Sustainable Society Research Articles

WHO strategies to improve child and adolescents health in Europe

Across Europe, the health and wellbeing of children and adolescents requires attention. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of mental health conditions has doubled, affecting 1 in 4 adolescents under the age of 18. Overweight and obesity are increasing: 1 in 3 primary school children are overweight or obese. Inequalities in weight and mental health are increasing in many countries, driven by socioeconomic circumstances. Reduction in child mortality, particularly of neonates, is stagnating in several countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and reversing in some.To rally member states to action, WHO is developing a new regional Child and Adolescent Health Strategy. The development commenced in 2019 with the identification of problem statements of issues affecting children and adolescents. These were then converted into actionable standards. They were updated considering the COVID-19 experience and the effects of regional crises on children. Children and adolescents were engaged in the development of the strategy, to identify and take their priorities into account, and stakeholders inside and outside WHO were consulted, including pediatricians and their societies. During a Member States consultation, European countries will have the opportunity to review and revise the draft strategy before it will be presented to the WHO Regional Committee for Europe for adoption.The main components of the strategy are: Early childhood development, school and adolescent health, strengthening health systems and improving quality of care, recognizing and acting on the needs of the most vulnerable and galvanizing societal action on the commercial, social, environmental and digital determinants of health affecting children and adolescents.The strategy forms the basis for monitoring regional progress. It will enable the development of national child and adolescent health and wellbeing strategies and monitoring frameworks. The implementation of the strategy will enable children and adolescents to realize their right to physical, social and mental health and well-being in healthy and enabling environments, so that they can fully participate in shaping prosperous and sustainable societies.

Metabolic engineering of Oryza sativa for lignin augmentation and structural simplification.

The sustainable production and utilization of lignocellulose biomass are indispensable for establishing sustainable societies. Trees and large-sized grasses are the major sources of lignocellulose biomass, while large-sized grasses greatly surpass trees in terms of lignocellulose biomass productivity. With an overall aim to improve lignocellulose usability, it is important to increase the lignin content and simplify lignin structures in biomass plants via lignin metabolic engineering. Rice (Oryza sativa) is not only a representative and important grass crop, but also is a model for large-sized grasses in biotechnology. This review outlines progress in lignin metabolic engineering in grasses, mainly rice, including characterization of the lignocellulose properties, the augmentation of lignin content and the simplification of lignin structures. These findings have broad applicability for the metabolic engineering of lignin in large-sized grass biomass plants.

The role of the Environmental Education in tackling the Climate Emergency and biodiversity decline: articulating Brazilian experiences

Abstract: The transition to more sustainable societies is permeated by interests, conflicts, and predatory use of natural resources, generating vulnerability, socio-environmental injustice, and poverty. Considering that we are living in an era of uncertainty and multiplication of complex and wicked issues due to the prevailing logic of society, there is an urgent and unquestionable need to re-think educational paradigms, considering the need to redesign actions within transitional and transformational perspectives. This work describes and analyzes two educational experiences related to central and connected socio-environmental challenges: biodiversity loss and climate emergency. Both experiences encompass ways created to empower teachers to understand the complexity and create paths for action, highlighting the crucial role of participation and cooperation among different social institutions such as Governmental, Universities and NGOs. The challenge is to build communities as territory transformative agents in the use of active learning methodologies that promote meaningful knowledge from a perspective of the global South. Key Words: Social learning. Sustainable societies. Climate schools. Teacher training.

The Role of Quota Systems in Realising Planetary Boundaries

Abstract A strong vision of sustainable development requires respect for the limits imposed by the functioning of the planet to ensure its resilience. The framework of planetary boundaries is increasingly relied on to design quantifiable objectives that can guide policy- and decisionmakers to enact measures to ensure such a sustainable society. Yet, to effectively guide, the framework requires a reformulation to make it applicable to human activities. Concretely, planetary boundaries need to be transposed into planetary quotas, which express the maximum absolute quantity of emissions, withdrawals or use that is admissible so as not to exceed the planetary limits. Furthermore, the achievement of planetary quotas depends on the fair allocation of national, sectoral, or even individual quotas. In this context, we question whether and under which institutional conditions environmental quotas could be an appropriate tool to implement planetary boundaries. This article proposes a legal and political theory of quota systems and applies it to the establishment of planetary quota systems in international environmental law.

The OPEVA Manifest: OPtimisation of Electrical Vehicle Autonomy, a Research and Innovation project

Electromobility is a critical component of Europe’s strategy to create a more sustainable society and support the European Green Transition while enhancing quality of life. Electrification also plays an important role in securing Europe’s position in the growing market of electric and autonomous vehicles (EAV). The EU-funded OPEVA project aims to take a big step towards deployment of sustainable electric vehicles by means of optimising their support in an ecosystem. Specifically, the project focuses on analysing and designing optimisation architecture, reducing battery charging time, and developing infrastructure, as well as reporting on the driver-oriented human factors. Overall, OPEVA’s goal is to enhance EAV market penetration and adoption, making them more accessible and convenient. The aim of this paper is to inform the European automotive, transportation, energy and mobility community be presenting the OPEVA manifestation, and the overall solution strategy solidified through the progress throughout the first year of the project.

Влияние программы ООН – Хабитат на практический переход от идеологии массового потребления к устойчивому развитию

The prevalence of hyper-consumption and production within urban settings not only exacerbates environmental pressures but also amplifies social inequalities. With global urbanization rates soaring, a cohesive approach to sustainable urban development and effective monitoring becomes imperative. In this regard, UN-Habitat is a key body that can ensure the transition from the values of the consumer society to the principles of a sustainable society. The aim of the article is to show the importance of UN-Habitat’s activities in the transition from consumer society ideals to an inclusive and sustainable future based on the principles of quality of life, which is stated in the organization’s program documents. By adopting a comprehensive approach, this study examines the influence of UN-Habitat on reshaping the consumer society ideology through analysis of programmatic documents and organizational activities, highlighting its role in fostering a global and municipal perspective on sustainable urban development aligned with principles of enhanced quality of life. The UN-Habitat program plays a crucial role in steering societies away from consumer society ideologies towards sustainable development paradigms, as evidenced by its policy initiatives and programmatic interventions. Its efforts are instrumental in reshaping global and municipal perspectives on urban development, promoting a future marked by improved quality of life and environmental stewardship.

Unappreciated healthcare inequality against PM2.5-related mortality risk

Understanding the inequality of PM2.5-related health is crucial for promoting health, building a just society, and advancing multiple Sustainable Development Goals goals. However, previous research has predominantly concentrated on PM2.5 exposure inequality, neglecting varied prompt responses and protective behaviors against it. Here, we established the relationship between short-term healthcare expenditure and PM2.5 concentration using the number and amount of healthcare transactions across all healthcare categories based on the Union Pay data. We also assessed daily city-specific PM2.5-related mortality and healthcare expenditures and evaluated their inequalities among cities according to the income inequality index, the Gini coefficient. The results show that short-term exposure to PM2.5 leads to severe physiological and health-related economic burdens on Chinese residents. From 2017 to 2019, 77.8 (34.5–121.1) thousand deaths were attributed to daily PM2.5, with healthcare expenditures reaching 93.7 (69.1–118.3) billion Chinese Yuan. Additionally, there were significant inequalities in PM2.5-related mortality and healthcare expenditures among cities. The inequality index for PM2.5-related healthcare expenditures was 0.53, while the inequality index for PM2.5-related mortality was 0.13. The greater inequality in healthcare expenditures than in mortality, implying inadequate healthcare resources amplify the health inequality related to PM2.5 exposure. 28.6% of Chinese cities lacked affordable healthcare resources to address the high physiological burden attributable to PM2.5. Our multidimensional exploration is essential for formulating effective policies addressing environmental health inequality. Focusing on these cities with disproportionate challenges is crucial for creating a more equitable and sustainable society.

2D Rhenium- and Niobium-Doped WSe2 Photoactive Cathodes in Photo-Enhanced Hybrid Zn-Ion Capacitors.

Designing a multifunctional device that combines solar energy conversion and energy storage is an appealing and promising approach for the next generation of green power and sustainable society. In this work, we fabricated a single-piece device incorporating undoped WSe2, Re- or Nb-doped WSe2 photocathode, and zinc foil anode system enabling a light-assisted rechargeable aqueous zinc metal cell. Comparison of structural, optical, and photoelectric characteristics of undoped and doped WSe2 has further confirmed that ionic insertion of donor metal (rhenium and niobium) plays an important role in enhancing photoelectrochemical energy storage properties. The electrochemical energy storage cell consisting of Re-doped WSe2 (as the photoactive cathode and zinc metal as anode) showed the best photodriven enhancement in the specific capacitance of around 45% due to efficient harvesting of visible light irradiation. The assembled device exhibited a loss of 20% of its initial specific capacitance after 1500 galvanostatic charge-discharge cycles at 50 mA g-1. The cell also provided a specific energy density of 574.21 mWh kg1- and a power density of 5906 mW kg1- at 15 mA g-1. Under otherwise similar conditions, the pristine WSe2 and Nb-doped WSe2 showed photoenhanced induced capacitance of 43% and 27% at 15 mA g-1 and supplied an energy density of 436.4 mWh kg1- and 202 mWh kg1-, respectively. As a result, a reasonable capacitance improvement obtained by the Re-WSe2 photoenhanced zinc-ion capacitor could provide a facile and constructive way to achieve a highly efficient and low-cost solar-electrochemical capacitor system.

Rule based complex event processing for an air quality monitoring system in smart city

Smart city development is accelerating, aiming for systematic urban living, but challenges like air quality and traffic management need addressing for sustainability in cities. The World Health Organization (WHO) links air pollution to severe respiratory diseases, emphasizing the need for real-time air quality monitoring and timely decisions based on varying pollutant concentrations (NH3, O3, SO2, NO2) across locations. This research work proposes a framework combining Siddhi Complex Event Processing (CEP) and SPARQL queries for air quality monitoring. Dataset collected from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) India, is preprocessed, passed through Apache Kafka, and transformed into a knowledge graph. The RDF data is integrated with a knowledge graph via Apache Jena to enhance CEP performance. Decision trees generate rules and enrich CEP engines with CPCB parameters to identify complex patterns. SPARQL queries on real-time RDF data categorize air quality conditions for all stakeholders. The model's effectiveness is validated by deploying RDF chunks to the CEP engine and evaluating performance through various query execution times. Our model efficiently processed numerous air pollutant events (200, 400, 600 etc.), filtering out about 80% and demonstrating robust event processing capabilities, which enhances air quality management and supports sustainable urban ecosystems and societies.

From Trailing Behind to Shaping the Curve: Researching Rare and Impactful Events for Societal Benefit

Many of today’s most disruptive challenges are the result of rare yet highly impactful events. Their characteristics are largely at odds with prevailing management research paradigms, thus stymieing efforts toward societally relevant guidance. New approaches are needed to ensure sustainable businesses and societies.

What type of social media posts about sustainable construction is better for audience engagement?

In an effort to move to a sustainable society, new concepts and findings related to sustainable construction are being developed. With ambition to transfer newly developed knowledge to society, various communication paths are being used. In this study we investigated what kind of messages shared on institutional social media channels (Facebook, Twitter (now renamed to X), and LinkedIn) about sustainable construction create more audience engagement. The study consisted of two phases of weekly social media posts. In each phase, 15 posts were published on the same day and time, while engagement was monitored. Three different types of posts were created, that were sequential cycling each week. Type 1 was written informative content related to research activities; type 2 was image content related to the research activities and equipment, with a short text caption of the image; and type 3 was image content with people - scientists working on research activities with a short text caption of the image. Poisson regression analysis revealed that type 3 posts result in the most audience engagement on LinkedIn, suggesting that using images of people in combination with short text captions is the most effective way to engage social media audiences. These findings can help organizations to use social media to promote sustainable construction and other sustainability-related research. The engagement was lower on Facebook and Twitter (X). As the science is aiming to be closer to the society, these findings deliver an important insight of science communication through the social media. Although the study delivered several lessons learnt related to science communication through social media studies, it provides an important bases for further studies. Conclusions can support research organizations in improving their science communication.

A novel quantity assessment of landscape ecological risk using human-nature driving mechanism for sustainable society

The rapid advancement of global economic integration and urbanization has severely damaged the stability of the ecological environment and hindered the ecological carbon sink capacity. In this study, we evaluated the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of landscape ecological risk (LER) in the Loess Plateau from 2010 to 2020. This was examined under the driving mechanism of human and natural dual factors. We combined the random forest algorithm with the Markov chain to jointly simulate and predict the development trend of LER in 2030. From 2010 to 2020, LER on the Loess Plateau showed a distribution pattern with higher values in the southeast and lower values in the northwest. Under the interaction of human and natural factors, annual precipitation exerted the strongest constraint on LER. The driving of land use and natural factors significantly influenced the spatial differentiation of the LER, with a q-value >0.30. In all three projected scenarios for 2030, there was an increase in construction land area and a significant reduction in cultivated land area. The urban development scenario showed the greatest expansion of high-risk areas, with a 5.29 % increase. Conversely, the ecological protection scenario showed a 1.53 % increase in high-risk areas. The findings have provided a reference for ecological risk prevention and control, and sustainable development of the ecological environment in arid regions.

Solid Electrolytes for Low-Temperature Carbon Dioxide Valorization: A Review.

One of the most promising approaches to address the global challenge of climate change is electrochemical carbon capture and utilization. Solid electrolytes can play a crucial role in establishing a chemical-free pathway for the electrochemical capture of CO2. Furthermore, they can be applied in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction reactions (CO2RR) to increase carbon utilization, produce high-purity liquid chemicals, and advance hybrid electro-biosystems. This review article begins by covering the fundamentals and processes of electrochemical CO2 capture, emphasizing the advantages of utilizing solid electrolytes. Additionally, it highlights recent advancements in the use of the solid polymer electrolyte or solid electrolyte layer for the CO2RR with multiple functions. The review also explores avenues for future research to fully harness the potential of solid electrolytes, including the integration of CO2 capture and the CO2RR and performance assessment under realistic conditions. Finally, this review discusses future opportunities and challenges, aiming to contribute to the establishment of a green and sustainable society through electrochemical CO2 valorization.

Forecasting daily rainfall in a humid subtropical area: an innovative machine learning approach

ABSTRACT Hydrological modeling is one of the most complicated tasks in sustainable water resources management, particularly in terms of predicting rainfall. Predicting rainfall is critical to build a sustainable society in terms of hydropower operations, agricultural planning, and flood control. In this study, a hybrid model based on the integration of k-nearest neighbor (KNN), XGBoost (XGB), decision tree (DCT), and Random Forest (RF) has been developed and implemented for forecasting daily rainfall for the first time at Sydney airport, Australia. Daily rainfall, temperature, evaporation, and humidity have been selected as input parameters. Three statistical measurements, namely, root mean square error (RMSE), coefficient of determination (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), and Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) have been utilized in order to check the accuracy of the proposed model. A sensitivity analysis was conducted, and the results indicated that for the purpose of prediction, the temperature, humidity, and evaporation were highly sensitive to the rainfall data. According to the results, the developed hybrid model was capable of predicting daily rainfall with high performance for both training and testing parts with RMSE = 0.124, R2 = 0.999, MAE = 0.007, NRMSE = 0.04 and RMSE = 1.246, R2 = 0.991, MAE = 0.109, NRMSE = 0.339, respectively.

Sustainability Hermeneutics: The New Task of African Biblical Studies

As a new and emerging approach to biblical interpretation, Sustainability Hermeneutics (SH) combines aspects of the environment, economy, and society in its interpretation of biblical texts. Such an approach to biblical interpretation shows the interaction of the environment, economy and society in biblical texts in line with the understanding of sustainability. It is therefore integrative and holistic. This article argued that such an approach holds so much promise for African Biblical Studies (ABS) at a time when the African continent is faced with myriads of developmental issues. While Sustainability Hermeneutics ingrains biblical texts into an integrative African worldview, the article also argued that the urgency of the use of Sustainability Hermeneutics in African Biblical Studies lies in the fact that the Bible and its messages still make sense to many African Christians. So, Sustainability Hermeneutics, if well utilised in African Biblical Studies, will motivate many African Christians to take actions that will lead to sustainable African societies.

Metathetic degradation of waste natural rubbers for potential reutilization

Waste rubbers have caused a severe environmental pollution now. Their reutilization is an urgent eco-economic demand for the sustainable society by converting the wastes into feedstock for the chemical industry. In the present work, the metathetic degradation of waste rubbers (waste natural rubber gloves as model) was comprehensively investigated with different chain transfer agents (CTAs). The waste natural rubber gloves could be degraded with three CTAs with different polarities (styrene, methyl acrylate (MA) and acrylic acid (AA)), catalyzing with the HG2 catalyst in chloroform. Four kinds of main reactions were proposed in the olefin cross-metathesis (OCM) degradation, based on the product analysis. It was also found that the degradation was favored by a consistent low concentration of the CTA, inhibiting the by-reactions and subsequently improving the degradation yield. Therefore, an easy and effective strategy for the high-performance OCM degradation of waste rubbers was proposed by dropping the CTA.

Transformasi Konsep Kewarganegaraan di Era Digital: Implikasi Sosial, Etis, dan Masa Depan

This study explores the evolution of citizenship concepts in the digital era, influenced by globalization, information technology, and socio-political changes. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it identifies new patterns of citizenship, including transnational and digital citizenship, and the challenges in their application. Findings reveal that citizenship now encompasses complex identity networks that transcend national boundaries. The social and ethical implications of digital technology, such as the digital divide and privacy concerns, are analyzed to provide insights for inclusive and adaptive policies. This research enriches the citizenship literature and paves the way for further studies to build inclusive and sustainable societies in the digital age.

Lessons Learned from Developing a Sustainability Awareness Framework for Software Engineering Using Design Science

To foster a sustainable society within a sustainable environment, we must dramatically reshape our work and consumption activities, most of which are facilitated through software. Yet, most software engineers hardly consider the effects on the sustainability of the IT products and services they deliver. This issue is exacerbated by a lack of methods and tools for this purpose. Despite the practical need for methods and tools that explicitly support consideration of the effects that IT products and services have on the sustainability of their intended environments, such methods and tools remain largely unavailable. Thus, urgent research is needed to understand how to design such tools for the IT community properly. In this article, we describe our experience using design science to create the Sustainability Awareness Framework (SusAF), which supports software engineers in anticipating and mitigating the potential sustainability effects during system development. More specifically, we identify and present the challenges faced during this process. The challenges that we have faced and addressed in the development of the SusAF are likely to be relevant to others who aim to create methods and tools to integrate sustainability analysis into their IT products and services development. Thus, the lessons learned in SusAF development are shared for the benefit of researchers and other professionals who design tools for that end.

Scalable and efficient radiative cooling coatings using uniform-hollow silica spheres

Radiative cooling technologies are being actively researched to achieve a more sustainable society by reducing greenhouse gas emissions due to the lack of energy input. A typical approach to improve radiative cooling performance is to deploy metamaterials as porous polymers with high reflectivity and high long-wave infrared emissivity. There is also a demand for research on coating materials for simple coating processes, but they have not been sufficiently studied as materials for radiative cooling. In this work, a hybrid radiative cooling material was fabricated using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as a binder and mixed with hollow silica (SiO2) spheres. The fabricated hollow particles were compared to commercial hollow particles in film (radius 1.5 cm, thickness 2 mm) form for radiative cooling performance. The average solar reflectivity of the fabricated hollow particle film is 0.90, while the commercial hollow particle is 0.84, which realizes high-performance passive radiative cooling. In addition, the radiative cooling power of 122.66 and 98.89 W·m-2 is achieved under direct sunlight, which is 7.6 ℃ and 3.3 ℃ lower than the ambient temperature. This study finds that the hollow silica film with uniform particles of 3 um size outperforms the commercial hollow silica film in radiative cooling performance and offers the possibility of commercialization due to its light weight and easy fabrication process.

Growing the Young Generation’s Interest in Agriculture through Synergy between Tourism and Organic Farming

Abstract Sustainable agriculture is becoming increasingly important in the context of global population growth and climate change. However, young people’s interest in agriculture has declined due to urbanization and a shift in career preferences. In light of this challenge, the idea to create a synergy between tourism and organic farming has emerged as an interesting and potential solution. This article explores how this synergy can play an important role in growing young people’s interest in agriculture. The research method is qualitative with a phenomenological approach. The research was conducted at an organic farming center in Karanganyar Regency, Central Java. The results show that organic farming, combined with elements of education, sustainability, and social interaction in the tourism experience, has a positive impact on the local economy, improves environmental awareness, and strengthens the connection with nature and local communities. By taking advantage of the potential synergy between tourism and organic farming, young people can be inspired to engage in sustainable agriculture, to create positive changes in future agricultural practices, and to promote a more environmentally conscious and sustainable society.