ALBERT

Description: In recent years, ongoing efforts by a multitude of universities, local governments, federal agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been focused on sea-level rise (SLR) adaptation in Florida. However, within these efforts, there has been very little attention given to the potential impacts of sea-level rise on human health. The intent of this project is to identify populations in Southeast Florida that are most vulnerable to sea-level rise from a topographic perspective, determine how vulnerable these population are from a socio-economic perspective, identify potential health impacts, develop adaptation strategies designed to assist these communities, and produce an outreach effort that can be shared with other coastal communities. The location of socially-vulnerable and health-vulnerable populations are correlated, but at present they are not generally in the geographically-vulnerable areas. Projections indicate that they will become at risk in the future but the lack of data on emerging diseases makes public health assessments difficult. We propose a redefinition of “who is vulnerable?” to include health indicators and hard infrastructure solutions for flood and property protection. These tools can be used to help protect water resources from the impacts of climate change, which would, in turn, protect public health via drinking water supplies, and efforts to address social issues.

Description: ABSTRACT We present a source-to-sink environmental magnetic study of a sediment core from Lake Sanabria (north-west Iberian Peninsula) and rocks of its catchment. The results indicate the occurrence of magnetite, and probably also pyrrhotite, in sediments accumulated between ca. 26 and 13 cal ka BP in a proglacial lake environment. These minerals also appear to dominate the magnetic assemblage of Palaeozoic rocks from the lake catchment. This indicates that sedimentation was then driven by the erosion of glacial flour, which suffered minimal chemical transformation due to a rapid and short routing to the lake. A sharp change in magnetic properties observed in the lake sediments between 13 and 12.6 cal ka BP reflects the rapid retreat of glaciers from the lake catchment. Sediments from the upper half of the studied sequence, accumulated after 12.6 cal ka BP in a lacustrine environment with strong fluvial influence, contain magnetite and smaller amounts of maghemite and greigite. We suggest that greigite grew authigenically under anoxic conditions caused by enhanced accumulation of organic matter into the lake. The occurrence of maghemite in these sediments suggests pedogenic activity in the then deglaciated lake catchment before the erosion and transportation of detrital material into the lake.

Description: This paper reviews the most commonly used scales for measuring service quality in sustainable tourism destinations to analyse if the requirements of tourists with special needs are considered. Results highlight that most of the recent research on service quality in tourism published in scientific journals is focused on a relative reduced number of validated scales. Variables related to tourists with special needs are often omitted or represent a reduced weight in the complete scale. Thus, this paper highlights the importance of including variables that collect the perceptions of service quality in this target group to better understand the individual perception of service quality and to move forward to sustainable tourism, considering the social dimension.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 2004: Improving Sustainability through Corrosion Resistance of Reinforced Concrete by Using a Manufactured Blended Cement and Fly Ash Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su10062004 Authors: Hector Gerardo Campos Silva Pedro Garces Terradillos Emilio Zornoza Jose Manuel Mendoza-Rangel Pedro Castro-Borges Cesar Antonio Juarez Alvarado The objective of this paper is to report the improvement of sustainability through the increase of reinforced concrete corrosion resistance by using a blended cement and fly ash. Different reinforced concrete mixtures were prepared with partial substitution of a manufactured blended cement with fly ash from a thermal power plant in Andorra (Teruel, Spain). These mixtures were manufactured using three different water/cement ratios (0.46, 0.59, and 0.70) and three substitution percentages of cement by fly ash (0%, 25%, and 50%). The test cylinders underwent an accelerated carbonation process and exposure to different chloride levels, with the aim of characterizing the corrosion level of the different mixtures. The addition of local FA matched or even improved the resistance of the control mixture against carbonation and chlorides.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1327: How is Environmental Proactivity Accomplished? Drivers and Barriers in Firms’ Pro-Environmental Change Process Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su9081327 Authors: Jesús Valero-Gil Pilar Rivera-Torres Conchita Garcés-Ayerbe The contaminating effects of economic activity and the scarcity of natural resources has led firms to a situation in which corporate strategy has been compromised by environmental issues. The objective of this paper is to analyse some of the factors determining the pro-environmental change process by considering the drivers encouraging firms to progress in environmental protection and the barriers that curb this progress. Using a structural equation model implemented on a sample of 303 firms, our results confirm a direct and positive effect of stakeholder pressure and of the expectations of obtaining competitive advantages from the pro-environmental change process. The results also confirmed the indirect effect of stakeholder pressure on pro-environmental change through managers’ expectations of obtaining competitive advantages, which play a mediating role in the firm’s response. Although managers interpret the barriers we have studied as obstacles to adopting environmental protection measures, they do not prevent any firm from reaching advanced levels of pro-environmental change.

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1821: Corporate Social Responsibility Drivers and Barriers According to Managers’ Perception; Evidence from Spanish Firms Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su9101821 Authors: José Agudo-Valiente Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe Manuel Salvador-Figueras Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a dominant issue in both research and practice of management. However, the underlying processes in the relationship between the degree of development of CSR in companies and the drivers/barriers that determine this development are still at the center of an intense debate. The purpose of this empirical study is to examine these relationships. We investigate a sample of 416 Spanish firms; based on a multifactorial framework, our study considers both the subjective and objective drivers/barriers, analyzing their joint effect on the final degree of sustainability. A structural equation model is established and a Bayesian approach is used, enabling exact inferences about the model’s parameters and handling missing data with random imputation, thus increasing the study’s reliability. The results show that this degree is related to what managers believe CSR to be (subjective drivers/barriers) and what managers expect it to accomplish or outcomes (objective drivers/barriers).

Description: Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1870: Is Strategic Proactivity a Driver of an Environmental Strategy? Effects of Innovation and Internationalization Leadership Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su9101870 Authors: Ines Suarez-Perales Concepción Garces-Ayerbe Pilar Rivera-Torres Cristina Suarez-Galvez This study analyses strategic proactivity as a driving factor in the implementation of an advanced environmental strategy in a firm. Strategic proactivity is defined as a firm’s tendency to initiate voluntary changes instead of reacting to events in the environment and according to previous literature, can be interpreted as a combination of internal factors that characterise a firm’s business strategy as that of a prospector firm. In this study, we measured this through innovation, with two variables related to the firm’s entire production cycle: R&D expenditure and patents. However, we also considered two more strategic proactivity indicators: innovation proactivity and internationalisation proactivity. These two proactivity variables take into account the innovative and international actions of the firms, going beyond the actions usually taken by firms in the same sector. Using panel data methodology, we obtained results that show that firms who invest in R&D and patent their innovations achieve more advanced positions in their environmental strategies. Empirical evidence also shows that firms with a greater innovation effort throughout the production cycle (product, process, organisation and marketing) than their competitors also attain more advanced positions (proactivity) in environmental matters. In other words, innovation proactivity is a driver of environmental strategy. In relation to internationalization, the results also showed that firms that operate in a larger geographical area than their competitors adapt to the most demanding environmental legislation, placing them in a position of environmental leadership in their respective sectors. The inclusion of internationalization as an indicator of strategic proactivity, the measurement of proactivity variables and the correction of firms’ specific unobserved aspects are some of this paper’s contributions.

Description: ABSTRACT We present a 7-ka environmental reconstruction based on sedimentological and geochemical data from Lago Vichuquén, a coastal eutrophic lake in central Chile (34°48′S, 72°03′ W, 4 m a.s.l.). A relatively shallow and restricted marine environment with low productivity, high detrital input and dominant anoxic conditions in the Vichuquén Basin occurred from 7.0 to 6.5 cal ka BP. Rapid onset of a Holocene marine transgression at 6.5 cal ka BP favoured deeper and more biologically productive environments that existed until 2.8 cal ka BP. Bioproductivity changes during the mid-Holocene (6.5–4.2 cal ka BP) were related to upwelling dynamics controlled by the intensity of the South-east Pacific Anticyclone (SPA). Periods with lower organic productivity and dominant anoxic conditions reflect an increased intensity of SPA (increased upwelling) and decreased precipitation. A shift at ∼4.0 cal ka BP reflects the onset of modern Southern Westerly Winds and El Niño-Southern Oscillation patterns. Tectonic uplifting and geormorphological activity (dune advancement) are possible reasons behind the Vichuquén Basin closure at ∼1.2 cal ka BP, leading to a low bioproductivity lacustrine environment which has developed until the present.

Description: At present, university campuses integrate technologies such as the internet of things, cloud computing, and big data, among others, which provide support to the campus to improve their resource management processes and learning models. Integrating these technologies into a centralized environment allows for the creation of a controlled environment and, subsequently, an intelligent environment. These environments are ideal for generating new management methods that can solve problems of global interest, such as resource consumption. The integration of new technologies also allows for the focusing of its efforts on improving the quality of life of its inhabitants. However, the comfort and benefits of technology must be developed in a sustainable environment where there is harmony between people and nature. For this, it is necessary to improve the energy consumption of the smart campus, which is possible by constantly monitoring and analyzing the data to detect any anomaly in the system. This work integrates a big data framework capable of analyzing the data, regardless of its format, providing effective and efficient responses to each process. The method developed is generic, which allows for its application to be adequate in addressing the needs of any smart campus.

Description: This article aims to analyze the implementation of teleworking as a security practice to face the crisis resulting from the Covid-19 disease. The present paper provides both theoretical and practical results. From a theoretical standpoint, the Baruch and Nicholson approach is extended with environmental, safety, and legal factors that explain telework. From a practical perspective, a database of companies that have introduced telework as a measure to face coronavirus in a crisis context has been obtained. In short, the Covid-19 crisis demonstrates how teleworking has been used by companies to ensure their employees’ safety and to provide continuity to economic activity. Consequently, safety factors are relevant in the study of teleworking and should be considered in further research.