Economic Sustainability Indicators Research Articles

Unveiling innovation imperatives in agriculture: A data-driven framework for identifying latent needs and regional priorities

Innovation within a company, sector, or territorial context can arise from identifying specific problems or needs. Performance analysis provides valuable insights, potentially highlighting areas where innovation may be necessary. This paper outlines a methodology designed to identify latent innovation needs at regional, sectoral, and dimensional levels. This methodology is based on critical issues emerging from comparing economic, environmental, and social sustainability indicators of farms. An iterative approach is used for this purpose. Mixed matching algorithms are employed to form the comparison groups, while G-computation is used to calculate the differences. Logistic regression is adopted to calculate the propensity scores, and several generalized linear models are used to estimate the impact of regional localization. Hypothesis tests are then conducted to confirm the statistical significance of the impacts, from which criticality levels are derived. This methodology is applied to data collected by the Italian Farm Accountancy Data Network, which includes over 64,000 observations from two consecutive three-year periods (2016-2018 and 2019-2021). The results highlight the existence of widespread critical issues in Italian agriculture. These problems primarily concern the efficient use of water, whose costs, relative to revenue, exceed, on average, around 40 %, and greenhouse horticulture, which shows an increased criticality level in terms of sustainability of over 50 %. From a regional perspective, Puglia in Southern Italy exhibits the most evident critical issues, with an average criticality level of 30 % that has increased over time. The emerging criticalities are analyzed in relation to the interventions introduced by the 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy to verify their coherence and identify possible innovative actions that can be implemented.

Exploring effects of light intensity on sustainability indicators in finishing pig production

With an ongoing transition towards the use of Light Emitting Diodes, more knowledge is needed on which light settings optimise sustainability parameters in pig production. We studied the effects of four light intensities on social, environmental and economic sustainability indicators, including ammonia emissions, space use, pen fouling, weight gain, carcass quality, perception of the stockkeeper, costs of the light system, and use of drinking water, electricity and medicines. Light treatments included a low (45 lux), medium (198 lux) and high (968 lux) uniform intensity, and a spatial gradient treatment ranging from 71 lux in the front to 330 lux in the back of each pen. The latter treatment aimed to improve the space use of functional areas. A total of 448 growing-finishing pigs were studied on a commercial farm using two consecutive batches of four rooms containing eight pens with seven pigs. Light intensity influenced some aspects of space use and pen fouling. For example, the proportion of pigs lying in the resting area was higher in the high and medium light intensity treatment than in the low intensity and gradient treatment. Moreover, the high-intensity treatment resulted in more fouling with faeces in the feeding area compared with the low-intensity and the gradient treatment. Ammonia emissions were higher in the gradient than in the low intensity treatment (not measured in medium and high intensity treatment). Furthermore, light intensity did not affect weight gain, carcass quality, water use and medicine use. The stockkeeper was content to work in all light conditions, but slightly preferred the medium intensity due to optimal visibility. Concerning economic performance, the costs of the light system and electricity use increased in the following order: low intensity, gradient, medium intensity, and high intensity. In conclusion, contrary to expectation the spatial gradient did not notably improve space use or reduce pen fouling, but rather increased ammonia emissions in comparison with uniform light. This is likely because the gradient could not be applied in an optimal way in the existing housing conditions. Among the other sustainability indicators, mainly electricity use and costs of the light system differed per treatment. These aspects can be improved by further optimising the number of light sources needed per pen to achieve the targeted intensities.

Enhancing sustainability considerations in construction industry projects

AbstractIn today’s society, the construction sector significantly influences all three aspects of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. Industry and academia have recognized sustainability in construction projects as a key concern. The New Zealand government also focuses on providing a sustainable construction sector centred on high performance, high productivity, enhanced innovation, and improving community well-being through a better-built environment. Project management and sustainability are two distinct areas of research. Previous empirical research on the effectiveness of construction project implementation lacked sustainability success components. This research aims to provide criteria for project sustainability success for future performance on construction projects. Based on the existing literature, many economic, environmental, and social sustainability indicators were compiled for consideration at various pipeline project life cycle phases. The information gathered from the Scopus database was analyzed using ATLAS.ti 9 software to create project sustainability success criteria. Pipeline construction projects and sustainability must focus on environmental challenges while managing economic and social advantages. The research investigated sustainable construction adoption, revealing weak awareness among organizations due to limited understanding among key actors like clients, regulatory bodies, and construction organizations. Lack of effective application of sustainability guidelines, inadequate legislation, and building codes were significant hurdles in implementing sustainable practices in the construction sector. The study highlights essential issues to promote sustainable practices in the industry. The study findings suggest that organizations and individual factors are strong predictors for achieving sustainable construction and are vital antecedents leading to greater sustainability adoption. Finally, the study points to construction project managers’ knowledge of how to set up criteria connected to sustainability and how it could affect the outcome of their projects.

Does Environment Really Matter for Economic Sustainability: Exploring the Role of Green Energy in Pakistan's Economy

The key objective of the study is to investigate empirically the long-run Environment and Growth Sustainability nexus in Pakistan economy. To empirically achieve the objectives of the study, the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bound testing method was employed from 1990 to 2022. Green energy is used to signify environmental performance indicators and GDP growth rate along with other conventional growth factors; physical capital and human capital are used as potential economic sustainability indicators. To rationalize the findings of ARDL, restricted and unrestricted models are also estimated. The findings of the study disclose that the series under consideration are co-integrated which directs the existence of the long-run relationship. It is found that green energy enhances economic sustainability in the long run however it adversely impacts economic sustainability in the short run in the case of Pakistan's economy. The empirical outcomes of the study validate the widespread concern of the literature on the existence of the “growth hypothesis” which supports, that there is a systematic positive causation running from green energy to economic sustainability. The study findings suggest that regulations in the energy sector can encourage the applications of green energy resources, particularly in the real sector of the economy, leading to reduced emissions. It is important to adopt international standards for firms and industries and an international collaboration framework is required to ensure economic sustainability to prevent environmental degradation.

Environmental and Economic Sustainability Indicators for External Walls

The current context of the intensification of climate changes, on one hand, and the sharp increase in prices in the buildings sector, on the other, impose the need to find solutions that considers both economic and environmental protection aspects.This paper proposes a method of evaluating the solutions most often used today in Romania for the exterior walls in single-family residential buildings based on a global index that takes into account both environmental performances (adjusted thermal resistance, carbon footprint) as well as the economic ones (costs).

Biodiesel Production Processes with Yeast: A Sustainable Approach

In recent years, renewable sources of energy have been sought due to the environmental impacts associated with fossil fuels, such as greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. A promising alternative is biodiesel, particularly when obtained using yeast, as they offer certain advantages over other microorganisms due to their resilience to grow in various conditions, short reproduction times, and lower susceptibility to bacterial infections because they thrive at lower pH levels and have the ability to utilize a wide variety of substrates. Furthermore, biodiesel produced with yeast is composed of methyl ester fatty acids (FAME), providing it with good quality and performance in internal combustion engines, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional diesel. The production of biodiesel using yeast involves six general stages, which offer various methodological alternatives with different degrees of sustainability. The objective of this review is to assess the sustainability degree of various methodologies employed in each of the stages of yeast-based biodiesel production through environmental and economic sustainability indicators.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the “Green” Growth Policy Pursued at the Regional Level in the Republic of Kazakhstan

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the effectiveness of the "green" growth policy pursued at the regional level. An analysis of various approaches to assessing the sustainability of the socio-economic development of the region is presented. To achieve this purpose, a comprehensive methodology was used, considering territorial factors and sectoral conditions for the development of the regions. Domestic and foreign experience in assessing the sustainability and effectiveness of the territory development were analyzed. Existing methods for assessing the region stability are studied. An integral indicator of sustainable development of the region is calculated, which includes indicators of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The typology of Kazakhstan regions has been carried out according to the level of their environmental and economic development for the purposes of developing an effective environmental and innovation policy. It has been proved that the list of socio-economic indicators used in the calculation of the integral index makes it possible to determine with a sufficient degree of certainty the effectiveness of the ongoing regional development policy from the standpoint of observing the principles of "green" growth. It has been revealed that the modern model of socio-economic development of the country and its regions requires further efforts to develop adequate indicators of "green" development that consider economic, social and environmental components in a balanced way. The empirical conclusions of the work can find practical application in the process of developing an effective environmental and economic regional policy.

Benchmarking Economic Sustainability: What Factors Explain Heterogeneity between Wine Businesses?

To assess a wine producer’s economic sustainability, it is useful to benchmark its economic indicators against a suitable reference group. Existing research mainly compares wine businesses either by region or by size alone. There is a research gap concerning which of the two benchmarking factors can be more suitable or whether both factors are required. Using a framework of economic sustainability benchmarking figures, the effects of region and size, as well as the effect of their interactions, on 10 economic indicators were estimated through an ANOVA and the estimation of effect sizes. The analysis is based on a unique data set of business data averages of 382 German wine estates across six agricultural years (2014–2019). Region and size both had a significant influence on 7 out of 10 benchmark indicators. Wine estates from distinct regions more strongly differed in their primary indicators of production factors, price and yield as well as secondary indicators of cost and productivity. Contrarily, wine estates of diverse size groups more strongly differed in their tertiary indicators of profitability and return, which are key indicators of economic sustainability. Both size and region should be utilized for suitable economic indicators when benchmarking wine businesses for future assessments of economic sustainability. Hereby, this paper provides a first step in making economic sustainability less subjective for the German wine industry and how to move forward in regards to benchmarking within empirical frameworks and tools of economic sustainability.

Information technology and financial development for achieving sustainable development goals

The present study aims to answer the question of the effectiveness of information and communication technologies (ICT) and financial development in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Specifically, it examines the joint effects of ICT (mobile phone and internet use) and eight financial sector development indicators on achieving economic, social, and environmental sustainability in light of the SDGs using data from 48 Sub-Saharan African countries. Using the system Generalized Method of Moments, we found that (i) the four dimensions of financial development and both indicators of ICT increase economic, social, and environmental sustainability, (ii) increasing the access to mobile phones and the use of Internet contributes to the development of the financial sector, (iii) the contribution of financial sector development on the achievement of the SDGs increases with the presence of ICT. The study calls on policymakers to consider the diffusion of ICT and the advantages they offer in elaborating measures for achieving sustainable development goals.

Assessing the Sustainability of Beekeeping Farms in Turkey: Case of the Aegean Region

The aim of this study is to determine the sustainability level of beekeeping farms in the provinces of Aydın, Izmir, and Muğla in the Aegean region of Turkey. The data were collected through a questionnaire from 149 selected beekeeping farms during 2018- 2019. The study utilized Principle Components Analysis (PCA) to identify 19 basic sustainability indicators for beekeeping farms, which were categorized into economic, social, environmental and general sustainability indicators. Subsequently, the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP) was employed to determine the weight of each indicator, considering expert opinions. The results showed that the economic sustainability index of beekeeping farms was 0.45, social sustainability was 0.36, environmental sustainability was 0.92, and the overall sustainability was 0.58. The study determined that 14.77% of apiaries in the selected farms were unsustainable, while the sustainability of 38.93% was at risk. The results also showed that transregional migratory beekeeping harmed sustainable beekeeping due to its negative effect on both bee welfare and cost increase.

Sustainable construction projects management in the AEC industry: analysis and visualization

Within the last decade, sustainable construction projects (SCPs) management has become a hot topic in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry covering from building materials to the construction process. This study aims to systematically analyze literature concerning SCPs management between 2000 and October 2022 to improve the researchers’ overall understanding of SCPs management. From an objective analysis of co-occurrence keywords obtained by scientometric analysis, this study visualizes and conducts a detailed discussion about active studies and research trends. After discussing environmental, economic, and social sustainability indicators and their integration, the methods for improving SCPs management are summarized by a theoretical model. These methods include waste management, energy management, construction materials management, low-carbon management, green rating system, sustainable design, lean construction, knowledge management, capability building, value management, and implementation of new technology. Finally, future research directions are proposed, such as the social sustainability of different phases, the improvement of green rating systems, the development of green technologies, the collaboration of normative guidelines from different countries, and so on. This scientometric review explains the state-of-the-art research of SCPs management and encourages more interdisciplinary research involving relevant sustainability areas.

Are ‘tiny homes’ good for the environment? Focus on materials, land-use, energy and carbon footprint

Material consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are rising in building stocks. At the same time, the floor area of residential buildings per capita has been increasing. New houses can be very energy efficient but are often built from energy and emission-intensive materials. We investigated the potential of tiny homes for reducing material use, energy consumption, and associated emissions, as well as land use. For this study, comparative life cycle assessments and energy simulations were conducted on tiny homes, detached houses, and apartments in the context of Finland, Northern Europe. The results allow comparison between different building types. The studied tiny homes had lower energy consumption and carbon footprints than the reference buildings when comparing these indicators per capita or per building. However, when using floor area as a unit of comparison, the tiny homes perform worse. When looking at land use efficiency, tiny homes and apartment blocks performed better than detached houses. We conclude that, as tiny homes are strongly related to individual lifestyles, their overall relevance for lowering environmental impacts should be compared in relation to consumption habits and use of public services. Furthermore, the environmental benefits of tiny homes need to be interpreted in a broader sustainability context, especially in relation to indicators of social and economic sustainability.

Assessment of the economic sustainability of water capture from surface and underground water sources to supply urban areas

Analyze the implications of the configuration of the Sectors that make up the Water Supply Systems (WSSs) in the municipality of Belém, capital of the state of Pará, on their economic sustainability. The research was developed in three stages. The first stage consisted of identifying and collecting information regarding the WSSs operated by Companhia de Saneamento do Pará – COSANPA. In the second stage, operational and commercial indicators were determined for both Sectors selected as the most suitable for comparison, in this case the 12th Sector and the 23rd Sector. In the last stage, an analysis of the economic sustainability of selected Sectors was performed. It was verified that 04 of the 39 WSSs collect raw water from a surface water source, while the other 35 WSSs use deep wells (about 270 meters deep) to collect water from Pirabas artesian aquifer. In addition, operational efficiency indicators were calculated, such as the “Distribution Losses Index” – 69,08% (12th Sector) and 72,67% (23rd Sector), and economic sustainability indicators, such as the “Total Expense with the Services per Billed Cubic Meter” – R$1,92/m³ (12th Sector) and R$1,29/m³ (23rd Sector). In conclusion, due to the classification of both studied Sectors, regarding operational efficiency and economic sustainability, as inefficient and partially sustainable respectively, it is recommended to improve the operational and comercial management of the regional concessionaire, in compliance with the premises of Law No. 14.026/2020 and to ensure the economic and financial balance of the service provider.

Philippine Christian University Transnational Education Extension Program Towards a Model for Sustainable Distance Learning: A Case Study

This study is designed to explore three salient points: (1) the current status of operations of academic institutions in the Philippines brought about by the pandemic; (2) the innovative approaches of academic institutions that continue to survive and flourish in their continued delivery of academic services while still maintaining the required minimum standard and even above par set by the Commission for Higher Education (CHED CMO 15, s. of 2019); and (3) the indicators of economic sustainability of PCU’s TNEEP program both in the short-run and long-term operations. The research design is historical, documentary, and field survey. It is historical in nature as the researcher looked into the historical background of TNEEP in terms of its operations, market environment, demand factor, policy factor and sustainability indicators. It is also documentary in nature as the researcher looked into the documents relevant to TNEEP’s operations. Finally, it is a field survey as a questionnaire is constructed to elicit answers to the questions raised in the statement of the problem.

Assessment and Forecasting of the Effectiveness of the Agricultural Company's Innovation and Foreign Economic Activity Strategy

The current conditions for the functioning of enterprises that are participants in foreign economic activity are the result of active de-monopolization and liberalization in the sphere of the country’s trade relations in the international arena and require independent solutions to a wide range of problems, among which the issue of strategic management of their activities occupies a vital place. Based on the analysis of the theoretical basis for studying the subject of research, the authors proposed appropriate measures to assess and predict the effectiveness of the strategy of innovative and foreign economic activity of an agricultural enterprise. The authors proposed a procedure for a comprehensive assessment of the enterprise’s innovation activity strategy, which is based on forecasting the economic sustainability indicator of the enterprise and consists of 7 stages, which are described in detail. The authors tested the proposed procedure at an agricultural enterprise, which proved its effectiveness. The practical significance of the study is revealed through the possibility of using the proposed measures to manage an agri-enterprise’s innovative and foreign economic activity to improve it. How to Cite: Almazbek Dooranov, Kateryna Doroshkevych, Svitlana Cherkasova, Oleh Skasko, Yuliia Malynovska, Yuriy Malynovskyy, 2022. "Assessment and Forecasting of the Effectiveness of the Agricultural Company’s Innovation and Foreign Economic Activity Strategy." Journal of Agriculture and Crops, vol. 9, pp. 78-84.

Analysis of the impact of success on three dimensions of sustainability in 173 countries

The United Nations have announced 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets, which are indivisible and integrated, and which balance the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. This indicates that the performance of successful nations is generally good across many sustainability indicators. Our results, based on multi-criteria and statistical analysis across 173 countries, suggest an interconnection between a country’s sustainability 12 indicators and success. This article focuses on the Country Success and Sustainability (CSS) Maps and Models of the World, which show that improvements in environmental, social, and economic sustainability indicators lead to improvements in the country's success, and vice versa. The CSS Models explain 98.2% of national success and 80.8% of the three dimensions of average sustainability dispersions. When a nation’s success increases by 1%, the 12 indicators of the three dimensions of sustainability improve by 0.85% on average. The human development index and GDP per capita were the success variables with the most substantial impact on 12 sustainability indicators in 173 countries. Calculations made using equal and different weights of 17 criteria show a deviation of 5.34% for the priorities of these 173 countries.

Sustainability Trade-Offs in Media Coverage of Poverty Alleviation: A Content-Based Spatiotemporal Analysis in China’s Provinces

Poverty alleviation has always been fundamental for China to achieve the goal of creating a moderately prosperous society. This study conducted a content-based spatiotemporal analysis of media coverage, regression analysis of panel data, and text mining to examine how China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) Strategy is characterised by online mainstream media platform. A total of 10,857 articles related to TPA in 31 specific provinces of mainland China were collected and analysed by Natural Language Processing (NLP) analysis. The results of this study indicated that spatiotemporal distribution of TPA coverage was consistent with the typical logic of the Chinese government in policy implementation based on spatial and social marginalisation. Media attention on TPA is influenced by economic, environmental, and community sustainability indicators, reflecting the sustainability trade-offs in TPA-related media coverage. The keywords embedded in media coverage indicated that agricultural product promotion in extremely impoverished areas and the experiences of economically developed agricultural areas were essential for poverty eradication. Keywords emphasise top-down administrative-led poverty governance for extremely impoverished areas and local autonomy for relatively impoverished areas. This study provides perspectives for antipoverty governance and media empowerment in the postpoverty era in China.

A Systematic Literature Review on Performance Evaluation of Power System From the Perspective of Sustainability

Sustainability is a comprehensive concept that integrates at least three dimensions of environment, economy and society. The power system is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, adversely impacting environmental sustainability. It also generates necessary energy supplies, which promote economic and social sustainable development. Based on the sustainability nature of power system, this study puts forward an improved methodology, namely “Planning-Searching-Screening-Reporting-Reflecting” (PSSRR Cycle) to review the literature systematically on power system performance evaluation from a sustainability perspective over the past 20 years, with the aim of describing the current state of the whole performance evaluation system including the evaluation framework, evaluation indicators and evaluation methods, and providing research suggestions for future research. This study finds in the current literature that the Triple Bottom Line theory is the most commonly used theoretical evaluation framework; environmental and economic sustainability indicators are more emphasized; the DEA and MCDM methods are the more common evaluation methods. This study presents some future research notes, including improving the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard as a sustainable performance evaluation framework, emphasizing more social sustainability indicators, and using a combination of existing evaluation methods to make performance evaluation more efficient and accurate.

Flexible Work: Opportunity and Challenge (FLOC) for individual, social and economic sustainability. Protocol for a prospective cohort study of non-standard employment and flexible work arrangements in Sweden

IntroductionFlexibility in working life, including non-standard employment (NSE) and flexible work arrangements (FWAs), offers the organisation a better ability to adapt to changing conditions while also posing considerable challenges for...

Determining the economic sustainability reserve of economic entities in modern operating conditions

In complex socio-economic and political conditions, economic entities must have a sufficient level of economic stability and its reserve for normal life activities. Therefore, the problems of assessment and analysis of economic stability and its reserve are urgent and require immediate solution. The purpose of the article was to study the determination of economic sustainability of economic entities, its reserve, substantiation of the logic of the stages of this determination, and the formation of an appropriate analytical tool. In the research process, general scientific and special research methods were used: abstract-logical method, systematic approach, methods of analysis and synthesis, graphic method, method of building an integral taxonomic indicator of development, multi-criteria optimisation, multi-factor regression analysis, genetic algorithm, marginal utility method, cluster analysis. The article presents the selection of a system of economic sustainability indicators for economic entities of the state sector of Ukraine across regions from the point of view of their legislative basis. In order to determine the reserve of economic sustainability of public sector economic entities across the regions, an economic-mathematical model of multi-criteria optimisation of economic sustainability indicators was developed and solved using a genetic algorithm, which is a new analytical support in economics in solving this problem. A new result in economic-mathematical modelling is the method of forming partial criteria in multi-criteria regression dependency optimisation. The article provides a procedure for implementing the marginal utility method for justifying the final single optimal solution of the multi-criteria optimal problem of determining the optimal values of economic sustainability indicators. It has been proven that it is advisable to determine the absolute value of economic sustainability reserve for economic entities in the regions by their clusters, which were obtained on the basis of the system of indicators of economic sustainability and regional gross product per person. The practical significance lies in the fact that such a scientific-methodical approach to determining economic sustainability and its reserve allows for the objective development of management decisions at industrial enterprises to ensure their normal life activities in difficult war and post-war conditions