Unprecedented Impacts of Aviation Emissions on Global Environmental and Climate Change Scenario.

There has been a continuously growing trend in international commercial air traffic, with the exception of COVID-19 crises; however, after the recovery, the trend is expected to even sharpen. The consequences of released emissions and by-products in the environment range from human health hazards, low air quality and global warming. This study is aimed to investigate the role of aviation emissions in global warming. For this purpose, data on different variables including global air traffic and growth rate, air traffic in different continents, total global CO2 emissions of different airlines, direct and indirect emissions, air traffic in various UK airports and fuel-efficient aircraft was collected from various sources like EU member states, Statista, Eurostat, IATA, CAA and EUROCONTROL. The results indicated that in 2019, commercial airlines carried over 4.5 × 109 passengers on scheduled flights. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the global number of passengers was reduced to 1.8 × 109, representing around a 60% reduction in air traffic. Germany was the largest contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) from the EU, releasing 927 kt of emissions in 3 years. In the UK, Heathrow airport had the highest number of passengers in 2019 with over 80 million, and the study of monthly aircraft movement revealed that Heathrow Airport also had the highest number of EU and International flights, while Edinburgh had the domestic flights in 2018. These research findings could be beneficial for airlines, policymakers and governments targeting the reduction of aircraft emissions.

Exploring relationship between environmentalism and consumerism in a market economy society: A structured systematic literature review

Managing environmental sustainability has become a critical challenge and an essential agenda for academics and corporations alike. This study conducted evidence-based research to explore whether it is possible to maintain a balance between environmentalism and consumerism in a capitalist society. A triangulated approach is followed by combining systematic literature review (SLR) and text mining for cross-validation, thus, limiting subjective bias. The findings suggest that, although, it is possible to achieve a balance in the long run but this necessitate enormous amount of efforts and resources due to the complexity and paradoxical nature of environmentalism and consumerism coupled with the current way of capitalist societies' life. Building on the findings and the Operations Management Input-Transformation-Output model, a research framework is proposed. The proposed framework suggests that to keep a balance between environmentalism and consumerism in a capitalist society, a progressive and transformational change could be instrumental for a viable solution. Finally, building on current gaps in the research domain, six future research directions are proposed to carry forward the notion of environmentalism and consumerism in a capitalist society.