Making the user more efficient: design for sustainable behaviour

User behaviour is a significant determinant of a product's environmental impact; while engineering advances permit increased efficiency of product operation, the user's decisions and habits ultimately have a major effect on the energy or other resources used by the product. There is thus a need to change users' behaviour. A range of design techniques developed in diverse contexts suggest opportunities for engineers, designers and other stakeholders working in the field of sustainable innovation to affect users' behaviour at the point of interaction with the product or system, in effect ‘making the user more efficient’. Approaches to changing users' behaviour from a number of fields are reviewed and discussed, including: strategic design of affordances and behaviour‐shaping constraints to control or affect energy‐ or other resource‐using interactions; the use of different kinds of feedback and persuasive technology techniques to encourage or guide users to reduce their environmental impact; and context‐based systems which use feedback to adjust their behaviour to run at optimum efficiency and reduce the opportunity for user‐affected inefficiency. Example implementations in the sustainable engineering and ecodesign field are suggested and discussed.     

Higher education for today and tomorrow: university appraisal for diversity, innovation and change towards sustainable development

This article serves as a position paper of a consortium of universities in the Asia–Pacific region working to address challenges of sustainable development and rapidly changing social, economic and natural environments. Member universities of ProSPER.Net (Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research Network) have embarked on a project to develop an alternative university appraisal system that would potentially become a viable alternative to the existing higher education ranking and assessment systems perceived as constraining, yet, powerful. The article discusses the changing landscape for knowledge creation and the need for universities to assume new roles in a new kind of modernity—variously termed as “liquid modernity” (Z. Bauman), “reflexive modernization” (U. Beck) or other neologisms. It recognises that the mainstream ranking and assessment systems are powerful guiding systems for higher education institutions (HEIs) and, if modified, could be a significant force for transformation towards a more sustainable future. Recognising the need for HEIs to address societal challenges and needs, the Alternative University Appraisal (AUA) project of ProSPER.Net starts by reviewing existing models of recognition and appraisal of various aspects of HEIs’ work and aims at creating space for individual and collective reflection on HEI practices and outcomes. In addition to extensive consultations among ProSPER.Net members, as well as with other higher education actors and international organisations addressing higher education for sustainability, cross-sectoral consultations, assessments of the uncertainties and pertinent trends, and engagement with policy-making processes would be required for the AUA system to become a guiding force that shapes higher education of today and tomorrow.     

A review of steel slag usage in construction industry for sustainable development

Use of by-products from the steelmaking process can play an important role in achieving sustainable development. The available literature suggests that the use of iron and steel industry slags as mineral admixture or partial replacement of cement improves the microstructure of the concrete as well as its mechanical and durability characteristics. This paper reviews utilization of steel slag (SS) in the construction industry by considering current and possible future utilization fields, advantages of SS usage, and problems associated with its use. Strength and durability evolution of concretes or mortars containing SS in different ratios as aggregate or cement replacement material, combined use of ground granulated blast furnace slag with SS, and some relatively new fields of utilization of SS are also addressed. Improvements in and results of SS utilization in cement and concrete are discussed by addressing its beneficial effects. This article could help researchers to understand the recent developments in evaluation of SS in the construction industry.     

Processes for sustainable development using high-intensity electric fields

Intense electric fields up to 10⁷ V/m generate very interesting and useful applications for the environment. Several processes using high electrical voltage for environment preservation were developed in the laboratory. The purpose of this study was to review these applications, highlighting their economic and environmental benefits: (1) electrostatic separators of particles used in industrial wastes recycling; (a) role-type electrostatic separator for granular mixtures of plastic–metal particles; (b) free-fall and rotating belt triboelectric separators for mixtures of plastic–plastic particles; (c) plate-type electrostatic separator for mixtures of metal–metal particles, (2) electrostatic precipitators for gas cleaning and (3) ozone generators for air and water treatment.     

Way for sustainable development of energy in China

The report of Chinese Communist Party's 18th National Congress clearly stated that the construction of ecological civilization needs to join hands with the overall layout of the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics,and the greatest obstacle to achieving ecological civilization is the energy structure in China.Currently,the third industrial revolution—marked by green technology and cloud computing technology—is happening,and it will have a huge impact on future energy development.The fundamental way to solve the problem of energy resource constraints is developing the renewable energy,and the fundamental approach for renewable energy is developing distributed energy and services.The important factors to achieving China's energy production and consumption revolution are accelerating the construction of distributed energy system and overall energy structure adjustment in China.     

Knowledge for sustainable development: a worldviews perspective

A huge tension exists between recognizing sustainable development (SD) as a meta-discourse and accepting a limitless interpretational width. We analyse the impacts of diversity of worldviews on the interpretation of SD—as a knowledge-based concept—through a critical literature review, resulting in recommendations on the topic. We apply a social-constructionist approach, appreciating the complex socio-ecological interactions at the heart of SD. Only recently worldviews are recognized as constitutive elements of SD. Little attention has been given to the impacts on generated knowledge for SD. Variety of worldviews induces a variety of knowledge claims and needs. To retain SD’s ‘universal’ appeal as practical decision-guiding strategy for policy and action, we propose an integrative approach towards knowledge for SD—entailing an explicit pluralization of knowledge. SD should be re-interpreted as a joint worldviews construct, embracing a diversity of views in collaborative research and co-production of knowledge. Interpreting SD as a joint endeavour is necessary to overcome historical obstacles like cultural hegemony and a hierarchy of knowledge systems. We identified the following requirements for an inclusive knowledge for SD paradigm: re-interpretation of SD as a worldview constructs in progress; interpretative flexibility; co-production of knowledge; subjectivity awareness and self-reflexivity; respect for a diversity of worldviews/knowledges; identifying shared goals; collaborative research; a systems approach; transdisciplinarity; and recognition of contextuality. Further research—concerning potential methodologies and typologies—to reconcile variety of worldviews and knowledge systems in a joint SD worldviews construct is urgently needed.     

The idea of sustainable development

In this lecture, I demonstrate how very different macroeconomic history begins to look if Nature is included as a capital asset in production activities. The tentative conclusions I draw from the evidence are: (1) high population growth in the world’s poorest regions (South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa) has been an obstacle to the achievement of sustainable economic development there; relatedly, (2) when population growth is taken into account, the accumulation of manufactured capital, knowledge, and human capital (health and education) has not compensated for the degradation of natural capital in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and, in all probability, even in the UK and the US; (3) China is possibly an exception to (1) and (2). This article is based on the Keynote Lecture delivered at the international symposium on “Sustainability in an Unequal World”, held in Tokyo on November 24, 2006. The exposition relies on my book, Economics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007. The author is the Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge.     

资源型区域可持续发展能力测度研究

可持续发展是人类的共同发展战略。资源型区域常常会面临资源枯竭、自然生态环境恶化等"资源诅咒"问题,其可持续发展潜力受到严峻挑战,及时了解资源型区域的可持续发展能力水平对促进其走向可持续具有重要意义。本研究首先通过理论推演分析,对资源型区域可持续发展能力的内涵与外延进行了界定,提出创新支持能力与转型支持能力是该类型区域实现可持续发展的重要子能力,并从生存支持能力、经济支持能力、环境支持能力、社会支持能力、创新支持能力、转型支持能力六个子能力系统方面构建了资源型区域可持续发展能力综合评价指标体系;其次,采用全排列多边形综合图示法以及距离协调度测算法,以典型资源型省域山西省为实证分析对象,对山西"资源型经济转型国家综合配套改革试验区"设立前后各两个时点的可持续发展能力等级及其协调度变化情况进行了测度比较。结果表明:2010年"综改区"设立后,山西省可持续发展综合能力有了较大的提升,由2007年的IV级弱持续发展水平提升到了2014年的Ⅱ级中可持续发展水平。但环境支持能力与转型支持能力两个子能力系统仍处在较低水平。同时,可持续发展能力系统内六大子能力系统的协调度有了较大改善,但仍存在环境支持能力与其他各子能力系统极度不协调的现象。实证结果对山西提升可持续发展能力具有重要理论指导意义,也反映了构建的指标体系具有较好的适用性。     

A robust multi-objective optimization model for project scheduling considering risk and sustainable development criteria

Environment, Development and Sustainability - There is limited research that considers the sustainability aspect of the projects’ schedule. The present study proposes a model to cover this...     

A multiple criteria evaluation of sustainable agricultural development models using AHP

Selection of the appropriate agricultural development model has become an important issue in Iran. Using data from Fars province of Iran, the purpose of this paper is to use analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for selecting between the two competing sustainable agricultural development models, which have been developed based on the general tenets of Ecological Modernization (EM) and De-Modernization (DM) theories. Farmers, environmentalists, board members of rural cooperative, rural women and experts from Fars Agricultural (Jehad-e-Keshavarzi) Organization participated in application of AHP to this study. They applied AHP to determine the priority of DM and EM based sustainable agricultural development models. Each group determined the priority of the two models for sustainable agricultural development. The findings indicated that ecological criteria i.e. wise use of resources, environmental protection and product quality are the most important criteria for sustainable agriculture of Iran, followed by economic criterion employment and social criterion participation. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to determine the critical factors that affected the priority of alternatives. The results indicated that EM-based sustainable agricultural development model has a higher priority as the theoretical base of agricultural development of Iran. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue     

Stand-alone hybrid energy system for sustainable development in rural India

Renewable energy system such as solar, wind, small hydro and biogas generators can be used successfully in rural off-grid locations where grid connection is not possible. The main objectives of this study are to examine which configuration is the most cost-effective for the village. One renewable energy model has been developed for supplying electric power for 124 rural households of an off-grid rural village in eastern India. The load demand of the village was determined by the survey work, and the loads were divided into three sub-heads such as primary load I, primary load II and deferred load. Locally available energy sources such as solar radiation and biogas derived from cow dung and kitchen wastes were used as sensitivity variables. This study is unique as it has not considered any diesel generator for supplying unmet electricity to the households; rather it completely depends on locally available renewable resources. Here in this paper, two different models were taken and their cost and environmental benefit were discussed and compared. The net present cost, levelised cost of energy and operating cost for various configurations of models were determined. The minimum cost of energy of $0.476/kWh with lowest net present cost of $386,971 and lowest operating cost ($21,025/year) was found with stand-alone solar–biogas hybrid system.     

Innovation through collaboration: scaling up solutions for sustainable development

The open collaborative philosophy employed in the success of open source (OS) software can be applied to hardware design. Specifically, the development of OS appropriate technologies (OSAT) can improve sustainable development efforts worldwide. Yet, widespread OSAT use is far from ubiquitous. Given that lack of communication, access to information and poor collaboration are among the largest barriers to a more effective OSAT dissemination, this paper explores opportunities to overcome such obstacles using four techniques: (1) collaborative online platforms, (2) crowd-sourcing, (3) the concept of knowledge commons, and (4) enabled educational institutions through service learning and applied research. The results are analyzed, and conclusions are drawn that outline paths to higher multiuser collaboration for OSAT deployment.