• Energy Research

The adoption of renewable energy sources offers significant economic and sustainability benefits. These sources—solar, wind, hydro, biomass, and geothermal—are crucial for transitioning to a sustainable, low-pollution energy model. Key benefits of renewable energy include job creation, reduced energy costs, decreased reliance on imported resources, minimized environmental impact, and long-term economic stability. Renewable energy also plays a vital role in achieving environmental and sustainability goals. By reducing dependence on imported energy resources, it enhances energy security. Countries investing in renewables lower their reliance on international supply chains and geopolitical risks, which is particularly relevant for European Union nations historically dependent on energy imports. Domestic renewable energy resources help stabilize prices and ensure a consistent long-term energy supply. This study aimed to assess the impact of renewable energy sources on the economy and sustainable development in the European Union. Data for all variables were collected from the Eurostat database. The unbalanced panel data sample consisted of 27 EU countries (N = 27), covering the period 2001–2022 (T = 22). The analysis and generalization of the scientific literature compared theoretical and practical statements, econometric models, and the least squares method. Here, the hypothesis that “the transition to renewable energy sources will have a smaller negative impact on economic growth when the country is more dependent on imported energy sources” was accepted, and this means that using renewable energy sources not only contributes to environmental goals and climate change mitigation but also provides various economic benefits, including job creation, lower energy prices, greater energy security, and long-term sustainability. It is essential in the transition to a cleaner and more sustainable economy.

Today, sustainability, sustainable development and clean environment come to the fore worldwide. Consequently, the concept of sustainability has been introduced in project management. Sustainability issues have gained particular attention in the real estate sector. However, despite the fact that this sector has a huge impact on the environment and society, real estate projects are most commonly chosen taking into account only their risk and return, and a very limited number of indices and methods are available to assess their sustainability. Moreover, all of the existing indices and models for assessing the sustainability of an investment project take into account only three dimensions of sustainability—environmental, social and economic. Therefore, the novelty of this work lies in constructing a real estate sustainability index (RESI) relying on an additional sustainability aspect—i.e., a technological dimension. The developed sustainability index could be useful in evaluating and comparing real estate projects. It would also promote technological progress and investments in new technologies within projects as sustainability is also considered in a new, technological dimension. A research study was carried out between September 2020 and December 2020. Following an analysis of the literature and different sustainability-related standards relevant for the real estate industry, sustainability criteria were chosen and then grouped into four (environmental, social, economic and technological) categories. The selection and ranking of the most relevant sustainability criteria were performed through a survey. The index was compiled by applying multi-criteria decision making methods.

The literature on the role of intellectual capital on the development of an economy, industry or business is well established (Carnevale and Smith 2013, Lauzikas and Miliute 2017, Kavurmaci 2018, Koehorst et al. 2019, Schoff and Ito, 2019, Koehorst et al. 2019, and etc.). However, the scarcity of holistic transdisciplinary studies regarding factors/ conditions that are critical to unleash the potential of human resources, such as HR Management innovation (Gonera and Pabst 2019, Lee et al. 2019, and etc.), innovation culture (Isaacs et al. 2019, Halim et al. 2019, Sull et al. 2019, Lauzikas and Mokseckienė 2013, Lauzikas and Miliute 2019a, and etc.), creative leadership (Abdi et al. 2018, Jin et al. 2019, Collett et al. 2019, and etc.), modern technologies (Deloitte 2019, Lee et al., Kim et al. 2019, and etc.), new collaboration forms (Kane et al. 2019, Isaacs and Ancona, 2019, Lauzikas and Miliute 2019b, and etc.), social value-added (Wikhamn 2019, Marwede and Herstatt 2019, and etc.) calls for the untapped research potential in the area of Human Resource Management innovation, based on the development stage and peculiarities of cultural and social norms of an economy. The purpose of the present publication is to identify the key drivers of human capital-driven high-tech industries and understand how the Human Resource Management department could help strengthen competitive advantages of high-tech companies in South Korea and Lithuania. The research question is what Human Resource Management innovations are necessary to realign the innovation culture with a specific cultural/ social context and a corresponding economic/ business development stage in order to improve companies’ competitive position in light of digital transformation of the market. The qualitative semi structured expert interviews led to assumptions and results which explain how human capital links the culture and innovation and why the percentage of commercialized creative ideas in South Korean companies is higher than in Lithuanian companies. In spite of practical and value adding implications and recommendations to both top management and experts of Governmental policies and programs, a more extensive quantitative research should be provided in the next articles of the same series to feel better the global market trends and understand demographic characteristics that affect the organizational behaviour patterns and HRM decisions.

The already scarce and further dwindling natural resources, increasing environmental pollution, and other environmental, economic, and social challenges that transcend national boundaries necessitate the continuous pursuit of the more responsible implementation of the principles of sustainable development in the public and business sectors, especially in general education schools, as the future and welfare of the society depend on education results. Therefore, the implementation of knowledge management practices in general education schools is one of the efficient ways of achieving the principles of sustainable development and their positive outcomes for society and the state. This research aimed to evaluate the peculiarities of applying knowledge management practices in general education schools for sustainable development. Research methods such as analysis of scientific literature, multiple-criteria assessment, survey, and expert evaluation were used to achieve the goal of the study. The results of the study showed that there is a high potential in general education schools for the application of knowledge management practices to achieve sustainable development. However, general education schools still face a lack of teachers’ motivation and a lack of financial resources to apply knowledge management practices and improve knowledge infrastructure for sustainability.

Energy security is conditioned by numerous factors, among which solutions and patterns of energy storage play important role. Electrical energy storage (EES) is the process by which energy is stored from the power network to a form which can be used later when converted back to electrical energy. There are various ways by which electrical energy can be stored for future purposes. Nowadays, the electrical energy is mainly stored in pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES) that comprises about 99% of EES worldwide and the battery energy storage (BES) that uses chemical energy with both methods yielding characteristic advantages and disadvantages. Electrical energy is mainly stored when there is low demand and when there is high generation of power at low costs. The energy is then used when there is high demand of power and the generation cost is high or when there are no other means of generating electrical energy. Electrical energy storage has many uses such as in the electrical devices, motor vehicles and stationery energy resources and is gaining special attention with the widespread usage of renewable energy sources (RES). In this paper, we are focusing on the sustainable development of the electrical energy storage. We are drawing a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of pumped hydroelectric storage and batteries that use chemical energy and assess their implementation based on various scenarios of the future development. We conclude that although HPS is still the more economical option, new advances in BES might alter the energy market and change the rules of the game by fostering the sustainable development through the more effective storage and transportation of electric energy.

AbstractThe sustainable development of a country depends on rates of economic growth. Economic growth, in its turn, is related to use of energy in terms its intensity and price. This paper aims to reveal if increasing prices of gas and electricity retard development of industrial sector of Lithuanian economy. A question, if international competitiveness of industry, measured by industrial export, remains unaffected in result of increase of energy resource prices is being raised. Energy intensity issues are not being tackled; during considered period energy intensity did not changed significantly. The object of research is industrial sector of Lithuanian economy. The method used is a correlation analysis, and the time span of data is 2000–2011. An economic interpretation of obtained results would lead to the conclusion that an increase of energy prices has not had significant malign impact on industrial sector development and export.

The deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) is considered to be an important objective for the energy sector in the European Union (EU). The EU Directive adapted in 2009 fixed mandatory national targets for the use of renewable energy in transport as well as for the share of RES in the gross final energy consumption. Contrary to previous studies, this paper does not examine the link between the RES and economic growth but rather focuses on real gross domestic product (GDP) and the implementation of national renewable energy targets. We employ panel data models for the case of the EU-28 countries covering the period between 2007 and 2017 that yield a low and positive relationship between the impact of GDP per capita and the share of RES in the final consumption. Our results show that there is a significant causality only from real GDP per capita to the share of renewable energy in final consumption, marking the potential of developed countries to consume more RES. We list some groups of countries according to these variables using a cluster analysis approach. Starting from the proposed panel data models, we constructed the scenarios for the 2020 for various shares of RES and different EU Member States. Overall, it appears that more attention should be attributed to policy proposals in which funding opportunities would be dependent on the achievements of national targets and economic benefits should be given to countries with very good performance in achieving high shares of renewable energy in their final energy consumption.