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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 October 2023) | Viewed by 12940

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Weike Zhang

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Guest Editor

School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China
Interests: digital divide; digital technology; healthcare; health economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Chi-Wei Su

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Guest Editor

School of Economics, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
Interests: international finance; urban studies; energy economics; environmental economics; econometrics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Hsuling Chang

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Guest Editor

Department of Accounting, Ling Tung University, Taichung 408213, Taiwan
Interests: energy economics; environmental economics; green finance; international finance; renewable energy; applied econometrics

Dr. Shaowei Chen

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Guest Editor

School of Economics, Xi’an University of Finance and Economics, Xi’an 710100, China
Interests: corporate finance; green finance; financial risk management; economic sustainability

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This is a call for papers for the topic “Frontier Progress in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions”, which has been devised to inform both the body of knowledge and practice on aspects of sustainability in the digital economy and environment. With the continuous development of economic level and improvement of social welfare, there is also a serious climate crisis. Large amounts of carbon emissions have led to extreme climate phenomena such as frequent droughts and glacier melting. Therefore, the promotion of carbon emission reduction has become a major issue that countries around the world need to address urgently. The digital economy, with data as a factor of production and digital technology as a support, will certainly make disruptive changes in the way economic development progresses, and in production structure. As a new economic form, the digital economy has the advantages of being green, fostering innovation and enabling sharing, which can reduce carbon emissions through their effects on infrastructure, resource allocation and structural optimization. This Special Issue collection brings together state-of-the-art literature and practice to help us understand the effects of the digital economy on carbon emissions, and to find the most promising solutions to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. This Special Issue welcomes papers that use qualitative and/or qualitative research methods. We invite you to submit your cutting-edge research for consideration.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Big data economy and sustainable development;
Artificial intelligence and sustainable development;
Digital finance and sustainable development;
Digital currency and carbon emissions;
Digital economy, industrial structure and carbon emissions;
Digital economy, technological innovation and carbon emissions;
Industry digitization and carbon emission efficiency;
Other topics related to the digital economy and carbon emissions.

Dr. Weike Zhang
Prof. Dr. Chi-Wei Su
Prof. Dr. Hsuling Chang
Dr. Shaowei Chen
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

digital economy
carbon emissions
climate change
public policy

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

54 pages, 1117 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Enterprise Digital Transformation and Compliance in Cross-Regional Development: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

by Shaojun Yan, Yiyang Xi and Zhaoxiang Wu

Sustainability 2024, 16(2), 844; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020844 - 18 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1171

Abstract

The cross-regional development of enterprises has comparative advantages, but it also brings a new challenge to internal control. To address this challenge, this study suggests enterprise digital transformation as a solution and empirically tests the effect of enterprise digital transformation on the violation of nonlocal subsidiaries as a proxy of compliance in cross-regional development. Using the unique data from the internal control survey questionnaire of Chinese listed companies, this study measures the level of enterprise digital transformation. The empirical results reveal a significant negative correlation between the level of enterprise digital transformation and the degree of violation of nonlocal subsidiaries. The findings remain robust after a series of heterogeneity tests. The mechanism test reveals that enterprise digital transformation strengthens the governance over the violation of nonlocal subsidiaries by alleviating information asymmetry and improving internal control quality. The heterogeneity analysis addresses the issues regarding the factors influencing the effect of enterprise digital transformation including strategic focus, technical input-efficiency balance, and the role of organizational culture. And the results of heterogeneity analysis indicate that the governance effect of enterprise digital transformation is more pronounced at the business level rather than the functional level and at the transformation stage where technical investment and efficiency are balanced. Additional analysis indicates that the governance effect of enterprise digital transformation is more pronounced in nonlocal subsidiaries established through autonomous investment. Furthermore, economic benefit analysis reveals that enterprise digital transformation promotes cost reduction and the increase in efficiency in nonlocal subsidiaries. This study enriches the quantification and economic consequences of enterprise digital transformation, and it also offers valuable implications for promoting digital transformation in traditional enterprises and strengthening internal control and compliance in the context of cross-regional development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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14 pages, 262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Digital Media and Green Development Path in Asia: Does Digital Financial Inclusion Matter?

by Shanshan Wu, Zixuan Wang, Chiwei Su and Weike Zhang

Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 11359; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151411359 - 21 Jul 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1291

Abstract

We are entering a new epoch characterized by pervasive digitization, where a significant proportion of our daily activities rely on advanced digital and informational technology. Consequently, this study intends to scrutinize the repercussions of digital media and digital financial inclusion on environmentally sustainable growth across 38 selected economies. The research incorporates four distinct empirical analysis techniques: two-stage least squares (2SLS) and the generalized method of moments (GMM). The assessment reveals a meaningful and positive association between digital financial inclusion and green growth per the 2SLS and GMM methodologies. This affirms the notion that digital financial aid fosters ecological sustainability. Conversely, the metrics linked with information and communication technology (ICT) have shown positive significance across all four utilized estimation models. This suggests that an increase in ICT utilization can play a vital role in advancing green growth. In the same vein, the estimated coefficients of research and development initiatives and renewable energy consumption have demonstrated positive significance across all four models. Furthermore, the metrics associated with trade openness have exhibited a positive significance in both the 2SLS and GMM models. Meanwhile, the metric linked with education has displayed a positive significance solely with the GMM technique. Upon evaluation, it can be concluded that digital media, the consumption of renewable energy, and research and development endeavors are principal contributors to green growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

15 pages, 2872 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Could Cryptocurrency Policy Uncertainty Facilitate U.S. Carbon Neutrality?

by Chi-Wei Su, Yuru Song, Hsu-Ling Chang, Weike Zhang and Meng Qin

Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7479; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097479 - 2 May 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1399

Abstract

Investigating the essential impact of the cryptocurrency market on carbon emissions is significant for the U.S. to realize carbon neutrality. This exploration employs low-frequency vector auto-regression (LF-VAR) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) models to capture the complicated interrelationship between cryptocurrency policy uncertainty (CPU) and carbon emission (CE) and to answer the question of whether cryptocurrency policy uncertainty could facilitate U.S. carbon neutrality. By comparison, the MF-VAR model possesses a higher explanatory power than the LF-VAR model; the former’s impulse response indicates a negative CPU effect on CE, suggesting that cryptocurrency policy uncertainty is a promoter for the U.S. to realize the goal of carbon neutrality. In turn, CE positively impacts CPU, revealing that mass carbon emissions would raise public and national concerns about the environmental damages caused by cryptocurrency transactions and mining. Furthermore, CPU also has a mediation effect on CE; that is, CPU could affect CE through the oil price (OP). In the context of a more uncertain cryptocurrency market, valuable insights for the U.S. could be offered to realize carbon neutrality by reducing the traditional energy consumption and carbon emissions of cryptocurrency trading and mining. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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17 pages, 1520 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on the Impact of Carbon Trading Policy on the Structural Upgrading of Marine Industry

by Sheng Xu, Jingxue Chen and Demei Wen

Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7029; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097029 - 22 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1341

Abstract

To promote greenhouse gas emission reduction, China has proposed a dual carbon target to achieve carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Since 2013, China has opened an increasing number of carbon emission trading pilot projects, and at this stage, China’s carbon emission trading policy has been gradually promoted to the whole country; therefore, how can marine economy be affected under the promotion of carbon trading policy? This paper uses the difference in differences method to study the data of marine industry structure of Chinese coastal provinces from 2010 to 2018. The study finds that carbon trading policies promote the upgrading of the marine industry structure, and further verifies that the impact of carbon trading policies on the upgrading of the marine industry structure is spatially heterogeneous. In other words, the carbon trading policy also has a significant promoting effect on the provinces within 160 km of the pilot provinces, but the effect will be weaker than that of the pilot provinces; at 160–320 km from the pilot provinces, the carbon trading policy has no significant promoting effect on the provinces within this range; at 320–960 km from the pilot provinces, the effect of the carbon trading policy on the provinces within this range becomes negative and significant, showing a suppressive effect. The experimental findings of this paper will provide a reference for China to achieve its carbon neutrality goal and realize a strong ocean state. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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19 pages, 18396 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Relationship Research between Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Growth: From Multi-Level Attempts to Key Development

by Yutong Zhang, Wei Zhou and Danxue Luo

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3107; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043107 - 8 Feb 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2184

Abstract

The relationship between biodiversity and economic growth is a topic that still needs to be considered in a volatile global environment. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis of this topic can help scholars understand the current state of research and topical issues. Based on CiteSpace and Pajek, this paper fully does this study from the perspectives of authors, journals, countries, keywords, regions, and path analysis. Through this research, we find that: (1) the number of publications and citations in the literature about biodiversity and economic growth research have increased significantly; (2) scholars oppose unrestricted economic growth and advocate for the protection of the environment and biodiversity. Ecological environment protection and economic development are win-win relationships. (3) The keyword analysis revealed that a current research hotspot is the question of how to develop the economy while preserving ecological diversity. (4) Developed countries or regions are pioneers in studying the relationship between biodiversity and economic growth, and they have progressively led and driven the development of research in this field. The main purpose of this study is to provide guidance to researchers, and those interested in biodiversity and economic growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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23 pages, 1316 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatial-Temporal Characteristics and Driving Factors of Coupling Coordination between the Digital Economy and Low-Carbon Development in the Yellow River Basin

by Zhenhua Xu and Fuyi Ci

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2731; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032731 - 2 Feb 2023

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2149

Abstract

Enhancing the level of coupling coordination between the digital economy and low-carbon development is not only an inevitable choice for implementing the strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, but also a key path to achieve China’s “Double Carbon” goal. The level of coupling coordination between the digital economy and low-carbon development in 78 cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2011 to 2020 is measured by a coupling coordination model, and the spatial-temporal characteristics and driving factors are analysed using the Dagum Gini coefficient, spatial autocorrelation model and geographic detector. This study found the following: (1) Rapid growth of the digital economy, with the slow growth of low-carbon development. The degree of coupling coordination of the two systems steadily improved and moved from a stage of near-disorder to primary coordination. (2) The degree of coupling coordination is spatially characterised by lower reaches > middle reaches > upper reaches, and provincial capitals and some coastal cities have a higher level of coupling coordination. Spatial differences in coupling coordination tend to widen, with inter-regional differences being the main source of overall differences. (3) There was a significant positive spatial correlation in the degree of coupling coordination. Local spatial clustering characteristics were dominated by High-High (H-H) clustering areas in Shandong and Low-Low (L-L) clustering areas in south-eastern Gansu. (4) The degree of coupling coordination was driven by both internal and external factors of the two systems, with internet penetration and the size of the telecommunications industry within the digital economy system as the most important factors driving the coupling coordination, and the interactions between the different drivers were all enhanced. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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19 pages, 679 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Has Digital Finance Made Marine Energy Carbon Emission More Efficient in Coastal Areas of China?

by Sheng Xu and Liang Liang

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 1936; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15031936 - 19 Jan 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1785

Abstract

Energy is an essential material foundation for ensuring economic sustainability and national security. With the development of digitalization, the importance of digital finance in promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of the economy has emerged. The ocean is a national energy treasure house. In order to explore whether digital finance improves the carbon emission efficiency of marine energy, this paper selects panel data from 11 coastal areas from 2011 to 2019 in China and uses the panel fixed effect model, mediation, and moderation model to analyze the mechanism between them empirically. The results show that: (1) digital finance improves marine energy carbon emission efficiency, and the depth of use has the most obvious effect; (2) the incentive effect is heterogeneous due to different geographical locations, resource endowment degree, and digitalization degree; (3) the marine energy consumption structure plays a mediating effect, and marine industrial structure and technological innovation can enhance the impact of the digital finance on marine energy carbon emission efficiency. Therefore, optimizing the energy consumption structure and giving full play to the effect of digital finance in promoting the efficiency of marine energy carbon emission to help accelerate the low-carbon development of China’s economy and the realization of carbon emission reduction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Research in Digital Economy and Carbon Emissions)

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