Special Issue "Cleaner Production Practices and Sustainable Development"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Waste and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Geraldo Cardoso de Oliveira Neto
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Industrial Engineering Post-Graduation Program, Universidade Nove de Julho (UNINOVE), 01504-001 Liberdade, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Interests: cleaner production; sustainability; sustainable development; circular economy
Prof. Dr. Wagner Cezar Lucato
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Industrial Engineering Post-Graduation Program, Universidade Nove de Julho (UNINOVE), 01504-001 Liberdade, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Interests: sustainable manufactruring; susteinability; sustainable development
Dr. Marlene Amorim
E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP), Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism (DEGEIT) Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Interests: service operations; service quality; innovation; digitalization
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Vikas Kumar
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK
Interests: sustainability; supply chain management; Industry 4.0; circular economy; operational excellence
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Conceptually cleaner production (CP) aims to embed environmental concerns in the specification and management of production processes, products, and services in order to increase efficiency while minimizing the risks for humans and the environment, according to UNEP (2015). The purpose of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) created in 1972 is to coordinate the international actions for protection of the environment and promotion of sustainable development. The call for the adoption of cleaner production principles is a key tool develop production systems that meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been put forward in 2015 and subscribed by all United Nations countries. Building on the concept of Sustainable Development as an expansion that meets the current needs without impairing the potentials of the future generations, countries have agreed upon the creation of a global agenda for sustainable development, with specific targets for each sustainable development goal addressing an ample range of issues including climate change, and environmental degradation.

According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, business plays a critical role in the achievement of these goals. However, a great challenge in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda is the need to achieve effective transformation in business attitudes to accommodate the adoption of new sustainability practices, technologies, and business models. The societal calls for business change are increasing, fostering “businesses to incorporate SDG reporting into their existing processes, empowering them to act and make the achievements of the SDGs a reality” (UNGC, 2018). Technology offers good prospects on this direction. There are growing expectations about the potential offered by digitalization for pursuing the SDGs, and the ability to set up more efficient and collaborative digital production ecosystems.

Despite the burgeoning body of literature devoted to the SDGs that has emerged in recent years, a further understanding is still needed to link the adoption of cleaner production principles with achievements in the economic, social, and ecological dimensions of sustainable development, including fighting poverty and improving sustainable development in the same agenda.

Therefore, the objective of this Special Issue is to contribute to the advancement of knowledge about the adoption of cleaner production practices across different business sectors in industrial and service production and its contribution to the SDGs from a holistic perspective. This Special Issue will bring together recent research work addressing the transformation of business practice associated with the adoption of cleaner production, offering a fresh view on the enablers and the contexts of adoption, documenting the transformation of business processes, product specifications and value models, and exploring the effective implications for multiple SDGs. Research work that explores how diverse social stakeholders, including governments, private companies, academic institutions, and other organizations are engaging the development of sustainable infrastructure, technologies, and processes to advance sustainable transformation are welcome.

The Special Issue aims to attract research work addressing the following topics:

  • Relationship between cleaner production and sustainable development;
  • Impacts of cleaner production for SDGs;
  • Cleaner production technologies and SDGs;
  • Experiences in the adoption of cleaner production and SDGs;
  • Impacts of CP for sustainability goals;
  • Digital technologies for cleaner production and SDGs;
  • Collaboration and stakeholder involvement in cleaner production and SDGs.

Some relevant references on the subject:

de Oliveira Neto, G.C., Correia, J.M.F., Silva, P.C., Sanches, A.G.O., Lucato, W.C. (2019). Cleaner Production in the textile industry and its relationship to sustainable development goals. Journal of Cleaner Production. 228, 1514-1525.

de Oliveira Neto, G.C.,; Tucci, Henrricco Nieves Pujol ; Correia, José Manuel Ferreira ; Da Silva, Paulo Cesar ; Da Silva, Dirceu ; Amorim, Marlene . Stakeholders’ influences on the adoption of cleaner production practices: A survey of the textile industry. SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION, v. 26, p. 126-145, 2021.

Munguia, N.; Esquer, J.; Guzman, H.; Herrera, J.; Gutierrez-Ruelas, J.; Velazquez, L. Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings: A Step toward the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainability 2020, 12, 1212.

Leite, Roberto ; Amorim, Marlene ; Rodrigues, Mário ; Oliveira Neto, Geraldo . Overcoming Barriers for Adopting Cleaner Production: A Case Study in Brazilian Small Metal-Mechanic Companies. Sustainability, v. 11, p. 4808, 2019.

Baltazar, J., Reis, J., & Amorim, M. (2020). Sustainable economies: Using a macro-economic model to predict how the default rate is affected under economic stress scenarios. Sustainable Futures2, 100011.

Prof. Dr. Geraldo Cardoso de Oliveira Neto
Prof. Dr. Wagner Cezar Lucato
Dr. Marlene Amorim
Prof. Vikas Kumar
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 papers will be 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 1900 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

  • cleaner production
  • sustainability
  • goals of sustainable development
  • circular economy
  • stakeholder influences

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Clean Production of Biofuel from Waste Cooking Oil to Reduce Emissions, Fuel Cost, and Respiratory Disease Hospitalizations
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9185; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169185 - 16 Aug 2021
Viewed by 292
Abstract
Renewable energies are cleaner forms of energy, and their use, has intensified in recent decades. Thus, this work presents a proposal for reducing the emissions, fuel cost, and respiratory disease hospitalizations using environmental cost accounting principles to produce biodiesel production from waste frying [...] Read more.
Renewable energies are cleaner forms of energy, and their use, has intensified in recent decades. Thus, this work presents a proposal for reducing the emissions, fuel cost, and respiratory disease hospitalizations using environmental cost accounting principles to produce biodiesel production from waste frying oil. In our methodology, we conducted surveys, and collected waste cooking oil samples from local households and restaurants in São Paulo city, Brazil. Then, we produced biodiesel using these samples. Data on air pollutants were collected and correlated with the number of hospitalizations for respiratory diseases and their costs. Our results indicate that 330,000 respiratory disease hospitalizations were recorded in São Paulo city between 2009 and 2018, and the total cost for the Brazilian government reached US $117 million. Improving the city air quality by switching from fossil fuels to biodiesel could reduce the annual number of hospitalizations to 9880 and cost US $3.518 million, because the amount of pollutants emitted from burning fossil fuels was positively correlated with the number of respiratory disease hospitalizations and their costs. Moreover, the emission rates of particulate matter with particles less than 10 and 2.5 µm in diameter exceeded the World Health Organization limits throughout the study period. Using the survey data, we estimated that the average monthly quantity of waste cooking oil was 9794.6 m3, which could generate 9191.2 m3 of biodiesel and produce 239,713 t CO2 of carbon credits. Environmental cost accounting revealed that it would be possible to achieve an annual profit of approximately US $300 million from the sale of excess biodiesel, carbon credits, and glycerine, and fuel acquisition savings which could improve the image of São Paulo city and quality of life of its residents. Thus, we present this as a way to reduce cost and hospitalizations, and increase the number of available hospital beds for other diseases, such as COVID-19. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cleaner Production Practices and Sustainable Development)
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