Three pillars of sustainability in the wake of COVID-19: A systematic review and future research agenda for sustainable development

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Abstract

<p class="first" id="d3259964e249">The COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability in human lives. Due to the scholars’ increasing interest in responding to the urgent call for action against the pandemic, the literature of sustainability research considering COVID-19 consequences is very fragmented. Therefore, a comprehensive review of the COVID-19 implications for sustainability practices is still lacking. This research aims to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability to support the future sustainable development agenda. To achieve that, the following research questions are addressed by conducting a systematic literature review: (i) what is the current status of research on the TBL of sustainability considering COVID-19 implications? (ii) how does COVID-19 affect the TBL of sustainability? and (iii) what are the potential research gaps and future research avenues for sustainable development post COVID-19? The results manifest the major implications of the COVID-19 outbreak for the triple sustainability pillars and the sustainable development agenda from the economic, social, and environmental points of view. The key findings provide inclusive insights for governments, authorities, practitioners, and policy-makers to alleviate the pandemic’s negative impacts on sustainable development and to realize the sustainability transition opportunities post COVID-19. Finally, five research directions for sustainable development corresponding to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) post COVID-19 are provided, as follows: (1) sustainability action plan considering COVID-19 implications: refining sustainability goals and targets and developing measurement framework; (2) making the most of sustainability transition opportunities in the wake of COVID-19: focus on SDG 12 and SDG 9; (3) innovative solutions for economic resilience towards sustainability post COVID-19: focus on SDG 1, SDG 8, and SDG 17; (4) in-depth analysis of the COVID-19 long-term effects on social sustainability: focus on SDG 4, SDG 5, and SDG 10; and (5) expanding quantitative research to harmonize the COVID-19-related sustainability research. </p>

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COVID-19 outbreak: Migration, effects on society, global environment and prevention

Indranil Chakraborty, Prasenjit Maity (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered as the most crucial global health calamity of the century and the greatest challenge that the humankind faced since the 2nd World War. In December 2019, a new infectious respiratory disease emerged in Wuhan, Hubei province, China and was named by the World Health Organization as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). A new class of corona virus, known as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has been found to be responsible for occurrence of this disease. As far as the history of human civilization is concerned there are instances of severe outbreaks of diseases caused by a number of viruses. According to the report of the World Health Organization (WHO as of April 18 2020), the current outbreak of COVID-19, has affected over 2164111 people and killed more than 146,198 people in more than 200 countries throughout the world. Till now there is no report of any clinically approved antiviral drugs or vaccines that are effective against COVID-19. It has rapidly spread around the world, posing enormous health, economic, environmental and social challenges to the entire human population. The coronavirus outbreak is severely disrupting the global economy. Almost all the nations are struggling to slow down the transmission of the disease by testing & treating patients, quarantining suspected persons through contact tracing, restricting large gatherings, maintaining complete or partial lock down etc. This paper describes the impact of COVID-19 on society and global environment, and the possible ways in which the disease can be controlled has also been discussed therein.