Energy from hydrogen is an appropriate technological choice in the context of sustainable development. The opportunities offered by the use of energy from hydrogen also represent a significant challenge for mobile technologies and daily life. Nevertheless, despite a significant amount of research and information regarding the benefits of hydrogen energy, it creates considerable controversy in many countries. Globally, there is a lack of understanding about the production process of hydrogen energy and the benefits it provides, which leads to concerns regarding the consistency of its use. In this study, an original questionnaire was used as a research tool to determine the opinions of inhabitants of countries in which hydrogen energy is underutilized and where the infrastructure for hydrogen energy is underdeveloped. Respondents presented their attitude to ecology, and indicated their knowledge regarding the operation of hydrogen energy and the use of hydrogen fuel. The results indicate that society is not convinced that the safety levels for energy derived from hydrogen are adequate. It can be concluded that knowledge about hydrogen as an energy source, and the production safety and storage methods of hydrogen, is very low. Negative attitudes to hydrogen energy can be an important barrier in the development of this energy in many countries.

Sustainable development, logistics, and supply chain are being combined into three increasingly connected and topical global research areas. Therefore, this paper’s novelty identifies and defines the priorities of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and sustainable development dimensions in supply-chain- and logistics-management-related studies in the last decade. Knowing logistics and supply chain sustainability focus and orientation is valuable information for researchers and managers to adapt and mitigate their business logistics according to the forecasted trends. The paper provides a systematic and comprehensive review of the literature and is based on 116 scientific papers published between 2010 and 2020 in 73 international journals in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The study defines focus with integrating environmental, social, and economic sustainability for logistics- and supply-chain-related studies. It emphasizes primary and secondary links of investigated studies with 17 United Nations sustainable development goals. The bibliometric analysis also examined keyword relations. One of the main contributions is that economic sustainability was identified as the most represented one-dimensional sustainability focus. It was revealed that supply chain studies integrated all three sustainability dimensions more frequently (50.60%) than logistics studies, which were equally related to studying two- or three-dimensions of sustainability (39.39%). The most significant findings are also that studies were identified to be oriented primarily towards “responsible consumption and production”, “industry, innovation, and infrastructure” and “affordable and clean energy” and secondary especially on “sustainable cities and communities”.

The paper presented the findings obtained by industrial research and experimental development on the use of rare earth metals (REMs) in the production of heavy steel ingots and their impact on the internal quality of the 42CrMo4 grade steel forging. REMs alloying was carried out after vacuuming the steel. A relatively large melting loss of cerium (about 50%) and its further decrease in casting due to reoxidation were observed. Refinement of structure and better mechanical properties of forged bar containing about 0.02 wt.% of Ce compared to that of the standard production were not achieved. The wind power shaft with content of about 0.06 wt.% of Ce showed high amount of REM inclusions, which were locally chained, and in some cases, initiated cracks. Four stoichiometrically different types of REM inclusions were detected in forgings, namely (La-Ce)₂O₂S + (La-Ce)O₂ + SiO₂ (minority); oxygen, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony bound to lanthanum and cerium probably bonded with iron oxides La + Ce, MgO, Al₂O₃ a SiO₂; (La-Ce)₂O₂S, FeO, SiO₂, and CaO or CaS.

Every year approximately 70 million passenger cars are being produced and automotive industry is much bigger then just passenger cars. The impact of automotive industry on the environment is tremendous. From extracting raw materials through manufacturing and assembly processes, exploitation of the vehicle to the reprocessing irreversible, extensive environmental damage is done. The goal of this study is to show how implementing eco-design processes into supply chain management can reduce the impact of automotive industry on the environment by e.g. reducing the use of the fuel, increasing the use of recycled materials. Focus is on evaluation of current state, environmental impacts and potential improvements for design, raw materials, manufacturing and distribution and end-of-life phase.

Supply chain management is one of the most important elements of sustainable development. And due to the fact that the world market is driven by supply and demand, and the determinant of access to products is regional and international logistics, this paper focuses on the possibilities of implementing a green transport strategy in the context of sustainable development in logistic enterprises. This paper presents the results of the SWOT analysis pointing out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats of green vehicles market for the transport enterprises. It was noticed that the situation on the green vehicles market for the transport enterprises is characterized by the advantage of strengths and these strengths should be used to maximize the use of green vehicles. It emphasized that subsidies for green vehicles would allow to invest in a modern fleet, new solutions (e.g. own charging stations) can have an impact on the greater energy efficiency (self-sufficiency), increase of social awareness would force enterprises to take appropriate actions in the field of environmental protection and development of public transport based on green vehicles.

In the paper, the method of the production process improvement with the use of lean production tools has been presented. The Value Stream Mapping (VSM) for the cardboard packaging production process has been presented. On the basis of the current state map (CSM), areas for improvement have been designated – 5 organizational changes of the process were marked out. To minimize the three basic losses excessive storage, unnecessary movement and delays, the changes were introduced in the method of inter-operative transport, supervision of the storage condition (input and output of the process), control at the processing operation and the use of a production loop. As a result of the changes, it is possible to shorten the process time, shorten the total time of operations adding value and reduce the number of non-compliant products.