Discover Sustainability

The devastating impacts that bio-degradable products such as plastic bags are having on human health, wildlife, and the environment is enormous, especially single-use once. Single-use plastics are non-biodegradable products and does not undergo biological decomposition nor degenerate. This review examines various government regulations targeted at changing behaviour against plastic bags consumption and their effectiveness. Following a rigorous search in 13 databases, including PubMed, Science Direct, Springer Nature, etc. only 17 peer-reviewed journal articles that are published between 2000 and 2019 and met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. Each study’s methodological quality was assessed using the GRADE system, and data were extracted using a uniquely designed form. The results revealed that regulations based solely on the thickness of plastic bags does not reduce plastic bags consumption. However, regulations focused on banning ‘single-use’ plastic bag usage, imposing higher taxes and levies on consumers, significantly reduce plastic bags consumption. Overall, the latter is considered the most effective. Also, the results show that attitude, perception and behaviour change toward bio-degradable products or climate-friendly behaviour can be significantly influenced by public policy or regulations. Although the behaviour seems short-lived in some countries, therefore further studies need to probe on why. Also, the absence of a national regulatory strategy in North America reduced the inclusion of studies from the region, hence need for more research focusing on sub-national regulations.

This study aimed to model energy use, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas emissions in rain-fed wheat production by using a nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 140 wheat farmers in 4 districts of Antalya Province. The energy inputs (independent variables) were human labor, seeds, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and diesel fuel, and the energy output was the dependent variable. The results showed that the average energy consumption and the output energy for the studied wheat production system were 21. 07GJ ha⁻¹ and 50. 99 GJ ha⁻¹, respectively, and the total GHG emissions were calculated to be 592.12 kg CO₂eq ha⁻¹. Chemical fertilizer has the highest share of energy consumption and total GHG emissions. Based on the results from DEA, the technical efficiency of the farmers was found to be 0.81, while pure technical and scale efficiencies were 0.65 and 0.76, respectively. The results also highlighted that there is a potential opportunity to save approximately 14% (2.93 GJ ha⁻¹) of the total energy consumption and consequently a 17% reduction in GHG emissions by following the optimal amounts of energy consumption while keeping the wheat yield constant. Efficient use of energy and reduction in GHG emissions will lead to resource efficiency and sustainable production, which is the main aim of the green economy.

There are increasing connections made between sport and sustainable development, both internationally and within Botswana’s national policies. However, these policy documents are vague and overly broad. There is no focus on where or how sport can be positioned to support sustainable development within Botswana’s unique national context. Using policy coherence as a theoretical framework, the goal of this paper is to analyse the current policy as well as propose national policy objectives and instruments to support sport’s contribution to sustainable development in Botswana. This paper relies on findings generated through semi-structured qualitative interviews, policy documents and academic literature. We propose that sport should be re-oriented to achieve objectives related to economic development, education, and health. Numerous concrete policy instruments are likewise suggested, including investing in small-scale sport infrastructure, public awareness campaigns and better sport educator training. Ultimately, these instruments enhance the coherence of the overall policy and create synergies by addressing multiple overarching objectives simultaneously.

Mặc dù các cú sốc và áp lực khí hậu không chỉ là vấn đề riêng của các nước đang phát triển, nhưng tác động của chúng được dự đoán sẽ nghiêm trọng hơn ở đây do những hạn chế về tài sản và cơ sở hạ tầng cần thiết cho việc thích nghi. Nghiên cứu này đánh giá sự dễ bị tổn thương của sinh kế dựa vào thủy sản trước những tác động của sự biến đổi và thay đổi khí hậu trên hai hòn đảo chính ở Seychelles dựa trên 80 cuộc khảo sát hộ gia đình và ba hội thảo đối thoại chung (SDWs) với các ngư dân quy mô nhỏ. Kết quả cho thấy tỷ lệ hộ ngư dân phụ thuộc chủ yếu vào thủy sản như một nguồn thu nhập là 95% và 97% cho Mahe và Praslin tương ứng, với các nguồn thu nhập thay thế dọc theo chuỗi giá trị nghề cá như vận chuyển, người bán cá và chế biến. Các ngư dân trên đảo Mahe có chỉ số tỷ lệ phụ thuộc cao hơn một chút so với những người ở Praslin. Tổng thể, các hộ ngư dân trên Mahe cho thấy sự dễ bị tổn thương cao hơn về chỉ số hồ sơ xã hội - nhân khẩu học so với những đối tác của họ ở Praslin. Tuy nhiên, sự đa dạng hóa sinh kế lớn hơn được ghi nhận cho các hộ gia đình trên Mahe hơn so với Praslin vì các ngư dân kiếm thu nhập từ các hoạt động liên quan đến du lịch như nhà khách, cho thuê xe, chèo thuyền, và bán dừa như đã đề cập trong các SDWs. Các ngư dân trên Mahe gặp khó khăn trong việc tìm cá trong 3 tháng trong mùa gió mùa đông nam so với 2 tháng đối với những người ở Praslin do việc tiếp cận cá trong đầm lagun trong mùa này. Quan trọng hơn, việc tự nguyện đóng cửa một số khu vực đánh bắt từ tháng 11 đến tháng 4 trên Praslin là một chiến lược bền vững đã chứng kiến sự gia tăng về kích thước và số lượng của cả cá thỏ và cá đuôi vẹt. Cần có thêm nghiên cứu tại hai lĩnh vực chính gồm: vai trò của trợ cấp và quản lý thủy sản bền vững, và một cách tiếp cận chuỗi giá trị đối với sự dễ bị tổn thương của ngư dân quy mô nhỏ trong lĩnh vực thủy sản ở Seychelles.

This research paper is composed of several interrelated sections that present thought-provoking concepts and debates concerning sustainability. Substantially, it argues the failure of the classical definition of sustainability and underlines serious worldwide challenges that face the planet and mankind due to the questionable current modes of development. Understanding the importance of adopting more comprehensive definition that ensures integrating critical missing aspects; mainly the cultural-historical and temporal analysis, as well as, rethinking the approach when applying that concept is more urgent than ever. In this sense, the author theorizes new ground-breaking definition for sustainability; namely the four dimensional spatial sustainability, and so, develops innovative approaches that effectively facilitate adopting a set of philosophical models pertaining to this revolutionary definition on different temporal scales. The social aspect has far-reaching impacts upon the different models, hence it is considered as chief factor that democratically supports, controls and enhances the other dimensions, i.e. economic, environmental, and cultural-historical. Basically, these models catalyze generating socially-driven synergy that fosters change in key systems, and creates therefore, spatial participative sustainability leading, on the long run, to standardized spatial sustainability featuring what the author calls ‘utopian sustainability’ on global scale.

Seychelles is among four countries in the African continent with 100% access to electricity, of which over 90% of the energy is generated from fossil fuels. The energy transition is a crucial enabler of sustainable development and climate resilience. Therefore, this study seeks to understand the determinants of solar PV uptake based on a stratified random sample of 130 households on Mahe Island, Seychelles. We applied logistic regression and descriptive statistics to analyze the driving factors of a household decision regarding the adoption of a solar PV system. Results indicated that access to credit and monthly household income influenced the adoption of solar PV systems at the 1% significance level. Independent variables such as gender, age, and education of household heads, including family size that were significant in other studies, were not significant in the current study. Cost-saving (100%), energy security (91.7%), and environmentally friendly perceptions (76.7%), and access to loans (56.7%), were chief among the motivational drivers of the 60 households that had adopted solar PV systems. Whereas, for the non-adopters, the four most essential barriers cited were cheap electricity (82.9%), high initial cost (65.7%), existing loans (52.9%), and long payback time (40.0%). For the communal approach to solar PV systems in Seychelles to be successful, the adoption barriers that occur at the level of households should be considered.

It is widely assumed that transformative societal action is required to address the world's many sustainability challenges of today. This is especially true in an urban context, since urban sustainability may assist in improving the conditions of the urban environment and the quality of life of humans. Nevertheless, and despite the many advantages that urban sustainability may bring about, there is a need for studies that look at the role that transformative learning may play in influencing it. This study will address this need. It provides an analysis of the subject matter of transformative learning and how it may be practised and experienced in an urban context, thus contributing to urban sustainability in practical terms. It reports on a survey specifically directed to the teaching staff, on the extent to which transformative learning is being deployed in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in supporting urban sustainability efforts. In addition, the study ends by listing and presenting examples of approaches, methods, and initiatives in transformative learning within an urban sustainability context, and provides an analysis of its main features and learned lessons. It concludes with some best practices for transformative learning that could assist in designing and implementing urban sustainability teaching at HEIs, on a broader scale. It can be stated that not only can sustainability thought improve the urban conditions, but as the developing world gets further urbanised, sustainability in the urban context specifically becomes a matter of particular relevance.

Worldwide, bioeconomy is promoted as an ‘engine for sustainable development’. However, increasingly, the notion that ‘the bioeconomy’ will facilitate sustainable development per se is challenged. Based on the assumption that when leaving the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘society’ unquestioned, inherent inequalities are rather reproduced than overcome, we draw upon a social-ecological framework to analyse the societal relations to nature in the Namibian bioeconomy. In Namibia, with independence, an array of different benefit-sharing mechanisms have been developed to implement local participatory governance structure, which will be further streamlined under the newly introduced access and benefit-sharing law. Results show that despite efforts to facilitate a diversity-based bioeconomy, separating structures and trade-offs are persistent. Images of ‘nature’, like the ‘eternal Namibian landscape’, that draw upon colonial notions are frequently used to market indigenous natural products. Institutions to ‘nature’ that guarantee fair and equitable terms of trade are often only short-term and/or small-scale, e.g. as shown at the case of Devil’s claw, Hoodia and Namibian Myrrh. Even when perspectives cannot be assigned in a stereotypical way between user and provider, and instead, all actors refer to biodiversity and traditional knowledge as ‘welfare of the people’, ‘cultural heritage’, ‘input for R&D’, ‘community benefit’, and ‘marketing tool’, a rational-instrumental reasoning tends to be favoured of a normative-ethical one. A more diversified awareness towards the dialectics entailed in the conception, making, and management of ‘nature’ potentially inhibiting an inclusive sustainable development is relevant at any theory–practice interface, including development project-management and environmental policy-making.

This study aimed at supporting robust decision-making for planning and management of water–energy–food Nexus systems in the country of Jordan. Nexus priority challenges in Jordan were identified as (1) water scarcity, (2) agricultural productivity and water quality, and (3) shift to energy independence. We created a water–energy–food Nexus model that integrates three modelling frameworks: (1) the Water Evaluation and Planning system WEAP model to estimate water demands, supplies and allocation; (2) the MABIA model to estimate crop production, and, (3) a GIS-based energy modelling tool to estimate energy requirements of the water system. Through a set of scenario runs, results show how desalination is needed to address water scarcity, but it has to be coupled with low-carbon electricity generation in order to not exacerbate climate change. Improving water productivity in agriculture improves most of the studied dimensions across the water–energy–food security nexus; however, it does little for water scarcity at the municipal level. Reducing non-revenue water can have positive effects on municipal unmet demand and reduction of energy for pumping, but it does not improve agricultural water productivity and may have negative feedback effects on the Jordan Valleys aquifer levels. Energy efficiency can support energy-intensive projects, like desalination, by substantially reducing the load on the energy system, preventing increased emissions and achieving a more resilient water system. Finally, when all interventions are considered together all of the major drawbacks are reduced and the benefits augmented, producing a more holistic solution to the WEF Nexus challenges in Jordan.

Bee's honey is one of the greatest natural gifts to humankind, and Indian Ayurveda emphasises the various applications of honey, viz. obesity, burns, cuts, wounds, dermatitis etc. However, all the applications of honey are based on their chemical composition, but they vary depending upon the botanical, geographical origins, and bee feed. With this background, the current study aimed to evaluate the quality of honey produced by the stimulative diets ingested by honey bees (Apis mellifera). At the onset, stimulative diets were served to honey bees for 1 year, and an adequate volume of honey samples was collected before and after the ingestion of stimulative diets. After that, the honey samples were used to study the antioxidant activity and antibacterial potential as per standard protocol. The results revealed that the antioxidant activity of post-feeding honey samples exhibited a higher rate, i.e., 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) (Pre-feeding: 88.06 ± 0.214 and post-feeding: 91.79 ± 0.609 μmol/litre), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) (Pre-feeding: 20.55 ± 0.336 and post-feeding: 29.01 ± 1.114%), and ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) (Pre-feeding: 0.296 ± 0.039 and post-feeding: 0.396 ± 0.001 mg TE/100 gm). Similarly, a high rate of antibacterial efficiency was shown in post-feeding honey samples against E. coli at a concentration of 800 µg/mL. It was shown with considerable antibacterial activity against Salmonella enterica as well. Overall, we have demonstrated honey's antioxidant and antibacterial effects and may have therapeutic potential as honey.