensive study is now being designed to test and refine the scale with a view to creating a model to assist small businesses in their planning and strategizing in relation to introducing green practices. The paper reports on the early stages of this research, including the pilot study and the creation of the "green-ness" scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent growth of Cloud Computing technology has received a major attention on the research arena worldwide, mainly being focused on performance issues of greater and larger Data Centers. It is our interest to know about their cost regarding energy and power consumption. Are we getting to the point where it's too late to sustain a green environment, because of the high level of risk we are taking without analyzing? This study tends to give answers to these questions by presenting the current state of the art on green cloud computing. This paper provides an overview of researches and reports published in the latest three years, 2010-2013, in the fields of Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency improvements and awareness. We highlight the trend of researches on this area from the "Cloud Service Providers" and Environmentalists point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability considerations have been suggested as key elements in Private Financing Initiative (PFI) projects in Malaysia. Notwithstanding, the sustainability is new in the Malaysian construction industry, let alone in PFI projects. This requirement has necessitated stakeholders in PFI projects to quickly learn sustainability and apply them accordingly. A research was mooted to observe and document how the PFI project stakeholders respond to this and their consequent practice in implementation of sustainability in their projects. In drawing the Terms of Reference (TOR) of sustainability for PFI projects, it was conceived that the fundamental starting point is to accurately define what sustainability is and how this can be incorporated into the PFI projects in avoiding project outcome off-tangent. This paper presents the key elements for Sustainability which drawn from the perspective of literatures and research on sustainability applied in Europe, America and Asia. The findings culminate the key elements of Sustainability which helps to establish the research framework in order to measure the current implementation of sustainability within PFI. The research establishes six (6) key elements encompass Energy Efficiency (EE), Water Efficiency (WE), Site Planning & Management (SM), Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ), Materials & Resources (MR) and Innovation (IN) which will be adopted within the conceptual framework of sustainability is proposed from the study. In concluding, this paper signifies gaps in defining stakeholder's roles and responsibilities which are important for Malaysia PFIs in moving forward towards sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on methods to influence change in the safety market of today; taking it from one that has historically focused on meeting construction safety codes, to one that has the desire to exceed construction safety codes. A change in our markets, on a corporate and individual level, is needed to a degree that structure owners are motivated to increase the level of safety within the structure or in the design of a new structure that exceeds existing safety codes. This paper presents two paths through which corporations and individuals could be influenced to shift their prioritization toward exceeding existing safety standards. The first path is through realizing incentives for going above and beyond when it comes to safety. The second path includes marketing campaigns directed toward individuals based on the psychological variables surrounding behavior change. This paper will describe the factors needed to consider when following those two paths. It will also review the success that the green sustainability market has experienced through understanding of the background behind Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). To some degree, these two programs can be used as a blueprint for a similar movement around safety. Many structures have been positively impacted by sustainable designs that also benefit the environment, the economy and well being of many. It has taken an international presence and safety must do the same. The goal and end result of such a program/movement in the safety market would help to reduce the number of lives lost and the financial impact of fires, natural disasters, electrocutions and other events that occur each year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasing cellular traffic is the driving force for innovations in wireless communications. While voice traffic is not expected to increase much and does not require 4G systems, traffic for video and data applications is expected to grow with a rate of 100% per year. Smart mobile devices, tablets and laptop dongles will certainly make this a reality. On the other hand the supply side cannot grow with the same rate. Base stations, eNB, pico- and femtocells will bring more heterogeneity in space and new applications will bring more heterogeneity in demand over time. Designing for over-provisioning capacity has been the standard approach to stabilize traffic, but is will be harder and harder, with more congestion situations in time (busy hour) and space (crowded cell) which will break application traffic and give bad quality-of-experience of users. Furthermore, over-provisioning comes with more power consumption and higher financial expenditures for infrastructure and operating costs. The user-in-the-loop (UIL) approach offers a solution orthogonal to the traditional supply-only view. In addition to technical improvements, having a temporal demand control can alleviate the severity of busy-hour situations which formerly caused congestion and connection failures. Demand shaping is implemented by a dynamic usage-based tariff and adaptive rates depending on the load condition. The users in a cell are part of a closed control loop which reacts in cases of severe demand overload. In this paper three different service classes are controlled individually and results from analysis and simulation show the performance in stationary and dynamic scenarios. The economics of tariffs and dynamic prices and the resulting operator revenue on one side is compared to the dissatisfaction of rejected users and this gives decision indicators for the investment into new infrastructure. Overall this saves money, energy and turns situations of hard congestion into an elastic stationarity which is in the interest of both users and operators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The lightweight steel structure residential building is the green, energy-saving and environmental protection building and has many advantages. In many cities, it is developing gradually. But in Henan it is nearly none. Therefore, to develop lightweight steel structure in Henan is a difficult task. This paper introduced properties of lightweight steel structure residential buildings and the current research situation both at home and abroad in detail. According to Henan particular conditions, the paper researched how to develop and popularize the lightweight steel structure residential building industrialization and gave some suggestions and countermeasure. It is significant and helpful for promoting Henan housing industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bioenergy is renewable energy derived from biological sources, to be used for production of heat, electricity and transportation fuels. The collection of biomass is a logistic process from different source locations to energy plants. The biomass-to-energy supply chain can be set up in diverse ways that can result in different costs, energy use and Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The research focuses on the model to optimize the biomass-to-energy supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A fast and parallel evolution of ways to measure and assess energy efficiency in telecom has resulted in an entangled web of drafts and recommendations originating from government, research, and standards organizations. This paper focuses primarily on so-called “large network equipment” metrics and intends to capture state-of-the-art in this area of green communications. Competing approaches towards efficiency assessment are studied for their applicability and completeness, with special emphasis on topics relevant to future subject studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the continuous growth of traffic for years, both the monetary cost and the power consumption of the Internet increase sharply at the same time. Especially, backbone networks will become the main contributor of the overall Internet cost and power consumption. Except the feature of huge total amount, the traffic in future backbone networks will also show high heterogeneity in bandwidth requirement. Based on the variety of those traffic demands, the mixed-line-rate (MLR) schemes have been proposed in recent years. The MLR schemes are considered to b e a ble to support flexibility for network provisioning. To utilize resources in MLR backbone networks efficiently, logical topology design is an important issue. However, previous studies about logical topology design have focused on optimizing either monetary cost or power consumption of the whole network. In this paper, we design logical topology for optical MLR backbone networks by considering both energy efficiency and cost efficiency. The network cost is defined as an integrity consisting of the monetary cost and the power consumption of the whole network. Then, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation is presented to minimize the network cost. In order to evaluate the proposed formulation, it is applied on illustrative case studies. Finally, the numerical results are analyzed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For those who are trying to create social change, a central goal is the task of educating others. However, few researchers have examined certification programs as a mechanism for institutionalizing social movements ideology. This paper argues that the professional certification program called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP) from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has been a key part of integrating the ideals of green or sustainable building practices within the larger building industry. While the LEED AP designation is an individual certification, it has served as a mechanism of transferring technical knowledge, the capacity to engage in integrated design and innovative ideas on how to build differently within a typically conservative craft industry in a relatively short amount of time. Using in-person and telephone interviews with LEED AP certified professionals in the state of California and participant observation. The paper explores the function of the LEED AP program in changing the marketplace and the sometimes contradictory indications that this certification has in the marketplace. Findings have implications for organizations that attempt to create similar changes as well as literature on social movements and institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leftwing movements have long believed in the capacity of human beings to act collectively to improve fundamental features of their societies. But, in the late twentieth century, there seems to have been a historic retreat from this Enlightenment-based commitment. Much of the left - including the green left - now appears to share views which were traditionally associated with conservatism. What are the sources of this leftwing conservatism, and which, if any, of its arguments should be accepted? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emergence of a local blue-green coalition in the Boston area around issues of environmental health. Using social movement theory, I argue that a frame analysis offers several key insights into the process of coalition formation. In particular, the process of forming a coalitional frame by seeking to bridge ideological divides is central to the development of this blue-green coalition, the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow. Based on a shared experience of exposure to health risks from toxic substances, labor and environmental groups have worked together to construct a collective identity frame based on preventing future health risks from hazardous substances. I present in this paper the results of a two-year qualitative study on the development of the Alliance and its efforts to involve labor organizations in the coalition. The Alliance has been successful in garnering support from several unions, including the state AFL-CIO. By examining the strategies used in forming this local coalition, these findings can provide a model for future efforts at building blue-green coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how grassroots community groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ecuador mobilized transnational networks to pressure the multinational oil industry and international institutions for greater and more meaningful participation in natural and community resource decision-making. On the construction of a second oil pipeline in Ecuador, Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP), communities and NGOs transcended national borders to form multinational alliances to demand local and national-level claims. In this case, civil society had greater leverage and influence on international institutions and multinationals, than on their own state and national companies. Grassroots groups and NGOs honed their negotiating and confrontational skills in an international arena, which may be converted into national empowerment to demand a greater role in the decisions of the state and domestic companies. Their activism of opposition and negotiation may also block multinationals from operating in the future in Ecuador without accountability, compensation, international safeguards and just practices. However, unexpected burdens accompanied transnational collaboration, including a local undervaluing or hoarding of local knowledge, persistent South-North tension, neglect of local groups and an overemphasis on the environment at the expense of labor and social and economic justice issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a mechanism of ontology-based rule management for building energy saving service. For the purpose of providing ontology-based building energy saving service in buildings, rules are needed to control equipments in buildings. A Rule manager adds new rules and searches, changes and deletes existing rules. This paper describes an ontology-based rule manager to offer energy optimization services for buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the example of green fields of study in higher education, which emerged largely in response to growing prevalence of the environmental movement over recent decades, this paper posits that new and emerging fields of study can be an important source of change in gender segregation across fields of study. Specifically, we suggest that new and emerging fields of study, when framed outside of existing gender divisions, may transcend traditional patterns of segregation and be characterized by greater gender integration in both STEM and non-STEM disciplines. Patterns of gender segregation among all bachelor degree recipients between 2009 and 2011 show that green fields of study are systematically characterized by greater gender equality relative to non-green fields, regardless of whether a given field falls within the STEM paradigm. As a result, green fields of study are promoting greater gender integration overall in higher education, especially in STEM disciplines. These results suggest that changes in the organizational structure of higher education, and changes in the available curriculum in particular, can have important consequences for gender segregation across field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key question for organizational theorists is why do organizations act as they do? After decades of efforts to answer this question there is no agreement. Some studies pointed to stakeholder pressures, while some said leaders matters. This study attempts to illustrate seven theories which purport to explain why the firm does what it does, in particular, why firms go green. We propose that 1: the firm acts in ways to maximize profits, to maximize shareholder wealth; 2A: The firm acts to satisfy needs of managers or 2B: The firm acts in ways that leaders guide and direct the firm; 3: The firm acts in response to stakeholders; 4: The actions a firm takes are significantly dependent on its resources; 5: An organization's culture will dictate what that firm does; 6: What an organization does tomorrow can be largely predicted by what it does today, which is closely related to what it did yesterday; and 7: An organization's actions are a result of institutional factors. Using an in-depth study of 39 Chinese and multinational corporations involving 55 interviews, we find that all seven have some explanatory power. Thus, we are still where we started, with no one theory to tell us why firms do what they do [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor Unions and environmentalists have proven important but difficult coalition partners. This informal discussion table will include three separate papers by our three authors, and others presenting on the same topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]