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The research presented in this paper explored multiple objectives. First, what are the requirements for establishing a new composting business that embraces the principles of circular economy? Second, how can employment opportunities for at-risk youths from the most impoverished neighborhood in Guatemala City be created, while adhering to the tenets of social sustainability, of which human rights is the corner stone? Third, what were the requirements involved in making compost in the challenging climatic conditions of Guatemala City? And finally, from an educational perspective, how can this be taught to university students incorporating community service learning in its pedagogy, coupled with the model of action research? What are the obstacles to overcome when initiating a startup business, balancing what appeared to be a mix of complex economic, environmental, and social elements? These three elements are the recognized pillars of sustainability, and as such, there existed a great opportunity to meld the principles of circular economy, community service learning, and action research within the context of putting theories into practice. This applied research attempted to explore how effectively this could be accomplished in Guatemala while overcoming complex cultural, environmental, and economic barriers.

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Sekáč P., Šálek M., Wranová A., Kumble P., Sklenička P. (2017): Effect of water features proximity on farmland prices in a landlocked country: the consequences for planning. Soil & Water Res., 12: 18−28.Conversion of farmland to non-farm uses significantly influences the spatial variability of farmland prices. We tested 12 factors of land prices that experienced real estate brokers indicated to be the most important determinants for the conversion of farmland to non-agricultural use. Five factors can be described as landscape, four as geographic, and three as climatic explanatory variables influencing farmland prices. Our results indicate that the two most powerful factors in explaining the sales price per square metre were proximity to a river and proximity to a lake. In both cases, the price of land diminished significantly with the increasing distance from the edge of water bodies, so the prices in their immediate vicinity are 3.5 to 3.7 times higher than the prices of similar lands more than 5 km from the edge of a water body. The other significant factors were population size of the nearest municipality and percentage representation of forest. The fact that the two most powerful factors indicate the distance to a river, brook, lake or pond shows how important are these freshwater features as determinants of farmland prices in a landlocked country such as the Czech Republic, where this study was performed. The consequences of this finding for water resources planning and management are discussed.

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Demand for ecotourism opportunities has increased dramatically world-wide in recent years.Heightened visitor interest has strained the capacity of ecologically, historically, and archaeologically sensitive sites. In third world countries such as Belize, sensitive sites have suffered from erosion and resource degradation, while local managers, governments and NGO's do not have the monetary or institutional capacity to anticipate, manage and mitigate the unintentional impacts imposed by ecotourists. As such, a framework must be established to identify sites that can sustain their integrity through visitation by ecotourists and locations that should remain closed to visitation by the general public and only used for managed scientific study.

Cities are small on earth’s surface but they are the most attractive places for people to live and work; cities are developing quickly, thus it’s important to keep it a better quality place to live as it has the major of the economic activities and more job opportunities and other social and economic advantages to be a more green and sustainable place. Seeking to achieve sustainable use of ecosystems and conserve natural resources in the city of Prague; integrating ecological sustainability goals, the political borders as a reflection of urban development in the city, and ecosystems edges in blue and green functions impact the city development, and present opportunities to create strategies for green and blue infrastructure and clarifying threats could slow down the process to achieve the sustainability and greenery application. Also checking possible urban areas for development like brownfields and clarifying their relationship with political borders and ecosystems to find possible areas to add for sustainable green use, which will create better places for people to live and raise the value of life as well.