Sustainability involves extending the relational framework of SMEs outside the sphere of economic activity by justifying and legitimizing actions with a social impact on the environment. Links with the circular economy are achieved through the economic and environmental dimensions and through corporate social responsibility as a component of sustainable development. The main purpose of the paper was to determine the level of involvement of Romanian SMEs in activities related to the circular economy. The sample survey conducted among SME managers offered the advantage of collecting a large amount of direct information on the activities undertaken, the size of the investments and the nature of the funding sources used over the last five years. In this descriptive research, the process of setting up a representative sample of 384 enterprises was carried out by random sampling. The major contributions of the research project are to outline the contribution of Romanian SMEs to the development of a sustainable economy through their involvement in specific activities, the size of the investments made, and the level of participation of representatives of the enterprises in courses in order to identify new sources of financing and positive solutions in order to implement the principles of the circular economy.

Due to environmental considerations, environmental sustainability has become the main target of contemporary organizations, which has a direct influence on increasing their performance. The purpose of this study was to present the efficiency of green business process optimization for the performances of mining entities. Quantitative research was carried out on a sample of 209 people in an economic entity in the mining industry. The results of the study indicated real possibilities to achieve the objectives set in the research undertaken. Using business process management, the authors examined how green business processes can be optimized in a Romanian mining entity. The main results determined the degree of pollution from suspended and sedimentary dust particles due to coal production from the mining entity that was studied. Moreover, the present research proved that certain key environmental indicators underlie the performance and optimization of green business processes. The practical implications of this study are to respect and continually improve the management of the processes of activities, to reduce the costs of depollution and increase the performances.

The appearance of the analysis models, as a physical or mathematic form, has allowed simplifying the graphic representation of the processes specific to bioclimatology. Thus, the bioclimatic index becomes a useful and practical work tool in the scientific research, avoiding a multiple ranges of possible evaluations of the positive or negative potential that the climate of a region has on the human health. The proposed study analyzes the calculated values of the thermo-hygrometric index, for the period between the years 1981-2010. The database was improved with the meteorological data obtained from the five weather stations located in the Southern part of the Dobrogea Plateau. The mathematic formula launched by Kyle W.J. is based on the measured values of the air temperature (ºC) and relative air humidity (%). The obtained results allow us to highlight both the specific bioclimatic areas and the way in which the tourism in the area can be affected. The bioclimatic extension and intensity is rendered by a suggestive and synthetic graphic expression. The maps showing the spatial distribution of the index were obtained by combining the isotherm method with the kriging interpolation specific to the ArcMap.

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It is already a well-known fact that air-temperature is the most important climatic factor of differentiation between intra- and extra-urban areas, mainly due to the characteristics of the underlying active surface. Bucharest town-area is no exception to the rule. Ranking as Romania’s largest city, its air-temperature singularities and differences account for the most important example expressing the role that the artificial ground layer may play in the creation of specific urban climates. The thermal differences as well as singularities between the Bucharest town-area (Bucharest-Filaret) and its surroundings (Bucharest-Băneasa) are analyzed by means of multiple air-temperature parameters: hourly measurements (01, 07, 13 and 19 hrs.), daily, monthly, yearly values of maximum, average and minimum means, over a 30 year period (1981-2010). Besides, the analysis of some air-temperature singularities or records highlight the clear differences of air heating processes, mostly due to the different interaction patterns between solar radiation and the underlying active layer, at local scales. However, in general, although the intra-urban areas should keep warmer in summer and cooler in winter, the cooling effects seem to still remain lower in the city because of the greater artificial heat input that is being added to the built-in environment.