Editorial

Welcome to the second of six issues in 2015. In line with the discussions outlined in the first editorial of this year from the International Journal of Sustainable Engineering (Rahimifard and Sheldrick 2015), this issue focuses on a range of transferable knowledge in the areas of sustainable construction engineering, manufacturing engineering and automotive engineering; and contains six papers discussing research concepts in these areas.

The initial section of this issue contains four papers related to construction. The first from Bakhoum and Brown presents a framework for a software-based decision support system that facilitates the selection of sustainable structural materials for the construction industry. The second from Gharzeldeen and Beheiry discusses the use of green design parameters in directing construction projects within the United Arab Emirates, identifying the main constraints hindering their application. The third from Liu et al. uses a case study of highway pavement construction to examine the use of life cycle cost analysis for selecting appropriate investment decisions, and proposes a complimentary life cycle assessment model for evaluating greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore selecting the most appropriate pavement type. The fourth from Hajji proposes a methodology that can be used to estimate the total fuel use and CO₂ emissions for construction equipment based on its productivity rate, enabling contractors to make better informed decisions when planning construction projects.

The issue concludes with two further papers, the first related to manufacturing and the second to automotive engineering. The first from Alimoradi et al. discusses the design of closed loop supply chains, and suggests a new model of supply chain network with minimized waste from supplier to customer, and back. The final from Deveta et al. discusses energy management in automotive vehicles and proposes two novel approaches and algorithms for management of energy within hybrid electric vehicles.