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Car-sharing services are developing at an ever-increasing pace. Taking into account the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and pursuit of the sustainable development of transport, implementing electric cars in car-sharing fleets is being proposed. On the one hand, these types of vehicles are referred to as emission-free, but on the other hand, their environmental friendliness is questionable due to the emission of carbon dioxide during the production of energy to power them. Although many scientific papers are devoted to the issue of reducing emissions through car sharing, there is a research gap concerning the real production of carbon dioxide by car-sharing vehicles during car-sharing trips. To fill this research gap, the objective of the article was to analyze the actual level of carbon dioxide emissions from combustion and electric vehicles from car-sharing systems produced when renting rides. The test results showed that the electric car turned out to be significantly less emitting. The use of electric vehicles in car-sharing fleets can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 14% to 65% compared to using cars with internal combustion engines. However, the key role during car-sharing trips is played by the driving style of the drivers, which has been omitted from the literature to date. This should be properly regulated by service providers and focus on the proper use of energy from electric vehicle batteries, especially at low temperatures. The article provides support for operators planning to modernize their fleet of vehicles and fills the research gap concerning car-sharing emissions.

A continual increase in the influence of exogenic conditions on a company’s ability to sustain and develop and increasing complexity of the management processes correlated with the discovery of new dimensions of an enterprise, which determine its potential—these all lead to a growing interest in the search for the factors which might facilitate the elevation of the level of integrity of a business model of an enterprise/organisational and managerial system of an enterprise. Currently, it is absolutely necessary to perceive an enterprise not only in the terms of a rational economic system that, in its activity, concentrates on the generation of a positive financial result, and the creation of its value for the stockholders, but also as the system, at the same time, is meant to act responsibly in relation to its stakeholders, society and the market. The observation of successful enterprises shows clearly that the company values make up an element indispensable for the creation of effective strategies of development, and, at the same time, an element guaranteeing them an appropriate level of strategic integrity in external and internal dimensions, paired with the preservation of flexibility for necessary reconfiguration. Some special attention should be paid to the fact that, in order to build permanent competitive advantage, in the context of the strategic dimension of company management, values should play a key role also in the enterprises within heavy industry, including the energy sector. This article aims to present the significance of selected aspects of strategic dimension management in the context of company strategy in one of the largest energy sector companies in Poland. It is based on an analysis of the results of research carried out in the second part of 2021 and at the beginning of 2022. Qualitative studies based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews were conducted among this institution’s managers who are responsible for formulating the company strategy. The study results have shown that social and employees’ personal values, organisational culture, and management by values, have a substantial impact on the character and quality of the strategic dimension management of the analysed company. The article aims to show the role of social values in determining efficiency in the area of managing the strategic dimension of a company. In the context of this aim, the following important research questions should be asked: What is the influence of social values and values represented by the TMT (top management team) on a given company’s efficiency in the context of strategic decisions; and how do these factors influence the stability of the company development, and do they ensure the organisation’s resilience to short-term external changes?

The growing number of electric vehicles in recent years is observable in almost all countries. The country’s energy transition should accompany this rise in electromobility if it is currently generated from non-renewable sources. Only electric vehicles powered by renewable energy sources can be considered zero-emission. Therefore, it is essential to conduct interdisciplinary research on the feasibility of combining energy recovery/generation structures and testing the energy consumption of electric vehicles under real driving conditions. This work presents a comprehensive approach for evaluating the energy consumption of a modern public building–electric vehicle system within a specific location. The original methodology developed includes surveys that demonstrate the required mobility range to be provided to occupants of the building under consideration. In the next step, an energy balance was performed for a novel near-zero energy building equipped with a 199.8 kWp photovoltaic installation, the energy from which can be used to charge an electric vehicle. The analysis considered the variation in vehicle energy consumption by season (winter/summer), the actual charging profile of the vehicle, and the parking periods required to achieve the target range for the user.

The ongoing climate changes necessitate an effective climate policy. The energy transition is now an important topic and problem, especially in Poland. (1) The undertaken analysis of the problem of energy transition is important for political, social and technological reasons. Political, because it shows the weakness of the implementation of Polish energy policy in regards to climate change. Social, because energy transition will bring about significant social changes in the largest industrial region of Poland. Technological, as the departure from fossil fuels requires the introduction of other sources of energy on a massive scale, for which Poland is not prepared. The aim of the study was to critically analyse the activities to date in the field of energy transition in Poland. The second goal of the analysis was an attempt to answer the question of whether the process of energy transition and achieving the goals set in the EU’s European Green Deal are possible at all until 2050. (2) To achieve the goals, the system method and the decision-making method were primarily used. These methods allowed for an examination of the main determinants of the Polish energy transformation. (3) The main results include the confirmation, contrary to the announcements of the Polish government, that despite the adoption in Poland of the strategy “Poland’s energy policy until 2040”, the effective implementation of the energy transition before 2050 is not only very difficult, but may even be impossible to implement in the assumed time. This is due to political, economic, social and technological conditions. Coal energy is outdated, expensive and ineffective. Due to natural conditions, wind energy is not able to meet the energy demand of the industry. The development of nuclear energy is only in the planning phase. (4) To sum up, in the next thirty years, Poland will not be able to achieve the assumed effects of the energy transition, which is in contradiction with the official declaration of the government.

In this study, our aim was to explore the potential energy savings obtainable from the recycling of 1 tonne of Construction and Demolition Waste (C&DW) generated in the Metropolitan City of Naples. The main fraction composing the functional unit are mixed C&DW, soil and stones, concrete, iron, steel and aluminium. The results evidence that the recycling option for the C&DW is better than landfilling as well as that the production of recycled aggregates is environmentally sustainable since the induced energy and environmental impacts are lower than the avoided energy and environmental impacts in the life cycle of recycled aggregates. This LCA study shows that the transition to the Circular Economy offers many opportunities for improving the energy and environmental performances of the construction sector in the life cycle of construction materials by means of internal recycling strategies (recycling C&DW into recycled aggregates, recycled steel, iron and aluminum) as well as external recycling by using input of other sectors (agri-food by-products) for the manufacturing of construction materials. In this way, the C&D sector also contributes to realizing the energy and bioeconomy transition by disentangling itself from fossil fuel dependence.

The existing literature on energy saving focuses on large-scale buildings, wherein the energy-saving potential is substantially larger than smaller-scale buildings. However, the research intensity is significantly less for small-scale deployments and their capacities to regulate energy use individually, directly and without depreciating users’ comfort and needs. The current research effort focused on energy saving and user satisfaction, concerning a low-cost—yet technically sophisticated—methodology for controlling conventional residential HVAC units through cheap yet reliable actuation and sensing and auxiliary IoT equipment. The basic ingredients of the proposed experimental methodology involve a conventional A/C unit, an Arduino microcontroller, typical wireless IoT sensors and actuators, a configured graphical environment and a sophisticated, model-free, optimization-and-control algorithm (PCAO) that portrays the ground basis for achieving improved performance results in comparison with conventional methods. The main goal of this study was to produce a system that would adequately and expeditiously achieve energy savings by utilizing minimal hardware/equipment (affordability). The system was designed to be easily expandable in terms of new units or thermal equipment (expandability) and also to be autonomous, requiring zero user interventions at the experimental site (automation). The real-life measurements were collected over two different seasonal periods of the year (winter, summer) and concerned a conventional apartment in the city of Xanthi, Northern Greece, where summers and winters exhibit quite diverse climate characteristics. The final results revealed the increased efficiency of PCAO’s optimization in comparison with a conventional rule-based control strategy (RBC), as concerns energy savings and user satisfaction.

Achieving the global electricity demand and meeting the United Nations sustainable development target on reliable and sustainable energy supply by 2050 are crucial. Portable energy storage (PES) units, powered by solid-state battery cells, can offer a sustainable and cost-effective solution for regions with limited power-grid access. However, operating in high-dust and high-temperature environments presents challenges that require effective thermal management solutions. This paper is a comprehensive review of thermal management systems for PES units, with a specific focus on addressing the challenge of overheating in airtight designs. The review of various active and passive cooling systems is conducted through extensive study of the relevant literature, which is significant in providing insights into the operation, performance parameters, and design options for different cooling system technologies. The findings from this review show heat pipe (HP) technologies as key cooling-system solutions for airtight PES units. Specifically, loop and oscillating HPs, as well as the vapour chamber, offer desirable features such as compactness, low cost, and high thermal conductivity that make them superior to other alternatives for the cooling systems in PES. The insights and knowledge generated via this review will help facilitate the design and development of innovative, efficient, and reliable PES units, thereby contributing to the advancement of off-grid renewable energy applications and enabling sustainable power solutions worldwide. Furthermore, an appropriate design of PES units can help in reducing capital and maintenance costs.