Overview of Sustainability, Sustainable Development and Sustainability Assessment: Concepts and Methods

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Yue Liu ◽  
Jingzheng Ren
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainability Assessment

scholarly journals Neighbourhood Modelling for Urban Sustainability Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4654
Author(s):  
Javier Orozco-Messana ◽  
Milagro Iborra-Lucas ◽  
Raimon Calabuig-Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Policy Impact ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Data Repositories ◽  
Digital Twins ◽  
Climate Action

Climate change is becoming a dominant concern for advanced countries. The Paris Agreement sets out a global framework whose implementation relates to all human activities and is commonly guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which set the scene for sustainable development performance configuring all climate action related policies. Fast control of CO2 emissions necessarily involves cities since they are responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) is clearly involved in the deployment of SDG 13 (Climate Action). European Sustainability policies are financially guided by the European Green Deal for a climate neutral urban environment. In turn, a common framework for urban policy impact assessment must be based on architectural design tools, such as building certification, and common data repositories for standard digital building models. Many Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools have been developed but the growing availability of open data repositories for cities, together with big-data sources (provided through Internet of Things repositories), allow accurate neighbourhood simulations, or in other words, digital twins of neighbourhoods. These digital twins are excellent tools for policy impact assessment. After a careful analysis of current scientific literature, this paper provides a generic approach for a simple neighbourhood model developed from building physical parameters which meets relevant assessment requirements, while simultaneously being updated (and tested) against real open data repositories, and how this assessment is related to building certification tools. The proposal is validated by real data on energy consumption and on its application to the Benicalap neighbourhood in Valencia (Spain).

scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment and Agricultural Supply Chains Evidence-Based Multidimensional Analyses as Tools for Strategic Decision-Making—The Case of the Pineapple Supply Chain in Benin

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2060
Author(s):  
Doriane Desclee ◽  
David Sohinto ◽  
Freddy Padonou
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Agricultural Supply

Contributing to Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 is a shared objective of all institutions and people. The challenges differ according to the characteristics of every context. In developing countries, strongly dependent on the agricultural sector, agricultural supply chains are recognized as crucial for economic growth and enablers for livelihood improvement. Moreover, sustainable development issues are correlated and can meet in agricultural supply chains. For several decades, parallel to decision-makers, the research community has elaborated sustainability assessment tools. Such tools evolved to fit with actuality, but it is challenging to find decision-making support tools for sustainable development adequate in agricultural supply chains and developing countries contexts. There is a necessity to define evidence-based tools and exhaustive analytical frameworks according to sustainability multidimensionality and strategical tradeoffs necessity. The VCA4D method aims to go beyond the limits of previous methods. It proposes a combination of multidisciplinary analytical tools applied empirically to analyze agricultural supply chains in their context. It provides evidence-based analytical results allowing to identify enablers for strategic sustainable and inclusive interventions. However, to even better meet contextual exhaustiveness’s expectations and indicators’ robustness to lead to relevant interventions, we should insist on a stricter framing of contextual data collection processes.

scholarly journals Using sustainable development actions to promote the relevance of mountain wines in export markets

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
António R. Graça ◽  
Luís Simões ◽  
Rui Freitas ◽  
Miguel Pessanha ◽  
George Sandeman
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
Community Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Practices ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Usa

AbstractSustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987). For the business community, sustainability is more than mere window-dressing. By adopting sustainable practices, companies can gain a competitive edge, increase their market share, and boost shareholder value (IISD, 2013). The wine industry has incorporated sustainability into its business strategy for a long time. In the USA, several industry organizations promoted its adoption by both grape growers and winemakers. In mountain wine regions, sustainability becomes more important as these regions generally struggle with reduced competitiveness due to inherent difficulties such as accessibility, remoteness, sparseness of business and population, topography and pedoclimatology (EUROMONTANA 2005). Therefore, any improvement in sustainability is a key factor for the viability of mountain wine producers. Sogrape Vinhos farms 480 ha of mountain vineyards in DWR securing the quality base of grapes for its SANDEMAN Port and CASA FERREIRINHA Douro wines. The company continuously adopted sustainable practices across the whole value chain, from grape to glass. This paper illustrates how a simple, but comprehensive, sustainability assessment, as proposed by a US-based award, can be used to monitor and improve sustainable development practices for a wine business set in an adverse environment, while raising awareness in a key market for wines produced in a mountain vineyard area such as the DWR.

Approaches for Measuring Sustainability

2013 ◽  
pp. 158-184
Author(s):  
Evangelos Grigoroudis ◽  
Vassilis S. Kouikoglou ◽  
Yannis A. Phillis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Economic ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Soil Formation ◽  
Sustainability Indicators ◽  
Measuring Technique ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Limits To Growth

The environment provides the economy with resources (e.g., water, air, fuels, food, metals, minerals, and drugs), services (e.g., the cycles of H2O, C, CO2, N, O2; photosynthesis, and soil formation), and mechanisms to absorb waste. Economic growth is based on these three services, and since the global ecosystem does not grow, economic growth cannot continue indefinitely. The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have received much attention among policy-makers and scientists as a result of the existence of limits to growth and the dramatic environmental changes of the last decades. Sustainability integrates environmental, economic, and societal aspects. It also covers different geographical scales: ecosystems, regions, countries, and the globe. In this chapter, the authors review various models of sustainability assessment. Since there is no universally accepted definition and measuring technique of sustainability, these different models lead to different assessments. They also present a discussion of the sustainability indicators, aggregation tools, and data imputation techniques used in each approach.

scholarly journals Measuring sustainable development in the education area using multi-criteria methods: a case study

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 1219-1241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Roszkowska ◽  
Marzena Filipowicz-Chomko
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Target Point ◽  
Ideal Solution ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Negative Ideal Solution ◽  
Integrated Sustainability ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Sustainability is a holistic and complex multi-dimensional concept comprising economic, social and environmental issues. The EU Sustainable Development Goals’ indicator set, developed by European Commission, is implemented online in Eurostat’s database and constitutes the basis for assessing the level of sustainability assessment in different areas. The integration of the sustainability indicators was carried out in many studies by using the multi-criteria techniques. This work proposes a new methodological framework based on extended TOPSIS procedure, which takes into account EU targets and/or national targets in building positive ideal solution and negative ideal solution. This algorithm allows compensatory and non-compensatory approach in integrated sustainability assessment from the target point of view. This framework has been applied to measure sustainable development in the area of education in 28 EU countries in 2015. The results of this research also illustrate the complexity of measuring sustainable development, where multiple sustainability criteria and targets are considered.

scholarly journals Sustainability Assessment of Urban Heritage Sites

Buildings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Leus ◽  
Wouter Verhelst
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Multimodal System ◽  
Urban Heritage ◽  
Analysis Models

The purpose of this research was to create a framework of indicators that enabled us to measure the classic dimensions of sustainable development (SD): People, Planet, and Profit, in combination with the sustainability of the heritage values and the policy dimension. Methods developed as an approach to sustainable urban planning and that were based on system analysis models were modified, streamlined, and adapted into a concrete set of indicators for historical city sites. This framework, a multimodal system which maps out the holistic sustainability could serve as an incentive from the policy to the heritage world to implement sustainable objectives; and it could be used as an extra argument for the broader social relevance of heritage care.

scholarly journals Sustainable Development Goals as a Guideline for Indicator Selection in Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Procedia CIRP ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 59-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Wulf ◽  
Jasmin Werker ◽  
Petra Zapp ◽  
Andrea Schreiber ◽  
Holger Schlör ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Indicator Selection ◽  
Development Goals

scholarly journals Measuring the Implications of Sustainable Manufacturing in the Context of Industry 4.0

Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa Ivascu
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Organizational Development ◽  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Sustainability Assessment ◽  
Sustainable Manufacturing ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Automotive Manufacturing ◽  
Hierarchical Framework

Sustainability is increasingly being addressed globally. The manufacturing industry faces various constraints and opportunities related to sustainable development. Currently, there are few methodological frameworks for evaluating sustainable organizational development. Assessing and improving organizational capacity is important for producers and researchers in the field and local, national, and international authorities. This research proposes a hierarchical framework for sustainability assessment of manufacturing industry in Romania. The proposed framework integrates performance elements and measures to improve all the processes and activities from the triple perspective of sustainability. Sustainability assessment captures the entire supply chain of the organization, including stakeholder interests and end-of-life directions for products. To establish the elements to be integrated in the development of the proposed framework, market research (online questionnaire-for the characterization of Industry 4.0) and the Delphi method were used to identify the categories of performance indicators that must be measured to identify organizational capacity for sustainable development. The framework was tested by an automotive manufacturing organization. A number of improvements have been identified that relate to Industry 4.0 facilities and the application of the facilities related to recovering the value of the product at the end of its life cycle. This hierarchical framework can be customized in detail for the specific of each organization and can be adapted in other industries, including banking, retail, and other services. It can be observed that waste management and the interests of the stakeholders are major implications that must be measured and properly motivated.

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