Urban aquaponics farms, by integrating aquaculture with hydroponic vegetable crops, are innovative and sustainable food production alternatives for urban regions with limited access to agricultural ...land and water resources. The equipment applied to aquaponics farms including LED lamps, air conditioning, osmotic systems, fertigation units, and pumps consume vast amounts of energy. By characterizing the non-schedulable and schedulable assets, this study proposes an optimized load scheduling approach that determines the equipment operating scheme with minimized operating costs and renewable energy loss. With the assumptions made, the proposed algorithm reduces the overall farm electricity usage and makes vertical farms more energy efficient.
•Generate a 24-h electricity load profile of a standardized aquaponics system.•Determine the optimal capacity of distributed photovoltaic and energy storage.•Develop an optimal dispatch strategy between the typical aquaponics assets.
Tourism is a key sector in the sustainable development of rural environments. Its ability to create stable employment and an acceptable level of profits is conditioned by the stability of tourist ...activity throughout the year. This paper compares the level of seasonality of a group of rural destinations to that of coastal and urban destinations. By doing so, we intend to determine whether seasonality-related problems exist in the rural environment or not. The second aim is related to the first one: the proposal of a new, more comprehensive and objective methodology that can measure the intensity of seasonality based on a DP2 synthetic indicator. The DP2 indicator groups information about different representative variables of seasonality. The study takes the main tourist spots in Spain as a reference. The analysis concludes that the annual level of stability of rural tourism is not far from the stability of urban tourism, which is the most stable, as seasonality is much higher in coastal destinations. The methodology that provides the framework to build the DP2 indicator has allowed us to identify which variables explain the differences in the level of seasonality of each destination to a large extent. The results showed that the variables that do so are related to the internalization of the destination and changes in the availability of bed places.
•Membrane technology enables sustainable recovery of aqueous valuable resource.•It is crucial to develop innovative hybrid membrane technology for resource recovery.•Membrane fouling and instability ...are bottlenecks that deteriorate the performance.•It is challenging to achieve large-scale engineering application of resource recovery.
Considering the circular economy and environmental protection, sustainable recovery of high-value metals from wastewater has become a prominent concern. Unlike conventional methods featuring extensive chemicals or energy consumption, membrane separation technology plays a crucial role in facilitating the sustainable and efficient recovery of valuable metals from wastewater due to its attractive features. In this review, we first briefly summarize the sustainable supply chain and significance of sustainable recovery of aqueous high-value metals. Then, we review the most recent advances and application potential in promising state-of-the-art membrane-based technologies for recovery of high-value metals (silver, gold, rhenium, platinum, ruthenium, palladium, iridium, osmium, and rhodium) from wastewater effluents. In particular, pressure-based membranes, liquid membranes, membrane distillation, forward osmosis, electrodialysis and membrane-based hybrid technologies and their mechanism of high-value metal recovery is thoroughly discussed. Then, engineering application and economic sustainability are also discussed for membrane-based high-value metal recovery. The review finally concludes with a critical and insightful overview of the techno-economic viability and future research direction of membrane technologies for efficient high-value metal recovery from wastewater.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability in human lives. Due to the scholars’ increasing interest in responding to the urgent ...call for action against the pandemic, the literature of sustainability research considering COVID-19 consequences is very fragmented. Therefore, a comprehensive review of the COVID-19 implications for sustainability practices is still lacking. This research aims to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability to support the future sustainable development agenda. To achieve that, the following research questions are addressed by conducting a systematic literature review: (i) what is the current status of research on the TBL of sustainability considering COVID-19 implications? (ii) how does COVID-19 affect the TBL of sustainability? and (iii) what are the potential research gaps and future research avenues for sustainable development post COVID-19? The results manifest the major implications of the COVID-19 outbreak for the triple sustainability pillars and the sustainable development agenda from the economic, social, and environmental points of view. The key findings provide inclusive insights for governments, authorities, practitioners, and policy-makers to alleviate the pandemic’s negative impacts on sustainable development and to realize the sustainability transition opportunities post COVID-19. Finally, five research directions for sustainable development corresponding to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) post COVID-19 are provided, as follows: (1) sustainability action plan considering COVID-19 implications: refining sustainability goals and targets and developing measurement framework; (2) making the most of sustainability transition opportunities in the wake of COVID-19: focus on SDG 12 and SDG 9; (3) innovative solutions for economic resilience towards sustainability post COVID-19: focus on SDG 1, SDG 8, and SDG 17; (4) in-depth analysis of the COVID-19 long-term effects on social sustainability: focus on SDG 4, SDG 5, and SDG 10; and (5) expanding quantitative research to harmonize the COVID-19-related sustainability research.
•The triple bottom line of sustainability post COVID-19 is systematically reviewed.•The results aggregate the COVID-19 effects on society, economy, and environment.•The COVID-19 crisis has immensely impacted the three pillars of sustainability.•Sustainability transition opportunities in the aftermath of COVID-19 are presented.•Research directions towards sustainable development post COVID-19 are offered.
A well-acknowledged role of cutting fluids in any cutting operation has made them inevitable to utilize regarding the provision of adequate cooling and lubrication. Mineral-based cutting fluids are ...common practice in the industry; however, they are not suitable for our ecology and health. Therefore, there is a need to implement sustainable cooling/lubrication system that helps the environment and improves the machinability of light weight alloys. This review is presenting the machining and sustainability characteristics of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL), nanofluids-MQL, Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube MQL (RHVT + MQL), cryogenic-MQL as alternative to flood cooling applications in the cutting of light-weight materials. It can be stated that MQL advancements can offer clear guidelines to implement hybrid cooling techniques to improve heat transfer, lubrication, and sustainable implementations.
This open access book questions the stereotype depicting all Gulf (GCC) economies as not sustainable, and starts a critical discussion of what these economies and polities should do to guarantee ...themselves a relatively stable future. Volatile international oil markets and the acceleration of the energy transition has challenged the notion that oil revenues are sufficient to sustain oil economies in the near to medium term. But what is the meaning of economic sustainability? The book discusses the multiple dimensions of the concept: economic diversification, continuing value of resources, taxation and fiscal development, labor market sustainability, sustainable income distribution, environmental sustainability, political order (democracy or authoritarianism) and sustainability, regional integration. The overarching message in this book is that we should move on from the simplistic branding of the Gulf economies as unsustainable and tackle the details of which adaptations they might need to undertake.
The role of renewable energy in protecting the environment is well established. This study explores the dynamic links among energy transitions, energy consumption, and sustainable economic growth in ...thirty-eight International Energy Agency (IEA) countries. We apply advanced econometric methodologies for empirical analysis from 1995 to 2015 and find long-run relationships among the variables. However, the effect of energy transitions on economic growth is significant only in the long run, and economic sustainability influences economic growth in both the short run and the long run. Moreover, the energy transition is negatively associated with host countries’ economic growth, while economic sustainability, renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, labor, and capital are positively related to that growth. Policymakers in the IEA countries are encouraged to settle carbon costs and taxation, provide continuous support to research and development, commercialize low–CO2–emission technologies, reduce subsidies on non-renewable energy, offer cooperative programs for technology transfers, and generate a green trade policy to procure sustainable development. Study limitations and directions for future research in the area are presented.
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•Checked links among energy transitions, energy consumption, and economic growth.•Constructed PCA indexes for energy transition and crucial economic indicators.•Energy transition affects GDP in the long run and economic sustainability does so in the short and long runs.•Energy transition is negatively associated with economic growth.•Economic sustainability and energy consumption stimulate economic growth.
As China’s economy is transforming into a new normal stage, the energy industry is becoming increasingly innovation-driven, which is shown particularly in renewable energy. Given that the green ...innovation transformation is crucially critical during China’s new normal stage, this paper analyzes the direct impact of energy consumption on energy innovation and innovation transformation, and reveals the net effect of green innovation transformation on economic sustainability and energy consumption. Micro and macro empirical evidence are both provided in this paper by implementing two estimation methodologies: fixed effect model and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) Vector AutoRegression (VAR) approach, respectively. Estimating Chinese micro 153 listed energy companies’ data and macro 30 provincial data from 2009 to 2016, we find that: (1) In terms of energy enterprises’ innovation activity behavior, energy consumption could promote total energy innovation, of which renewable energy innovation is stimulated far more significantly. (2) There is an increasing tendency for energy structure to transform into renewables as the energy consumption increases. (3) The green innovation transformation, instead of total innovation counts, can reduce energy consumption and benefit economic sustainability. Therefore, the structure of innovation transformation plays more significant role than total energy innovation in stimulating economic growth, and alleviating the energy consumption antinomy during China’s new normal stage. In this regard, in order to stimulate green energy transformation, government should implement financing policy, reduce administrative intervention, upgrade energy legal system and improve energy pricing mechanism to encourage more research and development (R&D) activities at the core of renewable energy.
•Provide evidence from both micro- and macro-economic perspectives.•Energy consumption stimulates renewable energy innovations more.•Transformation towards renewables is driven by high energy consumption.•Green innovation transformation decreases energy consumption in the long run.•Green innovation transformation benefits economic sustainability.
Sustainable development (SD) has become a popular catchphrase in contemporary development discourse. However, in spite of its pervasiveness and the massive popularity it has garnered over the years, ...the concept still seems unclear as many people continue to ask questions about its meaning and history, as well as what it entails and implies for development theory and practice. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on SD by further explaining the paradigm and its implications for human thinking and actions in the quest for sustainable development. This is done through extensive literature review, combining aspects of the "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and the Recursive Content Abstraction (RCA) analytical approach. The paper finds and argues that the entire issue of sustainable development centres around inter- and intragenerational equity anchored essentially on three-dimensional distinct but interconnected pillars, namely the environment, economy, and society. Decision-makers need to be constantly mindful of the relationships, complementarities, and trade-offs among these pillars and ensure responsible human behaviour and actions at the international, national, community and individual levels in order to uphold and promote the tenets of this paradigm in the interest of human development. More needs to be done by the key players-particularly the United Nations (UN), governments, private sector, and civil society organisations-in terms of policies, education and regulation on social, economic and environmental resource management to ensure that everyone is sustainable development aware, conscious, cultured and compliant.
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