Submit to Sustainability Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Inclusive Science of the Total Environment

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 March 2023) | Viewed by 14915

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andrew Adewale Alola

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Economics and Finance, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul 34310, Turkey
Interests: economics; energy, environmental economics; fuzzy set and logic
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Luigi Aldieri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Economic and Statistical Sciences, University of Salerno, I-84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: innovation economics; environmental economics; labor economics; econometrics; public policy; economics of innovation; patents; knowledge diffusion process; employment; green economy; applied microeconometrics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Uju Violet Alola

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Tourism Guidance, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul 34310, Turkey
Interests: tourism; organization behaviour; human resource management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the wake of persistent global push against climate change and other environmental related challenges confronting human existence in the 21^st century, diverse policy drive are being recommended toward attaining a sutainable environment.

Considering the complexity of the subject of environmental sustainability, this discourse remains an evolving subject because of the inter-connectednes of the environmental aspects (including ecological systems) with all human aspects (including science and socioeconomic activities). Thus, it suffice to suggest that ‘Science of the Total Environment’ is a necessary pathway to understanding environmental sustainability. More importantly, the ‘inclusivity of Science of the Total Environment’ becomes a necessary and sufficient pathway to unearth age-long environmental challenges.

Indicatively, the attainability of a healthy state of the environment is contingent on not only natural activites, but extensively on humans’ environmental responsibility, scientific and technological advancement, and socioecomically just factors (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2020); United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)). In specific, the entire state of the environment has been largely associated with the inclusivity of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (UNDP, 2020). This account for the reason the aspects of the state of the environment has consistently been associated with health, waste management and pollutant emission across the sectors (Bekun, Alola & Sarkodie, 2019), human behaviour and organizational practice (Cop, Alola & Alola, 2020), societal and cultural norms (Aldieri et al., 2019), agricultural practices (Alola & Alola, 2018), and many more.

In essence, this special issue is geared toward inviting scientific contributions from authors on the subject that addresses the importance of inclusivity in attaining a desirable state of the total environment. An expected manuscriopt should address but tot limited to the sub-areas of health, waste management, land, pollutant emission, carbon capture and sequensation, energy, human behaviour, and innovation.

Reference

Aldieri, L., Carlucci, F., Vinci, C. P., & Yigitcanlar, T. (2019). Environmental innovation, knowledge spillovers and policy implications: A systematic review of the economic effects literature. Journal of Cleaner Production, 239, 118051.

Alola, A. A., & Alola, U. V. (2018). Agricultural land usage and tourism impact on renewable energy consumption among Coastline Mediterranean Countries. Energy & Environment, 29(8), 1438-1454.

Bekun, F. V., Alola, A. A., & Sarkodie, S. A. (2019). Toward a sustainable environment: Nexus between CO2 emissions, resource rent, renewable and nonrenewable energy in 16-EU countries. Science of the Total Environment, 657, 1023-1029.

Cop, S., Alola, U. V., & Alola, A. A. (2020). Perceived behavioral control as a mediator of hotels' green training, environmental commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior: A sustainable environmental practice. Business Strategy and the Environment, 29(8), 3495-3508.

IPCC (2020). https://www.ipcc.ch/.

UNDP (2020). https://www.unep.org/.

Dr. Andrew Adewale Alola
Prof. Dr. Luigi Aldieri
Dr. Uju Violet ALOLA
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

environmental health
waste management
soil management and utilization
pollutant emission
carbon capture and sequensation
energy
environmental economics
organizational practice

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

19 pages, 5711 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Characterization of Memory Effect, Anomalous Self-Preservation and Ice-Hydrate Competition, during Methane-Hydrates Formation and Dissociation in a Lab-Scale Apparatus

by Alberto Maria Gambelli and Federico Rossi

Sustainability 2022, 14(8), 4807; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084807 - 17 Apr 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1196

Abstract

This study explores the process of methane hydrate formation and dissociation in a small-scale confined environment and in the presence of a porous sediment. The research is focused on answering the shortage of information about the intrinsic properties of the hydrate formation and dissociation processes, such as memory effect and anomalous self-preservation, in a lab-scale apparatus. Experiments were carried out consecutively and with the same gas–water mixture. The temperature reached during dissociation was high enough to ensure the complete dissolution of water cages. At the same time, it was sufficiently low to keep the system able to retain the memory of the previous formation of hydrates. Different well-known phenomena were observed and described; memory effect, anomalous self-preservation and competition between ice and hydrates were shown in detail. Experiments confirmed that the memory effect improves the process mainly during the initial nucleation phase, while it does not provide significant changes in the following massive growth phase. Finally, experiments proved that the formation process can be divided in two different steps: the initial intense growth, due to the small difference in local equilibrium conditions, and the subsequent asymptotic growth, which continues until the process is completed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Inclusive Science of the Total Environment)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 455 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Do Tourism Activities and Urbanization Drive Material Consumption in the OECD Countries? A Quantile Regression Approach

by Taiwo Temitope Lasisi, Kayode Kolawole Eluwole, Uju Violet Alola, Luigi Aldieri, Concetto Paolo Vinci and Andrew Adewale Alola

Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7742; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147742 - 12 Jul 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2320

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately encompass a global goal for sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12: SDGs), thus providing potential drivers and/or pathways to attaining sustainable consumption. In view of this global goal, this study examined the role of real income per capita, urbanization and especially inbound tourism in domestic material consumption for the panel of OECD countries. The study is conducted for the period of 1995 to 2016 by employing the panel quantile approach. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound tourism and domestic material consumption is established across the quantiles, thus indicating that sustainable domestic consumption is achievable after a threshold of domestic material consumption is attained. In addition, achieving sustainable consumption through economic or income growth is a herculean task for the OECD countries because the current reality indicates that income growth triggers higher consumption of domestic materials. However, the results suggest that urbanization is a recipe for sustainable domestic consumption since there is a negative and significant relationship between the two parameters across the quantiles. Nevertheless, the study presents relevant policy for efficient material and resources utilization and that is suitable to drive the SDGs for 2030 and other country-specific sustainable ambitions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Inclusive Science of the Total Environment)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 1454 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dual Efficiency and Productivity Analysis of Renewable Energy Alternatives of OECD Countries

by Sedef E. Kara, Mustapha D. Ibrahim and Sahand Daneshvar

Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7401; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137401 - 01 Jul 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4319

Abstract

This paper examines the dual efficiency of bioenergy, renewable hydro energy, solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy for selected OECD countries through an integrated model with energy, economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Two questions are explored: Which renewable energy alternative is more dual efficient and productive? Which renewable energy alternative is best for a particular country? Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used for the efficiency evaluation, and the global Malmquist productivity index is applied for productivity analysis. Results indicate bioenergy as the most efficient renewable energy alternative with a 20% increase in average efficiency in 2016 compared to 2012. Renewable hydro energy, wind energy, and solar energy show a 17.5%, 16%, and 11% increase, respectively. The average efficiency growth across all renewable energy alternatives signifies major advancement. Country performance in renewable energy is non-monolithic; therefore, they should customize their renewable energy portfolio accordingly to their strengths to enhance renewable energy efficiency. Renewable hydro appears to have the most positive productivity change in 2016 compared to 2012, while solar energy regressed in productivity due to its scale inefficiency. All renewable energy alternatives have relatively equal average pure efficiency change. The positive trend in efficiency and productivity provides an incentive for policy makers to pursue further development of renewable energy technologies with a focus on improving scale efficiency. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Inclusive Science of the Total Environment)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Do Economic Policy Uncertainty and Geopolitical Risk Lead to Environmental Degradation? Evidence from Emerging Economies

by Muhammad Khalid Anser, Qasim Raza Syed, Hooi Hooi Lean, Andrew Adewale Alola and Munir Ahmad

Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 5866; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115866 - 23 May 2021

Cited by 78 | Viewed by 4111

Abstract

Since the turn of twenty first century, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) have escalated across the globe. These two factors have both economic and environmental impacts. However, there exists dearth of literature that expounds the impact of EPU and GPR on environmental degradation. This study, therefore, probes the impact of EPU and GPR on ecological footprint (proxy for environmental degradation) in selected emerging economies. Cross-sectional dependence test, slope heterogeneity test, Westerlund co-integration test, fully modified least ordinary least square estimator, dynamic OLS estimator, and augmented mean group estimator are employed to conduct the robust analyses. The findings reveal that EPU and non-renewable energy consumption escalate ecological footprint, whereas GPR and renewable energy plunge ecological footprint. In addition, findings from the causality test reveal both uni-directional and bi-directional causality between a few variables. Based on the findings, we deduce several policy implications to accomplish the sustainable development goals in emerging economies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Inclusive Science of the Total Environment)

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Inclusive Science of the Total Environment

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (4 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI