scholarly journals Assessing the Regional Sustainability of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration from 2000 to 2015 Using the Human Sustainable Development Index

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiyin Chen ◽  
Qingxu Huang ◽  
Ziwen Liu ◽  
Shiting Meng ◽  
Dan Yin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Urban Agglomeration ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Energy Structure ◽  
Resource Saving ◽  
Regional Sustainability ◽  
Development Index

Sustainability assessment can analyze the challenges of regional development from societal, economic, and environmental dimensions and provide an important baseline for regional planning. Recently, the rapid socio-economic development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration has inflicted great pressure on the regional environment. Therefore, this paper evaluated the sustainability dynamics of the BTH urban agglomeration from 2000 to 2015 at the city scale using the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) and discussed the major drivers of the changes in regional sustainability. The results showed that the overall sustainability of the BTH urban agglomeration increased from 2000 to 2015, with the HSDI increasing by 10%. Among the three dimensions, the economic sustainability indicators grew the fastest, with a growth rate of 42%, while the environmental sustainability indicators declined by 8%. The decline of environmental sustainability played an important role in limiting regional sustainable development. Specifically, the optimization of the energy structure in six cities, e.g., Tangshan, Langfang and Cangzhou, was relatively weaker than that in the remaining seven cities. In the future, the BTH urban agglomeration must further optimize the energy structure to build a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society.

scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment of Modern High-Rise Timber Buildings

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 8719
Author(s):  
Laura Tupenaite ◽  
Viktorija Zilenaite ◽  
Loreta Kanapeckiene ◽  
Tomas Gecys ◽  
Ineta Geipele
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Economic ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Assessment Framework ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
High Rise

As woodworking and construction technologies improve, the construction of multi-storey timber buildings is gaining popularity worldwide. There is a need to look at the design of existing buildings and assess their sustainability. The aim of the present study is to assess the sustainability of modern high-rise timber buildings using multi-criteria assessment methods. The paper presents a hierarchical system of sustainability indicators and an assessment framework, developed by the authors. Based on this framework, the tallest timber buildings in different countries, i.e., Mjøstårnet in Norway, Brock Commons in Canada, Treet in Norway, Forte in Australia, Strandparken in Sweden and Stadthaus in UK, were compared across the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic/technological, and social). Research has revealed that none of the buildings is leading in all dimensions of sustainability. However, each building is unique and has its own strengths. Overall multi-criteria assessment of the buildings revealed that the Brock Commons building in Canada has received the highest rank in all dimensions of sustainability. The paper contributes to the theory and practice of sustainability assessment and extends the knowledge about high-rise timber buildings. The proposed sustainability assessment framework can be used by both academics and practitioners for assessment of high-rise timber buildings.

scholarly journals Sustainability in Participatory Sports Events: The Development of a Research Instrument and Empirical Insights

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6034
Author(s):  
Ine Hugaerts ◽  
Jeroen Scheerder ◽  
Kobe Helsen ◽  
Joris Corthouts ◽  
Erik Thibaut ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Research Instrument ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Goals

The United Nations (UN) considers sports as an important enabler of sustainable development. The popular and fast-growing Participatory Sports Event (PSE) sector can play an important role in this regard, however, research that measures and reports sustainability in PSEs is scarce. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to construct and validate a research instrument based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, and to examine sustainability in PSEs. To this end, an online survey was administered among a representative sample of 303 PSE organisers, located in Flanders, Belgium. A confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the instrument and provided evidence for its validity and reliability. The results reveal significant discrepancies between the three dimensions, with a noticeable lower score for environmental sustainability compared to social and economic sustainability. Furthermore, challenges are highlighted in the field of the civil society sector and in walking sports events. The findings also indicate that large-sized events are more likely to be sustainable. The current study can act as a foundation for future research on sustainability in PSEs and can assist PSE organisers and policymakers to increase the sustainability-related performance of the sector.

Approaches for Measuring Sustainability

2013 ◽  
pp. 158-184
Author(s):  
Evangelos Grigoroudis ◽  
Vassilis S. Kouikoglou ◽  
Yannis A. Phillis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Economic ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Soil Formation ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Measuring Technique ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Limits To Growth

The environment provides the economy with resources (e.g., water, air, fuels, food, metals, minerals, and drugs), services (e.g., the cycles of H2O, C, CO2, N, O2; photosynthesis, and soil formation), and mechanisms to absorb waste. Economic growth is based on these three services, and since the global ecosystem does not grow, economic growth cannot continue indefinitely. The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have received much attention among policy-makers and scientists as a result of the existence of limits to growth and the dramatic environmental changes of the last decades. Sustainability integrates environmental, economic, and societal aspects. It also covers different geographical scales: ecosystems, regions, countries, and the globe. In this chapter, the authors review various models of sustainability assessment. Since there is no universally accepted definition and measuring technique of sustainability, these different models lead to different assessments. They also present a discussion of the sustainability indicators, aggregation tools, and data imputation techniques used in each approach.

scholarly journals Use of Entropy in Developing SDG-based Indices for Assessing Regional Sustainable Development: A Provincial Case Study of China

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 406
Author(s):  
Xiangyu Wang ◽  
Peichao Gao ◽  
Changqing Song ◽  
Changxiu Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Weight Coefficient ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Entropy Weight ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Index ◽  
Two Indices

Sustainable development appears to be the theme of our time. To assess the progress of sustainable development, a simple but comprehensive index is of great use. To this end, a multivariate index of sustainable development was developed in this study based on indicators of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To demonstrate the usability of this developed index, we applied it to Fujian Province, China. According to the China SDGs indicators and the Fujian situation, we divided the SDGs into three dimensions and selected indicators based on these dimensions. We calculated the weights and two indices with the entropy weight coefficient method based on collecting and processing of data from 2007 to 2017. We assessed and analyzed the sustainable development of Fujian with two indices and we drew three main conclusions. From 2007 to 2017, the development index of Fujian showed an increasing trend and the coordination index of Fujian showed a fluctuating trend. It is difficult to smoothly improve the coordination index of Fujian because the development speeds of Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) were low. The coordination index of Fujian changed from strong coordination to medium coordination from 2011 to 2012 because the development speed of the environmental dimension suddenly improved. It changed from strong coordination to medium coordination from 2015 to 2016 because the values of the development index of the social dimension were decreasing. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first SDGs-based multivariate indices of sustainable development for a region of China. These indices are applicable to different regions.

Environmental sustainability of facilities management

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-276
Author(s):  
Nimesha Sahani Jayasena ◽  
Harshini Mallawaarachchi ◽  
Lalith De Silva
Keyword(s):  
Asset Management ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Apparel Industry ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Facilities Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hierarchy Process

Purpose Rapid changes in the environment escalate the requirement of environmental sustainability assessment within built environment. The purpose of this paper is to model the environmental sustainability of facilities management (FM) functions in apparel industry in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive literature review was carried out in order to identify the importance of sustainability assessment for FM, sustainable FM functions and their environmental sustainability indicators. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey was carried out to determine a relative weight of the sustainable FM functions and environmental sustainability indicators through the analytical hierarchy process analysis. Findings Energy management was identified as the most significant FM function in terms of environmental sustainability in apparel industry with a relative performance of 49.12 per cent. Subsequently, the functions of water management (29.39 per cent), maintenance management (11.98 per cent) and waste management (9.64 per cent) obtained the second, third and fourth ranks while asset management (7.85 per cent) was the function which had the least performance score. Relative weights for the environmental sustainability indicators were also determined. Research limitations/implications In respect of the apparel industry, the developed model can be utilised for assessing the environmental sustainability of FM in broader term. Originality/value No proper mechanism was found to assess the sustainability of FM in apparel sector since very fewer research studies were focussed on achieving environmental sustainability in different industries. Hence, the assessment of environmental sustainability of FM in apparel industry is an emerging necessity in the present day, which was addressed in this research.

Sustainability in Supply Chain Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 233-246
Author(s):  
Farzad Dehghanian
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Management ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Sustainable Supply Chain ◽  
Chain Management ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

This chapter introduces sustainable development and its influences on supply chain management context. Sustainable development brings economical, environmental, and social concerns into managerial issues in supply chain. So working in sustainable environment will be more complex for managers who are now responsible to consider business functions from the three dimensions of sustainable developments. In this paradigm, managers seek the ways to avoid negative environmental and social impact of their operations and at the same time earn economical benefits. Furthermore, sustainability forces managers to deal with different stakeholders included in three dimensions of sustainable development. To proceed in this way, this chapter first presents environmental and social considerations and relevant stakeholders in supply chain management and offer some changes to manage the multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder nature of the sustainable supply chain. Then, it discusses about the sustainability assessment frameworks to evaluate sustainability of a company as well as a supply chain.

Sustainability in Supply Chain Management

2013 ◽  
pp. 944-957
Author(s):  
Farzad Dehghanian
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Management ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Sustainable Supply Chain ◽  
Chain Management ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

This chapter introduces sustainable development and its influences on supply chain management context. Sustainable development brings economical, environmental, and social concerns into managerial issues in supply chain. So working in sustainable environment will be more complex for managers who are now responsible to consider business functions from the three dimensions of sustainable developments. In this paradigm, managers seek the ways to avoid negative environmental and social impact of their operations and at the same time earn economical benefits. Furthermore, sustainability forces managers to deal with different stakeholders included in three dimensions of sustainable development. To proceed in this way, this chapter first presents environmental and social considerations and relevant stakeholders in supply chain management and offer some changes to manage the multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder nature of the sustainable supply chain. Then, it discusses about the sustainability assessment frameworks to evaluate sustainability of a company as well as a supply chain.

scholarly journals The Geographical Indication Pathway to Sustainability: A Framework to Assess and Monitor the Contributions of Geographical Indications to Sustainability through a Participatory Process

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7535
Author(s):  
Emilie Vandecandelaere ◽  
Luis Fernando Samper ◽  
Andrés Rey ◽  
Ana Daza ◽  
Pablo Mejía ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Geographical Indications ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Food And Agriculture Organization ◽  
Sustainability Strategy

Geographical Indications (GIs) are widely considered as tools to contribute to sustainability (The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—FAO, 2009; 2017), if established and well managed. While the literature may not always agree on the positive effects of GIs in all sustainability dimensions (e.g., economic, social, and environmental), there is evidence that engaging GI producers in a sustainability strategy can maximize their contribution to different components of sustainable development. FAO and oriGIn developed the sustainability strategy for GI (SSGI) to support GI producers and their associations so that they could engage in a place-based and participative approach in order to generate concrete progress and results. This paper presents original research for building both a framework and database for the selection and use of relevant sustainability indicators for GIs. A number of SSGI principles have guided the work throughout an iterative process for reviewing, selecting, and improving relevant indicators, while the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture (SAFA) has provided the structure to align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other widely used and recognized sustainability frameworks. As a result of this work, a database of 372 robust sustainability indicators that are relevant to GIs have been characterized to facilitate their use by practitioners. The discussion highlights the importance of the place-based approach, and the participative, inclusive process that represents the key to empowerment and the ability to develop alliances. It also focuses on action, and the need to strengthen both internal and external communication.

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