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In the near future, the year 2050, agricultural production should expand to fulfill the needs of approximately 9.7 billion inhabitants. Such an objective should be harmonized with social, economic, and environmental sustainability aspects to maintain safe food production and food security worldwide. For more than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised and is still strongly disrupting the agro-livestock production sector, similar to several other economic sectors. In this sector, the relationships between suppliers, producers, and consumers should always continue to maintain the activity of the production chain, which are impaired by social distancing decisions taken following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, a global cross-sectional survey (translated into four languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish) was shared with people belonging to the agricultural sector to identify: (1) the role of the agricultural information and communication technologies (ICTs) in agro-livestock farming systems sustainability during the period of COVID-19 pandemic, (2) the need for such technologies in the agricultural sector, and (3) the factors that affect the use of such technologies. The results showed that the most frequently used agricultural ICTs were social media (Facebook and/or WhatsApp; 27.3%) and online platforms and Internet services (26.3%), whereas robotic vehicles and/or drones (6.6%) were less frequently used. During the emergence of the pandemic, the major reasons impacting agro-livestock farming systems’ sustainability were social distancing (30.0%), shortage of labor (17.7%), maintaining precision farm management (14.8%), product marketing (14.2%), access production inputs (7.2%), and others (16.1%). Applying agricultural ICTs solved many obstacles related to the production process, such as maintaining precision farm management (25.6%), product marketing (23.6%), and access production inputs (16.1%). The subgroup analyses of the results considering the degree of country advancement, size of agribusinesses, and role/position of respondents in the farm highlighted the importance of supporting the use, availability, and awareness of agricultural ICTs at least for some groups of people such as those belong to developing countries, laborers, and small-scale agri-business holders. This cross-sectional study highlights the urgent need to turn to and to expand the use of new agricultural ICTs to meet the growing demand for food production in the world and to ensure the resilience and sustainability of farming systems, specifically under unexpected and extreme conditions.

AbstractBioenergy (i.e., bioheat and bioelectricity) could simultaneously address energy insecurity and climate change. However, bioenergy’s impact on climate change remains incomplete when land use changes (LUC), soil organic carbon (SOC) changes, and the auxiliary energy consumption are not accounted for in the life cycle. Using data collected from Belgian farmers, combined heat and power (CHP) operators, and a life cycle approach, we compared 40 bioenergy pathways to a fossil-fuel CHP system. Bioenergy required between 0.024 and 0.204MJ (0.86MJth+0.14 MJel)−1, and the estimated energy ratio (energy output-to-input ratio) ranged from 5 to 42. SOC loss increased the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of residue based bioenergy. On average, the iLUC represented ∼67% of the total GHG emissions of bioenergy from perennial energy crops. However, the net LUC (i.e., dLUC+iLUC) effects substantially reduced the GHG emissions incurred during all phases of bioenergy production from perennial crops, turning most pathways based on energy crops to GHG sinks. Relative to fossil-fuel based CHP all bioenergy pathways reduced GHG emissions by 8–114%. Fluidized bed technologies maximize the energy and the GHG benefits of all pathways. The size and the power-to-heat ratio for a given CHP influenced the energy and GHG performance of these bioenergy pathways. Even with the inclusion of LUC, perennial crops had better GHG performance than agricultural and forest residues. Perennial crops have a high potential in the multidimensional approach to increase energy security and to mitigate climate change. The full impacts of bioenergy from these perennial energy crops must, however, be assessed before they can be deployed on a large scale.

This study highlights the appropriateness of innovation management principles to successfully manage radical change in the e-commerce industry during the COVID-19 period. The study focuses on transforming delivery platforms in the context of popular e-commerce organizations in the U.A.E. We conducted the study through interviews, and the results reflect the development of three major themes (shifting consumer behavior, implementation of innovation, and innovation for effective change management) since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the transition stage, critical aspects concerning product delivery have emerged to stabilize logistics performance with sustainability. The study suggests that firms need to be faster and more flexible to address the market uncertainty through innovative practices. Similar organizations can use this study to develop mechanisms to improve their delivery systems. Additionally, the study also argues that collaborative innovation significantly contributes to the enhancement of consumers’ well-being and boosts economic growth.

The German Federal Climate Change Act includes binding annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets for the economic sectors energy, industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and waste. For sectors that fail to meet their targets, climate policy measures have to be implemented immediately. However, some sectors may only have achieved their targets thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, while others may have missed their targets because of COVID-19. For policy making, it is therefore important to disentangle the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from the effects of policy and other drivers on emissions. In this paper, the effects of the pandemic on GHG emissions in Germany in 2020 are estimated at the national level and at the levels of the economic sectors. Counterfactual emissions are estimated here based on autoregressive econometric models, thereby distinguishing between different factors of emissions based on decomposition analysis. The findings at the national level suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic lowered GHG emissions in 2020 in Germany by about 41 Mt CO2-eq (5.15%) compared to counterfactual emissions. Accordingly, about 58% of the reduction in emissions between 2019 and 2020 in Germany may be attributed to the pandemic. The findings at the sectoral level imply that without the COVID-19 pandemic, all sectors with the exception of the transport sector, would have met their emissions target in 2020 as set in the Federal Climate Change Act. The transport sector would have missed its emission target in 2020 without COVID-19, suggesting that existing policies were not strong enough to bend the curve of emissions trends sufficiently down. In contrast, the buildings sector failed to meet its target in 2020 because of COVID-19, prompting immediate climate policy measures in this sector. The COVID-19 pandemic lowered greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Germany in 2020 by 5.5% compared to counterfactual emissions and accounted for about 58% of total estimated reductions between 2019 and 2020.Without COVID-19, all sectors but the transport sector would have met their emissions targets.Climate policy response should take into account the effects of extraordinary events like COVID-19 suppressing GHG emissions based on counterfactual emissions because failure to implement measures early on may turn out to be costly in the medium term once the transitory emissions reductions no longer occur.Counterfactual emissions should be considered prior to crediting emissions surplus or deficit to subsequent years. The COVID-19 pandemic lowered greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Germany in 2020 by 5.5% compared to counterfactual emissions and accounted for about 58% of total estimated reductions between 2019 and 2020. Without COVID-19, all sectors but the transport sector would have met their emissions targets. Climate policy response should take into account the effects of extraordinary events like COVID-19 suppressing GHG emissions based on counterfactual emissions because failure to implement measures early on may turn out to be costly in the medium term once the transitory emissions reductions no longer occur. Counterfactual emissions should be considered prior to crediting emissions surplus or deficit to subsequent years.

One of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis has been the development of proximity tourism in outdoor spaces being less conducive to the spread of the virus. From a study preceding this pandemic, this article seeks to better understand the experiences lived by domestic tourists from when they visited two typical protected natural parks as specific experiential contexts (extraordinary versus ordinary) providing different experiences. Each experiential context enables the distinction of actual visitors’ experiences inside each park—education, esthetics, entertainment, escapism, physical activity—differentiated, on one hand by the visitors’ participation axis and, on the other hand, by the absorption-immersion axis influencing the visitors’ arousal and memory. A structural equation model tested the data collected (n = 1000) in both experiential contexts and shows their moderator effect. The results underline the link between the experiential context and the actual experiences and highlight the interest of a new global framework including the visitors’ participation and a bodily axis relative to the specific context. This research could help managers of protected natural parks adjust their domestic tourists’ experience offer during pandemic crises by implementing specific sustainable and sanitary strategies.

Climate smart village approach is identified as an important strategy laid out in the Myanmar Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy (MCSAS, 2016) Four climate smart villages were established in 2017 to facilitate participatory action research to develop the CSV approach as well as to generate evidence of outcomes. The CSV approach is based on the principle of community-directed research process where community-members collaborate with an external researcher to investigate community challenges and their solutions. Like other countries in 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Myanmar implemented wide-scale national and local restrictions on mobility that impacted trade and business resulting to an economic slowdown. Rural communities dominated by smallholder agriculture in Myanmar are not spared from the negative impacts of these restrictions. This paper seeks to assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to the 4 climate smart villages in Myanmar by analyzing household survey data (N = 527) collected in 2020 during the height of economic disruptions and comparing these data to the household survey conducted during the pre-pandemic period of 2018. Our analysis indicated that overall, the effect of the pandemic to agriculture production in 2020 production season in the 4 CSVs has been minimal as evidenced by the continued agriculture production at the same levels as the pre-pandemic conditions in 2018. The effects to household food security and diet diversity has been varied. Sakta village in Chin state in the highlands have demonstrated that diversified production systems enable them to achieve food security in the pandemic year of 2020.

Abstract This editorial for the Special Issue entitled ‘Energy Decentralisation – Institutional Perspectives’ in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews contrasts and compares thirteen research and review articles submitted over the last year, each with a specific regional or thematic focus. The contributions examine decentralisation, its impacts and/or institutional preconditions in the United States, Sweden, UK, Denmark, South Africa, Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, and include three international thematic reviews. Embedding the findings from this work in the wider literature on decentralisation and inclusivity, we identify key findings and avenues for further research. Our review begins with an overview of how energy decentralisation is conceptualised in research and policy, identifying the logics used by proponents and opponents across the literature. We review the ways in which structural institutional settings have influenced the prevalence of narratives furthered by stakeholders with different interests and worldviews, resulting in radically different policy decisions, support frameworks and incentive structures at regional or national scales. Building on these findings, our concluding discussion reflects on the factors that influence social consensus on, and effective implementation of, ambitious and inclusive energy policy. The focus of this Special Issue has become yet more relevant as governments around the world are forced to marry multiple crises in fiscal spending decisions; where significant economic support packages need to buffer the socio-economic impacts of COVID19 in the short to medium term, and simultaneously facilitate investment in infrastructure, technology and competencies that will enable the decarbonisation of the economy.