Four-Dimensional Sustainable E-Services

E-services are not sustainable, unless we specifically design for sustainability along four dimensions (4D): economical, technical, environmental, and social. Economic sustainability to ensure that e-services create economic value; technical sustainability so that their technical assets actually enable the e-services to cope with changes; environmental sustainability to avoid that e-services harm the environment they operate in, and social sustainability to ensure e-services provide fair exchange of information between parties. Designing 4D-sustainable e-services is very complex. So far, service-engineering research has left dealing with such complexity unassisted—mainly due to the many initial technical challenges that needed to be overcome. Our goal is to fill this gap, by modeling the fundamentals of 4D-sustainable e-services. We propose a conceptual approach for representing 4D-sustainability. Our goal is to enhance the shared understanding amongst sustainability stakeholders, and to ease sustainability assessment and negotiation. Our approach offers a number of interrelated core elements (common among the four sustainability dimensions) as well as dimension-specific elements, variable elements. By focusing on 4D core elements, we enable describing the essence of sustainable e-services in a unified manner. We illustrate the value of the conceptual model using a real-life case study featuring an airport baggage handling syste

Making Forest Values Work: Enhancing Multi-Dimensional Perspectives towards Sustainable Forest Management

Background and Purpose: Sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable forest management are terms that are commonly, and interchangeably used in the forest industry, however their meaning take on different connotations, relative to varying subject matter. The aim of this paper is to look at these terms in a more comprehensive way, relative to the current ideology of sustainability in forestry.Materials and Methods: This paper applies a literature review of the concepts of: i) sustainable development; ii) sustainable forest management; and iii) economic and non-economic valuation. The concepts are viewed through a historical dimension of shifting paradigms, originating from production- to service-based forestry. Values are discussed through a review of general value theory and spatial, cultural and temporal differences in valuation. Along the evolution of these concepts, we discuss their applicability as frameworks to develop operational guidelines for forest management, relative to the multi-functionality of forests.results and conclusions: Potential discrepancies between the conceptual origins of sustainable development and sustainable forest management are highlighted, relative to how they have been interpreted and diffused as new perceptions on forest value for the human society. We infer the current paradigm may not reflect the various dimensions adequately as its implementation is likely to be more related to the distribution of power between stakeholders, rather than the value stakeholders’ place on the various forest attributes

Sustainability Assessment of indicators for integrated water resources management

The scientific community strongly recommends the adoption of indicators for the evaluation and monitoring of progress towards sustainable development. Furthermore, international organizations consider that indicators are powerful decision-making tools. Nevertheless, the quality and reliability of the indicators depends on the application of adequate and appropriate criteria to assess them. The general objective of this study was to evaluate how indicators related to water use and management perform against a set of sustainability criteria. Our research identified 170 indicators related to water use and management. These indicators were assessed by an international panel of experts that evaluated whether they fulfil the four sustainability criteria: social, economic, environmental, and institutional. We employed an evaluation matrix that classified all indicators according to the DPSIR (Driving Forces, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses) framework. A pilot study served to test and approve the research methodology before carrying out the full implementation. The findings of the study show that 24 indicators comply with the majority of the sustainability criteria; 59 indicators are bi-dimensional (meaning that they comply with two sustainability criteria); 86 are one-dimensional indicators (fulfilling just one of the four sustainability criteria) and one indicator do not fulfil any of the sustainability criteria.Postprint (author's final draft

Understanding preferences for nature based and sustainable tourism. The role of personal values and general and specific environmental attitudes

This paper reports the results of a study which investigated the social psychological correlates of people’s preferences for sustainable and unsustainable tourism activities. Two-hundred-eighty-two participants from two Italian cities responded to a questionnaire which recorded their tourism preferences, their general pro-environmental attitudes and values, and their specific attitudes towards sustainable tourism. Results showed positive correlations among the constructs considered. Groups of participants differing in their tourism preferences were also identified and the paper discusses the way in which the social psychological variables considered here may be used to plan adequate strategies and management instruments able to address crucial issues of sustainability in tourism, including, for example, tourists’ ecological behaviors “on site” and their educational needs

A Model of Quantum Economic Development

Quantum Economic Development (or the QED MODEL) is an entirely new field of theoretical economic conceptualisation into the evolutionary end point of the New Global Economy. A full description of the process of forming a kernel of fundamental 'quantum like' logic of the architecture and mechanics of these totally new quantum economies is included, as well as some of the more urgent and suggested effects on Humanity. The interdisciplinary boundaries of Free Market Economics and Quantum Physics have been dissolved through conceptual multi-dimensional and multi-scalar relationships and by constructing a model to explain how these systems could work for a global society of up to one hundred billion market participants. Light speed and internet based virtual economies (mostly corporate in nature) are on our combined global event horizon. This paper is prepared for global Academic, Business, Community and Development leaders to understand the basics of Quantum State Economies and their eventual march toward 'Economic Fusion' sometime in this first half of this century. These virtual economic environments spanning the global may allow us for the first time to meet the basic criteria of a free market economy and simultaneously the pre-engineering of the light speed evolution of ideas to their commercial manifestation. As we now learn from present economic malfunctions, phenomena that were once regarded as only concepts, are being created by the en masse interactions of market forces and energies that may begin to act according to ‘quantum like’ relationships. A vital paper for decision makers of all walks of life.qed, theorem, model, quantum, economic, development, new, gobal, economy, economies, light, speed, e-commerce, internet, mass, markets, interactive, trading, einstein, smith, wealth, nations, government, intervention,universal, currency, units, business, templates, forces, energies, fusion, fission, force, belonging, developing

Sustainable Urban Revitalization within a Historical Urban Neighborhood-A useful Approach to Complete

The historically important urban neighborhoods are practically a significant entity, a rich reservoir of social and economical milieu and cultural inheritance. Though, it faces many problems due to the rapid growth of population and the steady increases in the new requirements with concern of decompose this historical urban neighborhood. Presently sustainable urban revitalization is a theory to integrate inclusive concept of sustainability into urban revitalization process. Therefore to fix up such theory into true practices, a useful approach of urban revitalization planning should be worked out at the start. To work out how urban design would affect inclusive sustainable theory i.e. economy, environment, social equity and cultural values of urban revitalization schemes within Boro Bazaar Area (Khulna city, Bangladesh), a study investigating this issue is initiated. The paper highlights different approaches and strategies taken by different interview, questionnaire and field survey towards the methodologies of assessing, refurbishing and adding new value to the study areas, in view of increasing not only the quality of economical and social significance but also the quality of public spaces and services, for a better excellence of life of the society and neighbourhood.It is also believed that the research findings of this paper can strengthen the understanding of local developers, urban designers and government officials on how to plan a sustainable urban revitalization scheme afterwards

Beyond technology and finance: pay-as-you-go sustainable energy access and theories of social change

Two-thirds of people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity, a precursor of poverty reduction and development. The international community has ambitious commitments in this regard, e.g. the UN's Sustainable Energy for All by 2030. But scholarship has not kept up with policy ambitions. This paper operationalises a sociotechnical transitions perspective to analyse for the first time the potential of new, mobileenabled, pay-as-you-go approaches to financing sustainable energy access, focussing on a case study of pay-as-you-go approaches to financing solar home systems in Kenya. The analysis calls into question the adequacy of the dominant, two-dimensional treatment of sustainable energy access in the literature as a purely financial/technology, economics/ engineering problem (which ignores sociocultural and political considerations) and demonstrates the value of a new research agenda that explicitly attends to theories of social change – even when, as in this paper, the focus is purely on finance. The paper demonstrates that sociocultural considerations cut across the literature's traditional two-dimensional analytic categories (technology and finance) and are material to the likely success of any technological or financial intervention. It also demonstrates that the alignment of new payas- you-go finance approaches with existing sociocultural practices of paying for energy can explain their early success and likely longevity relative to traditional finance approaches