Bioeconomy of Sustainability: Drivers, Opportunities and Policy Implications

The potential for water recovery from urban waste water - The perspective of urban waste water treatment plant operators in Poland

Water recovery from waste water has become an essential element of the circular economy in the Baltic Sea region. However, there is little data on the possibility of using water recovered from urban waste water. A survey was conducted to learn the opinions of Poland waste water treatment plant operators. They were asked whether they recovered water for internal or external needs. Respondents indicated opportunities and barriers in this activity. The opinions of 107 operators show that work is underway on closing internal circuits in urban WWTPs. These solutions are technically relatively easy to implement and show measurable benefits (i.e., saving drinking water). However, water recovery for external purposes is rare and is at a very early stage. Despite this, the potential is significant, although many financial, organizational, technical, and mental barriers exist. The most critical challenge is the safe use of reclaimed water and the cost-effectiveness of the solutions. The survey also shows a need for education and involvement of the public.

Repair and recycling of PCBs and their components based on obsolescence index: a domestic electrical appliances case study

Population expansion and improving living standards, particularly in developed nations, have led to an increase in the usage of domestic electrical equipment, worldwide energy consumption, and CO2 emissions per capita. To limit the usage of non-reusable components and the amount of garbage that must be transferred at the end of a product's life cycle, longer-lasting electrical domestic appliances are a pillar of the circular economy. In recent years, the complexity of printed circuit boards (PCBs) used in the manufacture of modern electrical devices has increased, leading to an increase in device failures. This study focuses on the maintenance and recycling of domestic electrical appliance components and printed circuit boards. The proposed methodology for PCB repair is defined as a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) problem implemented in MATLAB environment and successfully tested to a variety of domestic appliances such as refrigerator, dishwasher and washing machine. The possibility of recycling metal parts of electronic components, which were replaced after PCBs' repair was also studied. Metals' percentage concentration of PCB electronic components for three customer's budgets considering metals and valuable metals recovery as given from the corresponding average metal recovery and calculated from different recycling procedures presented in the literature. The results of the proposed procedure in terms of valuable metals gave 38.4078 ppm of silver. We also compared the suggested procedure with other works in terms of environmental perspective considering four measures, namely the gross energy requirement (GER), the global warming potential (GWP), the acidification potential (AP), and the solid waste burden (SWB). In terms of economic perspective and considering the existence of silver (Ag) in the electronic components, the recommended method gave comparable amount of money. Finally, a comparison of different recycling works from a technical viewpoint is also conducted. Moreover, a reparability index of domestic electrical appliances is introduced to further quantify the results of the proposed algorithm.

Selection of suppliers using crisp gradual means integral in conjunction with clustering algorithms

It is important for companies to select the right suppliers to deal with in order to avoid any disruptions. Considerable research has been conducted to find the solution for this problem. Previous attempts were made to account for uncertainties and disruptions in decision-making in order to rank suppliers based on different criteria of interest and select the desired resources as needed. This study addresses this issue by grouping suppliers in groups based on their similarities in terms of decision-making standards (criteria). Crisp Gradual Means Integral used in fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is used in conjunction with the clustering technique. By grouping suppliers into clusters, several advantages can be gained by the decisions' maker firms. For example, a firm can determine the level of similarity between different suppliers when taking into consideration all variables of interest to its decision-makers. When computing this similarity, the decision-makers can substitute any of the suppliers with other supplier from the same group in the event of the occurrence of a negative event that prevents the original selected supplier from fulfilling their obligations. •The crisp gradual means integral is a well know approach used in the fuzzy analytics hierarchy processes.•The proposed methodology adapts the crisp means integral and clustering algorithms.•The resulted outcomes group suppliers into groups to help the decision makers select the best supplier.

Uncovering the global ranking of greenhouse gases intensity, efficiency and structural transformation

This study incorporated the index decomposition analysis to drive the GHGs emissions intensity and separate the impact into true efficiency and structural transformation of economic activities on GHGs emissions. The global perspective is investigated in three aspects; (i) global groups of countries regarding income level, (ii) global countries bifurcated into geo-political regions and, (iii) hundred countries are taken to perform individual country level analysis, by taking 20 years (2000-2019) data. The hundred countries are ranked regarding GHGs intensity, efficiency and economic activities with respect to (i) for the latest year performance, (ii) twenty years average performance and, (iii) annual average reduction of GHGs emissions, comparable with base year 2000. Income-based countries groups explicate the improvement of GHGs intensity for HIC only and the economic transformation contributed to it. Efficiency index for all income groups while economic activities of LMIC, MIC and UMIC deteriorated the GHGs emissions. Global geo-political regions explicate the mixed pattern of GHGs intensity. Efficiency index is best for Azerbaijan and least for Uzbekistan. While ranking average GHGs emission reduction countries; Zimbabwe is the best and Qatar is the last country in the intensity list.

Reducing Plastic Pollution by Recovery and Recycling: Evidence from a "Blue Economy" Project Impacting Policy-Making in Italy

This paper recognizes the relevance of the Seabed Cleaning Project, created by the Angelo Vassallo Sindaco Pescatore Foundation in 2010, and presents it as a tool to achieve benefits in environmental, social, and economic terms, in line with the innovative framework of the Blue Economy. The project suggests a practical, feasible, and scalable solution to plastic pollution that can be obtained thanks to the activity performed by fishermen in cooperation with the municipality and local community (in a multi-level cooperation perspective). The data show a significant reduction of plastic on the seafloor thanks to the project, but further research is needed in order to collect further positive outcomes from different applications of the project. In 2022, the "Salva Mare" Law was approved in the Senate, extending the good practices proposed by the Foundation nationwide and showing how small gestures and concrete actions can provide significant improvements in pursuit of a healthier, safer, greener, and smarter city for the future.

A sustainable-circular citrus closed-loop supply chain configuration: Pareto-based algorithms

Configuration of sustainable supply chains for agricultural products has been a well-known research field recently which is continuing to evolve and grow. It is a complex network design problem, and despite the abundant literature in the field, there are still few models offered to integrate social impacts and environmental effects to support network design decision-making to support the configuration of the citrus supply chain. In this work, the citrus supply chain design problem is investigated by integrating the production, distribution, inventory control, recycling and locational decisions in which the triple bottom lines of sustainability, as well as circularity strategy, are addressed. Accordingly, a novel multi-objective Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is proposed to formulate a multi-period multi-echelon problem to design the sustainable citrus Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) network. To solve the developed model, the ε-constraint approach is employed in small-sized problems. Furthermore, Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm II (SPEA-II) and Pareto Envelope-based Selection Algorithm II (PESA-II) algorithms are used in medium- and large-sized problems. Taguchi design technique is then utilized to adjust the parameters of the algorithms efficiently. Three well-known assessment metrics and convergence analysis are regarded to test the efficiency of the suggested algorithms. The numerical results demonstrate that the SPEA-II algorithm has a superior efficiency over PESA-II. Moreover, to validate the applicability of the developed methodology, a real case study in Mazandaran/Iran is investigated with the help of a set of sensitivity analyses.

Impact of human capital on the green economy: empirical evidence from 30 Chinese provinces

In China, exploring the relationship between human capital and green economy in the context of economic transformation can promote the construction of an ecological civilization and high-quality economic development. This paper is dedicated to assessing the impact of human capital stock, human capital structure, and the difference between the two on China's green economy. Using the super-efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model, this paper evaluated the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 30 Chinese provinces to assess the greenness of its economy and analyzed its spatiotemporal evolution from 2000 to 2017. A spatial error model (SEM) was established to explore the impact of human capital on green economy. The results show that (1) the GTFP of China increased continuously from 0.219 to 0.457, showing a regional spatial differentiation of "eastern region > central region > western region." The spatial gaps of the green economy in the east-west and north-south directions are narrowing. (2) Moran's I index and Moran's I scatter plot indicate a significant spatial correlation between human capital and China's green economy. The local spatial correlation between human capital and green economy is mainly characterized by "high-high" and "low-low" types of agglomeration. (3) The effects of human capital stock and human capital structure on green economy were both positive, with coefficients of 0.0005 and 0.1601, respectively, but the effects of human capital structure were not significant. (4) The results of regional regression show that the difference between the human capital impact coefficients on green economy in the eastern and midwestern regions is small. The impact of human capital stock and human capital structure on green economy is consistent with the national level results. It can be preliminarily concluded that the development of China's green economy relied more on improving the human capital stock than on the improvement of the human capital structure. This study further enriches the literature on the green economy and provides information that can support government policy-making.

Lean Perspectives in an Organizational Change in a Scientific Direction of an Italian Research Institute: Experience of the Cancer Institute of Bari

Lean management is a relatively new organizational vision transferred from the automotive industry to the healthcare and administrative sector based on analyzing a production process to emphasize value and reduce waste. This approach is particularly interesting in a historical moment of cuts and scarcity of economic resources and could represent a low-cost organizational solution in many production companies. In this work, we analyzed the presentation and the initial management of current ministerial research projects up to the approval by the Scientific Directorate of an Italian research institute. Furthermore, the initial mode in 2021 ("as is") and the potential mode ("to be") according to a Lean model are studied, according to the current barriers highlighted by the final users of the process and carrying out some perspective analyses with some reference indicators.

A mini-review of biomethane valorization: Managerial and policy implications for a circular resource

The green transition requires renewable energy resources, especially the role of biomass is very crucial as it promotes resource circularity if sustainable substrates are used. This mini-review focuses on green gas derived from biomass called biomethane, which appears to be strategic in the face of soaring energy costs. Hence, combined Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats-Analytic Hierarchy Process analysis is used to compare and evaluate the critical factors. The results provide not only methodological insights through the application of the local-global priority method, but also managerial insights that see biomethane as a winning element for the green transition, fighting climate change and reducing dependence on external energy sources. Subsidies have played a key role in pursuing economic sustainability; however, their use should be reduced over time and measured to the actual contribution related to environmental and social improvement. The results of this work highlight that biomethane development is important to tackle climate change and to be self-sufficient from an energy perspective. This development plan, based on circularity of resources, includes subsidies for small-scale plants, substrates from neighbouring territories, citizen involvement in decision-making processes, valorization of suitable waste from an environmental perspective and stability of political choices.

Providing a Roadmap for Future Research Agenda: A Bibliometric Literature Review of Sustainability Performance Reporting (SPR)

The concept of sustainability reporting is now an essential tool through which organisations demonstrate accountability to their stakeholders. The increasing market pressure coupled with the awareness of the consequences of organisations’ activities suggests the need for organisations to report their sustainability credentials. Sustainability performance reports should provide adequate information on organisations’ social, economic, and environmental performance. However, the current process through which organisations communicate their sustainability performance to stakeholders is questionable and remains a significant concern. This study assessed the current state and direction of research on sustainability performance reporting by conducting a bibliometric literature review of peer-reviewed studies on sustainability performance reporting published between 1987 and 2022. The findings highlight the misconceptions between sustainability and CSR when reporting organisations’ sustainability performance. Furthermore, businesses and scholars prioritise reporting instead of communication with stakeholders. The observed lack of engagement with stakeholders indicates that the reported performance may not reflect the impact of business activities on the three dimensions of sustainability. Rather than adopting a one-way information dissemination approach, this study concludes that the desired performance can only be achieved through two-way communication with stakeholders.

Carving out a Niche in the Sustainability Confluence for Environmental Education Centers in Cyprus and Greece

Given the environmental issues that today’s societies confront, such as climate change, waste management, ecosystem deterioration, etc., environmental education is becoming increasingly important. Adoption of environmental education as an integral part of the educational system is required for the Environmental Education Center (EEC) to be able to provide knowledge, skills, and values so that society can become active and environmentally responsible through awareness-raising. According to the scholarly published research, EECs can positively affect local communities and create an environmentally friendly culture. In addition, given that EECs can even play a significant part in the development of lifelong learning activities at the education and sustainable development nexus, it is considered critical to establishing future potentials and dynamics. Thus, aiming to analyze EECs’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) within our complex and ever-evolving world, educators, students, and other fellow citizens in Cyprus and Greece participated in a survey in which they were asked to fill in a questionnaire, specifically developed for each group category. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the implications arising as a result of effective environmental education absence, as well as the importance of a holistic approach through EECs. Moreover, it offers the research community a solid framework for future innovation in citizen engagement and training.

Global Inequalities in the Bioeconomy: Thinking Continuity and Change in View of the Global Soy Complex

As a proposed pathway to societal transformation, the bioeconomy is aimed at providing a sustainable alternative to the fossil-based economy, replacing fossil raw materials with renewable biogenic alternatives. In this conceptual contribution, we argue that it is impossible to transform societies into sustainable bioeconomies considering the narrow boundaries of the bioeconomy as a policy. Drawing on approaches including agro-food studies, cheap food, and agrarian extractivism, we show that the bioeconomy is entangled in a broader context of social relations which call its claim to sustainability into question. Our analysis of the global soy complex, which represents the core of the current agro-food system, demonstrates how the bioeconomy perpetuates global inequalities with regard to trade relations, demand, and supply patterns, as well as power relations between the involved actors from the global to the local level. Against this background, we propose a fundamental rethink of the underlying understanding of transformation in bioeconomy policies. Instead of thinking the bioeconomy only along the lines of ecological modernisation, its proponents should consider studies on social-ecological transformation, which would entail radical structural change of the prevailing food regime to cope with the social-ecological crisis.

Biomethane Community: A Research Agenda towards Sustainability

The bioeconomy is an effective solution to align with the sustainability agenda and to meet the pressing calls for action from Cop26 on a global scale. The topic of the circular bioeconomy has gained a key role in the literature, while the theme of energy community is a basic form of social aggregation among stakeholders. This work focuses on biomethane and proposes a framework based on several criteria that are evaluated using a hybrid Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and 10-point scale methodology. The results show that regulation and energy community are considered the two most relevant categories. The overall ranking of criteria sees the stakeholders’ engagement as the most important, followed by more significant subsidies for small- and medium-sized plants and the principle of self-sufficiency applied at the inter-regional level. Subsequently, the Italian Adriatic corridor composed of four MMAP (Marche, Molise, Abruzzo, and Puglia) regions is considered as a case study in order to evaluate the possible environmental (854 thousand tons CO2eqyear) and economic (from 49 million EUR to 405 million EUR in function of plant size) benefits associated with potential biomethane production of 681.6 million m3. It is found that the biomethane community is an enabler of sustainability and this strategy can be used for sharing different natural resources.

Evaluation of Industrial Green Transformation in the Process of Urbanization: Regional Difference Analysis in China

Population mobility and the expansion of construction land in industrial development promote urbanization, and the sustainable development of cities creates requirements for the green transformation of industry. This paper uses the directional distance function (DDF) and the global Malmquist–Luenberger (GML) index method—including urbanization factors—to calculate the industrial green transformation (IGT) index in China, and to analyze its evolution and spatial distribution characteristics. The results show that ignoring the urbanization factor will lead to the overestimation of the IGT. The growth of the index has multiple stages, and it shows a decreasing order in the middle, east and west regions. Overall, the distribution of the index spreads out over time, and the gap widens. In terms of spatial correlation, high values are mostly concentrated in the eastern region and low values are mostly concentrated in the western region, and the gap in the eastern region is larger than those in the central and western regions. Therefore, in addition to the transformation of industrial production into a circular economy model, it is also necessary to promote the circulation of technical talent between regions in the development of urbanization, reducing the unbalanced development between regions and comprehensively promoting the green transformation of industry.

Social Value Assessment and Spatial Expression of National Park Ecosystems Based on Residents’ Perceptions

Social values of ecosystem services originate from human perceptions of ecosystem services and are defined as non-market values perceived by ecosystem stakeholders. Although it is widely recognized that the information of social value can provide assistance to stakeholders and decision makers in environmental management, this issue has received far less attention. This article uses the Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) method to analyze the assessment of social values of national park ecosystem services by residents with different environmental values and their relationship with surrounding natural resource conditions. According to the preference of the interviewed residents, it was found that the four most important types of social value are biodiversity value, aesthetic value, economic value, and recreation and wellness value. In terms of spatial distribution, the hot spots of social values show a pattern of “two cores and multiple centers”. The “two cores” are the Gutianshan National Nature Reserve and Qianjiangyuan National Forest Park, which are located at the north and south ends of the national park; the “multiple centers” include Kukeng, Xikeng, Xiachuan, Gaotiankeng villages in Changhong Township and Longkeng Village in the Hetian Township. By analyzing the relationship between the four social value types with higher preference and the resource environment (land use and elevation), the article found that social values are closely related to scenic spots, river water surface, reservoir water surface, forested land, tea plantations, and villages, and that they are mostly distributed in the range of 400 m to 600 m above sea level. The distribution of social values in the ecocentric subgroup is larger, covering almost the entire national park area. The transition of the value index is smoother, while the distribution of social values in the anthropocentric subgroup is relatively concentrated in one area.

Bioeconomic Entrepreneurship and Key Factors of Development: Lessons from Argentina

For Argentina, a country with large biomass availability, scientific-technological capacities and a strong agro-industrial sector, bioeconomy comes with an opportunity for sustainable local and national development. As key actors in bioeconomic transition processes, entrepreneurs become an important source of information for the design and implementation of bioeconomic strategies and policies. However, bioeconomic activity cannot guarantee sustainable development outcomes. Here, we examine factors that influenced bioeconomic entrepreneurship and related sustainability outcomes. Our case study involved interviews with 23 enterprises of varying size and technological level, covering the main sectors and regions of the Argentine bioeconomy. We identify five bioeconomic pathways with distinct characteristics. Among the main factors driving development in these pathways of the Argentinian bioeconomy, entrepreneurs emphasized the rich endowment with natural resources and the high level of scientific, technological and entrepreneurial capacities. Public policies, economic stability and regulatory frameworks were considered as the most critical barriers to bioeconomic development. Entrepreneurs saw their contribution to sustainable development primarily in the generation of new knowledge and employment. Ecological or social motives were less frequently reported. Despite agricultural commodity production being the mainstay of the Argentinian bioeconomy, small-scale local initiatives, which also include socio-institutional and agro-ecological innovations, are coming up. Recommendations to improve the competitiveness of the Argentinean bioeconomy include the elaboration of a national bioeconomic development policy with the participation of private actors and their organizations, and the scientific and technological complex. Moreover, regulatory and normative frameworks have to be adapted and bureaucratic obstacles be reduced. Finally, a national strategy for the bioeconomy in Argentina should pay more attention to entrepreneurship as a driver of transformation.

Exhaust Gas Recirculation on a Nano-Coated Combustion Chamber of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Waste Plastic Oil

Managing waste plastic is becoming a severe challenge. The industry and researchers have been looking at various opportunities in line with circular economy principles for effective plastic waste management. In that context, plastic waste valorization to oil as a substitute to fossil fuel has gained recent attention. In the literature, there exist few studies showing the use of oil derived from waste plastics in blends with other conventional fuels in compression ignition (CI) engines; however, studies on CI engines that use 100% waste-derived fuels are limited. Additionally, the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) concepts and the use of nano-coated chambers (like pistons, valves and cylinders heads) have been gaining interest purely from the engine performance enhancement perspective in recent years. Therefore, this study investigates engine performance by combining exhaust gas from the EGR technique and waste plastic oil (WPO) as inputs, followed by thermal coatings in the CI engine chambers for performance enhancement. The experimental setup of the engine is developed, and the engine’s piston, valve and cylinder heads are coated with Al2O3-SiO4 material. The CI engine’s energy, emission, and combustion characteristics are tested, followed by a scenario analysis compared with diesel-only fuel. The tested scenarios include a WPO + Al2O3-SiO4, WPO + Al2O3-SiO4 + 10% EGR, and WPO + Al2O3-SiO4 + 20% EGR. The results show that the piston crown’s thermal coating increased the combustion performance. Significant impacts on the carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and smoke characteristics are observed for different %EGR rates. The results also showed that the cooled EGR engine has decreased nitric oxide emissions. Overall, the results show that WPO combined with exhaust gas could be a potential fuel for future CI engines.

Assessing the Environmental Footprint of Distiller-Dried Grains with Soluble Diet as a Substitute for Standard Corn–Soybean for Swine Production in the United States of America

The swine diet formulation in the United States of America (U.S.A.) is entering a new era of decision making to promote low-carbon pork production systems. As a part of the decision-making process, the precision nutrition approaches to customize diet and alternative feeding options that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable are given priority. Hence, the objective of this study is to identify an alternative diet over a standard corn–soybean meal diet. The byproducts from the supply chain of human food and biofuels, i.e., distiller-dried grain with solubles (DDGS), are chosen as an alternative option to formulate a swine diet. First, two alternative byproduct diets with low and high DDGS inclusion (10.1% and 28.8%, respectively) were formulated using the least-cost technique. Second, a life cycle inventory was created, followed by data collection from the key sources, including DATA SMART-2017, USDA, RIA-GREET 2018, and the relevant literature. Third, in SimaPro 8.5.2.0 (PRé Sustainability: LE Amersfoort, The Netherlands), the ReCiPe 2016, the midpoint method by economic allocation was used to investigate the environmental footprint of the formulated diets to inform sustainability decisions of swine-farm managers. The considered functional unit is the ‘lb diet’, and the system boundary is the farm gate that considers only the feed production stage. The observed results include global warming potential, land use, water consumption, fossil resources scarcity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. The comparative results of a 28.8% DDGS diet over the standard corn–soybean meal diet for the displacement ratio of 0.69 show an approximate global warming potential saving of 0.04 kg CO2 eq. per lb DDGS feed at the feed production stage. Moreover, the DDGS displacement ratio of 0.69 does not significantly impact water consumption and fossil resources; however, it can reduce land use by 26% and terrestrial ecotoxicity by 8% compared to the standard diet. Overall, the quantified environmental footprint results of the byproduct DDGS diets indicate that the footprints of DDGS diets were lower than the standard diet.

Human Health and Ecosystem Quality Benefits with Life Cycle Assessment Due to Fungicides Elimination in Agriculture

Industrial agriculture results in environmental burdens due to the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. Fungicides is a class of pesticides whose application contributes (among others) to human toxicity and ecotoxicity. The European Union aims to increase organic agriculture. For this reason, this work aims to analyze climate change, freshwater ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, human toxicity, (terrestrial) acidification, and freshwater eutrophication impacts of fungicides and calculate expected benefits to human health (per European citizen) and ecosystem quality (terrestrial) with life cycle assessment (LCA) during crop production. The Scopus database was searched for LCA studies that considered the application of fungicides to specific crops. The analysis shows how many systemic and contact fungicides were considered by LCA studies and what was the applied dosage. Furthermore, it shows that fungicides highly contribute to freshwater ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, human toxicity, and freshwater eutrophication for fruits and vegetables, but to a low extent compared to all considered environmental impacts in the case of cereals and rapeseed. Expected benefits to human health and ecosystem quality after fungicides elimination are greater for fruits and vegetables, ranging between 0 to 47 min per European citizen in a year and 0 to 90 species per year, respectively.

Smart and Sustainable Bioeconomy Platform: A New Approach towards Sustainability

The smart and sustainable bioeconomy represents a comprehensive perspective, in which economic, social, environmental, and technological dimensions are considered simultaneously in the planning, monitoring, evaluating, and redefining of processes and operations. In this context of profound transformation driven by rapid urbanization and digitalization, participatory and interactive strategies and practices have become fundamental to support policymakers, entrepreneurs, and citizens in the transition towards a smart and sustainable bioeconomy. This approach is applied by numerous countries around the world in order to redefine their strategy of sustainable and technology-assisted development. Specifically, real-time monitoring stations, sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), smart grids, GPS tracking systems, and Blockchain aim to develop and strengthen the quality and efficiency of the circularity of economic, social, and environmental resources. In this sense, this study proposes a systematic review of the literature of smart and sustainable bioeconomy strategies and practices implemented worldwide in order to develop a platform capable of integrating holistically the following phases: (1) planning and stakeholder management; (2) identification of social, economic, environmental, and technological dimensions; and (3) goals. The results of this analysis emphasise an innovative and under-treated perspective, further stimulating knowledge in the theoretical and managerial debate on the smart and sustainable aspects of the bioeconomy, which mainly concern the following: (a) the proactive involvement of stakeholders in planning; (b) the improvement of efficiency and quality of economic, social, environmental, and technological flows; and (c) the reinforcement of the integration between smartness and sustainability.