Environmentalism Research Articles

Effects of Climate Change on Islamic Shari’a Objectives

‌Caring for trees and greening the environment is significant for the protection of five major principles and objectives (religion, soul, intellect, generation and assets (of the Islamic Shari’ah. Planting trees has a clear effect on human physical and mental health. On the other hand, planting trees plays a significant role in the development of the economy, through which many agricultural products are obtained. Hence, for this, the rules and regulations that have been made at the national and international levels ought to be fully implemented. Generally, cutting down of trees and deforestation should be prohibited and criminals should be punished. There is an inseparable relationship between trees, shrubs, the natural environment and humans that has a direct connection with the souls and spirits of humans. The human soul feels comfortable and peaceful in the green environment. If you look at the nature of human, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (SWT) created Adam Alaihis Salam (peace be upon him) and placed him in Paradise. He lived there and benefited from the gardens of Paradise. As Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (SWT) has mentioned in the Holy Qur'an, human is naturally created in such a way that they feel at peace with the green environment. Therefore, a green environment should be provided and every possible measure should be applied when it is destroyed.

Synergistic Combination of Carbohydrate Polymer with Conventional Active Materials for Detergent Formulations

Novel ecofriendly polymeric surfactant based on Sorbitol and Maleic anhydride has been synthesized and used successfully in detergent composition. Sorbitol is obtained majorly as a vegetable product. In present research work a small quantity of Maleic anhydride and Benzoic acid along with major quantity of Sorbitol has been used in synthesis of polymer. The mole ratio of ingredients and cooking schedule has been standardized to get desired molecular weight, HLB ratio and surfactant properties. Powder detergents have been formulated based on these novel polymer and conventional active ingredients such as alpha olefin sulphonate, sodium lauryl sulphate. And linear alkyl benzene sulphonate. This synergistic combination of novel polymer has been used as a 60 to 80% replacement of conventional linear alkyl benzene sulphonate in detergent powder formulation. The preparation of this polymer is ecofriendly and has a potential for commercial use as an ecofriendly detergent in powder form. The surface tension, foam height, % detergency and stain removing characteristics have been evaluated and compared with commercially available powder detergent sample. The petroleum resources are soaring in price and their replacement with novel polymer of vegetable origin will certainly promote the cause of Green Chemistry and Green Environment. Key word: - Novel polymer, Sorbitol, Detergents, Surfactants, Maleic anhydride, Synergistic combination. HLB- Hydrophilic–lipophilic balance.

Investigating green initiatives at South African public universities

Purpose: All institutions of higher learning including public universities in South Africa must participate in green programmes in order to be considered socially responsible. This requires a better understanding of the green environment and green initiatives. Hence, the primary objective is to identify and investigate the existing green initiatives implemented at South African universities.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: The study investigated five key green initiatives: 1) Renewable energy generation and consumption. 2) Water-saving technology and consumption. 3) Waste management. 4) Sustainable buildings. 5) Personnel training and awareness creation. A five-point Likert scale collected data across 18 criteria measuring the five green initiatives. University managers completed and returned 149 questionnaires but only 144 were usable.
 Findings: The data has marginal reliability (α=0.412), acceptable sample adequacy (KMO=0.531) and significance at the 95% confidence level (p≤0.05). The results show that universities implement 20-25% of their green initiatives. The exploratory factor analysis identified seven factors explaining a cumulative variance of 56.14%. They are: 1) Recovering natural resources and recycling. 2) Supportive infrastructure. 3) Reallocation of resources. 4) Conservation of natural resources. 5) Leadership involvement and improved communication. 6) Improved technology.7) Efficient use of financial resources.
 Conclusion: This research contributes to the "going green at universities" of knowledge in South Africa. It is valuable to students, researchers, communities and the department of education in their pursuit to implement green initiatives at universities.

Spirituality and nature connectedness as mediators between exposure to nature and psychological well-being of school students

Spiritual meditations practiced within green environments develop a perceived interconnection between the self and nature that influences physiological well-being. This study investigates spirituality and natural connectivity as mediators between exposure to nature and psychological well-being in Malaysian school students. This study involved 293 students (178 female and 115 male) from four secondary schools in the Johor Bahru district with survey findings on the Exposure to Nature Scale, Connectedness to Nature Scale, Spiritual Values Scale, and Psychological Well-being Scale. The students in the study fell within the age range of 13 to 16 years, and the average age of the sample was 11.86 ± 2.32 years. Structural equation modeling indicated that high spirituality and nature connectedness mediated the relationship between exposure to nature and psychological well-being. Spirituality significantly influenced the relationship between exposure to nature and psychological well-being more than nature connectedness. These findings indicate that practitioners appreciate the value of certain aspects, like exposure to nature, nature connectedness, and spirituality, as a possible path for enhancing school students’ psychological well-being.

The Clinical Information System That Effects The Patients' Satisfaction Of The Healthcare Services

This research intends to understand and investigate how to increase patients' satisfaction by implementing the clinical information system and by looking at the service quality, green environment, and patients' perceptions to provide better patient satisfaction concerning healthcare services. The data collection is done through the distribution of questionnaires in Jakarta, Indonesia. This research is based on descriptive and verification methods; the sample is determined through Purposive Sampling, and the method analysis technique is Partial Least Square (PLS). The research results show that patients' perception significantly influences clinical system information compared to quality services and a green environment to achieve patient satisfaction. Healthcare clinics need to implement the clinical system information to assist the healthcare workers in providing quality patient services.

Implementation of Green IoT to Achieve Sustainable Environment for Improving Energy Efficiency

The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a powerful tool in the pursuit of achieving a sustainable environment. This abstract highlights the key facets of IoT implementation to foster sustainability. IoT's ability to seamlessly connect devices, collect real-time data, and enable intelligent decision-making has revolutionized various sectors, including energy management, waste reduction, and conservation of natural resources. One of the pivotal applications of IoT in sustainability is in energy management. Smart grids, powered by IoT, optimize energy distribution, reduce wastage, and integrate renewable energy sources effectively. IoT-driven sensors and controls in buildings further enhance energy efficiency through automated lighting, heating, and cooling systems, resulting in reduced carbon emissions. IoT's impact extends to waste management by enabling smart bins that monitor and optimize waste collection routes. This minimizes fuel consumption, reduces traffic congestion, and mitigates the environmental footprint of waste disposal. Moreover, IoT-driven sensors in agricultural practices facilitate precision farming, optimizing resource utilization and minimizing environmental impact. Natural resource conservation is another realm where IoT plays a pivotal role. Smart sensors and remote monitoring devices enable real-time tracking of water quality, air pollution levels, and forest health. This data empowers policymakers and environmentalists to make informed decisions, mitigating the consequences of environmental degradation. To achieve a sustainable green environment through IoT, it's essential to consider data privacy, security, and interoperability between devices and systems.

Sustainable construction materials under ESG: a literature review and synthesis

This paper aims to review the literature on ‘Sustainable Construction Materials (SCMs)’ based on the Scopus database and synthesise the review. Three advantages of embracing ESG in sustainable construction materials are identified based on the literature reviewed. Firstly, this can significantly reduce the environmental impact of buildings and contribute to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs). Secondly, by taking a comprehensive approach, decision-makers and practitioners can ensure that their choices align with environmental and financial sustainability and foster social well-being and equity. Thirdly, this can create healthier and more energy-efficient built environments for future generations. Fourthly, this will enable construction practitioners to make informed decisions that consider the holistic impacts of SCMs throughout their life cycle and promote greater transparency and accountability in their selection and use. On the challenge side, the triple bottom line of sustainability encompassing social, economic, and environmental aspects should be rigorously evaluated when considering sustainable construction materials. This integrated perspective is crucial for upholding the construction industry's commitment to UNSDGs and promoting a more responsible and green environment. Decision-makers and practitioners must prioritize implementing SCMs to positively impact the environment, society, and economy.

Factors of Carbon Emission Disclosure by Moderation of Company Size in Mining Sector Companies

This research aims to determine the role of environmental performance, profitability and emission volume in increasing the spread of carbon emissions by moderating company size. This research uses quantitative methods with causality and the data methods used in this research are descriptive statistics, panel data regression, classical assumption tests, hypothesis tests and coefficient of determination using Eviews 12. The population of this research is mining sector companies listed on the Stock Exchange Indonesia from 2019 to 2022. The sample was determined based on the purposive sampling method, with a sample size of 20 so that the total observations in this study were 78 observations. The data used in this research is secondary data. The data collection method uses the documentation method via the official website www.bei.co.id Hypothesis testing uses the t test. Based on the results of panel data linear regression, it shows that the influence of environmental performance with carbon emission disclosure explains that environmental performance is the company's ability to create a green and clean environment. In accordance with legitimacy theory, social relations between companies and society require companies to comply with norms that apply in society, one of which is by protecting the environment, if the company wants to gain legitimacy from society. Then company size can moderate the influence of environmental performance and emission volume on carbon disclosure. The reason company size moderates environmental performance on the disclosure of carbon emissions is that the higher the level of assets of a company, the greater or greater the disclosure of social information made by the company. So it provides a commitment to the interests of the company but must provide benefits to its stakeholders. So that partial profitability has no effect on carbon emissions disclosure, while the volume of carbon emissions has an effect on carbon disclosure.

Sport and exercise-based interventions for young people in alternative provisions ‘what, where, how, and for who’: a realist review

ABSTRACT Pupils in alternative provisions face unique educational, health, economic, and behavioural challenges. Sport and exercise-based interventions represent an innovative means of addressing these challenges. However, given the sparsity of peer-reviewed research, little is known regarding the what, how, and for whom, that facilitates successful intervention implementation. The purpose of this realist review is to address this gap and provide recommendations as to how interventions can be implemented successfully. Due to the absence of peer-reviewed literature; evidence was drawn from wider fields including interventions conducted in mainstream schools including children with similar characteristics to the target population. Nine initial-rough-programme-theories were developed including two rival theories. These data are formed to highlight the interweaving interactions within context-mechanism-outcome configurations. Sport and exercise-based interventions can influence pupils’ academic attainment, attendance, and relationships by promoting citizenship, facilitating exposure to green environments, and fostering belongingness. However, circumstances exist where changes in context or mechanism can result in contrasting outcomes. The context-mechanism-outcome configurations formed the foundations of the recommendations made to intervention developers and implementers aiming at making sport and exercise-based interventions in alternative provisions accessible and successful. Finally, findings of this paper are underpinned by the fundamental need for adequate space and resources within alternative provisions.

A Comprehensive Review of Advancements in Green Internet of Things for an Intelligent Enterprise

Intelligent Enterprise is a key approach for applying technology and service paradigms for improving the business performance. Currently most of the enterprises are changing the way they fundamentally work using various technologies that unleash a value in business process. The concept of Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged by connecting the things to internet without human intervention. Hence IoT has become one of the notable innovations playing an important role in our daily lives. IoT is generally characterized by real world small things that are widely distributed but have limited storage and processing power. On a day to day basis, the data generated from IoT devices is huge in volume and the emerging IoT services introduced new challenges such as strict latency, constrained network bandwidth, ontribution towards green environment and security. Various experiments are conducted to observe the impact of data volume on greenhouse gas emissions, latency, network bandwidth and security with low power devices in IoT. It was observed that there is a necessity to optimize the volume of data to reduce the CO2 emissions and then provide security during data transmission to overcome the above challenges.

Developing a WELL building model for office environments.

Many reported cases of occupants in modern office buildings suffer from severe health risks, negative impacts on well-being, and productivity loss. Existing building standards often prioritize energy performance and green environments over human sustainability. Moreover, office buildings have a distinct group of occupants that require extra attention. Hence, the study aims to develop a WELL building model specifically for office buildings to support occupants' well-being, health, and productivity (i.e., WELL). To achieve that objective, this study developed a list of physical indoor building features through a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews. Then, the features were inserted into a survey and sent to office building occupants and built environment professionals. The collected data was analyzed using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The findings suggest twelve new features applicable for supporting WELL in office buildings: workspace privacy, sufficient space, office layout, cleanliness, efficiency in building services, individual control, building automation system, Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) risk, security system, safety at parking lots, and safe design. Also, three new concepts for supporting WELL in office buildings were established: office space, building services and maintenance, and smart systems. The new concepts and features lay a foundation for designing office buildings that comprehensively target occupants' WELL. Finally, this study is unique as it accentuates the development of a WELL building model specifically for office buildings.

Exploring the potential applications of biopeptides from seaweeds, insects, and food wastes: mechanisms, utilisation, and industry implications

SummaryThe quest for a green and sustainable environment has created innovative ways of recycling and valorising agro‐based wastes, as well as using uncommon raw materials for food products. Likewise, food proteins and peptides are potentially generated from unique sources such as seaweeds, insects, hemp, rapeseed cake, olive meal cake, sesame meal, flaxseed cake, sunflower meal, spent grain, pomace, and pit for the development of functional foods and biopeptide‐based products. These biopeptides confer numerous positive health benefits against chronic diseases such as cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and neurodegeneration. In this review, diligent efforts were made to provide an updated status on the biopeptides produced from various unusual sources with certain salient considerations towards their production, biological activities, action mechanisms, and safety. We also discussed the possible drawbacks encountered during their applications in the nutraceutical and functional food industries.

Gardening work in an urban environment and the notion of territory.

There are several characteristics of working in an urban environment that challenge the usual forms of work prescription. This is a case study on the work of gardeners in an urban setting in the north of Paris. This paper develops the notion of territory, which we define as a system that is locally rooted in an open environment through the situated actions of gardeners' work. As the employees do their work in an outside environment, interactions in real-life situations are beyond the control of work organization. City gardeners' work is carried out in a green, living and human environment. We conducted detailed open observations in a town's green zones. These were complemented by individual interviews in work situations and by collective interviews within the boundaries of the municipality. We use the notion of territory to highlight the particularity of work within organizations where the work environment cannot be limited to the space inside their walls. The gardeners' work makes it possible to link residents and passers-by (on foot or in vehicles) with the town's green spaces (micro-ecosystems). Their work consists in connecting the different expectations and needs of the various life forms: the human beings (with a variety of lifestyles), as well as the plants, insects and animals. The particularities of working in an open environment create complex forms of prescription. The notion of territory, rarely used in ergonomics, proves to be fruitful for considering work in these contexts.

Green Initiative and Environmental Sustainability in South South Nigerian Academic Libraries

Green initiative is a global phenomenon and one of the UN 2030 sustainable development goals on environmental sustainability. The green library is gradually being popularized because of the eco degradation that is ongoing globally. This study explores the level of awareness of librarians, availability and strategies employed by libraries for green initiatives. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. A descriptive survey research design method was used for the study. The population of the study is 102 librarians in South South federal University libraries using census sampling technique. The instrument (GIESAL) questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents. Data collected from the study were analyzed using weighted mean scores to determine the respondents' level of agreement on a particular item for the research questions. The hypotheses were tested using the z test at 0.05 significance level l. The findings revealed that the level of awareness of greening library among librarians is low, insufficient fund, lack of initiative and absence of sustainable policies. In conclusion the green initiative for environmental sustainability available in the libraries are sustainable sites, indoor environmental policy, innovation in design, water efficiency, solar and wind energy, which enhances sustainability of library resources.. The study recommended among others that there is a need to create more awareness for greening in libraries generally and employ strategic methods and planning sessions to ensure sustainability

Assessing the influence of forest therapy on maternal health: a medical perspective and recommendations

Background: The health promoting benefits of greenness exposure were addressed before, during, and after pregnancy. Addressing the low-birth-rate issue of Korea, this review focuses on forest-based interventions to assess the mental and physical health of pregnant women in green environments, both nationally and internationally. It also proposes the utilization of green environmental resources as a strategy to improve maternal health and address the low-birth-rate issue.Current Concepts: Keyword search was done using PubMed, Web of Science, and Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) databases manually for references of retrieved papers until September 2023. Keywords included forest, greenness, and antenatal education. Of 107 potentially relevant papers related to prenatal education in forest or green environments, 12 papers were finally analyzed (comprising six domestic and 6 international academic journals). Overall, these papers showed at least moderate levels of bias. This review explored the influence of green spaces, forest activities, and psychological wellbeing on pregnant women. When analyzing pregnancy outcomes about green environments, differences between domestic and international studies became evident due to age, location, sample size, study design, and female participation rates.Discussion and Conclusion: The primary assessment tools focused on mental health, stress levels, quality of life, and overall psychological wellbeing. Domestic studies emphasized stress, anxiety, life satisfaction, inner peace, and maternal identity during pregnancy, while international research underscored the positive impact of green environments on pregnancy outcomes.

Stay or return? The role of city environment and digital economy in migrants in China

With the rapid development of digital economy, green environment and digital economy are constantly and deeply integrated. This paper examines the effect of city environment and digital economy on return intentions based on the logit model proposed by McFadden (1974). The results of this study show that both urban environment and digital economy have a significant impact on laborers’ decisions about return migration. Moreover, the study reveals that the older individuals are more responsive to the environmental quality, while the decision-making process regrading return migration is more evidently influenced by the digital economy for individuals with higher abilities and those within province. Furthermore, the wages of the migrants who intend to return also increase with the growth of the city’s digital economy, which may be attributed to the enhanced work efficiency. In addition, the increased impact of the green environment and digital economy on wages for the migrants intending to return is primarily observed in the middle-skilled and middle-income laborers.

A holistic approach for solar-driven HVAC evaporative cooling system: Comparative study of dry and wet channel

In HVAC, indirect evaporative cooling powered by renewable energy sources is the key factor for effectiveness with respect to thermal comfort, sustainability, exergy utilization, leading to a cooler and greener environment. In the cross-flow heat exchanger, the tubular wet channel is the main objective for analysis of 3E (exergy, economic, environmental) and sustainability, for dry and novel channels separately. In this research, both channels have been developed to evaluate exergy variations, sustainability, and specific total cost based on the influence of dead-state temperature, working air ratio, wet bulb depression, and the inlet flow parameters of working air. The results show that the wet channel's exergy efficiency is 18.8 % lower than that of the dry channel, and the exergy destruction of both channels is 0.08406 kW and 0.1311 kW, respectively. Moreover, the tubular wet channel demonstrates a significant economic advantage for cross-flow IEC device. The STC of the wet channel found to be 85.35 % higher, and value of sustainability was 25% lower than that of the dry channel. The values of annual emissions were found to be 4.09 kg/year for CO2, 0.304 kg/year for NOx, and 0.189 kg/year for SO2 for solar-drive device. A psychrometric chart has been drawn for thermal comfort assessment. The findings of the novel tubular channels have been presented in terms of sustainability, thermal comfort, and green energy solutions and the results of exergy variations have been compared with previous work in the literatures.

Effects of simulated multi-sensory stimulation integration on physiological and psychological restoration in virtual urban green space environment.

Virtual urban green environment images and audio stimuli had been proven to have restorative effects on subjects' physical and mental health. In this area, researchers predominantly focused on visual, auditory and olfactory aspects, while tactile and gustatory senses have been minimally explored. However, the optimal combination of sensory stimuli for promoting physical and mental recovery remains unclear. Therefore, a simulated sensory stimulation approach involving 240 participants was employed, with 30 individuals included in each of the eight experimental groups: the visual-auditory (VA), visual-auditory-olfactory (VAO), visual-auditory-tactile (VAT), visual-auditory-gustatory(VAG), visual-auditory-olfactory-tactile (VAOT), visual-auditory-olfactory-gustatory (VAOG), visual-auditory-tactile-gustatory (VATG), and visual-auditory-olfactory-tactile-gustatory (VAOTG) groups. This study aimed to explore the differences in participants' physiological and psychological health recovery after exposure to different combinations of simulated sensory stimuli in virtual UGSs. The results indicated that the following: (1) In terms of physiological recovery, the blood pressure of the 8 experimental groups decreased significantly after the experiment, indicating that the virtual urban green space environment has a certain recovery effect on physiological state. The combination of VAOTG stimuli in the multisensory group resulted in the best blood pressure recovery (p < 0.05). Tactile is an important sense to enhance the physiological recovery effect. Olfactory-tactile or tactile-gustatory stimuli interactions significantly enhance physiological recovery, emphasizing the importance of tactile stimulation in improving physiological recovery. (2) In terms of psychological recovery, the common trigger of olfactory-gustatory is the most key element to enhance psychological recovery through multi-sensory stimulation of virtual urban green space environment. VAOG stimulation had the best effect on psychological recovery (p < 0.05), followed by VAOTG stimulation (p < 0.05). Gustatory is an important sense to enhance the psychological recovery effect, and both the tactile-gustatory interaction and the olfactory-gustatory interaction significantly enhance the recovery effect. At the same time, the psychological recovery effect obtained by four or more sensory combinations was higher than that obtained by two or three sensory stimulation groups. This study confirms more possibilities for ways to restore physical and mental health through virtual natural environments. It expands the research on the benefits of virtual nature experience and provides theoretical support for the application of this method.

A closed-loop green supply chain with retailers' competition and product recycling in the green environment under the cap-and-trade policy

&lt;abstract&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nowadays, product recycling has become an effective strategy for manufacturing industries to achieve sustainable development due to the scarcity of natural resources, waste management, and greenhouse gas emissions. This study considered an imperfect production-based competitive supply chain model for product recycling in an emission-reduction environment under a cap-and-trade scheme. The manufacturer invests in green technology to restrict carbon emissions during production. The recycler collects used items at a recovery rate depending on the buy-back price and environmental awareness effort. The rival retailers compete against each other for the retail price and promotional effort. The linear type of market demand depends on the retail price, promotional effort, and green level of the product. The proposed model was analyzed analytically and numerically under one centralized system, five decentralized systems, three Stackelberg, and two Nash game structures. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis of the key parameters were studied to justify the feasibility of the proposed model. The present study revealed that the centralized scenario is mostly preferable for supply chain profit. The manufacturer-Stackelberg 1 scenario is most profitable for the manufacturer, whereas the two retailers collect maximum individual profit in the vertical Nash 2 model, where they jointly play the game. Moreover, retail price plays a crucial role in optimizing individual retailers' profits in the competitive market. In connection with the environmental aspects, the government should offer lower carbon caps to curtail excessive emissions and restrict the selling of excess carbon quotas.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/abstract&gt;

Corrigendum to: Mechanical energy harvester for sustainable development towards green environment

Corrigendum to: Mechanical energy harvester for sustainable development towards green environment