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Thermal comfort is very important for the well-being and safety of vehicle occupants, as discomfort can elevate stress, leading to distracted attention and slower reaction times. This creates a riskier driving environment. Addressing this, high-induction air diffusers emerge as a significant innovation, enhancing indoor environmental quality (IEQ) by efficiently mixing cool air from the heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system with the cabin’s ambient air. This process ensures uniform airflow, diminishes temperature discrepancies, prevents draft sensations, and boosts overall air quality by improving air circulation. In addition to enhancing thermal comfort in vehicles, the novel air diffuser also offers significant potential for personalized ventilation systems, allowing for individualized control over airflow and temperature, thereby catering to the specific comfort needs of each occupant. This study introduces a novel air diffuser that demonstrates a 48% improvement in air entrainment compared to traditional diffusers, verified through Ansys Fluent simulations and laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) measurements. At a fresh airflow rate of 31.79 m3/h, the total air entrainment rate at 0.6 m for the standard air diffuser is 73.36 m3/h, while for the innovative air diffuser, it is 109.26 m3/h. This solution has the potential to increase the level of thermal comfort and air quality within vehicles, and also signals potential applications across various enclosed spaces, underscoring its importance in advancing automotive safety and environmental standards.

The study presents an original implementation of an algorithm capable to describe the thermal behavior of buildings. The envelope structure and the climatic data are used as input data. The algorithm identifies shares of heating and cooling loads for walls, windows and fresh air. The results were obtained for a real hospital based on hourly calculations. Based on the provided results, energy efficient solutions, including shielding technologies, can be hierarchized considering the thermal losses and gains corresponding to each component.

Pulp and paper mills generate various quantities of energy-rich biomass as wastes, depending on technological level, pulp and paper grades and wood quality. These wastes are produced in all stages of the process: wood preparation, pulp and paper manufacture, chemical recovery, recycled paper processing, waste water treatment. Energy recovery from wastes of different origin has become a generally accepted alternative to their disposal. Pulp and paper industry expresses an interest in adapting and integrating advanced biomass energy conversion technologies into its mill operations. Industrial adoption of these new technologies has the potential for higher efficiency, lower capital cost, and safer operation than conventional operations that burn fossil fuels for energy. Incineration with energy recovery has the advantage of hygienic disposal, volume reduction, and the recovery of thermal energy by means of steam or super heated water that can be used for heating and power generation. The paper reviews the current state and tendencies in using as a fuel of solid wastes generated in pulp and paper mills. A description of biomass-derived wastes regarding their opportunity to be used for energy recovery is presented. The heating properties of wood wastes, rejects from recycled paper processing, paper sludge, and low-quality recovered paper grades are discussed. Some aspects of emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) are also presented.

Spatial planning has to deal with trade-offs between various stakeholders’ wishes and needs as part of planning and management of landscapes, natural resources and/or biodiversity. To make ecosystem services (ES) trade-off research more relevant for spatial planning, we propose an analytical framework,which puts stakeholders, their land-use/management choices, their impact on ES and responses at the centre. Based on 24 cases from around the world, we used this framing to analyse the appearance and diversity of real-world ES trade-offs. They cover a wide range of trade-offs related to ecosystem use, including: land-use change, management regimes, technical versus nature-based solutions, natural resource use, and management of species. The ES trade-offs studied featured a complexity that was far greater than what is often described in the ES literature. Influential users and context setters are at the core of the trade-off decision-making, but most of the impact is felt by non-influential users. Provisioning and cultural ES were the most targeted in the studied trade-offs, but regulating ES were the most impacted. Stakeholders’ characteristics, such as influence, impact faced, and concerns can partially explain their position and response in relation to trade-offs. Based on the research findings, we formulate recommendations for spatial planning.

The evolution of electricity in Romania took place in the last century. This paper presents the development of electricity sector in a seasonal evolution form. This approach has a cyclical character and highlights options for the future. The main stages of evolution, with a duration of several decades each, are associated with the four seasons: winter, spring, summer and autumn. The similarity features relate to the quantitative and qualitative ways of electricity production evolution, which is in line with the technological development level of a country. The conclusions highlight the idea of proactive rational action with regard to ensuring in the future the necessary human resources.

The global efforts to combat climate change, decarbonize the economies, and move towards a more sustainable future are focused on improving energy efficiency and reconfiguring the energy mix. Considering the impact on the environment and economic activity of energy production and consumption, this paper focuses on identifying the driving factors of final energy consumption in the European Union countries, which are undisputed leaders in the transition to a low-carbon economy. The goals of the paper are (1) to establish a model pattern that shows the relationships between the variation in final energy consumption and its driving forces and (2) to perform a comparative analysis to better understand the differences between the European Union (EU) economies in terms of energy efficiency improvement and decarbonization opportunities. Taking into consideration the objective of the research, comparative and correlation analyses were performed, and a decomposition technique (factorial analysis) was used in order to analyze the dynamic relationships between energy-related indicators for the EU as a whole and the 27 EU countries in 2023 compared to 2015. The research question is as follows: what are the main factors that generate final energy consumption in the EU? The hypothesis of this paper (H1) is that the variation in final energy consumption is determined by economic activity, lifestyle and consumer behavior, climate effect, and energy savings. This study’s main conclusions are that the variation in final energy consumption between 2015 and 2023 in EU countries was mostly due to key factors linked to economic activity, lifestyle and consumer behavior, climate effect, and energy savings. Thus, transport contributed the most to the variation in energy consumption, followed by services and manufacturing. The results indicate a shift to less energy-intensive sectors that positively impacted final energy consumption reduction, leading to energy savings. Concerning lifestyle and consumer behavior, household energy consumption had the highest contribution to the variation in energy consumption, followed by the number of passenger cars and the average annual net earnings. The climate effect was mostly due to the change in the cooling degree days that explained over 34.4% of the variation in the final energy consumption in households per capita. As for the energy savings effect, the results show that an increase in investments in the energy sector targeting efficiency improvements contributed to a reduction in energy consumption, leading to energy savings.

Sustainable business in the hospitality sector should be designed and restructured to offer services meant to satisfy the customers aware of the ethical behavior toward environment. Green environmental marketing strategies (GES) are based on the desire of the customers to access hospitality services with zero or a less negative impact with the adaptation of greening activities. Therefore, this research aims to explore the direct effects of green environmental strategies on ethical consumption and the indirect influence of green marketing and its mediating effect between green environmental strategies and ethical consumption links. Additionally, this research also reveals that psychological aspects play the moderating role in the relationship between GES and ethical consumption. The data were collected from a sample of 545 respondents with the support of Saudi tourism companies, and a structural equation model was used to process them. The findings confirm the positive relationship between green environmental strategy and ethical consumption. The outcomes also corroborate that green marketing is interplaying between green environmental strategy and ethical consumption. In addition, this study validates that psychological aspects strengthen the link between GES and ethical consumption. This study adds to the knowledge in the literature through emphasizing the crucial role of psychological factors in improving green environmental strategies and developing ethical consumption habits among members to increase ethical consumption among tourism companies. The findings support companies from the hospitality sector implementing green sustainable services, to stimulate ethical consumption and to use their competitive advantage in green marketing strategies.