Search results for "sustainable development."
showing 10 items of 632 documents
Who Is the Social Entrepreneur?
2021
Social entrepreneurs are understood as individuals integrated within a society, being continually influenced by the environment. This chapter explains that the constitution of a social entrepreneur is determined by external variables (environmental influences) and internal variables (characteristics of the individual). Among the external influences, we should highlight the Triple Bottom Line phenomenon, the Corporate Social Responsibility trend, technological advances and the Sustainable Development Goals. The intrinsic motivators would be divided into three different dimensions: attitude and intention, personality traits and leadership skills. The synergies produced as a consequence of the…
The Influence of Social Vision, Social Networks, and Financial Return on Social SME Sustainability
2020
Social entrepreneurship is one of the catalysts of poverty reduction and sustainable development, but its impact in developing countries is not rapid in comparison to traditional entrepreneurship. The idea is to explain the phenomenon from an entrepreneurial perspective and to focus on entrepreneur sustainability. The data for this study was collected at the firm level with questionnaires through Qualtrics online survey platform. The structured questionnaires target the Social Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Nigeria. This study provides a fundamental understanding of structural relationships that exist between the social vision, social network, financial return, innovation, an…
The Differences in Values Between Managers of the European Founding Countries, the New Members and the Applicant Countries:
2007
Advocates for a social Europe are worried that the accession of ex-Eastern Bloc countries into the European Community would lead European corporations to emphasize a financial orientation rather than a societal orientation. We examined this question in a study of the values orientations of 3,836 managers in 16 countries representing established EU, new EU, and candidate EU country groups. Within-Europe managerial values convergence was found in a relatively high openness to change and low self-enhancement values. However, we found divergent values such that managers in established EU countries were more self-transcendent and less conservative than their counterparts in new EU and candidate …
Which social program supports sustainable grass-root finance? Machine-learning evidence
2019
Resources for development are used efficiently when social programs help to promote at the same time the sustainability of grass-root financial associations at the bottom of the pyramid. This study applies machine-learning to a worldwide database of grass-root associations in order to identify which social programs are good predictors of financial returns in the groups. The results indicate that education, income-generating activities and health programs are the most frequent programs provided by development agencies. Business training is not the most frequent intervention applied to grass-root associations, but it is in fact the most important social program to encourage financial sustaina…
Tax benefits for the energy requalification of Italian real estate assets
2020
The need for energy-efficient buildings has emerged since the onset of the first energy crises in the 1970s. It's in this decade that the concepts of sustainable development and energy saving have been introduced in the construction sector. Currently, the greatest energy saving potential for buildings does not lie in new buildings, but in the energy redevelopment of existing buildings. In order to promote interventions for building restoration, which are often costly and not economically convenient, Italian legislation has made a series of economic incentives available to the sector. This work reviews the main incentive systems for the energy requalification of buildings.
Sustainable Development and Transition Management: A New Approach for European Peripheral Areas
2020
This paper on Europe as a sustainable economy and its policy for peripheral areas contributes to the analysis on the relationship between Transition Management and new approaches to regional development. It follows that regions are different ecosystems which require not only conventional macroeconomic visions for development processes, but also a precise spatial approach based on different levels of geographical aggregation. The physical environment, therefore, becomes a useful element not only to analyze the transition mechanisms, but also as a constitutive part of economic, social and environmental changes in the short, medium, and long term. A number of interesting aspects are examined a…
Ultrasound Processing: A Sustainable Alternative
2021
Abstract The UN’s 2030 program for sustainable development, and the society growing demand of greener alternatives, encourage global food industry to develop affordable, safe, effective, innovative, and ecologically processing technologies. Among them, ultrasound technique links with green chemistry and eco-friendly characteristics. This technology does not involve chemical solvents, being a sustainable alternative to industry. Moreover, it minimally affects sensorial and health promoting attributes of food products. Comparing with conventional processes, ultrasound provides some benefits to achieve sustainability goals, it reduces the processing time and cost, simplifies the manipulation, …
Resource recovery from food waste via biological processes
2021
Abstract The need for sustainable development is driving a major focus shift in the biowaste treatment sector. While traditional practices such as landfilling are progressively being banned/penalized due to their obvious environmental impacts and prevention policies are being implemented, the potential of food waste (FW) as a resource is being increasingly recognized. The immense amounts of FW produced worldwide—and its overall characteristics—make it a promising candidate for resource recovery if collected separately, a practice that is gaining popularity. This chapter aims at giving a general overview of the different processes that are being developed/implemented for resource recovery fr…
Do board characteristics affect environmental performance? A study of EU firms
2019
This paper explores the relationship between board characteristics and environmental performance. We adopt a triple perspective of environmental performance, focussing on emissions (waste and CO2), resource consumption (water and energy), and the implementation of environmental initiatives. The sample comprises 644 nonfinancial European Union–based companies. The data cover the period 2002 to 2017. The results confirm that gender diversity and the existence of a corporate social responsibility committee are positively associated with the firms' environmental performance. This finding is consistent with the view that the educational background, talent, and experience of women help promote su…
Learning by doing. Case study: Education for sustainable development at the University of Latvia
2019
Junction of possibilities offered by European research programmes in the tertiary education and technology enhanced learning open up new borders for students and young researchers; especially for the ones from institutions with less strong collaboration links to Western-Europe and overseas. University of Latvia has undertaken the challenge of designing master’s programme on education for sustainable development called ‘Natural Sciences, Global Change and Technologies for Sustainable Development’ combined with application of digital learning tools. Teaching staff was formed form several faculties of the University of Latvia, other universities, respective companies as well as foreign partner…