Increase Sustainability Research Articles

Consumer Behaviour towards Organic Products: The Moderating Role of Environmental Concern

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has changed the mindset of many consumers. They are increasingly aware of the risks of not caring for the planet. Before the pandemic, there was a perceived increase in collective environmental concern and sustainability, but COVID-19 has further accelerated this process and motivated more people to assume this responsibility. Thus, the health crisis could trigger the consumption of organic foods, which are foods produced through environmentally friendly agricultural methods and that have not been artificially altered. It is essential for retailers to know how these consumers of organic foods behave in order to try to modify their strategies. In this context, the objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between attitude, satisfaction, trust, purchase and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions towards organic products. The results of a survey administered a survey to a sample of 195 consumers show that trust is influenced by satisfaction and attitude. In relation to the behavioural variables, satisfaction is the variable that has the greatest influence on purchase intentions and WOM intentions. In addition, a moderating effect of environmental concern is observed on the proposed relationships.

How Does Corporate Sustainability Increase Financial Performance for Small- and Medium-Sized Fashion Companies: Roles of Organizational Values and Business Model Innovation

The objective of this study was to examine how corporate sustainability can raise the level of corporate financial performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fashion industry by considering the roles of organizational values and business model innovation in forming corporate sustainability. It is meaningful to explore the role of corporate sustainability in SMEs as well as fashion companies considering the recent growth of SMEs in the fashion industry. Practitioners (N = 218) working for SMEs located in South Korea participated in an online survey. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in three organizational values of SMEs: flexibility value, rational value, and hierarchical value. While flexibility has contributed to forming business model innovation and sustainability, having a rational value has impacted business model innovation and financial performance. A hierarchical value affected only corporate sustainability. However, business model innovation did not show any significant impact on corporate sustainability or financial performance. Finally, corporate sustainability positively influenced financial performance only for SMEs that had experience practicing at least three sustainable activities. These results have implications for how SMEs manage sustainability to enhance financial performance.

Joint Sustainability Development in a Supply Chain

ABSTRACTIntense media scrutiny and public backlash stimulate consumers to be conscientious about sustainability issues from the supply chain (SC) perspective. Accordingly, our focus in this article is on joint sustainability issues in a manufacturer–supplier relationship under a contract that possibly shares sustainability‐related costs, when there exists a supplier's potentially deficient sustainability effort. We find that the manufacturer may prefer indirect (i.e., paying a higher component price to its supplier) rather than direct support (i.e., increasing subsidies for a supplier's sustainability expenditures) when consumers are sensitive to the supplier's sustainability. We further find that as consumers' sensitivity to the supplier's sustainability increases, an uncoordinated SC will gradually approach the coordinated SC. This occurs because the increased sensitivity encourages greater cooperation among SC members. Our findings will help establish a better understanding of the joint sustainability development issues in an SC.

Assessment of the environmental impacts of medical devices: a review

Medical devices (MDs) are important health instruments, encompassing an enormous diversity of products, from simple ligatures to pacemakers, bone grafts or auxiliary life support machines. Despite the growing social and economic relevance of the MD industry in the health sector, its environmental problems have only recently started to be discussed. MDs companies worldwide are being pressed to assess the environmental impacts of their products by considering the full life cycle. These pressures are leading to the use of tools which promote fact-based environmental decision-making toward a more sustainable health sector. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and eco-design are well-known methods which may provide the MDs industrial sector with knowledge of the environmental impacts associated with their products and subsequently promote informed decisions leading to more sustainable materials, devices and services. This paper selects and reviews relevant studies using the methodology of LCA or eco-design, either applied in a singular basis or simulated, to access impacts of MDs. Seeking for a comparative analysis, this review is extended to LCA studies for the most used material in the MDs industry: the polymers. Results show that the number of studies is not vast, realizing the yet scarce use of either LCA and eco-design in the scientific literature for MDs. Nevertheless, it is observed that when applied either LCA and eco-deign can promote grounds for an increase in the environmental sustainability of MDs.

USING SUSTAINABILITY-ORIENTED PROCESS INNOVATION TO SHAPE PRODUCT MARKETS

Traditionally, the innovation literature has viewed product innovation as the key competitive driver for firms in the market. But as demands for sustainability increase and technology is advancing sustainability-oriented innovation across industries, there is an opportunity to reconsider the role of process innovations. This study follows the market development process of a start-up founded on the principle of sustainability-oriented innovation and explores how the process innovation itself is used to shape the external market. This paper considers the relationship between process innovations and external market development through a longitudinal case study of a vertical farm start-up in Stockholm, Sweden. Findings show that through a number of representational practices, process innovation can also serve external objectives and play a role in external market development for firms incorporating the principles of sustainability-oriented innovation.

Biocatalysis at Extreme Temperatures: Enantioselective Synthesis of both Enantiomers of Mandelic Acid by Transesterification Catalyzed by a Thermophilic Lipase in Ionic Liquids at 120 °C

The use of biocatalysts in organic chemistry for catalyzing chemo-, regio- and stereoselective transformations has become an usual tool in the last years, both at lab and industrial scale. This is not only because of their exquisite precision, but also due to the inherent increase in the process sustainability. Nevertheless, most of the interesting industrial reactions involve water-insoluble substrates, so the use of (generally not green) organic solvents is generally required. Although lipases are capable of maintaining their catalytic precision working in those solvents, reactions are usually very slow and consequently not very appropriate for industrial purposes. Increasing reaction temperature would accelerate the reaction rate, but this should require the use of lipases from thermophiles, which tend to be more enantioselective at lower temperatures, as they are more rigid than those from mesophiles. Therefore, the ideal scenario would require a thermophilic lipase capable of retaining high enantioselectivity at high temperatures. In this paper, we describe the use of lipase from Geobacillus thermocatenolatus as catalyst in the ethanolysis of racemic 2-(butyryloxy)-2-phenylacetic to furnish both enantiomers of mandelic acid, an useful intermediate in the synthesis of many drugs and active products. The catalytic performance at high temperature in a conventional organic solvent (isooctane) and four imidazolium-based ionic liquids was assessed. The best results were obtained using 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIMBF4) and 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium hexafluorophosphate (EMIMPF6) at temperatures as high as 120 °C, observing in both cases very fast and enantioselective kinetic resolutions, respectively leading exclusively to the (S) or to the (R)-enantiomer of mandelic acid, depending on the anion component of the ionic liquid.

Analyzing the Performances of Water User Associations to Increase the Irrigation Sustainability: An Application of Multivariate Statistics to a Case Study in Italy

Benchmarking techniques are useful and simple tools to analyze the performance of the collective irrigation in the Water User Associations (WUAs) towards an increase in service sustainability. Several benchmarking techniques have been proposed to process and predict performance indicators. Instead, some meaningful statistical techniques based on the distance of data samples, which overcome the limitations of the traditional benchmarking techniques, have never been applied to the collective irrigation sector. This study applies Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA), Multidimensional Scale Models (MDS), and Distance-Based Linear Models (DISTLM) as benchmarking techniques to evaluate the technical and financial performances of 10 WUAs in Calabria (Southern Italy). These benchmarking techniques revealed that the significant differences in the irrigated areas and financial self-sufficiency of the WUAs, shown by PERMANOVA, depend on the large variability of the remaining performance indicators. Both the MDS and DISTLM demonstrated that a higher number of associated users and larger irrigation service coverage allows an increase in the irrigated areas; this enlargement is facilitated if the water price and the size of the personnel staff decrease. The WUAs’ self-sufficiency is mainly influenced by the number of workers and the maintenance, organization, and management costs, while the impacts of the due service fees and water price are more limited; it is also convenient to increase the number of the associated farmers since this increases the economy of scale and the gross revenues of the irrigation service. Overall, from the analysis carried out for the regional case study, these benchmarking techniques seem to be powerful and easy tools to identify the problems of the irrigation service and help in planning the most suitable policies to improve the sustainability of the collective irrigation at the regional scale.

Does Land-Use Policy Moderate Impacts of Climate Anomalies on LULC Change in Dry-Lands? An Empirical Enquiry into Drivers and Moderators of LULC Change in Southern Ethiopia

The study set out to understand drivers of Land-Use Land Cover (LULC) changes in dry-land areas and investigate factors helping mitigate the adverse impacts of climate anomalies on LULC changes. By employing a mixed-methods design, it combined LULC data with socioeconomic and climatic data, to analyze the pattern of LULC changes and its socioeconomic and climatic driving forces along with moderating factors. It was found that rangeland decreased by 764 km2 (13% of total area) between 1986 and 2015. The results from the Seemingly Unrelated time series regression models confirmed preliminary evidence that climate variability, as well as adaptive land-use policies lacking components of sustainability increase the likelihood of degradation and contraction of rangelands. We also found an indication from the qualitative data that a widening power gap between the customary and statutory governance system reinforces unsustainable land use by obscuring the values of the customary land governance system. However, those policies encompassing economic and natural resource development objectives abate adverse effects of climate variability on land degradation and shrinkage of rangelands. The results suggest that a land governance system with natural resource development objectives fitting to the local context could be an effective policy instrument to lessen the adverse effects of climate anomalies on LULC changes. Although this study focused on analyzing the LULC changes and its drivers in dry-land area, the findings may well have a bearing on the formulation and implementation of effective adaptation and sustainable land-use policies.

Intelligent greenhouse monitoring and control scheme: An arrangement of Sensors, Raspberry Pi based Embedded System and IoT platform

Objectives/ Methods: The conventional farming approaches have been found unable to deliver an appropriate quantity of fertilizer. Similarly, no explicit measure can be established to regulate the climate parameters. In this study, we have developed a prototype comprising a sensor network (SN) based node, Raspberry Pi based embedded system (ES) that is active to monitor the climatic parameters with air temperature, air humidity, soil moisture,air carbon dioxide, and light intensity within a greenhouse environment.Raspberry Pi based ES is integrated with internet-of-things (IoT) analytics, termed as ThingSpeak, and sensor nodes are physically placed in a greenhouse environment to record climate parameter data being forwarded to the gateway. The gateway nodes direct this data to the agriculture professional(s) through a web browser over the internet. Findings: Based on the received data, the ES triggers the intelligent decision-making by implementing appropriate arrangements to regulate climate parameters. For example, the greenhouse climate is controlled through switching ``ON\'\' certain devices i.e., lights, water sprinklers/exhaust fan, and fan. We deliberate that the proposed scheme can be implementable at a bigger scale without any difficulty and it will be much advantageous for an increase in sustainability, productivity, and profitability of a farming system. Novelty: Up to the authors\' best knowledge, it is the first wireless deployment of ThingSpeak analytics for a smart greenhouse environment by using the Raspberry Pi. The main advantages of this intelligent crop monitoring system include uninterrupted mobile monitoring of the greenhouse, improved crop yield and productivity, negligible human interface/dependency. Keywords: Agricultural monitoring; greenhouses; embedded system; sensor networks (SN); IoT

Joint Sustainability Development in a Supply Chain

Intense media scrutiny and public backlash stimulate consumers to be conscientious about sustainability issues from the supply chain (SC) perspective. Accordingly, our focus in this article is on joint sustainability issues in a manufacturer-supplier relationship under a contract that possibly shares sustainability-related costs, when there exists a supplier's potentially deficient sustainability effort. We found that the manufacturer may prefer indirect (i.e., paying a higher component price to its supplier) rather than direct support (i.e., increasing its share of a supplier's sustainability expenditures) when consumers are sensitive to the supplier’s sustainability. We further found that as consumers’ sensitivity to the supplier’s sustainability increases, an uncoordinated SC will gradually approach the coordinated SC. We concluded that this happens because the increased sensitivity encourages greater cooperation among SC members. Our findings will help establish a better understanding of the joint sustainability development issue in an SC.

Assessment of properties of metakaolin-based geopolymers applied in the conservation of tile facades

The possibility of using geopolymers to fill gaps/lacunae in glazed ceramic tiles (azulejos) has been studied. Since the 15th century, glazed ceramic tiles are characteristic elements of the Portuguese architectural heritage and their use as external rendering elements has made them prone to degradation. On the other hand, civil construction is a sector with a high consumption of natural resources and CO2 emissions. In order to respond a necessary increase of sustainability in conservation/restoration processes, it is important to create/use sustainable repair materials, that also ensure compatibility and durability of interventions. Geopolymers were studied as a potential sustainable and compatible repair material. Two commercial metakaolins ARGICAL-M 1200S and ARGICAL-M 1000 were used as precursors in geopolymer pastes and tested. The purpose of this research was to assess the potential of geopolymers in the restoration of the glazed ceramic tiles, both in the filling of gaps and the bonding of ceramic fragments. Several tests were performed in order to analyse the compatibility and durability of the designed geopolymers and the ceramic/geopolymer system. The results suggest that the geopolymers had a better performance in the bonding of ceramic fragments and can have potential to be applied in the conservation and restoration of tile facades.

Economic and resource and environmental carrying capacity trade-off analysis in the Haihe River basin in China

Resources and environment provide the fundamental conditions for human beings to live. Coordinating the relationship between resources and environmental protection and economic development is a necessary measure for humans to pursue sustainable development. To explore the Haihe River basin’s economic and resource carrying capacity development, 26 indexes from 2000 to 2016 were selected based on pressure state response model selection. Through the TOPSIS model, the entropy method, the exponential smoothing method, and the Hurst index, the comprehensive capacity of the Haihe River is constructed. This study aims to quantify each carrying capacity of the Haihe River basin and analyse their levels and characteristics, with an emphasis on the trade-off analysis between economic carrying capacity and resource and environmental carrying capacity; finally, the study aims to predict the development of each type of carrying capacity. The results showed that in the Haihe River basin, there’s dramatic change in comprehensive carrying capacity’s level and subsystems from 2000 to 2016. The resource and environmental carrying capacity have negative correlation with economic carrying capacity, while a positive correlation between talent carrying capacity and economic carrying capacity. Based on prediction, from 2017 to 2021, the level of development of each capacity subsystem indicated an increase in sustainability. This research provides a trade-off analysis between the economic and resource and environmental carrying capacity. The study also offers a theoretical basis to the coordinated development of various carrying capacities, which has reference significance for promoting the sustainable development of the river basin.

Application of Reservoir Performance Indices on Kainji Reservoir System

Resilience may be defined as a yardstick that specifies the extent a reservoir recuperates when it fails previously. A reliable water resource system speedily returns to an acceptable state after a failure. Vulnerability measures severity or extent of failures or letdowns, if and once they occur. Sustainability index (SI) provides a sign of fundamental nature with respects to probable unwanted repercussions if imbalance of waters occurs. Sustainability index (SI) can also be expressed as a mean of reliability, resilience and vulnerability. This study employs commonly used indices (reliability, resilience, and Vulnerability) to assess the performance of Kainji reservoir system. To attain this, rain fall and river flow data were obtained from Kainji Hydrological station in New Bussa Nigeria. Analysis using MAKESENS software was used on the rainfall and river flows to look at the extreme events. In order to determine the performance of the reservoir system some reservoir performance indices were employed, these are; vulnerability, resilience, and sustainability index. This is achieved by adopting relevant existing equations. Reservoir flows and storages ware employed, different draft ratios were considered (0.3- 1.0). Varying demand levels were also chosen (0 – 0.8) as against the coefficient of variation to look at the monotonic behaviour of resilience against the various levels of demand. Volume reliability falls repeatedly as draft/ MAR upsurges and bigger values were attained as S/MAR rises. The analysis on the reservoir shows that as demand decreases the sustainability increases and also the higher the storage ratio the higher the sustainability index. It also shows that as draft ratio increases the resilience decreases, and because the draft ratio decreases the resilience increases. The reservoir system was classified as within year system, which suggests high resilience, less vulnerable and sustainable. The operation rule shows the need for optimization.

Work Standardization and Anthropometric Workstation Design as an Integrated Approach to Sustainable Workplaces in the Manufacturing Industry

Poor workstation designs represent a risk factor for operators in assembly production lines. Anthropometric design of workstations facilitates the sustainable development of the workplace. This paper proposes a novel integrated approach about work standardization and anthropometric workstation design as a strategy to increase human factor performance as well as the productivity index in manufacturing companies. The integrating approach is presented through a case study in a publishing press company with operators who perform manual and mechanical tasks in production lines in the box assembly department. Currently, the company’s production capacity is below demand, and in order to satisfy customers’ requirements, the company pays a lot of overtime to operators. In order to solve this problem, the integrated approach was applied. The findings indicated that inefficient movements and body postures in operators decreased from 230 to 78, and the standard time was reduced from 244 to 199 s for each assembled box. In addition, the production rate increased by 229 units per assembly line per day, and overtime was eliminated. Therefore, the novel integrated approach allows the increase of sustainability in the company and the operators’ well-being by making a better use of the human factor, eliminating overtime, and increasing production capacity.

Power sector reform and service delivery by Abuja electricity distribution company in Nigeria.

Despite the increase in the finance of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company on the construction and maintenance of power infrastructures, the output of electricity generated or power supply over the years was not enough to match the electricity output or power supply needed for a level that will bring about sustainability increase in service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), hence, the need for power sector reform. Consequently, there is need to assess power sector financing, power sector electricity charges and power sector labour force vis-à-vis the level of service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) in Nigeria. This research is therefore intended to provide a pivot for the development of the power sector through power sector reform and effective service delivery by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC). The researcher using content analysis found out that, increase in the power sector finance will help to increase power supply and consequently, the level of service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company in Nigeria. Increase in power sector electricity charges brought about decrease in power supply in Nigeria and consequently reducing the level of service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company in Nigeria .Increase in the power sector labour force led to a fall in power supply and consequently a reduction in service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company in Nigeria (AEDC). The researcher recommends among others, that Abuja Electricity Distribution Company should ensure that adequate provision must be made to streamline the financing of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) in such a way to increase power supply so as to improve the amount of service delivery by Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) in Nigeria. The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company should ensure that power sector electricity charges must also be streamlined in such as way to increase power supply by allowing every electricity consumer in Lokoja metropolis to have access to prepaid meters to avoid the problem of controversial bills between the electricity consumers and the electricity service provider often caused by estimated billing.

Halal Products Assurance Policy Model and Its Impact on Sustainability of Fish Ball SMI using System Dynamics Simulation Approach

Abstract Indonesian government requires all products distributed and traded in Indonesian territory are halal certified. However, the ability of Small and Medium Industries (SMI) to implement this law of halal product assurance is relatively low. For this reason, it is crucial to review the application of halal assurance policy on the sustainability of fish ball SMI since fish ball grinding process is usually performed in public places, so that it is relatively risky to be contaminated with non-halal product. The objective of this research is to establish halal product assurance policy model and its impact on the sustainability of fish ball SMI. The approach used to review SMI policy and sustainability model was system dynamics simulation method supported by Vensim™ software. System Dynamics simulation generates two scenarios; the first scenario was fish ball SMI that applies halal assurance, and the second scenario was fish ball SMI that does not apply halal assurance and standard under the competitor. The simulation result showed that halal assurance gives better market share value that leads to the increasing operational cost variable, followed by the significant increase of business cash and better sustainability in the business. Therefore, the SMI actors will be able to comprehensively understand their obligation to comply with the government regulation which stated that all products distributed in Indonesia are required to have halal certification and it should be able to keep the sustainability of fish ball SMI. Keywords: system dynamics, halal control point, model, policy, sustainability

Mitigating degradation and emissions in China: The role of environmental sustainability, human capital and renewable energy

China's carbon-embedded growth trajectory is gradually becoming a burden to environmental sustainability, hence, requires much attention. The complexity of human capital attributed emissions coupled with fossil fuel inclined energy utilization for industrialization underscores the failure of China to meet its mitigation target. We developed a policy-driven conceptual tool based on disaggregate energy utilization, human capital, trade, income level and natural resource exploitation in a carbon and environmental degradation function. Using a battery of statistics and econometric techniques such as neural network, SIMPLS, U test, dynamic ARDL Simulations, and Prais-Winsten first-order autoregressive [AR(1)] regression with robust standard errors, we examined the theme based on a data spanning 1961–2016. The study demonstrates that fossil fuel energy consumption and human capital are conducive catalysts for climate change. The instantaneous increase in renewable energy, environmental sustainability and income level has a diminishing effect on emissions and environmental degradation. The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is validated in both emissions and degradation function — at a turning point of US$ 5469.79 and US$ 5863.70, respectively. The study highlights that the over-dependence on fossil fuel energy and natural resources for economic development, carbon-intensive trade and carbon-embedded human capital, thwart efforts to mitigating climate change and its impacts. Thus, the onus of responsibility for achieving a cleaner environment in China depends majorly on governmental policies that favour or dampens environmental sustainability.

Is the policy of the European Union in waste management sustainable? An assessment of the Italian context

The sustainability of the waste management system imposed by EU legislation was assessed using the Italian context as a case study by analysing the period from the year 2007 to the year 2016. An integrated sustainability indicator (ISI) based on environmental, social and economic life cycle approach was used.Since the earlier directives the EU waste management policy was strongly oriented to the implementation of the higher levels of the hierarchy, i.e. preparation for reuse and recycling, and a contemporary ban of disposal activities and in particular of landfill. All this was stated in legal quantitative targets to be achieved within a given scheduled time, demonstrated by continuous implementation of a reliable economic, legal and political framework including, among others, penalties, economic support and extended producer responsibility. Noticeable increase of the amount of waste moved to recycling led to a decrease of main environmental burden due to kgCO2eq and kgPeq. The same activity led to avoided impacts detected for both kgPMeq and human health (DALY). A relevant role related to these benefits was also played by the waste to energy sector. Opposite trend was found for the whole average management costs that change from about 146 €/inhabitant in 2007 to about 218 €/inhabitant in 2016. A general decrease of the ISI of about 10% was also detected indicating an increase of the overall sustainability of the system.

Gastronomic Paradigms in Contemporary Western Cuisine: From French Haute Cuisine to Mass Media Gastronomy.

Thomas Kuhn brings the concept of “paradigm” as the fundamental engine in the progress of humanity. Kuhn defines paradigms as the set of formal theories, experiments and work methods that define a process (scientific, economic, social, and in this case, contemporary haute cuisine), in a given time. According to Kuhn, progress does not happen by gradual accumulation of knowledge, but rather by abrupt advances. In this review, the conceptual evolution experienced by contemporary gastronomy (from the French Revolution to today) is analyzed applying the paradigm structure in light of the scientific knowledge of each era. It is thus reviewed how the first and second gastronomic paradigms, proposed, respectively, by Carême and Escoffier and based on food smell and taste the first and the flavor of the sauces the second, have been replaced by the third and fourth paradigms, led, respectively, by the Nouvelle Cuisine in France and Ferrán Adriá in Spain, and in whose development touch, sight, and sound have become increasingly prominent in gastronomic pleasure. Finally, it is analyzed how new trends in gastronomy: (1) worldwide diffusion of the Spanish tapas; (2) globalization of ethnic and fusion cuisines; (3) the growing disappearance of the professional gastronomic critique and its replacement by mass media influencers; (4) the increase of sustainability in cooking with development of local-, vegan-, and paleo-cooking, comfort, and smart food and finally, (5) the growing role of social networks and the self-itis linked to photography or foodstagramming in the gastronomic experience are leading toward a new gastronomic paradigm based on the global socialization of classic gastronomy.

The impact of agricultural policy on income diversity among farmers in the European Union in 2005–2017

The aim of paper is to answer to the question whether the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy reduces the differences in the average agricultural income between the EU-15 countries and those that joined the EU in 2004. The hypothesis was assumed that the CAP subsidies reduce the differences in agricultural income between these two groups of countries. Spreads between average income of farmers from the old and new members were calculated. The analysis is carried out in two variants. In the first one, the agricultural income does not include the CAP support, in the second one the agricultural income covers all CAP subsidies. The spatial scope of research involves two groups of countries: EU-15 (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Austria and Sweden) and EU-8 (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia). The subjective scope of the survey covers representative farms from the EU countries (representing 4,045,300–5,295,930 farms in the EU countries, depending on the investigated year). The time frame of the analyses concerns the years 2005–2017. The data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) are used. The study positively verifies the hypothesis that: subsidies from the CAP cause a decrease in the differences in average agricultural income between the EU-15 and the EU-8 countries. This contributes to an increase in economic sustainability and in the territorial cohesion of agriculture for the EU countries.