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Toothpaste tablets are claimed as a sustainable oral care solution because of their plastic-free concept and ability to deliver the same health benefits as toothpaste cream without harming the environment. Various studies on the environmental impacts related to toothpaste packaging have been conducted; however, far too little attention has been paid to toothpaste ingredients. Life cycle assessment was employed to evaluate the impacts between cleaning teeth with toothpaste cream and tablets. The functional unit of brushing teeth for 2 min twice a day for 6 months was compared within a cradle-to-grave system boundary. The study was conducted in the context of toothpaste manufacturing and domestic consumption in Thailand. Results show that using toothpaste tablets remarkably contributes to a higher score than applying toothpaste cream, accounting for 188 and 163 millipoints, respectively. About 65% of the total impact is from the use phase, and 20% is from ingredient production. The damage to human health is the biggest concern (10.358 × 10−6 DALY). Sugar alcohols, magnesium stearate, and polyvidone are inactive ingredients in the tablets that cause serious human health problems. Toothpaste manufacturers should reconsider ingredient substitution and redesign an appropriate amount and form of the tablet to mitigate the abovementioned impacts.

This study attempted to manage the food waste and soybean curd residue generated in Taiwan's National Ilan University by black soldier fly-aided co-composting. The food waste and soybean curd residue were co-composted with rice husk as a bulking agent in 4:1 ratio and 0.42 mg BSF/g waste. The higher organic matter degradation of 31.9% was found in Container B (black soldier flies aided food waste and rice husk co-composting) with a rate constant of 0.14 d

Chemicals have found extensive application in the agricultural system due to its benefits in increasing agricultural productivity and in minimizing the pests’ population. It is widely accepted that pesticides are capable enough in the rapid and successful removal of target pests. However, the negative and chronic irreparable impacts it imposes on the environment and on the health of living beings cannot be overruled. Pesticide resistance, pest resurgence, and pest residues are the major challenges caused by the prolonged use of pesticides. Alternate pest management techniques, integrated efforts of man and natural pest agents and the judicious Integrated Pest Management, are needed to safeguard the human, other living organisms, and the environment. In this chapter, the development of pesticide resistance in pests and resurgence has been discussed in detail, along with the solution tactics for effective pesticide pollution management.70

Coffee production has been a major source of income in Vietnam since the early twentieth century. This research aims to identify the hot spots, estimate and compare the environmental effects of conventional intensive, conventional moderate and organic intensive coffee cultivation methods in Vietnam. Life cycle assessment was used for the determination of environmental effects and carbon footprint for different coffee cultivation methods from cradle to gate. Functional unit was defined as 1 kg of green Robusta coffee bean in Tan Ha Commune, Lam Ha District, Lam Dong Province. The environmental effects of coffee cultivation were compared by SimaPro 8.3.0, and the two impact assessment methods used were IPCC 2013 v1.03 and ReCiPe v1.13. The life cycle assessment results in hotspot assessment for fertilizer and pesticide application showed that the conventional intensive contributed 85.5% to global warming owing to the high input of manure, whereas conventional moderate and organic intensive contributed 80.4% and 68% to global warming, respectively, throughout the 30 years of cultivation. Moreover, endpoint impact result indicated that human health is most affected by coffee cultivation compared to resources and ecosystem. The carbon footprint result of 1-year average productivity showed that the conventional intensive (0.935 kg CO2e) method had the highest global warming potential in comparison with conventional moderate (0.729 kg CO2e) and organic intensive (0.644 kg CO2e) due to the highest amount of fertilizer application. This study demonstrated that conventional intensive has the highest impact on the environment, followed by conventional moderate and organic intensive. Therefore, it is important to optimize Vietnamese coffee cultivation methods in order to reduce the impact on the environment and human health, while producing sustainable coffee for the international and domestic market.

Carbon label, which is also known as the carbon footprint label or carbon emission label, is the sum of carbon dioxide emissions generated from each stage in the life cycle of a product. R...

The growing recognition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been integrated globally into product design and business activities. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered a useful tool for designers to apply in the early stages of product design to mitigate the environmental impact. The study aims to identify the challenges of applying simplified LCA tools to improve the eco-efficiency of products and achieve a higher level of sustainable innovation. The study was conducted in a sustainable design course at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, for four consecutive years. All challenges and opportunities by using ECO-it, Eco-indicators, and the Materials, Energy use, and Toxic emissions (MET) matrix to assess the environmental impact in each phase of 11 home appliances are presented and discussed. Results show the positive potential of applying the tools to achieve function innovation in design for sustainable innovation. The needs for guided instruction, the availability of the database, the complexity of a study product, and the overlooking of social dimensions are four major challenges in applying the tools in the early stages of product redesign. Further study in testing the tools and developing a database in collaboration with industries should be conducted to compare and validate the results.

A consolidated and comprehensive global paradigm shift from linear to circular economy leads to the urge of circular bioeconomy. Circular economy and bioeconomy are two ideas that are at a frontier of change. Circular bioeconomy supports the idea of bringing the industries closer to nature by supporting cutting-edge material innovation. The current study provides insights into the present and future worldwide scenario of circular bioeconomy. An extensive literature outlines the policies and framework of circular bioeconomy adopted across the world. However, a detailed summary of policies is only limited to a few nations including India, China, European Union (EU), the United States, Brazil, and South Africa. Additionally, a particular case about Namibian Bush encroachment as a circular bioeconomy business model is included. It also highlights the challenges and opportunities for the developing nations in shifting from a linearized bioeconomy model to a circular loop.

Gamification is the use of game elements, mechanics, and experience design to engage user behaviors and solve real-world problems. Applications of serious games and gamification in sustainable design education have been novel. To raise environmental consciousness and knowledge of industrial design students, the gamification design system was integrated into sustainable design pedagogy. The aim is to evaluate the learning effectiveness of this intervention. The study was conducted in a sustainable design course for three consecutive years at the Department of Industrial Design, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Nine Eco-Game projects were designed and playtested. Participant observations and evaluations by checklists and web-based questionnaires were then performed during in-classroom activities among sophomores and juniors. Results revealed that the integration can enhance learning outcomes in environmental information and design aspects depending on the complexity of game rules, adequacy of prototype testing period, and concentration for physical actions and game tasks. In this way, students can learn through playing and designing games. However, this phase is solely at the early stage of intervention in this field. Further research is needed to fully integrate systematic gamification into the learning environment and encourage pro-environmental behavior change.

Rare earth elements are key raw materials in high-technology industries. Mining activities and manufacturing processes of such industries have caused considerable environmental impacts, such as soil erosion, vegetation destruction, and various forms of pollution. Sustaining the long-term supply of rare earth elements is difficult because of the global shortage of rare earth resources. The diminishing supply of rare earth elements has attracted considerable concern because many industrialized countries regarded such elements as important strategic resources for economic growth. This study aims to explore the carbon footprints of yttrium and europium recovery techniques from phosphor. Two extraction recovery methods, namely, acid extraction and solvent extraction, were selected for the analysis and comparison of carbon footprints. The two following functional units were used: (1) the same phosphor amounts for specific Y and Eu recovery concentrations, and (2) the same phosphor amounts for extraction. For acid extraction method, two acidic solutions (H2SO4 and HCl) were used at two different temperatures (60 and 90°C). For solvent extraction method, acid leaching was performed followed by ionic liquid extraction. Carbon footprints from acid and solvent extraction methods were estimated to be 10.1 and 10.6kgCO2eq, respectively. Comparison of the carbon emissions of the two extraction methods shows that the solvent extraction method has significantly higher extraction efficiency, even though acid extraction method has a lower carbon footprint. These results may be used to develop strategies for life cycle management of rare earth resources to realize sustainable usage.

Climate change is an important global environmental threat. Agriculture aggravates climate change by increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and in response, climate change reduces agricultural productivity. Consequently, the modern agricultural development mode has progressively transformed into a kind of sustainable development mode. This study aimed to determine the environmental impact and carbon footprint of Dongshan tea from Yilan County. Environmental impact was assessed with use of SimaPro version 8.0.2 and IMPACT2002+. Results showed that climate change has the largest impact upon it in general, followed by human health, natural resources, and ecosystem quality. Furthermore, with use of the IPCC 2007 100a method for carbon footprint of products (CFP), conventional tea was found to have a CFP of 7.035 kgCO2-e, and its main contributors are the raw material (35.15%) and consumer use (45.58%) phases. From this case study, we found that the hotspots of the life cycle of environmental impact of Taiwanese tea mainly come from fertilizer input during the raw material phase, electricity use during manufacturing, and electricity use during water boiling in the consumer use phase (which contributes the largest impact). We propose the ways for consumers to use of highly efficient boiling water facilities and heating preservation, and the government must market the use of organic fertilizers in the national policy subsidies, and farmers have to prudent use of fertilizers and promote the use of local raw fertilizers, and engagement in direct sales for reducing the environmental impacts and costs of agricultural products and thus advancing sustainable agriculture development.

Municipal solid waste management is an environmental issue that has received considerable attention from researchers and environmental managers for decades. Supporting the management programs entail policies and regulations related to municipal solid waste. In developed countries, the implementation of environmental policies plays an important role and has a substantial impact on the effectiveness of solid waste management. However, in many developing countries such as Vietnam, the situation and effectiveness of the policy implementation have not been studied extensively. This investigation is conducted to ascertain the situation, limitations, and challenges in implementing solid waste management policy in Vietnam. Then, solutions for the problems and improvements for implementation efficiency are presented. This work used online questionnaires to survey environmental managers in different localities and applied qualitative research method to analyze data. The results show that not all national policies on solid waste management are implemented in all localities. Waste separation is also the foremost concern in municipal waste management in most localities of Vietnam. Most of the localities claimed that the unrealistic nature and difficult implementation of the policies and the lack of needed resources are the main limitations and challenges in Vietnam. Survey results also revealed that different localities in Vietnam have different solutions to increase policy implementation efficiency. Besides, the study also found similarities in the implementation of policies in solid waste management between Vietnam and some other countries and also gathered some valuable lessons for the improvement strategy. Finally, the implementation of an effective domestic solid waste management policy is an important platform for improving environmental quality and ensuring the sustainable development of the nation and mankind.

Environmental impact assessment studies have completely and rapidly focused on the shift from economic to environmental competitiveness in semiconductor packaging industries under the trend of small size and diverse semiconductor products. This study has two main objectives, namely, (1) to adopt traditional life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) for investigating the environmental damage of three packaging technologies, namely, ball grid array (BGA), flip chip (FC), and lead frame (LF). Two commonly used materials in 2017, namely, gold and copper wires, were analyzed. The functional unit was defined on the basis of the packaging volume (1 mm3); (2) to identify influential parameters for developing two parametric LCIA equations for the BGA. Results show that the semiconductor back-end industry should gradually replace gold wires with copper wires without affecting the function of products and should promote the low impact packaging technology (LF) while satisfying the customer’s demands. Tree influential parameters (packaging volume, wire mass, and lead counts) of LCIA are identified by regression analysis, and the lead count can be considered a worthwhile alternative parameter for allocation and establishing the parametric tool when the packaging volume of the product is unavailable. The parametric tool can reduce the time cost of collecting LCI data and avoid the analysis errors and uncertainty caused by the distribution. The research can serve as a guide for the PCRs (LCA-PCR) of the semiconductor industry for suitable alternative allocation principles and functional units.

The pressure on brand firms in the electronics industry to improve the labor conditions of their workers in their global production networks is increasing. Given the significance of mitigating the impacts of production on labor, this study used the new development method of social life cycle impact assessment (SLCIA) for conducting labor impact assessment. An illustrative example in an integrated circuit (IC) packaging company is presented to demonstrate the assessment of the impacts and the identification of the potential for improvement of labor practices among three factories. SLCIA method was proposed based on the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines that were reviewed in our previous work, Part 1 (in a previous article): Methodology. The proposed method was used to assess the impacts of operations on labor in the three factories of an IC packaging company. Nineteen indicators of labor–stakeholders were used to collect data from factories and organizations in 2012. The obtained values from these three factories were translated into social impact scores that ranged from 1 to 5. The score of each indicator was multiplied by the weights of each indicator, and a final score of labor situations was generated to identify the hotspots of labor impacts and to identify the factory with better labor performance. The main goal of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed SLCIA method in assessing the labor impacts in the electronics industry. Among three factories of IC packaging, factory C was ranked as having the lowest social impact on labor with a higher performance, followed by factories B and A. In addition, the results show that four indicators, “lacking labor union,” “did not hire a sufficient number of disabled employees,” “overtime work that exceeded the legal limit,” and “excessive number of dispatched workers,” were recognized as the main social impacts on labor in IC packaging production. The SLCA technique was used to assess the impacts of the production processes of three IC packaging factories on the labor conditions of their factory workers. The proposed method shed light on the significant impacts of such processes. The proposed model demonstrated its potential advantage by systematically and effectively identifying the labor impact hotspots, which could assist managers in devising strategies that could improve the labor situations within their organizations.

This study aims to develop a new framework of social life cycle impact assessment (SLCIA) method based on the United Nations Environment Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) Guidelines for analyzing the social impact in Taiwan, particularly in the electronics industry. After reviewing the literature on social life cycle assessment (SLCA), we analyzed existing case studies and developed SLCIA methods based on the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines. We thereafter identified stakeholders, subcategories, and indicators in accordance with the current status of SLCA case studies and opinions from ten experts in the Taiwanese electronics industry. Both quantitative and semi-quantitative indicators were subsequently proposed to assess the social impact of workers in the Taiwanese electronics sector. Each indicator was given the score of 1 to 5 by classifying the social impact percentage of nine scales. To formulate an analytic framework for SLCIA, the weighting values of each subcategory and indicator were determined using the consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) method. Seven subcategories and 19 qualitative and quantitative indicators of worker stakeholders for the electronics sector were identified based on the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines. A score of 1 to 5 is assigned to each quantitative indicator by classifying the social impact percentage of nine scales. The data obtained from companies for each quantitative indicator were subsequently transformed into social impact percentage in terms of the statistical data on social situations at the country or industry level. With regard to semi-quantitative indicators, three implementation levels of management efforts on social performance within five elements were identified. The CFPR method was then employed to determine the weights of each indicator by ten experts. Results indicated that preventing forced work practices, protecting children from having to work, and providing minimum and fair wages for workers are the three most important indicators for assessing social impact. A new SLCIA method that incorporates both quantitative and semi-quantitative indicators was proposed for assessing social impact in the electronics sector in Taiwan. Nine quantitative indicators can be easily organized using available social data from government statistics as performance reference points (PRPs) to determine the social impact exerted by companies. The relative weights were determined to allow for an impact assessment and thus solve the limitation of their currently assumed equal weights. The proposed framework is examined to analyze the social impact of three production sites for semiconductor packaging and manufacturing in Taiwan.

The planetary boundary (PB) concept can be used as a guide for the absolute environmental sustainability (AES) of humanity. However, the downscaling of PB as a guide remains a challenge at the local scale. This study aims to establish absolute environmentally sustainable indicators (AESIs) and a threshold based on five processes of the Earth system, namely, climate change, ocean acidification, biogeochemical flow (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles), land system change, and freshwater use, for local AES assessment. A case study of Taiwan was conducted. This work also introduced the dynamic concept into developing dynamic normalization factors (DNFs) and dynamic weighting factors (DWFs) for AESIs to support decision-making. DNFs were defined as desired targets in the future; they were developed on the basis of the thresholds of AESIs at the global and national levels in a different timeline. DWFs were defined as weights for assessing the distance of a current situation from the desired targets; they were evaluated on the basis of the distance-to-target approach. The territorial perspective was adopted as a downscaling method to develop 11 AESIs and thresholds based on the PB framework for the AES assessment of Taiwan. Results showed that the nationally determined contribution target of the carbon pathway is not ambitious compared with the annual and cumulative boundaries of climate change and ocean acidification. Phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers are two of the three subcategories in biogeochemical flow with very high risks. Phosphorus flow from a freshwater system to the oceans and forest cover was evaluated as moderate risk. Meanwhile, annual freshwater use was determined as low risk. However, when spatial and temporal factors were considered, annual freshwater use was assessed as high risk during the dry season in Southern and Central Taiwan. DNFs and DWFs are more suitable at the local level than at the global level when applying normalization and weighting to reflect a real situation. This study not only provided a new concept for local policy makers to rethink environmental sustainability, but also explored various AES tools at the local scale to connect the local situation with global issues to support decision-making.

After a series of policy measures and economic incentives imposed by the government in the early 90s, the waste management in Taiwan has achieved an impressive result and the national recycling rate was increased from 21 to 62% during 2003 to 2012. However, waste management problems still may happen when a new business trend emerges such as a new technology, product, or a consumption pattern. The government thus began to adopt the concept of sustainable materials management (SMM) brought by OECD to manage all materials in a systematic way. Other than SMM, the initiates of circular economy emerge as a new trend recently in Europe to transform the conventional linear economy practice into a circular one and the prospect of circular economy in Taiwan is discussed herein.

The advent of global awareness of sustainable development resulted in consumer demand for low-carbon electronic products. Thus, semiconductor industry has to develop additional core competencies in that direction to remain competitive. The present study aims to establish a parametric-based tool that can identify key parameters of the complicated manufacturing processes in the semiconductor industry to simplify the calculation of the carbon footprint of products (CFP). Six regression models for CFP were developed by applying process and statistical analyses on 7114 wafer products. Results indicate that these regression models with the three key parameters (mask layer, metal layer, and technology node) can effectively predict the CFP of wafer with six different function types because the adjusted R 2 of all regression models was >0.5. Moreover, the mask layer could be the most important parameter for predicting CFP of wafer because of its higher standardized coefficients (β) in each regression model. This methodology reduces the time, cost, and information requirements of the product in traditional life cycle assessment. The proposed method introduces criteria for low-carbon decision making in the semiconductor sector.

Sustainable development has always been the objective of many fields, including the tourism and transportation sector. However, a major part of this sector, the airline industry, deals with many negative impacts, such as air pollution, noise, CO 2 emission, and labor practice. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a strategic business activity that can enhance the sustainability of the airline industry. The results of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) reveal that airlines of Western countries exhibit a more remarkable CSR performance than Asia-Pacific airlines, suggesting that the CSR programs of Asia-Pacific airlines need improvement. By constructing an evaluation hierarchy and applying the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method, this study found that the key strategic factors in the airline industry’s implementation of CSR include corporate governance, risk and crisis management, brand management, and product responsibility (safety).

The accommodation sector is the most demanding energy consumer among all building stock categories. This study quantifies an international tourist hotel in Taiwan to holistically estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of hotel accommodation services through a complete life cycle inventory. The study also investigates the difference between the carbon emissions of the baseline and reduction years to understand the effects of carbon emission reduction on the hotel industry. Results show that energy consumption is the main source of carbon footprint. However, the carbon emissions of other activities, such as the production and transportation of hotel amenities and laundry services, are 15.90% for the baseline year and 16.03% for the reduction year. These values are larger than the 5% cutoff rule according to PAS 2050. Thus, these factors should also be considered in assessing the carbon emissions of accommodation services. Hotel occupancy rate significantly affects carbon emissions during a one-night stay in ...

The pursuit of sustainable resource use by manufacturing companies is driven by resource scarcity, environmental awareness, and cost savings potentials. To address these issues, Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) has been developed and applied as an effective environmental management tool. Within MFCA’s general allocation, the accounts of products and losses are overrated by weight or volume. However, such a method is incompatible with Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturing because of industry characteristics in which primary inputs and products are measured by area. Based on MFCA, this case study systematically established several linear cost calculation models along the production process for capturing the actual waste flows as well as performing cost-benefit analysis. The recognition of previously ignored losses offered the incentive to find appropriate indicators to conduct cost-benefit analysis on hotspots for losses. Loss identification and analysis indicated that machining and wiring are the necessities and priorities of process optimization for resource efficiency improvement measures. Therefore, this research could not only advance the achievement of a profitable and sustainable production while improving resource efficiency at the source but could also provide support for decision making in PCB manufacturing.

Depleting fossil fuel sources and worsening global warming are two of the most serious world problems. Many renewable energy technologies are continuously being developed to overcome these challenges. Among these technologies, high-concentration photovoltaics (HCPV) is a promising technology that reduces the use of expensive photovoltaic materials to achieve highly efficient energy conversion. This reduction process is achieved by adopting concentrating and tracking technologies. This study intends to understand and assess the carbon footprint and energy payback time (EPBT) of HCPV modules during their entire life cycles. The social benefit of carbon reduction is also evaluated as another indicator to assess the energy alternatives. An HCPV module and a tracker from the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) were applied, and SimaPro 8.0.2 was used for the assessment. The functional unit used in this study was 1 kWh, which is produced by HCPV, and inventory data was sourced from Ecoinvent 3.0 and the Taiwan carbon footprint calculation database. The carbon footprint, EPBT, and social benefit of carbon reduction were evaluated as 107.69 g CO2eq/kWh, 2.61 years, and 0.022 USD/kWh, respectively. Direct normal irradiation (DNI), life expectancy, and the degradation rate of HCPV system were subjected to sensitivity analysis. Results show that the influence of lifetime assumption under a low DNI value is greater than those under high DNI values. Degradation rate is also another important factor when assessing the carbon footprint of HCPV under a low DNI value and a long lifetime assumption. The findings of this study can provide several insights for the development of the Taiwanese solar industry.

This study aims to utilize the Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach to recognize the influential criteria of carbon management in green supply chain for improving the overall performance of suppliers in terms of carbon management. Thirteen criteria of carbon management with three dimensions were identified from literature review and interview with three experts at an electronics manufacturer. By considering the interrelationships among the criteria, DEMATEL was applied to deal with the importance and causal relationships among the evaluation criteria of supplier selection. Obtained results show that the criteria of management systems of carbon information and training related to carbon management are revealed to be the top two significant influences in selecting suppliers with carbon management competencies. By identifying the structures and interrelationships, it can offer an insight for managers to understand cause-effort relationships and allow to select suppliers who are capable of having competence in carbon management and to improve suppliers’ performance.

This study focuses on lack of access to basic health care, which is one of the hindrances to the development of the poor, and subjects them to the poverty penalty. It also focuses on contributing to the Bottom of the Pyramid in a general sense, in addition to meeting the health needs of communities where people live on less than $1 a day. Strengthened multistakeholder responses and better-targeted, low-cost prevention, and care strategies within health systems are suggested to address the health burdens of poverty-stricken communities. In this study, a multistakeholder model which includes the government, World Health Organization, United Nations Children Emergency Fund, and the Medical Research Council was created to highlight the collaborative approach in rural Gambia. The result shows infant immunization and antenatal care coverage were greatly improved which contributes to the reduction in mortality. This case study also finds that strategies addressing health problems in rural communities are required to achieve 'Millennium Development Goals'. In particular, actual community visits to satellite villages within a district (area of study) are extremely vital to making health care accessible.

Adaptation to climate change has been recognized as very important in developing countries that face the greatest threats from global warming. In proposing various adaptation approaches, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change required nations to prepare adaptation plans of action. However, the areas of priority in climate change adaptation have not been considered. This study has developed a new prioritization methodology for climate change adaptation in developing countries. Five categories and 25 approaches in climate change adaptation were adopted through a thorough and detailed analysis of pertinent literature related to the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) in the Gambia. A fuzzy analytic hierarchy process-based questionnaire survey was designed and presented to 12 experts chosen from the committee members of the Gambia’s NAPA. The survey was made to determine the relative importance of the strategies for climate change adaptation. The results indicate that the five most important adaptation categories are health (0.223), forestry (0.213), water (0.210), food (0.181), and energy (0.174), with health as the number one priority in climate change adaptation. Further findings show that the prioritization order of the adaptation approaches to climate change in the Gambia is as follows: “Health education,” “public sensitization,” “water supply infrastructure development,” “microfinance,” and “infrastructure and technology enhancement.”

After decades of developing corporate sustainability in Taiwan, the ICT sector has assumed the most important role in promoting corporate sustainability. Of the 13 corporations in the DJSI, nine are in the ICT sector. The corporate sustainability programs of such companies should be reevaluated in terms of their contributions to global sustainable development. This study analyzes whether the practices of Taiwanese ICT firms truly respond to global sustainability trends. This study is divided into two parts. First, an evaluating framework based on SDGs is developed using the documents published by SDG Compass and SDG Industry Matrix. The framework is identified from the aforementioned analysis, followed by the application of context analysis. The 9 corporate sustainability reports published by Taiwanese ICT sector firms of DJSI members in 2015 and 2016 are selected from the CSRone platform, which is a local database for sustainability reports in Taiwan. The sustainable actions in the 9 sustainability reports are subsequently assessed by the evaluating framework to demonstrate the corporations' efforts in responding to global sustainable goals. The outcomes of this research provide Taiwanese ICT sector firms with a broad understanding of global sustainable trends and integrate novel concepts into the decision-making process. This study also improves the sustainability of corporate activities or projects for the benefit of global citizens.

This paper presents an analytic network process (ANP) approach for the selection of potential sites for CO 2 geological storage as basis for further exploring geological features and simulation of transport characteristics. Site selection for CO 2 geological storage in this study can be considered as a complex multi-criteria decision-making problem, and thus a multi-criteria decision model with eight evaluation criteria is proposed. ANP is applied to site selection and is characterized by interdependencies among decision structure components. An illustrative example in the geological field of oil and gas reservoirs in Taiwan is presented to demonstrate ways to select and rank the most appropriate site in terms of storage capability. The results obtained in this study have proven that ANP-based approach is a useful tool in pre-screening potential sites for CO 2 geological storage, enabling decision-makers to facilitate CO 2 storage within climate policy.

Recently, an increasing number of Taiwanese companies have engaged in economic, environmental, and social disclosures through sustainability reports to demonstrate social responsibility. However, the quality and the contents of information disclosure have yet to be translated into meaningful and comprehensive reports. This article proposed a framework to evaluate the quality and the contents of the voluntary information disclosure of sustainability reports in Taiwan. The proposed framework is based on the Global Reporting Initiative G3 Guideline, scorecard, and other award scoring systems that were converted into comprehensive scoring systems to evaluate 16 reports published by companies operating in Taiwan. In all, 44 indicators within 18 criteria were recognized through expert questionnaires and the fuzzy Delphi method. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process was applied to determine the relative weightings of the 18 criteria, after which a multiple-criteria decision-making evaluation framework wa...

This paper proposed a sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) framework to measure the sustainable performance of the semiconductor industry. Based on the principle of four perspectives of balanced scorecard (BSC), of which two were changed from the financial and customer perspectives to sustainability and stakeholder perspectives to deal the insufficiently addressed issue of corporate social responsibility. Twenty-five measures of sustainable performance were recognized through expert questionnaires and through the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM). Further, the relative weights of the selected measures were determined using the analytic network process (ANP). Results indicated that the five most important measures of sustainable performance were profitability (0.2528), green innovation and investment (0.1563), green image (0.1546), customer satisfaction (0.0799), and sustainability awareness of the top management (0.0516). Among these measures, the top three all belonged to the sustainability perspective, which comprised 56% of the overall weighting. The proposed SBSC framework can help Taiwanese semiconductor companies enhance their competitiveness in terms of sustainable operations is anticipated.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore critical factors for implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) practice in the Taiwanese electrical and electronics industries relative to European Union directives.Design/methodology/approachA tentative list of critical factors of GSCM was developed based on a thorough and detailed analysis of the pertinent literature. The survey questionnaire contained 25 items, developed based on the literature and interviews with three industry experts, specifically quality and product assurance representatives. A total of 300 questionnaires were mailed out, and 87 were returned, of which 84 were valid, representing a response rate of 28 percent. Using the data collected, the identified critical factors were performed via factor analysis to establish reliability and validity.FindingsThe results show that 20 critical factors were extracted into four dimensions, which denominated supplier management, product recycling, organization involvement and life cycle management.Research limitations/implicationsThis study obtained 84 valid responses from the Taiwanese electrical and electronics industries, the limitation of the study is the insufficient sampling. Future researches need to be performed using a larger sample and studying more countries.Practical implicationsThe Taiwanese electrical and electronics industry plays a decisive role in the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Consequently, the validated instrument enables decision makers at ICT manufacturers to evaluate the perceptions of GSCM in their organizations. In addition, the critical factors of implementing GSCM practices validated in this work can help enterprises identify those areas of GSCM where acceptance and improvements will be made, and in prioritizing GSCM efforts.Originality/valueThis study presents an empirical investigation of GSCM practices, and fills a gap in the literature on the identification and establishment of critical factors for GSCM implementation in electrical and electronics industries.

The role of energy in development is crucial. Energy fuels economic growth and is therefore of paramount con- cern for all countries. This was one of the main themes at the world summit on sustainable development (WSSD) held in South Africa in 2002. The Johannesburg plan of implementation highlighted the role of energy service to promote sus- tainable development and to facilitate the achievement of the MDG's. One of the growing concerns is the persistent en- ergy poverty that is seriously impeding socio-economic development, particularly in sub-Saharan African and in countries of South Asia, but also in many other developing countries. Renewable energy is the solution to the growing energy chal- lenges of developing countries like the Gambia. The heavy reliance on imported fossil fuel coupled with the growing de- mand for electricity and declining wood fuel supplies call for alternative sources of energy. Finding ways to expand en- ergy services, while addressing the environmental impacts associated with energy use, represents a critical challenge for humanity. Recent developments in countries like China and India, where energy production has increased significantly, demonstrate how difficult it is. The decentralized approach based on power produced with locally available renewable en- ergy resources is, for various reasons, gradually being recognized as a viable alternative in remote places. This research attempts to initiate, from a broad-based socio-economic and environmental point of view, the feasibility of a decentralized solar photovoltaic (SPV) system as a source of power for rural and peri-urban communities of the Gambia.

This study utilized the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) to analyze the risks of green components in compliance with the European Union (EU) the Restriction of Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive in the incoming quality control (IQC) stage, which is based on a case of an OEM/ODM electronic manufacturer in Taiwan. There are three indices of FMEA in this work: the occurrence (O) that can be learned from the testing report; the likelihood of being detected (D) that refers to the difficulty of detection; and severity (S) that can be quantified from the declaration statement and the frequency of green component used by project. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) was applied to determine the relative weightings of four factors, then a green component risk priority number (GC-RPN) can be calculated for each one of the components, which are provided by the suppliers to identify and manage the risks that may be derived from them. Numerical results indicated that through the use of the proposed approach, the detected rate of the high risk green components can at least be improved to 20% while the GC-RPN is above 7, and the highest risk green components can be increased by 46.2% within the GC-RPN between 9 and 10.