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In the digital era, digitalization brings great opportunities and challenges for cities' environmental governance and economic growth. However, it is worth noting that the impact of digitalization on cities' green transition has not been studied from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. This paper uses the principal component method and non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to calculate the digital development level and the green economic performance of 269 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. (1) The empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has become a strong driver for cities' green economic transformation. (2) Digitalization indirectly promotes green transition through industrial structure optimization and green technological innovation. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the positive effect of digitalization on green development is more obvious in eastern and economically developed cities. (4) Using the partially linear functional-coefficient model (PLFC), this paper studies the non-linear nexus between digitalization and green economic transition from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. Thus, Metcalfe's law is confirmed in the green transition of Chinese cities. Some policy recommendations are offered for realizing the coordinated development of digitalization and greening of the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and Communication Technologies such as blockchain can significantly contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Global South (GS). Grounded in the innovation forecasting literature, this paper explores blockchain-based innovations and research in the context of economic and sustainable development to answer the following research questions: what is the status quo of blockchain innovations and research in the Global South?; and further, how can blockchain innovations contribute to economic and sustainable development? We follow a mixed-method approach based on web mining and topic modeling with unstructured empirical data on blockchain innovators from Crunchbase, their websites, and academic publications to address these research questions. Our results indicate that blockchain innovators already engage in various application areas beyond the financial sector, addressing critical development issues. However, the empirical data on blockchain research and innovations suggests a largely untapped potential in various promising application areas relevant for the SDGs, such as sustainable energy or integrity verification. The major contributions of this paper are an overview and status quo of entrepreneurial innovation activities and research on blockchain technology in the GS, an analysis of these areas in the context of the SDGs, and a lean methodological approach for innovation forecasting. • Blockchain innovators in the Global South focus on financial inclusion • Blockchain is not a panacea but rather an infrastructural resource. • Large untapped innovation potential for integrity verification in the Global South • Strong research focus on blockchain applications for sustainable energy • Lean methodology to advance innovation forecasting [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability transition perspectives justify policies tailored to technological innovation systems and socio-technical niches and regimes. These “technology-specific” policies place high demands on the capabilities of the state. This paper examines how public sector institutions can be designed and operated to avoid potential pitfalls and effectively implement technology-specific policies. The paper presents a list of ten institutional design principles and their relation to sustainability transition studies. How the principles are achieved in practice and how they interact within a governance system is then explored through a case study of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in the United States. The case demonstrates that an organization’s formal and informal rules can make the design principles mutually reinforcing, while a stronger political consensus is needed to manage tensions between accountability and stability. The institutional design principles can inform future case studies exploring how the state implements technology specific policy in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper examines how the agri-food system is currently responding to the grand challenges of sustainability. • It reviews the literature related to sustainability-oriented innovation to identify ways in which the agri-food system could better respond to grand challenges in the future. • It highlights the key contributions of the seven articles in the special issue. • It draws three potential avenues for future research. The agri-food system features prominently in discussions about sustainable development because of its broad economic, social, and environmental impacts. To examine how the agri-food system is responding – and can respond – to the grand challenges of sustainability, we position this Special Issue (SI) within the stream of sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) literature, and in relation to the much-cited framework provided by Adams et al. (2016). This introductory article contains an overview of the selected papers, described by using the above-mentioned framework and by highlighting the contributions that these articles bring to fill current knowledge gaps in the field. Such knowledge gaps have been identified by investigating SOI links to sustainability and circular economy concepts and by studying how SOI relates to development in the agri-food system. The contributions to this SI explore different facets of the research agenda we have laid out and covers the range of SOI proposed by Adams et al. To help the field move forward, we finally identify a few areas as the most relevant for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are increasingly advocated by governments and the private sector as the primary means to deliver urban sustainability. Particularly in Europe and North America, the smart city is envisioned as a place where digital technologies are deployed to ‘solve’ urban sustainability problems. Such visions have been broadly critiqued in the urban studies literature for reflecting techno-utopian, neoliberal approaches to urban development that exert corporate control over cities, but there has been little empirical verification of these critiques. More recently, a disparate and interdisciplinary body of literature has emerged documenting the impacts of smart city initiatives in practice. This paper provides a state-of-the-art, empirically informed analysis of smart-sustainability, which considers established critiques of smart city policy and visions alongside the increasing body of evidence concerning the actual experiences of smart city initiatives. Through a systematic review of the smart city literature pertaining to Europe and North America, we identify and test five tensions between the smart city and the goals of sustainable urban development. These tensions involve: (1) reinforcing neoliberal economic growth; (2) focusing on more affluent populations; (3) disempowering and marginalising citizens; (4) neglecting environmental protection; and, (5) failing to challenge prevailing consumerist cultures. On the basis of these findings we propose how digital technologists, urban developers, municipalities and citizens might address these tensions. A key finding is that the potential to empower and include citizens represents the key to unlocking forms of smart-sustainable urban development that emphasise environmental protection and social equity, rather than merely reinforcing neoliberal forms of urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing importance of the concept of the circular economy as a way to attain sustainable development has encouraged scholars to propose different ways to understand it. Given the large number of studies done on the circular economy, their differing approaches and their multiple applications, this paper attempts to propose a consensus view of the basic notions of the circular economy framework and highlight its relationship with eco-innovation. To that end, this study carried out a systematic literature review that resulted in four main outputs: a knowledge map of the circular economy, an analysis of the main notions of the concept, principles, and determinants of a circular economy. Finally, this study brings to light some remarkable examples of eco-innovations developed for implementation in the circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of an effective innovation policy is a major challenge in developing countries, a task that has become more complex as increasing attention is being paid in policy issues to inclusive development, raising quite different requirements for what an innovation system should deliver, and how it should therefore be organised. It is argued that foresight is an appropriate instrument to shape innovation systems and support policy-making processes, thus, foresight has attracted interest in developing countries. However, the ability to effectively exploit its results is hampered by the limitations of their governance systems to take into account the complexity in the definition of public policies. In such a context, foresight needs to be more thoroughly integrated into the policy making process to be effective. Attempts to engage excluded indigenous or poor peasant, communities in development plans have also been made and in this context, foresight activities in these communities have been conducted, but the consultations have not been strategic and forward-looking enough to connect to policy-making beyond the specific local settings. In this paper, we propose a novel interconnected multilevel approach containing two elements of policy making to support innovation for inclusive development: a) the close interplay between foresight and policy making, and b) the linking of local community-level to national level foresight. Such an approach is well suited for using foresight to inform and guide policy to frame the national innovation system that can attend both economic and social development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether financial agglomeration is conducive to eco-efficiency is of great importance for countries to better pursue cleaner production, low carbon emission reduction, and sustainable development paths. This paper focuses on 38 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members. Based on the scientific accounting of green eco-efficiency by the super-efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model, the relationship between financial agglomeration and eco-efficiency is thoroughly investigated by combining the spatial Durbin model (SDM), the mediating effects model, and the panel threshold regression (PTR) model, bridging the knowledge gap. Empirical results reveal that (1) Financial agglomeration has strong positive externalities for eco-efficiency in the home country and its neighbors, with the trickle-down effect playing a key role. (2) Financial agglomeration can indirectly promote cleaner production and eco-efficiency by strengthening technological innovation and upgrading industrial structure, with the latter being more strongly mediated. (3) The effect of financial agglomeration in enhancing eco-efficiency has clear stage differences. The low-level financial agglomeration will impede the improvement of green eco-efficiency while the high-level will support it, which is in line with the Environmental Kuznets Curve theory and the law of economic development. The research broadens the theoretical underpinnings of financial agglomeration and eco-efficiency and provides guidance and implications for OECD members and other emerging economies on how to optimize the spatial allocation of financial resources, promote eco-efficiency, and advance green sustainable development. [Display omitted] • The eco-efficiency of 38 OECD members was estimated. • The impact of financial agglomeration on eco-efficiency was examined quantitatively. • The spatial Durbin model considering potential spatial spillover effects was employed. • Technology innovation, industrial upgrading, and urbanization may affect eco-efficiency. • Financial agglomeration can greatly boost eco-efficiency, but the relation is non-linear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of Sustainable Development has reinvigorated the idea that technological innovations are inescapable to sustain economic development and simultaneously achieve environmental sustainability. In this paper, we propose a framework to describe six possible combinations of innovation and demand/consumption levels that constitute in turn six narratives of sustainability . We argue that the present global trend is set out for a dominant narrative, what we call ‘Green Growth’, which is rooted in the idea that economic growth – and thus technological change – is a prerequisite for environmental sustainability. By way of example, we use the case of the lighting industry to show that this narrative cannot assure an absolute reduction of the present levels of energy consumption. We therefore propose to embrace a different narrative of sustainability that encourages at the same time the development of eco-efficient technologies and the reduction of demand/consumption. This alternative narrative is linked to the development of the concept of ‘ useful light ’ and to a paradigm change in which the lighting sector is no longer framed around the electric bulb. This transition would require a new class of Lighting Service Companies (LISCO) and of new functional business models based on the sale of ‘useful light’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Since the Brundtland report in 1987 a wide debate has emerged on eco-innovation (e.g. eco-design, cleaner production) and sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs), that is, the integration of ecological and social aspects into products, processes, and organizational structures. While prior research has often dealt with SOIs in large firms, the last decade has begun to generate broad knowledge on the specificities of SOIs in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) as they are increasingly recognized as central contributors to sustainable development. However, this knowledge is scattered across different disciplines, research communities, and journals. Therefore, this paper analyzes the heterogeneous picture research has drawn within the past 20 years with a focus on the innovation practices including different types of SOIs and strategic sustainability behaviors of SMEs through an interdisciplinary, systematic review in a time frame between 1987 and 2010. By consulting major research databases we have analyzed 84 key journal articles bibliographically and thematically. We find that first SME strategic sustainability behavior ranges from resistant, reactive, anticipatory, and innovation-based to sustainability-rooted. Second, we identify innovation practices at the product, process, and organizational level. Third, our results show that research is still strong on eco-innovation rather than on innovation from a triple bottom line perspective (economic, social, and environmental dimension), that is, SOIs of SMEs. Our main theoretical contribution is the development of an integrated framework on SOIs of SMEs where we delineate how distinct strategic sustainability behaviors can explain contingencies in types of innovation practices. Furthermore, for the more proactive SME behaviors we argue that they possess higher capabilities for more radical SOIs with the innovation process itself changing. Therefore, we propose that interaction with external actors (e.g. customers, authorities, research institutes) can ultimately increase the innovative capacity of SMEs for SOIs. Finally, we identify major research gaps with regard to radical SOIs, streamlined innovation methods, the role of SMEs in industry transformation and in sustainable supply chains, as well as a need for a stronger theoretical debate on SOIs of SMEs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The higher education is experiencing a rapid development in China, with the sharp increase of energy use and the low level of campus facility operation. Meanwhile, with the responsibility for knowledge transformation, sci-tech talents cultivation and technical innovation, universities are of great importance in the development of the sustainable society. The initiative of green campus has attracted great attention from both the society and the universities themselves. Therefore, it is very meaningful to get a full understanding of the current status of green campus development in China, and make the feasibility planning for the next step on this base. In this paper, the progress of green campus development in China is summarized, including all the initiatives to conduct the energy and resource efficient campus, and the current status of upgrading the energy and resource efficient campus to the green campus; the problems occurred during the development are analyzed, and the possible approaches and the action plan are explored accordingly, to promote the green campus development. It is found from the analysis that the development of energy and resource efficient campus has been expanded in a large scale in China, mainly aiming at the energy efficient technology application and campus energy management, and all these initiatives are strongly promoted by the national government with policy support and financial funding. With these great endeavors, an upgrade from the energy and resource efficient campus to the green campus is on progress, which expands its scope to sustainable education and the initiative of low-carbon life on campus. However, many problems also occurred during the progress, such as the lack of a good top-level design among different national ministries and the collaborative innovation among different departments in the university, and the need of a practical propulsion mode and a long-term mechanism to guarantee green campus development. Hence, some suggestions are made in terms of the administrative management, propulsion approach, evaluation standard, and action plan. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: More than 1300 GW new generating capacity will be added in China''s power sector over the period 2005–2030 under the BAU scenario in , even higher than the total installed capacity in the United States to date. China’s industrial and service sectors are expected to maintain rapid development rate over the next decades, driving up the demand for electric power and heat. However, China’s power and industrial process heat generation are heavily relying upon coal-fired thermal power plants resulting in tremendous rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Clean technology such as concentrating solar thermal (CST) needs to play a more important role in power and heat generation in China to accelerate the decarbonisation in the power sector and commercial and industrial process heat generation cost-effectively. This paper attempts to explore the opportunity and challenge of development and deployment of CST in China from both technical and socioeconomic analysis perspectives. It is argued that rapid deployment of CST in China will contribute to enabling sustainable energy supply and environmental securities, as well as improved economic performance in new technology innovation in Asia Pacific area over the next decades. Supportive policy framework should be set up to encourage scaling up CST industry. The success of deployment of CST technology will also allow Chinese power and heat generators to strengthen their competitiveness in the context of intensified global constraint of carbon emissions. Institutional innovation and policy instruments for scaling up this technology and the enabling conditions of successful implementation are also investigated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The paper introduces an index to measure the progress towards meeting the industry-related targets of the 2030 Agenda. • The SDG-9 index benchmarks industrial performance while preserving the environment and promoting inclusiveness. • The final ranking compares performance of 128 economies over the period 2000–2016. • Economic growth should be accompanied by technological changes and efficient use of natural resources. This article introduces the SDG-9 index as a measure of country progress towards achieving industry-related targets of Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG-9). The SDG-9 index represents a comprehensive but straightforward approach to assess the extent to which countries have industrialized while promoting social inclusiveness and minimizing natural resource use and environmental impacts. The selection of indicators is based on the global indicator framework for the Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The resulting SDG-9 index benchmarks inclusive and sustainable industrial development in 128 economies over the period 2000–2016. In general, industrialized economies outperform other countries, with the top five leading the 2016 ranking being Ireland, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland and Japan. The calculated scores of the SDG-9 index can show in which dimensions countries represent the leaders or lag behind other economies. Thus, the SDG-9 index forms a valuable tool for policy makers and analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]