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Current Advances in Green Governance and CO2 Emissions towards Sustainable Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2024) | Viewed by 7882

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit a paper for a Special Issue on “Current Advances in Green Governance and CO2 Emissions Towards Sustainable Development” in Sustainability. As COVID-19 has negatively impacted the global economy, environmental issues surrounding climate change have had to be suspended from the public interest due to the severe economic crisis. Nonetheless, many companies and governments have strongly promoted voluntary mitigation and abatement of CO2 emission under the Paris Agreement. Even with these efforts, unfortunately, many policies and business strategies do not seem to be effective to decrease CO2 emission due to the lack of governance. Of course, there have been diverse issues surrounding the effectiveness of sustainable development policies, especially for the carbon-net zero society. In order to achieve the impossible mission of carbon net-zero society, environmental policies should be ‘transparent, measurable, and predictable’. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to develop the feasibility of a net-zero society from a country level, industry level, and even for individual company level.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Environmental regulations evaluation toward the net-zero society;
  • Regional cooperation for the sustainable development or green growth;
  • Innovative case studies for the sustainable low-carbon innovation with the unique contents of implications and suggestions;
  • The economic impact coming from the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) or environmental regime;
  • New methodological, or conceptual approaches for sustainable governance in the post-COVID-19 era;
  • Other related issues on the net-zero society in the region or industry.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Yongrok Choi
Dr. Hyoungsuk Lee
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainability
  • green governance
  • Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)
  • net zero
  • energy efficiency
  • environmental pollution

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

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8 pages, 976 KiB  
Editorial
Current Advances in Green Governance and CO2 Emissions towards Sustainable Development
by Yongrok Choi and Hyoungsuk Lee
Sustainability 2023, 15(15), 11828; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511828 - 1 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1059
Abstract
Energy and environmental studies (E&E) have faced a significant turning point due to the lack of reliability of the existing models, as well as the lack of policy governance. Most papers in E&E have adapted data envelope analysis due to its popularity, which [...] Read more.
Energy and environmental studies (E&E) have faced a significant turning point due to the lack of reliability of the existing models, as well as the lack of policy governance. Most papers in E&E have adapted data envelope analysis due to its popularity, which is a result of its structure of having multiple inputs and outputs. However, due to its crucial weakness in statistical reliability, diverse new methodologies to gain better reliability have been developed, such as difference-in-difference and computational general equilibrium models, but they are still do not popular because the world has not shown significant progress in the abatement of carbon emissions. This comes not only from the lack of appropriate, precise research models, but also from a worldwide lack of governance. Most countries advocate for the necessity of E&E policies, yet their policies alone are not enough for sustainable performance, due to the lack of reliability and/or weakness of public–private partnerships. This Special Issue shall examine all of these new challenges to the methodologies, as well as the implications and suggestions arising from their empirical results. Full article
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Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 274 KiB  
Article
Government Subsidies, Green Innovation, and Firm Total Factor Productivity of Listed Artificial Intelligence Firms in China
by Guangwei Zhang, Yahan Shi and Nuozhou Huang
Sustainability 2024, 16(8), 3369; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16083369 - 17 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1687
Abstract
The world is being reshaped under global economic development driven by new advances in information technology. Artificial intelligence, an essential potential technology, will play a vital role in technological change and industrial upgrades. Exploring the relationship between government subsidies, green innovation, and total [...] Read more.
The world is being reshaped under global economic development driven by new advances in information technology. Artificial intelligence, an essential potential technology, will play a vital role in technological change and industrial upgrades. Exploring the relationship between government subsidies, green innovation, and total factor productivity will help us analyze government decisions’ effects and better promote artificial intelligence’s technological innovation process. Based on data from China’s listed artificial intelligence companies from 2011 to 2020, this study uses the Levinsohn–Petrin method to measure the total factor productivity of companies and analyzes the impact of government subsidies on the total factor productivity of AI companies, the mediating effect of green innovation, and the moderating effect of intellectual property protection intensity. The research results show that (1) government subsidies can promote the total factor productivity of AI enterprises; (2) green innovation capabilities play a mediating role between government subsidies and enterprise total factor productivity, and government subsidies can indirectly promote green innovation to promote the improvement of total factor productivity effectively; (3) in the AI industry, the promotion effect of government subsidies on total factor productivity is more significant among state-owned enterprises, while the impact mechanism of government subsidies on private enterprises is not significant; and (4) the intensity of intellectual property protection has played a positive moderating role in the impact of government subsidies for artificial intelligence enterprises on total factor productivity. However, the current intensity of intellectual property protection remains unable to promote improvements in enterprise total factor productivity by stimulating green innovation. The research results will help us better understand the relationship between government subsidies and the development of corporate economic benefits and promote more scientific and effective government decision-making. Full article
19 pages, 893 KiB  
Article
Impact of New Energy Industry Agglomeration on Green Innovation Efficiency—Based on the Regulative Effect of Green Finance
by Yiding Wu and Jingfei Song
Sustainability 2024, 16(8), 3311; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16083311 - 16 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1239
Abstract
With the implementation of China’s innovation-driven high-quality economic development strategy, green and innovation are already the key factors of economic development. Therefore, developing green industry and improving regional green innovation have attracted wide attention and are of great significance to the sustainable development [...] Read more.
With the implementation of China’s innovation-driven high-quality economic development strategy, green and innovation are already the key factors of economic development. Therefore, developing green industry and improving regional green innovation have attracted wide attention and are of great significance to the sustainable development of China’s economy. Therefore, starting from China’s provincial panel from 2012 to 2021, this paper first uses the super-efficiency relaxation data envelopment analysis model (Super-SBM) to estimate green innovation efficiency (GI) and then uses the location entropy to measure the regional agglomeration level of the new energy industry (agg). Then, the generalized estimation of moments (GMM) model is used to explore the impact of agg on GI and verify the regulatory mechanism of green finance (GF). The results are as follows: (1) agg presents a distribution of “the highest in the eastern region, followed by the central region, and the lowest in the western region”, (2) agg can facilitate the improvement of GI, and in accordance with the threshold model, moderate GF will further amplify this effect. Therefore, the state and government should further promote the green finance policy, guide new energy enterprises to gather and contribute to the sustainable development of China’s economy. Full article
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18 pages, 710 KiB  
Article
The Influence of Social Norms and Environmental Regulations on Rural Households’ Pesticide Packaging Waste Disposal Behavior
by Yuhan Zhang, Mengling Zhang, Zhenlin Weng, Xueping Gao and Wenmei Liao
Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 15938; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152215938 - 14 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1249
Abstract
The agricultural ecological environment provides an important resource guarantee for social development. The extensive management mode of agriculture in China has not fundamentally changed; the contradiction between production and governance is still prominent, and the management of agricultural surface pollution has a long [...] Read more.
The agricultural ecological environment provides an important resource guarantee for social development. The extensive management mode of agriculture in China has not fundamentally changed; the contradiction between production and governance is still prominent, and the management of agricultural surface pollution has a long way to go. Based on the data from 572 rural households in Jiangxi province, this paper uses the Ordered Logit, 2SLS, and the moderation effect model to analyze the mechanism between social norms (SNs) and rural households’ (RHs) disposal of pesticide packaging waste (PPW) and to test the moderation effect of environmental regulation (ER) in the influence path of SN to RHs’ disposal of PPW. The results show that (1) descriptive norms and directive norms promote RHs not littering PPW; the probability of RHs not littering PPW increases by 4.0% for each unit decrease in descriptive norms, and the probability of RHs not littering PPW increases by 12.1% when there are directive norms, but the directive norms are more significant than the descriptive norms. Consistent conclusions were obtained after the robustness test and endogeneity treatment. (2) Reputational incentives strengthen the promotional effect of directive norms on RHs’ behavior of not littering PPW; punitive regulations hinder the promotional effect of descriptive norms on RHs’ behavior of not littering PPW. Based on the findings of the study, the following policy recommendations are put forward: Actively cultivate SNs and give full play to their role in promoting RHs’ choice of the disposal behavior of PPW; improve the role of ER in regulating RHs’ choice of the disposal behavior of PPW; guide the ER and SNs to work in coordination. Full article
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15 pages, 1321 KiB  
Article
Inequality in Fossil Fuel Power Plants in China: A Perspective of Efficiency and Abatement Cost
by Yongrok Choi, Yunning Ma, Yu Zhao and Hyoungsuk Lee
Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4365; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054365 - 1 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1773
Abstract
Quantifying the shadow price (SP) of CO2 emissions is the key to achieving China’s “double carbon” targets. Considering technology heterogeneity, this study applies stochastic frontier analysis combined with meta-frontier technology to estimate the environmental technical efficiency (ETE) and SP of CO2 [...] Read more.
Quantifying the shadow price (SP) of CO2 emissions is the key to achieving China’s “double carbon” targets. Considering technology heterogeneity, this study applies stochastic frontier analysis combined with meta-frontier technology to estimate the environmental technical efficiency (ETE) and SP of CO2 emissions for China’s fossil fuel power plants from 2005 to 2015. This approach overcomes the lack of statistical inference and consistency of traditional methods and improves the reliability of results. The main results are as follows: (a) the average ETE of China’s power plants is 0.9444, indicating that inefficient production accounts for 5.66%. The difference in efficiency between the central and local groups is significant. (b) The national average SP of CO2 is 266.8 US dollars per ton, which is much higher than the carbon price in the emission trading system. This result implies the need to design a carbon trading price mechanism. (c) The distribution of SP shows obvious corporation and geographical characteristics that are closely related to the level of regional economic development. Finally, the findings provide policy implications for the improvement of the efficiency and abatement of costs of power plants and the determination of carbon prices. Full article
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