Sustainability, Volume 6, Issue 11

In 2013, China imported 282 million tons of crude oil with an external dependence of 58.1%, surpassing the USA as the world’s largest net oil importer. An import source diversification strategy has been adopted by China to ensure oil supply security...

Sustainable Development (SD) is a global role model that claims to function as a general orientation for shaping societal processes, i.e., local, regional, national and international development. This is in line with the Brundtland and justice-orient...

Heat can be collected from local energy sources and concentrated into a relatively small volume, and at a useful working temperature, by using a heat pump as the concentrator. That heat can be stored and utilized at a later date for applications like...

The concept of sustainable development does not articulate what needs to be sustained, developed, or how, and is consequently intersubjective and intercultural. I therefore argue that it is essential to consider different worldviews when discussing s...

Growing water scarcity is one of the central challenges for sustainability in China, given its burgeoning industry and huge population, especially in the arid and semi-arid inland river basin where precipitation is very limited. Industrial transforma...

Human settlement expansion has very important effects on regional population migration, economic balance and ecosystem services. Understanding the evolution of settlement expansion and regional differences is significant for regional sustainability....

In the United States and the United Kingdom, over the last decade major retail chains have increasingly publicized their efforts to supply sustainably sourced and eco-labelled seafood. Debate exists over the extent of consumer demand for this produc...

The stockbreeding industry is growing rapidly in rural regions of China, carrying a high risk to the water environment due to the emission of huge amounts of pollutants in terms of COD, T-N and T-P to rivers. On the other hand, as a typical biomass r...

Johne’s disease (JD) is a chronic, production-limiting disease of ruminants. Control programs aiming to minimize the effects of the disease on the dairy industry have been launched in many countries, including Canada. Those programs commonly focus on...

Energy return on investment (EROI) and net energy are useful metrics for analyzing energy production physically rather than monetarily. However, these metrics are not widely applied in China. In this study, we forecast the Daqing oilfield’s EROI from...

This paper discusses the major trends in scholarship about the role of FDI and exports on economic growth, the effect of tax policies on FDI, the formation of the economic catch up of the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region and the determinants o...

Provincial carbon emissions research is necessary for China to realize emissions reduction targets. Two-level decomposition model based on the Kaya identity was applied to uncover the main driving forces for the energy related carbon emissions in Sha...

The “Europe 2020 Strategy” launched by European Institutions is a commitment to increase growth based on the coexistence of both competitiveness and sustainable development. This paper analyzes the competitiveness of production systems in the cereal...

Electric vehicles (EVs) have prominent advantages for reducing CO₂ emissions and alleviating the dependence on fossil fuel consumption in the transport sector. Therefore, many countries have set targets for EV development in recent years and have emp...

Following IT innovations, manual operations have been automated, improving the overall quality of life. This has been possible because an organic topology has been formed among many diverse smart devices grafted onto real life. To provide services to...

Alternative food and agriculture movements increasingly rely on market-based approaches, particularly voluntary standards and certification, to advance environmental sustainability and social justice. Using a case study of an ecological shrimp projec...

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors usually considered in engineering studies, i.e., thermal, acoustical, visual comfort and indoor air quality are individually associated with the occupant satisfaction level on the basis of well-established r...

The paper presents both the structure and application of a Decision Support System (DSS) for an important river in Brazil—along with the sustainable management of its watershed. This DSS assesses both surface-water quality and riverine microhabitats...

Greenhouse tomato cultivation plays an important role in Sicily, being the primary production area in Italy, due to its favorable pedo-climatic conditions that permit extra-seasonal productions. In Sicily, more than half of greenhouse tomato producti...

Deciding upon optimum planning actions in terms of sustainable urban planning involves the consideration of multiple environmental and socio-economic criteria. The transformation of natural landscapes to urban areas affects energy and material fluxes...

When we were invited by the editors of Sustainability to put together a special edition on “Environment in Sustainable Development” our first reaction was to question whether this was really needed. After all, the environment has long been regarded a...

China is the largest non-metallic mineral producer in the world and one of the key consumers of four major non-metallic mineral products, including cement, refractories, plate glass and ceramics. The non-metallic mineral products industry’s rapid gro...

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) has emerged as one of the most widely used methodologies in environmental policy analysis, with many governments applying it in their decision-making procedures and laws. However, undertaking a full CBA is expensive, and c...

Landscape is a crucial component of world heritage and, in the last few years, landscape projects have played a vital role in the development of sustainable scenarios. As reported in the European Landscape Convention, landscape means an area, as per...

Up until now, study results on the impact of large-scale wind power integration on small signal stability have often been in conflict. Sometimes, the conclusions are even completely opposite, making people unable to agree on which is right. The reaso...

In this study a microclimate analysis on a particular urban configuration: the—street canyon—has been carried out. The analysis, conducted by performing numerical simulations using the finite volumes commercial code ANSYS-Fluent, shows the flow fiel...

The aim of this study is to analyze the environmental performance of countries and the variables that can influence it. At the same time, we performed a multivariate analysis using the HJ-biplot, an exploratory method that looks for hidden patterns i...

Efficient delivery and precision provision of urban public services concern quality of urban life and urban sustainability. Amid much debate regarding citizen assessments as a policy tool of public services, this study examines the validity of citize...

The relationship between economic growth, expansion of urban land area and the broader issue of cultivated land conversion in China has been closely examined for the late 1980s and 1990s. Much less is known about recent urban expansion and if the eff...

Evaluation of the sustainability of biomass pyrolysis requires a thorough assessment of the product yields and energy densities. With this purpose, a laboratory scale fixed bed reactor (FBR) was adapted from the standard Gray-King (GK) assay test on...

The South Korean government has long been attempting to reduce the nation’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and increase environmental safety by developing and installing renewable power generation infrastructures and implementing policies for promoti...

Terra Preta Sanitation (TPS) plays a key role in sustainable sanitation (SuSan) and in the sustainable management of resources such as water, energy, soil (agriculture), liquid and solid organic waste streams as well as in the development of sustaina...

Bus system performance varies from city to city, and experience clearly indicates that simply increasing the size of bus fleet cannot always improve bus system performance. It is therefore necessary to identify the major variables of bus system perfo...

Native chilies (Capsicum spp.) are currently underutilized in Bolivia, one of this crop’s centers of diversity. Fewer local farmers cultivate native chilies annually due to low market demand. Increasing its private use value can lead to the in-situ c...

This study proposes a new concept, green organisational ambidexterity, that integrates green exploration learning and green exploitation learning simultaneously. Besides, this study argues that the antecedents of green organisational ambidexterity ar...

With a unique cultural background and fast economic development, China’s adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become the center of discussion worldwide, and its successful implementation will have great significance for global sustai...

The identification and characterization of particulate matter (PM) concentrations from construction site activities pose major challenges due to the diverse characteristics related to different aspects, such as concentration, particle size and partic...

Urbanization transforms urban-rural landscape and profoundly affects ecological processes. To maintain a sustainable urbanization, two important issues of land-use need to be quantified: the comprehensive variation of urban-rural construction land an...

This paper analyzes the differences in the amount and the structure of residential energy consumption at the provincial level in China and identifies the hidden factors behind such differences. The econometrical analysis reveals that population, econ...

This paper evaluates the effects of China’s industrial SO₂ emissions trading pilot scheme (SETPS) on the pollution abatement costs (PAC) from the past and future perspective. We apply the kernel-based propensity score difference-in-difference method...

Pressure on existing water resources in China is expected to increase with undergoing rapid demographic transformation, economic development, and global climate changes. We investigate the economy-wide impacts of projected urban population growth and...

The conflict between increasing water demand and limited water resources has become a serious threat to oasis regions in China. Solutions to water scarcity have to curb overall water demands, especially reducing agricultural water use. Price control...

Ecosystem service values have rarely been incorporated in the process of planning ecological infrastructure for urban areas. Urban ecological infrastructure is a network system of natural lands and waters that provides ecosystem services. The purpose...

This article investigates the transition dynamics related to Jatropha developments in Mozambique. The analysis focuses on how structural conditions (infrastructure, institutions, interaction and collaboration and capabilities and resources) enable or...

The capacity of marine and coastal ecosystems to sustain seafood production and consumption is seldom accounted for and is not included in the signals that guide economic development. In this article, we review estimates of marine and coastal areas a...

Neoliberal discourse often conceptualizes nature in relation to its market utility and economic development. This article will address the role of metaphors in shaping neoliberal discourse in business education. The aim of this article is to reveal r...

The extent to what bad labor conditions across the globe are associated with international trade is unknown. Here, we quantify the bad labor conditions associated with consumption in seven world regions, the “bad labor” footprint. In particular, we a...