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• A new approach to research on the green transformation of EU countries was proposed. • A profound analysis of current level of green transformation in EU was conducted. • Development patterns of green transformation of EU countries were described. Green transformation has become one of the most important directions in the further development of the world. It involves the development of green technologies and the creation of legal regulations enforcing, for example, saving energy or reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as any other activities aimed at changing society's attitude towards the acceptance of – frequently more expensive but more environment-friendly – technological solutions and legal norms. Thus green transformation can be defined as combining economic growth with caring about the environment in order to guarantee a high quality of life for present and future generations at the level which is attainable due to civilisational development, as well as to an effective and rational use of the available resources. Still, there is no single globally accepted way to this transformation. It is proceeding in a variety of ways and depends on many different factors. The main purpose of the paper is a comparative analysis of the directions of changes occurring in the process of green transformation in EU countries. The added value of the research presented in the paper and its novelty is the analysis of the current patterns of green transformation in EU countries. The paper concentrated on recognizing them and drawing attention to the unfavourable directions of this transformation as well as to its positive aspects. The changes in the process of green transformation were analysed based on data used by the OECD to describe green growth in two periods: 2004 or 2005 as initial data and the last available data (usually 2018 or 2019). For this purpose the TOPSIS method was applied. The EU countries were divided into groups according to their way of applying green transformation. The provided research allows to better understand the course of this transformation in various EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new form of industrial organization, there is still a lack of research on how industrial symbiotic agglomeration affects green economic growth. To fill this research gap, this paper analyzes the impact mechanism of industrial symbiotic agglomeration on green economic growth from the perspective of energy efficiency, waste recycling, and green technology innovation. Based on the data of Chinese cities from 2004 to 2019, we use the spatial difference-in-differences approach for empirical testing. The research concludes: (1) Industrial symbiotic agglomeration can both significantly promote green economic growth and have a spillover effect on neighboring cities. (2) The specific spillover effects are divided into three cases. Diffusion effect (within 150 km), siphon effect (150 km–750 km), no significant spatial effect (over 750 km). (3) The promotion and spillover effects of industrial symbiotic agglomeration on green economic growth can only be brought into full play when a certain threshold is reached. The local promotion effect requires the area of the symbiotic agglomeration area to be greater than 106 km2, while the spillover effect requires a larger scale (greater than 393.2 km2) for it to manifest itself. This has theoretical and practical significance for promoting green growth and achieving sustainable development through symbiotic agglomeration. • For the first time, we analyze the impact mechanism of industrial symbiotic agglomeration on green economic growth from the perspectives of energy efficiency, waste recycling and green technology innovation. • For the first time, the impact of industrial symbiotic agglomeration on green economic growth is quantitatively analyzed. Industrial symbiotic agglomeration can both significantly promote green economic growth and have a spillover effect on neighboring cities. • The specific spillover effects are divided into three cases. Diffusion effect (within 150 km), siphon effect (150 km-750 km), no significant spatial effect (over 750 km). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although green growth has become the economic development strategy of many countries in the world, and studies have analyzed the influencing factors of green growth from multiple angles, there are few literatures devoted to the impact of fintech and green finance on green growth. From the perspective of fintech development, this paper tries to construct a comprehensive index to evaluate the green growth of regional economy based on the in-depth analysis of the influence mechanism of green finance on green growth. At the same time, China's provincial panel data from 2011 to 2018 are selected to test the impact of fintech innovation and green finance on green growth, and its mechanism. It turns out that fintech and green finance significantly promotes green economic growth. At the same time, the impact of fintech and green finance on green growth has obvious regional heterogeneity, that is, the impact in eastern China is significantly stronger than that in central and western China. Further research shows that fintech innovation mainly promotes green economic growth through green credit and green investment. Therefore, fintech innovation can promote green economic growth by improving the development level of green finance, which has great reference significance for most countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policies are a significant driver of change towards the achievement of sustainability. Policies impact on the environment through direct and indirect effects. Indirect effects pertain to the effect of innovation and invention mechanisms. The paper analyses those direct and indirect effects by focusing on different measures of environmental productivity. Econometric analysis on a long macroeconomic panel dataset is used to convey original insights, and as a platform for policy assessments. Results show that environmental policies adopted by countries may boost environmental productivity performances both directly and indirectly, through innovation, across various environmental dimensions. The increasing stringency of environmental policy, which has been observed over the last decades, is a crucial driver of change for climate actions, waste and resource efficiency, touching upon various SDGs related to responsible consumption and production, economic growth, industry and innovation infrastructures and climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing more affordable and cleaner energy for all raises complex and significant financial, political, technical, and institutional issues, which must all be addressed to ensure sustainable development. Energy technology innovation has a critical role to play as one of the best pathways to achieve the transition to a global clean energy system. This paper is an endeavor to study the impact of government energy technology research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) budget, which is the primary input of energy technology innovations on cleaner energy supply and carbon footprints (CFP). In this study, a cleaner energy supply is measured as the contribution of renewable energy to total primary energy supply (RE). We assumed that the effect of energy innovation is not uniform but varies according to the descending and ascending movements in a government's energy technology RD&D budget. To this end, we distinguished the impact of the descending and ascending movements in government energy technology RD&D budgets on cleaner energy supply, and CFP in Europe over the period 1985 to 2016. Additionally, we carried out a comparative examination of the effects of energy technology RD&D expenditures on RE and CFP under both linear and nonlinear panel techniques. To increase room for policy implications, we also controlled for the role of economic growth and trade openness and performed several robustness check analyses. We found that the reduction of carbon footprints associated with an increase in public support to energy technology RD&D is more pronounced than the contribution of energy technology innovation to the deployment of renewable energy in Europe. This study provided little evidence in favor of the effectiveness of a government energy technology RD&D budget to substantially boost renewable energy in Europe. Following these results, we suggest that the knowledge of the asymmetric linkage between public energy technology innovation, RE, and CFP is a starting point to achieve win-win solutions that favor clean energy and environmental sustainability. • Optimizing the nonlinear effects of energy technology RD&D budgets over different time horizons. • Asymmetries in the responses of RE and CFP to shocks in energy technology innovation budgets. • The influences of energy technology innovation vary over different time horizons. • The public budget devoted to energy innovation is fundamental for curbing CFP rather than boosting RE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]