This book is the result of remarkable contribution from the experts of interdisciplinary fields of Science with comprehensive, in-depth and up-to-date research and reviews. It describes the applications of date palm for food, medicine and the environmental sectors. Date palm is one of the oldest cultivated trees and its fruit has been a dietary staple around the world for many centuries. Date pulps contain dietary fibers and easily digestible sugars (70%), mainly glucose, sucrose and fructose. They also contain vitamins like biotin, thiamine, riboflavin, ascorbic and folic acid that are important for our body. The date palm fruit has been used in folk remedies for the treatment of various infectious diseases, cancer and immuno-modulatory activity. Date stones and date palm leaves are freely and abundantly available biomass. Therefore, the renovation of agricultural biomass wastes into activated carbons for drinking water purification, wastewater treatment, treatment of dyes, and metal-ions from aqueous solution would add value to agricultural commodities which offer a solution to environmental problems as well as reduce the cost of waste disposal.

It is more important than ever to be concerned with energy related efforts, especially on what we as individuals can do now to help protect our future. With research coming out left and right on sustainable initiatives, we can only hope that future generations will benefit greatly from the efforts of today s researchers. Energy-Aware Systems and Networking for Sustainable Initiatives covers a great variety of topics such as materials, environment, electronics, and computing. This title is a vital source of information detailing the latest architectures, frameworks, methodologies, and research on energy-aware systems and networking for sustainable initiatives. With contributions from authors around the world, this book presents the most sophisticated research and developments from the field, relevant to researchers, academics, and practitioners alike.

The process of globalization based on major forms of entertainment consumption has promoted the interest of enlarged social actors toward cultural experiencing. Disseminated by social media, new forms of information and knowledge about exotic tourism destinations have endorsed an increasing interest in forms of cultural tourism. This cultural tourism turnout results from a significant change in the traveler's demands and behaviors and has led to a new and renovated interest in cultural heritage that must be studied further. The Handbook of Research on Cultural Tourism and Sustainability explores theoretical concepts related to cultural tourism and cultural routes and provides original viewpoints and empirical research with case studies and best practices for the future of cultural tourism. Covering a range of topics such as creative tourism and sustainable tourism, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, professionals, policymakers, government officials, instructors, and students.

Throughout the global community, the challenges of finite resources, budget deficits, and growing interdependence and complexity have forced governments and the private sector to do more with less. In the foreign assistance realm, this has translated into a donor mandate to promote self-sustaining development in the Third World, a key component of which is the institutional framework that conceives, plans, funds, implements, and manages activities. This book, based on the results of a multi-year applied research project, focuses on institutional sustainability and its role in agriculture and rural development. It concentrates on collaboration between international donor organizations and developing countries to design and implement projects aimed at introducing performance and capacity improvements.

The collection of fifteen essays is divided into three subject areas. Part one examines the sustainability dimensions of agriculture and rural development, with chapters that focus on the range of meanings of sustainability and the relationship between it and continued benefit flows; a conceptual model that draws on systems theory, organizational contingency theory, and political economy; and the action-research methodology for applying the model in the field. Part two is made up of nine chapters, each of which uses the model to analyze a particular case where an international donor-funded intervention sought to develop a sustainable institution. The cases range geographically across the world. Finally, part three draws on the case experiences to highlight strategies for promoting institutional sustainability. Lessons are derived from a comparative analysis of several of the cases, and a chapter incorporating the points made in all of the cases is also provided. With its comparative framework and conclusion that institutional sustainability is a feasible objective for development agencies, this volume will be an important work for development practitioners and students of development administration, as well as a significant addition to public and academic library collections.

Sustainability defines the need for any society to live within the constraints of the land's capacity to deliver all natural resources the society consumes. This book compares the general differences between Native Americans and western world view towards resources. It will provide the 'nuts and bolts' of a sustainability portfolio designed by indigenous peoples. This book introduces the ideas on how to link nature and society to make sustainable choices. To be sustainable, nature and its endowment needs to be linked to human behavior similar to the practices of indigenous peoples. The main goal of this book is to facilitate thinking about how to change behavior and to integrate culture into thinking and decision-processes.

"Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning" is based on the 8th International Symposium of the same name (ISHVAC2013), which took place in Xi an on October 19-21, 2013. The conference series was initiated at Tsinghua University in 1991 and has since become the premier international HVAC conference initiated in China, playing a significant part in the development of HVAC and indoor environmental research and industry around the world. This international conference provided an exclusive opportunity for policy-makers, designers, researchers, engineers and managers to share their experience. Considering the recent attention on building energy consumption and indoor environments, ISHVAC2013 provided a global platform for discussing recent research on and developments in different aspects of HVAC systems and components, with a focus on building energy consumption, energy efficiency and indoor environments. These categories span a broad range of topics, and the proceedings provide readers with a good general overview of recent advances in different aspects of HVAC systems and related research. As such, they offer a unique resource for further research and a valuable source of information for those interested in the subject.
The proceedings are intended for researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), indoor environments, energy systems, and building information and management.
Angui Li works at Xi an University of Architecture and Technology, Yingxin Zhu works at Tsinghua University and Yuguo Li works at The University of Hong Kong."

Followed by the previous part (Volume-1), Volume-2 of carbon footprint assessment book deals with the assessment of carbon footprint in different other sectors, which were not dealt in the first part. Attention on Carbon footprint is growing day-by-day from the public, government and media. Certainly it is one of the most important topics in the agenda of every nation, which is trying its best to reduce its carbon footprint to the maximum possible extent. Every manufacturing industry or sector would like to reduce the carbon footprint of its products and consumers are looking for the products which emit lower carbon emissions in their entire life cycle. Assessment of Carbon footprint for different products, processes and services and also carbon labeling of products have become familiar topics in the recent past in various industrial sectors. Every industry has its unique assessment and modeling techniques, allocation procedures, mitigation methods and labeling strategies for its carbon emissions. With this background, volume two of this book has been framed with dedicated chapters on carbon footprint assessment on various industrial sectors, apart from the ones covered in Volume 1. In each chapter, details pertaining to the assessment methodologies of carbon footprint followed in a particular industry, challenges in calculating the carbon footprint, case studies of various products in that particular industry, mitigation measures to be followed to trim down the carbon footprint, recommendations for further research are discussed in detail.

One of the most important issues in developing sustainable management strategies and incorporating ecodesigns in production, manufacturing and operations management is the assessment of the sustainability of business operations and organizations' overall environmental performance. The book presents the results of recent studies on sustainability assessment. It provides a solid reference for researchers in academia and industrial practitioners on the state-of-the-art in sustainability appraisal including the development and application of sustainability indices, quantitative methods, models and frameworks for the evaluation of current and future welfare outcomes, recommendations on data collection and processing for the evaluation of organizations' environmental performance, and eco-efficiency approaches leading to business process re-engineering.

Air pollution policy is closely connected with climate change, public health, energy, transport, trade, and agriculture, and generally speaking, the Earth has been pushed to the brink and the damage is becoming increasingly obvious. The transport sector remains a foremost source of air pollutants - a fact that has stimulated the production of biofuels. This book focuses on the biodiesel industry, and proposes a modification of the entire manufacturing chain that would pave the way for further improvements. Oil derived from oilseed plantations/crops is the most commonly used feedstock for the production of biodiesel. At the same time, the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering and 178 scientists in the Netherlands have determined that some biofuels, such as diesel produced from food crops, have led to more emissions than those produced by fossil fuels. Accordingly, this book re-evaluates the full cycle of biodiesel production in order to help find optimal solutions. It confirms that the production and use of fertilizers for the cultivation of crop feedstocks generate considerably more GHG emissions compared to the mitigation achieved by using biodiesel. To address this fertilization challenge, projecting future biofuel development requires a scenario in which producers shift to an organic agriculture approach that includes the use of microalgae. Among advanced biofuels, algae's advantages as a feedstock include the highest conversion of solar energy, and the ability to absorb CO2 and pollutants; as such, it is the better choice for future fuels. With regard to the question of why algae's benefits have not been capitalized on for biofuel production, our analyses indicate that the sole main barrier to realizing algae's biofuel potential is ineffective international and governmental policies, which create difficulties in reconciling the goals of economic development and environmental protection.

This book describes various aspects of modern microbiology including microbial enzymes, secondary metabolites, next-generation sequencing, microbial-based biopesticides, microbial-based cancer therapies, biodiesel, and microbial products from fermentation, biodegradation, bioremediation and wastewater treatment. Further, it explains how and why microbes play an important role in preserving the welfare of living beings and the environment. Many bacteria play a significant part in cleaning our environment by detoxifying various xenobiotic compounds, while several microbes produce secondary metabolites that are useful to human beings. The book is divided into 15 chapters that cover various aspects of microorganism-based biotechnology, including recent methodologies such as advanced molecular techniques, as well developments in classical microbiological techniques. The authors also explain how the latest and classical techniques are being used in modern-day microbial biotechnology. All chapters were written by experts from prominent universities, research laboratories, and institutes around the globe. Above all, they focus on recent advances in microbial technology that promote the welfare of living beings and the environment.

Sepp Holzer farms steep mountainsides in Austria 1,500 meters above sea level. His farm is an intricate network of terraces, raised beds, ponds, waterways and tracks, well covered with productive fruit trees and other vegetation, with the farmhouse neatly nestling amongst them. This is in dramatic contrast to his neighbors' spruce monocultures.In this book, Holzer shares the skill and knowledge acquired over his lifetime. He covers every aspect of his farming methods, not just how to create a holistic system on the farm itself, but how to make a living from it. Holzer writes about everything from the overall concepts, down to the practical details.In Sepp Holzer's Permaculturereaders will learn:

How he sets up a permaculture system

The fruit varieties he has found best for permaculture growing

How to construct terraces, ponds, and waterways

How to build shelters for animals and how to work with them on the land

How to cultivate edible mushrooms in the garden and on the farm

and much more

Holzer offers a wealth of information for the gardener, smallholder or alternative farmer yet the book's greatest value is the attitudes it teaches. He reveals the thinking processes based on principles found in nature that create his productive systems. These can be applied anywhere.

With China's rapid growth over the past several decades, the detrimental effects of industrial growth on the environment have become ever more apparent. In this collection of articles from some of China's most distinguished political scientist, economist, and environmentalist, we find the emerging debate on environmentalism unfolding as Chinese try to find their own way. At the core of these concerns is a debate on balancing the needs of economic development with responsibilities to the planet, and the degree to which that responsibility applies to China as a developing country. These articles seek to illustrate broader principles for environmental policies and international support, as well as more specific projects in China that have been tested and those that have failed.

This book examines the Indian mandate for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its implementations in various individual organizations. Although the mandate is applicable only to certain large and stable companies, many believe that India is poised to become the birthplace of social, economic and environmental transformation, given the immense size of the Indian population and its challenging socio-economic index. The book explores the various facets of CSR investigation and places special emphasis on the Schedule VII of the Indian Companies Act of 2013, which defines specific areas of intervention for these companies. In addition, it provides a wealth of first-hand case studies that exemplify the ongoing developments and the fundamental challenges and opportunities of mandated CSR.

A major challenge of our times is to understand and manage the increasing complexity of socio-economic reality. This has immediate relevance for sustainable development. The impact of recent contributions from systems and complexity sciences in addressing this issue has not filtered down into effective practice - notably, there remain problems caused by the legacy of competing paradigms and the application of their associated methodologies. This book argues the urgency for the application of analytical tools that embody the principles of complexity management. The authors describe a theoretical framework based on complexity science with a focus on organisational and second order cybernetics, one that presents a powerful new insight into the concept of sustainability. The book also describes actual applications of the ideas in the area of organisational, societal and environmental management, and reflects upon the impact of such an approach on current practice.

This book presents a new economic theory developed from physical and biological principles. It explains how technology, social systems and economic values are intimately related to resources. Many people have recognized that mainstream (neoclassical) economic theories are not consistent with physical laws and often not consistent with empirical patterns, but most feel that economic activities are too complex to be described by a simple and coherent mathematical theory. While social systems are indeed complex, all life systems, including social systems, satisfy two principles. First, all systems need to extract resources from the external environment to compensate for their consumption. Second, for a system to be viable, the amount of resource extraction has to be no less than the level of consumption. From these two principles, we derive a quantitative theory of major factors in economic activities, such as fixed cost, variable cost, discount rate, uncertainty and duration. The mathematical theory enables us to systematically measure the effectiveness of different policies and institutional structures at varying levels of resource abundance and cost.The theory presented in this book shows that there do not exist universally optimal policies or institutional structures. Instead, the impacts of different policies or social structures have to be measured within the context of existing levels of resource abundance. As the physical costs of extracting resources rise steadily, many policy assumptions adopted in mainstream economic theories, and workable in times of cheap and abundant energy supplies and other resources, need to be reconsidered. In this rapidly changing world, the theory presented here provides a solid foundation for examining the long-term impacts of today's policy decisions.

Islands face one of the most pressing issues of our time: how to balance ecological integrity with economic development and collective quality of life, including the need for social and conservation space. Islands are sites of rich and varied human and ecological diversity, but they are also often characterized by narrow resource bases and dependency on links to the outside world, and by their limited ability to determine the actual character of those links. This volume reviews the challenges of island development and conservation in the Asia-Pacific region. With emphasis on nature reserves and UNESCO World Heritage sites, chapters describe the benefits, barriers, and potential pitfalls in preserving such sites, managing biota, and attracting and controlling tourism. The book also provides a provocative challenge to move beyond the typical concerns of "sustainability" to the more holistic concept of "futurability," or "future potential" for convivial human-environmental interactions.

By the end of the 21st century, our oil and natural gas supplies will be virtually nonexistent, and limited coal supplies will be restricted to only a handful of countries. The authors - an environmental scientist and veteran journalist - make abundantly clear that we must plan for a future without reliance on oil. They make a compelling case that the key determinant of our global economy is not so much the invisible hand of the marketplace but the inexorable laws of ecology. Although the coming decades will be a time of much disruption and change of lifestyle, in the end we may learn a wiser, more sustainable stewardship of our natural resources.
This timely, sobering, yet constructive discussion of energy and ecology offers a realistic vision of the near future and many important lessons about the limits of our resources.

The objective of this book is to explore the relationship between intellectual capital management and the sustainable development of organizations and society. To do so, it introduces readers to the topic of intellectual capital in the context of several connected entities such as organizations, cities and regions, sharing insights that both reflect the status quo and demonstrate the need for further action. In closing, the book presents practical cases to verify the impact of intellectual capital management on sustainable and competitive development.

This is the first book to introduce readers to the crux of ethnic fashion. Covering all aspects, it addresses the significance of sustainability (including culture) and ethnic fashion in the apparel industry. It also highlights concepts and case studies pertaining to ethnic fashion.

Mobility is an essential part of our lives. The ability to move freely is central to meeting our social and economic needs. For this reason we have embraced the car over the past century perhaps more than any other technology or consumer pr- uct. Today there are around 900 million vehicles on the world`s roads with another 60,000,000 new vehicles produced each year worldwide. The scale of the auto- tive industry is significant and far reaching. For example, it is estimated that around two thirds of world`s oil output goes to transportation whereby road - hicles alone consume around 40% of the world`s rubber and 25% of the world`s glass, with the consumption of raw materials and other resources further growing due to the rapid development of the automotive sector in China, India, Thailand and Mexico. Transportation accounts for around 25% of greenhouse emissions worldwide, whereby 90% of transport related emissions come from road vehicles, predominantly cars. Clearly, current levels of consumption and emissions are - sustainable. This in turn suggests that mobility as we know it, based on the tra- tional vehicle technology and existing production and consumer practices, is - sustainable. The challenge of developing new sustainable approaches to mobility confronts industries and our societies in general. The concept of sustainable mobility is m- tidimensional and the challenge of achieving it is quite complex.

This edited volume focuses on the characterization, reclamation, bioremediation, and phytoremediation of salt affected soils and waterlogged sodic soils. Innovative technologies in managing marginal salt affected lands merit immediate attention in the light of climate change and its impact on crop productivity and environment. The decision-making process related to reclamation and management of vast areas of salt affected soils encompasses consideration of economic viability, environmental sustainability, and social acceptability of different approaches. The chapters in this book highlight the significant environmental and social impacts of different ameliorative techniques used to manage salt affected soils. Readers will discover new knowledge on the distribution, reactions, changes in bio-chemical properties and microbial ecology of salt affected soils through case studies exploring Indian soils. The contributions presented by experts shed new light on techniques such as the restoration of degraded lands by growing halophyte plant species, diversification of crops and introduction of microbes for remediation of salt infested soils, and the use of fluorescent pseudomonads for enhancing crop yields.

This book examines various aspects of changes to business behavior through the lenses of the "twin pillars" of sustainability - responsibility and governance. It discusses whether the focus of corporate social responsibility has changed so much that we need to think about redefinitions of key concepts in the field, and analyses both the theory and practice in a variety of ways to enable conclusions to be drawn about the changes needed to any definitions. This approach is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network, which in its 15-year history has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and relevant to business. This book consists of the best contributions from the 16th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility and 7th Organisational Governance Conference held in Derby, United Kingdom in August/September 2017.

This volume is the first of its kind to present contemporary, state-of-the-art examples of how social science theories, models, and findings can advance all aspects of campus sustainability, an area that has so far been largely neglected. The individual chapters reflect the broad diversity of research on sustainable campus development conducted within and across basic and applied social science disciplines, drawing on a range of methods and case studies from around the world. Institutions of higher education have been among the leading promoters of sustainable development. However, efforts to transition to sustainability have been largely dominated by technological "solutions" and universities and colleges are increasingly recognizing that this transition cannot be achieved without attention to the human dimension. Administrators, campus sustainability officers and other university staff, faculty members and students, as well as alumni and external constituents all help to shape which sustainability innovations and initiatives are considered and pursued, and their participation determines the ultimate success of sustainability efforts. The book's individual contributions illustrate how the social sciences can broaden visions of what may be possible, identify the advantages and disadvantages of different instrumental and emancipator approaches, evaluate interventions' effectiveness, and offer processes for learning from mistakes and successes in ways that support continuous advances toward sustainability. Given that the majority of social science research stems from universities, the level of trust in these institutions, and their mission to develop societal leaders, higher education institutions are ideally suited for testing, assessing and modeling the social innovations needed to achieve sustainability on campuses and beyond.

This study develops a new indicator for national and global sustainability. The main components of the EIIW-vita indicator are: the share of renewable energy, the genuine savings rate and the relative "green export" position of the respective countries; it is in line with OECD requirements on composite indicators. As green exports are related to technological progress and environmental-friendly products, there is also a Schumpeterian perspective of this indicator. An extended version furthermore looks at water productivity. The analysis highlights the BRIICS countries as well as the US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Japan. Moreover the special challenges and dynamics of ASEAN countries and Asia are discussed. The book derives key implications for economic and environmental policy and shows that the new global sustainability indicator is not only relevant for green progress, but also useful as a signal for international investors. The construction of the EIIW-vita global sustainability indicator is such that investors, citizens and governments can easily interpret the results. Correlation analysis of the new sustainability indicator with the human development index indicates complementarity, so that a new hybrid superindicator can be constructed. Sustainability rhetoric dominates environmental policy. This fresh assessment of key "pillars" of sustainable economic performance and growth is a valuable contribution to greening the economy, the leitmotiv of the latest Rio Earth Summit. The book places the discussion of sustainability on solid data. The rather surprising results of its new sustainability index should make policy makers rethink their environmental and economic strategies. Prof. Dr. Peter Bartelmus Columbia University, New York Many people put the economy first when sustainability concerns are raised, while environmental indicators are often developed without a sense of socio-economic performance. This important new book bridges the gap. It sheds light on crucial indicators such as renewable energies, exporting green goods and services, genuine savings, and water productivity. And it helps to observe the impressive changes at a global scale and in countries such as China. A must read for all experts interested in those issues. Prof. Dr. Raimund Bleischwitz University College London

Conceptualized and put into practice by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Dr. Muhammad Yunus, social businesses work to address social ills such as poverty, lack of health care, gaps in education and environmental challenges. This book explores the ideation, practice and evaluation of the concept of social business. Not just theoretical foundations but several case studies of social businesses around the world and state-of-the-art assessment of the issues that arise in the planning, marketing and evaluation of social businesses, are featured in this book.

This cutting-edge collection of articles, presented by the California Institute for Social Business (CISB) in collaboration with Professor Yunus, is one of the first comprehensive collections of theory and research on the emerging field of social business. The diverse group of authors come from around the world and from various disciplinary backgrounds, representing the leading academic experts on social business phenomena.