• COVID-19
• Publicationsclose
• Research dataclose
• Research softwareclose
• Article close
• DK close
• Energy Research close

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are driving corporate strategy and performance. However, does this mean more ESG reporting is being done? If so, is the quality of ESG reports improving? And what about ESG performance? In this paper, we examine these three trends in ESG reporting—quantity, quality and corporate ESG performance. With a Swedish multinational corporate focus, we analyse data from Sustainalytics, corporateregister.com and the Alliance for Corporate Transparency to answer our research questions. Our analysis shows that, while the quality of ESG information in Sweden has steadily improved, performance plateaued around 2015. Mitigating problems such as the impacts of climate change and COVID-19 call for improved ESG performance, not improved ESG reporting quantity or quality. Thus, rather than focusing on improving ESG reporting regulations, we need to redirect our focus towards creating better ESG outcomes. Therefore, we argue that companies must be asked to provide data that are more timely, relevant, credible and comparable and that demonstrate improved ESG performance. With this information, financial analysts and investors can redirect and accelerate capital flows towards corporate investments that help tackle important problems related to climate crises and the reaching of a sustainable development. Our analysis reveals that we need more research focusing on consumers, investors and policymakers. Future scholars could explore how changing consumer preferences are driving improvements in ESGperformance and how changing capital market allocations affect ESG performance. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are driving corporate strategy and performance. However, does this mean more ESG reporting is being done? If so, is the quality of ESG reports improving? And what about ESG performance? In this paper, we examine these three trends in ESG reporting—quantity, quality and corporate ESG performance. With a Swedish multinational corporate focus, we analyse data from Sustainalytics, corporateregister.com and the Alliance for Corporate Transparency to answer our research questions. Our analysis shows that, while the quality of ESG information in Sweden has steadily improved, performance plateaued around 2015. Mitigating problems such as the impacts of climate change and COVID-19 call for improved ESG performance, not improved ESG reporting quantity or quality. Thus, rather than focusing on improving ESG reporting regulations, we need to redirect our focus towards creating better ESG outcomes. Therefore, we argue that companies must be asked to provide data that are more timely, relevant, credible and comparable and that demonstrate improved ESG performance. With this information, financial analysts and investors can redirect and accelerate capital flows towards corporate investments that help tackle important problems related to climate crises and the reaching of a sustainable development. Our analysis reveals that we need more research focusing on consumers, investors and policymakers. Future scholars could explore how changing consumer preferences are driving improvements in ESG performance and how changing capital market allocations affect ESG performance.

In the context of COVID-19, new requirements are occurring in ventilation systems to mitigate airborne transmission risk in indoor environment. Personalized ventilation (PV) which directly delivers clean air to the occupant’s breathing zone is considered as a promising solution. To explore the potentials of PV in preventing the spread of infectious aerosols between closely ranged occupants, experiments were conducted with two breathing thermal manikins with three different relative orientations. Nebulized aerosols were used to mimic exhaled droplets transmitted between the occupants. Four risk assessment models were applied to evaluate the exposure or infection risk affected by PV with different operation modes. Results show that PV was effective in reducing the user’s infection risk compared with mixing ventilation alone. Relative orientations and operation modes of PV significantly affected its performance in airborne risk control. The infection risk of SARS-CoV-2 was reduced by 65% with PV of 9 L/s after an exposure duration of 2 h back-to-back as assessed by the dose–response model, indicating effective protection effect of PV against airborne transmission. While the side-by-side orientation was found to be the most critical condition for PV in airborne risk control as it would accelerate diffusion of infectious droplets in lateral diffusion to occupants by side. Optimal designs of PV for closely ranged occupants were hereby discussed. The four risk assessment models were compared and validated by experiments with PV, implying basically consistent rules of the predicted risk with PV among the four models. The relevance and applicability of these models were discussed to provide a basis for risk assessment with non-uniformly distributed pathogens indoor. Graphical abstract

Emergence and resurgence of infectious diseases are serious threats to population health. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused an enormous human toll and health crisis. Responses to the pandemic are significantly affecting the global economy. What is most concerning about COVID-19 is not the virus itself, but rather that it may compound with other and more serious crises. Climate change will likely affect human health, economy, and the society more than disease outbreaks. Governments at all levels, from local to international, can chart a greener, healthier, and equitable course for the future, investing in strategies and technologies that minimize and prevent risks, including those posed by climate change and the pandemic, promoting obligations to drastically reduce emissions, enhancing societal equality, improving community resilience, and achieving sustainable development goals.

It is important that efficient measures to reduce the airborne transmission of respiratory infectious diseases (including COVID-19) should be formulated as soon as possible to ensure a safe easing of lockdown. Ventilation has been widely recognized as an efficient engineering control measure for airborne transmission. Room ventilation with an increased supply of clean outdoor air could dilute the expiratory airborne aerosols to a lower concentration level. However, sufficient increase is beyond the capacity of most of the existing mechanical ventilation systems that were designed to be energy efficient under non-pandemic conditions. We propose an improved control strategy based on source control, which would be achieved by implementing intermittent breaks in room occupancy, specifically that all occupants should leave the room periodically and the room occupancy time should be reduced as much as possible. Under the assumption of good mixing of clean outdoor supply air with room air, the evolution of the concentration in the room of aerosols exhaled by infected person(s) is predicted. The risk of airborne cross-infection is then evaluated by calculating the time-averaged intake fraction. The effectiveness of the strategy is demonstrated for a case study of a typical classroom. This strategy, together with other control measures such as continuous supply of maximum clean air, distancing, face-to-back layout of workstations and reducing activities that increase aerosol generation (e.g., loudly talking and singing), is applicable in classrooms, offices, meeting rooms, conference rooms, etc. Highlights • Source control of intermittent occupancy proposed for reducing airborne exposure; • Effectiveness of proposed source control strategy applied to a classroom evaluated; • Key influential factors of the effectiveness of proposed strategy identified; Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image

Climate change has important population health impacts, and cities are often on the frontlines. However, health is reported to be less active in climate adaptation than other sectors. To contribute to better understanding urban health adaptation efforts and identifying gaps we developed a City Climate Health Adaptation Typology and tested it with adaptation actions of 106 large world cities (population > 1 million) reported to a major publicly-available adaptation database. We found two-thirds of actions of these 'active adapter' cities were health-associated. Half were health information activities (e.g., hazard mapping, early warnings); and nearly one-third addressed climate-relevant health determinants in the urban built environment (e.g., green space). Forty percent of cities were in low- or middle-income countries. Our proposed typology provides a systematic framework for monitoring and comparing city health adaptation actions. Reported city actions are suggestive of increasing depth and breadth of urban health-associated adaptation. However, even among these adaptation-engaged cities, a health adaptation gap was apparent in key climate health services (e.g., mental health), and in climate-related public health governance and capacity building. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated pressing need for strong public health institutions. We recommend better integration of public health agencies into local climate action planning, enhanced modes of collaboration between health and non-health agencies and with non-governmental actors, and strengthening of city public health adaptive capacity including through networking.

Many consequences of climate change undermine the stability of global food systems, decreasing food security and diet quality, and exposing vulnerable populations to multiple forms of malnutrition. The emergence of pandemics such as Covid-19 exacerbate the situation and make interactions even more complex. Climate change impacts food systems at different levels, including changes in soil fertility and crop yield, composition, and bioavailability of nutrients in foods, pest resistance, and risk of malnutrition. Sustainable and resilient food systems, coupled with climate-smart agriculture, are needed to ensure sustainable diets that are adequately diverse, nutritious, and better aligned with contextual ecosystem functions and environmental conservation. Robust tools and indicators are urgently needed to measure the reciprocal food systems-climate change interaction, that is further complicated by pandemics, and how it impacts human health.

The COVID-19 pandemic affects all the aspects of modern society worldwide, especially in the power sector. Measures of flexibility enhancement are regarded as solutions to guarantee reliable and flexible electricity supply in such an emergency. This study aims at investigating the impact of flexibility enhancement measures (electricity storage and flexible demand) in different situations of the preliminary COVID-19 pandemic. Case studies in different regions (Denmark, the Netherlands, and the Sichuan province of China) are conducted and assessed using the hourly simulation tool EnergyPLAN. These regions own different electricity supply mix and level of renewable electricity. It is found that the flexible demand measure within one day or one week can hardly eliminate the electricity imbalance caused by either the pandemic or the increasing renewable electricity. The monthly flexible demand is effective for balancing, but its potential in these regions is not enough. However, electricity storage measure enhances the electricity balance even during the most extreme situation of the pandemic. From the economic perspective, electricity storage measure leads to an increase of up to 15% in total system costs, while flexible demand measure has a negligible effect on costs. This study serves as the first step to understand the performance of flexibility enhancement measures in the power sector under the shock of a pandemic.

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has resulted in tremendous growth in telehealth services in Australia and around the world. The rapid uptake of telehealth has mainly been due to necessity – following social distancing requirements and the need to reduce the risk of transmission. Although telehealth has been available for many decades, the COVID-19 experience has resulted in heightened awareness of telehealth amongst health service providers, patients and society overall. With increased telehealth uptake in many jurisdictions during the pandemic, it is timely and important to consider what role telehealth will have post-pandemic. In this article, we highlight five key requirements for the long-term sustainability of telehealth. These include: (a) developing a skilled workforce; (b) empowering consumers; (c) reforming funding; (d) improving the digital ecosystems; and (e) integrating telehealth into routine care.