Search Results (759)

The Ifrane National Park (INP), situated in the Middle Atlas Mountains in Morocco, is renowned for its unique bioecological attributes and rich biodiversity. The park provides key ecosystem services, notably climate regulation, with its Atlas cedar forests serving as an important carbon reservoir. Despite its importance, the park faces challenges associated with Land Use Land Cover Changes (LULCCs). These dynamics, driven by population settlement in mountain areas, intensify pressure on forest resources and accelerate the conversion of rangelands into croplands. Our study aims to examine the carbon sequestration service (CSS) in INP and its changes in response to land use dynamics before and after the park’s creation. We first use Google Earth Engine platform to map Land Use Land Cover (LULC) over three decades (1992/2022). Then, we quantify and map CSS using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST 3.10.2) model. Finally, we assess the economic value of this service over time using the social cost of carbon, adjusted by an appropriate discount rate. Our findings show that CSS declined by −217,738.4 tC/year (1992–2002) and −177,903.2 tC/year (2002–2012) prior to the park’s establishment, before rising to +61,786.8 tC/year during 2012–2022, following the park’s establishment and subsequent forest restoration, increasing its economic value from a net loss to +12,340,544 USD/year. By addressing a significant knowledge gap regarding CSS dynamics and economic value within a protected area, this study highlights the effectiveness of conservation measures and offers a practical tool for managers to inform decision makers, promote conservation and restoration investments, and engage local communities in sustainable development initiatives. Full article

Digital markets increasingly coordinate prices, matches, orders, and allocations through automated systems whose decision–execution loops can close faster than humans can intervene. This article develops a microfounded framework in which latency is a temporal feasibility constraint that complements adjustment costs, information delay, costly information acquisition, queueing, and technological execution costs. The model distinguishes common latency, human intervention latency, and relative latency. Common latency is produced by platform and participant investment and affects welfare through the freshness of the state on which decisions are executed. Human intervention is represented by a smooth, task- and organization-specific probability q(L,z,s), derived from a distribution of completion times and modified by interface and organizational support. Human, hybrid, and algorithmic decision technologies differ in speed, accuracy, cost, and systematic misspecification risk. Relative speed is modeled as a strategic priority contest in which each intermediary’s best response depends on rivals’ investments, while platform rules determine the sensitivity and value of being first. The framework derives conditions for human-algorithm substitution, welfare-improving common-speed investment, socially excessive strategic speed investment, and welfare-enhancing batching or latency floors. It separates temporal from structural market distortions, integrates decision-technology quality and state freshness in a total-welfare function, and develops an incidence model that traces gains across heterogeneous users, intermediaries, and infrastructure owners. Robustness results cover diffusion, mean-reverting, jump, stochastic-volatility, and regime-switching state processes. An illustrative dynamic simulation, explicit scope conditions, and an operational empirical agenda show how the theory can be tested without claiming empirical calibration. The central contribution is a non-equivalence result: when latency enters the probability of successful intervention, shortening the decision window can change the technology and locus of marginal choice even when information, objectives, adjustment costs, and the substantive decision rule are held fixed. Full article

Infrastructure systems play a critical role in shaping environmental performance, economic investment, and social well-being. Infrastructure systems are responsible for nearly 60% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Pavement construction and maintenance alone consume over 350 million tons of asphalt annually and account for 30% of public infrastructure expenditure. While sustainability frameworks increasingly emphasize the integration of environmental, economic, and social dimensions commonly conceptualized as the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), their application in pavement engineering remains uneven. This study investigates the extent and nature of TBL integration in pavement sustainability research through a combined scientometric and qualitative content analysis of 529 peer-reviewed publications indexed in Scopus between 2015 and 2025. Using a PRISMA-guided review protocol, the study maps publication trends, geographic distribution, and thematic evolution, and systematically classifies each study according to its level of sustainability integration. The results reveal a pronounced imbalance across sustainability dimensions. Only 7.4% of studies achieve full TBL integration, while 45.2% address a single dimension and 29.1% remain primarily technical with limited sustainability framing. Environmental and economic dimensions are consistently operationalized through standardized methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC), whereas social sustainability appears in less than 10% of studies and is typically represented through simplified or proxy-based indicators. The findings suggest that this imbalance is not solely a result of data or awareness limitations but is associated with prevailing methodological preferences that favour quantifiable and optimization compatible indicators. These tendencies create systematic challenges for integrating context-dependent and participatory social considerations into engineering decision-making frameworks. By highlighting these structural patterns, the study contributes to ongoing discussions on sustainability governance and calls for more inclusive, methodological plural approaches to infrastructure assessment. The paper concludes by outlining pathways for advancing TBL integration through standardized social indicators, participatory assessment methods, and alignment with emerging ESG reporting requirements. Full article

Corporate resilience has become a critical capability for firms to cope with increasing environmental uncertainties and external shocks. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the digital economy, this study examines whether digital transformation enhances corporate resilience and further investigates whether environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance serves as a complementary transmission mechanism in this relationship. Drawing on resource orchestration theory, this study uses panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2024 and estimates a series of firm fixed-effects models. The results indicate that digital transformation significantly enhances corporate resilience, and the findings remain robust after a series of robustness checks and endogeneity tests are conducted. Further analysis reveals that ESG performance partially mediates the relationship between digital transformation and corporate resilience, suggesting that responsible business practices complement the resilience-enhancing effect of digital transformation. The results of the heterogeneity analysis further indicate that the positive effect of digital transformation is significantly stronger for high-tech firms. In addition, firms exhibit substantial variation in the consistency between digital transformation communication and actual digital investment. Further analysis suggests that greater alignment between digital transformation communication and substantive implementation is associated with stronger resilience outcomes, providing supplementary evidence on the implementation process of digital transformation. This study contributes to the literature on digital transformation and corporate resilience by revealing the resource orchestration process through which digital transformation creates organizational value and identifying ESG performance as a complementary transmission mechanism. The findings also have practical implications for firms seeking to strengthen their resilience and achieve sustainable development in an increasingly uncertain environment. Full article

High-altitude regions are known as corridors assisting exchange among communities, and the implementation of economic corridors in these regions provides connections and networks based on two geographical territories. For example, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), established as an infrastructural development project with wide-reaching socioeconomic and environmental implications, is regarded as a significant driver of regional transformation, with the potential to generate several businesses, build institutional resilience, reduce poverty, foster a circular economy, and create job opportunities. The current study explores the perceptions and attitudes of educated adult residents in selected mountain districts regarding CPEC, which is vital to ensure wide-ranging and sustainable infrastructure development in alignment with the SDG goals, explicitly SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), and SDG 15 (Environmental Protection). Grounded in Social Exchange Theory, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to assess local perceptions concerning the costs and benefits linked with infrastructural development projects and concentrating on its socioeconomic and environmental outcomes in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. The questionnaire was self-administered by respondents, who documented their own responses to all items. The researcher remained present throughout data collection to distribute the questionnaires, provide verbal explanations or translations into the local language for specific terms upon request, and collect completed forms; in total, 384 respondents completed the survey. Findings revealed that surveyed educated adult respondents perceived sustainable infrastructural development favorably, particularly regarding anticipated improvements in quality of life, job creation, alleviating poverty, and the current education system, with 59.9%, 53.1%, 53.1% and 41.7% agreement, respectively. Respondents also expressed concerns about environmental protection, such as health and safety, environmental risks, and construction/transportation-related pollution at 39.8%, 37.5% and 36.7%, respectively. Backed up by SEM direct path analysis, which showed significant positive relationships between infrastructural development and educational development (H1: β = 0.439), quality of life (H2: β = 0.638), job opportunities (H3: β = 0.603), poverty alleviation (H4: β = 0.534), and environmental protection (H5: β = 0.267). Thus, all hypotheses H1-H5 were supported. This study recommends that officials and policymakers promote stakeholder investment for regional sustainability transitions, formulate regional environmental policies and governance for sustainable development to enhance the benefits of CPEC. Full article

Land and industrial systems form the cornerstone of regional sustainable development. Widespread misuse of land often accompanies industrial structure evolution (ISE), making the promotion of comprehensive land use benefits (LUB) a pivotal obstacle to regional sustainability. This study establishes an integrated framework to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of ISE and its interactive responses to multidimensional (ecological, social, and economic) LUB. The ISE assessment covers long-term changes in industrial investment, employment, and economic output, while LUB systematically integrates the ecological, social, and economic values of land resources. Combined with an enhanced genetic algorithm, a multi-objective optimization model is constructed and applied to 33 counties in Zhejiang Province, China. The results indicate that regional LUB exhibits obvious spatial heterogeneity and staged evolution from 2000 to 2020, with the regional industrial structure transforming from industrial-driven to service-oriented. The proposed model formulates targeted industrial adjustment pathways to resolve tertiary industry overinvestment and unbalanced secondary industry development. The optimization effectively promotes comprehensive land use sustainability, realizing differentiated regional progress including economic upgrading in the east, multidimensional coordination in the south, social benefit improvement in the north, and ecological sustainability promotion in the west. This study provides theoretical and practical references for high-quality regional sustainable development. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming tourism management by improving operational efficiency, enhancing visitor experiences, and supporting sustainability objectives. However, existing studies primarily focus on individual AI technologies and lack a comprehensive framework for comparing their sustainability performance. Therefore, this study evaluates and ranks major AI applications used in tourism management from a sustainability perspective. An integrated Entropy–TOPSIS framework was developed to assess six AI applications: Generative AI Systems, AI Chatbots, Digital Twin Systems, Smart Destination Management, Smart Governance, and Open Data Tourism Platforms. Ten evaluation criteria covering economic, environmental, social, managerial, and ethical dimensions were identified through a comprehensive literature review. The Entropy method was employed to determine objective criterion weights, while the TOPSIS method was used to rank the alternatives. The results indicate that personalization capability, privacy and ethical risk, and energy efficiency are the most discriminating evaluation criteria, with weights of 0.2217, 0.2190, and 0.2108, respectively. Smart Destination Management achieved the highest sustainability performance (CC = 0.5968), followed closely by Digital Twin Systems (CC = 0.5950) and Open Data Tourism Platforms (CC = 0.4978). The findings suggest that AI applications integrating sustainability-oriented destination management, operational intelligence, and personalized visitor services outperform solutions focusing on isolated technological functions. The proposed framework offers a practical decision support tool for tourism managers and policymakers seeking to prioritize AI investments that maximize sustainability outcomes while supporting responsible digital transformation. Full article

Against the backdrop of the dual convergence of the digital economy and sustainable development strategies, digital innovation has emerged as a pivotal driver for reshaping firms’ competitive advantages and fulfilling social responsibilities. In this study, the analysis draws on a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2014 to 2023. ESG performance is measured with Hua Zheng ESG scores, digital innovation is captured via digital patent identification, and a dual-mediation framework is employed to examine internal organizational and external supply chain mechanisms, along with heterogeneity analysis. The findings indicate that digital innovation exerts a significant positive effect on ESG performance and reveal a unique dual mediating mechanism: within the internal boundary of the firm, digital innovation releases available organizational slack significantly through internal resource orchestration, and this abundant slack provides a necessary resource buffer for ESG investment; within the external network of the firm, digital innovation reduces supplier concentration significantly, thereby enhancing bargaining and supply chain discourse power, which in turn improves corporate ESG performance. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that the promoting effect of digital innovation on ESG performance is more pronounced in subsamples characterized by CEO duality, low technological intensity, and high levels of marketization. By drawing on the resource-based view and resource dependence theory respectively to explain internal and external mediating pathways, this study advances understanding of the complementary mechanisms through which digital innovation enhances ESG performance. It demonstrates how digital innovation comprehensively reshapes firm capabilities, providing valuable insights for formulating strategic ESG initiatives in the digital era. Full article

Low-noise pavements (LNPs) are increasingly important under Green Public Procurement policies, yet public administrations still lack clear guidance on selecting pavement types based on noise-related externalities. Although traffic noise generates substantial societal costs—affecting health, education, and property values—these external burdens are often overlooked or excluded from traditional pavement appraisal and investment decisions, leading to systematically underestimated life cycle costs (LCC). This study develops an integrated framework to monetise traffic-noise impacts within an LCC perspective by combining health effects (Disability-Adjusted Life Years, DALYs), property-value capitalisation (willingness to pay, WTP), and noise-induced educational losses. The system limit is intentionally restricted to noise-related externalities during pavement operations, while agency, user, and vehicle operating costs are excluded. A comprehensive review of existing monetisation approaches is provided, and a new unified method is proposed. The framework is applied to a case study from the LIFE SNEAK project on Via La Marmora (Florence, Italy), comparing existing, acoustically non-optimised, and acoustically optimised surfaces. The results showed that the LIFE SNEAK pavement significantly alleviated the burden of noise on public health and education costs, which were 34% and 33% lower than in the baseline scenario, respectively, with a welfare surplus of +€2.38 million over the ten-year period. In particular, it was noted that the most important economic contribution of LNPs stems from the WTP approach. This study provides clear evidence that noise externalities play a considerable role in long-term pavement cost estimates, thereby supporting the systematic inclusion of these costs in LCC analyses. The proposed method puts forward a practical approach to support the selection of noise-sensitive, sustainable, and socially responsible road pavements. Full article

Climate adaptation in high-density cities requires equitable access to cooling and habitat benefits from blue–green infrastructure (BGI). However, the critical thresholds where human activity overwhelms these services remain unknown. Taking Shenzhen as a case study, we quantified habitat quality using the InVEST model and divided the urban landscape into low-, medium-, and high-quality zones. After screening significant drivers via multiple linear regression, we compared six machine learning algorithms and selected XGBoost (for low- and medium-quality zones) and LightGBM (for high-quality zones) with Optuna-tuned hyperparameters, then applied SHAP dependence analysis to identify nonlinear, threshold-driven responses. We identify a systemic thermal threshold of 23.7 °C. Above this temperature, BGI cooling efficiency decouples from habitat quality. We also quantify actionable intervention windows. Low-quality habitats—dominated by dense residential areas—collapse when building density exceeds 0.7 or road density exceeds 0.009. Medium-quality habitats offer a balance window (core area > 2844 m², building density < 0.361) that enables incidental nature contact during daily travel. High-quality refugia require a core area > 8600 m² with near-zero disturbance. These thresholds expose a stark green inequity: socioeconomically vulnerable groups in low-quality zones are systematically disconnected from cooling services. We translate these findings into a tiered spatial intervention framework—restoration, accessibility enhancement, and strict protection—to advance climate-resilient and socially equitable urban planning. Full article

As sustainability reporting increasingly supports financial innovation by facilitating ESG-oriented investment, sustainable finance, and more informed capital allocation, understanding the governance factors associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure has become increasingly important. This study examines the association between board of directors’ foreign experience and CSR disclosure among non-financial listed firms in Vietnam. Drawing on Upper Echelons Theory and Legitimacy Theory, the study argues that directors with international education and/or professional work experience possess broader governance perspectives, greater familiarity with global sustainability practices, and stronger awareness of stakeholder expectations, which may be associated with more transparent CSR disclosure. The study is based on a sample of 499 non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) and the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) during the 2015–2019 period, comprising 1185 firm-year observations. Information on board of directors’ foreign experience was manually collected from annual reports, corporate governance reports, and company websites. The findings indicate that board of directors’ foreign experience is positively associated with both the extent and quality of CSR disclosure. The study contributes to the corporate governance, sustainability, and financial innovation literature by providing one of the first empirical examinations of the relationship between board of directors’ foreign experience and CSR disclosure in Vietnam. The findings also offer practical implications for firms, investors, and policymakers seeking to strengthen sustainability reporting, improve transparency, facilitate access to sustainable finance, and promote innovative governance practices in emerging and transition economies. Full article

This article examines the persistent gap between the formal recognition of work–life balance (WLB) policies and their effective implementation in Italy, within the broader European framework of gender equality. It adopts a multi-level approach that integrates the analysis of EU policy developments—particularly Directive (EU) 2019/1158—with pandemic-related dynamics and organizational practices The study is based on a combined methodology, including policy analysis, recent statistical evidence, and an original empirical dataset on corporate initiatives, focusing on the Code of Corporate Self-Regulation on Maternity. The findings indicate that, despite significant regulatory advances, structural, cultural, and institutional constraints continue to limit the accessibility and uptake of WLB measures in Italy. These shortcomings were further exacerbated during the pandemic, which intensified unpaid care burdens and reinforced traditional gender roles. Company initiatives show uneven levels of engagement and are often driven by organizational capacity rather than a substantive commitment to gender equality. Overall, the study highlights that the effectiveness of WLB policies depends on the interaction between institutional capacity, cultural norms, and governance arrangements. It concludes that bridging the gap between formal rights and everyday practices requires a shift toward integrated strategies based on social investment, coordinated governance, and shared responsibility. Full article

This paper examines intensive parenting as a dominant cultural model within contemporary Anglo-American and Western European parenting cultures, situating it within late-capitalist demands for individual responsibility, optimisation, and future-oriented risk management. This theoretical and discourse-analytic paper advances a Lacanian account of intensive parenting as a libidinal formation structured through fantasy, desire, and jouissance. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, the analysis explores how parental investment in intensive parenting is sustained not only through social norms and institutional pressures but through affective and unconscious attachments that render these demands compelling even when they are experienced as exhausting and exclusionary. While existing feminist and sociological scholarship has documented the classed, gendered, and racialized dimensions of intensive parenting, less attention has been paid to the psychic mechanisms through which parents become attached to these norms. This paper addresses this gap by examining how fantasies surrounding the child’s future organise parental desire and enjoyment. Focusing on fantasy, the object-cause of desire, and jouissance, the paper shows how intensive parenting offers moral coherence and reassurance under conditions of uncertainty while remaining structurally impossible to fulfill. These libidinal investments translate market rationalities into intimate life, shaping parental subjectivity and sustaining intensive parenting as a dominant norm. The analysis suggests that this persistence is tied not only to social regulation but to the way desire is organised around an unattainable future object. The paper concludes by reflecting on how this analysis reframes relational modes of being in parenting, suggesting that attending to lack, contingency, and relational openness may support forms of care that move beyond imperatives of control, productivity, and future optimisation. Full article

This study examines how venture capital investors in Kazakhstan evaluate women-led enterprises within a frontier-emerging market context characterized by institutional transition and evolving entrepreneurial ecosystems. Addressing a gap in the literature on gendered investment behavior beyond mature markets, the research adopts an exploratory mixed-methods design combining survey data (n = 21) with open-ended qualitative responses from VC professionals. Descriptive and bivariate analyses are used to examine associations between investor characteristics and evaluation criteria, while exploratory factor analysis is employed as a heuristic tool to assess whether survey items cluster around broadly interpretable evaluative orientations shaping investment judgments. The findings suggest the presence of two indicative evaluative orientations—market orientation and impact orientation—that appear to structure how respondents in this sample prioritize dimensions such as scalability, innovation, teamwork, and social value. These orientations are interpreted as context-specific and exploratory rather than statistically generalizable. The study contributes to entrepreneurial finance and institutional theory by developing an exploratory evaluative framework that captures the coexistence of commercial and developmental considerations in venture investment decision-making within a transitional economy. The findings further highlight how gendered investment dynamics are shaped by both market criteria and institutional environments, offering implications for policymakers, investors, and scholars seeking to understand capital allocation processes in underexplored venture ecosystems. Full article

Background: Heat exposure is a leading climate-related health threat, yet whether the heat–disease burden relationship is moderated by national adaptive capacity remains poorly quantified at the global level. We examined associations between heat exposure and cause-specific disability-adjusted life year (DALY) burden across climate vulnerability strata and projected future burden to 2050 under IPCC AR6 warming scenarios. Methods: We constructed a country–year panel spanning 187 countries and 34 years (1990–2023) by merging ERA5 reanalysis temperature data; GBD 2023 DALY rates for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), chronic kidney disease (CKD), and chronic respiratory diseases (CRD); ND-GAIN adaptive-capacity scores; and WHO GHO health system indicators. Countries were stratified into adaptive-capacity tertiles (Low: n = 63; Medium: n = 62; High: n = 62). We used two-way fixed-effects panel regression with country-clustered standard errors, a formal Chow test of slope equality, lagged exposure models, and a benefit-of-adaptation counterfactual. Future DALY burden was projected to 2030, 2045, and 2050 using country-specific ERA5 warming trends scaled to IPCC AR6 SSP scenario multipliers. Findings: The heat–CVD dose–response was 26 times larger in Low versus High adaptive-capacity countries (β = −346.2 vs. −13.1 DALY years per 100,000 per °C). The Chow test confirmed statistically significant slope heterogeneity across tertiles for all three outcomes (CVD: F = 22.0, p < 0.0001; CKD: F = 14.9, p < 0.0001; CRD: F = 9.4, p < 0.0001). CKD burden rose 47·8% globally between 1990 and 2023, with the strongest within-country heat–CKD association in Medium adaptive-capacity countries (β = −61.5, p < 0.0001). These findings were robust to lagged exposure specifications. Under SSP5-8.5 by 2050, Low adaptive-capacity countries face a projected CVD DALY rate change 23 times larger than High adaptive-capacity countries (−16.2% vs. −0.7%). Upgrading Low adaptive-capacity countries to High tertile standards would avert 15.6% of projected CVD DALY burden under SSP5-8.5 by 2050. Conclusions: Adaptive capacity substantially moderates the health consequences of heat exposure. The quantified benefit of adaptation investment—expressed as averted DALY burden—provides a direct metric for health-system strengthening and climate adaptation financing, particularly in low-income settings facing the steepest projected burden increases. These results position adaptive capacity as a critical social determinant of planetary health, linking Earth-system boundary transgression to inequitably distributed human disease burden across the global community. Full article