Pathways to improve energy efficiency under carbon emission constraints in iron and steel industry: Using EBM, NCA and QCA approaches

The gospel of sustainable development? Spatiotemporal evolution and configuration pathways of the coupling coordination of the digital economy, tourism development and eco-efficiency

Strengthening the interaction of the digital economy (DE), tourism development (TD), and eco-efficiency (EE) is essential for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet gaps exist in the existing research. This paper utilizes data from 30 Chinese provinces spanning 2000 to 2021, constructs an analytical framework for the coupling coordination of DE-TD-EE (CCDTE) and innovatively combines exploratory spatiotemporal data analysis (ESTDA) with dynamic qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics and configuration pathways of CCDTE. The results showed that: (1) DE and TD show an increasing trend, whereas EE initially decreases before increasing. CCDTE shows gradually improvement, exhibiting significant positive spatial correlations and a regional pattern of "eastern > central > western". (2) CCDTE demonstrates notable transfer inertia and path locking, making it difficult for provinces to alter their relative positions. The local spatial structures and dependency directions in the eastern region exhibit greater volatility, whereas those in the middle and western regions maintain relative stability. (3) High CCDTE is not driven by a single factor; instead, it is caused by four configuration paths, namely, green innovation-driven, industrial structure-driven, green innovation-human capital-driven, and green innovation-industrial structure-driven. The explanatory power of these paths has gradually strengthened, with the eastern region showing greater influence. This study provides policymakers with new theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence with which to promote sustainable tourism and enhance environmental quality through digital transformation, thereby facilitating the expedited attainment of the SDGs.

Quest for environmental management and sustainability: Evaluating the drivers of territorial and consumption-based carbon emissions in G-20 economies

The rising levels of carbon emissions are a significant concern for global environmental management and sustainability. The situation is further exacerbated by increasing economic activities and unsustainable practices, particularly in G-20's economies. This study explores how environmental efficiency, natural resource rents, banking development, energy transition, industrial value addition and economic growth shape territorial and consumption-based carbon emissions across G20 economies from 1996 to 2020. In addition, the novelty of the study lies in its comprehensive approach, integrating Epsilon-Based Measure (EBM) in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure environmental efficiency and utilizing Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to develop indices for natural resource rents and banking development. Driscoll-Kraay standard error model is applied to explore the drivers and to draw inferences about the dynamic relationships of territorial and consumption-based carbon emissions. The findings reveal a consistent positive relationship between natural resource rents and economic growth with territorial and consumption-based carbon emissions. In contrast, environmental efficiency, energy transition, and industrial value addition are strong negative drivers of carbon emissions, aligning with global sustainability efforts. Furthermore, banking development plays a critical role by negatively influencing carbon emissions, suggesting that a robust financial system can facilitate investments in sustainable energy. The study employs various long-run testing methods, including AMG, CCEMG, FGLS, FMOLS, and PCSE, ensuring the robustness of the findings. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers balancing economic growth with environmental stewardship. The study's implications include recommendations for enhancing energy efficiency, promoting financial systems that support green investments, and fostering policies that encourage sustainable development in both national and global contexts.

Do all roads lead to Rome? Conditions and configurations of digital economy on carbon emission efficiency

Regional disparities in energy efficiency persist despite the significant potential offered by the digital economy for China's low-carbon transition. From a technology applications perspective, this study analyzed the configurations and conditions of digital economy and recommendations that are crucial for promoting overall energy efficiency improvements. This study begins by calculated and analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of CEE across 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2021 by using the SBM-Undesirable model. Based on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) perspective, we combined fs QCA and NCA to identify multiple conjunctural causations, asymmetries, and hidden pathways that support the low-carbon transition. Finally, this study provides a new policy scheme for China's low-carbon transition. The results indicated that: (1) CEE has improved over time, with significant improvement in the east and west, while the central region lags; (2) no single element of the digital economy is sufficient to ensure high CEE; (3) The impact of the digital economy on CEE involves complex causal relationships and asymmetries, with four effective pathways identified: human capital-driven, finance-technology complementarity, technology-organization complementarity, and balanced element integration. This study provides policymakers with systematic empirical evidence and targeted policy recommendations to promote regional industrial digital transformation, bridge regional disparities in carbon emission efficiency, and achieve overall sustainable development.

Antecedents and consequents of circular economy adoption: A meta-Analytic Investigation

This paper aims to integrate and empirically assess the antecedents and consequents of circular economy (CE) adoption to remove ambiguity existing in the literature and clarify divergent views. This study uses meta-analysis methodology to validate the research framework, considering 106 empirical studies with 210 effect sizes. Based on these studies, we establish twelve antecedents and three consequents related to CE. Antecedents are categorized in a technological-organizational-environmental framework and consequents in the sustainability outcomes. The result suggests that organisational factors are more prominent in driving CE practices, followed by environmental and technological factors. In the organisational category, the three most influencing factors are managing product returns, green manufacturing, and environmental strategy. In the environmental category, coercive pressure is the most influential factor, followed by mimetic and social pressures. Emerging I4.0 technologies are the most prominent factor in the technological category. Our study suggests that CE helps to achieve sustainable performance by significantly enabling economic, environmental, and social outcomes. This study further analyses how contextual factors such as national culture (masculinity) and economic regions influence the various relationships with CE using subgroup analysis. The moderation results show that low masculine culture and developing economies are more effectively using the I4.0 technologies to drive CE adoption than high masculine culture and developed economies. Additionally, different dimensions of sustainability are also influenced by the variations in masculinity and economic regions.

Would manufacturing go for renewable energy? Manufacturers' preference towards sustainability

Malaysia needs to fully utilize its renewable energy resources to meet its goal of installed capacity of 31% of renewable energy in 2025 and 40% in 2035. In order to empower renewable energy sources, the government has established a fund known as the renewable energy fund (RE FUND). In Malaysia, most manufacturing sectors contribute to the RE FUND through their monthly electricity bills due to their electricity consumption exceeding 300kwh per month. As Malaysia's highest electricity consumer, the manufacturing sector needs government investment incentives to switch to renewable energy sources to generate electricity. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify attribute preferences of the manufacturing sector due to investing in renewable energy sources. The Choice Experiment method was employed where the Mixed Logit model was chosen to identify the willingness to pay for the manufacturing sectors based on their preferences among the four attributes: types of renewable energy, project location, annual reduction in GHG emissions, and RE FUND. The study results found that the manufacturing sector places the highest value on the project location, where they prefer to improve the project location from current condition to far location. This study can also help to achieve the Goal 7 in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), where investment in renewable energy sources can guarantee that all individuals obtain affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern electricity in 2030.