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Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 32863

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The definition of the term “sustainability” indicates a balance between social, environmental and economic aspects, which contributes to the fact that the concept is based on multidisciplinary foundations. Therefore, it can be evaluated using special methods and tools of assessing sustainable development. This fact is confirmed in the literature on this subject, which identifies a set of different approaches toward achieving and measuring balance.

Many existing global, international, national, regional, and local strategies incorporate this important sustainability aspect in terms of the goals and tasks set out in the strategy. Ensuring the correct identification and development of activities has a major impact on achieving continuous long-term improvement in sustainability. Furthermore, its progress should be constantly monitored to ensure adequate quality levels. Consequently, an assessment using dedicated sustainability measurement approaches is essential. In general, these approaches aim to assess, support, or measure the level of sustainability. The growing importance of sustainability, as well as the public awareness of this fact, have motivated scientists to create comprehensive solutions consolidating indicators, measures, framework, and indicators. The existing number of different approaches and their dedicated nature limit the scope of practical application, which makes the task of assessing sustainability difficult. On the other hand, the constant development of the sustainability domain leads to the necessity of their continuous extension and revision.

A review of the state-of-the-art in the scope of sustainability assessment approaches clearly indicates distinguishable shortcomings of the existing methodical tools and solutions. The large range of practical possibilities of quantitative methods (e.g., taxonomic methods, structural equations, statistical methods, or multicriteria decision analyses methods) creates the potential for both creating new and also advancing existing approaches for sustainable assessment. Therefore, the accuracy of model mapping can be increased, and additional practical and analytic possibilities can be provided. Machine learning in pattern extraction and clustering of the investigated sustainability objects are other potentially promising areas.

All in all, this Special Issue invites contributions on the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods in sustainability assessment problems. Naturally, the subject of assessment covers a wide range of initiatives, such as policies and plans, programs, projects, legal acts, specific practices, as well as emergent areas of sustainability such as digital or financial sustainability. Research focused on assessment theories and practical approaches at various levels of sustainability (global, national, sectoral, regional, enterprise, project, processes, and product) are especially appreciated. 

Prof. Dr. Jaroslaw Watrobski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainability assessment
  • methods
  • tools
  • indexes
  • frameworks
  • quantitative and qualitative methods in sustainability assessment

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 13123 KiB  
Article
Analysis and Assessment of Sustainable Entrepreneurship Practices in Polish Small and Medium Enterprises
by Paula Bajdor, Ilona Pawełoszek and Helena Fidlerova
Sustainability 2021, 13(7), 3595; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13073595 - 24 Mar 2021
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3451
Abstract
Entrepreneurship is one of the driving forces behind the development of the national economy. The effect of entrepreneurship in the economic dimension is a business entity, most often a small or medium enterprise. The SME sector plays a significant role in every national [...] Read more.
Entrepreneurship is one of the driving forces behind the development of the national economy. The effect of entrepreneurship in the economic dimension is a business entity, most often a small or medium enterprise. The SME sector plays a significant role in every national economy. Traditionally, people perceived entrepreneurship as a factor measured by the earned profit. Increasing it was the primary goal of enterprises operating on the market. The operating conditions and competitiveness level have meant that enterprises beside economic goals also pursue social and environmental goals. Entrepreneurship is perceived as a determinant of social and ecological development, thus referred to as sustainable entrepreneurship. This article aims to identify and evaluate attitudes towards sustainable entrepreneurship among Polish enterprises. We compare the obtained results with their self-assessment and distinguish different approaches to business activity. The cluster analysis of survey results shows that the Polish SME sector can be divided into five separate groups characterized by a different approach and level of implementation of sustainable development. We also concluded that the Polish enterprises are more focused on social than environmental aspects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
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15 pages, 5321 KiB  
Article
Monitoring and Mathematical Modeling of Soil and Groundwater Contamination by Harmful Emissions of Nitrogen Dioxide from Motor Vehicles
by Mykola Dyvak, Artur Rot, Roman Pasichnyk, Vasyl Tymchyshyn, Nazar Huliiev and Yurii Maslyiak
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2768; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13052768 - 04 Mar 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2125
Abstract
The article considers the task and a new approach to monitoring of soil and groundwater contamination by harmful emissions of nitrogen dioxide from motor vehicles. The approach is based on combination of measurement procedure of the harmful emissions concentrations in the surface atmospheric [...] Read more.
The article considers the task and a new approach to monitoring of soil and groundwater contamination by harmful emissions of nitrogen dioxide from motor vehicles. The approach is based on combination of measurement procedure of the harmful emissions concentrations in the surface atmospheric layer and mathematical modeling of the impact of these emissions on soil and groundwater contamination. The scheme of this harmful emission concentrations measurement using a mobile complex Sniffer4D Hyper-local Air Quality Analyzer is given. Based on these results, a mathematical model of diffusion of this harmful substance in the upper layers of soil and water resources is proposed. As a result of the computations, the distribution of concentrations of soil and water contamination in the neighborhood of separate observation points has been built. Also, the field of nitrogen dioxide concentrations at various depths for observation points has been modeled. For a waterbody, the concentration of nitric acid, which is formed due to the interaction of nitrogen dioxide with water, is higher in water than in the surface layer of the soil. This concentration can be significantly increased during prolonged downpours when acidic solutions drain from surrounding soil areas into the waterbodies. The obtained research results are fully consistent with the practical and theoretical results on the diffusion of gases into soils and water resources. It means that the proposed approach can be used instead of the existing very expensive approach to analysis of soil and groundwater contamination in the laboratory. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
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23 pages, 938 KiB  
Article
Efficiency of Methods for Determining the Relevance of Criteria in Sustainable Transport Problems: A Comparative Case Study
by Andrii Shekhovtsov, Volodymyr Kozlov, Viktor Nosov and Wojciech Sałabun
Sustainability 2020, 12(19), 7915; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12197915 - 24 Sep 2020
Cited by 48 | Viewed by 2797
Abstract
Problems related to sustainable urban transport have gained in importance with the rapid growth of urban agglomerations. There is, therefore, a need to support decision-making processes in this area, a trend that is visible in the literature. Many methods have already been presented [...] Read more.
Problems related to sustainable urban transport have gained in importance with the rapid growth of urban agglomerations. There is, therefore, a need to support decision-making processes in this area, a trend that is visible in the literature. Many methods have already been presented as a useful decision-making tool in this field. However, it is still a significant challenge to properly determine the relevance of the criteria because it is one of the most critical points of many presented techniques to solve decision problems. In this work, we propose two new approaches to determining the relevance of particular decision criteria effectively in sustainable transport problems. For this purpose, we examine a study case for the evaluation of electric bikes evaluated against eight criteria, which have been taken from earlier work. We calculate the relevance of each criterion using four different approaches and then evaluate their effectiveness using a reference ranking and popular multi-criteria decision analysis methods. The results are compared with each other by using similarity coefficients. Finally, we summarize the results obtained and set out further methods of development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
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24 pages, 335 KiB  
Article
Towards Sustainability in E-Banking Website Assessment Methods
by Witold Chmielarz and Marek Zborowski
Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 7000; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12177000 - 27 Aug 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2153
Abstract
Nowadays, banking services have evolved from offline financial services to online platforms available in the form of websites and mobile applications. While multiple methods exist for evaluation of generic-purpose websites, the appraisal of banking services requires a more sophisticated approach. Multiple factors need [...] Read more.
Nowadays, banking services have evolved from offline financial services to online platforms available in the form of websites and mobile applications. While multiple methods exist for evaluation of generic-purpose websites, the appraisal of banking services requires a more sophisticated approach. Multiple factors need to be taken into consideration, revolving not only around technical and usability aspects of the sites, but also considering the economic and anti-crisis factors. Moreover, due to the fact that one of the groups of people interested in banking services assessment are potential clients, which might or might not be technically and theoretically literate, a sustainable approach to banking services evaluation is needed. The main contribution of this paper is a sustainable approach balancing the evaluation accuracy with usage simplicity and computational complexity of evaluation methods. Also, a reference model for banking services evaluation is provided. In practical terms, a set of all significant commercial banking services in Poland is assessed. Last, but not least, a preliminary study of practical applicability of various evaluation methods amongst computer-literate banking clients is performed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
59 pages, 1017 KiB  
Article
Is the Distribution of Research Grants Sustainable? An Empirical Study of Grant Assessment
by Aleksandra Bączkiewicz, Jakub Dagil, Bartłomiej Kizielewicz, Karol Urbaniak and Wojciech Sałabun
Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 6891; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12176891 - 25 Aug 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2004
Abstract
Financing of basic research is an important task in supporting research activities and development of dynamically advancing interdisciplinary fields of science. A significant challenge in this aspect is the correct distribution of limited finances sustainably. In this paper, we present an empirical study [...] Read more.
Financing of basic research is an important task in supporting research activities and development of dynamically advancing interdisciplinary fields of science. A significant challenge in this aspect is the correct distribution of limited finances sustainably. In this paper, we present an empirical study related to National Science Centre (NSC), which is the main government agency in Poland. NSC funds projects in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences and Engineering. In this work, we analyse three primary funding schemes of NSC, which are called PRELUDIUM, SONATA and OPUS. Each of theses programms is asigned to another group of scientists from beginners to experts. Projects’ data concerning PRELUDIUM, SONATA and OPUS schemes are collected from NSC projects database (only completed projects) and proccessed for further investigation. Effectiveness and sustainability of projects implemented in scientific fields are analysed concerning criteria such as the total number of book publications, papers, amount of grants and IF points. The results obtained are presented regarding scientific disciplines and panels. Prevailingly, the PRELUDIUM scheme exhibits better results in the majority of criteria and panels. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
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22 pages, 1423 KiB  
Article
The Innovativeness and Usage of the Balanced Scorecard Model in SMEs
by Zdenka Dudic, Branislav Dudic, Michal Gregus, Daniela Novackova and Ivana Djakovic
Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3221; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12083221 - 16 Apr 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 19689
Abstract
By using the balanced scorecard model, a company is able to identify its advantages, as well as its deficiencies, and thus improve its business. The introduction of innovations and the implementation of innovative activities in companies are key for gaining a competitive advantage. [...] Read more.
By using the balanced scorecard model, a company is able to identify its advantages, as well as its deficiencies, and thus improve its business. The introduction of innovations and the implementation of innovative activities in companies are key for gaining a competitive advantage. There is no ideal model that would measure the non-financial, non-tangible perspectives of a company (such as customer perspective, the perspective of research and innovation, and the perspective of internal processes). The main goal of this paper is researching the applicability of the balanced scorecard model in small- and medium-sized companies as the basis for a model for assessing innovative activities in the Republic of Slovakia and the Republic of Serbia. First, a hypothetical model was created based on theoretical data from world scientific articles. Then, the structural equation model (SEM model) was created, based on the conducted research in 223 companies and the obtained results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Methods, Tools, Indexes and Frameworks in Sustainability Assessment)
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