Sustainability, Volume 8, Issue 3

Riparian buffers can influence water quality in downstream lakes or rivers by buffering non-point source pollution in upstream agricultural fields. With increasing nitrogen (N) pollution in small agricultural watersheds, a major function of riparian...

The Vietnamese government has introduced co-management in its national system of special-use forests (SUFs) to improve the effectiveness of nature and biodiversity conservation. One of the major challenges is to allow flexibility and local adaptabili...

Improving sustainability performance in developing infrastructure projects is an important strategy for pursuing the mission of sustainable development. In recent years, the business model of public-private-partnership (PPP) is promoted as an effecti...

While there exists an international trend to develop zero or near zero emissions building solutions by 2020, and European governments continuously update their building regulations to optimize the building envelope and energy systems to achieve this...

Architectural education is a key factor in the re-thinking of the whole industry toward a system of more sustainable buildings and cities. Asia is the continent with the highest population growth and the fastest urbanization rate on earth. It is nece...

Water eutrophication has become one of the most serious aquatic environmental problems around the world. More and more research has indicated climate change as a major natural factor that will lead to the acceleration of eutrophication in rivers and...

Cycles of boom and bust plague mining communities around the globe, and decades after the bust the skeletons of shrunken cities remain. This article evaluates strategies for how former mining communities cope and strive for sustainability in the deca...

Spatial planning is at the core of national land and urban development. Many countries and cities seek sustainable development through various means such as coordinated environmental planning, environmental assessment, and internalization of environm...

Island states have been shown to outperform continental states on a number of large-scale coordination-related outcomes, such as levels of democracy and institutional quality. The argument developed and tested in this article contends that the same k...

(1) Background: The consequences of the recent economic crisis have shown the need for promoting certain key skills in future entrepreneurs to create enterprises that are capable of producing added value, generating employment and remaining solvent o...

The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) was established in 1993 in the European Union as a voluntary instrument facilitating the implementation of organisational environmental policies and management of environmental aspects. We present a comprehe...

This study will review the environmental implications of dynamic policy objectives and instruments outlined in the European Union 7th Framework Programme (EU-FP7) Project DYNAmic policy MIXes for absolute decoupling of EU resource use from economic g...

Soil health, along with water supply, is the most valuable resource for humans, as human life depends on the soil’s generosity. Soil degradation, therefore, poses a threat to food security, as it reduces yield, forces farmers to use more inputs, and...

Measuring the success of sustainable urban development has been difficult in the past. However, as this has become more important in the past few years, this paper develops an innovative sustainable urban development capacity measurement model based...

Although substantial studies emphasized the close relationship among land development, public infrastructure, and urban economic growth, the mediating effect of public infrastructure remains unexplored. Using panel data of 253 prefecture-level Chines...

Scholars who aim to solve problems with poverty and a lack of resources often focus on bottom of pyramid (BOP) consumer groups. They propose that the traditional TOP (top of pyramid) business strategies are not suitable for BOP populations, and that...

When trying to optimize the sustainability performance of farms and farming systems, a consideration of trade-offs and synergies between different themes and dimensions is required. The aim of this paper is to perform a systematic analysis of trade-o...

This study examines the impact of corporate sustainability (CS) on stock market returns for FTSE 350 companies over the period 2006–2012. We find that an investment strategy that bought shares in companies with balanced financial, social, and environ...

The increased number of road accidents, leading to deaths and serious injuries is a social problem facing most of the world countries, which can affect the sustainable development of a society. This has economic implications, because it impacts the i...

Smart, green, and resilient city paradigms have been mainly promoted through top-down and technocratic approaches. However, based on the notion to return to “the right to the city”, emerging community-driven initiatives are providing self-managed inf...

In this study, we analyzed the fish species composition data of coastal capture fisheries in Taiwan between 1963 and 2010. The purpose of the analysis was to understand the long-term changes in marine ecosystems. A ratio-to-moving average method was...

The global climate change agenda proceeds at an incremental pace while the Earth is approaching critical tipping points in its development trajectory. Climate action at this pinnacle juncture needs to be greatly accelerated and rooted in the fundamen...

The objective of this article is to develop and apply a specific discounting cash flow (DCF) approach to evaluate investment in renovation to improve building quality, thus increasing energy efficiency. In this article, we develop and apply a specifi...

The system of mobility currently faces severe challenges. Particularly in cities, strategic interventions are made to support a transition towards sustainable mobility. Incumbent actors from the car industry are often invited to play a key role in su...

Using panel data on 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2012, this paper conducts an empirical test on the threshold effect of the relationship between financial development and carbon emission intensity from the perspectives of financial scale and fi...

Civic expansion and land use migrations to urban peripheries can accelerate the conversion of agricultural land uses. Widespread trepidation concerning urban sprawl has led to innovative frameworks for conserving or enhancing farmland. New Ruralism i...

Of late, Asian countries have been experiencing serious environmental disasters, such as the particulate matter (PM) smog in China, a yellow sand storm in Korea, and the Fukuyama nuclear power station shutdown in Japan. Since its inauguration in 2009...

This paper offers a broad overview of road pricing from a social welfare perspective. I first examine two common objectives of road pricing: congestion management and profit making. My goal is to provide a guideline explaining how to promote a social...

Homogeneous and complete combustion in internal combustion engines is advantageous. The use of a porous foam in the exhaust gas in an engine cylinder for heat recovery is examined here with the aim of reducing engine emissions. The internal combustio...

Satellite data have been widely used in the detection of vegetation area changes, however, the lack of historical training samples seriously limits detection accuracy. In this research, an iterative intersection analysis algorithm (IIAA) is proposed...

This article focuses on the development of sustainable energy systems in the Swedish local context and, specifically, on the actors that have proved to be crucial for such transitions: municipally owned energy companies. With the theoretical lens ins...

At present, there are myriad concerns about tourism and sustainability at cultural and natural world heritage sites. Based on an analysis of 811 evaluations written between 1980 and 2010 by two official advisory bodies to the World Heritage Committee...

This study examines the relationship between World Heritage Site (WHS) designation and the community sustainability of a historic village, focusing on Hahoe Village, Korea, which was inscribed in 2010. It examines residents’ perceptions of increasing...

Greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural ecosystem account for 7%–20% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, while approximately 17% of China’s carbon emissions are from agriculture. In this study, based on the scientific calculation sy...

This paper explores whether and to what extent wind discourages sustainable transportation mode choice, which includes riding public transportation, bicycling, and walking. A six month-long field study was carried out at four locations in San Francis...

Soil treatment and improvement is commonly performed in the field of geotechnical engineering. Methods and materials to achieve this such as soil stabilization and mixing with cementitious binders have been utilized in engineered soil applications si...

This study aims to establish a green supplier selection and guidance mechanism by integrating the features of an ANP (Analytic Network Process) and an IPA (Importance–Performance Analysis) to achieve sustainable management for green supply chains. Us...

We present a case study of the development of an adaptive forecasting system for a leading personal computer (PC) manufacturer in South Korea. It is widely accepted that demand forecasting for products with short product life cycles (PLCs) is difficu...

The current approach to business management focuses on increasing the performance of business processes. To achieve the required processes performance means to ensure the required quality and capability of processes. The partial aim of this paper is...

This paper investigates various supply chain disruptions in terms of scenario planning, including node disruption and chain disruption; namely, disruptions in distribution centers and disruptions between manufacturing centers and distribution centers...

Sustainability has gained as much importance as management in business. Sustainable pavement development as a business practice should involve making evaluations according to the triple bottom line in the pavement life-cycle. Despite the current appr...

The past decades have witnessed a number of informal land developments on the urban fringe in China although many strict state regulations have been made to control this. The dual urban rural land system is widely believed to be one major determinant...

Soil is a key part of a biotope and microorganisms are dominant components contributing to soil functions. Conversely, established methods for valuation of biotopes according to Natura 2000 rely predominantly on the communities living on the surface....

Larix principis-rupprechtii is a native tree species in North China with a large distribution; and its harvested timbers can be used for producing wood products. This study focused on estimating and comparing carbon flows and carbon footprints of dif...

Currently, the environment and sustainability are important topics for every industry. The food industry is particularly complicated in this regard because of the dynamic and complex character of food products and their production. This study uses st...

Subsurface drainage is a prerequisite to grow winter crops in the consolidated paddy fields in Northern Iran. A four-year study (2011–2015) was conducted to quantify the effects of subsurface drainage on the saturated hydraulic conductivity, water ta...

Water is an essential foundation for socio-economic development and environmental protection. As such, it is very critical for a city’s sustainable development. This study analyzed the changes in water utilization structure and its impact factors usi...

Currently, the development of any sector involves respecting the principles of sustainability, which means economic, social and environmental development. Moreover, organic farming is a very important field for ensuring sustainable development. Roman...

The process of regeneration of abandoned areas or deteriorated structures in the cities of Romania has become a strategy of urban-integrated development. Conversions and/or regeneration of facilities in the form of assets, with different destinations...

Physical activity has numerous physical and mental health benefits, and active commuting (walking or cycling to work) can help meet physical activity recommendations. This study investigated socioeconomic differences in active commuting, and assessed...