Top Research Papers on Sustainability

Sustainable AI is a movement to foster change in the entire lifecycle of AI products towards greater ecological integrity and social justice, with three accompanying tensions between AI innovation and equitable resource distribution; inter and intra-generational justice; and, between environment, society, and economy.

This paper delves into the multifaceted concept of sustainability, covering its evolution, laws, principles, as well as the different domains and challenges related to achieving it in the modern world. Although capitalism, socialism, and communism have been utilized throughout history, their strengths and drawbacks have failed to address sustainable development comprehensively. Therefore, a holistic approach is necessary, which forms the basis for a new development model called sustainalism. This study proposes a new socio-economic theory of sustainalism that prioritizes quality of life, socia...

Numerous studies have focused on how consumers evaluate the sustainability of products. However, researchers need more understanding about how consumer values and consumer perceptions of the marketplace practices of firms influence consumer support for those firms pursuing sustainable business practices. This is important in building knowledge about how sustainable marketing programs of firms might more strongly link marketing programs to consumer values and to what consumers prefer regarding sustainability. The study features an online survey and large-scale sampling in the US (304 respondent...

A strong criticism of the concept of sustainable development due to its imprecise definition, the emergence of the Concept of sustainability in the debate of the 1990s and its consolidation in certain fields of knowledge, and the emerged of new alternatives to sustainable development such as degrowth and buen vivir are shown.

The terms “corporate social responsibility” (CSR), “sustainability”, “sustainable development” and “corporate sustainability” (CS) are critical terms for developing, analysing and evaluating public and private policy goals. These terms are used to make decisions about investment, policy development, and strategy creation. The terms emerged in different fields of endeavour at different points in time. Accordingly, they have different meanings; however, over time they have come to be used interchangeably mixing up policy agendas, confusing managers, regulators, activists and the public at large....

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WECD) provided a seminal definition of sustainable development, which has become the landmark for countless governments, businesses and civil society organizations to contribute to a sustainable world. And yet, it is precisely the nuanced approach of the WECD e focusing simultaneously on the protection of nature, the creation of economic welfare, and social inclusion that threatens the boundaries of the Earth system. Governments and en-terprises fail to respect the planetary boundaries. Hence, they compromise the ability of future g...

Abstract Sustainable development has emerged as a field of applied research across multi‐discipline. Sustainable leadership is a new domain of effective leadership, which has been established recently to cope with issues related to sustainable development. On the subject of natural resource‐based view (NRBV) and dynamic capability theory, this study examined methods of embedding sustainable leadership into sustainable performance and investigated the mediating effect of organizational learning to sustainable leadership and sustainable performance. The data in this study were collected from a t...

Research on open innovation and sustainability suggests that alliances with external stakeholders help to improve innovation outcomes. This paper taps into the intersection of these literatures and investigates how alliance proactiveness and alliance portfolio coordination affect firms' sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) outcomes. Data were collected from 170 firms in the Basque Country region in Spain, which has a highly collaborative regional innovation system. Partial least squares (PLS) modeling confirmed that alliance proactiveness is positively related to radical SOI, while allianc...

Purpose Current approaches to sustainability science and education focus on (assessing and addressing) the external world of ecosystems, wider socio-economic structures, technology and governance dynamics. A major shortcoming of such approaches is the neglect of inner dimensions and capacities (which constrains education for sustainability as an end), and a limited capacity to facilitate reflection on the cognitive and socio-emotional processes underpinning people’s learning, everyday life choices and decision-taking (which constrains education for sustainability as a means). More integral app...

Abstract Sustainable finance—the integration of environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) issues into financial decisions—is an increasingly important topic. Within companies, sustainability is no longer an ancillary issue confined to corporate social responsibility departments, but a CEO-level issue fundamental to the core business. Within the investment industry, sustainability used to be the exclusive domain of “socially responsible investors” who had social as well as financial objectives, but is now mainstream and includes investors with purely financial goals. This article introduces...

Most executives know that how they respond to the challenge of sustainability will profoundly affectthe competitiveness—and perhaps even the survival—of their organizations. Yet most are flailingaround, launching a hodgepodge of initiatives without any overarching vision or plan. That's notbecause they don't see sustainability as a strategic issue. Rather, it's because they think they're facing an unprecedented journey for which there is no road map.

This is the data and source code mentioned in the Journal of Sustainability manuscript submitted to MDPI Publishing..

As consumers seek products that cause minimal environmental harm and bring about positive social impact, and as awareness of supply chain impact grows, retailers must embrace sustainability. Given their unique position in the supply chain between upstream suppliers and downstream consumers, retailers are key to a circular economy in which products at the initial end-of-life stage are returned to the supply chain for continued use. By serving as a connection between suppliers and consumers, retail initiatives can help to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Furthermore, retailers can leverage their uniq...

Sustainable polymers are materials derived from renewable, recycled and waste carbon resources and their combinations, which at the end of life can be recycled, biodegraded or composted. Sustainable polymers also exhibit reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle. This Primer presents an overview of the research in and potential of sustainable polymers, with a focus on their life cycle, synthetic routes from renewable carbon feedstocks, production, material characterization, applications, end of life, data reproducibility and limitations faced, and provides a brief outlook. The P...

The issue of urban sustainability is currently exceptionally up to date, and the sustainable development of cities has become an important topic on the political level. Many cities in the world are facing acute challenges concerning growing dangers to the environment and ensuring quality of life for their inhabitants. In connection with cities achieving their individual goals of sustainable development, urban sustainability indicator frameworks (USIFs) are becoming the subjects of attention. Such frameworks enable sustainability to be clearly measured and assessed. In this article, we analysed...

Central role of future professionals in chemistry to promote alternatives towards sustainability.

This study investigates whether sustainability reports indicate corporate sustainability performance—in other words, the extent to which such disclosure is informative. To extract relevant information from sustainability reports, 51 sustainability indicators of practices were compiled from the literature and reporting guidelines on sustainability. These indicators were then scored for 331 companies based on the content of their sustainability reports. A factor analysis carried out on these indicators yielded five constructs: three for environmental sustainability and two for social sustainabil...

The pursuit of sustainable development for individuals, societies, and nations is important for the global community given its emphasis on pursuing a harmonious balance between societal, economic, and environmental imperatives. With respect to formal education, teachers are critical agents in delivering sustainable development content, and facilitating skills and action competencies to achieve such goals. Consequently, understanding teachers’ perspectives of sustainable development is necessary. This research utilised a survey design to gather views from 296 teachers from 12 high schools in ru...

This study explores if, how and through what channels millennials' sustainability values translate into action when it comes to fashion garments. By testing a research model on 448 European millennials, it contrasts extant theories of planned behaviour, finding that purchase intent is often guided by unintentional, non-linear processes wherein trust in intermediaries such as celebrity influencers, rather than the fashion retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach condition behaviour. For fashion retailers, it suggests the strategic use of influencers to (un)consciously market su...

Abstract Complying with the requirements of sustainability development is a very high priority for the business community. The United Nations' 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN_SDGs) pose new challenges for firms, which have to adjust their operations and strategies to the requirements of SDGs. In this context, this paper aims to develop a methodological framework for evaluating the level of alignment of corporate sustainability reporting practices with the scope of UN_SDGs. Based on disclosure topics from Global Reporting Initiative and a scoring system, an evaluation f...

Purpose The purpose of this study determines how environmental management control system (MCS) packages influence ecological sustainability and sustainable performance through the mediating role of environmental strategies. Furthermore, this applies organizational capabilities as moderating variables between environmental strategies, ecological sustainability and sustainable performance in a sample of 373 construction firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply quantitative questionnaire data from construction firm representatives (from project, sales and construction managers and con...

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a universal framework for addressing pressing global economic, environmental, and social challenges. Central to the SDG agenda is the vital role of business innovation in fostering positive change and promoting the triple bottom line of sustainability: people, planet, and prosperity. Many years have passed following the SDGs’ inception, yet the engagement of business innovation scholarship with the SDGs remains sparse. Moreover, a comprehensive review examining the convergence of business, innovation, and sustainability through the ...

The various applications of AI in advancing sustainable urbanization are highlighted, showing some of the most significant problems related to data privacy, algorithm bias, and ethical considerations.

This review provides clarity regarding existing definitions of sustainability and sustainability frameworks and identifies fourteen factors that influence program sustainability, which practitioners can consider when planning, developing and implementing HPP.

Business cannot escape the impact of climate change that is deteriorating day by day. Many organizations are becoming motivated more than ever to introduce new business models, modern technologies, and supportive policies with an effort to cope with critical issues connected to climate change. The present study has investigated the mediating effect of psychological safety on the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable performance as well as evaluating the moderation impact of psychological empowerment on that relationship. To date, the present research is the first attempt ...

This study develops a novel framework by hand-mapping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their targets with a firm's sustainability practices, reflected in its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores. Our mapping provides an actionable solution for firms to identify where the SDGs are connected with their ESG performance and accordingly tangibly measure their progress towards achieving the SDGs. We show that there are particular SDGs and targets which are more relevant to the business sector than others. We also investigate how firm-specific characteristics can help explain...

Nowadays sustainability concept has gained worldwide recognition in the building industry worldwide. However, despite the recent trends toward consideration of environmental and economic aspects in sustainability assessment framework for buildings, the concept of social sustainability has given less attention. Therefore, social issues were less included in the main categories of sustainability assessment schemes. As a result, such frameworks failed to effectively correspond to social aspects of sustainability and they have created gaps in analytical support necessary for sustainable decision-m...

After presenting the actual world status of food sustainability and how its global governance is linked to environmental, economic and social dimensions, some measures and indicators for monitoring progress are reviewed with the final aim of providing solutions and recommendations for the sustainability of the food production and consumption system.

Dynamic capabilities and sustainability practices have become the center of attention for companies globally, but there is still a debate on how organizations can successfully develop dynamic capabilities and achieve sustainability for competitive advantage. This paper discusses the outcomes of a comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) following the PRISMA guidelines and employs dynamic capabilities theory to suggest that strategic routines and competencies, integrated value chains, sustainability-oriented transformations, and strategic organizational developments are the drivers to e...

Using a natural resource-based view and technology-organization-environment framework as the theoretical focus, this paper develops and tests a research model in which sustainable operations practices mediate the impact of industry 4.0 technologies on sustainable performance. The model also tests sustainable operations practices as a moderator of the effect of industry 4.0 technologies on sustainable performance. Data obtained from 302 participants in Turkey's technology development regions were utilized to gauge the aforesaid linkages via partial least squares structural equation modeling. As...

Purpose This paper aims to emphasize integrating training for organizational sustainability with the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It shows how SDGs can be included in the training, development programs and incentives to promote sustainable practices. It guides organizations to set long-term sustainability objectives to stay competitive and adapt to changing conditions. Design/methodology/approach The paper conducts a review of the literature on the topic of integrating training for organizational sustainability with the SDGs. The research includes investigating ...

This paper is the editorial for the virtual special issue (VSI) of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) dedicated to 4 SDEWES Conferences held in 2020, namely: (i) the 2nd Latin American Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (LASDEWES 2020) held from February 9 to 12, 2020 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; (ii) the 1st Asia Pacific Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (APSDEWES 2020) held from April 6 to 9, 2020 in Gold Coast, Australia; (iii) the 4th South East European Conference on Sustainable Developmen...

The discipline of geography encompasses both natural and social sciences and has the natural advantage of enabling the study of sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective. There are great opportunities for geographers to participate in sustainability research. However, while geographers have set sustainability goals, they have rarely clarified the details for reaching those goals. Current knowledge on the relationship between humans and the environment and the methodologies for studying this relationship are inadequate to solve the transdisciplinary questions in sustainability science...

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are applied as a framework to classify and discern high-level goals SHCI researchers have worked towards during this period of time.

Wine production is one of the most important agricultural activities around the world. The production of wine involves the use of a large number of valuable resources, such as water, fertilizers, and other organic products. Moreover, it produces a large amount of wastewater and organic waste that must be treated adequately to avoid contaminating the areas of production. The nature of the waste produced depends very closely on the specific vinification procedures, which also affect the physical–chemical properties of the residual material generated, whose characteristics determine its subsequen...

The unprecedented rise in cooling demand globally is a critical blind spot in sustainability debates. We examine cooling as a system comprised of active and passive measures, with key social and technical components, and explain its link to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. We propose an analytical and solution-oriented framework to identify and shape interventions towards sustainable cooling. The framework comprehends demand drivers; cradle-to-cradle stages; and system change levers. By intersecting cooling stages and levers, we discuss four specific, exemplary interventions to deliver su...

Having transformed our way of life, rechargeable batteries are poised for exponential growth over the coming decade, notably due to the wider adoption of electric vehicles. An international expert panel proposes a combination of vision, innovation and practice for feasible pathways toward sustainable batteries.

Meat has become a controversial topic in public debates, as it involves multiple sustainability dimensions. Here, we review global meat consumption trends and the various sustainability dimensions involved, including economic, social, environmental, health, and animal welfare issues. Meat has much larger environmental and climate footprints than plant-based foods and can also be associated with negative health effects. Technological options can help to increase the sustainability of meat production, but changes in consumption are required as well. At least in high-income countries, where peopl...

How to make city cycling—the most sustainable means of travel—safe, practical, and convenient for all. Cycling is the most sustainable means of urban travel, practical for most short- and medium-distance trips—commuting to and from work and school, shopping, visiting friends—as well as for recreation and exercise. Cycling promotes physical, social, and mental health, helps reduce car use, enhances mobility and independence, and is economical for both public and personal budgets. Cycling should be made feasible for everyone and not limited to especially fit, daring, well-trained cyclists riding...

Abstract The planet Earth has been thronged by a horde of threatening issues since the late twentieth century. Climate change, fossil fuel depletion and various types of pollution, including heavy metal pollution, have hit the humanity hard. Application of biochar has been emerged as a viable option to tackle heavy metal pollution. Biochar is a carbonaceous product obtained on pyrolysing any substance containing biomass. The chemico-physical properties of biochar depend on the type of feedstock used and the pyrolysis temperature involved in its production. Its remarkable properties of high por...