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Given the increasing threat of economic downturns and global warming, the governments of developing countries urgently need effective measures that can both stimulate economic development and promote low-carbon transitions. As a widely accepted method for stimulating economic growth, the improvement of the business environment and its effect on economic activity have been fully discussed. However, little is known about whether and how the business environment affects the low-carbon transition. By leveraging city-level data from China, this paper exploits whether and through which channels a favorable business environment promotes a low-carbon transition. We find that improving the business environment has a positive impact on carbon efficiency. This relationship is verified to be robust through various alternative tests. Additionally, it is demonstrated that enhancing the business environment can increase carbon efficiency by promoting green technology progress and stimulating new firm entry. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of the business environment is pronounced for cities with intensive environmental regulation, sufficient environmentally targeted fiscal expenditure, and loose economic growth requirements. This paper reveals the unintentional environmental gains of business environment optimization and provides important insights into the low-carbon transition for developing economies. • We measure the indexes of the business environment and the carbon efficiency. • We examine the impact of the business environment on carbon efficiency. • The improvement of the business environment has a positive impact on carbon efficiency. • The business environment can improve carbon efficiency by promoting green technology progress and stimulating new firm entry. • The government plays a crucial role in business environment's effect on carbon efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of digital finance provides new opportunities for improving energy efficiency and promoting green development. This paper calculates green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) using the super-efficiency SBM model and examines the impact of digital finance on GTFEE. Digital finance has a significant positive impact on GTFEE. Under a bank-dominated financial structure, the positive impact of digital finance on GTFEE is quite significant. In regions with intense banking competition, a large amount of green credit, and lower resource dependence, digital finance is conducive to enhancing GTFEE. Optimizing the allocation efficiency of production factors is an essential mechanism for digital finance to encourage improvements in GTFEE. Digital finance alleviates distortions in factor markets and enhances the matching of the marginal output and the price of capital, labor, and energy factors, thereby facilitating improvements in GTFEE. Further analysis indicates that digital finance has a significant, positive spatial spillover effect on GTFEE, enhancing GTFEE levels in both local and neighboring regions. This study enriches the research on the relationship between digital finance and energy efficiency and provides theoretical foundations and policy references for how digital finance can better serve the green transition of the economy. • This paper analyzes the impact of digital finance on green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE). • Digital finance alleviates distortions in factor markets, thereby promoting GTFEE. • Digital finance's impact on GTFEE depends on financial structure, banking competition, green credit and resource dependence. • Digital finance has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on GTFEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is important and beneficial for the green development of enterprises. The development of digital technology could improve the asymmetry of information and affect the enterprise's financing modes. Currently, a definitive conclusion about the relationship between the digital transformation and green technology innovation has not reached. Additionally, studies have not yet fully explored the impact pathways of corporate digital transformation on green innovation through corporate financing modes. To fill this void, this study collected data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2020. The empirical analysis results showed that digital transformation significantly enhanced enterprises' green innovation abilities. Furthermore, mediating models were utilized to explore how enterprise financing modes mediate the impact of digital transformation on the enterprise green innovation. Results indicated that through internal financing and bank loans as "bridges", digital transformation promoted enterprise green innovation. However, digital transformation did not have a significant impact on enterprise green innovation through venture capital. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses revealed significant differences among different groups of enterprises. This study expands the research field related to digital transformation and enterprise green innovation by providing empirical evidence to uncover the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation. Findings of this study contribute not only to enterprise managerial decision-makers to better leverage digital transformation through corporate financing to accelerate green innovation, but also to government policymakers to design policies to stimulate enterprise green innovation. • Firstly, our paper empirically examines and validates the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation again by using empirical data of biggest development counties, i.e., China. • Secondly, our paper combines enterprise digital transformation, financing modes, and green innovation within the same framework to study the "bridge" role of financing modes between digital transformation and enterprise green innovation. • Thirdly, Thirdly, heterogeneity analyses were carried out, the results of the different enterprises groups are significant different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Carbon peaking and carbon neutralization" is an important measure to promote China's ecological and environmental protection and high-quality economic development, and the innovation and application of green technology are critical factors in achieving the "double carbon" goal. Based on the number of citations of green patents of listed enterprises in 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper uses GGDP to replace traditional GDP and calculate carbon emission intensity. Based on the relevant panel data at the provincial level, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model to analyze the impact mechanism of whether the promotion and application of green technologies promote regional carbon emission reduction. The specific research results are as follows: (1) Through regression of the core explanatory variables with a one-stage lag, it is verified that the promotion and application of green technology has a significant positive promoting effect on regional carbon emission reduction, and there are significant spatial spillover effects and "learning by doing" effects. (2) In the part of heterogeneity test, the impact of green technology promotion and application on carbon emission reduction presents apparent regional heterogeneity and factor endowment heterogeneity. (3) The mediating effect test verifies the mediating effect of energy structure and industrial structure on the influence of green technology promotion and application on regional carbon emission reduction. (4) In the part moderating effect test, it is verified that marketization level and new infrastructure construction have a positive moderating effect in their influencing process, financial development, and government support will weaken the influence of green technology promotion and application on carbon emission reduction effect, and human capital level has a nonlinear regulating effect. The research conclusions of this paper provide necessary enlightenment for the coordination and unification of China's economic transition to innovation-driven and green and low-carbon development. • The impact of GTPA on reduction in China was analyzed from a macro perspective. • The GS and FDL plays a negative moderating role in the influence process. • The HCL plays a nonlinear moderating role in the influence process. • The GTPA can significantly reduce regional CEI except in Western China. • Regions with high EDL and high GTI have better carbon reduction effects of GTPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing the green economy efficiency (GEE) is crucial for building a sustainable economy. How can the rapidly advancing digital transformation contribute to this process? The paper empirically examines the direct and spatial spillover effects of digital transformation on cities' GEE in China. This study utilizes the National E-commerce Pilot City (NEPC) policy as a quasi-natural experiment of regional digital transformation and employs the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method with heterogeneous effects. The findings reveal that (i) implementing the NEPC policy significantly increases urban GEE by 2.6%, corresponding to a 16% increase in the mean of GEE. This effect is particularly pronounced in non-resource-based cities and cities with high Internet penetration. (ii) The mechanism test shows that the pilot policy positively affects GEE by promoting green structural transformation, enhancing green innovation, and strengthening public environmental concerns. (iii) The study highlights a positive spatial spillover effect of the NEPC policy on the GEE of nonpilot cities. (iv) The adoption of the NEPC plays a pivotal role in advancing energy use and carbon emission efficiency. This paper expands the existing knowledge on the green development effects of the digital economy while offering valuable policy insights for building an "Inclusive Green Economy". [Display omitted] • The staggered differences-in-differences method is employed to examine the direct and spatial spillover effects of NEPC on cities' GEE in China. • This paper uses NEPC as a quasi-experiment for digital transformation. • NEPC significantly improves green economic efficiency by 2.6%. • Green structural transformation, innovation, and environmental concerns are main channels. • Positive spillover effect of NEPC on green economy efficiency in non-pilot cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government has attached great importance to pollution emission reduction. Since public environmental preference plays an important role in curbing polluting emissions by companies, this paper aims to explore the impact of public environmental preference and government environmental regulation on corporate pollution emissions. The coordinating role of environmental preference in the implementation of environmental regulatory policies is analyzed using pollution emission data of Chinese enterprises. The results show that both environmental preference and environmental regulation have significant inhibitory effects on corporate pollution emissions. The inhibitory effects are achieved by promoting the green technology progress. With high environmental preference, environmental regulation can effectively curb corporate emissions. This paper is helpful for policy makers to formulate ecological and environmental protection policies and cultivate public environmental preferences. • Environmental preference has inhibitory effect on corporate pollution emissions. • Promoting green technology progress helps inhibiting corporate polluting emissions. • With high environmental preference, environmental regulation can curb emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of digital technology and industrial technology emerges as a pivotal avenue for enterprises to attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), promoting the transition towards a sustainable and green trajectory of development. The panel data utilized in this paper encompasses financial, operational, and carbon emission metrics of publicly listed companies in China from 2008 to 2019. This longitudinal dataset enables us to perform robust statistical analyses to evaluate the impacts of Digital-Industrial technology integration on carbon emission intensity over time. The results indicate that: (i) Digital-Industrial technology integration significantly reduces the carbon emission intensity of enterprises, the conclusion remains robust when subjected to endogeneity and sensitivity analyses. (ii) Digital-Industrial technology integration mainly reduces the marginal cost of production and enhances the accumulation of knowledge to reduce the carbon emission intensity of enterprises. (iii) Digital-Industrial Technology Integration manifests more pronounced effects in curbing carbon emissions in regions characterized by robust property rights protection and well-developed digital infrastructure. (iv) Further research finds that Digital-Industrial technology integration increases the green technology innovation and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance of enterprises. The results of this study provide empirical evidence for the carbon emission reduction function of the Digital-Industrial technology integration, and also verify the positive externality impact of the Digital-Industrial technology integration on the enterprise green innovation and SDGs. • Explore the impact of Digital-Industrial technology integration on enterprise carbon emission intensity. • Digital-Industrial technology integration significantly reduces the carbon emission intensity of enterprises, and the conclusion robust to endogeneity and sensitivity analyses. • Digital-Industrial technology integration mainly reduces the marginal cost of production and enhances the accumulation of knowledge to reduce the carbon emission intensity of enterprises. • Digital-Industrial technology integration manifests more pronounced effects in curbing carbon emissions in regions characterized by robust property rights protection and well-developed digital infrastructure. • Further research finds that Digital-Industrial technology integration increases the green technology innovation and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological risk management has emerged as a critical research and policy development area in energy and environmental economics. Sustained ecology is crucial for the standard of living and food security. As the adverse impacts of environmental degradation and climate change become increasingly apparent it is imperative to understand ecological risk and its interconnectedness with environmental pressure, clean energy, economic activity, globalization, and green technology. Ecological risk is assessed using the environmental performance index which is a holistic indicator of climate change, environmental pressures and human actions in which most of these indicators have spatial effects. This paper explores the multifaceted relationship between identified anthropogenic critical factors and their role in effectively managing ecological risk globally. This study has developed the second-generation dynamic panel quantile regression considering spatial effects of economic activities on ecology across borders of 55 countries between 1995 and 2022. This innovative hybrid estimation scheme that integrated theoretical and econometric aspects makes the model robust to major regression issues. Several implications ranked in decreasing order of its effectiveness are reducing environmental pressure, expediting energy transition, and embracing economic integration while there is a need to work on rejuvenating green technology and green growth. [Display omitted] • Sustained ecology is crucial for economic growth and food security. • The ecological risk is assessed using the Environmental Performance Index. • Novel 2nd Generation Dynamic Quantile Regression is used for robust analysis. • Multifaceted anthropogenic factors and ecological risk relationship is explored. • Study iterated the need for renewable energy and green technology to reduce risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digitalization, as a crucial engine for promoting sustainable development, has created new prospects for enterprise green transformation. Utilizing panel data from enterprises registered in China's resource-based cities from 2010 to 2021, this study innovatively examines the role of digitalization in promoting green transformation across two key performance dimensions. The findings indicate that enterprise digitalization significantly enhances the green innovation performance, while its impact on environmental performance, although positive, is not statistically significant. Overall, enterprise digitalization greatly facilitates green transformation. Moreover, mechanism analysis reveals that enterprise digitalization promotes green transformation through the alleviation of financial mismatch and the increase of external market attention. In addition, heterogeneity analysis shows that the effectiveness of enterprise digitalization in promoting green transformation is significantly different in different opportunist risk scenarios, proving more effective in areas with low-marketization, high-competition industries, and high environmental regulation intensity. In terms of the policy level, the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone (NBDCPZ) and the Carbon Emission Trading Policy (CETP) played a positive stimulating role in the process of enterprise digitalization affecting green transformation. This paper broadens the scope of research on green transformation, offers new development philosophy for enterprises in resource-based cities, and provides new directions for the synergistic development of digitalization and greenization. • We explore the nexus between digitalization and green transformation. • We verify this positive effect by applying multiple fixed-effects models. • We identify the mechanism paths from the perspective of external market attention. • We implement heterogeneity analysis from three aspects. • We reinforce the reliability of this positive effect under considering policy interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the formation of the green lifestyle (GL) is a crucial step in achieving comprehensive green transformation of urban economic and social development. The widespread adoption of GL is influenced by various environmental regulations. Previous research mainly focused on the impact of individual policies on GL from the single policy perspective. The mechanisms of the combined effects of policies have not been thoroughly explored, particularly the contributions of each policy during periods of overlap. This paper takes the dual-policy of the New-type Urbanization Policy (NUP) and Smart City Policy (SCP) in China as an example. It employs panel data collected from 271 cities in China during 2007–2019 and establishes a multi-period difference-in-difference model to identify the combined effects of the dual-policy on residents' GL. Additionally, the Shapley value decomposition method is utilized to identify the contribution magnitude of each policy when they act simultaneously. The following conclusions are yielded. Firstly, the combined effects of dual-policy are more effective than a single policy in influencing residents' GL. Secondly, the Shapley value decomposition method reveals that when both policies are simultaneously implemented, SCP contributes a greater weight compared to NUP. Thirdly, the dual-policy can promote residents' adoption of GL through mechanisms such as green technological innovation, public participation in environmental protection, and the agglomeration of tertiary industries. Fourthly, the impact of dual-policy on residents' GL varies across different types and sizes of cities. This study attempts to unseal the "black box" of how the dual-policy influences residents' GL during the green transformation of cities in China, providing theoretical references for relevant urban policies in other countries and contributing to Chinese solutions and experience to global urban green development. • The dual-policy of NUP and SCP can jointly promote residents' green lifestyle. • The weight of SCP's contribution is higher than NUP's by the Shapely value method. • It explored three potential channels between the dual-policy and GL. • There are heterogeneous effects of dual-policy on GL in different types of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information development is a necessary means for China to achieve technology force and an effective path toward sustainable development. Regarding the "information benefiting people" policy led by the Chinese government as a quasi-experiment of information technology, this study builds an analysis framework for the impact of informatization on green total factor productivity (GTFP). Based on panel data at the Chinese city level from 2006 to 2019, this study further empirically evaluates the mechanism path, heterogeneity, and spatial spillover effects between informatization and GTFP by using a difference-in-difference (DID) model, a mediating model, and a spatial DID model. The results show that (1) the information benefiting people policy contributes considerably to greater GTFP levels in the pilot cities; (2) the policy also promotes the rapid growth of GTFP by fostering the advancement of education, the share of the number of ICT employees, and green technology innovation; (3) the information benefiting people policy raises GTFP in the eastern cities, small cities, and non-old industrial based cities; and (4) the policies lead to a large rise in local GTFP levels, but a decline in GTFP in surrounding cities. This paper offers valuable reference suggestions for the Chinese government to implement informatization-policies to support green development. • This paper investigates the effect of informatization on green total factor productivity (GTFP). • We use "information benefiting people" policy as a quasi-experiment. • The informatization promotes GTFP in China. • The education level, ICT employment share, and green technology innovation are suitable mediators. • The impact of informatization on GTFP is heterogeneous and spatially spillover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data center is a very important infrastructure to support the development of information technology, and its development and increment are very remarkable. However, with the rapid and large-scale development of data centers, the problem of energy consumption turns to be also very prominent. Under the background of global carbon peak and carbon neutrality, developing green and low-carbon data centers has become an inevitable trend. This paper reviews and analyzes the policies and their roles in promoting China's green development of data centers in the past 10 years, summarizes the current situation of the implementation of green data center projects in China and gives the changes of PUE limits of data centers under the policy constraints. Application of green technologies is an important measure for energy-saving and low-carbon development of data centers, so encouraging innovation and application of green technologies in data center is also a priority task in relevant policies. This paper points out the green and low-carbon technology system of data centers, further summarizes energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies in IT equipment, cooling system, power supply and distribution system, lighting, intelligent operation and maintenance, and provides an outlook on the future green development of data centers. • China's green data center policy in recent 10 years has played an important role in promoting the development of green data centers. • Summarizes the status of green data centers under policy guidance. • Provides energy saving and carbon reduction technology path for data centers. • Prospects for the future development of green data centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to deal with the environmental problems such as pollution emissions and climate change, sustainable development in the field of transportation has gradually become a hot topic to all sectors of society. In addition, promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of China's transportation is also an important issue in the new era. Thus, it is particularly important to correctly identify the green effect of high-speed rail. However, the traditional causal reasoning model faces several challenges such as 'dimensional curse' and multicollinearity. Based on the panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019, this study uses the double machine learning model to explore the impact of transportation infrastructure upgrading on the efficiency of urban green development in China. The research shows that the upgrading of transportation infrastructure can effectively improve the efficiency of urban green development by 4%. Service industry agglomeration and green innovation are verified as two mediating channels. Moreover, the synthetic difference in difference model is employed to evaluate the regional impact of high-speed rail, and finds that the regional impact of transportation policies often exceeds the impact of individual cities. We further apply the conclusions of this paper to the research at the micro enterprise level. Goodman-Bacon decomposition and a variety of robustness tests confirm the validity of our conclusions. The study's comprehensive empirical analysis not only validates the positive effects of transportation upgrades on green development, but also offers novel insights into the underlying mechanisms and policy implications of transportation upgrading. • We investigate the nexus between transportation facilities and green development. • We employ the double machine learning model to perform quasi-merge regression. • We affirm this positive effect from the micro enterprise level. • We verify the mediation channels of service industry agglomeration and green innovation level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effects of partial cooperation on the breadth and depth of climate agreements in dynamic games in which countries emit, invest in green technology, decide to participate in a climate coalition and participants negotiate the contract duration. When choosing emissions reductions (pledges), coalition countries apply Harstad's (2023a) pledge-and-review bargaining and partially cooperate. We distinguish between stock-independent and stock-dependent investment costs. It is shown that narrow-but-deep agreements may be welfare superior to broad-but-shallow agreements for signatories. In addition, if the degree of partial cooperation is sufficiently high, broad-and-deep agreements and even first best can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have revealed that developing green technology innovation is extremely important for minimizing haze pollution. However, limited by serious endogenous problems, research rarely focuses on the effect of haze pollution on green technology innovation. Based on a two-stage sequential game model including both production and government departments, this paper mathematically deduced the effect of haze pollution on green technology innovation. Then China's central heating policy is considered a natural experiment in our study to verify whether haze pollution is the key factor affecting the development of green technology innovation. The result that haze pollution significantly inhibits green technology innovation is confirmed, and this negative impact is mainly concentrated on substantive green technology innovation. Robustness tests have been performed, and the conclusion is still valid. Moreover, we find that government behavior can significantly affect their relationship. Specifically, the government's economic growth target will increase the haze pollution's ability to block the development of green technology innovation. However, if the government has a clear environmental target, their negative relationship will weaken. Based on the findings, targeted policy insights are presented in this paper. • Introducing a two-stage sequential game model and mathematically deduced how haze pollution affects green innovation. • China's central heating policy is considered a natural experiment. • The result that haze pollution significantly inhibits green technology innovation is confirmed. • The economic and environmental target constraints affect the impact of haze pollution on green technology innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is to test the relationship between temperature change and industrial green innovation by combing data of China's average temperature change in cities with green patent database of listed companies.First, the results find that rising annual average temperature can inhibit green innovation. For every 1 °C increases in summer, green innovation reduces by 3.2%, and for every 1 °C increases in winter, green innovation increases by 1.9%. Second, rising summer temperature inhibits green innovation by crowding out research and development (R&D) funds and draining labor. While, rising temperature increases green innovation by increasing environmental responsibility and green venture capital. Third, differences in green R&D difficulty, process and objectives were also compared, temperature change has a stronger inhibition on green process innovation than green product innovation. And rising temperature inhibits green exploratory innovation and promotes green developmental innovation. Fourth, rising temperature increases green innovation in polluting firms as temperature is higher than 21 °C. And it inhibits green innovation in clean firms as temperature is higher than 27 °C. This paper can provide policy implications on climate regulation and promoting green innovation. [Display omitted] • For 1 °C increases in summer, industrial green innovation reduce by 2.1%. • Influence paths include cost inhibition effect and responsibility forcing effect. • Temperature increases green simple innovation and weaken green complex innovation. • Suitable temperature for green innovation is 18°C–27 °C. • Classify green innovation from the difficulty, process and purpose of R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As digital economy develops, its impact on green innovation and energy efficiency has become the focus of current research. To explore the impact of the current development of the digital economy on the energy industry, this paper selects the parameter of green innovation resilience, analyzes the impact mechanism of green innovation resilience on energy efficiency under the shock of digital economic development, and uses relevant data from 284 cities in China from 2011 to 2019 for empirical testing. It is found that: green innovation resilience promotes energy efficiency; low level of green innovation resilience inhibits the improvement of energy efficiency, while high level of resilience promotes energy efficiency; the initial stage of digital economic development generates resource grabbing and the effect of technological constraints, which weakens the role of green innovation resilience in promoting energy efficiency. The results indicate that the resilience of the green innovation system should be strengthened in order to fully tap the potential for promoting energy efficiency; the policy orientation of "digital greening—energy efficient" should be pursued in the development of digital economy; the rational allocation of resources and the implementation of green standards should be strengthened in the process of digital economic development; and the constraints on energy efficiency improvement in the early stage of digital economic development should be broken through by accelerating the digitalization process. • Green innovation resilience can promote energy efficiency. • Early digital economy development can lead to resource grabbing and technology constraints effects. • Pursuing the policy orientation of "digital greening—energy efficient". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid developments in environmental infrastructure have contributed to significant improvements in green total factor productivity, but further investigation is required to provide a detailed assessment to understand the policy mechanisms involved. This paper analyzes environmental progress in China through MMQR, CCEMG, and AMG as empirical strategies for 30 provinces in China. Our empirical results reveal that energy optimization through renewable energy is the most effective channel to improve green total factor productivity, though it is not the only available option. Since environmental regulations, infrastructure development, and green technology innovation also directly impact energy efficiency, adopting these within policy channels will positively impact environmental sustainability. Our empirical approach helps suggest novel environmental policy suggestions. In particular, policymakers must introduce structural changes within energy developments to foster renewable energy. Furthermore, China must increase environmental spending to upgrade its energy infrastructure further and solve ecological issues. These insights offer valuable policy guidance for decision-makers in China and globally, aiming to foster economic and environmental sustainability and achieve zero-carbon transition goals. • The current study analyses the role of green factor productivity in zero carbon transition. • We use 30 chinese provincial datasets from 2005 to 2020. • Energy transition is the most effective channel to improve green total factor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) is increasingly recognised as an effective strategy for tackling climate change, mitigating environmental issues, and promoting sustainable development. Using panel data of the Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2019, this study adopts the difference-in-differences approach to assess the impact of the green finance policy (GFP) initiated by the Chinese government in 2012 on the green innovation performance of firms. The findings reveal that the GFP significantly boosts the green innovation performance of heavily polluting enterprises (HPEs). Notably, this effect is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises and firms with high dependence on external finance. Compared with penalty-based regulations, incentive-based and voluntary environmental regulations demonstrate more significant moderating effects on the relationship between the GFP and green innovation performance for HPEs. We also identify improved efficiency in the usage of green investments as a potential mechanism through which the GFP enhances the green innovation performance of HPEs. Further comparative analysis shows that green enterprises can achieve simultaneous improvement in both the quality and quantity of green innovation, whereas HPEs predominantly exhibit enhancements in innovation quantity. To maximise the GFP's positive effects, it is recommended to facilitate more targeted bank lending towards HPEs to support their structural transformation. Additionally, the coordinated deployment of diverse environmental policy instruments is advised to exploit their synergistic effects. • This paper confirms the positive relationship between Green Finance Policy (GFP) and the green innovation. • We develop a novel machine learning approach to enhance the accuracy of variable measurements. • Firms with different ownership structure and external finance reliance are impacted differently by the GFP. • Both incentive-based and voluntary environmental regulations have positive moderation effects. • GFP can improve the green innovation by enhancing the green investment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments globally face increasing pressure from climate advocates and international agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, to enact policies addressing climate change. This paper addresses the imperative for sustainable practices outlined in such agreements, with a specific focus on assessing the drivers of Green Procurement Practices (GPP) within Public Sector Organizations (PSOs). A dearth of research exists in systematically analyzing and prioritizing these drivers, exploring their interdependencies, and elucidating their relative importance. GPP is pivotal in market transformation by promoting environmentally friendly products and endorsing low-carbon, energy-efficient alternatives. This, in turn, contributes significantly to mitigating climate change and fostering a shift towards a greener, more sustainable economy. Identification of the drivers has been performed by an extensive review of the literature combined with the author's viewpoint, while the analysis has been performed using the novel method of Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) and Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) with Matriced' Impacts Croise's Multiplication Applique'e a UN Classement (MICMAC) analysis. The study's outcome reveals that the Demand for Eco-friendly products is the primary driver for the incorporation of GPP, followed by the drivers' Presence of guidelines support and Government Regulations. Findings of the research also demonstrate that suppliers' propensity to adopt green practices depends on several factors, including sustainable supplier cooperation, degree of commitment to embrace green initiatives, government interventions in the form of incentives and guidelines support, and the presence of a legal framework. The findings of this research will enrich the understanding of policymakers and managers to formulate strategies for advancing GPP structured and sustainable implementation in PSOs. The study's findings will also benefit green technology sector advancement through the widespread adoption of GPP. • Study focuses on assessing the drivers of green procurement practices (GPP) in public sector organizations (PSOs). • Analysis has been performed using the novel DRSA and ISM-MICMAC approach methodology. • Analysis reveals that the demand for eco-friendly products is the primary driver for incorporating GPP. • Other key drivers include the presence of guidelines support and government regulations. • Findings will enrich the understanding of policymakers and managers to formulate strategies for advancing GPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation (GTI) is an effective way to promote the green development of economy, and government environmental regulations are an important means to encourage enterprises to carry out GTI. Taking Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2019 as samples, this paper divides environmental regulations into three categories: command-based environmental regulation (ER 1), market-based environmental regulation (ER 2) and voluntary environmental regulation (ER 3), studies their impact on enterprise GTI, and discusses the joint effect of enterprise research and development (R&D) investment and government support from the perspective of internal and external linkage of enterprises. In addition, this paper also analyzes the compound effect and time effect of environmental regulation. The research conclusions are as follows: (1) From the perspective of policy types, both ER 1 and ER 2 could stimulate enterprises to carry out GTI, and the promotion effect of green utility model patents is slightly higher than that of green invention patents. ER 3 inhibits enterprise GTI. In addition, this paper finds that the effect of three environmental regulations acting at the same time is greater than that of one of them. (2) The mechanism analysis shows that the R&D investment of enterprise positively could moderate the relationship between ER 2 and green invention at the significance level of 5%, positively moderate the relationship between ER 2 and green utility model patent at the significance level of 1%, and negatively moderate the relationship between ER 3 and green utility model patent at the significance level of 5%. The government support could moderate the relationship between environmental regulation and green utility model patents at the significance level of 5% and 10%. (3) The effect analysis shows that the transformation rate of GTI in China needs to be improved. The three environmental regulations could have an effect on enterprise GTI in a short period, and ER 1 has the fastest effect. (4) Considering the differences in the level of economic development and resource endowments in various regions of China, this paper classifies the sample enterprises and finds that the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise GTI is heterogeneous in terms of location, ownership nature, factor density and industry type. The research results provide the important reference for the formulation and implementation of environmental regulation policies according to local conditions. • ER 1 and ER 2 could stimulate enterprise GTI. • The union effect of ER 1 , ER 2 , and ER 3 is better than one of them. • R&D positively moderates the relationship between ER 2 and GTI. • ER 1 has the fastest effect on GTI in three kinds of environmental regulations. • The effect of ER on GTI shows heterogeneity for different enterprise features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As suggested by UNEP, the key to sustainable development is to create a “green economy” which should encapsulate all three sectors: the industry, the people, and the government. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop and implement the green technologies into the existing facilities, especially in the developing countries. In this study, the role of green supply chains in eco-industrial parks (EIPs) towards a green economy was investigated. The strategies and effective evaluation procedures of the green economy were proposed by assessing the barriers from the perspective of institution, regulation, technology, and finance. In addition, three case studies from iron and steel-making, paper mill and pulping, and petrochemical industries were presented and illustrated for building the green supply chains. For example, in the case of Lin-Hai Industrial Park, a total of 15 efficient green supply chains using waste-to-resources technologies were established by 2012, resulting in an economic benefit of USD 100 million per year. It suggests that the green supply chains should be established to achieve both economic growth and environmental protection. With these successful experiences, building a green supply chain within industrial park should be extensively promoted to make traditional industries around the world being environmentally bearable, economic viable, and social equitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a typical example of an innovative governance environment, innovative city has become the focus of political and academic circles. Discussing the green innovation effect of this policy is beneficial in providing decision support for enhancing urban green innovation capability and solving the dilemma of urban resources. Based on data from 241 cities in China from 2005 to 2017, this paper takes innovative city construction as a "quasi-natural experiment" and uses the difference-in-differences method to empirically study the impact of China's innovative city construction on urban green innovation. The results show that innovative urban construction: has a positive effect on improving urban green innovation, and that this effect will gradually increase with time; promotes urban green innovation by expanding the scope of technology application, improving the efficiency of resource allocation and promoting the adjustment of industrial structure; and presents heterogeneity in cities' location, size and hierarchy. Finally, this paper proposes that the government should promote innovative policies in an orderly manner on the basis of following the principle of adapting measures to local conditions, as well as incorporating green innovation performance into the evaluation system for innovative city construction. • Innovative city has a continuous positive impact on urban green innovation. • Three impact paths of innovative cities on urban green innovation are proposed. • The effect of green innovation is more obvious in the central and western regions. • The city size and green innovation effect develop in an inverted U shape. • Cities with higher hierarchy show stronger response to the green innovation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs) express attention to climate action. Even though a considerable number of papers have targeted this issue, the literature on the top five, "China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States" economies is uncommon. Therefore, this paper is targeted to examine the influence of renewable energy (RE), environmental technologies (ETs), and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on carbon emissions. By using the most recent data available from 1992 to 2020, results are estimated with robust econometric techniques, i. e. "cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) and augmented mean group (AMG)". Findings reflect the harmful role of EPU. However, RE and ETs have a supportive role in the transition towards a sustainable environment. The findings are also strong in terms of policy implications for the top five polluters. • Renewable Energy, Economic policy uncertainty, Environment-related technologies, and CO 2 emissions' nexus is empirically investigated. • CSD-test, CADF, CIPS, Westerlund co-integration, AMG, and CS-ARDL estimations are applied. • ERT and RE are found as a supportive for a sustainable environment. • Economic policy uncertainty is deteriorating the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green investment transformation is the main interval difference of the Belt and Road Initiative, however, its actual effects are still uncertain. Finding out its utility, mechanism and improvement on green economy may accelerate green development. In this paper, Slack Based Measure model is used to obtain original results, Super-Efficiency model is used to sort effective decision-making units for stronger efficient frontier and Minimum Distance to Strong Efficient Frontier model is used to narrow gaps between non-effective ones and real situations. Then Global Malmquist-Lunberger index makes results dynamisation. Samples of 51 countries joining the Belt and Road Initiative from 2008 to 2022 are used in above-mentioned models to portray green economic dynamics. Then utility, mechanism and improvement of green investment transformation on green economy are studied through econometric model. The findings show that (i) Green Belt and Road Initiative makes green economic development more stable. The standard deviation decreases by 96.53% and mean maintains in 1.5. However, disconnection between a 36.36% increase of pure technological change and a 24.83% decline of its scale effect inhibits technical advance. (ii) Share of countries obtaining green scale revenues reaches 56.86%, which realizes a 52.64% increase. Furthermore, gaps between countries with positive status and those with negative status narrow 68.42%. Positive group accounts for 50% in developed countries and 46.15% in developing countries. (iii) Performance of Green Belt and Road Initiative is better than the Belt and Road Initiative. A one standard deviation increase in green investment transformation increases green economic development by 0.2705 (0.2105), which is a 18.57% (14.45%) increase relative to average green economic development of 1.457. Former's strengths also reflect in different quantiles, lagging effect and heterogeneity analysis. (iv) Green investment transformation of Green Belt and Road Initiative broadens more reliable mechanism (Promote Innovation - Strict Regulation - Ensure Commercialization) based on original one (Improve Efficiency - Decrease Costs - Increase Revenues) of the Belt and Road Initiative. (v) For the green investment transformation with government subsidies, property rights protection, investment environment stability and exchange cooperation, magnitudes of its effects on green economic development have significant increases by 25.03%, 31.77%, 8.01% and 10.12% respectively. The findings not only help understand green economic status, but also support some policy insights for achieving green economy by discovering utility, mechanism and improvement of green investment transformation. [Display omitted] • Portraying green economic dynamics in countries joining the Belt and Road Initiative. • Analyzing interval difference, and then exploring the intrinsic driver. • Distinguishing technical performance and imitable benchmarks of individual characteristics. • Empirically testing effects of green investment transformation on green economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global economy has accelerated the transition to a green, low-carbon economy. An enterprise's green innovation (GI) is directly related to its capacity for sustainable production as a micro-subject of economic development. This study examined the impact of managerial capacity on enterprise green innovation and changes of green innovation targeting. We used data collected manually from 423 Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2017. The effect of various external impact signals was then investigated. This study's findings are as follows: (1) Managerial ability stimulated green enterprise innovation. The marginal effect was 0.0696. While quality targeting has focused more on green invention innovation, managerial capacity significantly improved the marginal impact of green substantial innovation by 0.0375; (2) The clean production link targeting analysis confirmed that enterprises focused on end-of-pipe governance innovation (0.0466), along with new energy innovation (0.0495) rather than energy-saving innovation (−0.0227); (3) The multi-period DDD (Difference in Difference in Difference) model revealed that low-carbon city policy promoted green innovation with a diminishing trend; (4) The voluntary environmental regulation signals, ISO14001 certification, displayed a substitute effect for managerial capacity on enterprise green innovation. This paper provides recommendations, including that enterprises should improve the utilization of new and renewable energy while improving and optimizing production processes. The government should also improve innovation incentive policies and strengthen environmental information disclosure. • The marginal effect of managerial ability on enterprise green innovation is 0.0696. • Quality targeting focuses more on green invention innovation. • Link targeting focuses more on end-of-pipe governance innovation. • Low-carbon city policy promoted green innovation with a diminishing trend. • ISO14001 certification displayed a substitute effect in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the unique perspective of local environmental regulations promulgated in Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2018, this paper examines the impact of urban environmental legislation on green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE). The results show that implementing environmental legislation significantly improves local GTFEE , with comprehensive protection regulations contributing to local energy efficiency improvements, while the impact of pollution prevention regulations is insignificant. This conclusion remains robust to multiple scenarios. Potential mechanisms through which environmental legislation can guide urban green transition include the industrial upgrading effect represented by "clean industry development" and "polluting industry exit", as well as the technical innovation effect achieved through "new technology generation" and "old technology upgrading". Furthermore, environmental legislation with a higher degree of regulatory effectiveness has a greater potential for energy saving. Environmental legislation has a more significant impact on improving GTFEE in cities in non-old industrial bases, with less frequent turnover of officials, and in central and western regions in China. This study evaluates the positive impact of urban environmental legislation on GTFEE , aiming to advancing the rule of law in local environmental pollution governance and thereby promote urban green transition. • Use a Difference-in-Differences model to explore the effect of urban environmental legislation. • Environmental legislation guides urban green transition development. • The impact of heterogeneous urban environmental regulations on green transition development. • Industrial upgrading and Technical innovation have positive mediating roles. • Environmental legislation policy has city attributes, official turnover and location heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of The Paris Agreement (COP 21), global leaders reached a consensus to curtail the increase in global temperature up to 2.0 °C ideally 1.5 °C pre-industrial level. Likewise, it has become a pathway to accomplish long-term goals of achieving carbon neutrality. In this regard, this paper aims to explore the role of green process innovation and environmental orientation toward environmental performance for achieving the long-term goal of carbon neutrality. In addition, this paper also discovers a mediating role of green competitive advantage in said context. Using data from a survey among managers of equipment manufacturing sector, the study employed structural equation modeling technique and found that green process innovation, environmental orientation and green competitive advantage significantly influence environmental performance. Subsequently, mediation analysis indicated that green competitive advantage partially mediates the relation from green process innovation and environmental orientation to environmental performance. In light of the carbon neutrality targets, the study highlight that improving environmental performance through green process innovation and environmental orientation can be a way-forward for manufacturing sector to play its role to achieve carbon neutrality. The study concludes with theoretical and practical implications. • This paper used data collected from managers. • Partial mediation of green competitive advantage has been found. • Green process innovation significantly improves environmental performance. • Environmental orientation considerably reinforces environmental performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main factor behind green economic development is green technology innovation (GTI). Environmental regulation and green finance (GF), as important ways to promote ecological civilization construction, run through the entire procedure of GTI. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of heterogeneous environmental regulation on GTI and the moderating effect of GF on GTI from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, to provide useful ideas for China's economic reform path selection and environmental governance system optimization. This paper uses information from 30 provinces between 2002 and 2019, and a bidirectional fixed model was constructed. The results show that: First, regulatory environmental regulation (ER 1), legal environmental regulation (ER 2), and economic environmental regulation (ER 3) all have greatly boosted the degree of GTI in each province. Second, GF acts as a highly effective moderator between heterogeneous environmental regulation and GTI. Finally, this article investigates how GF can act as a moderator in various circumstances. The beneficial moderating effect of it is found to be more pronounced in inland areas, areas with weak spending on research and development, and areas with high energy consumption. These research results provide valuable references for accelerating the green development process in China. • Constructs environmental regulation indexes from regulatory, legal, and economic. • Heterogeneous environmental regulation promotes green technology innovation. • Green finance plays a positive moderating role. • The moderating effect of green finance varies greatly in different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process-related carbon emissions, which cannot be completely eliminated by the improvement of processes and energy structure, are recognized as an enormous challenge for in-depth decarbonization. To accelerate the achievement of carbon neutrality, the concept of 'artificial carbon cycle' is proposed based on the integrated system of process-related carbon emissions from high-emitting industries and CCU technology as a potential pathway towards a sustainable future. This paper conducts a systematic review on the integrated system with the case of China, which is the largest carbon-emitting and manufacturing country, to provide a clearer and more meaningful analysis. Multi-index assessment was used to organize the literature and draw the useful conclusion. Based on literature review, the high-quality carbon sources, reasonable carbon capture approaches and promising chemical products were identified and analyzed. Then the potential and practicability of the integrated system was further summarized and analyzed. Finally, key factors of future development including technology improvement, green hydrogen, clean energy and industrial cooperation were stressed to provide a theoretical reference for future researchers and policy makers. • Demonstration on the rationality and importance of applying CCU technology on process-based carbon emissions. • Multi-index assessment on adoptable carbon sources, possible pathways of carbon capture and carbon conversion. • Analysis on the potential and practicability of the integrated system to accelerate carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting green financial reform is an important measure to support environmentally-biased technological progress (EBTP) and achieve sustainable economic and social development. Although China launched a green finance reform and innovation pilot zone (GFRIPZ) policy in 2017, little is known about whether and how such a policy affects EBTP. Based on mathematical deduction, this paper studies the mechanism through which green financial reform influences EBTP. The analysis employs panel data of Chinese prefecture-level cities and a generalized synthetic control method to examine the policy effect of the establishment of GFRIPZ in EBTP. It is found that establishing GFRIPZ significantly promotes EBTP, and that the policy effect shows "ahead-of-policy" and dynamically increasing features. Potential mechanisms reside in the pilot policy's easing of financing constraints and upgrading of industrial structure. Further heterogeneity analyses reveal that great disparities exist in the policy effects of different pilot zones, with a steadily increasing policy effect in Zhejiang and Guangdong, a lagging policy effect in Jiangxi and Guizhou, and an inverse U-shaped policy effect in Xinjiang. Policy effects are much stronger in regions with a higher degree of marketization and a higher level of attention to education. Additional tests of economic performance indicate that the pilot policy, interweaved with its driving effect on EBTP, is conducive to promoting an energy-conservation and low-carbon-energy transition. The findings shed light on applying green financial reform to encourage environment-friendly technological research and development. [Display omitted] • A generalized synthetic control method is applied to evaluate the policy effect. • The green finance reform drives environmentally-biased technological progress (EBTP). • Mechanisms are the easing of financing constraints and upgrading of the industrial structure. • Heterogeneity exists in pilot zones with different policy focuses, marketization degree, and attention to education. • The reform interweaved with its driving effect on EBTP contributes to a low-carbon-energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Paris Climate Conference (COP21), many countries start progressing towards carbon neutrality targets. In doing so, green technology innovations (GTIs) and clean energy are the essential factors that can help to achieve the carbon neutrality goal. Therefore, this paper examines the linkages between green technology innovation and renewable energy and carbon dioxide emissions based on the STIRPAT model in Turkey during the time of 1990–2018. The study used testing like "unit-root" to verify the variables' integrative properties containing the information for structural breaks. Also, the bootstrapping ARDL-bound testing technique is used to analyze the relationship between the variables. The causal relationship between green technology innovation, energy consumption, renewable energy, population, income per capita, and carbon dioxide emissions is tested through a Granger causality test. The empirical findings show that green technology innovation, renewable energy, energy consumption, population, income per capita, and carbon dioxide emissions are co-integrated for the long-term association. Additionally, green technology innovation and renewable energy decline carbon dioxide emissions, whereas energy consumption, population, and per capita enhance carbon emissions. This paper helps the policymakers design a comprehensive policy for strengthening environmental sustainability through green technology innovation and renewable energy, specifically in the region of Turkey. • Examine the impact of GTIs and renewable energy on CO 2 emissions in Turkey. • We employed bootstrapping ARDL-bound testing technique. • GTIs and renewable energy are lowering CO 2 emissions. • Non-renewable energy consumption boosts CO2 emissions. • Population and personal income are also determinantal to carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data of 285 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2017, this paper mainly studies the impact of the spatial agglomeration of Foreign direct investment (FDI) on the green total factor productivity(TFP) of Chinese cities by SDM model. It is measured that China's urban green TFP generally has been developing well from 2003 to 2017, and progress in green technology plays an important role in improving urban green TFP. Both global Moran index and local Moran scatter plots show that FDI and green TFP are characterized by strong spatial agglomeration. This suggests green TFP is closely related to the spatial agglomeration of FDI in a region. The paper finds that FDI plays a positive role in promoting green TFP in high-high and high-low cluster cities, and the technology spillover effect of highly agglomerated FDI is more significant than that of decentralized FDI, thus promoting the upgrading and agglomeration of green TFP in itself and surrounding cities. The positive benefits of low-high and low-low cluster cities are not significant. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond its policy of administrative regions and give full play to radiation effect of High-high FDI agglomeration cities and promote the green TFP of their surrounding cities. • Green TFP is closely related to the spatial agglomeration of FDI in a region. • The impact of FDI on green TFP of different agglomeration cities is different. • Technology spillover effect of highly agglomerated FDI is more significant than that of decentralized FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biofuels have received a lot of attention as an important source of renewable energy, with number of economic impacts. This study aims to investigate the economic potential of biofuels and then extract core aspects of how biofuels relate to a sustainable economy in order to achieve a sustainable biofuel economy. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of publications about biofuel economic research covering 2001 to 2022 experimenting with multiple bibliometric tools, such as R Studio, Biblioshiny, and VOSviewer. Findings show that research on biofuels and biofuel production growth are positively correlated. From the analyzed publications, The United States, India, China, and Europe are the largest biofuel markets, with the USA taking the lead in publishing scientific papers, engaging country collaboration on biofuel, and has the highest social impact. Findings also show that the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, and Spain are more inclined to develop sustainable biofuel economies and energy than other European countries. It also indicates that sustainable biofuel economies are still far behind those of less developed and developing countries. Besides, this study finds that biofuel linked to sustainable economy with poverty reduction, agriculture development, renewable energy production, economic growth, climate change policy, environmental protection, carbon emission reduction, green-house gas emission, land use policy, technological innovations, and development. The findings of this bibliometric research are presented using different clusters, mapping, and statistics. The discussion of this study affirms the good and effective policies for a sustainable biofuel economy. • The USA, China, and Europe are highly interested in biofuel economy research. • Less developed and developing countries lag far behind sustainable biofuel economies. • Key issue for sustainable biofuel economy is better policies for better society. • High CO2 emitting countries are more aware of biofuel research & collaboration. • Advanced biofuels production technologies are required to boost biofuel economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper finds that both importing and exporting reduce firm-level emission intensities. We develop a theoretical model in which firms jointly determine the extent of abatement investment as well as whether or not to import intermediate inputs and export final goods. The model demonstrates a complementarity between trading decisions and abatement investment such that trading firms invest more in abatement technology and feature lower emission intensities. Using Chinese firm-level data, we estimate a theory-based regression model with instrument variables to account for the endogeneity issue associated with firms' trading statuses. Our regression results show that both importing and exporting reduce firm-level emission intensities by over 15 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) in the last decade have been largely built upon the wide applications of deep learning (DL). However, the high carbon footprint yielded by larger and larger DL networks has become a concern for sustainability. Furthermore, DL decision mechanism is somewhat obscure in that it can only be verified by test data. Green learning (GL) is being proposed as an alternative paradigm to address these concerns. GL is characterized by low carbon footprints, lightweight model, low computational complexity, and logical transparency. It offers energy-efficient solutions in cloud centers as well as mobile/edge devices. GL also provides a more transparent, logical decision-making process which is essential to gaining people's trust. Several statistical tools such as unsupervised representation learning, supervised feature learning, and supervised decision learning, have been developed to achieve this goal in recent years. We have seen a few successful GL examples with performance comparable with state-of-the-art DL solutions. This paper introduces the key characteristics of GL, its demonstrated applications, and future outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital economy has demonstrated strong resilience and great potential, under the interwoven influence of the global pandemic and severe environmental concerns across the world. Therefore, there is a need to focus on the value of green economic growth in the digital economy. This paper constructs an evaluation index system and adopts the SEEA (System of Environmental and Economic Accounting) method to measure the digitalization level (Digi) and green economy growth level (GEG) of China. The internal mechanism and linear relationship between digitalization and green economy growth are examined based on the panel data from 2013 to 2019. Moreover, this study explores the spatial spillover effect. The major study findings are as follows: (1) Digitalization and green economy growth represent a steady growth trend, and the former as a whole significantly promotes the latter, with a marginal effect of 1.648. (2) The mechanism analysis indicates the intermediary effects' size of three crucial intermediaries: green technology innovation > advanced industrial structure > the rationalization of industrial structure. (3) Both the "local effect" (0.556; 0.574) and "neighboring effect" (1.382; 1.415) of digitalization on green economy growth are positive under the two weight matrices and display "simultaneous resonance" characteristics based on the spatial perspective. (4) There exists obvious regional spatial heterogeneity and resource endowment heterogeneity. Finally, this study put forward corresponding policy implications, such as construction of new digital infrastructures and guiding green-energy consumption. • The green economic growth (GEG) level is measured by the SEEA method. • The linear relationship shows digitalization (Digi) can significantly promote GEG. • The spatial effect of Digi on GEG shows "positive simultaneous resonance". • Three crucial intermedia's effects are compared. • The heterogeneous impact is explored from different dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulation (ER) is regarded as an important driver of environmental improvement. Taking China's non-ferrous metals industry (NFMI) as a sample, this paper discusses the relationship between ER and energy environmental performance (EEPI) in two stages, and tests the effectiveness of the "strong" Porter hypothesis. In the first stage, this paper uses the global environment DEA to construct the competitiveness index, EEPI, which represents "green" development. In the second stage, we explore the relationship between two types of ER and EEPI by using the panel Tobit model and considers the non-linear characteristics of ER and regional heterogeneity. Moreover, a mechanism analysis is conducted. The results show that: (1) at a reasonable regulatory level, this study supports the "strong" Porter hypothesis in China's NFMI. (2) Technological innovation plays a mediating effect between environmental regulation and EEPI. (3) From a national perspective, there is a significant inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship between environmental expenditure and EEPI, and a significant U-shaped non-linear relationship between environmental investment and EEPI. (4) Regional samples present heterogeneous results between ER and EEPI. Based on the conclusions, we believe that environmental regulation policies should take into account regional differences and incorporate diversified green innovations to achieve sustainable development. • At a reasonable regulatory level, this study supports the "strong" Porter hypothesis. • 2. Take energy-environment performance index as the competitiveness indicator. • Significant inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental expenditure and EEPI. • Significant U-shaped relationship between environmental investment and EEPI. • Regional samples present obvious heterogeneous results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years knowledge in regard to phytoremediation for removal of metals from wastewater has been extensively developed. Despite advance treatment methods; different plants were widely used for wastewater treatment that may affect the efficiency of plants by stressing their natural ability. Therefore, this paper reviews the catalytic role of constructed wetlands, spiking of chelators and substrates to enhance phytoremediation for removal of metals. Catalytic combination of substrates, chelators with plants helped to remove different metals from wastewater simultaneously without compromising the plant's health. Moreover, this paper summarizes the interaction mechanism of plants with the chelators and substrates within constructed wetlands. In addition, this paper also discusses the potential research needs for this field. Image 1 • Phytoremediation for removal of metals is extensively discussed. • Plants used for wastewater treatment may affect their efficiency by stressing their natural ability. • Catalytic role of constructed wetlands, spiking of chelators and substrates to enhance removal of metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation activities of enterprises often fall into the dilemma of financing constraints. Hence, it is urgent that the financial system develops and becomes innovative, especially for a developing country like China. Existing literature mainly explores the influencing factors of green innovation from the environmental regulation, economic growth and government subsidies perspective. However, few papers critically study how digital finance influences green innovations. To explore the internal influencing mechanism of digital finance on the quantity and quality of green technology innovation, panel data of 271 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2019 in China is used. Based on theoretical analysis and empirical research, we get the following conclusions. First, digital finance can improve the quantity and quality of green technological innovation, which has become a significant driving force for green innovations in China. The results are still robust after the endogeneity tests. Second, the results of heterogeneous analysis indicate that the different dimensions of digital finance can improve green innovations. They include breadth of coverage, depth of use, and degree of digitization. The positive effect of digital finance is most substantial in eastern cities, followed by central cities, and weakest in western cities. Third, digital finance indirectly improves green innovation mainly by alleviating financing constraints. Our empirical results provide policy enlightenment for realizing the coordination of China's urban digital transformation and green economic development. • The effect of digital finance on the quantity and quality of green innovation is explored based on the actual background in China. • Digital finance has become a significant driving force for green innovation in China. • The different dimensions of digital finance can improve green innovations. • Digital finance plays a positive role in green technology innovation mainly by alleviating financing constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature-based solutions or Green infrastructure (GI) used for managing stormwater pollution are growing in popularity across the globe. Stormwater GI models are important tools to inform the planning of these systems (type, design, size), in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. MUSIC, an example of such a tool, uses regression and first order decay models. Studies validating MUSIC model performance are, however, scarce, hindering future model development and transferability of the model for systems operating under different design and climatic conditions. To close this gap, this paper evaluates MUSIC for a field scale bioretention system, stormwater wetland and vegetated swale operating under Singapore tropical climate. The treatment modules were able to simulate outflows and effluent pollutant concentrations reasonably well for cumulative event volumes (mostly within ±25%) and cumulative TP and TN loads (within ±30%). Outflow TSS loads were significantly under-estimated as a result of greater variability in measured TSS concentrations across events. The findings indicate that simple empirical models such as MUSIC can be transferred to different regions provided that management decisions are based on long-term modelling efforts. The modules generally simulated the outflow hydrographs and pollutographs of the different inflow and drying/wetting conditions relatively poorly. • MUSIC was used to simulate the performance of Stormwater Green Infrastructure technologies. • A bioretention system, vegetated swale and wetland were tested for a range of storm events under a tropical climate. • Model was able to simulate outflow cumulative event volumes and TP and TN loads reasonably well (within ±30%). • Outflow hydrographs and pollutographs represented the measured data relatively poorly. • Model can be transferred to different geographical regions under long term modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this editorial piece, the Editors of the Virtual Special Issue (VSI) "New Trends on Green Energy and Environmental Technologies, with Special Focus on Biomass Valorization, Water and Waste Recycling", present summarized data corresponding to the accepted submissions, as well as additional comments regarding the thematic of the VSI. Overall, 83 manuscripts were received, with final publication of those having the highest quality, accepted after peer-reviewing. The Editors think that the result is a set of very interesting papers that increase the knowledge on the matter, and which would be useful for researchers and the whole society. • This VSI received 83 submissions. • After peer-reviewing, those submissions with the highest quality were published. • This VSI has increased the knowledge on key scientific aspects covered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several papers have explored the effect of tighter environmental standards on environmental innovation. While mandatory regulation remains the central tenet of US environmental policy, the regulatory landscape has changed since the early 1990s with the increased recourse by federal and state agencies to corporate environmentalism--voluntary pollution prevention (P2) by firms--to achieve environmental improvements. We therefore estimate the effects of voluntary P2 activities on the patenting of environmental technologies by a sample of manufacturing firms. With our panel data of 352 firms over the 1991–2000 period, we adopt an instrumental variable Poisson framework to account for the count nature of patents and the endogeneity of the P2 adoption decision. Our results indicate that the adoption of voluntary P2 activities in the manufacturing sector has led to a statistically and economically significant increase in the number of environmental patents, suggesting that corporate environmentalism can act as a catalyst for investments in cleaner technologies. Our findings are internationally relevant given the increasing ubiquity of corporate environmentalism in both developed and developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of climate uncertainty and growing concern for the natural environment, an increasingly important aspect of global business is the environmental behaviour of firms. In this paper we consider the factors that influence firms' environmental actions (EAs). Our study of Argentinean firms concentrates on measures of environmental spillovers, informal and formal networks and absorptive capacity by testing four related hypotheses. We find that foreign-owned firms, large firms and those with a greater capacity to assimilate new environmental technologies are more likely to adopt EAs. We also show that formal and informal networks aid the adoption of EAs in the presence of traditional firm-level spillovers. Finally, we show that foreign-owned firms have different motives to domestic firms for undertaking EAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing carbon neutral targets claimed by responsible countries, many research has been done to investigate the impact of environmental regulation on green technology innovation (GTI). However, there still remains a gap at micro level that takes enterprise as research subject to figure out an effective regulatory mechanism that supports the development of GTI. Since the integration of technology and finance is the main trend in future progress of GTI, it is meaningful to study the decision-making behavior and influencing factors of heterogenous enterprises and banks under market-based environmental regulation policies. This paper established a tripartite evolutionary game model among two types of enterprises with distinct Research & Development (R&D) ability and banks. The results show that: (1) the scenario when subsidy to enterprises is greater than to banks leads to a better situation; (2) penalty has more significant influence on enterprises than subsidies at the early stage, and enterprises' strategic choices of independent R&D is more reliable on subsidies; (3) when the price gap between different levels of technology increases, enterprises are inclined to continuously invest in green R&D, while it will restrain enterprises' technology introduction behavior. • Market-based environmental regulation contains subsidy, penalty and trading market. • That subsidy to enterprises is greater than to banks leads to a better scenario to stimulate GTI. • Penalty has more significant influence on enterprises than subsidy at the early stage. • Enterprises' strategic choice of independent R&D is more reliable on the subsidy. • There exists a tradeoff between independent R&D and technology introduction when pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Stimulating hydrogen fuel use is an important candidate policy option for increasing the sustainability of the transport system. Both public support and public opposition may influence the implementation of hydrogen fuel stations. Therefore, this paper examines psychological determinants of citizens' supporting or opposing intentions to take action. A causal model based on the technology acceptance framework is suggested. For both supporters and opponents a structural equation model was estimated. The hypothesized causal relationships are largely confirmed and the models well explain intention to act among the Dutch participants. The three strongest determinants of intention to act in favor of the technology are personal norm, positive affect and the perceived effects of the technology. For intention to act against the technology these are personal norm, negative affect, and trust in the industry. Implications are discussed in relation to the technology acceptance framework and to hydrogen fuel station acceptance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Green synthesis approaches of nanomaterials (NMs) have received considerable attention in recent years as it addresses the sustainability issues posed by conventional synthesis methods. However, recent works of literature do not present the complete picture of biogenic NMs. This paper addresses the previous gaps by providing insights into the stability and toxicity of NMs, critically reviewing the various biological agents and solvents required for synthesis, sheds light on the factors that affect biosynthesis, and outlines the applications of NMs across various sectors. Despite the advantages of green synthesis, current methods face challenges with safe and appropriate solvent selection, process parameters that affect the synthesis process, nanomaterial cytotoxicity, bulk production and NM morphology control, tedious maintenance, and knowledge deficiencies. Consequently, the green synthesis of NMs is largely trapped in the laboratory phase. Nevertheless, the environmental friendliness, biocompatibility, and sensitivities of the resulting NMs have wider applications in biomedical science, environmental remediation, and consumer industries. To the scale-up application of biogenic NMs, future research should be focused on understanding the mechanisms of the synthesis processes, identifying more biological and chemical agents that can be used in synthesis, and developing the practicality of green synthesis at the industrial scale, and optimizing the factors affecting the synthesis process. • Technological advancements of green approaches in synthesizing NMs are reviewed. • Applications and challenges of green synthesis technologies for NMs are highlighted. • Environmental friendly and biocompatibility of synthesized NM has wider application. • The green synthesis of NMs is largely trapped in the laboratory phase. • Future direction on the scale-up of biogenic NMs has been provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper explores the characteristics of 238 patents on 90 inventions contributed by major multinational innovators to the “Eco-Patent Commons”, which provides royalty-free access to third parties to patented innovations on green technologies. We compare the pledged patents to other patents in the same technologies or held by the same multinationals to investigate the motives of the contributing firms as well as the potential for such commons to encourage innovation and diffusion of climate change related technologies. We find pledged patents to protect environmentally friendly technologies and to be of similar value as the average patent in a pledging firm's patent portfolio but of lower value than other patents in their class. Our analysis of the impact of the patent commons on diffusion of patented technologies suggests that making patents accessible royalty-free did not result in any significant increase in diffusion as measured by citing patents. This study, therefore, indirectly provides evidence on the role of patents in the development and diffusion of green technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Servers and clusters are fundamental building blocks of high performance computing systems and the IT infrastructure of many companies and institutions. This paper analyzes the feasibility of building servers based on low power computers through an experimental comparison of server applications running on x86 and ARM computer architectures. The comparison executed on web and database servers includes power usage, CPU load, temperature, request latencies and the number of requests handled by each tested system. Floating point performance and power usage are also evaluated. The use of ARM based systems has shown to be a good choice when power efficiency is needed without losing performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: With the network traffic increasing, the energy consumption of network equipments is growing greatly. Under the background of serious greenhouse effect, the excessive energy consumption has become a major barrier of developing the future information society. For this reason, the issue of saving energy followed by the grooming and optical bypass technology has become particularly important. In this paper, in order to perform the energy-saving for multicast demands, we present the multicast grooming policies and also develop a new auxiliary graph to support the multicast routing in green optical network. Based on the proposed auxiliary graph, a novel Multicast Green Grooming (MGG) approach by using the energy-efficient optical bypass technology and the effective grooming policy combination is proposed to reduce the occupied energy-consuming equipments that mainly include the core router ports, optical transceivers and amplifiers. Simulation results show that, compared to the traditional approach, MGG not only can obtain the lower blocking probability but also is able to save significant energy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]