A lifecycle-based smart sustainable city strategic framework for realizing smart and sustainability initiatives in Riyadh city

202309 bcvcVersion of RecordOthersKing Fahd University of Petroleum and MineralsPublishe

Energy Audit and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis to Identify Sustainable Strategies in the University Campuses: Application to Politecnico di Torino

Universities play a headship role among entities that invest in technological progress and intend to increase education in sustainable culture towards a post-carbon society. With this in mind, Politecnico di Torino is a leader on the national and international scene. It has prepared sustainability lines for the next few years to translate the Sustainable Development Goals into concrete actions. The goal of this work is the evaluation of eight alternative energy efficiency scenarios resulting from the combination of different strategies for the retro!t of the University Campus of Politecnico di Torino. In the first part of the study, the alternatives are assessed in terms of energy performance. Subsequently, an economic evaluation supported by the multi-criteria TOPSIS method makes it possible to order the alternatives according to the opinion of several experts. The integrated evaluation allows considering a set of co-benefits generated by the project going behind the energy aspects. The best strategy involves covering electricity needs with renewable energy sources, adopting students’ engagement policies and optimizing the set-point temperature. The results highlight how low-cost solutions such as awareness campaigns and variation of the set-point temperature can bring signi!cant co-benefits from energy, economic, environmental and social perspectives

Sustainable Higher Education Systems

Higher Education (HE) systems comprise institutions whose function is to support, develop and deliver teaching and learning at post-secondary or tertiary level. Many HE institutions also address research and/or provide enterprise services in partnership with other organisations in the private, public and third sectors. HE systems have therefore a key role in the development of citizens, society and the economy, including the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to support sustainable development. A sustainable Higher education (HE) system may be defined in terms of the network of local, national and international HE institutions and their systems that sustain the core functions of HE, including the delivery of teaching and learning, research, and outreach, by addressing social, economic, and environmental targets and constraints influencing the HE institutional context. A sustainable HE system not only sustains the functions of HE institutions but supports the aims of sustainable development by advancing citizens’ knowledge and skills to meet the needs of society and the economy and by promoting stewardship of the natural and built environment. This article examines the concept of sustainable HE systems and three key approaches to promote environmental sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations in 2015. These approaches include: greening the curriculum to encompass Education for Sustainable Development (ESD); greening campus buildings and site operations; and designing HE teaching and learning delivery systems, such as distance and online education systems, to minimise negative environmental impacts and carbon dioxide emissions

What are the European legal duties to conserve biodiversity in university campuses?

Biodiversity is a key element of sustainable development in university campuses. However, integrating biodiversity in campuses requires strategic planning, beyond minimum compliance with protected species and habitats legislation. This leads to the questions: which university functions impact on biodiversity and what obligations are there under European environmental law for universities to consider biodiversity strategically? University functions and their consequent impacts were classified thematically into four and seven categories respectively. These categories were used to systematically search the Environmental Legislation Update Service and EUR-Lex for relevant legislation,which was also classified. Universities undertake capital projects, building alterations, grounds maintenance, and outdoor activities. These functions may cause loss, damage, disturbance, introductions, pollution to, and overuse of,biodiversity. Legislation applying to these impacts spans wildlife, plant health,planning, and pollution prevention disciplines. The interdisciplinary legal framework for biodiversity presents compliance and integration challenges, such as overlooking legislation or duplicating efforts. This article will help those involved in university management, teaching and research to identify and integrate in their work the relevant legal obligations on biodiversity

A bibliometric analysis-based review on green IT

With the increasing global greenhouse gas emission (GHGE) from ICT usage, several research projects have been conducted in the areas for Green IT development (such as optimal resource allocation algorithms, deterministic heuristics approaches) and Green IT deployment (integrated framework approach). Although there was significant progress in Green IT research during the period of 2008–2013, it has declined gradually in recent years. The findings from all of these Green IT research play a vital role in improving the resource optimisation, which can result in GHGE from ICT usage. This book chapter presents the findings from bibliometric analysis, co-authorship and citation network analysis on Green IT articles. The findings show that the numbers of total related articles increased from 2008 to 2013 and gradually decreased in recent years. USA, Germany, India, Australia and England are the leading countries. The high average citations of articles from Australian scholars reflect their significant academic value in this Green IT research area, although the funding support from Australia research council on Green IT is comparatively low. There is a need to encourage more academic collaborations with co-authorship to share experiences, knowledge and skills for more innovative solutions. The citations among articles from worldwide are widely distributed and well linked among articles from various countries and academic institutions

The important role of universities in enhancing sustainability: the case of the University of Milano-Bicocca

During the last decade, an increasing number of universities have started to play an active role in creating a more sustainable future, with many implementing sustainability initiatives on campus. Following recent studies of other significant initiatives, this paper aims to analyse recent sustainability policies introduced by the University of Milano-Bicocca to examine how these policies have worked and how improvements have been measured. The results of this analysis, based on an evaluation of the sustainability initiatives, indicate that sustainability reporting in Italian universities is still in its infancy but, at the same time, suggests (i) that certain areas of progress and positive results can be identified, with several benefits for the stakeholders and for the local community, and (ii) that the example offered by the university provides a potential pathway to the creation of specific modules in the degree programs. Based on the experience of the University of Milano-Bicocca, we suggest that standardization in sustainability reporting will play a central role in the near future. Standardization is very important, not only in terms of the creation of sustainability reports but also in terms of their interpretation. This paper explains the current work in progress and the efforts of an Italian university to better incorporate and institutionalize sustainability and to become a template for the Italian University System in facilitating the standardization and the implementation of a unique assessment and reporting model capable of adoption across the National University System