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Campus Kindergarten in Brisbane, Australia, is a community-based organisation for children and families that has embraced change through the evolution of its internationally acclaimed ‘Sustainable Planet Project’. The centre initiated the project in 1997, introducing a range of new curriculum and pedagogical processes - always with young children at the heart - that have led to improvements in play spaces, reduced waste, lowered water consumption and improved biodiversity. This child-focussed approach is reflected in the way that children’s ideas provide much of the motivation and inspiration for changing to more sustainable practices. A whole centre project on water conservation, for example, was sparked when preschoolers (aged 4 years) articulated their concerns to staff about water use in the sandpit. This paper overviews a recent research project designed to document, examine and highlight the Sustainable Planet Project, to assist centre staff, researchers and others with a commitment to sustainability, to understanding the change processes. An important feature has been the project's slow, sometimes erratic, development that has always added complexity to the teachers’ work. Such change, however, has not been viewed negatively. Complexity theory has helped to explain the project’s evolution and complexity has been embraced as a vehicle for creativity, engagement, critique and ongoing change in this learning organisation. As a consequence, a culture of sustainability now permeates the centre where a strong vision has been translated into small but realistic goals and achievements.

We examine the longitudinal relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and financial performance by investigating attributes among firms operating in different industry sectors longitudinally. Using panel regression analysis on Australian publicly listed firms from 2007 to 2021, we find that CSR performance positively influences financial performance. Furthermore, our industry-specific analysis uncovers notable distinctions. Specifically, within the consumer product markets, including recreational facilities, travel and tourism, lodging, dining, and leisure products, firms benefit from stakeholder rewards for their CSR efforts, leading to sustained financial gains. However, this positive association is absent for firms operating in industrial product markets, where stakeholders do not offer similar rewards for CSR performance. The significance of stakeholder engagement becomes evident in consumer market sectors, as firms with higher levels of CSR performance secure stakeholder support, resulting in superior long-term financial performance. Our findings contribute to the existing CSR literature and offer practical insights and implications for managers operating in diverse product market industries, including the dynamic field of tourism and hospitality seeking to harness CSR performance, meet stakeholder expectations, and achieve financial advantages.

Integrating renewable energy into public space is becoming more common as a climate change solution. However, this approach is often guided by the environmental pillar of sustainability, with less focus on the economic and social pillars. The purpose of this paper is to examine this issue in the speculative renewable energy propositions for Freshkills Park in New York City submitted for the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) competition. This paper first proposes an optimal electricity distribution (OED) framework in and around public spaces based on relevant ecology and energy theory (Odum’s fourth and fifth law of thermodynamics). This framework addresses social engagement related to public interaction, and economic engagement related to the estimated quantity of electricity produced, in conjunction with environmental engagement related to the embodied energy required to construct the renewable energy infrastructure. Next, the study uses the OED framework to analyse the top twenty-five projects submitted for the LAGI 2012 competition. The findings reveal an electricity distribution imbalance and suggest a lack of in-depth understanding about sustainable electricity distribution within public space design. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Geoenergy sources will continue to be mainstays of the world’s energy mix for many years to come, but the technological and business realities behind these energy sources are changing in two fundamental ways. First, with much of the world’s “easy oil” already consumed, the companies behind geoenergy will have to use increasingly sophisticated technologies to find and deliver these energy sources to the market. Second, the expectations placed upon the geoenergy sector by many of its stakeholders have grown considerably with regards to environmental stewardship, safety, and human welfare. In the face of these kinds of challenges, the industry will require an increasing degree of technological and commercial sophistication to continue to be a part of the world’s sustainable energy mix. Blockchain has emerged as a promising innovation that could potentially play an important role in delivering the kinds of technological and commercial capabilities that the geoenergy sector will need to achieve these ends. In spite of the myriad ways that blockchain could potentially improve the efficiency and sustainability of the geoenergy industry, however, the technology is still evolving, and a few barriers stand in the way of its widespread deployment. This paper puts forward case study evidence from the Intel Corporation and the Energistics Consortium showing what the geoenergy sector can learn about blockchain from other industries, and highlights that the absence of data standards and interoperability has contributed to blockchain’s failure to deliver significant value in the geoenergy domain thus far.

Thermal energy storage (TES) is a critical component in a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant since it is able to provide dispatchability and increase the capacity factor of the plant. Recently the Brayton power cycle using supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) has attracted considerable attention as it allows a higher thermal to electric power conversion efficiency compared to the conventional Rankine cycle using subcritical steam. However, no commercial TES has yet been developed for integration with a s-CO2 based plant. One reason is the lack of a suitable storage material. This work explores the use of a eutectic NaCl-Na2CO3 salt as a reliable high temperature phase change material (PCM). The PCM has been thermally cycled up to 1000 times. Its thermophysical properties have been measured before and after it has been subjected to the thermal cycling and its corrosion behavior has been investigated. This eutectic salt shows good thermal stability without degradation after cycling 1000 times between 600 and 650 °C. The corrosion rate on stainless steel 316 (SS316) increases linearly up to 350 cycles, and thereafter it stabilizes at 70 mg/cm2.

Rapid urbanization, improved quality of life, and diversified lifestyle options have collectively led to an escalation in housing demand in our cities, where residential areas, as the largest portion of urban land use type, play a critical role in the formation of sustainable cities. To date there has been limited research to ascertain residential development layouts that provide a more sustainable urban outcome. This paper aims to evaluate and compare sustainability levels of residential types by focusing on their layouts. The paper scrutinizes three different development types in a developing country context—i.e., subdivision, piecemeal, and master-planned developments. This study develops a “Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment” tool and applies it to compare their sustainability levels in Ipoh, Malaysia. The analysis finds that the master-planned development, amongst the investigated case studies, possesses the potential to produce higher levels of sustainability outcomes. The results reveal insights and evidence for policymakers, planners, development agencies and researchers; advocate further studies on neighborhood-level sustainability analysis, and; emphasize the need for collective efforts and an effective process in achieving neighborhood sustainability and sustainable city formation.

Recently published green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and ecosystem disservices (ED) literature have focused primarily on the supply of urban regulating and cultural ecosystem services (ES). Other literature on urban and peri-urban agriculture has mostly studied the role of localized, intensive agricultural practices in providing food to inhabitants. The aim of this review is to raise awareness and stress the knowledge gap on the importance of urban provisioning ES, particularly when implementing an edible green infrastructure (EGI) approach as it can offer improved resilience and quality of life in cities. We compiled and systematically analyzed studies on urban ES and ED related to a number of EGI typologies. Our systematic review of the relevant literature via an EGI framework, identified more than 80 peer-reviewed publications that focused on ES and food production in urban areas. An EGI approach can contribute socially, economically, and environmentally to urban sustainability and food security. However, such benefits must be weighed against ED trade-offs, including: potential health risks caused by human exposure to heavy metals and organic chemical contaminants often present in urban surroundings. We conclude with recommendations and guidelines for incorporating EGI into urban planning and design, and discuss novel areas for future research.