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\"Astronauts on the International Space Station must protect their resources--their lives depend on it. The same is true about Earth. For the planet to survive, we must also conserve water, air, food, and energy, and cut down on waste. 'Space on Earth' explores how innovative efforts in space are inspiring bright ideas on Earth, and how thinking like an astronaut can help us save the planet.\"-- Page 4 of cover.

Changes in land use may alter land cover, which results in carbon stock changes in biomass as well as in the soil. In China's loess plateau, vegetation restoration has been conducted since 1950s to control soil erosion and improve the ecosystem, with significant investment of money and manpower. Despite these efforts, soil erosion has still been severe. To reduce soil erosion and improve land quality, China initiated another state-funded project, Grain-for-Green, in 1999 in the loess plateau. However, it is not clear how effective this newly initiated project will be. In this study, we evaluated the effect of land-use conversion on soil organic carbon (SOC) and the potential effect of the current project on SOC sequestration in the Anjiapo catchment area of the loess hilly area of the loess plateau in China. This evaluation is based on SOC measurements in cropland versus in other converted land use types. We found that SOC sequestration mainly occurred in the surface soil after land use conversion took place. Land use conversion from cropland to shrubland or wild grassland (i.e. undisturbed land) was better for SOC sequestration than tree plantation in the semi-arid loess hilly area. By using the land use change in the study area as a scenario, the potential contribution of land use change on SOC sequestration due to the Grain-for-Green project was estimated. It was found that this project in the loess plateau of China would be helpful for SOC sequestration if successfully implemented.

السندات الخضراء هي نوع من الأدوات المالية الحديثة نسبيا، حيث بدأت الدول في التحول إلى السندات الخضراء لتمويل التنمية المستدامة، وأصبحت تحظى باهتمام كبير خلال السنوات الأخيرة لأنها تخصص لمساندة المشروعات البيئية كتمويل الاستثمارات في قطاعات الطاقات المتجددة للنهوض بهذا القطاع ومواجهة التحديات البيئية لاسيما تغير المناخ العالمي، بالإضافة إلى مساهمتها في تحقيق أهداف التنمية المستدامة. ويعد عدم وجود تعريف متفق عليه وإطار مرجعي بشكل عام للسندات الخضراء أحد الحواجز أمام تطوير سوق هذه السندات، لذلك لابد من تقديم معيار رسمي للسندات الخضراء لمساعدة السوق على التطور الكامل وزيادة قدرته على تمويل المشاريع الخضراء التي تساهم في تحقيق أهداف الاستدامة الأوسع نطاقا.

The application of green building approaches has significantly increased in many countries and buildings, accompanied by the development of numerous standards and methodologies for their implementation. Despite these efforts, not all risks and challenges facing green projects have been eliminated in some regions. Issues such as financing difficulties, budget overruns, and schedule delays continue to pose significant challenges. As a result, no substantial improvements have been made in the approach to green projects. Therefore, this study aims to develop a theoretical framework that enhances the approach to green projects. By utilizing the AGILE methodology, specifically SCRUM, the most significant risks facing green projects were identified and converted into indicators based on prior studies. Furthermore, Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology, particularly Green BIM (GBIM), was employed to create tools and elements to address these challenges, leading to the development of a conceptual framework capable of providing solutions. This framework was built around 30 indicators, whose weights were determined through an electronic questionnaire involving 140 specialists in green projects, AGILE methodology, and BIM technology. Assistance from academic experts was also sought. The results of the questionnaire, analyzed using statistical methods, contributed to the development of a theoretical framework aimed at improving the approach to green projects.

Due to their consolidated nature, corporate sustainability reports often mask the evolution of organizations' sustainability initiatives. Thus, to more fully understand the environmental performance of an organization, it is essential to examine the experiences of specific projects and how they relate to corporate sustainability. Based on case studies of green projects in four different organizations, we find that it is difficult to determine the environmental impact of a project a priori, even in cases where environmental considerations are included as part of the initial project scope. Instead, the decision to integrate environmentally favorable elements into projects is a dynamically occurring interaction between competing institutional logics and organizational identities, which create windows of opportunity for individual agency. During these windows, individuals may engage in reinforcing microprocesses that support traditional practices, or invoke enabling microprocesses to facilitate green decision-making, consistent with ecosystem logics. The process model developed in this paper provides a new perspective on the temporal and contextual dimensions of environmental championship behaviors, and sheds light on otherwise puzzling results such as why organizations with strong environmental orientations continue to struggle with delivering projects with strong positive environmental impacts.

PurposeThe majority of the literature on green buildings in Ghana focuses on environmental benefits, innovative designs, construction technologies and project management techniques. However, little is known about how such facilities are financed. This issue creates potential knowledge gaps, one of which this study aims to address. This study examines the key drivers for green building project financing in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses an explanatory sequential design with an initial quantitative instrument phase, followed by a qualitative data collection phase. An extensive critical comparative review of the literature resulted in the identification of eight potential drivers. One hundred and twenty-seven questionnaire responses based upon these drivers from the Ghanaian construction industry were received. Data were coded with SPSS v22, analysed descriptively (mean, standard deviation and standard error) and via inferential analysis (One Way ANOVA and One-Sample t-Test). These data were then validated through semi-structured interviews with ten industry professionals within the Ghana Green Building Council. Data obtained from the semi-structured validation interviews were analysed through the side-by-side comparison of the qualitative data with the quantitative data.FindingsThough all eight drivers are important, the five key drivers for the Ghanian construction industry were identified as, in order of importance, “high return on investment”, “emerging business opportunity”, “ethical investment”, “conservation of resources” and “mandatory regulations, standards, and policies”. The interviewees agreed to and confirmed the importance of these identified drivers for green building project financing from validating the survey's key findings.Research limitations/implicationsKey limitations of this study are the restrictions regarding the geographical location of the collected data (i.e. Kumasi and Accra); timing of the study and sample size (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic making it difficult to obtain adequate data).Practical implicationsThough this study was conducted in Ghana, its implications could be useful to researchers, policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners in wider sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, financial institutions can invest in green buildings to expand their green construction and mortgage finance products to build higher value and lower risk portfolios. The findings from this study can provide investors with the enhanced certainty needed to help guide and inform their investment decisions, i.e. what to invest in, and when, by how much and how a scheme being “green” may influence their rate of return. Also, for building developers, it will give them a clearer understanding of the business case for green buildings and how to differentiate themselves in the market to grow their businesses.Originality/valueThis study's findings provide insights into an under-investigated topic in Ghana and offer new and additional information and insights to the current state-of-the-art on the factors that drive green building project financing.

Though the green bond markets are growing expeditiously, the summary overview of this market literature is sparse. This study addresses the gap by employing a bibliometric analysis through a systematic review of the literature approach and provides a state-of-the-art overview of the current trends, status, and future development of the green bond markets. To do so, the study reviewed 265 articles retrieved from the Scopus database spanning from 2011 to 2022. Akin to this, the study unpacks the publication trend, most influencing articles, prolific authors, top contributing journals, countries, as well as affiliations in green bond research. The review shows that the publication trend has surged exponentially with an annual growth rate of 55.12%. The study also reveals major themes such as sustainable development, sustainability, green bonds, sustainable finance, green finance, and sustainable investment. The findings of the study suggest curating future research with the main emphasis on multiple types of green bonds, the impact of various green projects, the attention of various market participants, and the incorporation of advanced technology for the development of the green bond market. The study will help policymakers, regulators, and academicians to promote sustainability.

There is currently an increasing demand for Building Information Modelling (BIM) to be integrated into green projects. BIM is able to evaluate green building assessment tools by digitising and assessing buildings during their development stage. In Malaysia, the Green Building Index (GBI) promotes sustainability in the built environment. Six categories of criteria will be assessed in three of the certification stages. This study focuses on how BIM applications can digitise the GBI criteria for GBI processes. It examines BIM uses and tools of each GBI credit and defines the responsibility and role of construction stakeholders in using BIM to examine the assessment methods used for new non-residential building construction based on GBI. The primary method for data collection is the focus group interview which involves the groups of stakeholders involved in a BIM and GBI project. The result of the BIM–GBI assessment method showed that BIM could digitise and assess 25 credits in Design Assessment (DA), which can achieve 55 points of the total 100 points. This study helps stakeholders define the design team and facility manager’s roles to obtain GBI certification and maintain the certification during the building’s operation stage.

The construction industry and the built environment accounts for 38% of global greenhouse gases. Significant efforts are being implemented across stakeholder categories to provide supportive guidelines and ways to address the negative impact; however, market developers need to be engaged to create the scale of impact due to large portfolios. Unfortunately, the short-term interests of private developers in real estate are to maximize profits and not to invest in long-term climate mitigation strategies. This paper will address the barriers and opportunities to incentivize, regulate real estate developers, and account for the market to adopt the lens of the B-Corp movement’s triple bottom line business practices, using business to address social and environmental challenges. Academically, accepted theories addressed through a literature review will be analyzed by a socially-oriented developer in Montreal and demonstrated through an eco-district case study. This study will identify the key stakeholders and address the life cycle thinking process to tackle the carbon impacts in the building development sector through the lens of real estate developers. This literature review will be complemented by the empirical study of one of the authors being a private developer, to link academic best practices with the market realities of real estate development. The findings of the process will outline possible solutions to real estate development that suggest cities have the opportunity to play the role of an educator, mediator, regulator, and incentivizing body to private real estate developers. Generally, critical factors of collaboration and capacity building through business modelling lists of barriers and opportunities could promote positive adoption opportunities for large-scale green development projects with a high impact on climate mitigation strategies, which could transform how the construction industry adapts to building green and socially inclusive communities.

The evaluation of water conservation function of the ecosystem and the analysis of influencing factors are conducive to the implementation of “Grain for Green” Projects, scientific management of land use types, and the optimization of ecosystem service functions. In this paper, we selected the data of precipitation, soil, evapotranspiration, land use/cover change, and other data to quantitatively evaluate the water conservation function of the ecosystem in Shaanxi Province from 1980 to 2015 and explored the key factors which lead to the spatial differences in water conservation functions. The results showed that (1) from 1980 to 2015, the water production and water conservation of Shaanxi Province’s ecosystem based on grid units decreased by 12.81 × 10 8 m 3 and 7.74 × 10 8 m 3 , respectively. (2) The use types of cultivated land, forest land, and grassland had a prominent contribution to the water production and water conservation of the ecosystem, while the contribution rate of water area, construction land, and unused land was small. During the research period, “Grain for Green” Projects consumed a lot of water production in a short period of time, which was not conducive to the improvement of water production capacity in Shaanxi Province. However, the conversion of cultivated land to grassland would help improve the water conservation capacity of the ecosystem, increasing the water conservation capacity by 0.77 × 10 8 m 3 . (3) The water conservation function of Shaanxi Province was “hot in the south and cold in the north,” with obvious regional and spatial heterogeneity from 1980 to 2015. (4) The factors of precipitation, evapotranspiration, slope, common cultivated land area, afforestation area, and water conservation function showed a positive correlation, and the impact was significant, while the overall vegetation coverage index showed a negative correlation with it. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the local climatic and environmental conditions to implement ecological protection and restoration policies in terms of enhancing water conservation function of the ecosystem. (5) Targeted measures are proposed for different areas in Shaanxi Province: The Northern Shaanxi area should be regarded as an ecological restoration and management area, focusing on returning farmland to grassland; Central Shaanxi Plain should be considered as an ecological protection zone, and the key task is to effectively protect the ecological land; the Southern Shaanxi area should be regarded as a key water conservation area, and the main function of the forest and grass ecosystem to conserve water is to be exerted.