While ESG and SDG are complementary, they cannot be used interchangeably to identify the sustainability of companies and their contribution to social development and the planet.  Where sustainable investors aim to invest in companies that contribute to sustainable development, there is disagreement on how best to measu ...

Sustainability postpones social, environmental and economic disasters in attempt to meet present economic growth while minimizing the impacts of current socioeconomic development for future generations.  Although sustainability is widely considered a positive concept, it has numerous weaknesses that make it unsustainab ...

SDGs are the most commonly used framework for the sustainability reporting of the top patent holders.  The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a globally agreed and accepted framework of practices with clearly defined indicators and goal-oriented recommendations that enable criteria-unbiased sustainability asse ...

The practice of participatory sensing for environment monitoring has rapidly evolved over the years. There has been a steady growth of citizen-based environmental monitoring projects that aim to build partnerships, knowledge-sharing platforms, awareness, and ultimately environmental resilience. Citizen science has resh ...

New Zealand is ranked highly on the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), which assess performance on six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. Moreover, New Zealand has long ...

New generation life cycle assessment (LCA) methods and tools can positively influence the environmental impact of the built environment and help mitigate the effects of climate change.  They continuously learn from real-time data while allowing for effective operation and management strategies of buildings and district ...

The circular economy (CE) is an optimal pathway to sustainable development and companies, governments and academics have formulated various proposals to measure circularity.  Ideally, circularity metrics indicate how well circularity is applied to the whole life cycle of products and services in terms of society, the e ...

For circular economy (CE) to succeed, focus must be given to the service life phase and the reuse/recycle phase of building projects.  This involves more stakeholders both in the early decision-making phases of projects as well as in the design phase and impacts the project value chain.  Life cycle sustainability asses ...

The circular economy offers business leaders and government a clear opportunity for long-term growth that is less dependent on cheap materials and energy and can restore and regenerate natural capital.  This report provides an actionable toolkit for policymakers for embarking on a circular economy transformation that d ...

Circular business models (CBMs) create additional value by taking a systemic view across the whole life cycle of assets, using new technologies, and applying advanced design approaches.  This added value demonstrates the feasibility of the business case for adopting CBMs, the social, economic and environmental benefits ...

The lack of a commonly accepted and sufficiently inclusive definition and circularity measurement methodology hampers the transition to a more circular economy in numerous ways.  To counter this, this circular economy categorization system was proposed comprising 14 circular categories organized in four high-level grou ...

Stakeholder collaboration in neighborhood projects facilitates networking and knowledge transfer.  Construction companies participate in the task definition, research institutions contribute to feasibility testing, civil society organizations (CSOs) reinforce environmental approaches, and international partners increas ...

This action checklist helps government policymakers in uptaking, implementing, and localizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as a tool for better policies and living quality.  It covers (1) policies and strategies, (2) multi-level governance, (3) financing and budgeting, (4) data and information, and (5) sta ...

The oil industry invented “net zero” as the perfect alternative to slowing oil production to halt global heating.  The netting deducts some carbon from total CO₂ emissions to create “net zero emissions”.  The oil industry thereby claims to capture and store CO₂, while using this “captured carbon” for enhanced oil recov ...

Construction circularity is identified in 1) material design, 2) building design, 3) construction and facility management, 4) urban sustainability development, and 5) system precondition.  These five broad categories represent different levels of circularity implementation in construction and can be further decomposed ...