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Campaigns by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) pressuring companies to adopt sustainability standards have caught academic interest in recent years. Critics of this approach toward increasing biodiversity protection and social justice argue that campaign successes are often short-lived while proponents emphasize the potential of NGO campaigns to achieve positive environmental and social change in the absence of governmental legislation. Focusing on the recent forest conservation policy of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), a leading pulp and paper company operating in Southeast Asia, we analyze the challenges companies face in implementing sustainability commitments made as a result of NGO and market pressure. Drawing from research on policy implementation and corporate greening we identify key activities to help entrench APP's commitments in the company's operations. Furthermore, we suggest that a range of actions by different stakeholder groups can achieve broader effects of APP's commitments toward better environmental and social stewardship in the region's pulp and paper sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper measures environmental efficiency and productivity change to then carry out a decomposition analysis of an environmental efficiency index and a productivity change index. The paper includes a novel comparative assessment to determine the drivers of environmental efficiency and the sources of productivity change of the manufacturing sector in Europe, Asia and the whole world. We explore the capability to convert in an environmentally efficient way, selected inputs into desirable and undesirable outputs. Our estimation results of environmental efficiency confirm that Europe is ahead the world's average. Our analysis shows, however, a slowdown of Europe compared with the productivity growth of Asia. The latter shows a better performance in management capabilities, optimal resource allocation, and economies of scale. The analysis carried out in a second stage using the dynamic effects of the generalized method of moments also shows that the annual growth rate of manufacturing value added and manufacturing exports positively influence the level of environmental efficiency in both Asia and Europe. Therefore, the internationalization and extroversion of manufacturing can be crucial for sustainable development in Europe and Asia. • Benchmarking the strategy for sustainable development in Asia and Europe. • Decomposition of environmental efficiency indices and productivity change. • Effect of manufacturing value added and exports on environmental efficiency. • Benchmarking the manufacturing sector in Asia and Europe. • Showing Asia's best practices and European pillar of industrial restructuring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is adjusting to regain control over direct economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This adjustment is occurring whilst global collective action is also gearing up to tackle climate change, avert biodiversity collapse and redress unsustainable growth practices that featured in pre-Covid era global economic activity for decades. COVID-19 pandemic experience since December 2019 has been a period of pronounced anxiety and inspiration. Despite the angst of widespread calamity, and the loss of over six million lives, a coordinated global effort helped contain the impacts well short of initial predictions. Progress toward eliminating poverty, the central goal in rural economic transformation, has been set back by decades. The strength in organising — through social and business processes — marked the resilience endured. The recovery is patchy and uneven across individual nations, and the medium-term prospects remain contingent on the efficacy of funding essential human services and clear market bottlenecks. Bridging capacity constraints across the rural–urban continuum also remain a need to ease the regulatory burden as the world tackles widespread externalities of the past to create new growth opportunities. In this special issue, emerging and established academics from the Asian region and beyond, 1 1 These papers were drawn from presentations made at a conference organised by the Asian Development Bank Institute on 'Rural economic transformation: embracing opportunities in better living in Asia' held during 15–17 November 2021. All contributors are from Asian Development Bank member nations. draw insights from research and analysis on the challenges facing policy makers, businesses, and households in raising living standards and inspiring the pursuit of individual and social affluence during these uncertain but opportune times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to modern energy services in households is central to achieving decent living standards and well-being. Almost 3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia still lack access to modern energy services and endure energy consumption rates equivalent to a fraction of that in developed countries. While critical for the successful achievement of several internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), closing this energy divide may pose an additional pressure on the already daunting challenge of securing climate stabilization. The ways in which this divide is closed will significantly affect the development of buildings-related emissions. This paper revisits previous work on the potential conflict between efforts towards closing the energy divide and enabling the achievement of higher levels of human well-being, and those associated with climate stabilization. It estimates the additional energy needed to achieve the former in terms of final energy consumption levels in key regions, and the associated emission pathways under different climate action scenarios. It then analyses the impact that such pathways could have on estimated carbon budgets associated with fulfilling the Paris Agreement, and provides some suggestions on how this impact could be minimized in the buildings sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Investigating the sustainability of remarkable GDP growth in emerging economies. • Highlighting the roles of energy and environment in economic growth. • STFP is decomposed to identify the drivers of sustainable development. • Regional disparities are compared by incorporating regional heterogeneities. • Providing implications to promote sustainable development by technology spillover. The remarkable GDP growth along with the dramatic increases in energy consumption and pollution emissions in emerging economies raise the concerns for the sustainability of their development pattern. However, the precise role of how energy and environment contribute to economic growth in emerging economies is still unknown. This paper explores the sustainability of remarkable GDP growth in emerging economies by using non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to identify the sustainable total-factor productivity (STFP) growth in the emerging economies and comparing it with that in developed economies. Our research extends previous literature by highlighting the roles of energy and environment in economic growth. The results raise the concerns on the sustainability of the remarkable GDP growth (especially after 2000) in emerging economies due to their slow STFP growth after excluding the contributions from energy and environment. Furthermore, it is also found that compared with developed economies, the slower STFP growth in emerging economies is mainly caused by their disadvantages in innovation, although they are able to utilize existing technology by catch-up effect. Besides, analysis from the group heterogeneity among Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America gives a better grasp of implications for stimulating the sustainable growth in emerging economies by promoting technology spillover from developed economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a research study investigating the barriers to Research and Innovation (R&I) in Disaster Resilience (DR) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Asia. The scope of the study is limited to three Asian countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand, due to their role in the international collaboration entitled ASCENT (Advancing Skills Creation to Enhance Transformation), which contributes to the development of research capacity building in disaster resilience ensuring sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth in these Partner Country HEIs. Responses received from 213 semi-structured interviews and 530 survey questionnaires are used to examine and prioritize the aforementioned barriers in R&I in HEIs in Asia. Findings reveal, amongst others, that there is a crucial need for R&I skills enhancement through implementation of clear and adequate policies. Having a strong policy support, in turn, could play an important role in providing incentives to staff (academic and research staff), increasing awareness on R&I initiatives, and motivation to carry out R&I activities. Lack of training and development on R&I was surprisingly one of the lowest ranked barriers from the survey analysis, although it was the most frequently mentioned barrier during the interviews. Although this is a mixed result, training and development should be considered a priority for promoting and improving R&I in HEIs as such initiatives could help overcome many other barriers such as lack of staff R&I skills, motivation, awareness, and lack of research related performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the ever-increasing pressure of environmental crises stemming from natural disasters, it is worthwhile to analyze the new paradigm of sustainable challenges in the context of green growth policies and green IT strategies in the Northeast Asian region, based on performance-oriented governance. The primary aim of this special issue is to study and identify new conceptual characteristics associated with this revolutionary paradigm shift in the field of innovation in Asia. It is crucial to discuss the theoretical modeling underpinning these green growth and green IT strategy case studies. Diverse comparative studies on these policies and strategies would assist us in understanding the paradigm shift taking place in the area of performance-oriented green growth, an aspect important for the future of global economy and social change. As a workable mechanism, most papers emphasize the leading role of the government to facilitate the governance on the green growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the risk transmissions across the green economy indices of three major regions which include US, Europe and Asia. The econometric analyses are conducted using DCC-GARCH and TVP-VAR connectedness approach to evaluate potential spillover effects within the context of oil and gold. Results indicate that green economy indices of US-Europe exhibit the greatest time-varying correlations among the three pairs during much of 2010–2022 consistent with that of the general equity market. However, co-movements during the COVID-19 pandemic period seem to display a change in pattern for green economy indices. The strength of the co-movements between the US and Europe displayed a declining trend, while that between US and Asia was strengthened, suggesting greater interdependence between these two markets. TVP-VAR connectedness analysis revealed that US and Europe dominate the transmission of the shocks across the years in the green economy, similar to that of the equity markets. However, during the pandemic a pronounced shift occurred in green economies when considering the risk transmissions within the context of commodities: oil and gold. While Asian green economy index was persistently a receiver of risk transmission from oil unlike the other two regions, since pandemic, oil displayed an asymmetric effect and has become the net transmitter of risk in negative returns of the green economies of US and Europe. This may reflect the diversion in environmental policies of the two regions in the recent past, and point to the dominance of energy sector in the green economy. These findings have substantial implications for the development of green economy policies and from an investment perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangroves continue to be extensively replaced for alternative land uses despite global recognition of their value for ecosystem services. Limited effort has been directed into understanding how changes in mangrove ecosystems affect human well-being, especially in Asia. Using the inhabited Klang Islands, Selangor, Malaysia as a case study, this paper explores the relationships between mangrove ecosystem services and human well-being by adapting and modifying three existing conceptual frameworks. Semi-structured interviews with island residents were conducted to explore mangroves' contribution to human well-being. Analysis revealed that respondents recognised examples of regulating, cultural, and provisioning ecosystem services resulted from their interaction with mangroves. While all three ecosystem services contributed to both basic human needs and subjective well-being, provisioning and cultural services were reported to also contribute to economic needs and regulating services, more strongly to environmental needs. These findings contribute to more inclusive decision-making processes concerning development and conservation planning in the fast-urbanised Klang which would affect the overall well-being of the communities in general, largely the Malay, Chinese and Mah Meri communities, and the fishers specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]