The rapid rise in climate and ecological challenges have allowed policymakers to introduce stringent environmental policies. In addition, financial limitations may pose challenges for countries looking to green energy investments as energy transition is associated with geopolitical risks that could create uncertainty and dissuade green energy investments. The current study uses PTR and PSTR as econometric strategy to investigate how geopolitical risks and financial development indicators influence energy transition in selected industrial economies. Our findings indicate a non-linear DCPB-RE relationship with a threshold equal to 39.361 in PTR model and 35.605 and 122.35 in PSTR model. Additionally, when the threshold was estimated above, financial development indicators and geopolitical risk positively impacts renewable energy. This confirms that these economies operate within a geopolitical context, with the objective of investing more in clean energy. We report novel policy suggestion to encourage policymakers promoting energy transition and advance the sustainable financing development and ecological sustainability.
Climate change repercussions such as temperature shifts and more severe weather occurrences are felt globally. It contributes to larger-scale challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss in food production. As a result, the purpose of this research is to develop strategies to grow the economy without harming the environment. Therefore, we revisit the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, considering the impact of climate policy uncertainty along with other control variables. We investigated yearly panel data from 47 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations from 1998 to 2021. Pooled regression, fixed effect, and the generalized method of moment (GMM) findings all confirmed the presence of inverted U-shaped EKC in BRI counties. Findings from this paper provide policymakers with actionable ideas, outlining a framework for bringing trade and climate agendas into harmony in BRI countries. The best way to promote economic growth and reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to push for trade and climate policies to be coordinated. Moreover, improving institutional quality is essential for strong environmental governance, as it facilitates the adoption of environmentally friendly industrialization techniques and the efficient administration of climate policy uncertainties.
This paper examines the common themes delivered in studies on corporate reporting in relation to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Articles of the aforesaid studies were mostly acquired from Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) archives from year 2015 to 2022 in which the contents were carefully reviewed for selection. To systematise the literature, PRISMA 2020 statement is used. Descriptive analysis reveals an increase in publications on corporate SDG reporting, although most are focused on developed nations. The analysis also shows a scarcity of studies on the consumer goods, agricultural, fishery, and forestry sectors. Furthermore, current studies have yet to adopt a qualitative or mixed-method approach. There are fundamentally six themes that emerged from the review of literature-the degree of SDG engagement, the quality of SDG reporting, the determining factor in SDG reporting mechanism, the consequences of SDG reporting, the legitimisation approaches, as well as the institutional/stakeholder pressure. For determinants of SDG reporting, it is observed that environmental governance is not explored. This paper identifies the least addressed SDGs that businesses can focus on to accelerate their SDG contribution rate. This paper guides future research and informs decision-making by organisations and stakeholders interested in promoting sustainable development through SDG reporting.
In recent years, academics have paid more attention to green finance, and public companies have reached a broad consensus on the concept of timely environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure. Due to the close relationship between green finance and ESG, this presents an opportunity to determine whether green finance compels companies to actively disclose ESG. The sample for this study consists of China's non-financial A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021, and the empirical findings demonstrate that green finance can positively influence the ESG performance of listed companies. Through an analysis of heterogeneity, this study reaches the following conclusions: state-owned enterprises, heavy pollution companies, and companies in low-carbon pilot cities perform better in terms of green finance's role in promoting ESG scoring. This study also introduces market concentration and social trust as the moderating variables, enriching the green finance research framework. Through the analysis of moderating variables, the 'black box' effect of green finance on ESG is disclosed, providing theoretical support for the government and companies to better comprehend the policy effect as well as a reference for reform and experimental promotion of green finance.
The study proposes to examine how environmental, social and governance disclosure (ESG) affect the financial performance (FP) of Indian firms. Furthermore, it aims to evaluate the moderation impact of CEO power (CEOP) on the association between ESG on the FP. The study's target population is all firms indexed in NIFTY 100, representing the top one hundred firms by market capitalisation from 2017 to 2021. Data relating to ESG were collected and built based on the available data on Refinitiv Eikon Database. Results reveal that EDI positively and significantly impacts the ROE and TQ of Indian firms. Furthermore, SDI and GDI negatively and significantly affect the ROE and TQ of Indian firms. Moreover, ESG and CEOP have a significant impact on ROE. Nevertheless, ESG has a negative but highly significant impact on ROE, whilst it has a negative and low considerable impact on the TQ of Indian firms. Nonetheless, CEOP does not moderate the association between ESG and FP measured by ROE and TQ. This research contributes to the existing literature by introducing a moderator variable that has not been used in the Indian context; CEO power, which provides stakeholders and regulators with useful findings that would encourage firms to create an ESG committee to enhance ESG disclosure to compete on the world market and reach the United Nations (UN) Sustainable goal 2030. Furthermore, this paper provides insightful recommendations for creating an ESG legal framework for decision-makers.
Carbon emission trading is an important environmental policy tool to promote carbon emission reduction. With the panel data of carbon emissions trading (CET) pilots, this paper used the spatial difference-in-difference model (SDID) to test whether CET can affect the enterprise environmental responsibility and the spatial spillover effect of carbon emissions trading. The study found that CET can significantly improve the environmental responsibility level of enterprises in pilot areas. The environmental responsibility level of enterprises in surrounding areas are also improved driven by CET. In the time dimension, the role of CET in improving the enterprise environmental responsibility is gradually increasing. The impact of CET on enterprise environmental responsibility has significant heterogeneity in the dimension of ownership attributes and environmental regulation. Promoting corporate environmental protection investment is the main path for CET to improve the enterprise environmental responsibility.
Blue foods, sourced in aquatic environments, are important for the economies, livelihoods, nutritional security and cultures of people in many nations. They are often nutrient rich1, generate lower emissions and impacts on land and water than many terrestrial meats2, and contribute to the health3, wellbeing and livelihoods of many rural communities4. The Blue Food Assessment recently evaluated nutritional, environmental, economic and justice dimensions of blue foods globally. Here we integrate these findings and translate them into four policy objectives to help realize the contributions that blue foods can make to national food systems around the world: ensuring supplies of critical nutrients, providing healthy alternatives to terrestrial meat, reducing dietary environmental footprints and safeguarding blue food contributions to nutrition, just economies and livelihoods under a changing climate. To account for how context-specific environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects affect this contribution, we assess the relevance of each policy objective for individual countries, and examine associated co-benefits and trade-offs at national and international scales. We find that in many African and South American nations, facilitating consumption of culturally relevant blue food, especially among nutritionally vulnerable population segments, could address vitamin B12 and omega-3 deficiencies. Meanwhile, in many global North nations, cardiovascular disease rates and large greenhouse gas footprints from ruminant meat intake could be lowered through moderate consumption of seafood with low environmental impact. The analytical framework we provide also identifies countries with high future risk, for whom climate adaptation of blue food systems will be particularly important. Overall the framework helps decision makers to assess the blue food policy objectives most relevant to their geographies, and to compare and contrast the benefits and trade-offs associated with pursuing these objectives.
Environmental degradation and ecological devastation have become widespread global concerns in recent years as a result of the expansion of the international economy. China's rapid economic development has been accompanied by a sloppy economic growth model that has damaged the local ecological environment. The Chinese government intends to improve the ecological environment by the end of 2020 in an effort to direct and improve these environmental issues. The strictest environmental laws became effective in 2015. In light of this, this research uses panel data analysis to examine the environmental strategy and environmental governance of Chinese corporations. This article analyses 14,512 samples of listed mainland Chinese enterprises from 2015 to 2020. This research investigates the connection between Corporate Sustainability Development Strategy and Corporate Environmental Governance, as well as the moderating effect of Corporate Environmental Investments.
With increasing environmental regulation (ER), the requirements for green technology innovation (GTI) in enterprises are also rising. However, there are relatively few systematic summaries of the themes of ER-affecting GTI. Adopting the method of bibliometrics and visual analysis, this research discusses the status of research and development trends of ER-affecting GTI and summarizes the research in this field. The paper takes 738 papers from 2001 to 2021 in the core database of Web of Science as the research sample. Based on CiteSpace, this paper makes a visual analysis of the number of published papers, institutions, authors, keywords, countries (regions) and journals. The study found that to some extent, favorable collaboration between authors and institutions in this field needs to be strengthened. Research hotspots in this field include innovation, technology, performance, policy and environmental regulation. Renewable energy consumption, the pollution haven hypothesis, sustainable development, carbon dioxide emission, energy technology and environmental Kuznets curve are the current research frontiers in this field. In terms of the number of published papers, research in this field has been conducted in a national (regional) layout with China as the core force, and Italy, America, Britain, Germany and other European countries as important forces. This field covers three main research areas: enterprise performance, policy instruments and research methods, going through the start-up phase (2001-2011), the growth phase (2012-2018) and the development phase (2019-2021). Future research can further incorporate the digital economy and synergy of multiple environmental regulation policies into this field, which will continuously enrich the theoretical research system in this field. The content, methods and conclusions of research in this field are becoming increasingly diverse.
Fish and other aquatic foods (blue foods) present an opportunity for more sustainable diets1,2. Yet comprehensive comparison has been limited due to sparse inclusion of blue foods in environmental impact studies3,4 relative to the vast diversity of production5. Here we provide standardized estimates of greenhouse gas, nitrogen, phosphorus, freshwater and land stressors for species groups covering nearly three quarters of global production. We find that across all blue foods, farmed bivalves and seaweeds generate the lowest stressors. Capture fisheries predominantly generate greenhouse gas emissions, with small pelagic fishes generating lower emissions than all fed aquaculture, but flatfish and crustaceans generating the highest. Among farmed finfish and crustaceans, silver and bighead carps have the lowest greenhouse gas, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, but highest water use, while farmed salmon and trout use the least land and water. Finally, we model intervention scenarios and find improving feed conversion ratios reduces stressors across all fed groups, increasing fish yield reduces land and water use by up to half, and optimizing gears reduces capture fishery emissions by more than half for some groups. Collectively, our analysis identifies high-performing blue foods, highlights opportunities to improve environmental performance, advances data-poor environmental assessments, and informs sustainable diets.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China formally proposed an environmental interview system in May 2014, which applies pressure on local governments to fulfill their responsibility toward environmental protection by conducting face-to-face public interviews with their officials. In this paper, 48 cities that were publicly interviewed from 2014-2020 were considered the experimental group and 48 cities surrounding them were the control group. First, the dynamic panel model is applied to initially determine the effect of the policy. Then, a regression discontinuity method (Sharp RD) is used to analyze the short-term and long-term effects and compare the reasons for the differences observed among the estimates of various types of samples. Finally, a series of robustness tests were also conducted. The results show that the environmental interview system can improve air quality. However, because an emergency short-term local governance system exists at present, the governance effect is not long-term and, therefore, not sustainable. Therefore, it suggests that the government should continue to improve the environmental interview system, establish an optimal environmental protection incentive mechanism, and encourage local governments to implement environmental protection policies effectively in the long term. The results of the research are of great significance to the environmental impact assessment system of the world, especially in countries with similar economic systems, which are facing a trade-off between economic growth and environmental sustainability.
This work aims to assess multidimensional energy poverty and energy efficiency for environmental policy measures using data envelopment analysis (DEA), a DEA-Like mathematical composite indicator applied on a dataset based on multiple sets of variables from South Asian economies. The multidimensional energy poverty index (MEPI) is computed to analyze the combining effects and energy poverty in these countries. Simultaneously, South Asia's metropolitan areas' population rose by 130 million between 2001 and 2011 and is projected to expand by approximately 250 million by 2030. The findings reveal that endogenous increasing population shocks account for about 72% of energy use. In contrast, the long-term effects of remittance revenue, economic growth, and urbanization on energy use are approximately 20%, 8.25%, and 0.03%, respectively. This work advocates more coordinated and innovative policies to eliminate energy poverty. It can act as a base for policymakers and government officials to make efficient policies and enforce them properly in the regional power sector. Policies should be designed around a smarter use of biomass for cooking, alternate sources for domestic energy production, increased programs for biomass-based cookstoves, and periodic regional-level energy database development.
Technological advances, coupled with increasing demands by consumers, have led to a drastic increase in plastic production. After serving their purposes, these plastics reach our water bodies as their destination and become ingested by aquatic organisms. This ubiquitous phenomenon has exposed humans to microplastics mostly through the consumption of sea food. This has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to make an urgent call for the assessment of environmental pollution due to microplastics and its effect on human health. This review summarizes studies between 1999 and 2020 in relation to microplastics in aquatic ecosystems and human food products, their potential toxic effects as elicited in animal studies, and policies on their use and disposal. There is a paucity of information on the toxicity mechanisms of microplastics in animal studies, and despite their documented presence in food products, no policy has been in place so far, to monitor and regulates microplastics in commercial foods meant for human consumption. Although there are policies and regulations with respect to plastics, these are only in a few countries and in most instances are not fully implemented due to socioeconomic reasons, so they do not address the problem across the entire life cycle of plastics from production to disposal. More animal research to elucidate pathways and early biomarkers of microplastic toxicity that can easily be detected in humans is needed. This is to create awareness and influence policies that will address this neglected threat to food safety and security.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents the largest infrastructure and development project in human history, and presents risks and opportunities for ecosystems, economies, and communities. Some risks (habitat fragmentation, roadkill) are obvious, however, many of the BRI's largest challenges for development and conservation are not obvious and require extensive consideration to identify. In this first BRI Horizon Scan, we identify 11 frontier issues that may have large environmental and social impacts but are not yet recognised. More generally, the BRI will increase China's participation in international environmental governance. Thus, new cooperative modes of governance are needed to balance geopolitical, societal, and environmental interests. Upgrading and standardising global environmental standards is essential to safeguard ecological systems and human societies.
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the most attractive tools employed nowadays by environmental policy-makers as well as business decision-makers to ensure environmentally sustainable production/consumption of various goods/services. LCA is a systematic, rigorous, and standardized approach aimed at quantifying resources consumed/depleted, pollutants released, and the related environmental and health impacts through the course of consumption and production of goods/service. Algal fuels are no exception and their environmental sustainability could be well scrutinized using the LCA methodology. In line with that, this chapter is devoted to present guidelines on the technical aspects of LCA application in algal fuels while elaborating on major standards used, i.e., ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. Overall, LCA practitioners as well as technical experts dealing with algal fuels in both the public and private sectors could be the main target audience for these guidelines.
The strategic location of Malaysia along the world's busiest trade waterways underscores the need to cope ballast water issues for both domestic and international shipping. The adoption of Ballast Water Management Convention 2004 (BWMC) by the International Maritime Organization is suitable for management plans intended to prevent the introduction of invasive species through ballast water discharge. Malaysia has ratified the BWMC in September 2010 and the Convention has come into force in September 2017. However up to now, the BWMC has not been fully implemented by Malaysia for ships operating in its waters. This paper analyse the headway in implementing the provisions of the BWMC in Malaysia as well as the issues and challenges encountered for the implementation. The paper concludes that Malaysian government should promulgate laws and policies to clearly communicate on ballast water issues to the shipping industry communities.
Globalization persists the tendency to alter numerous aspects of today's world including religion, transport, language, living styles, and international relations; however, its potential to influence quality of environment is the prime concern for trade and environmental policies guidelines (Audi and Ali 2018). In response to the growing interest for identifying the dynamic relationship between globalization and environmental performance, the present study seeks to investigate the critical link between globalization and ecological footprints in top 15 globalized countries between 1970 and 2016. Applying the novel methods of quantile-on-quantile regression (QQ) and Granger causality in quantiles, the findings examine the manners in which quantiles of globalization affect the quantiles of ecological footprints and vice versa. The empirical results suggest that globalization has a long-term positive effect on ecological footprint and vice versa in case of Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Portugal. On the other hand, the estimated results indicate a negative effect between globalization and ecological footprint in the case of France, Germany, the UK, and Hungary. These results extend the recent findings on the globalization-environment nexus implying that the magnitude of relationship among both variables varies with countries demanding individual focus and cautions for postulating environmental and trade policies.
Much of the environmental policy literature tends to focus on democratic contexts where environmental innovation is a product of pluralistic interactions among state and non-state actors. By bringing the (authoritarian) politics into the analysis, this article seeks to discover the processes leading to environmental innovation under nondemocratic conditions. We utilise case studies in China and then-nondemocratic Malaysia, both grappling with the twin imperatives of rapid development and social control, where the governments initiated environmental innovations to expand space for public participation and monitoring against noxious plants. We adapt the conceptual framework of "environmental innovation strategies" to illustrate the mechanisms underpinning innovative practices that address environmental issues by going beyond pre-existing public regulatory provisions. We highlight aspects distinguishing the interactive processes under authoritarianism. First, the drivers of environmental innovation are contingent on the government's role and concerns over social control and state legitimacy. Second, due to limits over political space, environmental nongovernmental organisations (ENGOs) act as issue entrepreneurs-instead of policy entrepreneurs-who turn conditions into problems deserving government attention and solution, as they engage in conflictual interactions with state authorities. Third, such innovations can strengthen nondemocratic governance while not fully plugging the gaps in existing environmental regulations. This contributes to illuminating the behaviours of state-based environmental innovators under illiberal political regimes, potentially offering lessons to activists on how to stimulate further innovations in such contexts.
For reefs in South East Asia the synergistic effects of rapid land development, insufficient environmental policies and a lack of enforcement has led to poor water quality and compromised coral health from increased sediment and pollution. Those inshore turbid coral reefs, subject to significant sediment inputs, may also inherit some resilience to the effects of thermal stress and coral bleaching. We studied the inshore turbid reefs near Miri, in northwest Borneo through a comprehensive assessment of coral cover and health in addition to quantifying sediment-related parameters. Although Miri's Reefs had comparatively low coral species diversity, dominated by massive and encrusting forms of Diploastrea, Porites, Montipora, Favites, Dipsastrea and Pachyseris, they were characterized by a healthy cover ranging from 22 to 39%. We found a strong inshore to offshore gradient in hard coral cover, diversity and community composition as a direct result of spatial differences in sediment at distances <10 km. As well as distance to shore, we included other environmental variables like reef depth and sediment trap accumulation and particle size that explained 62.5% of variation in benthic composition among sites. Miri's reefs showed little evidence of coral disease and relatively low prevalence of compromised health signs including bleaching (6.7%), bioerosion (6.6%), pigmentation response (2.2%), scars (1.1%) and excessive mucus production (0.5%). Tagged colonies of Diploastrea and Pachyseris suffering partial bleaching in 2016 had fully (90-100%) recovered the following year. There were, however, seasonal differences in bioerosion rates, which increased five-fold after the 2017 wet season. Differences in measures of coral physiology, like that of symbiont density and chlorophyll a for Montipora, Pachyseris and Acropora, were not detected among sites. We conclude that Miri's reefs may be in a temporally stable state given minimal recently dead coral and a limited decline in coral cover over the last two decades. This study provides further evidence that turbid coral reefs exposed to seasonally elevated sediment loads can exhibit relatively high coral cover and be resilient to disease and elevated sea surface temperatures.
As in many nations, air pollution linked to rapid industrialization is a public health and environmental concern in Malaysia, especially in cities. Understanding awareness of air pollution and support for environmental protection from the general public is essential for informing governmental approaches to dealing with this problem. This study presents a cross-sectional survey conducted in the Klang Valley and Iskandar conurbations to examine urban Malaysians' perception, awareness and opinions of air pollution. The survey was conducted in two languages, English and Malay, and administered through the online survey research software, Qualtrics. The survey consisted of three sections, where we collected sociodemographic information, information on the public perception of air quality and the causes of air pollution, information on public awareness of air pollution and its related impacts, and information on attitudes towards environmental protection. Of 214 respondents, over 60% were positive towards the air quality at both study sites despite the presence of harmful levels of air pollution. The air in the Klang Valley was perceived to be slightly more polluted and causing greater health issues. Overall, the majority of respondents were aware that motor vehicles represent the primary pollution source, yet private transport was still the preferred choice of transportation mode. A generally positive approach towards environmental protection emerged from the data. However, participants showed stronger agreement with protection actions that do not involve individual effort. Nonetheless, we found that certain segments of the sample (people owning more than three vehicles per household and those with relatives who suffered from respiratory diseases) were significantly more willing to personally pay for environmental protection compared to others. Implications point to the need for actions for spreading awareness of air pollution to the overall population, especially with regards to its health risks, as well as strategies for increasing the perception of behavioural control, especially with regards to motor vehicles' usage.