• Energy Research

Sustainability is an essential goal for companies to pursue alongside their efforts to cope with a period of economic crisis and uncertainty. Technologically mature manufacturing sectors need to preserve their competitiveness, and process and product innovation may no longer be sufficient to stimulate demand. Strategic innovation is one possible option to address this challenge. However, methods to implement this new paradigm are still underexplored. This paper analyzes the Italian and Spanish ceramic tile industries as a prime example of process digitalization and environmental practices in the European manufacturing context. Through the application of multi-criteria analysis, this study aims to investigate the possibilities provided by strategic innovation to companies in this sector, in order to be able to compete with producers in emerging countries who use price strategies as the only lever of their competitiveness. To this end, dimensions relating to operations, market, economy, society and the environment are considered herein. Our results show that the multidimensionality of industrial organizations should stimulate manufacturing firms not only to look at customer needs from a price point of view, but to commit to including social and environmental attributes in their products, such as the greencircular premium and sustainability certification. These two practices represent strategic innovation. This presents a complex challenge involving widespread change that concerns entrepreneurship, management and industrial policies.

AbstractThe goal of green procurement, also called green purchasing, is to reduce waste and improve operational efficiencies to enhance sustainability. Although this practice has gained importance in recent years and garnered significant scholarly attention, there is a lack of bibliometric studies evaluating the green procurement field. To close this gap, we leverage bibliometrics to comprehensively summarize the literature and identify existing research hotspots and trends. Specifically, we employ bibliometric tools to analyze keywords, identify influential authors, universities, and research areas and reveal the most important publications in terms of citations. The analysis shows that sustainable development, sustainability, green supply chain management, and green public procurement are core topics related to green procurement. The co-citation analysis further reveals five important research clusters in the literature, namely green public procurement, green supply chain management, green supplier selection and evaluation of green performance, networked sustainable procurement, and green procurement in the construction sector. This study makes a contribution to the green procurement literature by summarizing this quickly growing field and providing timely guidance as to future research directions.

Sustainability’s growth, year after year, continues to be staggering, becoming a reference point for those working on these issues [...]

In this research, a new mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for the production-distribution-routing problem is developed in a sustainable agricultural product supply chain network (SAPSCN) considering CO2 emission. The objective functions of the SAPSCN model seek to minimise the economic effects containing total cost in SAPSCN and environmental impacts including production and operation emissions, water consumption in production, operational water consumption, and transportation emission, as well as to maximise social impacts including on the number of the created works. Due to the complexity and NP-hardness of the SAPSCN formulation, four multi-objective meta-heuristic algorithms were applied, and two new hybrid meta-heuristic algorithms were developed. To assess the efficiency of the suggested meta-heuristic algorithms, various test instances were used to solve the proposed model and comparisons and sensitivity analyses were carried out with various criteria. A real case study is provided to validate the mathematical model. Finally, the results of the hybrid simulated annealing and particle swarm optimisation algorithm emphasises that it is more robust than other proposed algorithms to solve the problem in a reasonable time.

Abstract The e-waste sector is characterised by a rapid growth at global level and therefore involves an area not yet sufficiently investigated in its risk management dimension. This research fills the gap of the absence of a holistic approach to risk identification and assessment in e-waste management, suggesting a new Risk Awareness Indicator (RAI). An integrated Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA)-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is proposed to calculate the new index. Weights and values will be proposed by twenty Big Four’s youngest consultants (generation-Z and millennials). For e-waste, cyber risks related to personal data are critical in the collection phase, environmental risks in the transport phase, and financial and economic risks in the processing phase. Recycling scenarios pose less overall risk than landfill alternatives. The results can help policy makers to meet the circular economy targets set at the European Union level by implementing administrative and regulatory simplifications to support recycling supply chains and make them more efficient and resilient after the pandemic disruption. This work focuses on e-waste and the opinion of screenagers consultants, however the methodology used to design the RAI index makes it easy to replicate the analysis to other social settings and other waste supply chains.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced at an astounding rate and transformed numerous economic sectors. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of how AI can improve the agri-food industry is lacking. In addition, there is a notable dearth of research on AI that investigates the influence of AI on agri-food resources and educates practitioners on the significance of knowledge-based and smart agriculture. We utilised bibliometric analysis to investigate the present state of the art and emerging trends in the relationship between AI and the agri-food industry. The research identified three distinct growth phases and the most prevalent AI strategies in the industry. In addition, we analysed key trends and offered researchers and practitioners insightful recommendations for future research. Using resource-based view (RBV) as the theoretical lens, this study established a framework emphasising the long-term effects of AI on various agri-food resources and proposed several research propositions. In addition, AI-related obstacles have been identified and categorised into four major categories. Lastly, the originality of the article lies in its numerous research suggestions and recommendations for advancing the AI field in the agri-food industry.

Recently, the food supply chain (FSC) has been severely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, putting the vital flow of food products from farmers and producers to the ultimate consumers at risk. Furthermore, due to the pandemic, several food organizations have been prompted to rethink their strategies for the future. Although the literature on FSC research in the COVID-19 era is increasing, no attempt has been made to summarize this stream of research using bibliometric techniques. This paper fills this knowledge gap and looks at the current scholarly discourse around the FSC and COVID-19. Applying bibliometric techniques, 287 journal articles were extracted from Scopus and analyzed to determine the temporal evolution of FSC research, the most productive journals, researchers, countries, and the most relevant keywords and publications. To construct a keyword co-occurrence network and categorize the relevant literature, we used the computer program VOSviewer. The findings demonstrate the rapid expansion of FSC research during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the top authors, publications, and nations for scientific output were also determined. Keyword co-occurrence network and detailed qualitative analysis both illustrate that FSC research revolves around six main themes: the impact of COVID-19 on the FSC and agriculture, FSC resilience, food waste and insecurity, fisheries and aquaculture, blockchain technology, and governance and innovation. This study represents the first effort to map worldwide FSC research in the COVID-19 era and draw on a comprehensive collection of journal articles and bibliometric approaches. It offers academics, practitioners, and decision-makers a snapshot of the state of the art in the FSC field and points to where further research is needed.