Sustainable Opportunities Research Articles

Burden Imposed by Heterologous Protein Production in Two Major Industrial Yeast Cell Factories: Identifying Sources and Mitigation Strategies.

Production of heterologous proteins, especially biopharmaceuticals and industrial enzymes, in living cell factories consumes cellular resources. Such resources are reallocated from normal cellular processes toward production of the heterologous protein that is often of no benefit to the host cell. This competition for resources is a burden to host cells, has a negative impact on cell fitness, and may consequently trigger stress responses. Importantly, this often causes a reduction in final protein titers. Engineering strategies to generate more burden resilient production strains offer sustainable opportunities to increase production and profitability for this growing billion-dollar global industry. We review recently reported impacts of burden derived from resource competition in two commonly used protein-producing yeast cell factories: Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Komagataella phaffii (syn. Pichia pastoris). We dissect possible sources of burden in these organisms, from aspects related to genetic engineering to protein translation and export of soluble protein. We also summarize advances as well as challenges for cell factory design to mitigate burden and increase overall heterologous protein production from metabolic engineering, systems biology, and synthetic biology perspectives. Lastly, future profiling and engineering strategies are highlighted that may lead to constructing robust burden-resistant cell factories. This includes incorporation of systems-level data into mathematical models for rational design and engineering dynamical regulation circuits in production strains.

Leveraging the Entrepreneurial Method as a Tool for the Circular Economy: The Case of Wood Waste

New global and domestic policy and regulatory initiatives promoting a circular economy have renewed interest in the beneficial repurposing of commercial waste streams. Likewise, consumer trends and customers’ increased understanding of what they purchase, where it comes from, and what happens to it post-consumption have forced firms to consider reducing and reusing their production waste streams. The forest products industry is an exemplar of becoming more adept at reorganising and exploiting repurposed waste streams for beneficial reuse. This paper explores three case studies from the Australian forestry sector that illustrate how wood waste is being profitably repurposed as an input into other products. We use the lens of the entrepreneurial method to explore how firms recognise, strategically access, and exploit the sustainable opportunities that can range from sustainably sourced inputs to environmental-, social-, and governance-driven consumption and investments. Effectual logic allows the reconceptualisation of forestry waste streams into inputs for use in creating new commercial products and provides a theoretical framework. While the repurposing of wood waste is profitable for the forestry firm, we found that social and economic gains reach far beyond the region in which these activities occur. Innovations often stimulate other innovations, resulting in a virtuous cycle within regional Australia’s emerging circular economy.

Compassionate anger as a mobilizer for social justice: feelings application in curriculum design

ABSTRACT While learning a broad sense of compassion (feeling/being kind), students are seldom given a sustained opportunity to learn why they feel angry at the suffering of the other and what to do with that anger. Prosocial anger that adheres to compassion is not deemed as official affective knowledge in schools. While defining compassion as a virtue, this paper conceptualizes compassionate anger as a mobilizer for social justice. Becoming empathetic towards the suffering of the other is, and should be, one of the core educational goals in the era of a pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. To this end, by examining the interaction between compassion as an ontological virtue and anger as an emotion, which is a somewhat paradoxical relationship, this paper theoretically juxtaposes compassion with four prosocial angers (impersonal, defensive, Aristotelean, and political) to construct four curriculum approaches to social justice (conservative, experiential, rational, and emancipatory).

Economic Analysis of Ginseng Based Forest Farming: a Sustainable Income Diversification Opportunity for Forest Landowners

While American ginseng is a complicated opportunity for forest farmers to understand, within these production systems there are many opportunities and constraints linked to production of ginseng. There are different market demands and prices paid for the various grades of dried roots depending on the system used to cultivate the plant. This study reviewed the unique benefits of producing ginseng, opportunities for forest farmers, the potential profits, as well as financial risks. The study focused on two common ginseng production systems in the southeastern region of the U.S. The specific objective of the paper is to assess economic returns of producing ginseng under different production systems. The Monte Carlo simulation was performed to analyze the profitability and risks associated with producing ginseng and performed sensitive analysis to determine the effect of uncertainty variables such as production costs, yield, and price of product on economic feasibility.

Understanding seller resistance to digital device recycling platform: An innovation resistance perspective

• Attracting recyclers is vital to the success of digital device recycling platform (DDRP). • This study employs innovation resistance theory as the theoretical paradigm. • This study reveals that perceived security and privacy risk, attitudes toward sustainability, and negative word-of-mouth have significant impact on seller resistance to DDRP. • These findings serve as a kickoff point for researchers to interpret user’s intention to use DDRP. In the resale commerce (reCommerce) movement, the digital device recycling platform (DDRP), which allows users to sell, trade-in, and recycle used digital devices online, is growing in popularity and significance globally. Although DDRPs offer new opportunities for commerce and sustainability, challenges exist to support wide adoption. This study attempts to develop a deeper understanding of the reasons underlying seller resistance to the DDRP. Grounded in the innovation resistance theory (IRT), the research model of this study is validated using data collected from 307 Chinese potential sellers of used digital devices. Using the structural equation modeling techniques, this study reveals that perceived security and privacy risk, attitudes toward sustainability, and negative word-of-mouth have a significant impact on seller resistance to DDRP. Finally, the control variable, education, negatively affects seller resistance. These findings not only offer important theoretical contributions to green IT research but also provide guidance to DDRP operators for formulating strategies to reduce seller resistance.

Sharing Economy in Emerging Economies of Asia: Exploring the Sustainable Consumption Opportunities

Sharing Economy in Emerging Economies of Asia: Exploring the Sustainable Consumption Opportunities

POR QUE ADOTAR A PERSPECTIVA DA SUSTENTABILIDADE NOS ESTUDOS DE CARREIRA? ENSAIO TEÓRICO SOBRE OS PILARES E A IMPORTÂNCIA DA DISCUSSÃO

ABSTRACT Sustainability has been adopted as a perspective for understanding contemporary careers, which enables an analytical view of the reality of work by including human and social impacts. This theoretical essay discusses the foundations of sustainability as a core dimension of the sustainable career concept. As its main contributions, the career sustainability perspective offers a lens for a theoretical analysis emphasizing in a systemic and procedural way, and among other factors: the dynamics of the influence of multiple contexts for the continuity of individual paths; career continuity through time movements and the choices made; the interconnectivity of the diverse actors that influences individual careers; the need for a process which allows adaptive capability to be fostered, and the creation of opportunities for sustainability.

ISLAMIC BANK SUSTAINABILITY IN INDONESIA: VALUE AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCES BASED ON SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GREEN FINANCE

This paper investigates the sustainability perspective of Islamic banks' financial decisions, performance, and corporate value where Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and green finance are moderation variables. The analysis method used multivariate statistical methods, structural equation modelling with the WarpPLS software program and testing panel data regression models using the E-Views software program. The datasets used involves 34 Islamic banks in Indonesia. This study found a significant relationship between CSR and green finance implementation to financial decisions, financial performance, and corporate value of Islamic banks in Indonesia. However, the relationship is heterogeneous or dissimilar across different quantiles. This means that CSR and green finance implementation only achieve short-term profit, not long-term sustainability. The study also reveals that corporate social responsibility contributes the most to Islamic banks' investment decisions and market value. Thus, policies focusing on integrated CSR in Islamic banking are required to improve sustainability opportunities.

Assessing sustainability opportunities for circular business models

AbstractAs the unfolding climate crisis escalates, incumbent manufacturing companies are increasingly sensing and seizing sustainability opportunities—ideas that help to generate value in a more sustainable way than existing alternatives. Prior literature has underscored the importance of opportunity recognition and has theorized various types of circular business models to address sustainability in practice. However, there is a knowledge gap regarding the step in between: undertaking an assessment that provides a foundation for subsequently pursuing a circular business model. Based on a multiple case study of four innovation projects pursuing sustainability, this article identifies capability assessment, ecosystem alignment, and value‐capture viability as key dimensions in evaluating sustainability opportunities prior to circular business model design and development. These insights are aggregated into a framework that allows companies to conduct a systematic assessment of sustainability opportunities in practice. The framework provides new theoretical implications for the literature on circular economy and business model innovation, and it offers hands‐on advice for management practice.

Water Management in Agriculture and Industry: Challenges, Trends, and Opportunities

This Special Issue aims to explore current challenges and trends, as well as opportunities for sustainability and innovation, in the fields of agricultural and industrial water management [...]

Structural Equation Modeling of OTOP Entrepreneur Improvement to Build Sustainable Competitive Opportunity in The Market

The objectives of this study were to analyze and develop a structural equation modeling of OTOP entrepreneur improvement to build sustainable competitive opportunity in the market. A quantitative research methodology was used in this study, the sample consisted of 286 OTOP entrepreneurs of Tak Bai District, Narathiwat Province. Questionnaires were used to collect data, which were analyzed using frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results of the research can be summarized as follows: 1) the guideline of OTOP entrepreneur improvement in Phraiwan Subdistrict, Tak Bai District, Narathiwat Province, the overall mean is at a high level. The aspect with the highest average was building the competitive advantages, followed by product development, the lowest average was business network; 2) the structural equation modeling of OTOP entrepreneur improvement to build sustainable competitive opportunity in the market; the factors that affect the OTOP entrepreneur development to build competitive opportunity, entrepreneurial potential development, competitiveness enhancement, which had a direct causal effect on the guideline of OTOP entrepreneur improvement.

COVID-19 as Industry Forcing Function: Challenges for Entrepreneurship in the Post-Pandemic Future

The COVID-19 crisis has changed how firms and industries do business – at least for now. What is uncertain, however, is the duration of that change. Will the industry change induced by the COVID-19 crisis persist and, if so, for how long? Can a crisis, and particularly the COVID-19 crisis, act as a more permanent change agent and create an environment that mimics the entrepreneurial opportunity that industry forcing functions create? If yes, then there is cause to consider the entrepreneurial opportunity that the COVID-19 crisis provides. In this paper, we review the changes that the pandemic has brought to business practices. Furthermore, we discuss the differences between crisis-based opportunity and entrepreneurial opportunity created by industry forcing functions in order to illuminate the ability of a COVID-19 crisis–induced Low Touch Economy to sustainably create entrepreneurial opportunities. We show examples and list the attributes of industry forcing functions that have already provided sustainable entrepreneurial opportunity. Then, we match these attributes with the factors pertaining to the COVID-19-related Low Touch Economy. We find that the COVID-19 crisis has similarities and differences to the traditional industry forcing functions started by disruptive technologies. However, unlike traditional industry forcing functions, the COVID-19 crisis acts in a pan-industrial manner, making the impact of the pandemic more profound. Furthermore, the timing of the pandemic is important too: the COVID-19 crisis struck during the emergence of a Schumpeterian wave of Industry 4.0 and accelerated the adoption of its most important harbingers. We provide researchers and practitioners a lens through which to review not only the COVID-19 crisis’s possibility of lasting effects, but also how it will affect entrepreneurs.

Sustainability: A Public Policy, a Concept, or a Competence? Efforts on the Implementation of Sustainability as a Transversal Competence throughout Higher Education Programs

The concept of sustainability emerged globally in the 1987 Brundtland Report. Initially, it comprised three dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. Over time, sustainability became a global necessity that led to the establishment in 2015 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), so that sustainability became a public policy of extreme urgency. Thirty-four years later, there is an imperative need to expand the original concept not in a public policy but in a competence that graduates of higher education develop, regardless of their studied academic program. We propose sustainability as a transversal competence. Our work describes the path that a higher education institution in Mexico, Tecnologico de Monterrey, has followed to accomplish this task. The new educational model Tec21 based on challenge-based learning experiences has a focus on the development of sustainability competences and actions ownership towards solving the problems described in the 17 SDGs. Our proposed definition for the sustainability transversal competence is: “The student possesses the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for the successful performance of the task and the resolution of problems related to the challenges and opportunities for sustainability in today’s world”. Thus, education is both an objective and a means to achieve all the other SDGs.

Mechanical Properties of Cement Composites Using Modified Plastics by Gamma Irradiation

Recently, pollution caused by an increasing amount of worldwide plastic waste has become a global problem. However, these concerns can be alleviated by the use of gamma-ray technology. Using radiation technology, plastic wastes can be converted into a variety of useful purposes presenting powerful opportunities for environmental sustainability and material innovations. Plastics are strong, durable, waterproof, lightweight, easy to mold, and recyclable. In this study, plastic aggregate modified by gamma irradiation was mixed into cement composites, and mechanical property evaluation experiments were conducted. As a result, it was confirmed that the physical performance of cement composites was improved by up to 70% in the case of using the modified plastic aggregates compared to the general plastic aggregate.

Effects of Using Farm-Grown Forage as a Component in ad Libitum Liquid Feeding for Pregnant Sows in Group-Housing on Body Condition Development and Performance

When feeding pregnant sows, optimal body condition at birth is sought to avoid the effects of a deviant nutritional condition on health and performance. Various feeding concepts exist but mainly have a restriction in quantity and renunciation of farm-grown forage in common. An ad libitum liquid feeding system based on farm-grown forage in combination with a sow sorting gate (according to body weight—using mechanical scales) was realized on a commercial swine farm. The sorting gate coordinated access to two feeding areas with rations based on whole plant wheat-silage (WPWS) differing in energy content. In this study with a total of 183 pregnant sows, effects of restrictive dry feeding (System I) were compared with ad libitum liquid feeding based on farm-grown forage (System II). Sows were monitored regarding body condition development during pregnancy by measuring body condition score (BCS), body weight (BW), and back fat thickness (BFT) on different time points. Sow and piglet health (vaginal injuries of sows, rectal temperature during the peripartal period, vitality of newborn piglets) and performance data regarding litter characteristics were also recorded. Body condition development of the sows was absolutely comparable. Performance indicators and the course of birth were also similar but with significantly higher scores for piglet vitality in System II (p < 0.05). The tested concept offers opportunities for more animal welfare and sustainability but remains to be further investigated regarding the repertoire of possibly applied farm-grown forage and the effects of the concept in the transit phase of sows.

Mango Peel Pectin: Recovery, Functionality and Sustainable Uses

Concerns regarding the overconsumption of natural resources has provoked the recovery of biopolymers from food processing biomass. Furthermore, the current market opportunity for pectin in other areas has increased, necessitating the search for alternative pectin resources. This is also a step towards the sustainable and circular green economy. Mango peel is the byproduct of agro-processing and has been used for high value-added components such as polysaccharide biopolymers. Pectin derived from the peel is yet to be exploited to its greatest extent, particularly in terms of its separation and physiochemical properties, which limit its applicability to dietary fiber in culinary applications. The functionality of the mango peel pectin (MPP) strongly depends on the molecular size and degree of esterification which highlight the importance of isolation and characterisation of pectin from this novel resource. This article therefore provides a useful overview of mango peel as a potential biomaterial for the recovery of MPP. Different extraction techniques and the integrated recovery were also discussed. The utilisation of MPP in different industrial schemes are also detailed out from different perspectives such as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. This review convincingly expresses the significance of MPP, providing a sustainable opportunity for food and pharmaceutical development.

Towards the Three Dimensions of Sustainability for International Research Team Collaboration: Learnings from the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems Research Programme.

This paper highlights the potential for learning and virtual collaboration in international research teams to contribute towards sustainability goals. Previous research confirmed the environmental benefits of carbon savings from international virtual conferences. This paper adds the social and economic dimensions by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the constraints and benefits for personal development, economic costs, efficiency and team learning of holding international virtual conferences (VCs). Using the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) research programme as a case study, we analysed VC participant survey data to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of VCs. We estimated 'saved' GHG emissions, costs, and time, of using VCs as an alternative for a planned in-person meeting in Chennai, India. Hosting VCs reduced North-South, gender, and researcher inclusivity concerns, financial and travelling time costs, and substantially reduced emissions. For one international meeting with 107 participants, changing to a virtual format reduced the per capita GHG emissions to half the annual global average, and avoided 60% of travel costs. The benefits of VCs outweighed weaknesses. The main strengths were inclusivity and access, with 20% more early/mid-career researchers attending. This study identified opportunities for international research partnerships to mitigate their carbon footprint (environmental benefit) and enhance inclusivity of early/mid-career, women and Global South participants (social benefit), whilst continuing to deliver effective collaborative research meetings (economic benefit). In doing so, we present a holistic view of sustainability opportunities for virtual collaboration.

Interdependencies between spatial planning and the mining laissez‐passer in cities: Policy analysis of the case of Ecuador

AbstractUrban planning as a shared resource is tied with the ‘tragedy of the commons’. Since UN‐Habitat III, Ecuador has embraced the opportunity for urban sustainability. However, while the right to the city is constitutionally anchored since 2008, the integration of strategic sectoral plans and their spatial link remains unclear. Aiming at a better understanding on how sectoral plans, particularly mining, are articulated to planning instruments, we reviewed the existing instruments as well as those from the mining sector. Rooted in qualitative methods, interviews were conducted with respondents involved in the development of underground and land use planning in Ecuador. Primary data were collected during fieldtrips, and policy analysis was carried out descriptively. Findings were differentiated by spatial planning instruments, underground mining concessions and their implications for the empirical case study of Zaruma. Results showed that mining companies capture their risks and externalities into the local development agenda, and that municipalities remain limited to corrective or reactive measures. While mining sectoral plans consider the relevance of local development plans (PDOT), we identify an instrumental vacuum across the whole ‘National Decentralized particularly Planning System’ as for articulating sectoral planning with local PDOT. With this instrumental gap mainly at the policy level, and instead of interpreting ill will from the strategic mining sector, the expertise in managing underground cadastres from the mining sector as well as the option of exploring instruments like underground master plants at the city level could level synergies towards coherence in development agendas as well as risk‐informed development across sectors and scales.

The Measures of Accuracy of Claim Frequency Credibility Predictor

Nowadays, the sustainability risks and opportunities start to affect strongly insurance companies in regard to the resulting additional variability of future values of variables taken into account in the decision processes. This is important especially in the era of sustainable non-life insurance promoting, among others, the use of ecological car engines or ecological systems of building heating. The fundamental issue in non-life insurance is to predict future claims (e.g., the aggregate value of claims or the number of claims for a single policy) in a heterogeneous portfolio of policies taking account of claim experience. For this purpose, the so-called credibility theory is used, which was initiated by the fundamental Bühlmann model modified to the Bühlmann–Straub model. Several modifications of the model have been proposed in the literature. One of them is the development of the relationship between the credibility models and statistical mixed models (e.g., linear mixed models) for longitudinal data. The article proposes the use of the parametric bootstrap algorithm to estimate measures of accuracy of the credibility predictor of the number of claims for a single policy taking into account new risk factors resulting from the emergence of green technologies on the considered market. The predictor is obtained for the model which belongs to the class of Generalised Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) and which is a generalization of the Bülmann–Straub model. Additionally, the possibility of predicting the number of claims and the problem of the assessment of the prediction accuracy are presented based on a policy characterized by new green risk factor (hybrid motorcycle engine) not previously present in the portfolio. The paper presents the proposed methodology in a case study using real insurance data from the Polish market.

Sustainable Development Opportunities Driven by Geotourism in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Toratau Geopark, Republic of Bashkortostan, the Russian Federation)

Sustainable Development Opportunities Driven by Geotourism in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Toratau Geopark, Republic of Bashkortostan, the Russian Federation)