*2.1. Theoretical Approaches of the Carbon Footprint Concept in the Context of Globalization*

The world today is operating within an ever more tightly interconnected economic system made up of scenarios, models and sub-systems, widely known as globalization. Although humanity's aim is to eliminate the disparities among the countries worldwide, the development trend is unequal, with each country, be they Asian, American or European, using different strategies to achieve prosperity [7]. The current dynamism represents a challenge for the decision makers at the government level to find a balance between the economic objectives and the way to reach them while avoiding the destroying of the environment.

The present research is based on a bibliometric analysis using the content on the Scopus platform, covering the time interval between 1962 and now. The reference year 1962 was chosen because this was the moment when the subject of air pollution and sustainability began to attract the attention of the general public, also including the years that preceded the 1970 oil crisis. The year of 1962 was also the year when the book "Silent Spring" was written [8], as a first attempt to explain sustainable development through green facades.

The present research study took 452 papers into consideration. The bibliometric analysis, which was made with the help of the VosViewer software version 1.6.7. (Leiden University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden, Netherlands), shows that universities all over the world are researching this field, with the academic environment of the United States of America registering a total of 132 published articles and Kyung Hee University of China nine published articles, while in Romania there is only one article published on this topic, by Gheorghe Asachi University in Ias,i. Considering that in this Romanian study there is no reference to the applicability of the activities related to sustainability in a model of economic efficiency, the present article aims to make a specific contribution in this field.

With the beginning of this millennium, the amount of raw materials and of intermediary or final products of various complexity levels (most of them being at the high end of this scale) have increased their presence in the soil, water and air [9]. This is an alarming aspect, urging for better waste management.

The current world context is characterized by an unprecedented dynamism, which calls for monitoring, so that the environment indicators would reach an optimal level. Over the last few decades, the institutional changes and the evolution of the social and political relationships alongside the environmental issues have become more and more interconnected [10].)

The approach towards a global economy from the consumption viewpoint, supported by the accelerated pace of technological advances, has led to the degradation of nature, as indicated by several alarming situations that can degenerate into catastrophes within a short time span.

Specialized literature signals frequent, subtle issues, which draw attention to pollution, such as the outsourcing of production by the technologically advanced, financially powerful countries to so-called emerging states that are almost industrialized, thus creating the illusion of a win-win system, where all the parties involved have to gain. This point of view takes into consideration only the material aspect, while the long- and medium-term costs associated with the pollution of the environment for obtaining a global manufacturing system are often neglected [11].

The current geographical constraints generate difficulties in managing the environment, a fact that was also noticed by Waters in his 1995 impactful publication [12].

The current climate variations unveil the effects of perpetual pollution, and this change in the seasons does not come solely with psychological discomfort, but also with warnings about the ever-higher incidence of diseases and the existence of certain types of viruses, which are more aggressive and more resistant than ever before. One should also note the existence of both political and social voices militating for optimizing the indicators and ensuring ecological sustainability.

The answer given by the contemporary business world to the driving forces of globalization currently depends on the influence of environmental pollution. The effective management of a sustainable economy in an unpredictable context requires that the global policies should be restructured, so that the responsibility to ensure sustainability is no longer just a research concept, but a task attributed to continents, countries, organizations and individuals. Thus, the business schools and economic research centers are made accountable, since their approach is threefold, involving at the same time the social, economic and ecological components, coupled with monitoring the global attitudes in these three areas [13].

Such statements related to threefold decisions (from the point of view of the social environment involved) are to be found in specialized literature since 1992. This observation was made by William Rees, who draws attention to how the approaches have changed over the past few years. These changes are remarkable, because nowadays the political approach is threefold, including the economic environment, the natural environment and the social environment [14]. Due to the fact that two of the variables (economic and social) have undergone changes induced by the change in world consumption, with the help of globalization, the third variable has been implicitly affected as well, requiring to be prioritized on the list of issues humanity is currently being confronted with and that need to be solved.

The pressure of the race against time to reduce pollution and to obtain close to optimum levels of the indicators that reflect these concepts has currently led to intense debates related to individual instinct versus ethics as far as consumption and capitalism are concerned, since the ratio between the available resources and the world population, which is on an exponential increase, is deeply disproportionate. In its turn, this creates economic and health-related issues in a world where the accelerated pace of innovation does not seem to suffice.

The specialized literature describes globalization and sustainability as two concepts that require the attention of decision makers, since the economic and technological exponential growth has reached a critical point in destroying the environment [15].

The carbon footprint is an innovative concept popularized in Europe in the early 2000s, which describes the assessment of a limited life or production cycle. The scientific world unanimously accepts it as an indicator referring to the monitoring and interpretation of a segment of the greenhouse gases, namely the high concentration of carbon, which is aggressive to the environment [16]. The common denominator for measuring and calculating it was proposed at the international level by The United Nations Environment Programme - Sustainable Building and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI), which further proposed the Common Carbon Metric (CCM) [17].

A notable document and international conference in the field is the Kyoto Protocol, which was negotiated in 1997. In parallel, there was an impressive civic mobilization, when numerous companies and individuals voluntarily committed themselves to reducing and compensating their own greenhouse emissions. This historical event focused on the flexible economic mechanisms meant to help maintain the optimal levels of the parameters indicating the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere [18].

The voluntary compensation market is dynamic and experiencing an exponential growth, and is worth approximately 10 million tons of carbon dioxide resulting from the already traded carbon offset projects run so far. The voluntary financial compensation projects, which do not fall under the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, are often characterized as small, diverse and innovative, the last two attributes representing a potential source of wealth. However, the lack of clarity, the confusing and poorly defined stipulations and traceability of products may allow projects of doubtful quality to reach the current market [19].

More than 20 years ago, Jeffrey Amthor maintained the fact that this accumulation of climate variations and changes is due to the increase in the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) into the atmosphere, but that it was not easy to find direct evidence in support of this theory [20].

In the literature we can find the "ark syndrome" concept, which highlights the issue of the continuous economic growth and the elimination of its expansionist borders [21], due to the fact that this growth must be supported by resources and until the time an unlimited source is tapped, this desire remains a utopia.

A traditional approach considers only two types of resources, namely: fossil fuel-generated energy and the accumulation of raw materials. By nature, these are exhaustible, namely the more you use them, the faster they will be consumed. On the other hand, the technological advances have brought about the information society, which is currently advancing towards the knowledge society. The academic voices are thus raising hopes at the macroeconomic level by means of academic research, which represents a catalyst in implementing the new technology at the society, organization and individual level [22].

The access of humans to new energy sources has been a concern for some time. As the fossil fuel reserve is more and more affected and more and more greenhouse gases are produced, using green, technologized and easy to apply energy is the solution that humans need on a large scale in order to access sustainable energy resources [23].

There are frequent discussions in the academic world about an imminent economic collapse. The reason for this imminence is represented by the need for a better management of the environmental factors. If this need is not met, there will be an ecological collapse, because both the much-desired economic growth and the speedy technological development are taking place in an unstable biosphere with numerous "sensitive points".

At the moment, sustainability is one of the great world challenges, and air pollution, namely keeping the carbon footprint within optimal limits, is inviting the political decision makers to an intense, wide and prompt reflective process with a view to conserving biodiversity.

The transition to this new paradigm is pushing the responsibility downwards on the social pyramid. At the moment, the pollution issue is no longer an abstract concept for the small businesses or for the individual, since every economic unit is fully and directly accountable for the carbon footprint level [24].

During the past decades, studying the carbon footprint was considered essential. In 1992, at British Columbia University, Professor William Rees introduced this concept for the first time, defining its content and limitations. He stated that the level of the world carbon footprint is by far higher than the regeneration power of the planet, considering the estimated pace and consumption frequency at that moment in time, which are also valid today [14]. Therefore, many academics studying this topic or sustainability-related topics recommend that the analysis of the carbon footprint indicators and implicitly of air pollution should be correlated with the consumption behavior, which is now characterized by volumes, versatility and unpredictability. Therefore, continuing this consumerist style supports the exploitation of both the economic and the natural environment.

Roberts maintained that, to a varying degree, pollution is determined by the behavior of individuals, who, while performing daily or tourist activities, are directly involved in keeping an optimal level of the aesthetic, sanitary, hygienic and recreational functions of the environment [25]. Later on, academic research evolved, coming to underline the fact that the generated carbon footprint was higher at the community level as compared to the one produced by transnational companies.

The concept studied in this paper was created with a clear purpose, namely of monitoring and calculating an essential aspect of durability: the extent to which the productive ecosystems of this planet can satisfy the new types of need that appeared over the past 50 years in a balanced way, proportional to the power of regeneration of the resources [26].

The term durability has been present in the vocabulary since antiquity, but its semantic valences are different now, when, at the start of the millennium, we are talking about durable development, which is a new concept. It describes the evolution of the human civilization in agreement with the optimal parameters of the ecosystem, avoiding damaging their level, with the intention of passing on a healthy environment to the next generations, suitable for their development, which is a challenging matter given the demographic boom [27].

In Romania, in 2008, the specialized literature mentioned the fact that the carbon footprint concept relies on a calculation of the planet's regeneration capacity, at a time when humanity is set only on using the available resources and not on conserving or using them in a sustainable manner [28].

Nowadays, sustainability is no longer understood as made up of strictly punctual issues, but as an overall concept covering the whole system of life.

#### *2.2. Theoretical Approaches of the Carbon Footprint of Buildings*

The carbon footprint concept allows researchers to study the consumption patterns from a new perspective, in order to obtain a more realistic image of a country's ability to meet the people's needs and its capacity to regenerate and keep producing such resources over a determined period of time (most researchers use the 1 year standard).

The increased flexibility of the offer available on the market is due to the redundant commercial channels, which offer the final client a high degree of freedom in terms of options, which is also extrapolated in terms of energy consumption [29].

It is worth mentioning that at the moment all the European Union Member States are being confronted with more or less significant ecological deficits. By comparison, Romania is still enjoying an optimistic value, lower than the average of other EU Member States, of approximately 2.4 global hectares (gha) per capita, although the consumption behavior patterns are indicating a worrying upwards trend [28].

The main variables that influence the carbon footprint level are related to the means of transport an individual or organization frequently opt for, the eating pattern adopted, the non-food items consumed and, last but not least, the household energy consumption [30].

The household could be described as a space where activities are performed, since it is a generic term for the building where the companies perform their daily activities. The big carbon footprint generators are the public buildings, such as city halls, schools, hospitals, boarding houses, etc.

Worldwide, buildings, and more specifically their energy consumption, account for 40% of the volume of carbon released into the atmosphere [31].

There is a stringent need for the decision makers at the international community level, as well as at the national level, to become involved, since at the moment there is no legal framework with clear stipulations about how to deal with the carbon pollution produced by non-industrial buildings. At present, such buildings are regulated by two relatively recently amended directives, one referring to ecological design and the other related to the buildings' ecological performance [32].

It is essential that a debate should be organized on the topic of energy efficiency, because Romania's fossil resources are plummeting, which is making the country dependent on imports. This dependency has been dramatically increasing over the past years and it is prompting the media to produce scenarios referring to an "economic colonization" of this country [33].

The directive on the ecological performance of buildings introduces the concept of a low energy house or building, this notion being defined by an energetic consumption close to zero, thus highlighting the importance of using green energy, not only at the research level, but also on a daily basis. A low-energy building is the one inside of which we can be comfortable irrespective of the season without using a conventional source of energy, the focus being on climate control [34].

This legal provision is also coming with a deadline (31 December 2020) by which the Member States must comply with a high-energy performance level. This way, the issue reaches the economic world, the companies being forced to find a balance between the costs and the environmental benefits generated, because these must be assessed in the long run, throughout the life span of a building [35].

Although the biggest impediment faced by the economic agents in this respect is of a financial nature, one should not neglect the opportunities offered by this framework. It makes it possible to identify the sensitive aspects within the living spaces, with a view to identifying and controlling the risks, as well as to obtain a lower, limited and controllable consumption of the resources, generating savings in the long term. Likewise, in terms of local and regional public health budgets, the costs allotted for treating lung, cardiac and digestive diseases will go down over time as a consequence of lower air pollution levels.

Another opportunity that is better used by corporations is that of consolidating the image of the institution or locality, since the marketing department can use this process in order to consolidate an environmentally friendly brand, in response to the market demand for ecological performance.

The unprecedented economic progress seen by humanity over the past century has fostered consumption in its various forms, even at the energy level. At the moment, redirecting the consumption is a matter of concern, given the fact that the demographic boom is not likely to lead to its decrease [36].

In Romania, the nature of the habitat in rural areas imposes specific strategies, because there are still isolated houses, the dispersion of buildings being quite high. Due to the demographic characteristics of rural areas, the conventional, low voltage electricity system can be avoided by means of individual installations using green energy from renewable sources. The economic scenarios produced in this respect are positive from the viewpoint of the costs involved, but only over a longer period of time of around 20–30 years. However, creating such a network implies a big investment from the local budget, since the related costs are substantial [37].

Thus, the discussion in the academic environment starts with the basic heat transfer and heat absorbing construction elements (green energy proposes the ones that absorb the solar heat and light) and continues with designing the tools that will produce the desired effects [38].

Even within this niche of the energy domain there is a sub-niche that proposes the use of solar energy by means of solar loops or heat pumps that are connected only to the source element of solar heat [39]. These studies and proposals are fostering the further development of specific equipment with a warranty that would seem utopian in a consumerist age, namely for life.

The political reforms initiated after 1989 had the purpose to dismantle monopolies and to decentralize the economy by privatizing its main units, thus creating the framework for the development of a necessary niche [40] for renewable energy, which, with social and economic support, should grow out of its current "niche energy" status during the following years.

Although the renewable energy actors have earned their right to compete on the market, this right cannot be properly turned to account in the absence of government tools, which are properly supported and popularized.

The development strategy of Romania for 2016–2035 addresses, inter alia, the bioenergy sub-sector (biogas, biomass, biofuel) and biotechnologies of environment [41].

Romania was a pioneer within the European Union, being the first Eastern European signatory of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership. The calculations of the Ministry of the Environment describe the renewable energy production capacity as follows: 65% of it would result from biomass, 4% from the sun and 1% would be voltaic and geothermal, although the geothermal source is a prolific one [42]. However, another impediment for the real economy lies in the fact that the workforce has emigrated during the past 30 years and the offer of skilled staff for installing, mounting and maintaining such equipment is fairly low, and consequently, according to the economic laws, expensive.

During the past three decades, significant steps have been made to create new methodologies, tools and equipment, which would systematically support the environmental strategies with a view to putting the green energy innovations into practice. Nowadays we have a better understanding of how human actions are impacting the environment [43]. Even if each individual on the planet is faced with

the carbon footprint challenge, the ensuing responsibilities are not clearly defined, at least from the quantitative viewpoint. It is most likely that the future will bring these clarifications, once the public expectations increase as a consequence of the severe climate change.
