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In the United States, today’s ranches are engaging in small-scale nature-based endeavors to diversify their income base. But the geographic boundary of the land they own creates a relatively small area within which to operate, and fragmented ownership diminishes the ability of any single landowner to produce nature-based income. Collective action among nearby landowners can produce a set of resources from which all members of the group can profit. Such action can enhance the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of grasslands and the populations that use them. This article shows that common-interest communities can be used to provide and allocate wildlife and other resources on ranchlands, enabling individual landowners to generate more income from selling nature-based experiences to customers. Common-interest communities are familiar in urban settings but they have not yet been used in this setting. Thus, the article proposes a new approach to ranchland management based upon a familiar set of largely private legal arrangements. More broadly, the article illustrates the relevance of private law and private property to sustainable development by explaining how property owners can use private law to engage in environmentally beneficial and economically profitable enterprises on the vast privately owned landscape of the U.S. Great Plains.

Sustainably feeding the world’s growing population represents one of our most significant challenges. Aquaculture is well positioned to make contributions towards this challenge. Yet, the translation of aquaculture production innovations into benefits for rural communities is constrained by a limited understanding of the social dynamics that influence the adoption of new agricultural practices. In this paper, we investigate the factors that shape the spread of small-scale tilapia aquaculture through rural Solomon Islands. Based on diffusion of innovation theory, we focus on three potentially influential factors: (i) socio-economic characteristics of adopters; (ii) the role of opinion leaders; and (iii) characteristics of the innovation. We find that farmers who were wealthier, older, and had more diverse livelihoods were most likely to be adopters. Opinion leaders facilitated the adoption of tilapia aquaculture, but lacked the capacity to provide fundamental knowledge necessary to realize its potential benefits to food security. The paper argues for more explicit attention to the poorest households and makes the case for a deeper engagement with the broader social and institutional contexts that shape the adoption process. Aquaculture interventions that account for these social dynamics are critical for translating production innovations into sustainable benefits to rural communities.

The integration of sustainable practices into infrastructure projects under the auspices of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is vital in the attainment of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since the inception of the SDGs in 2015, the attention of world has been shifting towards more sustainable practices and it is essential that the conventional performance measurement models on PPP projects also adapt to the trend of sustainable practices. Therefore, This study aims at reviewing and operationalising sustainable performance measures for the PPP infrastructure projects. A systematic literature review (SLR) methodology was utilised in this study. The research process began with the search, retrieval and selection of thirty-three (33) journal articles. Thoroughly, the selected articles were contently analysed to form key themes that form the basis of this research’s findings. The outcomes of this review demonstrate twenty-seven (27) most critical sustainable performance criteria of PPP projects such as the lowest project costs, green index, disability-friendly inclusion rate and carbon emission per project among others. Although, the study is limited to few journal articles, it provides theoretical and practical understanding of integration of sustainability in PPPs. Further, it gives a list of relevant research gaps for further studies. This study contributes to the benchmarking and management of sustainable performance assessment of PPP projects.

(1) The amount of plastic discharges in the environment has drastically increased in the last decades negatively affecting aquatic ecosystems, societies, and the world economy. The policies initiated to deal with this problem are insufficient and there is an urgency to initiate local actions based on a deep understanding of the factors involved. (2) This paper investigates the potential of massive open online courses (MOOCs) to spread environmental education. Therefore, the conclusions drawn from the implementation of a MOOC to combat the problem of marine litter in the world are presented. (3) This work describes the activity of 3632 participants from 64 countries taking an active role presenting useful tools, connecting them with the main world associations, and defining applied action plans in their local area. Pre- and post-questionnaires explore behavioral changes regarding the actions of participants to combat marine litter. The role of MOOCs is contrasted with social media, formal education, and informal education. (4) Findings suggest that MOOCs are useful instruments to promote environmental activism, and to develop local solutions to global problems, for example, clean beaches, supplanting plastic bottles, educational initiatives, and prohibition of single-use plastic.

The development of cross-border e-commerce is generally faced with problems such as high freight, long transportation time, and low service level. However, overseas warehouses can effectively solve the above problems to a certain extent, and they can improve consumer satisfaction. Therefore, this paper proposed a method combined with the entropy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (E-TOPSIS) model and complex network analysis theory to make a comprehensive determination of overseas warehouse locations for China’s e-commerce exports in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (B&R). We selected 62 countries along the B&R as pre-candidates for overseas warehouse locations and then evaluated the significance of each node in cross-border e-commerce for Chinese export products. Finally, 15 countries were identified as the optimal overseas warehouse locations for Chinese export products along the B&R. The results can provide reference for overseas warehouse deployment of Chinese cross-border e-commerce enterprises as well as the development and the construction of the B&R.

The supplier selection decision, within the scope of supply chain management (SCM), is one of the key decisions that plays an important role in the success of the business. The supplier selection problem, which aims to determine the most suitable suppliers in line with the demands of the enterprises, can be defined as a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem that includes both quantitative and non-quantitative criteria. While there is a large body of literature on supplier selection studies using MCDM methods, the number of studies in the health sector is relatively low compared to other sectors. Although much research can be found regarding the application of MCDM techniques in clinical operations, less research has been conducted on the problem of supplier selection in healthcare services, which has a high complexity level. The main purpose of the study is to develop a holistic MCDM model as a decision support system for supplier selection in the health sector. The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytical Network Process (ANP) methods were used together to analyze the model. The main criteria used in the study are price, quality, logistics, sustainability, and occupational health and safety (OHS). As sustainability and OHS rarely exist in supplier selection studies in the health sector, this holistic model can contribute to the literature in that aspect. According to the findings and the main criteria ranking, the most important criteria, emerged as price, quality, sustainability, OHS, technique, and logistics. The results indicate the importance of sustainability in supplier selection in the health sector. The method proposed in this study may help health managers as a support system for making purchasing decisions.

Ubiquitous CRM (UCRM) enhances customer relationship management. It can sense customer needs and demands, to which firms can respond quickly. Therefore, UCRM helps to improve a firm’s agility. There is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners to understand how the adoption of UCRM impacts the sustainability of firms’ operations, but not many studies have investigated this issue. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine how firms’ absorptive capacity and dynamic capability could impact the adoption of UCRM to influence the operational sustainability of the firms and their performance. The study also investigates the moderating role of technology turbulence on the relationship between a firm’s operational sustainability and its performance. Using absorptive capacity theory and dynamic capability view theory and reviewing the existing literature, we developed a conceptual model. The model was then validated using a structural equation modeling technique considering 309 usable respondents from different firms that use UCRM for their operational activities. The study found that firms’ absorptive capacity and dynamic capability significantly and positively impact the adoption of UCRM, which in turn significantly and positively impacts firms’ operational sustainability and improves their performance. The study also shows that there is a significant moderating role of technology turbulence on the relationship between operational sustainability and firm performance.