Sustainability-related Issues Research Articles

Transformation of water resource management: a case study of the South-to-North Water Diversion project

Water transformation plays a crucial role in the rational allocation and avoiding over-exploitation of natural resources. Mega water transformation project will not only bring opportunities for ecological and economical use of water resources, but also contribute towards regional industrial and societal transformations. The scarcity of water is a serious issue for north China, accordingly the Chinese government decided to implement the South-to-North Water Diversion project in order to transfer water from the water rich south China to China's northern region. The South-to-North Water Diversion project is the largest water diversion project in the world involving significant long distance and inter-basin water transfer features. The management of this mega project faced a number of significant challenges as it had to contend with a variety of issues including politics, the economy, society, local culture, the environment and the local ecology. This project has also drawn global attention to the question of how to coordinate, manage and implement the world's largest water resource project. This study focuses on management practices of the South-to-North Water Diversion project by investigating the project's eastern and central routes. The three project management approaches that were used in this project, i.e. project owner direct management, project consignment management, and agent construction management (Daijianzhi) were investigated. Management regulations, control measures and common issues associated with the South-to-North Water Diversion project were also examined. These included: land acquisition and resettlement, bidding and tendering, construction supervision, quality management, cost management and schedule management. A questionnaire survey was conducted with key project participants in order to identify the key factors that contribute towards cost overruns and delays in the project. This is one of very limited number of studies which have in-depth investigation of mega water transformation projects in a systematic manner. The findings are expected to assist both academics and industry practitioners gain a better understanding of management practices in this mega water transformation project. This is particularly useful as the project team has to deal with a variety of sustainability related issues apart from traditional project management duties. Similarly, the lessons learnt from this case study will provide a valuable reference for the management of mega engineering projects and act as useful inputs for an international benchmarking exercise.

Broadening our view on nanomaterials: highlighting potentials to contribute to a sustainable materials management in preliminary assessments

Apart from completely novel functionalities, the utilization of nanomaterials (NMs) holds great promise for increasing the performance and efficiency of products and processes. In doing so, they are also expected to be more sustainable in that they may allow for products and processes that can provide better services using less material and energy. However, whether or not NMs do in fact contribute sustainable development still remains a matter of debate. While a relatively high number of risk assessment studies have revealed some of the toxicological and ecotoxicological repercussions of NMs, other sustainability related issues have so far received comparatively little attention. One of these issues refers to the sustainability implications of material use, such as environmental impacts of materials supply, resource depletion, or material criticality. Here, we argue that an adequate assessment of NM-based innovations calls for an inclusion not only of human health and environmental risks but also of aspects related to sustainable materials management. Recognizing the inherent complexity of sustainability issues as well as the difficulties of meeting data needs in early innovation stages, we propose a prospective and preliminary framework to assess the potential benefits and risks of NM-based innovations. We demonstrate the framework's practicability and usefulness in decision-making contexts by applying it to four in-depth case studies of specific NM-based innovations. Also, we point to some methodological issues that may need consideration in the further improvement of the framework.

Design of Dwellings and Interior Family Space in China: Understanding the History of Change and Opportunities for Improved Sustainability Practices

This paper reviews briefly the recent history of dwelling design in China. It notes the rapid changes that have taken place since the 1980s and identifies the way contemporary procurement processes leave out the final fit-out and decoration/refurbishment. A range of stakeholders were interviewed, and access was gained to drawings and other technical data that indicated how the secondary processes were carried out. These are largely ungoverned by regulation in the same way necessary for initial design. The key group is the occupants who drive the fit-out and decoration according to personal and cultural requirements, but often with less than perfect understanding of sustainability. The interior design industry has developed rapidly over the same period and was initially lacking in professional knowledge and understanding (something which can still be found). Advice provided to dwelling occupants was based more on appearance than function and efficiency. Over the same period, beneficial modifications to construction processes have been introduced in relation to structural design, and it should be possible to do the same for sustainability-related design issues. The paper advocates: more regulation; better assessment techniques; more information and guidance for home-owners; and a greater focus on energy issues.

Developing a Framework for Sustainable Supply Chain Management

It has been a while since supply chain management (SCM) has shifted its focus from production efficiency to sustainability related issues. Implementing this strategic shift demands all supply chain members, all processes, and generally all of the elements to be involved in helping the chain move faster and further toward sustainability. This has necessitated the strong relationship between supply chain and the three sustainability pillars: environment, economy, and society. Having considered this essentiality, this paper, describes the supply chain, sustainable development and discusses their existing definitions in the literature. The relationship between supply chain and sustainability is then discussed and a framework for sustainable supply chain is proposed based on the previous suggested structures for supply chain and sustainable development.

Sustainable management of mining operations with accidents: A mean-variance optimization model

Sustainable management of mining operations requires careful considerations of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) related issues. Motivated by prior studies on accidents associated with mining operations, this paper builds a formal optimization model to address the above three sustainability related issues for a mining operation with the optimal decision on mining quantity. To be specific, we model the number of accidents as a Poisson distribution with a quantity dependent distribution parameter. We formulate the objective function via the mean-variance approach, and incorporate analytical constraints which relate to environmental sustainability and CSR into the model. We analytically derive the algorithm which can find the globally optimal solution for the optimization problem. After that, we further analyse when the mining company should consider implementing (i) the pollutant reduction technology, and (ii) the accident reduction technology. It is interesting to find that the mining company׳s degree of risk aversion affects the choice of pollutant reduction technology, but not the choice of accident reduction technology. Several other important insights are also analytically derived.

Examining sustainability performance in the supply chain: The case of the Greek dairy sector

This paper evaluates the sustainability performance of the Greek dairy chain and the performance of its individual members by using key indicators in relation to efficiency, flexibility, responsiveness and product quality. We assessed the importance of these indicators based on the relevant perceptions of key members of this chain. A structured questionnaire was developed where nineteen sustainability-related issues were examined. Two hundred and fifty three members of the Greek dairy supply chain responded including breeders, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and catering companies. Our findings illustrate the immediate need for improvement in many key sustainability performance indicators. They also show the critical role of large dairy manufacturers who are the “sustainability performance champions” in this chain and are the driving force for the implementation of many sustainability initiatives.

Sustainability in Materials Education

Consideration of the environmental and societal impacts of engineering products and processes is becoming increasingly important, so sustainability-related issues need to be addressed in educating engineers. Awareness of sustainability issues is particularly important for materials and metallurgical scientists and engineers because they are involved in both developing processes and selecting materials with low-energy use and low environmental impact. In this article, activities at TMS to identify sustainability-related educational needs and opportunities to address these needs will be discussed.

Viewing Innovation through the Sustainability Lens

A number of recent studies (Brown 2011; Murray 2011; Kobb and Bernstein 2012) suggest that sustainability is gaining momentum as a central business concern. The number of company sustainability reports published in the past few years has grown exponentially; companies are defining and expanding goals for energy consumption, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. It is certainly in vogue for companies to use sustainability as a marketing tool, promoting their efforts to reduce their environmental impact, advance social issues, and profit in the process. For customers, however, what is and is not a sustainable product can be something of a mystery. There is no single, widely accepted standard for what exactly constitutes a sustainable product or company, and the number of sustainability-related certifications and indexes offered by third-party organizations is growing in an almost chaotic manner. Many companies are similarly in the dark, lacking a clear understanding of why sustainability is important to their business or how they should build a focus on sustainability into their strategies. Kurt Kuehn, CFO of UPS, pointed out three excellent business reasons why companies must address sustainability (Kuehn 2010). For UPS, Kuehn says, being sustainable reduces costs and improves efficiency, mitigates risks, and creates new competitive revenue opportunities. To achieve these benefits, companies must apply their innovation processes to sustainability-related issues such as minimizing the resources consumed by their operations, eliminating toxic materials from their products and factories, discontinuing the use of materials that support nefarious political regimes (for instance, conflict minerals), and providing solutions that improve the lives of those at the bottom of the pyramid. In response to the evolving marketplace, companies must learn how to address sustainability as a strategic pursuit and incorporate sustainability into innovation processes. They must explore how they can enhance their position in the marketplace by looking at opportunities to innovate through the lens of sustainability. Innovation is about creating new value for customers. Tony Ulwick (2005), in his outcome-driven innovation framework, suggests that innovators create value by focusing on the jobs customers are trying to do. Customers purchase a product or service to help them do a particular job--what we'll call the primary functional job. They assess the value of a product according to how well it accomplishes that primary functional job. New value comes from providing better ways to accomplish the job. According to Ulwick, innovators can search for solutions that help customers do their jobs better by applying three lenses to the problem: * How can the time required to do the job be minimized? (Speed) * How can variation in the result of doing the job be minimized? (Variation) * How can more output be achieved with the same or less input? (Efficiency) Sustainability, I would suggest, should function as a fourth lens to apply in the search for solution concepts. The primary functional job must be addressed first; the product must do the job or its sustainability factor won't be relevant. But once the company has applied the lenses of speed, variation, and efficiency to create solutions that help customers do their jobs better, then it can investigate how the job can be accomplished in a more sustainable manner. Suppose for example, customers of a car dealer express a desire to reduce the time and effort required to deliver their cars to the dealer for service. Applying the efficiency lens, the car dealer determines that it could charge a small fee to provide the service of picking up customers' vehicles and delivering loaner vehicles for customers to use while their cars are repaired. This solution greatly reduces the amount of time and effort required by customers to get their cars serviced. …

Sustainability-Related Media Coverage and Socioeconomic Development: A Regional and North–South Perspective

With this paper we discuss the differences between sustainability-related media agendas across different countries and regions. Utilising a sample of 115 leading national newspapers covering forty-one countries, we show that typically no homogeneous global trends exist with regard to sustainability-related media agendas. Instead, significant differences exist regarding the national-level prioritisations of sustainability-related issues in the countries under review. To some extent, these observed differences can be attributed to different levels of socioeconomic development as measured by Human Development Index scores and gross domestic product per capita. Here, generic differences can be identified between newspapers from the Global North and South, with a range of issues such as climate change emerging as typically Northern issues, whereas issues such as corruption and poverty show significantly higher levels of coverage across newspapers from the Global South. We conclude with a discussion of the results in the context of global environmental governance.

Health, sustainability and student travel

A survey of 246 pre-registration nursing students in a University in the South West of England was carried out to explore the impact of course related travel on the student experience. Results from the survey indicated that students’ main mode of transport to practice placements was by car which reflects the rural nature of the South West and the relative paucity of public transport. Long distances that many students travel to their study centre and to placements, and the concurrent financial strain that this creates, impacted negatively on the student experience. Students recognised the need to travel to a place of study and clinical placements and suggestions of minimising the negative impact of travel were offered. These included the increased use of electronic delivery of lectures, attendance at local university premises, the provision of shared transport to placements and placements closer to the student’s home. Few students, however, considered the environmental impact of travel. Higher Education Institutions need to address issues of sustainability through promoting student wellbeing and taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore important that student awareness of sustainability related issues is increased as well as focusing on reducing the environmental impact through organisational change.

Sustainable procurement practice

AbstractProcurement has a key role in sustainability as policies and practices need to extend beyond organisations' boundaries incorporating their whole supply chains. Guidelines on sustainability encourage procurement to make decisions that encompass the environmental, economic and social elements of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). Taking a supply chain perspective, procurement also need to analyse how decisions impact on the TBL in respect of suppliers. The results of a survey of sustainable procurement practices in 44 English‐based UK Housing Associations (HAs), who are responsible for the provision of social housing, confirms prior research of other sectors that suggests 1) a failure to overcome inertia in relation to sustainable procurement; and 2) in the few examples where practices have been established, only the environmental element of the TBL is considered. The organisations surveyed have sustainability‐related issues in their missions and external and internal pressures to embed sustainability, yet this has not translated into widespread establishment of sustainable procurement. Recommendations to neutralise inertia are: firstly, take the experiences from other areas, e.g. innovation management, which stress the importance of inter‐organisational relationships; secondly, develop a small number of sustainable development indicators for procurement and, to take advantage of the relatively more‐advanced environmental practices to show how these elements have socio‐economic impacts; and finally, rather than focus on just the pressures and drivers of sustainability (as suggested in strategic models of sustainability), emphasise the triggers that overcome inertia and lead to changes in behaviour amongst procurement staff i.e. the establishment of ethical pricing models. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Algal biorefinery-based industry: an approach to address fuel and food insecurity for a carbon-smart world

Food and fuel production are intricately interconnected. In a carbon-smart society, it is imperative to produce both food and fuel sustainably. Integration of the emerging biorefinery concept with other industries can bring many environmental deliverables while mitigating several sustainability-related issues with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel usage, land use change for fuel production and future food insufficiency. A new biorefinery-based integrated industrial ecology encompasses the different value chain of products, coproducts, and services from the biorefinery industries. This paper discusses a framework to integrate the algal biofuel-based biorefinery, a booming biofuel sector, with other industries such as livestock, lignocellulosic and aquaculture. Using the USA as an example, this paper also illustrates the benefits associated with sustainable production of fuel and food. Policy and regulatory initiatives for synergistic development of the algal biofuel sector with other industries can bring many sustainable solutions for the future existence of mankind.

Sustainability risk identification in product development

Sustainability-related issues present significant financial, strategic, compliance and operational risks to manufacturers. Many of these risks directly or indirectly result from the way a product is designed and managed across its life cycle. Assessing sustainability risk (S R) at the product design stage is crucial for the development of products that both minimise sustainability risk exposure and are environmentally sustainable. Managing the costs associated with these risks requires risk management intervention at the design stage before these costs are committed throughout the life cycle (production, use, end-of-life). The goal of the sustainability risk assessment (SRA) methodology is to provide an approach to comparing the financial cost of a ‘sustainable product’ vs. an ‘unsustainable product’, by factoring in the effects of S R on life-cycle cost. The SRA methodology demonstrates that, in some cases, sustainable products cost less than unsustainable products when sustainability risk is considered in the costing analysis. This paper outlines the first step of the SRA methodology, which is a process for identifying S R inherent in the product life cycle. Once key risks are identified, the subsequent steps of the SRA assess and prioritise these risks for treatment through changes to product design and materials composition.

The Scene Model: Getting A Grip On Sustainable Development In Policy Making

Sustainable development is a politically and scientifically contested concept. This is partly due to its definition, which contains ambiguous, normative and subjective elements. In addition, sustainable development is a complex concept describing developments at different time-scales, geographical scales and across domains. In this article, we describe the 'SoCial, ENvironmental and Economic (SCENE) model', a conceptual approach towards sustainable development that explicitly addresses these characteristics. The model is based on the struc- tural representation of economic, ecological and social stocks and the interaction between them. The possible applications of the SCENE model include integrated issue description, monitoring of sustainable development, evaluation of complex sustainability-related issues, strategy planning and a framework for quantitative modelling. In addition, the model provides a tool for the communication of these issues. The different applications are described on the basis of case studies. The common goal of all applications is a better understanding of the underlying dynamics of sustainable development and related issues.

Reflections on Governance: Power Relations and Policy Making in Regional Sustainable Development

The focus of this article is the application of the concept of governance in regional sustainable development policy making. First, the article discusses the current theoretical discourse on governance and looks at how governance is framed within European Union (EU) policy-making documents. Second, it discusses these more theoretical aspects within the field of regional sustainable development by using examples from various regions across Europe. Regions are identified as a very appropriate level for sustainable development and related issues of policy making. Therefore, a special focus will be given to the EU Structural Funds and how they promote the uptake of sustainable development at the regional level. The article aims to contribute to the debate on regional sustainable development by critically reflecting upon and analysing governance strategies in regional sustainable development policy making. The main argument of the article is that the power relations between the different institutions and stakeholders must be taken into account in any governance approach. Only when clear frameworks of rules, responsibility and accountability are discussed in an open manner can one find a way to understand policy making in an ever-changing society.