Green Airport Investments to Mitigate Externalities

Transport systems are important pollution sources, mainly in terms of greenhouse gases, noise and land consumption. To mitigate the problem and safeguard airport development at the same time, the involved stakeholders are fixing goals, priorities and duties in order to promote the sustainable development of the air transport industry at global level and the wellness of local communities as well. It is desirable to estimate airport noise and carbon impacts in order to suitably manage them and identify strategies in line with the concept of green economy. In this chapter, a general framework to identify optimal procedures and methods to evaluate the effectiveness of policies addressed to reduce airport impacts on the airport surroundings is proposed. The case study of the airport of Bologna is presented as an example of Transport Company that effectively operates to minimize its noise and carbon impacts. According to the proposed general framework, impacts and estimated costs to achieve the status of green company have been computed.

Green Information System for a Sustainable Enterprise

The changes made in the environment as a consequence of massive industrialization led to a change in the vision of mankind on how organizations should interact with the ecosystem. In the same time information system has a key role in their activity. The increasing their use is accompanied by positive effects. This chapter presents the changes necessary for transformation traditional information systems in green information system. The organization's motivations to develop and implement strategies and regulations for environmental protection are varied. They can be the organization's internal drivers, such as reducing delivery costs, increasing efficiency, improving market reputation, and external, such as government legislation or policies, regulations, competition. Changes necessary to implement green information system are presented based on agile model life cycle and in accord with organizations objectives.

A Game Theory Coopetitive Perspective for Sustainability of Global Feeding

Throughout this study, the authors propose possible agreements among different food producers, in order to develop a new better conceived diet for the future generations, by using a coopetitive approach and game theory. Specifically, the authors shall consider food producers and sellers of vegan (respectively, vegetarian) and non-vegan (or non-vegetarian) food. The coopetitive approach used by the authors provides a mathematical game theory model, which could help producers of vegan food a simpler entry in the market and free significant publicity. Meanwhile, the model could allow producers of non-vegetarian food a smooth transaction to vegetarian and vegan production. In particular, authors propose an agreement setting among McDonald's and Muscle of Wheat, because they think that Muscle of Wheat cannot enter a global market without the help of a large food producer already in the market. The game theory model represents an asymmetric R&D alliance between McDonald's and Muscle of Wheat.

Theoretical and Practical Approaches in Understanding the Influences of Cost-Productivity-Profit Trinomial in Contemporary Enterprises

Enterprise sustainability depends on the economic performance. Achieving the economic performance is the main goal of every company since the beginnings. The instability of the economic environment imposes finding new paradigms in valuing the business opportunities. In this context, analyzing the influences of cost productivity profit trinomial in the contemporary enterprises represents an important step in identifying the potential growth avenues of the financial results. From this perspective, the chapter contains along the theoretical approaches regarding the sustainable entrepreneurship and investments paradigm in the green economy, an economic analysis of the main economic outcomes, in order to revile, both the competitive factors and risks assumptions for modern companies in the larger context of market globalization and integration. Also, this chapter aims to revile the evolution of the main factors which influences the economic performances in case of a real Romanian company during and post crisis period.

Young Firms Sustainability and Corporate Reputation

Although young firms are very vulnerable, significant differences emerge by comparing the survival rates of the companies in the first stage of life in different countries and industries, of different sizes, and with different characteristics of the leader (team of co-founders): education, previous entrepreneurial experience, reputation, etc. Many variables influence the performance of the companies and their chances of survival. Each enterprise is a singularity. Thus, it is methodologically wrong and naive any attempt to define ideal models and general “recipes” to reduce the vulnerability of the young firms. This hypothesis is confirmed by the analysis of the survival rates of the young firms born in the USA and in EU. The variance of the five-year survival rate is very high by comparing companies from different nations, of different size classes, those operating in different industries, and those whose leaders have or not have any previous entrepreneurial experience. The lack of corporate reputation is the only weakness common to the young firms. Since these companies do not have a history that can prove their ability to satisfy their commitments toward the stakeholder, they haven't a reputation and therefore are very weak their bonds of trust with stakeholders. The first difficulty, these weak bonds of trust are broken and young businesses collapse in on themselves. To achieve sustainability, young firms must quickly build a corporate reputation to strengthen the bonds of trust with the stakeholders. By this way, they will be more resistant to the difficulties. This is the only effective general “recipes”. (Nicolò 2015; Nicolò & Ferrara 2015).

Cover Crops

The use of cover crops is widespread practice in organic farming systems. Cover crops can be defined as crops that are usually not grown commercially, and can have a multiple role in crop rotations. The benefit of cover crops has been known since long. Legumes are used as biological fixer of nitrogen for the next crop, and are established during periods when the soil is without major crops in order to reduce erosion. In recent years, the role of cover crops has been extended to the biocontrol of weeds, pests and diseases, as well as to the overall improvement of soil quality by increasing organic matter, encouraging the circulation of nutrients and reducing soil compaction. At the same time, their use tends to reduce costs and even create new sources of income on the farm.

Integrated Sustainability Reports

Disclosure of corporate social and environmental sustainability, resumed in ‘sustainability reports', have occupied most of the attention of accounting thought and practice over the last few decades. Evaluation of ecological footprint and social sensitiveness is becoming relevant also for the investors. The chapter presents institutional disclosure concerning social, environmental, and integrated (financial, social and environmental) issues in a threefold perspective. The first is a historical one: after some definitions the birth and development of sustainability reports are presented to the reader. The second is a theoretical one: a paradigm or framework is developed for including what various experiences and literature have supplied until nowadays. The third is an empirical one presenting the main sustainability scoring criteria mostly used today, and an empirical survey on the car industry. Some concluding notes follow from the comparison of the aforementioned perspectives.

Green Marketing

This chapter proposes an important study of the cosmetics industry in relation to green marketing and sustainability concerns from the historical context and its evolution to the present day. The aim of this chapter is to explain the significant impact of green marketing on the cosmetics industry as a new future prospect that benefits all parties and what can be learned from history. This chapter intends to address the existence of sustainability concepts through history, which have become an interesting phenomenon in the present day. The aspects to be discussed include (1) new prospects and opportunities from green marketing for the cosmetics industry; (2) the evolution of the cosmetics industry; and (3) green marketing and green concepts in the cosmetics industry.

The Role of Waste Management in the Green Economy

Green economy has become highly relevant over the last years. We are currently experiencing pollution issue and environmental decay that had its origin, however, in the previous centuries. The development of industrial economy inevitably entails the production of waste, in such a quantity that the environment is incapable of assimilating and transforming it naturally. Therefore, it is believed that one of the main green economy sectors is the waste retrieval and recycling, that means waste management. In the existing literature, this sector has not been deeply analyzed from a viewpoint of performance business analysis. Although a European legislation exists, every country manages this business by itself. After a historical introduction, this study, using the regression model, analyses the variables that influence the Italian business of waste retrieval and recycling, in the process establishing which of them has a deeper impact on performance.