Editorial: Novel insights into the Green Deal and its strategies for circular economy

Editorial on the Research Topic
Novel insights into the Green Deal and its strategies for circular economy

The need to address climate change challenges is evident, and different approaches are proposed worldwide. In the European Union (EU), the solutions to mitigate climate change and develop adaptation capacities to it are regarded as the EU Green Deal. The Green Deal is not only about the development of innovative technological solutions, changes in national environmental policies in EU Member States, and reduction of dependence on fossil fuels but, at first, about a change of mindsets in societies. Scientists have a definite responsibility to achieve climate change mitigation aims. First, to reduce the impacts of climate change, a new level of innovation and a major change in science priorities are required. The aim of this Research Topic was to summarize insights from the Green Deal in the context of circular economy aims. Voulvoulis is analyzing the potential of the transition to a circular economy and the transformation of the current model of consumption to reduce waste. This aspect is of key significance for sustainable development and involves identifying primary development tasks requiring the redesign of economies and decoupling economic growth from material consumption, carbon emissions, and waste generation. Preconditions to achieve a sustainable development model include public support and innovation in technological developments, environmental awareness, and social development. The study by Dimitriou and Karagkouni addresses the sustainability of airport functioning. The sustainability of management decisions is a top priority for airport management and the economic development and provision of necessary services. The study proposes an assessment tool for evaluating airport strategic plans and environmental reporting to promote sustainability. The significance of corporate sustainability management in airport management is closely related to business performance and competitiveness and is thus important in the everyday work of decision-making and routine management in the air transport sector. The multidisciplinary study of Terenius et al. is dedicated to novel applications for data center waste heat, proposing the Datacenter Energy Sustainability Score (DESS). This energy consumption indicator is evaluated within the three case studies and demonstrates how material and social views on metrics provide a way to solve problems for stakeholders. Furthermore, this study emphasizes that a sustainability strategy should be based on material and social views. This Research Topic of Frontiers in Sustainability covers various topics and perspectives and stresses the need to make research-based decisions to promote sustainable development.

Author contributions

MK: Writing – original draft. MS: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing. JK: Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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