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The concept of the Circular Economy (CE) is an increasingly attractive approach to tackling current sustainability challenges and facilitating a shift away from the linear “take-make-use-dispose” model of production and consumption. The public sector is a major contributor to the CE transition not only as a policy-maker but also as a significant purchaser, consumer, and user of goods and services. The circularization of the public sector itself, however, has received very little attention in CE research. In order to explore the current state of knowledge on the implementation of CE practices and strategies within Public Sector Organizations (PSOs), this research aims to develop an overview of the existing literature. The literature review was designed combining a systematic search with a complementary purposive sampling. Using organizational sustainability as a theoretical perspective, the main results showed a scattered landscape, indicating that the limited research on CE practices and strategies in PSOs has focused so far on the areas of public procurement, internal operations and processes, and public service delivery. As a result of this literature review, an organizational CE framework of a PSO is proposed providing a holistic view of a PSO as a system with organizational dimensions that are relevant for the examination and analysis of the integration process of CE practices and strategies. This innovative framework aims to help further CE research and practice to move beyond current sustainability efforts, highlighting that public procurement, strategy and management, internal processes and operations, assessment and communication, public service delivery, human resources dimensions, collaboration with other organizations, and various external contexts are important public sector areas where the implementation of CE has the potential to bring sustainability benefits.

Since 2015, the intended climate actions of the Paris Agreement signatories have been reported as nationally determined contributions (NDC). These climate actions are fully aligned with the 13th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) which calls for urgent action to combat climate change. The same, however, cannot be said for their relation to the other 16 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, since climate action can either enhance or compromise the prospects for SDG implementation. In light of this challenge, this paper proposes a simple method for quantifying the synergies and trade-offs between national climate actions and the SDGs. The method, referred to as Q-SCAN, makes use of a seven-step scale and the SDG Climate Action Nexus tool. The effectiveness of the method has been demonstrated on a case study of North Macedonia, a non-Annex I, Western Balkan country with a coal-intensive energy system. Based on the experience in the preparation of the country’s enhanced NDC, the paper elaborates how the method can be used to contribute to the alignment of the national climate actions with the SDGs and how it can be used to improve stakeholder engagement.

Decarbonisation of the iron and steel industry would require the use of innovative low-carbon production technologies. Use of 100% hydrogen in a shaft furnace (SF) to reduce iron ore has the potential to reduce emissions from iron and steel production significantly. In this work, results from the techno-economic assessment of a H2-SF connected to an electric arc furnace(EAF) for steel production are presented under two scenarios. In the first scenario H2 is produced from molten metal methane pyrolysis in an electrically heated liquid metal bubble column reactor. Grid connected low-temperature alkaline electrolyser was cosnidered for H2 production in the second scenario. In both cases, 59.25 kgH2 was required for the production of one ton of liquid steel (tls). The specific energy consumption (SEC) for the methane pyrolysis based system was found to be 5.16 MWh/tls. The system used 1.51 MWh/tls of electricity, and required 263 kg/tls of methane, corresponding to an energy consumption of 3.65 MWh/tls. The water electrolysis based system consumed 3.96 MWh/tls of electricity, at an electrolyser efficiency of 50 KWh/kgH2. Both systems have direct emissions of 129.4 kgCO2/tls. The indirect emissions are dependent on the source of natural gas, pellet making process and the grid-emission factor. Indirect emissions for the electrolysis based system could be negligible, if the electricity is generated from renewable energy sources. The levellized cost of production(LCOP) was found to be $631, and $669 respectively at a discount rate of 8%, for a plant-life of 20 years. The LCOP of a natural gas reforming based direct reduction steelmaking plant of operating under similar conditions was found to be $414. Uncertainty analysis was conducted for the NPV and IRR values. The Python scripts used for the calculations can be accessed at 10.5281/zenodo.4504841 {"references": ["10.5281/zenodo.4504841"]}

The article is devoted to main theoretical and practical questions concerning “green” investments in logistics infrastructure objects. This type of investments has certain peculiarities as it deals with the sphere which is related to any kind of business and human’s activity. Logistic infrastructure forms mobility. But no significant change in a separate facility will not give a significant result without a support to the relevant network and the highest intellectual level of its use. Planning of logistic infrastructure should be performed in such way that the positive effect on economic growth was maximal, and the negative impact on the environment is minimal. Thant’s why improving logistics infrastructure facilitates achieving sustainable goals as it works simultaneously for economic, environmental and social development. Thus it is extremely important to implement such tool from “green” economy concept as “green” investments towards logistics infrastructure objects. There were analyzed different theoretical approaches to the definition of “green” investments in the paper. The result of deep research of worlds’ best practical trends for “green” investing in logistics infrastructure objects is provided. There studied separately mentioned tendencies for all subtypes of hard logistics infrastructure: transport (electrification of vehicles, low-carbon transport systems, sustainable fuels), warehouse (automation, distribution centers decentralization, energy-efficient equipment and construction), packaging (suitable for processing packaging materials, moving from plastic to more environmental types of packaging), information infrastructure (energy-efficient servers, cloud computing, reducing the number of toxic materials and water required for the production of electronic devices), customs (The Green Customs Initiative), social (smart containers, automated food waste tracking systems and automated technologies of optical scanning). Also were studied main instruments to attract necessary finance support for “green” investments and analyzed ways how to implement them in Ukrainian market with its peculiarities.

By the implementing an enterprise development program, the existing key competence of the organization may undergo significant changes. Also introducing innovations, you can get not only benefits, but additional problems and even risks. It should be noted that an organization may have more than one key competence, especially when we deal with changes in the management structure or entering new markets. For this class of tasks, the classical linear optimization problem does not fit, since it does not take into account the additional conditions that arise when an organization transitions from one state to another, precisely due to the implementation of the development program. Therefore, to solve this problem, we need a dual problem. The subject of research in this article is the process of introducing key competence, as the main component of the management of innovative projects in the organization. Objective: to develop a tool for introducing key competence into an organization’s work by solving a dual linear optimization problem. Tasks: to analyze the factors influencing the results and the possibility of introducing key competence in the organization’s activities, to obtain a general algorithm for the transition from direct to dual competence. Research methods: logical generalization, analysis and synthesis, structural analysis. Results: The article considers the key competence of the enterprise as the main component of the management of innovative projects, which the company implements. Shown her place and the role that she plays. A project description model has been developed, which describes processes that take into account the impact of the production and economic system on project implementation. The article proposes a general algorithm for constructing pairs of dual linear optimization problems. The existing schemes of transition from a direct problem to a dual one are meaningful. Considering this fact, a generalized algorithm for generating pairs of related problems has been proposed and strictly proved. Formalization of the developed scheme makes it easy to get the correct pairs of dual problems. It is shown that the analysis of the key competence of the enterprise makes it possible to offer a new base for the formation of a strategic plan, the implementation of which will lead to the emergence (support) of a sustainable competitive advantage, as well as assess its potential in terms of financial plan and capabilities of the enterprise or business system as a whole. Conclusions: The tools for analysis and implementation of key competence in the organization’s activities have been developed. The results obtained in during the study allow us to state that a new base has been proposed for the formation of a strategic plan for the development of an enterprise, the use of this base will lead to a sustainable competitive advantage, which will become possible when implementing key competences in the process of changing the management structure. Taking into account that an organization can have more than one key competence, the second competence is dual to the original, that allows a general transition from direct to dual competence.

Nature-based solutions have not been able to actively involve citizens and to address successfully food security, poverty alleviation, and inequality in urban areas. The Edible City approach promises a strategic step towards the development of sustainable, livable, and healthy cities. We introduce the conceptional framework of Edible City Solutions (ECS), including different forms of urban farming combined with closed loop systems for sustainable water, nutrient, and waste management. We review scientific evidence on ECS benefits for urban regeneration and describe the status quo of ECS in Rotterdam, Andernach, Oslo, Heidelberg, and Havana as case studies. We provide an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to explore the capacity of ECS to enhance multifunctionality of urban landscapes with special focus on social cohesion and quality of life. Based on this we identify and discuss strategies for fostering socially relevant implementations for the case study cities and beyond.

ΣIDERWIN project proposes to develop a breakthrough innovation compared to the present-day steel production process by applying electrochemical technique to iron metal production. The electrolysis process using renewable energies will transform any iron oxide, including those inside the by-products from other metallurgies, into steel plate with a significant reduction of energy use. This process decomposes under mild conditions but at intense reaction rate naturally occurring iron oxides such as hematite into iron metal and oxygen gas. By developing a low-CO2 steel production process, the project could contribute to the reduction of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Compared to traditional steelmaking plants, this innovative technology has several positive impacts such as: a reduction by 87% of the direct CO2 emissions; a reduction by 31% of the direct energy use; the ability to produce steel from by-products rich in iron oxides from non-ferrous metallurgy residues; an increased integration with renewable energies with a more flexible process.

The paper considers the transformation of human resource management processes in the healthcare settings of Ukraine in the context of war and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is noted that the unstable and hostile environment of a healthcare setting during times of crisis leads to the need to change the personnel selection and team formation model to increase the adaptability and resilience of human resources involved in the provision of medical care. The key features of the human resource management process in a turbulent environment are the high migration activity of personnel, which leads to the need to reallocate resources, the need to operate under severe financial constraints, and the need to consider personnel as a non-renewable resource when it is impossible to attract additional resources. To ensure the reliability of the functioning of a medical institution, the transformation of human resource management processes should be based on strategic agility and human resource management, organizational resilience as a resource-based capability, corporate sustainability, and transformation of enterprises’ resources, which can be achieved by applying methodological support for resource management in a multi-project environment. Considering a network of medical institutions as a multi-project environment will allow using the methodology of project-oriented resource management, forming adaptive teams in a multi-project environment, to ensure flexible redistribution of resources both within a single institution and within a network of institutions. It is proposed to use formal transformations to manage a medical institution’s human resources. Applying the proposed approach for managing the human resources of a medical institution is considered. The formation of a project team that satisfies the minimum requirements with the maximum value of the team’s qualification score is considered. It is shown that the use of this methodological support made it possible to choose the composition of the project team with a minimum number and a maximum value of the characteristic.