Design quality indicators have yet to be widely applied for assessing the sustainability of educational infrastructure. In this sector, the indicators have centred around seismic resilience and ...energy performance in case‐oriented studies dependent on primary data collection. However, access to good quality data about the building stock in European Union member states is required to support the planning of beneficial public educational infrastructure. The aim of this paper is to establish the process of developing a set of key design quality indicators for educational infrastructure in line with European legislation and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. In total, 31 design quality indicators are proposed to cover the following priority areas: building stock and safety, user experience, energy efficiency, digital infrastructure and equipment, and environment (emissions and natural resources). These proposed priority areas and analysis of the available data reveal a situation in which national and international decision‐making authorities are constrained by the lack of data and their accuracy, obsolescence and vagueness. Currently, one cannot make an unbiased decision on the investments required for educational infrastructure. This means the greatest value of this work lies in potential application of the comprehensive system of priority areas and design quality indicators for international performance comparisons and evidence‐based policy decision‐making processes related to educational infrastructure, for example, investments, engineering and social matters.
Energy poverty: A macrolevel perspective Primc, Kaja; Slabe‐Erker, Renata; Majcen, Boris
Sustainable development (Bradford, West Yorkshire, England),
September/October 2019, 2019-09-00, 20190901, Letnik:
27, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The growing unpredictability of energy poverty requires a different policy approach. Yet studies focus on the microlevel drivers, leaving the roles of macroeconomic perspective and climate ...understudied. Studying the latter is important though, because well‐planned policies can fail if the causes of energy poverty and their interrelations remain unclear. This research submits data collected from 28 EU member states to fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis and offers new evidence concerning the relationship between energy poverty and macrolevel drivers. Our results suggest that states with a mild climate, low or average GDP, and high energy prices have high levels of energy poverty. Likewise, states located in colder climates with low or average GDP, the energy‐policy focus, and nonhigh energy prices tend to be energy poor. Moreover, the results show that two configurations lead to absence of energy poverty. To develop and implement effective policies, it is vital to understand these configurations.
The main purpose of this study is to provide the needed additional quantitative evidence regarding the introduction of environmental technologies, and to increase the possibility for generalization ...and thus policy application of conclusions. To achieve that purpose, a conceptual model is developed, and then tested on a large database of firms from various industries with the use of structural equation modeling. The results show that policy measures, past environmental investments, the importance of environmental technologies for customers and the firm performance have a positive effect on environmental investments. Furthermore, the results show that policy measures are a second-order three-factor construct.
Energy poverty is becoming ever more important for academia and policymakers. This study conducts fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with the aim of constructing energy poverty ...profiles. FsQCA was performed on 150 households. The results show that energy-poor households are characterised by the interdependence and intertwining of socio-demographic (ownership status, education level, labour force status and household size) and housing (type of building, central heating system and solar collectors/heat pump) characteristics. The conditions form eight equifinal configurations related to energy-poor households. None of the individual characteristics is able to explain energy poverty alone, although strong interrelations are present in the outcomes. The study also highlights that the conditions play different roles in the presence or absence of energy poverty, giving policymakers the necessary leeway to formulate effective policies as part of agendas covering poverty in general, poor health, climate change and domestic energy inefficiency. This study suggests that energy poverty is a structural issue, mainly arising from poor energy-efficient buildings and/or labour market inefficiencies.
•Generally, a single condition is neither necessary nor sufficient for energy poverty.•The interaction of key factors is crucial for explaining energy poverty.•Eight equifinal paths lead to households’ energy poverty.•Energy poverty is largely a structural issue.
In this short communication piece, we draw attention to the discussion on policies for reducing energy poverty in European Union member states. We urgently need a policy approach able to support the ...transition from the current rising levels of energy poverty to a sustainable community with a greener and healthier future. Analysing energy prices, the policy framework and household income, we conduct a preliminary investigation of energy poverty from a macro-level perspective and associated policy interventions in the EU. Obtained from a non-classical fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, our results clearly show that energy poverty is a product of substantial interdependence that may be summarised in two paths: (PP1) low or median household income and energy-policy focus, and (PP2) high energy prices and energy-policy focus. Surprisingly, our findings indicate that an energy-policy focus is found in EU member states with the highest levels of energy poverty. One step further, we also offer an insight into the absence of energy poverty, where social policy seems to play the key role. Taken together, we argue that member states facing above-average energy poverty are captured in an energy-poverty trap, whereby the existing energy-policy focus does not yield the desired results and the social policy is often too costly to implement due to the problem's magnitude. Our main concern is that prioritising any of the policies may slow down the transition to a sustainable energy society. We, therefore, call on scientists to not only further examine the energy-poverty phenomenon but to also participate in creating effective policies.
•Energy-policy focus is present in EU states with the highest energy poverty.•Member states with low energy poverty have social- and energy-policy focus.•Policy efficacy depends on the scale of the problem and situation in the EU states.•Qualitative comparative analyses enrich investigation of energy poverty.
While the terms “energy poverty” and “fuel poverty” are developing rapidly, their relationship, evolution and trends remain unclear. Efforts to apply the concepts are constrained by the lack of a ...comprehensive review and the conceptual clarity of the energy–fuel poverty relationship. The article therefore aims to address this gap by synthesising the similarities and differences both within/between the terms as found in scientific literature of the past 30 years. The results draw on a bibliometric and network analysis of 670 articles in the Scopus database. Our analysis shows we are dealing with evolving concepts whose definition, boundaries and principles are still not consolidated. By providing a complete review of the area and comparing the two concepts, we help with the clarification and reciprocal integration of this emerging field for the purpose of informing research and policymakers, while also identifying the current knowledge gaps and discussing several research areas likely to be hotspots for future research, including the social aspects of energy transition, engineering and architectural advancement and the public policy landscape.
The article presents an economic valuation of the Ljubljanica riverbanks area, which is an urban cultural landscape with distinct qualities of international importance. For this purpose, we combined ...a classical contingent valuation with a closed-form version of discrete choice method, where the protest responses have been removed. By using econometric analysis, we obtained the willingness-to-pay (WTP) value and established its determinants. It was ascertained that residents derived more utility from implementation of the targeted development scenario than visitors. Thus, a discriminatory contribution scheme similar to the one with respect to the mean WTP could supply substantial revenue for further targeted development, while still providing ample consumer surplus for both residents and visitors. The present analysis represents one of the method’s very few applications to urban landscape in Central and Eastern European countries.
The objective of this study was to determine whether and to what extent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measures actually succeed in preserving the diversity of agricultural landscapes. This paper ...assesses the effects of agricultural policy on changes in the diversity of agricultural landscapes in Slovenia. Diversity is measured by the Shannon index and the Simpson index, while the impacts were estimated using a spatial lag model. The results show that direct payments decrease landscape diversity by 2 index points per 1 000 EUR/ha, but agri-environmental payments for reducing negative impacts on the environment and those for nature conservation increase agricultural landscape diversity by 2.8 index points and 12.30 index points per 1 000 EUR/ha, respectively. Furthermore, we did not find any statistically significant effects of habitat protection payments on landscape diversity. Since direct payments are almost four times larger on average as agri-environmental payments, they preserve landscape diversity only to a limited extent.
SARS-CoV-2, a serious threat to sustainable development prospects, is spreading within countries at varying speeds, among other things depending on their population density, behavioural responses, ...cultural factors, personal hygiene practices and habits. This has led to significant variation in countries’ policy responses aimed at stemming the proliferation of the virus. Using crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis, we conducted a comparative study at the European level to study the performance of different combinations of COVID-19 containment measures along with the response speeds. A set of configurations for two different scenarios (above- and below-median death rates) helps to illustrate how specific containment measures in each examined European country are related to the number of deaths. The main observation arising from the analysis is that the speed of response along with the decision to suspend international flights might determine the epidemic outbreak’s impact on fatality. The results also imply that several different combinations of containment measures are associated with death rates across Europe. The outcome of this analysis can assist in identifying which set of containment measures in the event of an epidemic outbreak is beneficial/detrimental.
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