Sustainable Cocoa Value Chain

In the last decades, the focus of studies on cocoa value chain (CVC) has changed from the low income of farmers and the shortcomings of the educational and financial systems to the incorporation of innovations, supported on sustainability principles. However, classical theories based on economics are insufficient to understand sustainability phenomenon, and the investigation in the field is still dispersed. This study represents one first attempt to synthesize findings on the topic, in line with the triple bottom line (TBL) scenarios. TBL provides a useful framework to understand the social, economic, and environmental aspects along the CVC. This chapter performs a systematic literature review on sustainability scenarios applied to CVC, each one representing one of the three dimensions of sustainability. At the final, an agenda for future research on the topic is suggested, uncovering a set of future study propositions.

Aspects of environmental comfort and sustainability in the built environment

The objective of this article is to bring to discussion aspects of environmental comfort, built environment and sustainability, given the climate crisis and the urgency to find solutions to the issue. The concepts of ambience, quality of the built environment, environmental comfort and sustainable development are discussed, in addition to principles that can guide Architecture in its search for a built environment that preserves comfort through sustainability. The method used is bibliographical review, and the paper concludes by affirming that while it is not possible do determine the extent to which sustainability principles applied to the built environment can contribute to tackling the climate crisis, there is no other alternative.

Improving Sustainability of Technical Ceramics Production: Synergistic Approach

Sustainable development is a concept focused on preserving current resources for them to be available to future generations as well, while at the same time fulfilling current human needs and facilitating adequate levels of development. Nowadays, there are many possible applications of sustainability principles, such as in the fields of the economy, agriculture, environment, energy, transport, architecture, and production. Sustainable production of materials and goods aims at improving the processes which are less damaging to the environment, which conserve natural resources and use low levels of energy, possibly derived from sustainable sources. One of the intensive energy- and resource-consuming industries is the conventional production of technical ceramics. Although non-toxic, ceramic waste is generated during the machining of the green bodies and is typically landfilled. To improve the sustainability of technical ceramics production, methods of recycling ceramic waste need to be developed and applied. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Bring Back the Bach

<p>The historic informal architecture of New Zealand’s coastline is precise; it’s small, modest, individual, and ultimately exhibits the concept that less, is more. This architectural heritage is the bach. It’s an icon on the New Zealand coastlines. These occasionally occupied dwellings hold a nostalgic feeling to many Kiwi’s. Baches typically sit lightly on the land, and are careful to not outshine the beautiful environment that attracted its occupants to its site. Through the effects of privatization and subdivision, parts of New Zealand’s coastline have been overdeveloped, which has dramatically affected and diminished the coastal environment. The contemporary holiday home is typically a more expensive, large, suburban house, unsympathetic to its landscape. This change in coastal architecture and settlement patterns is making the coastline inaccessible for many. As the old Kiwi bach is being redeveloped and replaced, New Zealand architecture is losing part of its identity. We are ruining that pristine environment that attracted us to the coastline in the beginning. This research looks towards coastal environments in the northern area of the North Island of New Zealand. Kawau Island serves as the testing ground for the design research, with a historic and hypothetical subdivision as the setting. The design tests the research at varying scales; how the land can be subdivided, how the land can be occupied, and how the buildings can be designed, to collectively and individually have less impact on the environment. The purpose of this research is to find how we can design more sustainably for our inhabitation of the coast of New Zealand. If we still want to inhabit the coastline, how can this happen in a more mindful way? We inhabit the coast to enjoy that environment, so we need to build with the least impact so that it can be retained and enjoyed. An understanding of building with low-impact to the environment is at the forefront of this research, to ensure that there is minimal impact throughout both construction, and occupation. Building with minimal impact was investigated through theoretical sustainability principles, precedents and design testing. This impact is interpreted through several different aspects of the development; the way that the development is owned and operated, the siting and clustering of buildings within the land, the tectonics and constructions of individual dwellings, and the way that this development connects on a larger scale with the island.</p>

Bring Back the Bach

<p>The historic informal architecture of New Zealand’s coastline is precise; it’s small, modest, individual, and ultimately exhibits the concept that less, is more. This architectural heritage is the bach. It’s an icon on the New Zealand coastlines. These occasionally occupied dwellings hold a nostalgic feeling to many Kiwi’s. Baches typically sit lightly on the land, and are careful to not outshine the beautiful environment that attracted its occupants to its site. Through the effects of privatization and subdivision, parts of New Zealand’s coastline have been overdeveloped, which has dramatically affected and diminished the coastal environment. The contemporary holiday home is typically a more expensive, large, suburban house, unsympathetic to its landscape. This change in coastal architecture and settlement patterns is making the coastline inaccessible for many. As the old Kiwi bach is being redeveloped and replaced, New Zealand architecture is losing part of its identity. We are ruining that pristine environment that attracted us to the coastline in the beginning. This research looks towards coastal environments in the northern area of the North Island of New Zealand. Kawau Island serves as the testing ground for the design research, with a historic and hypothetical subdivision as the setting. The design tests the research at varying scales; how the land can be subdivided, how the land can be occupied, and how the buildings can be designed, to collectively and individually have less impact on the environment. The purpose of this research is to find how we can design more sustainably for our inhabitation of the coast of New Zealand. If we still want to inhabit the coastline, how can this happen in a more mindful way? We inhabit the coast to enjoy that environment, so we need to build with the least impact so that it can be retained and enjoyed. An understanding of building with low-impact to the environment is at the forefront of this research, to ensure that there is minimal impact throughout both construction, and occupation. Building with minimal impact was investigated through theoretical sustainability principles, precedents and design testing. This impact is interpreted through several different aspects of the development; the way that the development is owned and operated, the siting and clustering of buildings within the land, the tectonics and constructions of individual dwellings, and the way that this development connects on a larger scale with the island.</p>

Minerals and critical raw materials: potential and opportunities for Argentina

“Critical” minerals and raw materials are usually defined as those that present great economic importance and high risk of supply disruption. Their integral use (mining, reuse and recycling) opens a window of opportunity for resource-rich countries such as Argentina. Based on a bibliographic review, this work presents an overview of the potential of critical materials and public policies to promote their use under sustainability principles. The results of historical explorations indicate that Argentina has geological-mining potential of critical minerals. However, new investments are required to value, standardize and digitize the available data. It is also necessary to rank these minerals in the public research agendas and encourage their exploration. The potentiality in secondary resources is difficult to estimate given the lack of data on the generation and recycling of industrial scrap, batteries and other discarded products. In an international context of growing socio-environmental demands and persistent conflict, achieving a sustainable management of critical (and non-critical) minerals implies overcoming the “extractivist” model. For this, it is essential to transform the nature of the linkages between the mining sector, the scientific-technological system, the local productive network and the communities, as well as the ways of making strategic decisions about their use.

A Model-Based Strategy for Developing Sustainable Cosmetics Small and Medium Industries with System Dynamics

Global customer consciousness for more sustainable products and government requirements for a more sustainable industry have motivated cosmetics small and medium industries (SMIs) to innovate the strategy by integrating sustainability principles into their manufacturing processes. However, the dynamic complexity of balancing sustainability efforts, stakeholders’ interests, and uncertainty in material pricing require a conceptual reference model to help managers and decision-makers cope with the transition process. This work therefore proposes a model-based strategy using system dynamics to assist managers and stakeholders in SMIs to clarify their possible pathways and to offer a framework to understand, guide, and generate future strategies. In multiactor, multistakeholder conditions, the proposed methodology can provide insights into how stakeholders can effectively intervene to improve sustainability through open innovation dynamics models. The case study presented here on a personal care cosmetics company demonstrates several leverage points and obstacles, thereby allowing each stakeholder to understand their strategic role in realizing sustainable cosmetics SMIs.

Evaluation of the village conservation model program in Mount Rinjani National Park using institutional sustainability principles

Conservation Village Model (MDK) is one form of institution since it contains various mechanisms and rules to ensure the operationalization of activities in the field. In this regard, the evaluation process plays a substantial role in ensuring the sustainability of MDK institutions. Thus, studies related to institutional performance are crucial to describe the conditions of MDK implementation in TNGR based on the principles of institutional sustainability. This research was done between April and July 2016, focusing on two villages (i.e. Santong Village and Pesangrahan Village) that have been designated by the Mount Rinjani National Park Office as recipients of the conservation village model program. The analytical tool used to evaluate institutional performance refers to the eight principles of sustainable institutional. The results showed that the implementation of MDK in Mount Rinjani National Park had a low institutional performance. Several facts revealed in this study indicate that so far, the implementation of MDK in TNGR has not accommodated several sustainable institutional principles. These include the absence of mechanisms that regulate the clarity of community access to the use of national parks, differences in program interventions with community preferences, and the absence of mechanisms on benefit cost-sharing and dispute resolution at the operational level.

From ‘Orthogonal’ Sprawl to ‘Curvilinear’ Dense: Assessing Accessibility Indices for Urban Networks of Social Housing in UAE

The shift towards designing more dense urban social housing neighbourhoods has started with the embracing of urban sustainability principles by the UAE government since the beginning of the 21st century. The assessment of the recent neighbourhoods designs still lacks concrete evidence about their expected performance especially for pedestrian mobility networks. This concern is gaining further significance with the noticeable tendency of most of the recent urban designs towards developing organic and curvilinear networks instead of the conventional orthogonal grids of the mobility networks that distinguished the traditionally designed neighbourhoods in the country. To bridge this gap, the research comparatively and quantitively analysed the accessibility performance indicators of both of the traditional and the modern urban network designs. The research adopted the Case Study method with quantitative investigation tools that are fundamental to Urban Network Analysis, especially in relation to Accessibility. The simulation of the urban networks of two selected urban social housing neighbourhood forms, representing the networks of both the traditional urban orthogonal sprawl and the recent curvilinear dense one, were utilized employing the UNA toolbox. Three complementary Accessibility Indices were analysed including: Reach, Gravity and Straightness. Through this analysis, the aspects that affected the accessibility performance of the two urban form paradigms and the problems that have been associated with the designs of the urban networks of the new social housing projects, have been revealed. It became evident that the denser urban form was not sufficient in enabling more accessible facilities in the recent neighbourhoods designs. The orthogonal grid, even with its very low Floor Area Ratio showed better performance of in the three accessibility indices especially the Straightness index, if compared with the much denser curvilinear grid with it ‘naturally longer’ pattern. The inefficient number and the inappropriate distribution locally provided facilities in relation to the pedestrian mobility networks have contributed to these disappointing results. So, it is essential to include this and/or similar urban network quantitative simulation tools to help develop genuinely sustainable urban forms for this significant type of urban development in the UAE cities.