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Masks are face coverings that give protection from infectious agents, airborne pathogens, bacteria, viruses, surgical fog, dust, and other chemical hazards by acting as a barrier between the wearer and the environment. In the COVID-19 pandemic, this major personal protective equipment's became essential part of our daily life. The aim of this review is to analyze and discuss the different types of masks with their pros and cons, manufacturing procedures, evaluation criteria, and application with some of the sterilization process for reuse and smart mask. The review used a thorough examination of the literature to analyze the preventive effects of surgical, N95, smart mask, and potential environmental damage from those masks. Several studies and evidence were also examined to understand the efficiency of different mask on different environment. N95 respirators are capable of filtering out non-oil-based 95% air-born particles, and surgical masks act as a protective barrier between the wearer and the environment. The application of spoon bond and melt blown techniques in the fabrication process of those masks improves their protective nature and makes them lightweight and comfortable. But the high demand and low supply forced users to reuse and extend their use after sterilizations, even though those masks are recommended to be used once. Universal masking in the SARS-COV-2 pandemic increased the chance of environmental pollution, so the application of smart masks became essential because of their high protection power and self-sterilizing and reusing capabilities., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental pollution impairs residents' health, while the pursuit of health is highly correlated to medical costs. Understanding how environmental pollution affects medical costs is closely linked to the welfare of society. Based on theoretical analysis, this paper uses data from 5112 households of the Chinese Social Survey (CSS) in 2019, constructs a composite indicator to quantify environmental pollution using respondents' evaluations, and empirically investigates the causal effect of environmental pollution on household medical cost and the mechanism. The conclusions are shown as follows. First, environmental pollution can increase household medical costs, and this estimation result still holds after dealing with the endogeneity problem and other robustness tests. Second, there is heterogeneity in the impact of environmental pollution on household medical costs, households in the upper socioeconomic class, with heavy pension burdens or with strong health insurance coverage are more sensitive to environmental pollution and incur relatively higher household medical costs. Third, environmental pollution reduces residents' satisfaction with their spiritual life, which adversely affects their physical and mental health and can increase household medical costs. Residents' satisfaction with their spiritual life is an important mechanism for environmental pollution to affect household health care expenditures. Therefore, governments should enhance the enforcement of environmental protection and governance, strengthen the awareness of green issues and health education, and increase the supply of facilities for leisure and sports, thus reducing medical costs due to environmental pollution and easing the medical burden of residents., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental pollution control and greenhouse gas emissions reduction have become the main ecological protection issues. The digital transformation of the financial sector provides a vital opportunity to holistically promote environmental governance. This article incorporates the synergistic reduction of pollution and carbon emissions into the environmental governance system of digital financial development. Using panel data from 280 cities in China between 2011 and 2018, we examine the impact of digital financial development on the synergistic reduction of pollution and carbon emissions. We find that (1) digital finance development can significantly improve the synergistic reduction of pollution and carbon emissions, effectively lowering carbon emissions while reducing pollution. External environmental concerns can further unleash the potential for digital finance development to enhance its synergistic reduction of pollution and carbon emissions. (2) The key transmission mechanism lies in the dual guidance of digital finance development toward biased technical change, i.e., toward energy-saving elements on the input side and toward reduced pollution output on the output side, thereby inducing the synergistic reduction of pollution and carbon emissions. (3) The synergistic effect of digital finance development on pollution and carbon reduction depends on the necessary regional development endowment, such as strong green technology innovation capabilities, lower traditional financial accessibility, and carbon sink reserves. This study expands the understanding of the environmental effects of digital finance development and offers crucial insights for exploring the optimal development path under green strategies., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Under the strategic goals of achieving peak carbon neutrality, deepening the battle against pollution, and building a beautiful China, improving the collaborative capacity of pollution control and carbon reduction is an important means to achieve comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation of the social economy. Starting from the essential requirements of improving the collaborative capacity of pollution control and carbon reduction, based on the whole-process governance perspective of "source-process-end-of-pipe," build an evaluation index system, measure the collaborative capacity, quantify the spatial differences, analyze the evolution characteristics, and explore the improvement path. The study found that China's collaborative capacity of pollution control and carbon reduction is characterized by homogeneous agglomeration and unbalanced regional development. Intra-regional differences are the main source of the differences, sorting by contribution is "Eastern > Western > Central > Northeast." After taking into account the factors of green transformation of industry, the input of scientific and technological elements, and opening to the outside world, the differences have gradually narrowed. Among them, the green transformation of industry is instrumentally in bridging the gap in eastern, central, and northeastern, the input of scientific and technological elements is instrumentally in bridging the gap between regions and the eastern and northeast, and opening to the outside world is instrumentally in bridging the gap between regions and the western. The scientific measurement and improvement of this capacity will provide the factual basis and path choice for achieving the task goal of "significantly improving China's collaborative capacity of pollution control and carbon reduction by 2030," which is of great practical significance for building a higher-quality, more sustainable, and greener pattern of the collaborative capacity of pollution control and carbon reduction., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study looks at how carbon reduction, pollution management, and monetary decentralization in China all work together for a win-win situation. Since China is the most significant contributor to global warming, the country must implement policies to cut carbon emissions and curb pollution. One possible answer is financial decentralization, delegating federal financial responsibilities, and decisions to state and regional governments. The study used the weighted matrix analysis technique, LM matrix analysis technique, and ARDL short-run and long-run analysis estimates. However, the degree to which it will help China reduce carbon emissions and regulate pollution is unclear. This study takes a multifaceted approach to the investigation of this problem. Determining the efficacy of financial decentralization in addressing environmental concerns and drawing policy implications for China's environmental governance framework requires investigating the drivers of this trend and the mechanisms through which it operates. We perform a comprehensive empirical analysis to examine the results of using Chinese data from 1999 to 2019. This study's results provide new information to the literature by showcasing the power of fiscal decentralization in propelling environmentally sound policies in China. Central policy takeaways from the report include decentralizing financial authority to local governments, encouraging cooperation across multiple tiers of government, and setting up effective systems for monitoring and enforcing compliance. These policy suggestions can help China decrease carbon emissions and regulate pollution more efficiently, paving the way to better environmental results and a more sustainable future., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The environmental protection tax (EPT) is an important environmental policy in China. However, it remains unclear whether the EPT has reduced environmental pollution effectively since its implementation in 2018. Based on the panel data of 229 prefecture-level cities in China during 2015-2019 and the difference-in-differences (DID) model, this study empirically assesses the causal effect of the EPT on environmental pollution. It is found that the EPT has a significantly negative effect on industrial sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) and industrial soot (dust) emissions but has no significant impact on industrial wastewater emissions. The mechanism analysis reveals that the EPT has the tax enforcement effect and energy efficiency effect, that is, the EPT reduces pollution emissions through increasing actual tax burden and improving the efficiency of energy utilization. However, the innovation effect is weak, which is only effective in reducing industrial SO 2 emissions. Finally, we compare how different types of cities responded to the EPT. The results show that the EPT has limited effect on environmental pollution in large cities and southern China., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Using the difference-in-difference model and panel data from 283 Chinese cities from 2006 to 2019, this study assesses the effect on CO 2 emissions of an innovative city pilot policy and analyzes its mechanism using the mediation effect model. The findings demonstrate that the pilot policy significantly reduces urban carbon emissions overall, and this finding holds even after conducting several stability tests. Innovative pilot cities can cut carbon emissions by 11.5% compared to nonpilot cities and thus significantly impact carbon reduction. Reducing carbon emissions is possible through three mechanisms. These are the enrichment of cultural resources, the development of technological innovation levels, and the optimization of industrial structure. There is a significant lag in how the innovative city pilot policy affects this reduction. The emission reduction effects of innovative pilot policies on different pollution levels, regions, and cities of various sizes are heterogeneous. In the long run, the scope of pilot projects needs enlargement in an orderly manner, and specific policies should be implemented according to local conditions. Meanwhile, advanced technologies are required in cities of different scales to build innovative development mechanisms for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, and environmental regulations should be strengthened to implement in urban areas the concept of green and sustainable ecological development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental sustainability involves meeting current needs without compromising the abilities of future generations. Practical steps must be taken to prevent pollution, decrease waste, and utilize resources. This study investigates the predictors of environmental sustainability in SMEs, focusing on the role of environmental management accounting and environmental proactivity in linking pollution prevention strategies to environmental sustainability using the natural resource-based view theory. This study surveyed 308 Pakistani SMEs employees and tested the data using SPSS v28 and AMOS v26. The results show that pollution control initiatives increased the usage of environmental management accounting, which in turn had a positive impact on environmental sustainability. The study also finds that environmental proactivity is significantly moderate and that environmental management accounting mediates these associations. To the best of our knowledge, this study is unique in that it is the first to provide sustainable implications based on the current framework. This study highlights the importance of implementing pollution prevention strategies, integrating environmental management accounting practices, and fostering environmental proactivity to enhance environmental sustainability performance in SMEs in Pakistan, ultimately leading to improved business competitiveness, positive environmental impacts, and a sustainable future. SMEs can focus on implementing proactive pollution prevention strategies such as waste reduction, energy conservation, and resource optimization. By adopting a proactive approach to pollution prevention, SMEs can reduce their environmental impact and enhance their sustainability performance., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The allocation of executives' environmental attention (EEA) is of great significance in promoting the green upgrading of industrial structures and achieving corporate green transformation. Based on upper echelon theory and the attention-based view, we use panel data of Chinese manufacturing companies from 2015 to 2020 to construct a two-way fixed effects model to explore the impact mechanism of EEA on corporate green transformation performance (CGTP). Baseline regression shows that EEA significantly improves CGTP. The reliability of findings is verified by reducing time windows, replacing the independent variable, expanding the data source, and adding missing variables. In the heterogeneity analysis, the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is significant for eastern companies and does not differ in the property rights grouping. After propensity score matching, environmental attribute grouping shows that the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is more significant for non-heavy polluters. Extended research shows that government subsidies have a positive moderating effect, while female executives play only a symbolic role. Moreover, green innovation activities have positive partial mediating effects. Green innovation is the best way to address environmental pollution and achieve corporate green transformation. Our research provides implications for decision-makers to allocate their attention, and thereby achieve green development appropriately., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study examines the impact of the Chinese regional emission trading system (ETS) pilots on enterprise transformation from the perspective of diversification. We use data on Chinese A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2021, and adopt the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) and difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) models. The empirical results show that first, the ETS significantly increases the product quantity and revenue diversification of regulated firms. Second, the ETS promotes enterprise diversification through three channels: emission cost, emission risk, and market efficiency. Third, the ETS has a greater impact on the diversification of state-owned enterprises, firms with high business concentration, and firms with low innovation investment. Fourth, the ETS-driven diversification has not been successful as it has increased firms' costs and reduced their profitability. We recommend introducing industrial policies to guide the transformation of enterprises, encourage them to improve their innovation capabilities, and choose appropriate transformation strategies., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the race for economic development and prosperity, our earth is becoming more polluted with each passing day. Technological advances in agriculture and rapid industrialization have drastically polluted the two pillars of natural resources, land and water. Toxic chemicals and microbial contaminants/agents created by natural and anthropogenic activities are rapidly becoming environmental hazards (EH) with increased potential to affect the natural environment and human health. This review has attempted to describe the various agents (chemical, biological, and physical) responsible for environmental contamination, remediation methods, and risk assessment techniques (RA). The main focus is on finding ways to mitigate the harmful effects of EHs through the simultaneous application of remediation methods and RA for sustainable development. It is recommended to apply the combination of different remediation methods using RA techniques to promote recycling and reuse of different resources for sustainable development. The report advocates for the development of site-specific, farmer-driven, sequential, and plant-based remediation strategies along with policy support for effective decontamination. This review also focuses on the fact that the lack of knowledge about environmental health is directly related to public health risks and, therefore, focuses on promoting awareness of effective ways to reduce anthropological burden and pollution and on providing valuable data that can be used in environmental monitoring assessments and lead to sustainable development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Based on panel data from 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2020, this paper uses the difference-in-difference (DID) method to investigate the policy effect, mechanism, and heterogeneity of green finance (GF) to reduce environmental pollution. (1) Green finance has significant effect on reducing environmental pollution. The parallel trend test demonstrates that DID test results are valid. (2) Following a battery of robustness tests including instrumental variable, propensity score matching (PSM), variable substitution, and changing time-bandwidth, the conclusions are still valid. (3) Mechanism analysis reveals that green finance can reduce environmental pollution by increasing energy efficiency, adjusting industrial structure, and transforming green consumption. (4) Heterogeneity analysis proves that green finance has a substantial impact on reducing the environmental pollution in eastern and western cities, but not in central China. (5) In the "two-control zone" and "low-carbon pilot cities," the results of applying green finance policies are better, and a policy superposition effect exists. To be able to promote environmental pollution control, and green and sustainable development, this paper provides useful enlightenment for environmental pollution control for China and other similar countries., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Under the strategic deployment of dual carbon goals, China has entered the stage of high-quality development of low-carbon economic transformation. Green finance is an important tool to provide financing support for the development of green low-carbon projects and prevent environmental and climate financial risks. Whether and how it can help the implementation of the dual carbon goals is worth pondering and studying. Based on this background, this study considers the green finance reform and innovation pilot policy zone jointly issued by the Central People's Bank of China, National Development, and Reform Commission in 2017 as a natural experiment. Based on the panel data of 288 cities nationwide from 2010 to 2019, the effect of emission reduction is estimated using the PSM-DID method. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The green finance policy has effectively improved the city's environmental quality, and the pilot effect of green finance has a certain lag on SO 2 emissions and industrial smoke (dust) emissions; (2) the mechanism inspection shows that the policy mechanism has promoted the technological innovation level, sewage treatment capacity, and garbage harmless treatment capacity of the pilot area to a certain extent; and (3) the impact of green finance policy on environmental quality has regional and industrial characteristics heterogeneity. The green finance pilot policy in eastern and central regions will inhibit SO 2 emissions, but the emission reduction effect in western regions is not significant; The implementation of the pilot policy of the green financial reform and innovation pilot zone has significantly reduced the sulfur dioxide emissions of the old industrial base cities, but the effect of the policy on non-old industrial bases is not obvious. The research conclusion has important enlightenment significance for further improving the construction of financial system, promoting the green transformation of regional industry, and improving the quality of urban environment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As a new economic form, the digital economy is not only empowering new impetus to economic growth, but also reshaping specific business forms of economical operation. Therefore, we conducted an empirical test to verify the impact and mechanism of pollution reduction in the digital economy, based on the panel data of 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019. The results show that, first the development of the digital economy indeed has the positive effect of realizing pollution reduction. The results of mediating effect test indicate the influence mechanism mainly rely on promoting the upgrading of industrial structure (structural effect) and upgrading the level of green technology innovation (technical effect). Second, the results of regional heterogeneity analysis show that the emission reduction effect of digital economy development on four pollutants is characterized by weakness in the east and strong in the west in regional distribution. Third, the development of digital economy has a threshold effect on the level of economic development to achieve its pollution reduction effect. Further identification of the threshold effect indicates that the higher the level of economic development, the better in emission reduction effect., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China has long exercised environmental control through the imposition of sewage charges. The start of the environmental protection tax on January 1, 2018, means that China has entered a new phase of environmental control. Unlike many previous studies on the role of environmental taxes at the firm level, this paper examines whether environmental taxes affect pollution emissions by influencing the behavioral choices of micro-actors. This paper first reviews the Pyrrhic tax, the Porter hypothesis, and the "double dividend effect." We then construct provincial panel data for 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2019 as a sample, use the environmental protection tax as a natural experiment to evaluate the policy of this environmental protection tax using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences model, investigate the intermediate transmission mechanism of the policy implementation, and then analyze the differences in policy effects between provinces with different levels of economic development. The increased tax burden in 2018 led to a general reduction in provincial pollution emissions in which technological innovation by various groups, including firms and universities, had a mediating role., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Continuous and rapid economic development has brought about excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution. Therefore, it is particularly essential to coordinate economic, resource, and environmental factors to achieve sustainable development. This paper develops a new data envelopment analysis (DEA) method that can be used for multi-level complex system evaluation (MCSE-DEA) to reveal the inter-provincial green development efficiency (GDE) in China from 2010 to 2018. Moreover, the Tobit model is applied to explore the influencing factors of GDE. We found that (i) the MCSE-DEA model tends to have lower efficiency scores than the traditional P-DEA (panel data envelopment analysis) model, and the top three provinces are Shanghai, Tianjin, and Fujian; (ii) the efficiency shows an increasing trend during the whole study period. The southeast region and the Middle Yangtze River region have the highest efficiency values, reaching 1.09, while the northwest region ranks last with an average efficiency value of 0.66. Shanghai performs the best, while Ningxia performs the worst, with efficiency values of 1.43 and 0.58, respectively; (iii) the provinces with lower efficiency values mainly come from economically underdeveloped remote regions, which can be attributed to issues of water consumption (WC) and energy consumption (EC). Moreover, there are much room for improvement in solid waste emissions (SW) and soot and industrial dust emissions (SD); (iv) the environmental investment, R&D investment, and economic development level can significantly improve GDE, while industrial structure, urbanization level, and energy consumption have inhibiting effects., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

To improve the effectiveness of envir onmental management of watersheds and improve the environmental management mechanism of cross-administrative watersheds, we develop a neoliberal framework for action using incentives, examine the cooperative strategies of local governments in watershed treatment and people-oriented environmental protection under central government subsidies, and analyze the cost effectiveness of multiple strategies in a dynamic perspective, and we have the following important findings: (1) Compared to vertical ecological compensation, the introduction of horizontal cost-sharing contracts is more effective in enhancing inter-local cooperative environmental governance. (2) When the marginal benefit of the downstream local government is greater than half of the upstream marginal benefit, the upstream local government's pollution control investment and the effect of pollution control are improved, and the Pareto improvement of the environmental governance benefit of the watershed is realized, i.e., the cost-sharing contract driven by the downstream can achieve a win-win situation for both environmental and government governance benefits. (3) When the marginal benefit of downstream environmental advocacy is between 0.5 and 1.5 times the marginal benefit of upstream government, the cost-sharing contract is more effective in improving downstream benefits. Conversely, when the marginal benefit of downstream is greater than 1.5 times, the marginal benefit of upstream, the more effective the cost-sharing contract is in improving the marginal benefit of downstream. The results of the study provide useful insights for the government to develop reasonable pollution management cooperation mechanisms to improve environmental management performance and thus enhance the sustainable development of the watershed., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Based on panel data of 285 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2020, this study has explored the impacts of smart city policy (SCP) on environmental pollution by utilizing the difference-in-differences (DID) model and its derived models. The results indicate that SCP can significantly reduce environmental pollution, and this conclusion still holds after passing numerous robustness tests, such as the propensity-score-matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) test, the placebo test, all independent variables lagging one period test, the policy interference test, and the instrument variable (IV) test. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of reducing environmental pollution of SCP is heterogeneous. Furthermore, the results of the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model show that SCP has a "beggar-thy-neighbor" effect among the pilot cities, and there is no spillover effect of SCP on pollution reduction in neighboring non-pilot cities. Finally, the analysis of moderating effect reflects that the government intervention plays a negative inhibition role in the process of SCP affecting environmental pollution, while the market competition plays a positive catalytic role in the process of SCP reducing environmental pollution., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The deteriorating global environment has attracted wide attention in various countries. How to curb environmental pollution and achieve sustainable economic growth has become an urgent problem that we must face. As an effective tool for pollution control, environmental tax has been implemented in many developed countries and has achieved good results. As the largest developing country in the world, China introduced the first environmental tax law in its history in December 2016, which is regarded as a major reform of the green tax system. To explore the implementation effect of environmental tax in China, this paper takes 3867 Chinese listed enterprises (2015-2020) in Shanghai and Shenzhen A shares as the research sample and explores the microeconomic effect of environmental tax reform using the difference in difference (DID) method. It is concluded that the environmental tax reform can produce a positive impact on the corporate profit margins while curbing the enterprise pollution behavior. This positive effect comes from the investment improvement effect and the cost-saving effect, and this effect is heterogeneous between different regions and property rights enterprises. Therefore, the design of the tax system must be implemented with different measures. Environmental taxes have achieved positive policy results in China, contributing to sustainable economic growth. This tax reform has an important reference value for the developing countries in the industrialization stage., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Enhancing energy efficiency is an important issue for countries facing pressures from energy shortages and environment pollution. Given increasing interest in the role of environmental supervision and the current lack of empirical evidence on this topic, this study investigates the impact of environmental supervision on firms' energy efficiency by taking the Environmental Protection Admonishing Talk (EPAT) policy in China as a quasi-natural experiment. Using the difference-in-differences method and the panel data of more than 3 million firms in China from 2008 to 2016, we find that environmental supervision improves firms' energy efficiency. This finding is validated by robustness tests and the difference-in-differences method combined with propensity score matching. The EPAT policy has varying effects on firms based on their location and size. A mechanism analysis shows that the EPAT policy improves firms' energy efficiency mainly by incentivizing them to adopt new technologies and transforming their modes of production. These findings can provide novel microscopic evidence on environmental supervision and energy efficiency and offer clues for the improvement of environmental enforcement in developing countries., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper uses spatial measurement method, by selecting panel data from a total of 106 cities in 11 provinces and municipalities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2006 to 2018, to conduct an empirical study on the impact mechanism of urban innovation ability on industrial pollution governance. The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between urban innovation ability and the degree of industrial pollution, and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt have a significant spatial connection. Specifically, this paper finds that urban innovation ability can have a positive impact on urban industrial pollution governance through industrial selection, production technology innovation, pollution discharge technology innovation, and environmental pollution treatment, which will help cities reduce industrial pollution; The industrial pollution governance level of individual cities is not only affected by the innovation ability of the city, but also by the innovation spillover of the surrounding cities. Area surrounded by cities with high urban innovation ability will benefit from the spillover of the surrounding cities. The industrial pollution governance level of individual cities is not only affected by the innovation ability of the city, but also by the innovation spillover of the surrounding cities. Areas surrounded by cities with high urban innovation ability will benefit from the spillover of the surrounding cities, thus improving the industrial pollution control and regional ecological environment. Based on this, this paper proposes relevant policy recommendations for urban industrial pollution governance from the perspective of improving urban innovation ability., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Green technological innovation is an overarching approach to tackling environmental pollution, and mitigating the inequality in green technological innovation between regions can contribute to environmental equity. This study measures the inequality in green technological innovation via an index and examines the influence of digital finance on that inequality using data from 285 cities in China from 2011 to 2018. The results are as follows: (1) Digital financial development alleviates the inequality in green technological innovation, and the greater the inequality is, the stronger the effect of digital finance. The development of digital finance can help regions lagging behind in terms of green technology to catch up. (2) When the financial supervision and environmental restrictions within a region are strict, the development of digital finance is more effective at reducing the inequality in green technological innovation; a higher capacity for governance in the local government and a smaller digital divide strengthen the positive effects of digital finance. (3) The development of digital finance alleviates interregional inequality in green credit, reduces market segmentation, and increases spending on environmental protection, thus narrowing the gap in the capacity for green innovation between regions. These findings not only enrich the literature on digital finance and green technological innovation but also serve as a reference for governmental departments as they optimize their strategy for developing digital finance and coordinating green development across regions., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The relationship between environmental regulation and economic growth is difficult to reconcile, resulting in the "involutionary" dilemma of local government environmental governance. Using panel data from Chinese A-share listed industrial companies between 2010 and 2019, this paper collected data on environmental protection interview and central environmental protection inspection and empirically investigated the impact of both on high-quality economic growth of companies using the difference-in-difference method. First, both environmental protection interview and central environmental protection inspection significantly promote high-quality economic growth, according to the findings. Second, the two-pronged policy effect of environmental protection interview and central environmental protection inspection is more significant, and the promotion effect on high-quality economic growth is greater than the effect of the two policies separately. Third, the dual policy action significantly promotes high-quality economic growth of state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises; however, non-state-owned enterprise economic growth is more sensitive to the central environmental protection inspection, and policy effects show a heterogeneous pattern in the east, central, and west regions. Therefore, the effective integration of environmental protection interview and central environmental protection inspection should be accelerated so that environmental pollution control and economic growth can be carried out together., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study investigates the effect of Chinese environmental regulations on the quality of export products. As the main way for the government to protect the environment, environmental regulations have greatly influenced the production behavior of enterprises. Based on the data of China's pollutant discharge fee implementation and industrial enterprise-pollution panel data, we find that the government's environmental regulations have significantly improved the quality of export products, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. Further analysis shows that the increase in the quality of export products originating from the regulated areas could be attributed to promoting enterprise innovation and reducing resource misallocation. The results in this study provide evidence that the Chinese government could coordinate economic and environmental protection in the new era., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Cleaner production and pollution prevention are not only essential for enterprises to improve resource utilization efficiency and competitiveness, but also realistic requirements for enterprises to comply with green manufacturing policies and regulations. Many previous studies have investigated the impacts of environmental innovation on products and environmental performance, but few of them have explored the impact of environmental innovation on customer relationships. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the basic strategies to enhance customer relationship in the context of green development. Building upon the resource-based view, the dynamic capability perspective, and the upper echelons theory, this study develops a conceptual model focusing on the effects of environmental innovation ambidexterity (EIA) on customer relationship performance (CRP), the mediating effects of green product innovation (GPI), and the moderating role of top management's environmental awareness. The results of a survey of 285 high-tech manufacturing enterprises in China show that EIA has a positive effect on CRP. The results of the study also indicate that GPI mediates the relationship between EIA and CRP, and top management's environmental awareness moderates the impact of EIA on CRP. The results offer novel insights for suppliers to improve CRP, and provide theoretical guidance for high-tech manufacturing enterprises to effectively implement pollution prevention and GPI., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Green finance aims to intervene in investment and financing behaviors through financial means, so as to promote upgrading of heavily polluting industries. Whether it can reduce illegal pollution discharge behaviors is the focus of this paper. This paper is to explore the impact of green finance on illegal emissions of heavy polluting firms. Taking green finance pilot zones (GFPZ) in 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment, the paper measures illegal emission behaviors based on day-night difference of PM 2.5 at the nearest atmospheric monitoring points and tests the impact of GFPZ on illegal emissions based on triple difference model (DDD). The results show that GFPZ inhibits illegal emissions. Influence path result shows that GFPZ reduces illegal emissions by increasing financing constraint, green innovation, and fulfilling social responsibility. At the same time, this paper also notes that regulatory distance has an interference effect on GFPZ. GFPZ aggravates illegal emission as heavy polluting firms - financial institution's distance is more than 40 km. GFPZ curbs illegal pollution more significantly as heavy polluting firms - environmental protection bureau distance is within 30 km. This paper aims to reveal the guiding effect of green finance on emission behavior of polluting firms and provide policy references for reducing emission and promoting green finance., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The Chinese authorities revised its Pollution Discharge Fee Policy and officially implemented the Environmental Protection Tax Law on January 1, 2018. Considering the importance of such a reform, we utilise the ordinary least squares and probit regression models to explore the effects of these policies on firm performance during the transitional period of 2016 to 2019. We find that fee rates are negatively related to firm financial performance, i.e. profitability and development capability, and positively associated with firm environmental performance, i.e. corporation social responsibility. We applied the IV 2SLS regression model to control for firms' research and development investment, and the empirical results remain the same. Regarding subsample tests, these policies have stronger impacts on firm performance among heavy polluters and non-state-owned enterprises than those of environmental friendly firms and state-owned enterprises. The empirical results hold after we control for various potential endogeneity issues. The findings of this article may assist the authorities to adjust the tax law, so as to protect the environment and relieve the negative impact on firm performance simultaneously., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Campaign-style environmental implementation (CEI) is widely exerted in environmental protection, while its benefits and costs are controversial. We take advantage of the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) System-a latest and distinguished form of CEI launched by China in 2016, as a quasi-natural experiment, to compare the benefits and costs of CEI based on water pollution effect estimates. Our results based on the annual panel data from 500 cities during 2009-2018 show that CEPI significantly reduced water pollution by an average of 20.7%. Further cost-benefit analysis based on the estimates of water pollution reduction shows that the potential health benefits of mortality and morbidity reduction resulting from CEPI are at least $12.26 billion, without bearing additional economic costs. We also explore why CEPI is cost-effective and find that CEPI reduces water pollution and becomes cost-effective mainly through deterring local officials, punishing polluting enterprises, and increasing public participation in environmental governance., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper mainly studies the impact of environmental protection tax (EPT) on the illegal emission behaviors of heavy polluting enterprises. Based on the real-time data from the nearest air monitoring points, this paper calculates the day-night difference of PM 2.5 to measure whether there are illegal emission behaviors. And, difference in difference method (DID) is used based on the quasi-natural experiment of EPT. First, the baseline DID results show that EPT reduces day-night difference of PM 2.5 , and inhibits illegal emissions. Second, the influence paths results show that EPT can inhibit illegal emission by increasing innovation, environmental responsibility performance, and environmental penalty cost, and EPT aggravate illegal emissions by increasing environmental costs and environmental corruption. Third, the influence of different pollutant pricing on illegal emissions is further analyzed. The effect of air pollutant pricing on illegal emissions is inhibited first and then promoted, while higher water pollutant pricing will aggravate illegal emissions. This paper provides enlightenment on adjusting EPT policy for local governments to curb illegal emissions, and provides an economic explanation for the differences of illegal pollution discharge in different places., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental administrative penalty is a strong tool for the government to regulate environmental pollution. The influence of an environmental administrative penalty on a firm's cash flow has become a hot topic in academics and industry. By employing ordinary least square and the bootstrap method, it is established that the penalty significantly reduces the firm's cash flow in the succeeding year through incremental disclosures which play a mediating role. Further, we distinguished environmental information's nature and then measured it from negative, sensitive (hard) information and positive (soft) information aspects. However, it is found that the mediating effect of the two types of disclosure increment did not exist, respectively. These results help us to comprehend the significance of environmental management to the stability of corporate cash flow and have practical illumination to corporate environmental management and environmental pollution control., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As China's pollution problems worsen, environmental disputes are increasing rapidly. However, only 1% of environmental disputes can be resolved via judicial channels. Based on the establishment of environmental courts since 2007, we employ the multi-period DID approach to investigate the impact of environmental courts on foreign direct investments. We find that (1) compared with cities without environmental courts, FDI of cities with environmental courts would drop by 3.32% from the average, which is consistent with the pollution haven hypothesis. Besides, we verify the credibility of the conclusion through detailed endogeneity discussions, placebo tests, and robustness tests. (2) The negative effect of environmental courts on foreign direct investments is more salient in the east, regions with higher historical environmental investment, and regions with more serious local protectionism. (3) There are two channels. The greater risks of environmental litigation and stricter environmental public supervision brought by environmental courts would lead to additional environmental violation costs, thereby inhibiting foreign direct investments. Our findings provide new causal evidence for the pollution haven hypothesis from the perspective of intensive environmental justice., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

With the increasing severity of environmental regulations, Chinese enterprises are gradually transforming from the profit growth pattern of "growth with pollution" to green development. However, this paper finds that this transformation is not complete. While catering to the national environmental protection governance requirements, some enterprises still persist the profit growth pattern of "growth with pollution." How to solve this problem? By attracting government subsidies, reducing tax burdens, and increasing the proportion of technical personnel employed, we theoretically and empirically demonstrate that the positive effect of "new infrastructure" in accelerating enterprises' transformation away from the profit growth pattern of "growth with pollution" to sustainable development. In the heterogeneity analysis section, we found that in enterprises with higher political correlation, more technical personnel, and lower labor cost, the "new infrastructure" has a stronger restraining effect on the "growth with pollution" pattern., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Green innovation is becoming more common among researchers and practitioners around the world due to environmental and social issues. Green innovation minimizes wastes and pollution, and also leads to financial gains and better image if implemented effectively. Nowadays, developing countries pay greater emphasis on environmental issues as their manufacturing industries are considered major contributors to pollution. Considering the case of a developing country (Pakistan), the study empirically identified the drivers of green innovation in the manufacturing industry. A hybrid methodology-Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), interpretive structural modeling (ISM), and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC)-was used to develop a novel framework for analyzing the green innovation drivers. At first, green innovation drivers were selected from past studies; they were further screened by applying Fuzzy Delphi approach. The MICAMAC and ISM results indicate that "cost reduction" and "government support" are the most important drivers motivating green innovation implementation in the Pakistani manufacturing industry, while a green image appeared as the least significant driver of green innovation adoption. The study's findings have significant implications for managers and policymakers to develop green strategies for manufacturing sector., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The reform of environmental management systems is key to improving environmental pollution treatment and green technology innovation. Based on panel data on 30 provincial administrative regions in China for 2008 to 2016, this paper analyzes the impacts of environmental decentralization and environmental protection investment on green technology innovation. It is first found that environmental decentralization promotes green technology innovation after inhibition. Similar effects are found for environmental administrative decentralization, environmental monitoring decentralization, and environmental supervision decentralization. Second, in the long run, environmental decentralization in developed and low-emission regions is more conducive to green technology innovation. Third, environmental pollution treatment investment has a significant inhibiting effect on green technology innovation under high levels of environmental decentralization, and the inhibiting effects of industrial pollution source treatment investment and "three simultaneous" construction project investments are particularly obvious. This paper explores green technology innovation as the goal of environmental decentralization, which is the driving force behind pollution control. From the perspective of environmental protection investment, the paper further analyzes the impact of environmental decentralization on green technology innovation. The study has important reference value for determining reasonable levels of environmental decentralization among different levels of governance and in formulating differentiated strategies of environmental decentralization., (© 2020. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study aims to re-examine the impacts of monetary and fiscal policy on environmental quality in ASEAN countries from 1990 to 2019. We utilized the panel and time series NARDL approach to explore the long-run and short-run estimates at a regional level and country level. ASEAN regional-wise analysis shows that contractionary monetary policy reduces the CO2 emissions, while expansionary monetary policy enhances CO2 emissions in the long run. The long-run coefficient further confirms that expansionary fiscal policy mitigates CO2 emissions in ASEAN. The impact of expansionary monetary and fiscal policy on CO2 emissions is positive and significant, while contractionary monetary and fiscal policy have an insignificant impact on CO2 emissions in the short run. ASEAN country-wise analysis also reported the country-specific estimates for the short and long run. Some policies can redesign in light of these novel findings in ASEAN economies., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Maintaining a balance between environmental quality and economic growth is now one of the common goals of fiscal and monetary policies in developed and developing economies. This study examines the asymmetric impacts of fiscal and monetary policy instruments on environmental pollution in Pakistan over the period 1985-2019 by employing the asymmetric or nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) framework. The outcomes indicate that in Pakistan, a positive and negative shock in fiscal policy instruments has a significant increasing influence on carbon emissions in the short run, while a positive and negative shock in fiscal policy instruments has a significant decreasing impact on environmental pollution in long run. However, negative and positive shock in monetary policy instruments enhances carbon emissions in short-run, whereas positive shock in monetary policy instruments decreases carbon emissions in the long run. Therefore, the policymakers may consider the usage of fiscal and monetary policy instruments to maintain economic growth along with lowering the environmental pollution.

Compressed natural gas is an alternative green fuel for automobile industry. Recently, the Indian government is targeting to replace all the conventional fuel vehicles by compressed natural gas (CNG) automobiles due to its several merits. Still, the presence of a significant amount of CO, CH 4 , and NO x gases in the CNG vehicle exhaust are quiet a matter of concern. Thus, to control the emissions from CNG engines, the major advances are under development of and oxidation is one of them in catalytic converter. In literature, the catalysts such as noble and non-noble metals have been reported for separate oxidation of CO and CH 4. . Experimentally, it was found that non-noble metal catalysts are preferred due to its low cost, good thermal stability, and molding tractability. In literature, several articles have been published for CO and CH 4 oxidation but no review paper is still available. Thus, the present review provides a comprehensive overview of separate as well as simultaneous CO and CH 4 oxidation reactions for CNG vehicular emission control.

Floating vegetated islands (FVIs) are extensively implemented in various river ecology restoration projects, given their capability of decontaminating pollutants. The fluid dynamical behaviors of turbulence through FVIs are studied in the flume by using the SonTek Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry. Through conventional spectral and quadrant analyses, flow characteristics, such as energy content and turbulent momentum exchange, are investigated as the flow encountered a series of root canopies. A shear layer with corresponding coherent vortex structures at the bottom of root canopies occurred, which is generated by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. These instabilities are usually derived from velocity differences between root canopy and gap region. Shear- and stem-scale vortices are identified by using spectral analysis. The power spectral density function on measured vertical velocity fluctuations in the flow direction near the bottom of root canopies from the leading edge of FVIs is computed. Given the flow developing downstream, a series of the spectral curves has gradually showed one dominant dimensionless frequency at 0.046. The sweep and ejection events have contributed prominently to the Reynolds stress in whole vertical direction. Momentum flux carried by sweeps outweighs its counterpart carried by ejections inside root canopies. However, the situation is different outside root canopies. The sweep-ejection contributions are brief but crucial to the total turbulent momentum exchange, which is in good agreement with considerable studies on turbulent flow through canopies.

As secondary batteries are becoming the popular production of industry, especial for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), the degree of environmental friendliness will gather increasing attention to their products of the whole life cycle. The research combines the life cycle assessment (LCA) and footprint family definition to establish a framework to calculate the footprint family of secondary battery materials. Through the method, we calculated the values of carbon footprint, water footprint, and ecological footprint about this eight kinds of secondary cathode battery materials with Ni-MH, Li 1.2 Ni 0.2 Mn 0.6 O 2 /C, LiNi 1/3 Co 1/3 Mn 1/3 O 2 /C, LiNi 0 . 8 Co 0.2 O 2 /C, LiFePO 4 /C, LiFe 0.98 Mn 0.02 PO 4 /C, FeF 3 (H 2 O) 3 /C, and NaFePO 4 /C. When comparing and analyzing their values in each footprint, it can summarize the evaluation method for some secondary batteries by footprint indicators and construct the evaluation system. Through the comprehensive evaluation of footprint family system, the NaFePO 4 /C battery gets the best performance of three main footprints when combining 1 kg of cathode materials, while Ni-MH is opposite. Hence, among these eight batteries environmental impacts evaluation, the NaFePO 4 /C battery is regarded as the superior "green" battery, albeit the current application is restricted because of the synthesis limitation on large scale and energy density of storage. In LIBs comparison, the FeF 3 (H 2 O) 3 material shows its characteristics of environmental friendliness, which is expected to be a greener battery material of LIB. In conventional LIBs, the iron-containing cathode materials show lower environmental burden than ternary cathode materials. We can reduce environmental impacts through developing new advanced materials and reducing the content of high sensitivity element in raw materials.

Alberta has extensive non-renewable energy resources which contribute to the Canadian economy. A downturn in oil and gas energy prices in 2014 contributed to increased idle and orphaned wells, posing potential environmental and human health risks, as well as an economic burden on the province of Alberta. Idle and orphaned wells contribute to local adverse environmental and human health effects from soil and groundwater contamination to greenhouse gas emissions. With increasing numbers of idle and orphaned wells, current monitoring measures, including regulation and cost to identify well leakage, are insufficient. Current policy measures to manage idle and orphaned well environmental liabilities were found to be inadequate to cover cleanup costs. With oil and gas prices showing no signs of rebound, these idle and orphaned well liabilities need to be addressed. This paper discusses potential environmental risks that idle and orphaned oil and gas wells pose, compares Alberta's current monitoring and policy initiatives to those in other provinces as well as the USA, and recommends future management strategies to mitigate the issue.

In an attempt to mitigate the effects of extreme natural events caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs), a significant number of researchers and environmentalists have repeatedly stressed the importance of implementing protective measures, including the promotion of green consumption. This study examined the elements that motivated the willingness and the practice of green behavior (GB) among low-income households in coastal Peninsular Malaysia. To meet the research objectives, this study adopted the survey questionnaire method to collect data from 380 low-income households. The findings revealed that self-efficacy (SE) and environmental concerns (EC) have statistically significant effects on the attitude toward green products (ATT), while subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioral control (PBC) have influence on the intention of green vehicles. Eventually, the study discovered the effects of the intention to adopt green vehicle on green vehicle adoption behavior. Hence, the findings of this study provide new insights for policymakers in Malaysia to place more emphasis on improving consumer attitudes, social standards, and PBC, which will ultimately contribute to the adoption of environment-friendly vehicles. In addition, car manufacturers should support this program by designing products and options that would encourage those in the low-income group to replace their conventional vehicles with green alternatives in Malaysia.

The accumulation of desulfurization ash from coal-fired power plants can lead to serious waste of land resources and environmental safety problems. This work presents an experimental study on the feasibility of recycling original desulfurization ash as the main raw materials, and a new green grouting material was prepared. The results indicate that a desulfurization ash-based grouting fire prevention material which was prepared according to the following ingredient design (a water-to-solid ratio of 1.0:1 and a hydroxyethyl cellulose content of 0.09% desulfurization ash, 12% quicklime, 0.6% Na 2 SO 4 , and 0.05% triethanolamine, 80 °C curing). The slurry's viscosity meets requirements, and its suspension, liquidity, and consolidation strength are better than those of clay under the same conditions. In addition, the grouting material's inhibitor ratio is increased with temperature increase, which means it has good flame retardancy. Environmental performance tests concluded that when desulfurization ash as-recycled admixture is used for the preparation of grouting fire prevention material, from the technique point of view, the environmental safety of them is very good.

As two main factors, soil and vegetation play key roles in land rehabilitation and ecological remediation of mining areas. There is a complex interaction between soil and vegetation, and understanding the mechanisms of interaction between soil and vegetation is of great significance for land rehabilitation and ecological remediation in mining areas. This study introduced complex network method to analyze the complex interaction systematically. A survey of vegetation and soil properties in 70 reclaimed plots was carried out in the Anjialing and Antaibao opencast coal-mines in Shanxi, China. The indices of soil and vegetation acted as nodes, and the interaction between these indices as sides to establish a soil-vegetation network. Calculating the network indices to analyze the structure of a complex network and explore the mechanism of interaction between soil and vegetation. SOM (soil organic matter) was at the core of the soil-vegetation interaction network. The average path length of the soil-vegetation network was 1.8, with a faster rate of information transfer. The soil-vegetation network consisted of three clusters (soil physical property cluster, soil chemical property cluster, and vegetation cluster), in which the soil chemical property cluster owned the highest clustering coefficient and the largest number of triangles, and it was most stable and the interaction within the cluster was strongest. The soil-vegetation network was stable and the connectivity of the network had robustness to node failures. The scale of the network became larger and the network became tighter and more stable with the increase of reclamation time. Some measures should be conducted to promote vegetation restoration by improving important soil nodes, e.g., surface soil covering, applying organic fertilizer, and planting nitrogen-fixing plants.

The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is far lag behind the sustainable targets that set out in the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is highly needed to embark the priorities by their member countries to devise sustainable policies for accessing clean technologies, energy demand, finance, and food production to mitigate high-mass carbon emissions and conserve environmental agenda in the national policy agenda. The study evaluated United Nation's SDGs for environmental conservation and emission reduction in the panel of 35 selected SSA countries, during a period of 1995-2016. The study further analyzed the variable's relationship in inter-temporal forecasting framework for the next 10 years' time period, i.e., 2017-2026. The parameter estimates for the two models, i.e., CO 2 model and PM 2.5 models are analyzed by Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimator that handle possible endogeneity issue from the given models. The results rejected the inverted U-shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for CO 2 emissions, while it supported for PM 2.5 emissions with a turning point of US$5540 GDP per capita in constant 2010 US$. The results supported the "pollution haven hypothesis" for CO 2 emissions, while this hypothesis is not verified for PM 2.5 emissions. The major detrimental factors are technologies, FDI inflows, and food deficit that largely increase carbon emissions in a panel of SSA countries. The IPAT hypothesis is not verified in both the emissions; however, population density will largely influenced CO 2 emissions in the next 10 years' time period. The PM 2.5 emissions will largely be influenced by high per capita income, followed by trade openness, and technologies, over a time horizon. Thus, the United Nation's sustainable development agenda is highly influenced by socio-economic and environmental factors that need sound action plans by their member countries to coordinate and collaborate with each other and work for Africa's green growth agenda.