Sustainable Development Approach Research Articles

Success factors for the adoption of green lean six sigma in healthcare facility: an ISM-MICMAC study

PurposeGreen lean six sigma (GLSS) is a sustainable development approach that leads to improved patient care with improved safety and quality of service to patients. This study aims to identify, study, model and analyze GLSS success factors for the Indian health-care facility.Design/methodology/approachInterpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification analyses have been used to understand the hierarchical structure among the GLSS success factors. This enabled the development of dependency relationships between success factors, in particular, which factors support the development of other factors.FindingsSpecifically, this study found that the success factors “commitment of management” and “financial availability” are the most critical to GLSS implementation success, as they support the development of all other success factors. Meanwhile “embedding sustainable measures at each stage of the service”; “the capability and effectiveness of real-time data collection”; and “feedback and corrective actions” most directly support the GLSS implementation in the health-care facility and serve as the final indicators of implementation progress.Research limitations/implicationsThe major implication of this research work lies in suggesting a direction for practitioners to execute the GLSS approach through a systematic understanding of classification and structural relationships among different enablers. This study also facilitates health-care managers to explore different GL wastes in hospitals and challenges to sustainability pursuits in health-care that assist in an organization’s efforts toward sustainable development.Originality/valueThis research work is the first of its kind that deals with the identification and analysis of the prominent factors that foster the inclusive implementation of GLSS within the health-care facility.

Agro-Industrial Food Waste as a Low-Cost Substrate for Sustainable Production of Industrial Enzymes: A Critical Review

The grave environmental, social, and economic concerns over the unprecedented exploitation of non-renewable energy resources have drawn the attention of policy makers and research organizations towards the sustainable use of agro-industrial food and crop wastes. Enzymes are versatile biocatalysts with immense potential to transform the food industry and lignocellulosic biorefineries. Microbial enzymes offer cleaner and greener solutions to produce fine chemicals and compounds. The production of industrially important enzymes from abundantly present agro-industrial food waste offers economic solutions for the commercial production of value-added chemicals. The recent developments in biocatalytic systems are designed to either increase the catalytic capability of the commercial enzymes or create new enzymes with distinctive properties. The limitations of low catalytic efficiency and enzyme denaturation in ambient conditions can be mitigated by employing diverse and inexpensive immobilization carriers, such as agro-food based materials, biopolymers, and nanomaterials. Moreover, revolutionary protein engineering tools help in designing and constructing tailored enzymes with improved substrate specificity, catalytic activity, stability, and reaction product inhibition. This review discusses the recent developments in the production of essential industrial enzymes from agro-industrial food trash and the application of low-cost immobilization and enzyme engineering approaches for sustainable development.

Co-producing an ecosystem services-based plan for sustainable university campuses

In the context of global change, social-ecological perspectives for organisations and territorial planning schemes are key to facilitate a transition towards sustainability. Consequently, Ecosystem Services (ES) assessment and mapping are being increasingly used to enhance knowledge co-production for more sustainable territorial management. Higher education organizations have the potential to catalyse the sustainability transition of society, but there is a lack of studies integrating novel and current sustainable development approaches in spatial planning at university campuses. Here, we proposed an integrated approach for developing an ecosystem services-based plan to manage the campus of the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). We developed a participatory process integrating all the various actors and the decision making-bodies of the university. This participatory process involved meetings with different groups and 2,126 surveys administrated to students, professors, researchers and administration/services staff. We also developed a technical process for assessing ES including eight ES maps (four regulating, one provisioning and three cultural), consulted with the experts and stakeholders involved, and built the final version of the planning guide integrating all perspectives to promote ES-based strategic lines. Our results showed that ES maps are useful for creating management units and for multi-scale analysis. ES maps highlighted important values of the campus, allowing the integration of more social actors that allow a stronger participative process and the creation of a long-term planning scheme. However, we identified certain aspects of the ES approach that hinder real-world application, including inherent problems associated with shifting politics.

Experimental Study of Mechanical Properties of Geopolymer Concrete as Green Concrete with a Sustainable Development Approach in the Construction Industry, Under High Temperature

Experimental Study of Mechanical Properties of Geopolymer Concrete as Green Concrete with a Sustainable Development Approach in the Construction Industry, Under High Temperature

A prospective study of various services utilization under the WADI project of NABARD by Tribal Women of Goalpara District

Purpose: The purpose of the Study is to evaluate challenges and opportunities of various services utilization under the WADI project of NABARD by Tribal Women of Goalpara in the prospective of study design.
 Theoretical Framework: There is a significant role of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in the socio-economic development of India in the perspective of the development of a sustainable development approach of livelihood for underprivileged people in the backward regions of India. In these consequences, a project of Wasteland Development in India (WADI) is a master plan NABARD for socio-economic development in the backward region of India, especially for promoting a sustainable development approach for scheduled tribes of India.
 Approach: The study is based on the review of related literature to study the various service utilisations under the WADI projects in the Goalpara district of Assam. For the purpose of the study various literatures, books, magazines, papers, newspapers and articles have been reviewed. Literature search revealed 121 articles or 99 abstracts, and citations showed 22 investigations. 39 publications did not meet the study's inclusion requirements, and 32 abstracts were rejected, 23 from non-English sources. 27 relevant peer-reviewed publications were chosen based on the inclusion criteria.
 Finding and social Implications: The findings of the study show that the implementation of master projects of NABARD is based according to the socio-economic and cultural practices of tribal communities in the Goalpara district of Assam because these tribes are inherited in their cultural landscape, and this cultural landscape represents their association with agroforestry. From these perspectives, it is found that the Goalpara district is the most backward region of Assam, where scheduled tribes account for the major proportion of the population of the district. Additionally, the role of NABARD is to promote and lead the mechanism of women empowerment through projects of WADI in the Goalpara district. However, it is also found that many challenges and problems emerged in the implementation of WADI projects due to the lack of transport and communication facilities in the Goalpara district of Assam.
 Originality/Value: In these consequences, it can be valued that NABARD is providing a sustainable approach to socio-economic development for scheduled tribes through the help of NGOs and organizations of the central government and state government of Assam. A depth analysis was conducted to understand the mechanism of role of the tribal community in the context of WADI projects of NABARD in the perspective of tribal abundant zone of Assam in India.

Finding logic models for sustainable marine development that deliver on social equity

Sustainable development is often represented as contributing to desirable outcomes across economic, environmental, and social goals, yet policies and interventions attempting to deliver sustainable development often disagree on the order in which these categories of goals should be addressed. In this Essay, we identify and review 5 approaches (called logic models) for sustainable development in ocean systems based on existing policies and interventions and consider the evidence for their contributions to equity—the ultimate goal of sustainable development according to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two of the 5 logic models prioritize economic growth and lead to social and environmental benefits, 2 prioritize environmental health as a prerequisite for sustainable economic and social benefits, and the final logic model is community driven and prioritizes social dimensions. Looking towards the 2030 maturation of the SDGs, we will need to understand what models are best suited to deliver on equity gains and prevent future inequities in development and how best to operationalize them.

Assessment of cross-cutting competences in education for sustainable development

The current context, with the many changes occurring in both local and distant environments, raises ethical questions that challenge our emotions, our relationships, and our vision of the world and our place in it. These changes require us to be capable of apprehending a complex set of problems so as to understand and analyse them, grasp the individual and societal challenges they present, and, with full awareness of the issues, decide how to behave. This aim of enabling every citizen to be capable of making informed choices and acting responsibly is found in the curricula of many countries, including Switzerland. Education about changes, for systemic and forward-looking vision and for action is rooted in particular in the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approach. Our study aims to better define what is conducive in compulsory schooling to the development of cross-cutting competences and their assessment.

The Sustainable Development and Strategic Approaches for Contemporary Higher Education

Due to the increasing appearance of global contagious diseases such as COVID-19, the goal of this research is to directly and explicitly advance the learning motivation, interests, and performance of online course participants into developing sustainable development and strategic approaches to discover the effective solution of the research question: how to provide the most effective online courses of sustainable development strategy for contemporary higher education in order to advance the student’s learning motivation, confidence, and desires? This is accomplished by integrating the three briefest analytical aspects of the Social Learning Theory, the main theoretical philosophies of Learning Community, and 10 core technological features to determine the most critical core determinants. Beyond the complex measured results, the most valuable conclusions were: (1) the highest Standardized Comparative Weight Scales (SCWS) was located in the Publicity Philosophy for contemporary online higher education sustainable development strategy, which meant the first hypothesis was accepted and the second and third hypotheses were denied. Hence, the Publicity Philosophy (PP) of the learning community directly and effectively advanced the contemporary online higher education sustainable development strategy for educational institutions as the best solution to the research question in order to achieve the main research objective. (2) Continuously, in detail, the PP of the learning community was directly and effectively enforced by the Professionalization Technology Feature of Course Function. This directly indicated that most online course participants focus on the professionalized technological features in the system operation, such as friendly operational platforms for easy uploads, convenient downloads of online course information, and real-time news during online courses at higher education institutions. Significantly, the aggregated technology in group discussions or teamwork assignments and the complete and fair evaluation of online course technological system can facilitate collaborative lesson preparation and lesson observation of the PP of the learning community in order to advance online course interests and learning performance to be the sustainable development strategic approach in contemporary higher education era.

Investigating beach tourism climate of Mazandaran Province emphasizing the sustainable development approach using beach climate index (BCI) and physiologically equivalent temperature (PET)

Investigating beach tourism climate of Mazandaran Province emphasizing the sustainable development approach using beach climate index (BCI) and physiologically equivalent temperature (PET)

Dampak Ekspansi Biomassa sebagai Energi Terbarukan: Kasus Energi Terbarukan Indonesia

Energy is vital to Indonesia's economy, acting as a source of consumption and production across many industries. Sustainable development approaches should be employed to maximise energy use for the common good. A literature study on biomass as renewable energy (RE) in ASEAN and Indonesia. ASEAN countries want to reach 23% renewable energy by 2025, according to the meeting's outcome. The ASEAN Government slashed fuel subsidies and fossil fuels and increased regional market integration and project execution speed to attain the 23% renewable energy objective by 2025. Indonesia’s renewable energy sources are many. Indonesia’s renewable energy development is not as advanced as other countries’. In 2017, the country added 9 GW of renewable energy capacity. Indonesia produce 146.7 million tonnes of biomass in 2019, or 470 GJ/year. Indonesia has a lot of biomass energy potential, so it should keep producing/using renewable energy as much as feasible for society, and its management should follow sustainable development principles.

A sustainable development approach of silica recovery and treatment of semiconductor-industry wastewater using ceramic membranes

ABSTRACT The semiconductor sector generates a large amount of wastewater. If these wastewaters are not treated, they can be harmful to the environment. Wastewater often contains silicon particles, which could be recovered and repurposed. Membrane technology has grown significantly and offers benefits in treating wastewater. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of ceramic membrane as a sustainable development approach of silica recovery for the treatment of semiconductor-industry wastewater. Two ultrafiltration (UF) ceramic membranes with different molecular weight cutoff were used in this study. UF membrane with pore diameter smaller than hydrodynamic particle size of the silica colloids (124.3 nm to 126.7 nm) was able to recover silica colloids. Membrane B has the best performance in terms of color rejection (98.95%), SS rejection (97.76%), TDS rejection (92.75%), NH3-N rejection (92.86%), turbidity rejection (99.53%), COD rejection (99.34%), and BOD rejection (93.75%). Besides, the usage of 0.1 M NaOCl for alkaline cleaning was most prominent in membrane cleaning with a high FRR value (78.39–80.77%). Furthermore, the blocking mechanisms were determined, as proven by the Hermia model, which is standard blocking for both membranes. This innovation serves as a new revolution in semiconductor-industry wastewater treatment where wastewater treatment process comes along with simultaneous recovery of silica for recycle and reuse.

Assessment of Woody Residual Biomass Generation Capacity in the Central Region of Portugal: Analysis of the Power Production Potential

Biomass is an alternative energy source with high potential to contribute to the global energy mix and to countries’ energetic independence. The case of Portugal is particularly relevant, given its biomass availability. Thus, the quantification of woody residual biomass is assumed to be urgent. To achieve the objective of quantifying residual woody biomass, various available data were used, namely the Land Cover and Soil Use Map (COS 2018), from which areas occupied by different categories were selected as being the most relevant. Then, based on coefficients previously established, the amounts of residual woody biomass were determined, namely for maritime pine forests, eucalyptus forests, scrubland, vineyards, olive groves, and orchards. Then, the potential for generating electricity was estimated. It was found that for the hypothetical scenario of the total conversion of the recently closed Pêgo coal power plant to biomass, the available amounts of residual woody biomass in the country would not be sufficient to ensure the operation. On the other hand, if the power plant only worked as a backup unit, the available quantities could ensure its operation and contribute to creating a value chain for residual woody biomass of forest and agricultural origin within a circular economy and sustainable development approach.

Sustainable Rural Housing Development in Sarawak: A Preliminary Conceptual Framework

Sustainability practices within rural area housing development is relatively scarce. This may be due to insufficient financial support and focus by the local authorities. Some of the rural areas in the largest state of Malaysia, namely, Sarawak, are facing serious housing issues with limited supply of electricity and water, which in turn, creates low standard of living. This seems to imply on the unsustainable housing development. This paper reviewed the international sustainable development approach and the sustainable practices in Malaysia, in housing development. The initial review identified 40 sustainability-related housing indicators, which revealed a potential research area to ascertain different housing indicators for improving the living standards of the rural residents in Sarawak. This research could help to provide a more sustainable housing environment to improve residents’ living standard, and possibly, to suggest a better efficient use of resources, that could help to improve the current government guidelines, for developing sustainable rural housing in Sarawak.

Content Analysis on Sustainability Dimensions in DMOs’ Social Media Videos Advertising the World’s Most Visited Cities

Rapid population expansion and poorly managed economic growth, unprecedented anthropogenic climate changes, non-renewable natural resources depletion, environmental pollution, social inequity, and loss of cultural integrity generate a global context that calls for urgent adoption of a sustainable development approach in major industries, including tourism. Sustainable tourism development requires the mobilization of tourism stakeholders at all levels and on the demand side through actions related to the travel decision-making process. To stimulate attitude formation and adoption of sustainable tourist behaviors, Destination Management Organizations (DMOs)—the main organizations responsible for sustainable destination development—need to adopt sustainable-oriented communication actions when building the destination image. As tourism stakeholders’ perspective is under-investigated for destination image projection and communication, this paper aimed at assessing the integration of sustainable tourism principles in the promotion of destinations by DMOs; the focus was placed on video advertisements posted on the primary online source of tourism information, social media. Through a content analysis of DMOs’ social media advertisements for the 50 most visited cities in the world, the current study revealed that elements covering all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, socio-cultural, natural) were featured in the commercial discourse, but not in a sustainable explicit standpoint. Besides, the content sporadically reflected sustainable governmental initiatives and projected responsible tourist behavior, while it lacked specific sustainable tourism-related terms. Moreover, several highly popular cities did not have promotional videos. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge on destination image formation by providing evidence from the supply’s side along with an original content analysis grid which can be used to capture and evaluate the sustainable tourism dimensions as portrayed in advertising videos of cities. Additionally, it offers practical implications for DMOs’ marketing communication strategies.

The role of foreign aids and income inequality in poverty reduction: A sustainable development approach for Africa?

In the last decades, international interventions mostly through foreign aids have consistently been directed toward sustainable development objectives such as reduction of poverty in African countries. Thus, this study investigates the effect of foreign aids and income inequality in poverty reduction in Africa for 1990–2016. The novelty lies in the investigation of the effectiveness of aid remittances to Africa from the United Nations and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which has previously been overlooked in extant studies. By using the system Generalized Method of Moments, the study showed that the interaction of inequality with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) funds and OECD Official Development Assistance is not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the interventions from the UNDP funds and OECD Official Development Assistance statistically yield significant and expected results of reducing poverty in the poor continent. However, the study surprisingly failed to establish that remittances from the UNDP have significantly mitigated poverty in Africa. Importantly, this study presents a significant policy guide for the governments and the stakeholders and recommends that the donor agencies adopt poverty-reduction, and income distribution-based criteria for the allocation of their resources to reduce poverty in the continent.

Artisanal and Small‐Scale Mining and the Sustainable Development Goals: Why Nobody Cares

This paper reflects broadly on how artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is argued that overall, the sector will not contribute in any meaningful way towards the SDGs by 2030. Moreover, it is also maintained that ASM will not contribute towards sustainable development more widely in the future. This is because nobody really cares enough about the sector for a number of reasons which the paper outlines. In respect of global policymaking priorities, the impacts of ASM pale in comparison in terms of size and impacts to other much more immediate global social and environmental concerns. Moreover, ASM is a symptom of limited socioeconomic development and not an activity that has proven itself likely to contribute to improved socioeconomic conditions. This makes it an unappealing prospect for global, longer term sustainable development approaches. These higher-level issues percolate down to the national level, where the sector’s negative associations, the complexities of attempting to manage it, and a notable bias towards the easy funds from large-scale extractive industries, combine to make it an easy issue to overlook or avoid altogether. In terms of supply chains that link ASM with the rest of the world, the vast percentage of those buying metals and minerals extracted by artisanal operators have repeatedly proven that they have next to no qualms about the conditions under which they were produced.

Adsorption of methylene blue dye from aqueous solutions onto natural clay: Equilibrium and kinetic studies

The objective of this work was the removal of the cationic dye (methylene blue (MB) chosen as a pollutant model) from an aqueous solution using a Moroccan clay sample from the region of raw Wazanne as a low-cost adsorbent. The effects of various parameters, such as adsorbent dose (0.05 to 5 g/L), dye concentration (100 to 1000 mg/L), contact time (10 to 120 min), temperature (20–60 °C), and solution pH (3–12), were investigated. The results showed that MB's adsorption on clay strongly depends on the solution's initial dye concentration, temperature, and pH. The kinetic adsorption results fitted well with a pseudo-second-order model with a correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.99. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were used to determine the adsorption mechanism. According to the results, the Langmuir model better describes the adsorption of MB with a maximum adsorption capacity of 456.62 mg/g. According to the thermodynamic parameters, Gibbs free energy ΔG°, enthalpy ΔH°, and entropy ΔS°, the adsorption process was feasible, spontaneous, and exothermic. Reusing the adsorbent is considered an important economic and environmental aspect of a sustainable development approach, given the regenerative capacity of the material. Various techniques for characterization of the adsorbent have been applied, including zero-point charge measurement (pH zpc), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses with an X-ray diffractometer.

Mixed Transport Network Prioritization Based on Environmental Impact and Population Density

Today, due to the growing importance of sustainable development in urban areas, the decision to prioritize different transportation options in an area where users have to combine different transportation modes has received much attention in the scientific community. In this research, different modes of transportation including pedestrians, taxis, buses, and bicycles are considered as a combination of two different transportation modes in Tehran’s densely populated area. With the aim of prioritizing travel options in order to achieve sustainable urban development, public transport users were first asked about their travel means preferences. Next, by obtaining the opinions of urban transportation experts of Tehran Municipality regarding sustainable development of urban transportation, a set of transportation options in this area were prioritized on the basis of some criteria optimized using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The results indicate that air pollution and noise pollution, with the score of 0.33 and 0.24, respectively, were the two most important criteria for choosing a trip mode in dense population areas according to the opinion of transportation and traffic experts of Tehran. The AHP analysis indicated that the use of combined bicycle-walk mode with a score of 0.282 is the most preferred option, while bus-bicycle mixed mode with a score of 0.116 is the least preferred. Survey data indicate that there is a significant difference between people’s general preferences in choosing their urban transportation options and the sustainable urban development approach.

System dynamics approach for sustainable housing development

The provision of quality housing in adequate quantity is a major concern for planners in the developing regions. There is need of rapid housing development to meet the need of growing population while giving attention towards its minimal environmental impact. This paper focuses on the sustainable housing development using system dynamics model in the study area of Patna district, India. The optimum housing development has been suggested on the basis of result of analysis of various scenarios generated by performing simulation using control parameters in the formulated model. The environmental impact, like air pollution; noise; waste generation; water consumption; and energy consumption, due to the suggested housing development scenario has been discussed thoroughly, based upon which recommendations have been given. The findings of this research will be useful in providing solutions for the sustainable housing development to meet the growing demand as well as reduction of its adverse environmental impact in the study area.

Spatial Analysis Model for Allocation of High-Rise Building

The construction of High-Rise Buildings (HRBs) first started in the 19^th century, as a sort of vertical urban sustainable development approach trying to minimize the development environmental footprint impact. Although, the debates regarding the HRBs' pros and cons, this era has witnessed a huge boost in the construction of HRB all over the world. HRBs have transformed into an ego situation where countries not only developed ones but also developing ones have been competing against each other to develop the tallest HRB. HRBs have become a branding for the economic strength and innovative development eras of countries. HBRs have been included within new cities and added to the existing urban context, without any consideration to the ability of these areas to accommodate their social, environmental, economic, and visual impacts, especially on their direst urban context. The study aims, based on several theoretical and analytical studies, to study and record in detail the various impacts of HRBs on the urban context allocating them, based on which a computerized spatial analysis model is to be composed (HRBSAModel) using geographic information systems software (GIS) and remote sensing technology. The achieved model is expected to act as a contingency tool to mitigate the negative impacts of the existing HRB on its urban context, and as a proactive tool within the city urban design process for allocating the most sustainable location for future HRBs.