Sustainability in the Companies Practices

The sustainability topic is present in our everyday life. No matter if we are traveling in the public transport, we are having coffee with friends or watching tv we hear something related to green economy, sustainable usage of resources or smart energy saving devices. All ads that we see around us, in one way or another, also are calling to be environmentally friendly and sustainable. On national and international level, there are a lot of regulations and requirements developed and enforced both for the business and for the citizens. In the general case, it is commonly accepted, that the companies are taking actions in the field of sustainable development only because they are forced to do so by legislative requirements and penalties. But is it always the case? The paper discusses the main idea standing behind the sustainable development and presents some of the models that summarizes this idea. Further, by reviewing the practices of three large companies in different economic fields, it discusses their approach and attitude towards the subject. Key words: Sustainability, environment protection, business practices

Land Inventorization at Tardi-Babhlaj Villages of Shirpur Taluka Maharashtra State using RS and GIS

Scientific evaluation of the land is essential in order to understand the suitability for agricultural and non-agricultural purposes and identification of capabilities and constraints of the land for various crops and their cultivation helps in appropriate and sustainable usage. In order to uplift the production, productivity as well as profitability from a farm land, the knowledge regarding various land resources and soil properties become pre-requisites. In this, direction, a land inventorization was carried out using RS and GIS techniques. The prime objective was to carry out land evaluation studies based on land based on land capability classification and suitability of lands for commonly cultivated crops in the region. Soil morphological features, physical, physico-chemical and fertility properties of the land were analysed and the results indicated that the soils are good in inherent properties even with the slight variation in the morphological and physicochemical properties. Land evaluation based on Land Capability Classification (LCC) revealed that, all the blocks fall under Class-IV with some of the limitations like, erosion, texture and low organic carbon content in soils. Suitability of land to the crops indicated that there are limitations with respect to erosion, slope and soil fertility. Based on the obtained results, corrective measures were suggested for all the blocks to reduce the erosion losses improve the soil properties for higher productivity of the cultivated crops. The study concludes that variation in soils in all blocks is due to the close relationship between soils, physiography and climate which are interrelated.

The development of telemedicine programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress and associated challenges

Monitoring the progress of telemedicine use in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries has received a considerable attention from many health organizations and governmental agencies. This study reviewed the current progress and challenges in relation to the development of telemedicine programs in SSA. The results from reviewing 66 empirical studies revealed an unbalanced progress across SSA countries. Further, technological, organisational, legal and regulatory, individual, financial, and cultural aspects were identified as the major barriers to the success of telemedicine development in SSA. This study reported the current trends in telemedicine application, as well as highlighting critical barriers for consideration by healthcare decision makers. The outcomes from this study offer a number of recommendations to support wider implementation and sustainable usage of telemedicine in SSA.

Sustainable Usage of Freight Drones in City Centers, Proposition of Regulations for Safe Usage of Drones

This article concentrates on the regulations for the sustainable usage of drones in the central area of cities. This paper does not present the development of freight drones. Here, we do not concentrate on the construction, maneuvering, and steering of one drone or groups of drones, although these aspects are very important for the development of drones. However, the most important usage aspect of drones is the safety conditions. Here, we present a review of the current regulations and also propose beginning a discussion about the technical regulations of the usage of freight drones in this time and after the end of this pandemic for the sustainable usage of them in cities. The regulations are very scattered in the area of the usage of drones. This paper proposes a uniform base of regulations for the usage of drones in city centers.

Assessing the Dynamics of Urban Growth and Land Use Changes in Jeli Using Geospatial Technique

Land use change pattern in Jeli is been given a focus as part of tool for land planning anddevelopment. An increasing of population in Jeli make this study is relevant to aid an understandingon land use changes in this area due to the demanded for development and rapid land utilisation.Land use change pattern can be obtained via geospatial technique by Geographical InformationSystem (GIS) together with satellite imagery analysis. In this study, land use maps produced fromsupervised classification using maximum likelihood algorithm give a high accuracy of 92.05%.From classified land use images, urban expansion index (SI) were then calculated from year 1984to 2012. Pearson’s correlation analysis discovered a strong negative correlation between forest andagricultural areas which reflected that with increased of agriculture area, forest reserve was founddepleted. The SI of Jeli showed a low to rapid growth in 1994 and 1997 to 2012 respectively. Thestudy reflected the progressive development in Jeli promotes sustainable usage of forest area wheneffort of reforestation was carried out forming a co-existence land use category between forest andagriculture.

Social Controls and Bonds of Public Information Consumer on Sustainable Utilization and Provision for Computing

In public areas, employees are both consumers and producers in information. For sustainable usage of information, employees should be aware of information systems security (ISS). Information systems security (ISS) is critical in further developing public sector information systems, such as e-government. Most ISS breaches are committed by insiders rather than outsiders. This study investigates the applicability of adult social bond theory, which proposes social controls in the form of social bonds that provide deterrence based on the potential shame an employee would feel from committing an ISS breach. The proposed research model consists of four antecedents for adult social bonds: commitment, attachment, belief and job stability. Individual ISS compliance is set as the dependent variance and deterrence and shame are set as the mediators between social bonds and compliance. Analysis of 672 data points largely supports the research model, proving the applicability to ISS of social bonds and social control. Belief seems to have the strongest effect on individual compliance. Implications are discussed and further studies are proposed.

Digital Technologies for Improving Logistics Performance of Countries

The logistics performance has a crucial role in the industrial and economic development of countries. This study aims to underline implications for policy makers in improving the logistics performance of countries in terms of Industry 4.0. For this purpose, the effect of digitalisation on logistics performance is analysed by using correlation and multiple regression analysis. The empirical study builds upon dimensions and indicators of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) and Logistics Performance Index (LPI) of the World Bank. The results indicate that governmental policies should target to deliver sound framework conditions for the generation of human capital (here: ICT specialists), sustainable usage of internet services (e.g. professional social networks, online sales, etc.), integration of digital technologies (e.g. Big Data, Cloud computing, etc.), as well as digital connectivity (here: fixed broadband and 4G coverage) in order facilitate improvement of logistics performance.

Sustainable Determinants Influencing Habit Formation among Mobile Short-Video Platform Users

Interest in mobile short-video platforms (MSVP) as a new social network service tool has surged in recent years. However, only a few studies have focused on MSVP users’ post-acceptance behavior. To clarify this issue of sustainable usage, this study analyzed users’ post-acceptance habit formation by incorporating perceived interactivity and perceived enjoyment into the expectation-confirmation theory of the information system continuance (ECT-IS) model using structural equation modelling. We developed and distributed an online questionnaire and collected 219 valid responses from Chinese MSVP users. Our results show that satisfaction is the foremost factor in determining users’ habit formation as it completely mediates the influence of confirmation and perceived interactivity. We also show that perceived enjoyment positively influences habit formation directly and indirectly. Nonetheless, we note that sustainable usage should form the basis of continuous satisfaction from user experience due to a few missing links with regard to modulation in habitual usage. Therefore, we suggest that MSVPs should enhance their content recommendation algorithms using technologies such as deep-learning forecasting to improve users’ satisfaction by increasing perceived enjoyment. We also show that the influence of perceived interactivity on habit formation is effective only when fully mediated by satisfaction. Thus, we recommend that MSVPs should diversify their interaction mechanisms, for instance, by introducing mass creators that promote users’ habit formation by enhancing their satisfaction on the platform.