ABSTRACT: This issue of the European Journal of Sustainable Development Research marks its first anniversary, and demonstrates that the journal has already made a notable impact on the field of sustainable development through having published research on many recent advances. The topics likely to be addressed in the future, and thus covered in the European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, are likely to revolve around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to offer an exploratory review of the approaches to sustainability within the UK’s waste management industry. The paper begins with brief outlines of the waste management industry in the UK and the growing interest in corporate sustainability. This is followed by a review of the most recent sustainability reports published by the leading waste management companies operating within the UK and the paper concludes by offering some reflections on current approaches to sustainability within the industry. More critically the authors suggest that the selected companies’ commitments to sustainability are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth and consumption and that current policies might be viewed as little more than genuflections to sustainability. The paper provides an accessible commentary on current approaches to sustainability in the waste management industry within the UK and as such it will interest professionals working in the industry as well as academics and students interested in management and business studies, resource management and sustainability.

ABSTRACT: The problem of finding the method and means of internalizing the costs of externalities has stumped economists since Arthur Pigou first presented this issue in 1920.  Since Pigou, several mainstream economists and alternative economists have attempted to further his ideas because of the promise of curbing consumer behaviors and thereby reducing detrimental activities such as the production of greenhouse gases. The current call for a carbon tax to stem the causes of Global Climate Change is just one example of a present day method of internalizing externalities.  Of all of the modern day proponents for a carbon tax and other forms of “green fees”, however, Paul Hawken is arguably the most ardent supporter, believing this to be the most effective method of stemming many of humankind’s pollution activities.  His best selling book The Ecology of Commerce, A Declaration of Sustainability is examined here further, in order to explore Hawken’s arguments for these kinds of microeconomic solutions and to expand on these ideas to include macroeconomic solutions as well. As Hawken and others have noted, global climate change presents a size issue that must be countered using global forces in addition to microeconomic solutions such as with green fees.  This paper explores how global problems such as global climate change can be countered with the aid of international organizations for the benefit of global citizens.

ABSTRACT: Academic urban debates shrouded with paradox render the transition to sustainable urban development (SUD) vague and unclear. The premise of this study is that the elimination of the controversial points included in each issue, in addition to reconciliation among these issues, may propel SUD. Therefore, this study dialectically discusses five urban issues: urban form, urban growth, transportation, urban vegetation, and governance (social participation). These issues were chosen among ten issues reviewed in a previous study in order to highlight controversial aspects and how to overcome them. The study suggests that the sociocultural dimension is an overlooked aspect in urban issues, and this may be a major reason for the conflict among academics. Further, this study concludes that governance is a major coordinator that can remedy the controversial points related to urban problems. Transportation is the second mediation among urban form, growth, and vegetation. Therefore, greater concern with governance and transportation in any urban planning policy improves current and future sustainable developments.

ABSTRACT: The high cost and environmental impact of fossil-fuel energy generation in remote regions can make renewable energy applications more competitive than business-as-usual scenarios. Furthermore, energy and transport are two of the main sectors that significantly contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions. This paper focuses on the generation of thermal energy and the transport sector of a fossil fuel-based energy independent island in Greece. We evaluate (1) technologies for fully renewable thermal energy generation using building-specific solar thermal systems and (2) the replacement of the vehicle fleet of the island with electric and hydrogen-fueled vehicles. The analysis, based on economic and environmental criteria, shows that although solar thermal decreases greenhouse gases by 83%, when compared to the current diesel-based situation, it only becomes economically attractive with subsidy scenarios equal to or higher than 50%. However, in the transport sector, the sum of fuel and maintenance costs of fuel-cell and electric vehicles is found to be 45% lower than that of the current fleet, due to their approximately seven times lower fuel cost. Lastly, it will take approximately six years of use of the new vehicles to balance out the emissions of their manufacturing phase.

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the current scenario of Information and communication technology (ICT) awareness in Government and Private Universities located in two northern states in India. It emphasizes on the faculty and student’s viewpoints towards ICT awareness in relation to their gender. The author is analyzed the viewpoint of students and faculty who are providing and receiving higher education in government and private Institutions located in northern India. Gender wise analysis is performed using descriptive percentage analysis. Further, the range of response analysis is performed for explore viewpoints of students towards information and communication technology factors. More than nine hundred participants from six Universities have participated in this research. The outcome shows the huge necessity to integrate the higher education with latest technology in northern Indian Universities. The normative survey was conducted in the year 2015 by researcher.

ABSTRACT: To help balance comfort and energy use in residential, institutional and commercial buildings in order to make them more sustainable, a thermal comfort model is coupled with a computational fluid dynamic approach. The developed tool provides an effective tool for demand side management of energy use in buildings. The asymmetrical thermal environment in a university cafeteria building is modeled, and a two dimensional numerical simulation is prepared separately of the thermal sensation in the cafeteria. A finite volume formulation is used to provide the temperature distribution around a space-variant manikin, which is in turn utilized to determine the convective heat transfer coefficients for the simulation of thermal sensation around the manikin.

ABSTRACT: Public procurement refers to the purchasing of goods, services and works by governments and public authorities. Given the difficulty in defining a common core of social considerations applicable to the generality of public contracts, this paper aims at proposing a distinction between two categories of social objectives: on the one hand, the promotion of work standards and fundamental human rights as a hard core, and on the other hand, the promotion of inclusion and supplier diversity as a further step of the social-oriented approach. This concerns not only the mere procurement process but also the entire supply chain, leading to distinguish between the basic responsible supply chain involving the respect of internationally recognised human and labour rights, and the pro-active responsible supply chain promoting inclusion and supplier diversity. Based on this distinction, this paper analyses if basic working conditions and fundamental rights can be generally taken into account in public procurement. Implications of this assumption affect different levels of the procurement process and policy: from policy considerations to tender design, from economic efficiency matters to monitoring issues.

ABSTRACT: At the same time of providing a huge amount of energy to the world population (social sustainability) and global economy (economic sustainability), the fuel itself also releases a great amount of emissions to the environment the world people live in in the forms of gaseous pollutants (SO_x, NO_x, CO, CO₂, CH₄, etc.) and ash compositions (Al₂O₃, CaO, Fe₂O₃, K₂O, MgO, MnO, Na₂O, P₂O₅, SO₃, SiO₂, TiO₂, etc.), seriously impacting the environment (environmental sustainability) for the world population and global economy. Sustainability generally encompasses economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability, and all of these are significantly related to the energy/resource sustainability. This study addresses the sustainability of fuel from the viewpoint of exergy. It is demonstrated that the energy of a fuel is best evaluated by its chemical exergy, and the environmental impact of a fuel can be assessed through the chemical exergy of its emissions (the specific impacts such as toxicity or greenhouse effect are not detailed). Then, the sustainability of fuel can be understood from the viewpoint of exergy through three ways: (a) high chemical exergy of the fuel, (b) high exergy efficiency of the fuel conversion process, and (c) low chemical exergy of the emissions.

ABSTRACT: The main objective of this present novel work is to investigate the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of biodiesel derived from the tamarind seed through the transesterification process as potential alternative feedstock for the diesel engine. The physio-chemical properties of tamarind seed methyl ester (TSME) were evaluated experimentally and compared with the base fuel. Test fuels were prepared in 3 concentrations such as B10 (10% tamarind seed oil and 90% diesel), B20 and B30.Experiments were conducted at a constant speed, the injection timing of 23° crank angle and compression ratio 17.5:1 with varying load conditions to investigate the diesel engine characteristics. TSME 20 shown better thermal efficiency (34.41%) over diesel which is 1.17 % higher and also it produces lower emissions of CO, HC, and smoke opacity. N-Amyl alcohol (NAA) is used as a fuel additive for the optimum blend of TSME20; added in 5% and 10% concentration on the volume basis. From the analysis of experimental data, the use of fuel additives significantly reduces the smoke opacity by 29.49 % for TSME20 NAA 10% blend in addition to the reduction of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons emissions; however, the specific fuel consumption and the oxides of nitrogen were marginally increased.

ABSTRACT: Chemical Engineering is a very rich discipline and it is best classified using System Theory (ST) and utilized using the Integrated System Approach (ISA). Environmental Engineering (EE) is a subsystem of Chemical Engineering and also a subsystem of Sustainable Development (SD). In this paper both EE and SD are discussed from a Chemical Engineering point of view utilizing ST and ISA.

ABSTRACT: Advancing or retarding pilot fuel injection timing in a diesel engine provided with either conventional mechanical fuel injection (CMFIS) or high pressure injection as in common rail fuel injection (CRDI) systems can significantly affect its performance and tail pipe emissions. Performance of diesel engine when fueled with various biofuels as well as gaseous fuels tends to vary with subsequent changes in pilot fuel injection timings. Biodiesel derived from rubber seed oil called Rubber Seed Oil Methyl Ester (RuOME) and hydrogen (H₂) and hydrogen enriched compressed natural gas called (HCNG) both being renewable fuels when used in diesel engines modified to operate in dual fuel mode can provide complete replacement for fossil diesel. In the present study, effect of injection timings and venture design for gas mixing on the performance, combustion and emission characteristics of dual fuel engine fitted with both CMFIS and CRDI injection systems and operated on RuOME and HCNG/hydrogen has been investigated. Results showed that high pressure CRDI assisted injection of RuOME with optimized mixing chamber (carburetor)) for hydrogen induction in dual fuel engine performed improved compared to that with CMFIS. In addition, for the same fuel combinations, CRDI resulted in lower biodiesel consumption, lower carbon monoxide (BSCO) and hydrocarbon (BSHC) emissions and increased NOx emissions than CMFIS operation.