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High risk is one of the most prominent characteristics of the Chinese construction industry, and it poses a significant threat to construction projects. Owing to initiatives aimed at achieving high efficiency, low carbon emissions, etc., industrialization of the construction industry has become an inevitable trend in China. However, it remains to be discussed whether industrialization of construction can reduce the risks entailed in construction projects compared with traditional construction. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on the theory of risk life cycle, this paper proposes a practical risk assessment technique to assess the risk life cycle, including the risk occurrence time and potential financial losses. This technique is then applied to assess the differences between the risks involved in an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project executed via traditional and industrial production modes.

The results show that the total duration of risks in the industrial construction project is half of that in the traditional project. In addition, the expected financial loss entailed in the industrial construction project is 29 percent lower than that in the traditional construction project. Therefore, industrial construction has the potential to optimize risk performance.

There is no significant difference between the traditional and industrial construction models in terms of probability of risk. The maximum total loss might occur in the procurement stage in the case of industrial production, and in the construction stage in the case of traditional production. Moreover, the total expected loss from risk in the EPC project in the industrial production mode is only half of that in the traditional production route. This study is expected to provide a new risk evaluation technique and promote an understanding of the life cycle of risk management in the construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope of applications and benefits of sustainability accounting for the production and industrial use of biomass as an energy source and substitute for fossil‐fuel use. As environmental degradation and unacceptable social impacts not only increase from the production and use of fossil‐fuel based energy, but also from alternative energy sources, the monitoring, controlling and measuring of the (un‐)sustainability of alternative energy production and use emerges as an area in critical need of research.

The paper presents a review of the issues surrounding the accounting for the (un‐)sustainability of industrial biomass production and use, considering what biomass is, the current and forecast importance of industrial biomass, different approaches to its production, and the subsequent measurement and monitoring of its potential (un‐)sustainability.

The paper finds that it is insufficient to conclude in general terms, as is often done or assumed in policy documents and statements, that industrial production and use of biomass is sustainable (or unsustainable) and that accounting for biomass must recognise the broader ecological and social system of which the production and use form a part. A further finding of the paper is that from agricultural or industrial production of biomass through to consumption and industrial use of biomass, the accounting issues surrounding biomass production and use are essential to determining its (un‐)sustainability.

The paper provides an overview of the importance of and problems with the production of biomass for industrial use, and related sustainability issues. It discusses possibilities for and limitations of accounting to address these sustainability issues as well as the need for and the challenges in measuring the (un‐)sustainability of biomass production for industrial use and the accounting for sustainability improvements.

This paper aims to focus on the contribution of segregated renewable energy (RE) sources such as solar, wind, bagasse, biomass, small hydropower (SHP) and waste to heat in driving sustainable industrial production in India.

This study uses non-linear modelling techniques such as quantile regression and the non-linear Granger causality test to explore the interplay between segregated RE generation and industrial production in India.

The study findings support the role of segregated RE sources generation, especially SHP and bagasse, on industrial production in India. This paper finds unidirectional non-linear Granger causality running from segregated RE sources to industrial production. Bidirectional non-linear Granger causality has been established from biomass, waste-heat to index of industrial production and vice versa, supporting an asymmetric feedback hypothesis.

The study findings will aid the energy policymaker in framing policies for RE sources, especially bagasse-based and SHP generation for the sustainable industrial growth of India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore the role of segregated RE sources generation to drive sustainable industrial growth in India using non-linear techniques.

Editorial This special issue of Industrial Management & Data Systems is a huge departure from our usual journal/ monograph style. This is an additional issue to the year's volume — a bonus in fact.

Industrialization is a major contributor to pollution and the worsening of some social problems. A change in this context would help in a new industrial model aiming at a viable and sustainable manufacturing system. This research aims to verify the state of the art of sustainability within the industrial production process through a systematic literature review, verifying the main characteristics in relation to industrial sustainability that the literature demonstrates.

The development of the research took place in three stages: a survey of articles with Journal Citation Reports (JCR), the construction of the database and descriptive analysis and text mining analyses of social networks and content. The survey took place through academically endorsed research platforms, totaling a total of 352 scientific articles, which included 18 quality management tools and worked with at least one sustainability indicator (financial, social and environmental).

Lean manufacturing, integrated management system and Six Sigma were the most cited quality tools, and articles containing the three indicators were found more frequently. It was found that most authors treated sustainability only as an environmental contribution. Knowledge of the organization's structural and management issues is essential for implementing sustainability and production process improvement.

This work is the first to develop a systematic analysis regarding the use of sustainability implementation in the industrial production process, considering a wide scope of production process tools, guiding on the characteristics of sustainability relating to the main critical success factors (CSFs), motivations, difficulties and benefits that lead industries in different parts of the world to implement sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the industrial production efficiency, pollution treatment efficiency, total factor energy efficiency and water efficiency in China with the consideration of technological innovation. This study also explores the distribution proportion of technological innovation between industrial production substage and pollution treatment substage.

A nonparametric method, data envelopment analysis (DEA), is used as the model foundation of this study. Specifically, a novel two-stage range-adjusted measure (RAM-DEA) with shared inputs is constructed to analyze the China’s industrial system. In this study, the panel data of 30 provinces from 2008 to 2015 are used.

This study found that although the current environmental regulation reduced the efficiency of industrial production, it could significantly improve the pollution treatment level. However, the lack of pollution treatment capacity was still an obstacle for development of China's industrial system. Compared with the total factor energy efficiency, the total factor water efficiency had more room for improvement. The optimal distribution of technological innovation in the two substages performed little change and the distribution roughly followed the “three-seven principle”.

More attention should be paid to improve the pollution treatment level and total factor water efficiency. And more R&D expenditure should be used in the industrial production substage in the eastern coastal areas, while in the inland areas, more R&D expenditure should be used in the pollution treatment substage.

This study proposed a model to environmental efficiency score with considering interval data under two-stage evaluation structure, which could strengthen the theory and expand the application scope of DEA approach.

The purpose of this paper is to describe green technological trajectories in eco‐industrial parks and reveal the effect of the selected environment on the trajectories in China, by means of case studies of the Lubei Group and the Guitang Group.

The paper opted for content analysis from various sources, including annual reports of listed companies, newspapers, web sites and academic articles. It adopts contrast analysis, in order to show the different technological evolution trend and the diversified dynamics of the selected environment.

The study provides the empirical insights about how green technology evolves and affects the evolution of the eco‐industrial park. The green technology development of the Lubei Group forms self‐reinforcing mechanism through learning process, economies of scale in production and network externalities, while that of the Guitang Group is under way. Additionally, the paper discusses how the selected environment affects the green technology, referring to the six factors constituting the selected environment: environmental regulation, financial support, knowledge accumulation, market environment, organizational culture and resource endowment.

The paper analyzes the evolution process, drivers and operational risks of eco‐industrial parks in the perspective of green technological trajectories. Some practical suggestions, such as eco‐industrial parks should put the focus on environmental intellectual property protection, green core competencies construction and green technology transfer strategies are proposed. What is more, the Lubei Group is a large, state‐owned enterprise and the Guitang Group used to be. The contrast analysis tends to disclose the context‐embedded knowledge of eco‐industrial parks development in an emerging market.

Lester and Wolff (2013) find little empirical support for the Austrian business cycle theory. According to their analysis, an unexpected monetary shock does not alter the structure of production in a way consistent with the Austrian view. Rather than increasing production in early and late stages relative to middle stages, they find the opposite – a positive monetary shock typically decreases production in early and late stages relative to middle stages. We argue that the measures of production and prices employed by Lester and Wolff (2013) are constructed in such a way that makes them inappropriate for assessing the empirical relevance of the Austrian business cycle theory’s unique features. After describing how these measures are constructed and why using ratios of stages is problematic, we use a structural vector autoregression to consider the effects of a monetary shock on each stage of the production process. We show that, with a clearer understanding of what is actually being measured by the stage of process data, the results are consistent with (but not exclusive to) the Austrian view.

This study aims to analyze the opportunities and potential of industrial tourism for the agri-food industry in the current post-pandemic scenario. Industrial tourism can favor appropriate behaviors by companies and tourists to address emerging challenges in the post-pandemic era, such as responsible production and consumption and the containment of waste production.

The adopted research method is a case study with exploratory purposes, applied to an industrial tourism experiment called “Make it in Puglia” (Apulia Region, Italy). The case study was based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

This study analyzes how industrial tourism in active agri-businesses allows local areas to be enhanced while simultaneously improving and strengthening sustainable strategies and choices for organizations and customers, especially in the changing context of the post-pandemic era.

The country specificity of this project and the limited duration of the investigation in the post-pandemic period were the main limitations of this study.

Industrial tourism in the agri-food business can contribute to a sustainable strategy for destination management based on new elements of attractiveness. Moreover, industrial tourism represents an opportunity for agri-food businesses, through the promotion of “business tours,” to respond to requests for more sustainable practices, especially considering that food waste and resource use efficiency have become a topic of growing concern.

This paper is one of the first studies that considers industrial tourism as a strategy for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the agribusiness sector, as it analyzes industrial tourism as an instrument in the construction of a cohesive ecosystem where tourism, agri-food business and local communities together pursue preservation and safeguarding of the environment, heritage and territory.

This paper proposes a new metric, named Operational Space Efficiency (OpSE), intended to diagnose and quantify the inefficient use of floor space for stocking materials in industrial workstations. OpSE presents a formulation analogous to the well-known Overall Equipment Effectiveness and can be obtained as the product of three distinct indicators: Standard Compliance Effectiveness, Standards Selection Effectiveness and Design Space-usage Effectiveness.

This indicator scrutinizes how usefully floor space in workstations is used to temporarily stock materials in the form of raw materials, semi-finished products, parts and components. It is suited for analyzing fixed-position layouts as well as product layouts typical of repetitive manufacturing settings, such as assembly lines in the automotive sector. The proposed indicator leverages an appropriate loss structure that features those factors affecting floor space utilization in workstations with regard to supplying and stocking materials.

An Italian manufacturer in the field of electro-technology was used as an industrial case study for the application of the methodology. The application shows how the three indicators work in practice, the effectiveness of OpSE and the methodology as a whole, in diagnosing floor space usage inefficiencies and in properly addressing improvement actions of the internal logistics in industrial settings.

The paper scrutinizes some important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) dealing with space usage efficiency and identifies some significant drawbacks. Then it suggests a new, inclusive structure of losses and a KPI that not only measures efficiency but also allows to identify viable countermeasures.