Sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Enhancing Capacity to Comply with Sustainability Standards in the Milk Value Chain in East Africa: Challenges, Prospects, and Policy Implications","authors":"Fredy Timothy Mlyavidoga Kilima, George Mutani Msalya, Amos Omore","doi":"10.3390/su16188100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188100","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the need to contextualize sustainability standards and supply chain management in dairy value chains in East Africa, where milk perishability and limited cold storage significantly impact the industry. The study highlights the importance of localizing these standards, given the greater dependence on local supply chains following the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on milk standards literature and various interventions aimed at promoting systemic change, this review analyses the capacity of marginalized stakeholders in East Africa’s dairy value chains to meet sustainability standards, focusing particularly on the social dimensions of these standards. The findings indicate that compliance with sustainability and safety standards is predominantly restricted to formal dairy networks, which process less than 20 percent of milk produced in the region. Most milk sales occur through informal or unorganized markets, which face significant barriers to meeting international sustainability benchmarks. The review advocates for the alignment of international sustainability standards with the unique conditions of the informal markets dominating East Africa’s dairy sector. It suggests enhancing stakeholder capabilities and addressing regulatory barriers as necessary steps for improving compliance with these standards. The co-operative model is highlighted as a promising approach to integrating farmers and marginalized value chain actors into the formal sector, thereby facilitating incremental adoption of sustainability standards. The paper identifies strategic entry points for organizing and upgrading the supply chain, including capacity building, certification, and catalyzing farmer groups to compliance and productivity.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing Smart Grid Sustainability: Using Advanced Hybrid Machine Learning Techniques While Considering Multiple Influencing Factors for Imputing Missing Electric Load Data","authors":"Zhiwen Hou, Jingrui Liu","doi":"10.3390/su16188092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188092","url":null,"abstract":"Amidst the accelerating growth of intelligent power systems, the integrity of vast and complex datasets has become essential to promoting sustainable energy management, ensuring energy security, and supporting green living initiatives. This study introduces a novel hybrid machine learning model to address the critical issue of missing power load data—a problem that, if not managed effectively, can compromise the stability and sustainability of power grids. By integrating meteorological and temporal characteristics, the model enhances the precision of data imputation by combining random forest (RF), Spearman weighted k-nearest neighbors (SW-KNN), and Levenberg–Marquardt backpropagation (LM-BP) techniques. Additionally, a variance–covariance weighted method is used to dynamically adjust the model’s parameters to improve predictive accuracy. Tests on five metrics demonstrate that considering various correlated factors reduces errors by approximately 8–38%, and the hybrid modeling approach reduces predictive errors by 12–24% compared to single-model approaches. The proposed model not only ensures the resilience of power grid operations but also contributes to the broader goals of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Environmental, Social, and Governance Scores and Loan Composition Inside United States Banks","authors":"Silvia Bressan","doi":"10.3390/su16188075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188075","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze the loan portfolios of United States banks from 2013 to 2023, showing that high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) banks have larger shares of consumer loans and commercial loans and smaller shares of construction loans and real estate loans. We also find that the governance pillar (G) is more tightly related to the bank loan composition compared to the environmental (E) and social (S) pillars. Furthermore, we show that construction loans and real estate loans decrease more considerably with bank ESG scores inside countries with high gas emissions, i.e., where ESG issues would arguably be more serious. Our interpretation is that sustainable banks are reluctant in lending money for real estate projects, exposing them to potentially high ESG risk. These findings contribute to developing a deeper insight about the relationship between ESG and bank lending, which, in the previous literature, has been treated more frequently in aggregate terms instead of separating loan types. Our outcomes suggest that sustainability is crucial for the availability of funds in the real estate sector, delivering important insights to bank and real estate managers, besides policy makers.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cost-Sensitive Rainfall Intensity Prediction with High-Noise Commercial Microwave Link Data","authors":"Liankai Zheng, Jiaxiang Lin, Zhixin Huang, Yu Lin, Qin Zheng, Qianqian Chen, Lizheng Lin, Jianyun Chen","doi":"10.3390/su16188067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188067","url":null,"abstract":"Rainfall intensity prediction based on commercial microwave link data has received significant attention in recent years due to the higher spatial resolution and lower energy consumption. However, the predictive performance is inferior to the model based on meteorological data by reason of the high noise in commercial microwave link data, further exacerbated by the imbalance in the number of samples across different rainfall intensities. Hence, a cost-sensitive rainfall intensity prediction model (CSRFP) is proposed to achieve better predictive performance in high-noise commercial microwave link data. First, the spatiotemporal scene information is encoded, and its weights are trained to provide the model with correlations between signal data from different stations, which helps the model to better capture potential patterns between the data and thus reduce the effect of noise. Next, the rainfall cross-entropy loss based on the rainfall distribution provides the model with the probability of different rainfall intensities occurring and back-calculates the signal attenuation at a specific rainfall intensity, assigning more reasonable weights to different samples considering signal attenuation, which makes the model cost-sensitive and can address the class imbalance problem. Extensive experiments are carried out on high-noise communication data and imbalanced rainfall data in Fuzhou. Compared to typical prediction methods such as RNN applied to rainfall and communication data, CSRFP improves Recall, Precision, AUCROC, AUCPR and F1 and Accuracy by approximately 19%, 37%, 8%, 22%, 30%, and 17%, respectively. Significantly, the model’s prediction accuracy for heavy rain with the smallest number of samples improves by about 13%.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Does Digital Transformation Moderate Green Culture, Job Satisfaction, and Competitive Advantage in Sustainable Hotels?","authors":"Gul Coskun Degirmen, Derya Ozilhan Ozbey, Emine Sardagı, Ilknur Cevik Tekin, Durmus Koc, Pınar Erdogan, Feden Koc, Emel Arık","doi":"10.3390/su16188072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188072","url":null,"abstract":"Target groups within an organization adopt its culture, reflecting it in all internal and external business processes. Adopting a green organizational culture in hotels with sustainability certificates plays an important role in reshaping business processes by developing sustainability awareness among employees. Digital transformation, which facilitates corporate culture and business processes, plays a role in employee job satisfaction while also supporting environmental, social, and economic sustainability. This research aims to determine the relationship between green organizational culture, job satisfaction, and competitive advantage variables and to examine the moderating role of digital transformation on these relationships. The data-collecting techniques of choice were surveys and semi-structured interviews. While Amos software (Version 24) was used to test the hypothetical model in the analysis of survey data, a Hayes Process macro was used to determine the moderating effect. The interview forms’ data was analyzed using a bag-of-words model. According to the research results, there is a positive relationship between the participation, consistency, and adaptability sub-dimensions of green organizational culture and job satisfaction, while there is no significant relationship between the mission sub-dimension and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the study reveals the moderating role of digital transformation in the effect of job satisfaction on competitive advantage.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Concentrations of Organochlorine, Organophosphorus, and Pyrethroid Pesticides in Rivers Worldwide (2014–2024): A Review","authors":"Acela López-Benítez, Alfredo Guevara-Lara, Miguel A. Domínguez-Crespo, José A. Andraca-Adame, Aidé M. Torres-Huerta","doi":"10.3390/su16188066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188066","url":null,"abstract":"The extensive use of pesticides has led to the contamination of natural resources, sometimes causing significant and irreversible damage to the environment and human health. Even though the use of many pesticides is banned, these compounds are still being found in rivers worldwide. In this review, 205 documents have been selected to provide an overview of pesticide contamination in rivers over the last 10 years (2014–2024). After these documents were examined, information of 47 river systems was organized according to the types of pesticides most frequently detected, including organochloride, organophosphorus, and pyrethroid compounds. A total of 156 compounds were classified, showing that 46% of these rivers contain organochlorine compounds, while 40% exhibit organophosphorus pesticides. Aldrin, hexachlorocyclohexane, and endosulfan were the predominant organochlorine pesticides with concentration values between 0.4 and 37 × 105 ng L−1. Chlorpyrifos, malathion, and diazinon were the main organophosphorus pesticides with concentrations between 1 and 11 × 105 ng L−1. Comparing the pesticide concentrations with standard guidelines, we found that the Ganga River in India (90 ng L−1), the Owan and Okura Rivers in Nigeria (210 and 9 × 103 ng L−1), and the Dong Nai River in Vietnam (68 ng L−1) exceed the permissible levels of aldrin (30 ng L−1).","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Technical and Economic Aspects of Integrating Energy Sectors for Climate Neutrality","authors":"Dorel Stoica, Lucian Mihăescu, Gheorghe Lăzăroiu, George Cristian Lăzăroiu","doi":"10.3390/su16188070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188070","url":null,"abstract":"With the development of an energy sector based on renewable primary sources, structural changes are emerging for the entire national energy system. Initially, it was estimated that energy generation based on fossil fuels would decrease until its disappearance. However, the evolution of capture capacity leads to a possible coexistence for a certain period with the renewable energy sector. The paper develops this concept of the coexistence of the two systems, with the positioning of green hydrogen not only within the renewable energy sector but also as a transformation vector for carbon dioxide captured in the form of synthetic fuels, such as and . The authors conducted pilot-scale research on capture with green , both for pure (captured) and for found in combustion gases. The positive results led to the respective recommendation. The research conducted by the authors meets the strict requirements of the current energy phase, with the authors considering that wind and solar energy alone are not sufficient to meet current energy demand. The paper also analyzes the economic aspects related to price differences for energy produced in the two sectors, as well as their interconnection. The technical aspect, as well as the economic aspect, of storage through various other solutions besides hydrogen has been highlighted. The development of the renewable energy sector and its demarcation from the fossil fuel energy sector, even with the transcendent vector represented by green hydrogen, leads to the deepening of dispersion aspects between the electricity sector and the thermal energy sector, a less commonly mentioned aspect in current works, but of great importance. The purpose of this paper is to highlight energy challenges during the current transition period towards climate neutrality, along with solutions proposed by the authors to be implemented in this phase. The current stage of combustion of the mixture imposes requirements for the capture of the resulting .","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research on the Green Transition Path of Airport Development under the Mechanism of Tripartite Evolutionary Game Model","authors":"Yangyang Lv, Lili Wan, Naizhong Zhang, Zhan Wang, Yong Tian, Wenjing Ye","doi":"10.3390/su16188074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188074","url":null,"abstract":"Since existing studies primarily explore green development measures from the static perspective of a single airport stakeholder, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model to analyze the strategic choices of three key stakeholders: airport authorities, third-party organizations, and government departments, based on evolutionary game theory. By solving the stable strategy of the tripartite evolution using the Jacobian matrix, the green transition of airport development can be divided into three stages: “initiation”, “development”, and “maturity”, allowing for the exploration of key factors influencing the green transition of airport development. A simulation analysis is conducted based on real Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport data. The results indicate that the tripartite evolutionary game strategy is stable at E4(0,0,1), and the green transition of Baiyun Airport remains in the development stage. By improving the reward and punishment mechanisms of government departments, the evolutionary game strategy can be stabilized at E8(1,1,1), promoting the green transition of airport development toward the mature stage. By adjusting the game parameters, the dynamic process of green transition in airports at different levels of development and under varying regulatory environments can be effectively captured, supporting the precise formulation of corresponding policies.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating Technological Environmental Design and Energy Interventions in the Residential Building Stock: The Pilot Case of the Small Island Procida","authors":"Giada Romano, Serena Baiani, Francesco Mancini","doi":"10.3390/su16188071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188071","url":null,"abstract":"The next decade will see severe environmental and technological risks, pushing our adaptive capacity to its limits. The EPBD Case Green directive, to counter this phenomenon, emphasizes accelerating building renovations, reducing GHG emissions and energy consumption, and promoting renewable energy installations. Additionally, it calls for deadlines to phase out fossil fuels and mandates solar system installations. This research provides a comprehensive perspective on the opportunities for and challenges of incorporating renewable energy into the built environment. It focuses on the 2961 residential buildings on Procida, a small island located south of Italy, to efficiently utilize energy resources and lay the groundwork for sustainability. Beginning with an analysis of the territorial, urban, historical–conservation, structural, and geological context, in addition to environmental assessments, the research develops a classification and archetypalization system using in-house software. This system aggregates data on the island’s residential buildings, analyzes their current state, and formulates various intervention scenarios. These scenarios demonstrate how integrating technological–environmental design interventions, such as upgrading the building envelope and enhancing bioclimatic behavior, with energy retrofitting measures, such as replacing mechanical systems and installing solar panels, can improve the overall performance of the existing building stock and achieve energy self-sufficiency.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Speed Limits in São Paulo and the Actions for Road Safety and Air Quality","authors":"Douglas Gonçalves, Regina Maura de Miranda, Celio Daroncho, Janini de Oliveira Dias da Silva, Fabrício Rodrigues Teixeira, João Augusto Dunck Dalosto, Pedro José Pérez-Martínez","doi":"10.3390/su16188065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/su16188065","url":null,"abstract":"Studies carried out have revealed that every day around three thousand people lose their lives in the world due to traffic accidents and poor air quality. Large cities, with their millions of inhabitants and vehicles, face many problems relating to vehicular traffic. In 2015, the speed limit was modified on several roads in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. However, in 2017, the speed limits were increased again, but not on all previous routes. This study analyzed the impact of this change on the number of accidents and pollutant concentrations, over a period of ten years, comparing the periods before and after the implementation of the measure, using real data collected and provided by the authorities of the city and the state transit and environmental companies, on more than forty routes and two nearby air-quality stations. The results showed a clear reduction in the number of accidents without victims on the roads of the city of São Paulo, starting in 2010. Although the restrictive measures imposed by government officials may have contributed to the decrease in the number of accidents, the number of fatalities has not changed so much. Air pollution has not improved substantially with speed changes, as new speed increases have been linked to new episodes of congestion. The average number of fatalities due to accidents has been increasing since 2010 and accidents are becoming more serious. The application of a general linear statistical model (GLM) estimated the impact of the speed reduction policy in terms of the number of injuries avoided per month: 43.4 and 14.1 on other roads and on the Pinheiros highways, respectively. The results highlight the need for a constant data collection by the authorities in cities with high vehicle traffic. The important temporal time trend in terms of reduction of injuries, but not in terms of fatalities and air quality, shows the need to apply joint public policies, not only speed reduction, but also the use of new technologies and raising drivers’ awareness of the problem.","PeriodicalId":22183,"journal":{"name":"Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142265377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}