Search results for "Renewable energy sources"
showing 10 items of 432 documents
The Inclusion of Socially Irresponsible Companies in Sustainable Stock Indices
2019
Social rating agencies implement complex filters to identify the companies with the best sustainable and social performance and help investors select the companies for their sustainable portfolios. This study analysed whether companies that are defined as ethical, sustainable and socially responsible by those agencies actually deserve this label. More specifically, the inclusion in the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World of companies that have been involved in controversies according to the Thomson Reuters Eikon database was studied. The results show that the inclusion of irresponsible companies in the DJSI Index is a fact. This outcome is in line with previous studies t…
Evaluating the Eco-Efficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants: Comparison of Optimistic and Pessimistic Approaches
2020
The assessment of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) performance has gained the interest of water utilities and water regulators. Eco-efficiency has been identified as a powerful indicator, as it integrates economic and environmental variables into a single index. Most previous studies have employed traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) for the evaluation of WWTP eco-efficiency. However, DEA allows the selection of input and output weights for individual WWTPs for the calculation of eco-efficiency scores. To overcome this limitation, we employed the double-frontier and common set of weights methods to evaluate the eco-efficiency of a sample of 30 WWTPs in Spain. The WWTPs were ranked b…
Circular Economy and Value Creation: Sustainable Finance with a Real Options Approach
2021
This paper presents a methodological proposal that integrates the circular economy concept and financial valuation through real options analysis. The Value Hill model of a circular economy provides a representation of the course followed by the value of an asset. Specifically, after the primary use, the life of an asset may be extended by going through four phases: the 4R phases (Reuse, Refurbish, Remanufacture and Recycle). Financial valuation allows us to quantify value creation from firms’ asset circularity under uncertainty, modelled by binomial trees. Furthermore, the 4R phases are valued as real options by applying no-arbitrage opportunity arguments. The major contribution of this pap…
Effects of Biochar on Irrigation Management and Water Use Efficiency for Three Different Crops in a Desert Sandy Soil
2020
This paper aimed at investigating if the application of biochar (BC) to desert sand (DS) from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), characterized by a very poor soil-water retention (SWR) and by a very low value of the maximum water available for crops (AWmax), could positively affect soil water balance, by reducing the irrigation needs (VIRR) and improving the irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and the water use efficiency (WUE). The analysis was performed for three crops, i.e., wheat (Triticum aestivum), sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). BC was applied to the DS at different fractions, fBC (fBC = 0, 0.091, 0.23 and 0.33). Drip irrigation was adopted as a highly…
Effects of Saline and Deficit Irrigation on Soil-Plant Water Status and Potato Crop Yield under the Semiarid Climate of Tunisia
2019
Water supplies have been decreasing in several semi-arid regions, and it is therefore necessary to adopt irrigation strategies aimed at maximizing water use efficiency. In this paper, the effects of saline and deficit irrigation on water use efficiency and on potato crop response, based on observations of soil and plant water status, were investigated. Experiments were carried out in Central Tunisia, by monitoring potato crop growth during two seasons in four distinct treatments (T1&ndash
Bibliometric Analysis of Fitness Equipment: How Scientific Focuses Affect Life-Cycle Approaches and Sustainable Ways of Development
2019
Research Question: Although fitness equipment is recognised worldwide as a tool for physical activities and a sustainable result in optimizing human movements within a wide range of environments, the state of the art and scientific advances have not been analysed from a bibliometric point of view. Research Methods: Using descriptive bibliometric software, this study examined the scientific production, and the most prolific authors, articles, and institutions. Bibliometric maps were used to visualise the content of published articles and to determine the most prolific terms, co-citation, and co-authorship. Results and Findings: A total of 678 original papers were retrieved from 447 journals …
The Common Good Balance Sheet, an Adequate Tool to Capture Non-Financials?
2019
In relation to organizational performance measurement, there is a growing concern about the creation of value for people, society and the environment. The traditional corporate reporting does not adequately satisfy the information needs of stakeholders for assessing an organization&rsquo
Corporate Sustainability and Intangible Resources Binomial: New Proposal on Intangible Resources Recognition and Evaluation
2020
This study argues that the context in which an organization adopts the principles of corporate sustainability and is guided by a culture of sustainability will determine the development of the components of corporate intangible resources. However, in trying to evaluate the impact of adopting the principles of corporate sustainability on the development of the intangible resources held by a company, we encountered a major problem, namely that there is no consistent and internationally accepted methodology for assessing such resources, despite theorists&rsquo
The Influence of the Circular Economy: Exploring the Knowledge Base
2019
The objective of this study is to analyze the main factors influencing research on theconcept of &lsquo
Human Resources Management Practices Perception and Extra-Role Behaviors: The Role of Employability and Learning at Work
2021
Human Resource Management (HRM) processes are considered the beating heart of any successful organization. Recently, several studies have highlighted how organizations can use commitment-oriented HR practices to generate organizational and individual effectiveness. The aim of this study was to verify whether the perception of HRM practices could be able to elicit extra-role behaviors and, at the same time, whether this relationship could be mediated by employability and learning conditions. The analyses were carried out on a sample of 1219 Italian workers using Structural Equation Models. The structural model yielded good fit indices and the results showed a significant and positive effect …