Toward an Efficient and Sustainable Use of Energy in Industries and Cities

Several countries have recently realized that the present development paradigm is not
sustainable from an environmental and energy point of view. The growing awareness of the
population regarding environmental issues is pushing governments worldwide more and more to
promote policies aiming at limiting harmful effects of human development. In particular, the rapid
increase of the global temperature, especially in the polar regions, and the management of human
wastes, mainly plastic in seas, are some of the main points to be addressed by these novel policies.
Several actions must be implemented in order to limit such issues. Unfortunately, the recent COP
24 Conference was not successful, but hopefully an agreement will be established in 2020 at the
COP 26 Conference. The effort performed by policymakers must be mandatorily supported by the
scientific community. In this framework, this paper aims at showing that countries worldwide are
trying to negotiate an agreement to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions. In addition, in this paper all the researchers reported can provide quantitative measures of
the actions to be implemented in order to address a sustainable and efficient use of energy. Here,
innovations in terms of novel efficient and environmentally friendly technologies mainly based on
renewable energy sources have been also investigated. The study also highlights different sectors
that have been involved for this aim, such as energy conversion systems, urban areas, mobility,
sustainability, water management, social aspects, etc. In this framework, specific conferences are
periodically organized in order to provide a forum for discussion regarding these topics. In this area
the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) conference is
the most ordinary conference. The 13th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment
Systems Conference was held in Palermo, Italy in 2018. The current Special Issue of Energies,
precisely dedicated to the 13th SDEWES Conference, is based on three main topics: energy policy and
energy efficiency in urban areas, energy efficiency in industry and biomass and other miscellaneous
energy systems.