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Topic Review
Food Losses and Waste of Food
In recent times the issue of food losses and waste of food (FLW) has received increased academic and political attention. Although the definition of FLW is not clear, the truth is that globally roughly one-third of food is not consumed and is wasted, equivalent to 1.3. billion tonnes per year. The reasons for FLW differ between countries. In developed countries, most FLW occurs at the retail, foodservice and, home stages of the food supply chain for a variety of reasons. For instance, food not used in time, burning, spoilage, personal preferences or, leftover waste. While in developing countries FLW is mainly due to the absence of infrastructure, lack of knowledge and, investment in storage technologies.
  • 1.5K
  • 02 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Marine Plastic Litter Reduction in Manila
Without coordinated intervention, the annual flow of plastics into the ocean is expected to nearly triple by 2040, from 11 million tons today to 29 million metric tons, globally. Manila Bay, situated in Manila, is where the challenges related to plastic pollution are of great importance nationally and, thus, make headlines globally, as plastic waste that is not properly managed has increased the economic and environmental effects of marine plastics. At the global governance forum on 2 March 2022, at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, 175 countries endorsed a historic resolution to end plastic pollution and forge an international, legally binding agreement by the end of 2024. With this global and binding agreement, cities like Manila could properly enforce measures to end this plastic pollution—which needs the political will of the administrators and the participation of the relevant constituents. 
  • 1.5K
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Conservation-Compatible Retrofit Solutions
Historic, listed, or unlisted, buildings account for 30% of the European building stock. Since they are complex systems of cultural, architectural, and identity value, they need particular attention to ensure that they are preserved, used, and managed over time in a sustainable way. This implies a demand for retrofit solutions able to improve indoor thermal conditions while reducing the use of energy sources and preserving the heritage significance. Often, however, the choice and implementation of retrofit solutions in historic buildings is limited by socio-technical barriers (regulations, lack of knowledge on the hygrothermal behaviour of built heritage, economic viability, etc.). 
  • 1.4K
  • 24 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Entomophagy
Entomophagy, the practice of eating insects as food, has recently been receiving more widespread recognition along with growing public interest in adopting more sustainable diets. Compared with meats, edible insects taste just as good, are equally or even more nutritious, and have a significantly smaller environmental footprint. However, the adoption of entomophagy is still limited, particularly in Western countries. Considering the environmental benefits of entomophagy and its potential contribution to food security, it is important to understand factors that can influence the willingness to try edible insects as meat substitutes, and policy tools that can encourage the adoption of entomophagy. 
  • 1.4K
  • 02 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Tourism Transport Energy Use
Overall, transport consumes 94% of tourism-related energy use, compared to accommodation at 4%, and other activities at 2%. Almost 80% of tourism’s contribution to global warming is associated with leisure travel. In the near future, tourism will grow fast, and it seems necessary to introduce mechanisms to internalize leisure-travel-related CO2 emission costs, if climate change is to be managed. Drastic reductions in leisure travel would be needed to mitigate emissions worldwide. Excessive transport usage has led to high social costs and has caused a variety of negative externalities, such as traffic congestion; land consumption; accidents; air and noise pollution; destruction of the visual landscape; and waste in the use of resources such as raw materials, energy, and so on. However, tourism transport has become a crucial part of the tourism industry that generates substantial economic benefits worldwide. Therefore, the target should be to control the growth of tourism transport usage in order to make it environmentally sustainable, without compromising the ability of people to meet their need for mobility.
  • 1.4K
  • 15 Oct 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Environmental Design for People Living with Dementia
The term ‘environmental design for dementia’ relates to both the process and outcomes of designing to support or improve cognitive accessibility in physical environments. Environmental design for dementia is evidenced as an effective nonpharmacological intervention for treatment of the symptoms of dementia and is associated with higher levels of independence and wellbeing for people living with a variety of age-related cognitive, physical, and sensory impairments. Evidence-based dementia design principles have been established as a means of supporting both the design and evaluation of environmental design for dementia.
  • 1.4K
  • 30 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Therapeutic Landscapes and Psychiatric Care Facilities
Healing environments have been defined as therapeutic landscapes (TL), where the physical and built environments, social conditions and human perceptions combine to produce an atmosphere which is conducive to healing. The environment in mental-healthcare facilities can influence health and recovery of service users and furthermore contribute to healthy workplaces for staff. The physical (built and natural), social, and symbolic dimensions of the therapeutic landscape can have positive and negative impacts. Therefore, the needs and characteristics of the different stakeholders have to be considered.
  • 1.4K
  • 10 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Public Water Policy Knowledge in the American West
Misalignment between crop production and the volume of water necessary to maintain abundant food yields is becoming more pronounced in the Western US. As the West continues to struggle with water availability, periods of drought offer poignant opportunities to engage the public with education campaigns about water and could provide a salient policy window to advance water conservation policies, as research shows that increasing public water knowledge may be beneficial to gain public support for water conservation policies.
  • 1.4K
  • 18 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Framework for Building Resilient Water and Infrastructure Systems
Planning and developing resilient socio-technical and natural systems to cope with and respond to unprecedented changes has been one of the top goals of government bodies, researchers, and practitioners worldwide. 
  • 1.3K
  • 24 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Polyurethanes and Green Chemistry
Polyurethanes are most often called “green” when they contain natural, renewable additives in their network or chemical structure, such as mono- and polysaccharides, vegetable oils, polyphenols, or various compounds derived from agro-waste white biotechnology. The use of these natural substrates is in line with the principles of green chemistry. However, other principles among all 12 can also be used in the production of polyurethanes.
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Nov 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Food, Climate Change, and the Challenge of Innovation
Climate change is a shift in the climate’s condition that lasts for an extended period, usually decades or longer, and that may be detected by changes in the mean and variability of its parameters. The full spectrum of players and their related value-adding activities, that are a part of the food supply chain, including the disposal of food items derived from agriculture, forestry, or fisheries, are collectively called food systems. Food systems are a component of their larger economic, social, and environmental contexts. Finally, food security is the condition in which all individuals consistently have physical and financial access to adequate safe, nutritious food that satisfies their dietary needs and food choices for an active and healthy life. Climate change and its relationships with food systems and security are complex since food systems significantly contribute to climate change. However, climate change impacts food systems unpredictably, leading to food insecurity through adverse impacts on the four dimensions of food security: utilization, access, food availability, and stability. Climate change adaptation plans are urgent and include measures such as flood and climate protection, waste management and recycling, climate-smart agriculture, and analytical climatic conditions innovation equipment on agricultural processes and activities. Nevertheless, addressing the climate crisis and its adverse impacts on food security through the activation and promotion of innovation needs reliable information and intervention in many different but interconnected fields, such as institutional design, philanthropy, novel partnerships, finance, and international cooperation. In this context, this paper analyses the relationship between climate change, agriculture, and global–local strategies to ensure food security and also discusses policies’ role in fostering innovation for supporting local agro-food systems and their capacity to sustain societal needs.
  • 1.3K
  • 19 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Designer Ecosystems for the Anthropocene
Accepting that nature and culture are intricately co-evolved has profound implications for the ethical, legal, philosophical and pragmatic dimensions of social and environmental policy. The way researchers think about nature affects how they understand and manage ecosystems. While the ideals of preserving wilderness and conserving ecosystems have motivated much conservation effort to date, achieving these ideals may not be feasible under Anthropocene conditions unless communities accept custodial responsibilities for landscapes and other species.
  • 1.3K
  • 08 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Climate Services
The use of climate services (CS) for the provisioning of climate information for informed decision-making on adaptation action has gained momentum. CS is a scientifically-based information and products that enhance users’ knowledge and understanding about the impacts of climate on their decisions and actions.) “Climate services, involve the timely production, translation, and delivery of useful climate data, information and knowledge for societal decision-making and climate-smart policy and planning”.
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Smartphone Recycling Behaviour Sustainability in UAE
Repeated actions and behaviours are characteristic of people’s daily lives. However, there is a dilemma when this repeated action is associated with mobile phone recycling since convincing mobile users to recycle sustainably is challenging. This research analysed the four factors (i.e., actual knowledge, salience, environmental constraints, and habits) adopted from the Integrated Behavioural Model (IBM) theory and examined their impact on behavioural sustainability. A partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was applied to evaluate 601 responses from a self-administered online survey collected from mobile user participants based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It's indicated that habit has the strongest and statistically significant positive influence on behaviour; followed by knowledge and skills. Additionally, the salience of behaviour has a considerably negative influence on behaviour sustainability unaffected by environmental constraints.
  • 1.3K
  • 02 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Digitization in the Design and Construction Industry
The digitization of services in various fields is a trend that can be observed over the past decade. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated this trend. Many industries that previously offered services that previously seemed impossible to provide digitally had to try to transform their activities and adapt them to the conditions of the pandemic. Many industries that previously offered services that seemed impossible to provide digitally had try to transform their activities and adapt them to the conditions of the pandemic.
  • 1.3K
  • 23 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Flooding Vulnerability in Informal Settlements
Flooding is an increasingly challenging problem facing cities today, with consequences mostly felt in marginalized communities. Residents of informal settlements are particularly susceptible to the effects of flooding given that they are compelled to live in the most unsafe locations, such as floodplains. There is need to mitigate the challenges and strengthen the resiliency of informal settlements in relation to flooding through upgrading housing and infrastructures, green infrastructures, policies, integrating indigenous knowledge, and community participation    
  • 1.3K
  • 02 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Integration of Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Practice
The environmental justice (EJ) movement has been a key factor in the United States’ struggle to provide a healthy environment for all to thrive. The origins of the movement date as far back as the 1960’s, led primarily by people of color and low economic status communities living in America’s most polluted environments. More recently, the just sustainability movement calls for the inclusion of EJ considerations, including social justice, equity, and human rights, into sustainability science and initiatives.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Digital Transformation in Higher Education
Digital transformation in higher education does not merely refer to a technological transformation. From an institutional perspective, the digital transformation in a broad sense is understood as a way to determine the stakeholder needs and behaviors in advance, and to provide education, research, and social services in line with the demands of the pupils who take advantage of the services in a changing environment. For this reason, digital transformation in education is being implemented worldwide step-by-step, with attention being paid to helping students with digital tools that can be reachable wherever there is an online computer terminal. Saving time and resources by means of online management and tuition seems to be the consolidated challenge. This means the digitalization of core services, having academics and students with advanced digital capabilities, and decision support systems that can adapt to changing circumstances.
  • 1.3K
  • 14 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Measure Environmental Performance in Ports
Oceans, seas, and marine resources are highly relevant for achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Such relevance has given rise to the blue economy approach, where scholars and policymakers see activities carried out in cargo ports from a different perspective. The blue economy approach stresses the emergence of multiple transnational networks in relation to these topics and the development of green ports plus environmental performance measurements at seaports in general. 
  • 1.3K
  • 13 May 2021
Topic Review
The Sustainability Potential of Upcycling
The upcycling trend has received renewed attention in the past few years due to growing concerns for the environment related to increased resource consumption and waste volumes. Indeed, cities across the world are supporting resource upcycling initiatives by establishing do-it-yourself (DIY) repair cafes and makerspaces as a means to transform societies towards sustainable development. However, the sustainability potential of such upcycling initiatives is unknown due to the lack of theoretical frameworks.
  • 1.2K
  • 30 May 2022
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