sustainability Archives

Sustainable urban mobility: Data-based insights for a future with only seamless public transport

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Illustrative future automated transit (non-private) vehicle for urban mobility.

Research being carried out by Professor Avishai (Avi) Ceder from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology offers a fresh global perspective of the current situation of urban transport. He examines opportunities for us to move towards sustainable urban mobility that could substantially reduce road traffic damages and its global impact. Using data from 19 countries and 17 major cities, Ceder measures […]

A transdisciplinary approach to restoring London’s river Thames

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Martin Richardson implements a multidisciplinary approach to the health of the River Thames, highlighting the ecological stressors it faces and the blinkered view that comes from a single study approach, calling for a plan to help regenerate the river

Despite being one of the world’s most iconic rivers, the Thames faces many ecological challenges, and its health has deteriorated severely over recent decades. Martin Richardson from Royal Holloway, University of London, believes that an additional problem is the singular focus of existing research into those challenges. He also believes that a better, more sustainable Thames is possible. In a […]

Food Waste-to-Energy: A project-based school learning experience

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Professors Jan DeWaters and Stefan Grimberg have worked with a public school to develop a school-wide food waste recovery programme that includes classroom and extracurricular education

One of the challenges facing the uptake in renewable energy and waste-reduction methods is sufficiently changing peoples’ perceptions to ensure a cultural shift needed for momentum. A possible model for achieving this sits in the small village of Potsdam in the US state of New York. Professors Jan DeWaters and Stefan J Grimberg at Clarkson University have established an ongoing […]

A sustainability assessment system for bridge engineering

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Dr Liu proposes a new sustainability assessment system that can assess the sustainability of a project, allowing for more green civil infrastructures

Dr Tai-Yi Liu, Chief and Professional Engineer with the New Asia Construction and Development Corporation, together with colleagues from the National Taiwan University, has developed a tool for assessing sustainability for green civil infrastructures. This innovative Sustainability Assessment System for Green Civil Infrastructure provides a functional and reliable tool to help engineers develop more ecologically and environmentally friendly civil infrastructures. […]

Degendering, millennials and organisational resilience

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Organisational practices continue to feature gendered power structures.

Many organisations were already struggling from the effects of global, social, economic and environmental crises before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. As a result, sustainability and organisational resilience have become the focus of modern management research and literature. Dr Hope Witmer, of Malmö University in Sweden, believes that to successfully navigate the way ahead, organisations need to ‘degender’ their structures, practices […]

Towards in-line detection of thermal polymer degradation

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Polymers are an indispensable part of modern society, found in almost every product we use, including machine and engine components. But polymers degrade, and they need close monitoring to make sure this doesn’t cause structural materials or devices to fail. We already have many ways to assess polymer degradation in the lab, but monitoring polymers while they’re in use is […]

The ultimate veg patch: Can phytotechnology save cultivated peatlands?

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Intact, water-logged peatlands are a stable store of the world’s carbon, but if drained they can become near perfect (organic) soils for growing high-cost vegetables. It was thought that you couldn’t cultivate a peatland without ruining it and releasing its carbon into the atmosphere. Dr Jacynthe Dessureault-Rompré, with her team at Laval University in Québec, Canada, has been investigating whether […]

Integrating social media and CSR into strategic planning for a competitive advantage

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The current theory for strategic planning involves assessing the business environment and identifying key assets within an organisation. Social media and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are currently considered unnecessary in strategy formulation. However, research conducted by Dr Gordon Bowen, associate lecturer at Northumbria University amongst other institutions, indicates that incorporating social media and CSR into an organisation’s strategy can allow […]

Understanding water resources in Latin America and the Caribbean region using environmental tracers

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The researchers examine the decline in surface water quality and quantity.

With approximately 660 million inhabitants, Latin America and the Caribbean region finds itself vulnerable to decreasing water availability in a changing climate. Increasing temperatures and abrupt land use changes, if not addressed, will continue the decline in surface water quality and quantity, thereby forcing greater dependence on groundwater extraction. Advancing studies into the availability, replenishment rates and quality of (ground) […]

How African knowledge-based enterprises seek scale: Research findings from 10 countries

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Handloom-woven clothes talls in Shiro Meda market, Addis Ababa

Innovation is a vital practice in the knowledge economy. Also vital is finding ways to scale innovations so that they can have significant impact. The Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network has collected data in numerous African innovation settings over the past decade, and has, in the process, developed a four-pillar taxonomy of scaling practices. As outlined in its […]