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Tools that can benchmark cities, including cities in South East Europe, are necessary to enable the comparison and diffusion of more sustainable practices for urban systems. The “Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index” provides a composite indicator for benchmarking city performance based on 7 dimensions and 35 main indicators. In this research work, the Index is applied to a new sample of 18 cities in South East Europe for which data is collected, normalized, and aggregated. Klagenfurt (3.08), Velenje (3.06) and Pécs (3.01) are found to be the top three cities in the sample while an average city receives an index score of 2.85. The results are further compared to reference averages and evaluated based on the mean simulated values of 10,000 Monte Carlo experiments. The results are interpreted in quartiles for pioneering, transitioning, solution-seeking, and challenged cities. The results are then applied within a benchmarking tool of the Index that supports policy learning to trigger collaboration between cities and further used to match cities according to a search algorithm based on index performance. In addition, the results are compared to urban hierarchy as well as development contexts and mapped onto the spatial dimension as an initial step for enabling a “Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Future City Network”. The paper concludes with a set of four proposed steps to enable decision-makers and urban planners in using the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index in support of more sustainable urban systems.

The Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (JSDEWES) is an international journal dedicated to the improvement and dissemination of knowledge on methods, policies and technologies for increasing the sustainability of development by de-coupling growth from natural resources and replacing them with knowledge based economy, taking into account its economic, environmental and social pillars, as well as methods for assessing and measuring sustainability of development, regarding energy, transport, water, environment and food production systems and their many combinations. In total 48 manuscripts were published in Volume VI, all of them reviewed by at least two reviewers. The Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems would like to thank reviewers for their contribution to the quality of the published manuscripts.

Urban sustainability is one of the most prominent challenges in the global agenda waiting to be addressed since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. This research work applies a composite indicator that has been developed as the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index to benchmark the performance of a new sample of 26 world cities. The sample advances the geographical diversity of previous samples and represents cities in the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy as well as the C40 initiative. The benchmarking results are analysed based on quartiles of city performance and Monte Carlo simulations. The results indicate the top three cities in the sample to be Copenhagen, which obtains a score of 36.038, followed by Helsinki and Gothenburg. The top cities represent multiple best practices including those in district energy networks, water quality, and environmental management. A normative scenario up to the year 2050 is then applied to one of the cities in the sample, namely Rio de Janeiro. The normative scenario involves targets that take place in local plans, particularly Vision Rio 500. The benchmarking results for the new sample of 26 world cities and the normative scenario not only identifies the benchmark leaders but also underlines opportunities to pursue pathways in which higher levels of performance can be reached by cities that may face multiple challenges. The results of the research work holds significance for advancing the application of an original composite indicator to benchmark cities towards supporting the aim of decoupling economic growth from environmental pressures in more sustainable urban systems towards carbon neutrality.&nbsp

Benchmarking the performance of cities across aspects that relate to the sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems requires an integrated approach. This paper benchmarks a sample of 12 Southeast European cities based on a composite indicator that consists of 7 dimensions and 35 main indicators. The composite indicator is namely the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) City Sustainability Index. The first three dimensions are energy consumption and climate, penetration of energy and carbon dioxide saving measures, and renewable energy potential and utilization. The last four dimensions are water and environmental quality, carbon dioxide emissions and industrial profile, city planning and social welfare, and research, development, innovation, and sustainability policy. The data collection process for the 12 cities integrates data from Sustainable Energy Action Plans and other sources. Data entries are normalized based on the Min-Max method and aggregated for a final ranking. Zagreb, Bucharest (District 1), and Ohrid are the top three cities. An average city receives a composite score of 2.69. Best practices are identified to allow cities to adopt well-rounded efforts to improve future performance. The SDEWES Index is useful to trigger learning, action, and collaboration among cities to transition to a more sustainable future. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems - JSDEWES is an international journal dedicated to the improvement and dissemination of knowledge on methods, policies and technologies for increasing the sustainability of development by de-coupling growth from natural resources and replacing them with knowledge based economy, taking into account its economic, environmental and social pillars, as well as methods for assessing and measuring sustainability of development, regarding energy, transport, water, environment and food production systems and their many combinations. In total 32 manuscripts were published in Volume III, all of them reviewed by at least two reviewers. The Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems would like to thank reviewers for their contribution to the quality of the published manuscripts.

Due to the problems related to energy supply and the threatening consequences of the global climate change the need for inevitable changes in energy supply is becoming more and more obvious. This includes not only a change of the energy sources, but also in energy carriers and technologies for their conversion into useful forms of energy, and a change in the ways energy is being used. Based on present knowledge, the only energy sources that satisfy the sustainability conditions are the renewable energy sources - direct solar insulation and its consequences (wind, hydro, biomass). As the renewable energy sources cannot be utilized directly in most of applications there is a need for energy carriers which can be produced from renewable energy sources and which can satisfy all the energy needs at the end use, again satisfying the sustainability conditions. Electricity is one such energy carrier which may be used in most but not in all applications. There is a need for other energy carriers in the form of fuels which can be stored and be used in transportation and for covering needs for electricity in the periods when the renewable energy sources are not sufficient. This is a role that hydrogen can fulfill in a future energy system - hydrogen satisfies the sustainability conditions, can be produced from renewable energy sources and together with electricity can satisfy all the energy needs. Papers selected from the Dubrovnik Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy and Water Systems deal with different aspects of sustainable hydrogen production and utilization, but also with renewables which may be used in hydrogen production. The 4th Dubrovnik Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems, held in 2007, was dedicated to the improvement and dissemination of knowledge on methods, policies and technologies for increasing the sustainability of development, taking into account its economic, environmental and social pillars, as well as methods for assessing and measuring sustainability of development, regarding energy, transport, water and environment systems and their many combinations. Sustainability being also a perfect field for interdisciplinary and multi-cultural evaluation of complex system, the Dubrovnik Conference has during the first decade of the 21st century become a significant venue for researchers in those areas to meet, and discuss, share, and disseminate new ideas.