Publications related to Index of sustainability articles

The synergistic interplay of artificial intelligence and digital twin in environmentally planning sustainable smart cities: A comprehensive systematic review

The dynamic landscape of sustainable smart cities is witnessing a signi ficant transformation due to the integration of emerging computational technologies and innovative models. These advancements are reshaping data -driven planning strategies, practices, ...

Elsevier2024

Embodied Carbon Premium for Cantilevers

David Michael Volpe Ruggiero, Paola Costanza Miglietta

This study addresses the critical need for sustainable architectural designs within the context of climate change and the significant role the built environment plays in greenhouse gas emissions. The focus of this paper is on understanding the influence of ...

2024

Using automated design appraisal to model building-specific devaluation risk due to land-use change

Adam Robert Swietek

Uncertainty of spillover effects – including property devaluation - from proposed land-use change elicits opposition to local development. This hinders cities’ ability to implement land-use policy aimed at housing affordability and environmental sustainabi ...

2024

Urban sustainability assessment through spatial lenses: turning the spotlight on the local neighbourhood unit

Melissa Pang

With global environmental change and quality of life issues at the forefront of international discussions today, urban development strategies and policies are often framed around various sustainability or liveability goals. Regardless of the sustainability ...

EPFL2023

A WAY TO GET STUDENTS TO CONSIDER ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN IOT PROJECTS

Sustainability and ethical topics can be embedded and assessed in existing technical courses within an engineering curriculum. This article describes how we integrated a reflection on the importance of ethical and environmental aspects of connected objects ...

2023

IRGC (2022) Ensuring the environmental sustainability of emerging technologies - 1. Workshop report

Marie-Valentine Renée Agnès Florin

This report assumes that something can be done to guide technology developers and others towards producing technology that does not cause indirect and delayed damage to the environment. It explores the extent to which environmental sustainability concerns ...

EPFL2022

Urban sustainability assessment in Geneva: Relevance of the local neighbourhood unit

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, François Golay, Melissa Pang

The physical characteristics of an urban system are typically heterogeneously expressed, creating distinct neighbourhoods shaped by specific local features. Hence, spatially explicit expression of sustainability across the urban system is expected and shou ...

Sage2022

In the Quest for Meaning: Revisiting Modernism’s debate around non-pedigreed architecture

Vasileios Chanis

In architectural historiography, it is widely accepted that in the aftermath of WWII, Modern Architecture found itself in the trouble of redefining its quest, its meaning, and its purpose; a crisis of the Modern before the Post-Modern. Thus, in this partic ...

2022

Emerging Trends and Knowledge Structures of Urbanization and Environmental Sustainability: A Regional Perspective

Simon Elias Bibri, Shakil Ahmad

More than 59 million people reside in the six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia). The rate of urbanization is more than 80% in each of these countries. To better ...

MDPI2022

Sustainable Construction in Humanitarian. Action Criteria for humanitarian building sustainability

Sergi Aguacil Moreno, Sebastian Duque Mahecha, Guillaume Habert, André Ullal

Humanitarian organisations have an interest in improving the sustainability of buildings that support the assistance provided to people affected by conflict and disaster. Yet, usual means of assessing building sustainability - e.g., labels such as LEED and ...

2022

From metrics towards meaningful assessments of urban sustainability - exploring visions, frameworks and indicators

Pekka Jaakko Halla

Problem statement. Cities hold a central role in global efforts towards sustainability, and integrating sustainability concerns into the governance of cities constitutes an increasingly urgent challenge. One avenue holding promise in this respect concerns ...

EPFL2021

Scrutinizing the Circular Economy concept applied at the urban level: A contribution based on the analysis of urban circularity indicators, the categorization of Circular Economy interventions, and the identification of factors fostering the adoption of circular innovation

Valeria Superti

Problem. Our current economic systems are deemed unsustainable. Although a global issue, the objective of living in a sustainable society is increasingly an urban challenge, as a rising 50% of the world's population currently dwell in cities. To secure a b ...

EPFL2021

Unraveling how the concept of circularity relates to sustainability: An indicator-based meta-analysis applied at the urban scale

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Albert Merino, Valeria Superti

Cities account for 75% of resource consumption and 80% of CO2 emissions. With rising urbanization, achieving urban sustainability becomes crucial. The Circular Economy (CE) concept has been proposed to reduce resource consumption, although its link to sust ...

2021

Copper, my precious!

Raffaella Buonsanti

To produce chemicals and fuels from CO2 and water while storing excess energy from renewable resources will play a big role in sustainability. Three decades ago, we learned that copper possesses the unique ability to break the stable CO2 bonds and to form ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2021

Urban cells: Extending the energy hub concept to facilitate sector and spatial coupling

Kavan Javanroodi, Amarasinghage Tharindu Dasun Perera, Yi Wang

The rapid growth of urban areas and concerns over climate change make it vital to improve the energy sustainability of cities. Understanding the complex interactions within different sectors (sectoral) and localities (spatial) of cities plays a crucial rol ...

2021

Seeking methods for improving sustainability in the extractive sector

Farnaz Eslamishoar

Extractive resources are indisputably a necessary component of international sustainable development. Despite current advancements in the circular economy, world production needs for raw materials are ever increasing, and still a long way remains for it to ...

EPFL2021

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Romano Tobias Wyss, Emanuele Massaro

Our world is becoming more and more urban. Already, about 50% of the population lives in cities posing new challenges for sustainable development. What does sustainability mean in the context of living in a city? This book provides guidelines for sustainab ...

Cambridge University Press2020

How Values Play into Sustainability Assessments: Challenges and a Possible Way Forward

Livia Bianca Fritz, Franziska Meinherz

Any sustainability assessment uses some notion of sustainability as a reference. It is increasingly acknowledged that sustainability is a contested concept and that its different definitions are rooted in different values. Accordingly, researchers have sta ...

Cambridge University Press2020

Indicators for urban sustainability: Key lessons from a systematic analysis of 67 measurement initiatives

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Albert Merino, Valeria Superti, Pekka Jaakko Halla, Anne Frédérique Cécile Noémi Bösch

Today, the centrality of cities in the global sustainability challenge is widely acknowledged, and numerous initiatives have been developed worldwide for monitoring and comparing the sustainability performance of urban areas. However, the escalating abunda ...

2020

Assessing Urban Sustainability through Participatory Multi-Criteria Approaches (PMCAs): An Updated Comparative Analysis

Albert Merino

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of four Participatory Multi-Criteria Approaches (PMCAs) usually applied in sustainability assessments (SMCE, MCM, 3-SPM and INTEGRAAL). Such approaches are presented in detail and subsequently compared to each o ...

Cambridge University Press2020