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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2022) | Viewed by 20606

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Prof. Dr. Pau Loke Show

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Guest Editor

Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, 43500 Selangor, Malaysia
Interests: bioprocessing; separation and purification technology; algae biorefinery engineering

Dr. Wai Yan Cheah

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Guest Editor

1. Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
2. Centre of Research in Development, Social and Environment, Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, National University of Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Interests: microalgae studies; wastewater management; solid waste management

Prof. Dr. Vijai Singh

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Guest Editor

Department of Biosciences, School of Science, Indrashil University, Rajpur, Mehsana 382715, India
Interests: synthetic biology; genome editing; metabolic engineering; microbial cell factories; biorefinery

Dr. Muhammad Bilal

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Guest Editor

School of Life Science and Food Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian 223003, China
Interests: nanotechnology; nanomaterials; nanobiocatalysis; environmental remediation; environmental biotechnology/engineering; bioremediation; bio-catalysis; enzymes; immobilization; chemical engineering; green chemistry; materials; bioenergy
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit your work to this Special Issue entitled “Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0”, dealing with the latest technologies, applications and approaches to advance overall environment components including energy, water resources, soil, food sustainability, human health, ecology, material consumption and pollution monitoring. With the advancement in science and technology under IR 4.0, the development in all these fields must be also evolve towards the reduction and mitigation of environmental impacts at all stages from the production process to consumption activities. With that in mind, the integration of science and technology in these fields is crucial to provide the latest insights and information to the existing researchers, educators and industrial stakeholders in the field. Since environmental studies is an emerging field, we invite literature reviews and state-of-the-art papers related to research, development, and application in the topics below and other related domains.

A wide range of topics will be covered, including but not limited to:

New and renewable sources of energy.
Sustainable water consumption and conservation.
Soil and hydrogeology management.
Sustainable food consumption and production.
Heath-related aspects of sustainability.
Development and technologies in industrial processes.
Green technologies.
Sustainable development of cities and communities.
Pollution monitoring and management.
Waste management.

Prof. Dr. Pau Loke Show
Dr. Wai Yan Cheah
Prof. Dr. Vijai Singh
Dr. Muhammad Bilal
Guest Editors

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

sustainable development
industrial revolutions
green technologies
monitoring and management

Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 6824 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Feasibility of UTS Smart Home to Support Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations (UN SDGs): Water and Energy Conservation

by Keh-Kim Kee, Huong-Yong Ting, Yun-Seng Lim, Jackie-Tiew-Wei Ting, Marcella Peter, Khairunnisa Ibrahim and Pau Loke Show

Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 12242; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912242 - 27 Sep 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2127

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations strive to maximize development needs, while minimizing environmental deterioration, without jeopardizing the needs of future generations. Nevertheless, due to urbanization, the escalating trend in natural-resource use, particularly electricity and water, is currently a crucial challenge for sustainable development. One of the promising options is the smart home, which is an extension of building automation with smart characteristics in monitoring, analyzing, controlling, and cloud computing with networked smart devices. Due to the lack of appropriate infrastructure and conscious consumption, its global adoption in the construction industry remains low. We present a technical feasibility of a multi-functional experimental smart home to support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations in terms of water and energy conservation. The layered architecture of the cloud platform with an application program interface enables seamless integration of heterogeneous smart-home technologies and data sources. Use cases demonstrated its capacity to conserve electrical energy and water resources in support of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Aside from that, the smart home’s electricity self-consumption of at least three autonomy days was confirmed with zero emissions and electricity bills, and a reduced supply-water consumption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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16 pages, 5236 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bacteriocin from Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus sp. A5: Isolation, Purification, Characterization, and Antibacterial Evaluation for Sustainable Food Processing

by Shiying Ren, Xiaoqing Yuan, Fei Liu, Fang Fang, Hafiz M. N. Iqbal, Sara A. Zahran and Muhammad Bilal

Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9571; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159571 - 04 Aug 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2045

Abstract

A new Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus strain A5 was isolated from pickle soup and characterized for its probiotic suitability. Strain A5 was Gram-positive, catalase-negative, acid-producing, and exhibited potential antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (inhibition zone 17.3 mm), Bacillus subtilis (inhibition zone 14.5 mm), Salmonella enterica (zone of inhibition 16.1 mm) and Staphylococcus aureus (zone of inhibition 14.2 mm) by performing investigations on the disc diffusion. The cell-free supernatant of newly isolated strain A5 retained its inhibition ability of the growth of test bacteria at pH 2.0 to 5.0, temperature 121 °C for 30 min and UV irradiation for 8 h. However, the inhibitory effects of cell-free supernatant disappeared when subjected to papain, trypsin, and pepsin enzymatic treatments. By eliminating the interferences of organic acid and hydrogen peroxide, the cell-free supernatant possessed antibacterial activity against two indicator bacteria (E. coli and B. subtilis) and showed high thermal tolerance. These results indicated that the antibacterial substances produced by strain A5 were proteinaceous in nature, namely bacteriocin. The antibacterial bacteriocins in the supernatant of the strain A5 culture were further purified by ammonium sulfate fractionation and gel filtration chromatography. The purified bacteriocins also showed a pronounced inhibitory effect against E. coli and B. subtilis. The approximated molecular weight of bacteriocins was less than 14 kDa after determining by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. In conclusion, the newly isolated strain A5 and its bacteriocins could be potentially applied in food preservation to prevent the risk of foodborne illness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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10 pages, 1711 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Biomonitoring Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) Using Lichen Transplant Usnea misaminensis: A Case Study from Malaysia

by Azlan Abas, Kadaruddin Aiyub and Azahan Awang

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 7254; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127254 - 14 Jun 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1755

Abstract

Urban air pollution has been a major concern due to its impact on global public health. Various techniques for monitoring urban air quality have been developed. However, there is currently a dearth of research on how effective bioaccumulators such as lichen are at monitoring urban air pollution. As a result, the purpose of this research is to investigate the use of U. misaminensis as a biological indicator for biomonitoring urban air quality in Malaysia. Three months were spent exposing lichen samples in three Malaysian cities (Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Johor Bahru). The trace element content and vitality of the lichens were assessed. The results of this study revealed that U. misaminensis is an effective biological indicator for measuring 25 elements of air pollutants in metropolitan areas. They also revealed that all 25 elements accumulated in the urban area sample were greater than in the control sample. The vitality rate of lichens dropped in the urban area sample when compared with the control sample, indicating that an increase in elements in the air will impact the vitality rate of any biological component. In this study, two arguments are made: (a) Lichen is an excellent biological indicator, particularly for urban air pollutants such as potentially toxic elements; and (b) traffic is the primary contributor to urban air pollution; hence, the local government requires a better plan and design for urban areas to decrease air pollutants build-up. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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16 pages, 4553 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quantifying the Effects of Stand and Climate Variables on Biomass of Larch Plantations Using Random Forests and National Forest Inventory Data in North and Northeast China

by Xiao He, Xiangdong Lei, Weisheng Zeng, Linyan Feng, Chaofan Zhou and Biyun Wu

Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5580; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095580 - 06 May 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1551

Abstract

The accurate estimation of forest biomass is crucial for supporting climate change mitigation efforts such as sustainable forest management. Although traditional regression models have been widely used to link stand biomass with biotic and abiotic predictors, this approach has several disadvantages, including the difficulty in dealing with data autocorrelation, model selection, and convergence. While machine learning can overcome these challenges, the application remains limited, particularly at a large scale with consideration of climate variables. This study used the random forests (RF) algorithm to estimate stand aboveground biomass (AGB) and total biomass (TB) of larch (Larix spp.) plantations in north and northeast China and quantified the contributions of different predictors. The data for modelling biomass were collected from 445 sample plots of the National Forest Inventory (NFI). A total of 22 independent variables (6 stand and 16 climate variables) were used to develop and train climate-sensitive stand biomass models. Optimization of hyper parameters was implemented using grid search and 10-fold cross-validation. The coefficient of determination (R²) and root mean square error (RMSE) of the RF models were 0.9845 and 3.8008 t ha⁻¹ for AGB, and 0.9836 and 5.1963 t ha⁻¹ for TB. The cumulative contributions of stand and climate factors to stand biomass were >98% and <2%, respectively. The most crucial stand and climate variables were stand volume and annual heat-moisture index (AHM), with relative importance values of >60% and ~0.25%, respectively. The partial dependence plots illustrated the complicated relationships between climate factors and stand biomass. This study illustrated the power of RF for estimating stand biomass and understanding the effects of stand and climate factors on forest biomass. The application of RF can be useful for mapping of large-scale carbon stock. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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Review

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28 pages, 1084 KiB

Open AccessReview

Systematic Literature Review on Variables Impacting Organization’s Zero Accident Vision in Occupational Safety and Health Perspectives

by Mohamad Azrin Ahamad, Kadir Arifin, Azlan Abas, Mahfudz Mahfudz, Muhammad Basir Cyio, Muhammad Khairil, Muhammad Nur Ali, Ilyas Lampe and Muhammad Ahsan Samad

Sustainability 2022, 14(13), 7523; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14137523 - 21 Jun 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4286

Abstract

The zero-accident vision has sparked debate in the fields of occupational safety and health. While many organizations and policymakers have successfully implemented the zero-accident vision, numerous notable occupational safety and health scholars from various backgrounds argue against its use and success in theory and practice. This article aimed to analyze the existing literature on the variables impacting an organization’s zero-accident vision. A systematic review of the Scopus and Web of Science databases revealed 25 related studies using the PRISMA statement (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) review method. Following a thorough review of these articles, seven main themes emerged: the occupational safety and health management system, organizational leadership, safety culture, training, communication, risk, and legislation. These seven themes resulted in a total of 28 sub-themes. Several recommendations are emphasized, including the use of a specific and standard systematic review method to guide research synthesis in the frame of reference of variables impacting the organization’s zero-accident vision and to practice complementary searching techniques, such as citation tracking, reference searching, snowballing, and contacting experts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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25 pages, 13172 KiB

Open AccessReview

Towards Global Cleaner Energy and Hydrogen Production: A Review and Application ORC Integrality with Multigeneration Systems

by Mustapha Mukhtar, Victor Adebayo, Nasser Yimen, Olusola Bamisile, Emmanuel Osei-Mensah, Humphrey Adun, Qinxiu Zhang and Gexin Luo

Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5415; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095415 - 30 Apr 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1814

Abstract

The current evidential effect of carbon emissions has become a societal challenge and the need to transition to cleaner energy sources/technologies has attracted wide research attention. Technologies that utilize low-grade heat like the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and Kalina cycle have been proposed as viable approaches for fossil reduction/carbon mitigation. The development of renewable energy-based multigeneration systems is another alternative solution to this global challenge. Hence, it is important to monitor the development of multigeneration energy systems based on low-grade heat. In this study, a review of the ORC’s application in multigeneration systems is presented to highlight the recent development in ORC integrality/application. Beyond this, a new ORC-CPVT (concentrated photovoltaic/thermal) integrated multigeneration system is also modeled and analyzed using the thermodynamics approach. Since most CPVT systems integrate hot water production in the thermal stem, the proposed multigeneration system is designed to utilize part of the thermal energy to generate electricity and hydrogen. Although the CPVT system can achieve high energetic and exergetic efficiencies while producing thermal energy and electricity, these efficiencies are 47.9% and 37.88%, respectively, for the CPVT-ORC multigeneration configuration. However, it is noteworthy that the electricity generation from the CPVT-ORC configuration in this study is increased by 16%. In addition, the hot water, cooling effect, and hydrogen generated from the multigeneration system are 0.4363 L/s, 161 kW, and 1.515 L/s, respectively. The environmental analysis of the system also shows that the carbon emissions reduction potential is enormous. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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Other

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16 pages, 1157 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

A Systematic Literature Review on Leadership Practices for Safety in the Education Sector

by Siti Hajariah Ilani Mat Lazim, Kadir Arifin, Azlan Abas, Muhammad Khairil, Muhammad Nur Ali, Ilyas Lampe, Muhammad Ahsan Samad, Mahfudz Mahfudz and Muhammad Basir Ciyo

Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8262; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148262 - 06 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1980

Abstract

Leadership is increasingly being recognized as a significant aspect of organizational occupational safety. However, there are differences in describing how the leaders manage safety in the organization. This study aims to systematically review and analyze the effective leadership practices for safety in the education sector. The present study incorporated different research designs and the review was based on the published standard, namely PRISMA statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis). This study has considered 21 related studies using Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus as the primary databases for this systematic literature review. Further review of these articles resulted in three main themes, namely establishing and conveying the safety vision, supporting learning and professional capacity development, and leading with a safety orientation; thus, producing a total of 12 sub-themes from the three themes. This systematic literature review also provides several limitations and recommendations for future direction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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17 pages, 1429 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

Sustainable Safety Management: A Safety Competencies Systematic Literature Review

by Fazil A. Rahman, Kadir Arifin, Azlan Abas, Mahfudz Mahfudz, Muhammad Basir Cyio, Muhammad Khairil, Muhammad Nur Ali, Ilyas Lampe and Muhammad Ahsan Samad

Sustainability 2022, 14(11), 6885; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116885 - 05 Jun 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3349

Abstract

Title: Safety competencies: A systematic literature review. Background: Safety competency is believed to be a pillar of an organization’s safety culture and one of the safety climate dimensions. Safety competencies can be a vital point to controlling and maintaining the sustainability of safety and health in a society and organization. The sustainability of the industries’ and society’s safety relationship can be driven by the controlled hierarchy in the society and the competencies of its members. Failure to identify social sustainability indicators such as a leading competency in safety will cause a failure in the safety development program. Hence, a systematic literature review of published studies is essential for easing the dissemination of useful research findings and gaining access to future trends in safety competencies research. The review aimed to identify studies about safety competency and identified the basic safety competencies for the workforce to maintain a sustainable safety climate. Methods: This review provided a five-step approach guided by The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 statement and published systematic review framework. The studies from the past 20 years were retrieved from electronic databases such as Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science. The review only involved article papers, research papers, and review papers which are written in English. The quality of the review was assessed using a standard PRISMA 2020 checklist. This review is registered on the International Platform of Registered Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (INPLASY) with registration number INPLASY202230246 and DOI number 10.37766/inplasy2022.3.0146. Findings: The unbiased and wide review produces a new, feasible alternative to a social sustainability safety index. The number of studies on safety competencies study has expanded in recent years which shows the importance of the item to sustain the safety climate. This review suggests teamwork, communication skills, and a foundation of safety knowledge as the basic safety competencies for workers based on the competencies being most discussed. The review process suggests the possibility of future research regarding safety competencies after a catastrophic event such as the COVID-19 pandemic and sustainability of industrial safety regarding human-machine integration through 4.0 Industrial Revolution era. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability in IR 4.0)

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