Despite the increasing interest in the adoption of corporate social responsibility by businesses in a variety of industries, hardly any attention has been paid to the agri-food sector and... Show More

Despite the increasing interest in the adoption of corporate social responsibility by businesses in a variety of industries, hardly any attention has been paid to the agri-food sector and especially, to the Greek food sector. The agri-food sector has a strong impact on the economy, the environment and the society of each nation. In this light, the purpose of this article is to investigate the largest ninety-eight Greek food companies in dairy, meat, snack, flour & milling and fishing industries about their corporate social responsibility campaigns. A survey has been conducted based on the content analysis of the companies' website. The analysis' results show that companies in the Greek agri-food sector have started to pay attention in CSR strategies with the most portion of their CSR income to environmental campaigns even though the unfolding Greek financial crisis.

Sustainable development is difficult to be achieved in mountain regions because of their sensitivity to climate change. The rapid development of mountain tourism worldwide during the last years... Show More

Sustainable development is difficult to be achieved in mountain regions because of their sensitivity to climate change. The rapid development of mountain tourism worldwide during the last years makes the goal for sustainable mountain tourism even more challenging. Key factor to the development of mountain tourism in Europe was the function of ski centres. According to the spirit of the Brundtland Report ski centres are not in general sustainable, because they may have economic benefits but they negatively affect the other two pillars of sustainability: environment and society. The present paper focuses on a ski resort in Greece, attempting to assess the impact of mountain tourism on the sustainable development of the area. Ski resorts played a crucial role to the bloom of mountain tourism in Greece. Its evolution is a relatively recent phenomenon which has been affected by the economic crisis that afflicts the country in the past years. Demographic data compared with tourism indicators were used to assess the environmental impact of tourism in the area. Moreover, meteorological data were used in order to examine the correlation of climatic conditions and the number of visitors. The results show that the ski centre in Elatohori despite the economic benefits has a major environmental impact, especially because of the increased carbon emissions caused by the visitors of the area. Additionally, the climatic conditions (precipitation and temperature, especially the absolute maximum air temperature) affect the number of visitors.

Regional sustainability promotes an integrated approach to planning and development in regional communities. European Union legislative acts bring together all levels of government to achieve a... Show More

Regional sustainability promotes an integrated approach to planning and development in regional communities. European Union legislative acts bring together all levels of government to achieve a holistic approach to sustainability using Information and Communication Technologies tools for better delivery of services. Today, there has been observed an increasing interest in applying e-government to different business sectors such as the environmental sector. Sustainable management of National Forest Parks relies on a complete understanding of the goods and services, which are provided to the society. This paper aims to study e-government websites concerning the 10 Greek National Forest Parks and analyse the websites as to their qualitative and quantitative features. Then, the electronic services model adoption of the websites is assessed. The e-government websites are classified in electronic services adoption stages starting from a simple presence of the government agency in the Internet to the total electronic services integration through multiple ICT tools and applications provision according to content features accomplished by the websites. The findings can be helpful for managers, policy makers, web designers, environmentalists and government agencies.

This study focuses on consumers' behaviour towards Fruits and Vegetables (FVs) under economic crisis. The implementation of both factor analysis and logistic regression reveals discrete consumer... Show More

This study focuses on consumers' behaviour towards Fruits and Vegetables (FVs) under economic crisis. The implementation of both factor analysis and logistic regression reveals discrete consumer groups, affected and not affected by the ongoing economic crisis. Interviewees were selected randomly. In total, 250 questionnaires were completed and 238 of them were used for computations. There are two consumer groups, one affected by the crisis and one which did not. For the former, the price criterion prevails, while for the latter parameters like locality of production and heath concerns lead them to purchasing decisions. The economic crisis has reduced the quantities of FVs being consumed, and the retail chain stores fail to meet the criteria of locality and secure traceability procedures about the origin of the products. Nevertheless, educated consumers with higher incomes prefer to visit super markets, while elderly people with low incomes prefer grocery stores and open markets.

This research work reports the evaluation of tomato fruits (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill) by means of sensory analysis as well as through instrumented color determination aiming of establishing some... Show More

This research work reports the evaluation of tomato fruits (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill) by means of sensory analysis as well as through instrumented color determination aiming of establishing some correlations between the results yielded by the two methods. Nowadays tomato fruits selection and sorting are based on the uniformity of physiological maturity which is considered adequate for harvesting. The sensory analysis was carried by selecting a group of trained volunteers applying a non-structured scale. The instrumental readings were carried using a “Macbeth” HUNTERLab equipment at five selected points on the transversal fruit axis. The sensory color determination indicated no significant differences (p = 0.05) between the following groups of days: 1, 3 and 5; 5 and 8; 10 and 12; and 12, 15, 17 and 19, however it indicated the occurrence of differences between the groups. Tomato fruits showed moderately characteristic colors between the 10th and 12th days and very characteristic colors from the 12thday.

The present paper approaches a usual problem in the industrialised area, respectively Zlatna Area in Romania. The aim of this research is to establish the heavy metal soil contamination degree using... Show More

The present paper approaches a usual problem in the industrialised area, respectively Zlatna Area in Romania. The aim of this research is to establish the heavy metal soil contamination degree using modern research methods namely spectrometric and stripping methods. The results pointed out very high exceeding values, especially in the case of lead and copper, in the studied area. Moreover, the mobility and the availability of heavy metals decreases when pH increases. Findings suggest that the use of modern technologies have good results regarding the determination of the heavy metals in the soil.