Environmental and Social Accounting As An Alternative Approach To Conflict Resolutions In A Volatile and E-Business Environment

Profits and improvements in world social welfare are the main reasons for industrialization. However, while governments and business owners are striving to solve one social problem or the other, these same solution processes scoop up other problems along the line which inadvertently breed conflicts and confrontations between the host communities and the owners and operators of the organizations attempting the solution. This is the position which most oil producing companies in the Nigerian Niger Delta region as well as some manufacturing concerns have found themselves. In E-Business, market domination and monopolistic trade practices have pitched major world players in the information and communications technology industry against one another, engendering yet another type of social conflict. This paper believes that a lot could be done to douse the resulting conflagration and pacify those directly affected by applying palliative and preventive remedies using the process of environmental and social accounting aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a tool

Multicriteria Decision Making in Sustainable Tourism and Low-Carbon Tourism Research: A Systematic Literature Review

Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) is increasingly being utilized as an analytical research tool for sectors that require decision-making with specific objectives and constraints, such as the tourism industry. Sustainable tourism, which examines the balance of numerous aspects, including stakeholders’ interests, is the critical feature propelling the increased usage of MCDM. This paper explores the use of Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods applied in studies of sustainable tourism and its derivative term, low-carbon tourism, using a systematic literature review (SLR) search from the Scopus database. The analysis has identified 189 relevant studies published between 1987 to April 2022. After selection, screening, and synthesizing processes, we selected 135 pertinent studies, which were analysed in general descriptive data, citation impacts, geographical categorization, categorization of the methodologies’ objectives, and possible trajectories of similar research in the future. We find that highly cited authors and articles are related to sustainable tourism indicators\u27 development and case studies. Furthermore, most relevant studies are concentrated in Asia and Europe rather than other regions. We also categorize the reviewed studies into six classifications depending on each method\u27s intended usage and further suggest four contexts for the studies’ future trajectory

Supporting sustainable food shopping

Food contributes a surprisingly large portion of personal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Could pervasive technologies help influence diet choices to reduce this? The authors offer insights for designers of pervasive technologies addressing food and the GHG impacts of diet

TOWARDS AN OPTIMAL INVESTMENT BUDGET FOR GREEN DATA CENTERS

The growing demand for data storage and computational power has increased the global deployment of data centers. Today, data centers are the backbone of modern companies, but also main consumers of energy and among the major producers of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the development and implementation of sustainable and energy efficient Green Data Centers (GDC) has gained relevance from a scientific and practical point of view. Even though technological progress has revealed opportunities for improvements in energy efficiency, little effort has been made regarding the business case of GDC. In this paper, we analyze the coherence of economic and environmental objectives of GDC investments by conceptualizing a decision model using traditional financial metrics and by applying the model on exemplary data. We analyze both costs and realized energy savings associated with the GDC investment. Besides, we examine the influnce of volatile energy prices on the investment decision. By integrating risk and return into one decision calculus, we determine the optimal GDC investment budget which reconciles long-term economic and environmental objectives. Our theoretical findings are supported by an application example of a GDC investment project. We hereby demonstrate the structural under-investment when disregarding volatile energy prices in decision-making

Chasing Carbon: The Elusive Environmental Footprint of Computing

Given recent algorithm, software, and hardware innovation, computing has enabled a plethora of new applications. As computing becomes increasingly ubiquitous, however, so does its environmental impact. This paper brings the issue to the attention of computer-systems researchers. Our analysis, built on industry-reported characterization, quantifies the environmental effects of computing in terms of carbon emissions. Broadly, carbon emissions have two sources: operational energy consumption, and hardware manufacturing and infrastructure. Although carbon emissions from the former are decreasing thanks to algorithmic, software, and hardware innovations that boost performance and power efficiency, the overall carbon footprint of computer systems continues to grow. This work quantifies the carbon output of computer systems to show that most emissions related to modern mobile and data-center equipment come from hardware manufacturing and infrastructure. We therefore outline future directions for minimizing the environmental impact of computing systems

Hitting the triple bottom line: widening the HCI approach to sustainability

Sustainable Development (SD) in its dimensions – environment, economy, and society – is a growing area of concern within the HCI community. This paper advances a systematic literature review on sustainability across the Sustainable Human-Computer Interaction (SHCI) body of work. The papers were classified according to the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework to understand how the pillars of SD play into the HCI discourse on sustainability. The economic angle was identified as a gap in SHCI literature. To meet the TBL of SD, however, a balance needs to be sought across all ‘lines’. In this paper, we propose that HCI can advance the discussion and the understanding of the economic concepts around sustainability through taking a sociology perspective on the economic angle of the TBL. We sustain this claim by discussing economic concepts and the role that digital can play in redefining the established foundations of our economic system