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Sustainability
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Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission
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Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 23725

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. María Jesús Muñoz-Torres

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Finance and Accounting, Law and Economics Faculty, Jaume I University, Campus del Riu Sec 12071, Castellón, Spain
Interests: sustainable development; business economics; financial economics and microfinance; agricultural economics; risk management; corporate finance; economics and philosophy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Carmen Aviles-Palacios

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Madrid, Spain)
Interests: sustainability; entrepreneurship

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues, 

The European Union “Horizon Europe” Framework Program (2021–2027) is aiming to identify and develop 5 ambitious “Missions” of a maximum European impact in research and innovation. These missions are geared towards social challenges, economy, environment, and industrial competitiveness, as fundamental challenges that must be addressed. In this context, it is necessary to analyze the role of organizational engineering as a key factor. Engineering in general, and Industrial Engineering in particular, plays an important role in generating innovation by improving the design, installation, operation, management, control, and improvement of industrial systems while providing services to companies and other organizations. 

This Special Issue is focused on the role of engineers in promoting models of sustainable development. It also aims to present and review emerging industrial engineering methods, approaches, and technologies which address some of the most recent topics in the sector. 

The following topics are of particular interest:

  • Sustainability, eco-efficiency and quality management;
  • Strategy, innovation, networks and entrepreneurship;
  • Operations research, modeling and simulation;
  • Supply chain management and logistics;
  • Production planning and control;
  • Management information systems and knowledge management;
  • Project and process management;
  • Service systems;
  • Human resources and organizational design;
  • Product design, industrial marketing and consumer behavior;
  • Education in organizational engineering.

Prof. Dr. María Jesús Muñoz-Torres
Dr. Carmen Aviles-Palacios
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

  • industrial engineering
  • sustainability
  • eco-efficiency
  • entrepreneurship
  • strategy
  • innovation
  • operation research
  • supply chain management
  • logistic
  • production planning
  • management information system
  • service system

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 632 KiB  
Article
Managing Reputation in MNEs through Intangible Liabilities
by Maria-José García-López, Juan-José Durán and Carmen Avilés-Palacios
Sustainability 2022, 14(5), 3041; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14053041 - 4 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2516
Abstract
Company-specific assets, especially those of an intangible nature, are sources of value for the firm; consequently, the company should carry out a good management of them to increase the firm’s competitiveness, accesses to financing, reduce risks and improve its reputation. However, no attention [...] Read more.
Company-specific assets, especially those of an intangible nature, are sources of value for the firm; consequently, the company should carry out a good management of them to increase the firm’s competitiveness, accesses to financing, reduce risks and improve its reputation. However, no attention has been paid to the concept of intangible liabilities that a company may create or develop and its effects on the value of the firm, and the relationship with its competitiveness and reputation, with reputation being considered as the public recognition (perception) of the quality of activities of the firm by both internal and external stakeholders of the organization. The right identification of them should allow us to better manage companies. Through literature analysis and empirical observations, we identify different sources of intangible liabilities and their effect on the value of the firm, highlighting those of them that implies a negative impact in the firm reputation. We identified which factors are greatly impacted when firm reputation decreases, so that a constructor is proposed to explain the relationship among reputation and the potential of generating implicit intangible liabilities. As result of an empirical analysis, we conclude that the factors (corporate assets, quality of management, financial soundness and long-term investment) impacting more on perception of reputation by stakeholders are those linked to the management style of the MNE. This would help MNCs to better manage both intangible assets and liabilities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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15 pages, 1266 KiB  
Article
Appropriate Technology for Access to Universal Basic Services: A Case Study on Basic Electricity Service Provision to Remote Communities in the Napo River Basin
by Laura Del-Río-Carazo, Santiago Iglesias-Pradas, Emiliano Acquila-Natale and José Gabriel Martín-Fernández
Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010132 - 23 Dec 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2471
Abstract
Appropriate technologies (ATs) refer to technologies that are controlled by the communities that benefit from their implementation. Technologies have become a fundamental element in projects aiming to solve problems related to poverty and access to basic needs in some areas in emerging countries, [...] Read more.
Appropriate technologies (ATs) refer to technologies that are controlled by the communities that benefit from their implementation. Technologies have become a fundamental element in projects aiming to solve problems related to poverty and access to basic needs in some areas in emerging countries, and appropriation of these technologies is necessary to ensure effective transfer of knowledge and sustainability. However, due to the lack of consensus on the definition of ATs, there is a need to clarify and define the scope and boundaries of the term to facilitate the implementation of technology in projects in developing countries. This study addresses this gap by means of a scoping review, which presents a detailed analysis of 17 journal articles (from an initial selection of 95 articles) and provides a comprehensive definition of ATs. To guide AT-oriented interventions in technology-intensive cooperation projects, this study proposes an Action Framework based on that definition of ATs. The Action Framework provides guidance on how to implement technology in these projects to ensure that the technology is appropriated. To facilitate the understanding of the Action Framework, the study showcases its application in a real project of rural electrification in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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10 pages, 811 KiB  
Article
Artificial Neural Networks to Forecast Failures in Water Supply Pipes
by Alicia Robles-Velasco, Cristóbal Ramos-Salgado, Jesús Muñuzuri and Pablo Cortés
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8226; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158226 - 23 Jul 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2148
Abstract
The water supply networks of many countries are experiencing a drastic increase in the number of pipe failures. To reverse this tendency, it is essential to optimise the replacement plans of pipes. For this reason, companies demand pioneering techniques to predict which pipes [...] Read more.
The water supply networks of many countries are experiencing a drastic increase in the number of pipe failures. To reverse this tendency, it is essential to optimise the replacement plans of pipes. For this reason, companies demand pioneering techniques to predict which pipes are more prone to fail. In this study, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is designed to classify pipes according to their predisposition to fail based on physical and operational input variables. In addition, the usefulness and effectiveness of two sampling methods, under-sampling and over-sampling, are analysed. The implementation of the model is done using the open-source software Weka, which is specialised in machine-learning algorithms. The system is tested with a database from a real water network in Spain, obtaining high-accurate results. It is verified that the balance of the training set is imperative to increase the predictions’ accurateness. Furthermore, under-sampling prioritises true positive rates, whereas over-sampling makes the system learn to predict failures and non-failures with the same precision. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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23 pages, 24870 KiB  
Article
Collaborative Distributed Planning with Asymmetric Information. A Technological Driver for Sustainable Development
by Gregorio Rius-Sorolla, Julien Maheut, Sofia Estelles-Miguel and Jose P. Garcia-Sabater
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6628; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126628 - 10 Jun 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1862
Abstract
The growing interest in sustainable development is reflected in both the market’s sensitivity to environmental and social issues and companies’ interest in the opportunities that sustainable development objectives provide. SMEs, which account for most of the world’s pollution, have significant resource constraints for [...] Read more.
The growing interest in sustainable development is reflected in both the market’s sensitivity to environmental and social issues and companies’ interest in the opportunities that sustainable development objectives provide. SMEs, which account for most of the world’s pollution, have significant resource constraints for a sustainable development. Sharing their scarce resources can help them to overcome these constraints and to gain agility and organisational resilience against uncertainties, but the distrust inherent in belonging to different companies prevents them from sharing the necessary information for coordination purposes. This paper presents a coordination mechanism proposal with information asymmetry to allow independent companies’ resources to be sustainably shared as a technological driver. The proposed distributed coordination mechanism is compared to both a decentralised–uncoordinated and a centralised situation. The interest of the proposal is evaluated by a computer simulation experiment employing mathematical programming models with independent objectives in the Generic Materials and Operations Planning formulation with a rolling horizon procedure in different demand, uncertainty and product scenarios. Competitive improvement is identified for all members for their excess capacity use and their operations planning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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20 pages, 876 KiB  
Article
Key Challenges to Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
by Koppiahraj Karuppiah, Bathrinath Sankaranarayanan, Syed Mithun Ali and Sanjoy Kumar Paul
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 5850; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115850 - 22 May 2021
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 6708
Abstract
COVID-19 has had a major impact on health, economic, social, and industrial activities. It has disrupted supply chain management and affected the movement of essential supplies to a large extent. This study aims to identify and evaluate the challenges hampering sustainable humanitarian supply [...] Read more.
COVID-19 has had a major impact on health, economic, social, and industrial activities. It has disrupted supply chain management and affected the movement of essential supplies to a large extent. This study aims to identify and evaluate the challenges hampering sustainable humanitarian supply chain management (SHSCM). Twenty critical challenges to SHSCM are identified using a comprehensive literature review, and three strategies were developed. The challenges and strategies were verified using expert input. The challenges were evaluated using the neutrosophic analytic hierarchical process (AHP) method. The neutrosophic TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for interactive multicriteria decision making) method was then used to select the best strategy. The findings reveal that facility location problems, short lead times for emergency supplies, spread of rumors, rapid emergence of new clusters, and doubt concerning the available remedy are five critical challenges in SHSCM during COVID-19. Public–private partnerships are identified as the best strategy in SHSCM. Finally, this paper discusses the implications to sustainable development goals in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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12 pages, 1246 KiB  
Article
A New Mindset for Circular Economy Strategies: Case Studies of Circularity in the Use of Water
by Elisabeth Viles, Javier Santos, Tamara Fernández Arévalo, Martín Tanco and Florencia Kalemkerian
Sustainability 2020, 12(22), 9781; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229781 - 23 Nov 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3660
Abstract
In a circular economy (CE) environment, it is important to make good and efficient use of resources and consider that the waste generated in production processes can be a valuable resource. However, the tools and methodologies conventionally used to analyze and evaluate production [...] Read more.
In a circular economy (CE) environment, it is important to make good and efficient use of resources and consider that the waste generated in production processes can be a valuable resource. However, the tools and methodologies conventionally used to analyze and evaluate production systems are based on techniques focused on linear production management models, where the primary purpose is to reduce the treatment and management of waste as much as possible and where productive and environmental efficiency are not evaluated simultaneously. Changing the paradigm from a linear to a circular economy requires that a new strategy for production systems be defined, one that makes production processes simultaneously circular and efficient (in terms of quality and productivity). In this context, a holistic vision is needed when implementing CE strategies. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to provide evidence, through two real case studies in the use of water, that the management of this resource without considering systemic thinking may not be the most circular solution. Main results showed that improvements based on the traditional approach of reducing resource use cannot provide the best results if they are supported only by current process consumption without considering the circularity of resources. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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11 pages, 2938 KiB  
Article
False Alarms Analysis of Wind Turbine Bearing System
by Ana María Peco Chacón, Isaac Segovia Ramírez and Fausto Pedro García Márquez
Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 7867; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197867 - 23 Sep 2020
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 2803
Abstract
Wind turbines are complex systems that use advanced condition monitoring systems for analyzing their health status. The gearbox is one of the most critical components due to its elevated downtime and failure rate. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems are employed in wind [...] Read more.
Wind turbines are complex systems that use advanced condition monitoring systems for analyzing their health status. The gearbox is one of the most critical components due to its elevated downtime and failure rate. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems are employed in wind farms for condition monitoring and control in real time. The volume and variety of the data require novel and robust techniques for data analysis. The main novelty of this work is the development of a new modelling of the temperature curve of the gearbox bearing versus wind speed to detect false alarms. An approach based on data partitioning and data mining centers is employed. The wind speed range is divided into intervals to increase the accuracy of the model, where the centers are considered representative samples in the modelling. A method based on the alarm detection is developed and studied together with the alarms report provided by a real case study. The results obtained allow the identification of critical alarm periods outside the confidence interval. It is validated that the study of alarm identification, pre-filtered data, state variable, and output power contribute to the detection of the false alarms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ensuring Sustainability towards the 2030 Mission)
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