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As the tragedy in Ukraine deepens, it's clear that the world should end its dependency on Russian oil. It will be ironic, however, if nations disentangling themselves from this compromised energy source instead turn to another energy source with destructive impacts: harvesting and burning forest wood for fuel, which increases carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels, and degrades forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability, climate change issues and carbon emissions have recently become more prominent. To limit carbon emissions and reduce them we need to understand where and how much we use. The bridges and viaducts on major infrastructure projects have a high intensity of carbon compared to the average per kilometre. In this paper the carbon footprint of a range of current bridges and viaducts are outlined relative to cost, length, area, material and traffic type to give a benchmark for future reductions and to outline areas where improvements can be made. Engineers have often kept track of material quantities to estimate cost; the carbon content of a bridge can be calculated from the primary material quantities and construction methods. Information from a database of bridges is used in this research to estimate the capital carbon of 200 bridges. The data show the trends for different bridge loading types, materials and spans. The database can be used to assist with the reduction of carbon in bridges by benchmarking current carbon footprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trading market of carbon emission permits is not only an effective tool for tackling climate change, but it also reinforces the connection between carbon and energy markets by risk transmission. This paper investigates the volatility spillover effects and dynamic correlation between fossil energy, clean energy and the European Union carbon markets by applying the asymmetric BEKK- and DCC-GARCH models in a time-frequency framework and designs the portfolio strategies. Empirical results display that fossil energy market has a significantly positive impact on the clean energy market at most scales, but the feedback transmission is relatively weak. Two indirect volatility spillover effects exist between the three markets, which are 'fossil energy→carbon→clean energy' and 'clean energy→carbon→fossil energy', suggesting that the carbon market plays a vital role in bridging the clean and fossil energy markets. Significant time-varying asymmetric effects are identified between the three markets, and the carbon market is confirmed to offer the least expensive hedge to an investment in oil. Our findings can provide meaningful implications for policymakers to design market mechanism and investors to adjust hedging strategies and diversify their portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon offsets were designed to be a universal good for a global market, tradable with any form of carbon emission anywhere in the world. This paper shows that emission rights, designed as perfect commodities, do not pass their envisioned markets all too easily. After multiple market failures, producers and traders needed to add something to their offsets that define their value by exceeding the mere storage of carbon in trees or soil: a story. In voluntary markets, stories create a close relation between the good, its context of origin as well as the customer's context. By doing so, they juggle carbon offset through complex entanglements of value creation, modes of exchange, measurement practices and market demand. Carbon credits do not only take on a very singular nature but carry many characteristics of gifts at the same time. This paper thus aims to follow carbon offsets in and between their economic forms: commodities, singularities and gifts. This will be done by closely looking at the role of stories and how formatting processes, as well as the formation of goods are created and reflected in them at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic globalization and green development have become the consensus of all countries in the world. The importance of FDI, carbon emissions and green total factor productivity is self-evident. This study analyses the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP and the role of carbon emissions in FDI inflows and green TFP. The empirical analysis employed kernel density estimation, OLS, mediation effect model, and panel quantile regression methods using China's provincial panel data spanning over 2001–2019. The facts show that China's carbon emissions have been reduced because of environmental regulations and green TFP is still rising in fluctuation. The results from OLS and mediation effect model indicate that the impact of FDI inflows on green TFP present an asymmetric inverted U-shape and FDI influences green TFP by changing carbon emissions. The panel quantile regression results also show that FDI has a stronger impact on green TFP in less developed regions. This paper believes that the introduction of FDI should be appropriate and should be accompanied by corresponding environmental regulations, in order to promote green TFP in countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals is a fundamental requirement for advancing high-quality development in China. Carbon emission efficiency (CEE) indicates the proportion of optimal emissions to actual emissions in the production system, providing a basis for reasonable carbon emission reductions. To facilitate the realisation of China's goals, this paper analyses CEE and the carbon emission reduction potential in China from 2001 to 2020. Considering the heterogeneity of both regions and industries, this paper proposes a three-hierarchy meta-frontier directional distance function (DDF) method to measure CEE under convex and non-convex assumptions of production possibility set (PPS). The empirical results show that the assumption of convex or non-convex axiom on the innermost PPS has a great impact on efficiency distribution, and the distribution of technology gap rate (TGR) is more affected by the selection of convex or non-convex assumption compared with the distribution of CEE. Currently, China's carbon emission efficiency remains low, mostly due to management inefficiency. The primary industry has more advanced emission reduction technologies than the other two industries. The eastern region has a large potential for carbon emission reduction because of its high carbon emission base, despite its high efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology has a significant impact on most industries in the 21st century. The publishing industry is also facing digital transformation, and the traditional paper business is considered polluted and wasteful as it generates carbon emissions. To compare the influence of digital paperless business with the traditional one on environmental performance in publishing, this paper adopts a refined weak disposability model initially introduced by Kuosmanen (2005). The main novelty of the paper is to include two types of desirable outputs in production technology: one is linked to generating undesirable outputs while another is not. Two additional economic assumptions can be imposed on environmental production technology, namely, weak disposability and null-jointness, respectively. We apply the refined model to assess the economic and environmental performance of the publishing industry in China. The paper business generates carbon emissions while the digital outputs (paperless business) may not produce pollution. The empirical results indicate that a vast potential improvement is detected for the digital outputs while limited progress is allowed for traditional outputs. Furthermore, we use the entropy method to obtain a comprehensive digital technology indicator and further explore its influence on performance in the publishing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the optimal vehicle fleet planning and collaboration problem for a fuel vehicle (FV) transport service provider, a commercial electric vehicle (CEV) transport service provider, and a carbon emission treatment agency under carbon neutrality. The FV transport service provider pays a fixed fee or a portion of its sales revenue to a carbon emission treatment agency in exchange for technology to reduce its carbon emissions, and it can adopt three strategies (i.e., no emission reduction, purchasing technology for emission reduction, and entrusting a carbon emission treatment agency). We derive each party's optimal fleet size, price, and profit in the three scenarios. Our results suggest that carbon emission reduction strategies may improve the market performance of the FV transport service provider. Then, we find no certain strategy is always preferable to another: the optimal cooperation strategy between the transport service provider and carbon emission treatment agency depends on the fixed technology fee, ratio of revenue sharing, government penalty, the transport service market potential, and consumer green preference, as well as the cost per CEV. This paper gives the transport service provider and carbon emission treatment agency a full picture of whether, when, and how to collaborate in green commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global transition to low-carbon, resource-efficient economies is occurring in response to risks posed by climate change and environmental degradation. Hydrogen is proposed as a zero-carbon substitute for natural gas with the potential to reduce carbon emissions in homes and businesses. Trades, including gasfitting, will be affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy and require upskilling to develop competencies to work with hydrogen to ensure safety and support domestic uptake. Understanding the training needs of trades practitioners is essential to the successful transition to a zero-carbon economy. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of Australian gasfitters, exploring what motivates gasfitters to participate in training, what informs their ongoing learning and what their preferences are for hydrogen training. Most gasfitters are either self-employed or work in small businesses, and, as such, this context presents both challenges and opportunities to consider in upskilling strategies. Drawing on interview findings and literature on small business learning, the paper presents considerations to inform training approaches and policies in the transition to hydrogen and also, more broadly, for upskilling other small trade businesses similarly affected by a shift to low-carbon and green technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a Nash bargaining cooperative game model for a microgrid cluster system with double re-energy-load delay considering electricity, heat and gas multi-energy synergies. With the minimization of the operating cost of each microgrid as the objective function, a low-carbon operation model of a multi-energy complementary integrated energy microgrid considering fuzzy opportunity constraints is developed, an optimal operation mechanism including carbon quota and carbon trading is assessed, and a carbon capture system and an electricity-gas conversion device are added to the improved cogeneration unit model. Source-load uncertainty in microgrids is described in terms of new fuzzy parameters of new energy and undefined parameters of load demand. Each microgrid plays a second game with the marginal contribution rate and carbon trading cost rate as the bargaining power. The model is solved in a distributed manner using the ADMM-RGE algorithm. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed multi-microgrid power-sharing way maximizes the benefits of microgrid alliances; the cooperative help of microgrid alliances is pretty distributed according to the size of each microgrid's energy contribution; carbon capture joint power-gas systems and energy sharing methods between microgrids can effectively reduce carbon emissions during microgrid operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, the Chinese government has developed several batches of low-carbon pilot provinces and cities continuously. And in the backdrop of carbon peak and carbon neutralisation recently, the carbon emission reduction policies and achievements of China have attracted more and more worldwide attention. In the field of human health, this paper investigates whether the Low-carbon Province Pilot Policy of China has positive effects on residents' health based on the micro data of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2010 to 2016. Using the time-varying difference-in-difference model to solve the endogeneity problem commonly faced in the literature, we find that Low-carbon Province Pilot Policy has a positive impact on public health through air quality improvement and the unemployment level alleviation mainly. And in urban areas, the policy effect is more obvious than that in rural regions. This paper expands the content of national low-carbon governance effects to residents' health further and contribute to China's low-carbon development. Specifically, it reminds us to focus on the dynamic adjustment and effective continuation of the policy, and also the all-round support for 'the disadvantaged' in environmental governance process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study incorporates fairness concern in a low-carbon supply chain coordination mechanism where a single manufacturer sells its product to consumers through a single retailer. We develop four different scenarios of the Stackelberg master-slave game utility model—both members are neutral (NN), the manufacturer (FN) or retailer (NF) has fairness concern, and both are not neutral (FF), where the Nash bargaining fairness reference is leveraged to capture the impact of fairness preference on low-carbon supply chain optimisation decision-making profits, level of carbon emission reduction, warranty period, and revenue-sharing. Finally, numerical studies are conducted to quantify the impact of the Nash bargaining fairness concern. Research shows that: (1) fairness concern made it worse for the retailer but beneficial for the manufacturer and the system. (2) fairness concern causes a reduction in the level of carbon emission reduction and warranty period. However, the reduction of carbon emission reduction trading price and a certain range of revenue sharing effectively reduces the impact of fairness concern on members. (3) The revenue-sharing contract effectively reduces the negative impacts of fairness concern on supply chain members. The paper is a guide for enterprises development and cooperation but also provides empirical evidence for the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers' growing awareness of environmental protection and carbon regulations enacted by the government based on strengthened environmental pressure are forcing manufacturers to curb carbon emissions. This paper considers a manufacturer investing in green technology to reduce carbon emissions under the cap-and-trade regulation, selling products to consumers through a direct channel and an online retail platform. The platform could choose to operate either in an agency mode or a reselling mode. A three-stage game is constructed to examine the interactions between the manufacturer's investment and the platform's operation mode under the cap-and-trade regulation, as well as the influences of the regulation on the interactions, and the supply chain coordination. The findings suggest that green technology investment in either operation mode leads to Pareto improvement in profits of both the platform and the manufacturer, and the investment induces the platform to prefer the reselling mode. Besides, the cap-and-trade regulation encourages the platform to opt for the agency mode, while the investment could mitigate the influence of the regulation on the platform's mode choice, with greater investment efficiency resulting in better mitigation. Furthermore, the investment could induce supply chain coordination under two modes through two different contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-saturated markets such as high-tech markets are attracting more and more eco-conscious consumers. Their utility can be increased by firms' investment in carbon reduction, so the overall demand can be expanded without intensifying the market competition too much. In this paper, we build a two-stage-N-firm optimisation model by assuming firms' products are horizontally differentiated and may engage in multi-dimensional competition. We analyze three scenarios: (1) Benchmark of price-only competition, (2) Two-dimensional 'price + investment effort' competition, and (3) N-firm circular differentiated competition. We find that consumers' high eco-awareness may lead firms to lower investment levels for carbon emission reduction. When the market is sufficiently saturated, we reveal that a Prisoner's Dilemma will occur where firms are trapped in investment-effort competition, so their profits are damaged. We further investigate the environmental performance and the social welfare, finding that consumers' high eco-awareness may render the environment worse and undermine the social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to optimise fleet management for companies that utilise both internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and electric vehicles by considering various costs, including fixed costs, variable costs, time window penalty costs, fuel costs, and electricity consumption costs. Additionally, the study examines the influence of four types of regulations, i.e. carbon cap, carbon tax, carbon trading, and carbon offsetting, on carbon emissions and fleet configuration. The optimisation model was solved using a Clarke-Wright savings heuristic algorithm followed by an improved adaptive genetic algorithm (IAGA), and a sensitivity analysis was conducted under different regulatory policies. The results show that all four types of regulations can effectively reduce fleet emissions. While carbon prices have a greater impact on carbon regulations than carbon quota, carbon trading was more effective under similar circumstances. Therefore, governments should implement appropriate regulatory strategies to reduce energy consumption and encourage enterprises to reduce their emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving tourism carbon neutrality is essential for sustainable tourism development. This paper uses the coupled coordination distance model, modified gravity model and social network analysis to attempt to construct a nationwide tourism carbon neutral spatial network to clarify the role of each province in the process of achieving China's tourism carbon neutrality. The results show that: (1) only seven provinces will achieve tourism carbon neutrality in the target year of carbon neutrality in China (2060). (2) From 2001 to 2060, most provinces are at the stage of coordinated development of tourism carbon emissions and tourism carbon sinks, but the degree of coordinated development is low. (3) The structure of China's tourism carbon-neutral spatial network tends to be looser from 2001 to 2060. As the time series progresses, the role of each province in the spatial network will be gradually clarified. (4) In the process of achieving the goal of China's tourism carbon neutrality, the number of tourism carbon sink input areas is much larger than that of tourism carbon sink output areas. Accordingly, this paper proposes countermeasures from three aspects: government-led, market system and voluntary mechanisms, in order to promote the achievement of China's tourism carbon neutrality goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become increasingly important in recent years. It is the outcome of the burning of fossil fuels that increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), over the last century. Mitigating the impacts of climate change requires a better understanding and assessment of the countries' economic decisions on the amount of CO 2 emissions. This paper assesses the variability between the different countries in the trends of CO 2 emissions and electricity consumption from 1975 to 2014, while identifying clusters of countries of similar trends over time. The novel methodology applied in this paper enables us to assess long-debated issues in climate literature. The temporal dynamic effects of electricity consumption and economic growth on CO 2 emissions across countries are studied using functional data analysis (FDA) methods. The latter have proven to be useful tools for visualising similarities and differences in the non-linear trends of CO 2 emissions without forcing linear trends and stationary relationships which can be unrealistic and misleading. The results indicate the possibility of identifying changes in the trends of CO 2 emissions and electricity consumption for a wide range of heterogeneous countries over the study period. The findings also reveal that economic growth puts a strain on the environment, where many high-income countries are still away from attaining economic-energy sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser welding has been widely employed for aluminum alloy body-in-white. However, owing to the low utilisation efficiency of energy and material, the carbon emission of laser welding is serious. In this paper, the mathematical modelling of carbon emissions and process parameters optimisation for laser welding cells are studied. The carbon emission characteristics of the laser welding system are analysed, and the carbon emission model of the laser welding cell considering both welding features and welding transfers is established. Besides, the process parameters optimisation model of laser welding cell is developed. To obtain optimal welding sequence, a combinatorial algorithm based on Culture Algorithm and Ant Colony Algorithm is proposed. Based on the optimal welding sequence, the optimal transfer speed is obtained through mathematical theory. Furthermore, a case study is performed to verify the feasibility and reliability of the process parameters optimisation model. Additionally, compared with the Ant Colony Algorithm, the proposed solution algorithm has better comprehensive performance in terms of convergence speed and optimisation accuracy. This study lays a theoretical foundation for carbon emission modelling of the laser welding cell, and can support the automobile enterprise to make processing parameters selection of the laser welding line in the design stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has called for firms to prioritize reducing carbon emissions, however strategies to do so with external partners through institutional conformity and integration are lacking in research and practice. Drawing upon the resource-based view and institutional theory, the study in this paper proposes and tests a series of research hypotheses with Chinese firms. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data and findings reveal carbon emissions reduction and low carbon institutional pressures are crucial forces driving external low carbon supply chain integration with external suppliers and customers. Further, low carbon supply chain integration overall positively impacts a firm's environmental performance, external customer integration positively impacts a firm's financial performance, and environmental performance plays a mediating role between external low carbon supply chain integration and financial performance. This study contributes by shedding new light on two patterns of external low carbon supply chain integration compared to prior studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staying within the 2 °C (preferably 1.5 °C) limit requires fast and fundamental system changes, also in urban passenger transport. Shifting car traffic to environmentally friendly transport modes is one central strategy to make urban transport more sustainable and climate friendly. However, in most cities car use remains high. Therefore, this paper analyzes what course change is needed regarding direction, scale and speed of change for urban sustainability and climate protection reasons. The paper analyzes the role of modal shift as a strategy in itself and in relation to land-use (avoid) and efficiency (improve) measures. The paper draws on insights from European frontrunning cities and explorative forecasting scenarios calculated with the sophisticated integrated land-use transport model "Ruhr Region 2050". The paper suggests that a significant reduction of urban car use is needed (direction) that roughly equals a fast halving of car use (scale), which has proven feasible under the current socio-political conditions by annual reduction rates of 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points of the trip-based modal share of car use (speed). Significantly reducing car use requires comprehensive and high-intensive measures that go far beyond usual practices. Modal shift measures need to play a crucial role in integrated approaches with land-use (avoid) and efficiency (improve) measures because they have the potential to significantly reduce car use and CO2 emissions and because they can produce comparatively fast effects – which makes modal shift measures first aid approaches to achieve a fast "bending of the curve" of excessive car use and growing CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses sustainability and competitiveness through measurements of efficiency, using data envelopment analysis. It constructs a meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function (meta-frontier NDDF) approach, which is then used to define a tourism development index and a tourism sustainability index. Using these indexes, the paper evaluates the efficiency of the tourism sector and its dynamic evolution for 27 cities in the Yangtze River Delta, China, (YRD) from 2010 to 2019. Considering regional heterogeneity, this paper analyzes the meta-frontier, group-frontier efficiency and technology gap ratio of urban tourism in the YRD, and explores the competitiveness of the cities. The results show that the more traditional measure of tourism efficiency, namely the tourism development index, which does not take account of the sector's undesirable output (i.e., the negative impacts of carbon emissions from travel), produces overestimates. This study highlights the following practical implications: The increasing competition among tourism destinations requires tourism industry managers to determine the appropriate allocation of resources to promote the sustainable development of urban tourism. In the context of the need for global 'carbon neutrality', more consideration should be given to the negative impact of tourism on the natural environment to enhance the competitiveness of tourist destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, several achievements have been made in power generation and optimising hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) to achieve nature conservation, achieve energy security, and reduce carbon emissions. However, there are many complexities in Renewable energy (RE) conversion, sizing, design, and implementation, that require optimisation techniques to achieve optimal results in terms of reliability, cost, and environmental protection over time. This paper presents an overview of research trends in Optimization methods in HRES which are classified into modern and conventional methods. These two classifications are further divided into control methods, Artificial intelligence, Iterative and mathematical operations. However, all mentioned techniques have inherent advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed in this survey. In addition, the review paper explored different types of research in computing intelligence (CI), an aspect of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that involves the development of nature-inspired algorithms for optimisation. Finally, general optimisation criteria, system sizing methods used in RES, Mathematical modelling of RES, and gaps for future work to achieve sustainability were also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the 'Cap-and-Trade' mechanism of carbon emission, the low carbon management of supply chain is an indispensable link in the process of enterprise emission reduction. Constrained by carbon price and consumers' environmental awareness, this paper establishes a two-stage game model between retailers and manufacturers under decentralized and centralized decisions. Under the decentralized decision, this paper analyzes the optimal carbon emissions before and after the transfer, the conditions of transfer and the changes of profits with the proportion of transfer. Under the centralized decision, Nash equilibrium is used to study the distribution of additional profits. Conclusions are obtained as follows. (a) There are thresholds for carbon price and consumers' environmental awareness on carbon emissions, and the optimal emissions on both sides of the threshold will vary with the cost of emission reduction. (b) In a decentralized decision, the participation of retailers in abatement depends on the market abatement costs and abatement benefits, while a certain range of transfer rates can optimize the profitability of retailers. (c) In the centralized decision, manufacturer and retailer formulate emission reduction strategies jointly and share the extra profits equally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the challenge of optimizing customized passenger transport paths for airport connections while taking carbon emissions constraints into account, this paper proposes an optimization model that minimizes the total cost by addressing passenger time window constraints, determining optimal passenger transport paths, and optimizing factors like the number of drop-off stations and vehicle occupancy rates. The total cost comprises the operational expenses of customized passenger transport businesses and travel time costs per passenger. We develop an annealing genetic algorithm to solve the model and provide a case analysis. Our findings indicate that the algorithm and the model empower decision-makers to swiftly select passenger transport path schemes that minimize the total cost with their specific requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve the goal of carbon reduction, China has been piloting the Carbon Emission Trading System (CETS) since 2013. As the economy faces a downward trend, it is significant to explore the impact of CETS on business development. There is still debate in academia about whether this policy can boost the level of business development. This paper, based on all A-share data of listed companies in China from 2009 to 2018, uses the Difference in Differences (DID) model to verify the impact of CETS on the input of capital and labor factors and the level of technology in enterprises and discusses the industry heterogeneity of this impact in detail. Placebo tests, propensity score matching, and triple differences ensure the robustness of the conclusions. In further research, this paper decomposes the policy effect of CETS. It regresses the impact of carbon quota prices and carbon market trading scale on business development. The final conclusion is that CETS has a positive impact on the input of capital and labor in enterprises and a negative impact on the level of technology. After distinguishing industries, this conclusion shows differences according to different characteristics of high emissions and low emissions. In addition, the increase in carbon quota prices hinders business development, while the scale of carbon market trading shows an inverted "U" relationship with business development. The article provides meaningful policy references for China and countries in the early stages of CETS construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine fishery is a highly mechanized sector, Industrialization and industrialization "Big agriculture. Among them, marine fishing is the main part of the fuel consumption of fishing vessels, which will produce a large amount of carbon emissions; the electricity consumption of advanced pond aquaculture and factory aquaculture in seawater will also bring high indirect emissions. It is of great practical significance to study the optimization of marine fishery industrial structure for promoting the high-quality development of marine fishery. Based on the data of marine fishery in Zhejiang Province from 2008 to 2017, this paper calculates the carbon emission efficiency of marine fishery and discusses the impact of industrial structure optimization of marine fishery on carbon emission efficiency. Based on the analysis of the research results, this paper puts forward some suggestions on optimizing the structure of marine fishery industry: increasing the technical input and personnel introduction of energy intensive industries, and developing five high-tech pillars strategically. From the perspective of regional industrial structure optimization, high-efficiency areas should enhance the ability of modern manufacturing industry to undertake international industrial transfer and form innovation clusters; the medium-efficiency areas should use industrial bases to develop characteristic leading industries and modern service industries; low-efficiency areas should develop high-tech industries in line with local resource endowments and advantageous industries, and improve the allocation efficiency of environmental protection investment expenditure. By optimizing the industrial structure of Zhejiang Province, carbon emission efficiency can be improved. Improve fishermen 's environmental awareness and management ability, vigorously develop and promote green aquaculture technology, and provide technical support for industrial transformation and upgrading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation meets the dual expectation of innovative development and green development perspectives. Under the canonical demand-pull and policy-push theories, a long-term mechanism for green technology innovation could be formed through upstream policy push and downstream demand-pull. Leveraging China's regional carbon emission trading scheme pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the policy-push and demand-pull effects on innovation in renewable energy patents. The data pertain to the city-level renewable energy patents from 2000 to 2020. Based upon the triple difference-in-difference method, results suggest that both policy-push and demand-pull factors exert positive effects on innovation. This paper further explores the practical and theoretical implications of green technology innovation under the new development perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the premise of the detrimental effects of carbon emission on the global climate, the role of governments in promoting clean energy investment has become more important, and monetary policy as one government tool has drawn greater attention among the public. Our research successfully develops a new model that links clean energy investments with monetary policies and carbon emissions in 9 Asian economies spanning the period from 1996 to 2018. First, from the results of cointegration tests, we find a long-term relationship among the variables. Second, using FMOLS estimators, our paper reveals that expansionary monetary policy promotes clean energy investment and that its effect is stronger in developing countries. Third, we find a positive relationship between CO2 emissions and clean energy investment in the full sample but the relationship becomes negative in developing countries. Accordingly, the paper offers suggestions on possible policy initiatives to improve clean energy investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This two-part paper, which consists of Part 1: waste flow and energy potential, and Part 2: energy balance and carbon footprint, respectively, aims to evaluate alternatives to energy recovery from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Pyongyang. This first part focuses on an evaluation of alternatives to energy recovery from MSW in terms of waste flow and energy potential analysis. This paper proposes three alternatives to energy recovery from MSW, and conducts an evaluation of energy potential for the alternatives, based on an analysis of the existing MSW management options (i.e., recycling & reuse, incineration, landfill, and composting) in the municipality, inclusive of MSW composition and characteristics of waste flow (i.e., refuse-derived fuel) being fed to energy recovery. The results show that alternative 3 (i.e., gasification reactor) could produce the largest electricity, followed by alternative 1 (i.e., grate combustor and fixed dome reactor) and alternative 2 (i.e., fluidized bed combustor). In the meanwhile, alternative 1 accounts for 29.9% of the largest gross efficiency, followed by alternative 3 and alternative 2, as 29.7% and 28.0%, respectively. This study can provide a possibility of energy recovery from MSW to the local planners in Pyongyang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundry industry has gradually become an important concern for carbon emissions. The composite patternless casting, which combines sand mould 3D printing and sand mould milling technologies, is an effective way to explore the potential of energy saving and emission reduction in the foundry industry. However, the technical advantages of composite patternless casting in terms of energy saving and emission reduction have not been fully studied. To address this issue, this paper combines the composite patternless casting with the modular division method, and proposes a influence modelling and analysis method for carbon emissions and carbon efficiency ratio based on the process characteristics stage. The model and method are applied to the patternless casting process of a cylinder block. And the modular division schemes of the mould were proposed. The results show that through different modular division schemes, carbon emissions can be effectively reduced by 8.39%, the carbon efficiency ratio can be increased by up to 30%. This method is helpful to describe the carbon emission influence of the patternless casting forming process, and analyse the energy saving and emission reduction potential and carbon efficiency of the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of global carbon emission reduction, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is experiencing rapid development. Using high-resolution remote sensing images to accurately obtain PV information over a large region, including location and size, has the advantages of high statistical efficiency and timely data update for the PV energy management. Due to the intra-class diversity of PV panels and the intricate variability in their deployment environments, existing semantic segmentation methods often have problems such as under-segmentation and mis-segmentation. To alleviate these problems, this paper proposes an improved DeepLabv3+ semantic segmentation network to more accurately extract PV panels from high-resolution remote sensing images. With the aim of alleviating under-segmentation, a multi-level context aggregation module is developed. This module can enhance the model's ability to learn the characteristics of PV panels and their surrounding environment by aggregating rich contextual information from multi-scale and semantic levels. To alleviate the problem of mis-segmentation, a hybrid attention module is introduced. This module sequentially and adaptively adjusts the weight distribution in both the channel and spatial dimensions, thus enabling the model to focus more on the feature information and spatial positions of PV objects. Experiments conducted on a self-constructed Beijing PV segmentation dataset show that the method in this paper has advantages of completeness and accuracy in extracting PV panels compared to the baseline model and current mainstream semantic segmentation network. In addition, the results of experiments on extracting PV panels in real region show that our model also has good stability and generalization capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon emissions generated during the rapid development of the manufacturing industry have caused severe environmental pollution. Research on parallel machine scheduling problems considering carbon emission constraints has started to emerge in recent years to promote sustainable development and achieve low carbon emissions in production. In this paper, we consider an unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem with various carbon emission constraints in different time intervals. A mixed integer linear programming model with the objective of minimising the makespan is formulated to describe the problem accurately. Since the high complexity of our problem, we propose an efficient tabu search algorithm with a dedicated linked list structure to address this problem. Firstly, we generate four initial sequences according to the proposed heuristic rules and apply a greedy insertion decoding method to obtain the scheduling scheme. Then, we employ the 2-swap neighbourhood search strategy to exploit the promising solution space. The proposed model and algorithm are tested on extensive instances generated randomly. Computational results validate the correctness of the model and the effectiveness of the tabu search algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many regions or countries seek to transition to a low-carbon economy, but there is ambiguity about how carbon emissions change with economic growth. This paper captures characteristics of carbon emissions in China using the Tapio Method. To detect driving factors of carbon emissions in economic growth, we adopt the Log-Mean Divisia Index decomposition method. The results of the paper are as follows: (1) Economic growth in most regions of China has outpaced the growth rate of carbon emissions, showing the characteristics of decoupling. (2) Metropolitan cities have a greater impact on the level of decoupling in neighboring provinces and municipalities. (3) The decoupling of carbon emissions from economic growth is caused by declining energy intensity in China. (4) The energy mix and industrial structure have little impact on the growth rate of carbon emissions. In addition, some policy implications are summarized according to the findings of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year millions of Muslims go to Saudi Arabia to fulfil pilgrimage worship, thus Saudi Arabia is such a religious centre brings with it various consequences. In this context, this paper investigates the nexus between CO2 emissions, economic growth, energy consumption and pilgrimage tourism in Saudi Arabia for the period of 1968–2017. The dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully-modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) methods are employed in this study. FMOLS results prove that energy consumption, number of pilgrims and oil prices have a positive effect on CO2 emissions and GDP has a negative effect on it, while DOLS results imply that only energy consumption has a positive effect on carbon emissions. In addition, there is unidirectional causality from CO2 to pilgrimage tourism and from pilgrimage tourism to oil, and there is bidirectional causality between pilgrimage tourism and GDP. Therefore, the environmental cost of pilgrimage tourism is inevitable. Reflections of pilgrimage visits to Saudi Arabia as a belief tourism are dealt with for the first time in this paper. In addition, our more specific purpose is to determine the environmental impacts of Muslims performing the pilgrimage, during their religious worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the effect of agricultural waste supervision and prevention and control of agricultural environmental pollution, under the concept of smart agriculture and circular economy, this paper builds a smart agricultural waste discharge supervision and prevention system based on big data technology. Moreover, this paper uses mathematical models such as the Environmental Kuznets (EKC) model and the decoupling model to study the overall scale of agricultural waste carbon emissions and its growth trend, and uses the logarithmic average Dixie Index method (LMDI) to construct a decomposition model of carbon emission driving factors to interpret the influence of each driving factor on the scale of overall agricultural waste discharge. In addition, this paper constructs the functional modules of the smart agricultural waste discharge supervision and prevention system according to actual needs, and conducts a test analysis of the system performance. The research results show that the system constructed in this paper has certain practical effects and can lay a foundation for the subsequent sustainable development of agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon flow in forest products trade will affect the report of a country's carbon stock. This will have an impact on a country's contribution of carbon flows. Based on the analysis of China's forest product trade, this paper uses the stock-change approach, the production approach and the atmospheric-flow approach to calculate the changes of China's forest products trade carbon flows. Different carbon flow measurement approaches have very different results. From the perspective of the contribution of forest products to carbon flow, the production approach of calculation for forest products trade carbon flow has the largest contribution to atmospheric carbon flows. However, the calculation results of the stock-change approach and the atmospheric-flow approach are just the opposite, that is, the calculation for forest products trade has a negative contribution to China's carbon sinks, and forest products trade has become a source of carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of rapid industrialisation, rising food demand globally, and, increasing concerns associated with food safety and quality, the implementation of sustainable supply chain concepts is becoming critically important to the agro-food sector. This paper introduces an integrated first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery logistics problem, where agro-food grains are available at multiple farmer's locations and are in demand by businesses like e-retailers, supermarkets, grocery shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. In addition, this work addresses a sustainable framework for agro-food grains supply chain (AFGSC) in urban and rural areas for e-commerce in developing countries. The proposed optimisation model considers costs related to first-mile pickup, transportation with last-mile delivery, carbon emission tax, inventory holding, vehicle and food damage due to accidents, and penalties on late pickup and delivery. This model also takes environmental and social (due to accidents) sustainability aspects into consideration, along with the economic aspects of sustainability. To solve the large complex practical scenarios by using four nature-inspired algorithms. The obtained results of this study are used to recommend significant managerial insights for implementing AFGSC in the e-commerce industry in considering practical conditions. Moreover, policy implications in terms of economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainability are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mining sector is facing an immediate challenge to reduce its carbon emissions. The movement of material with mining truck fleets is a critical factor in reducing emissions. As the industry gradually replaces diesel trucks with more environmentally friendly transportation systems, it is important to analyse new solutions. This paper presents a new type of mining truck fleet called the Battery Trolley system, which is a combination of advanced technologies, including a battery-electric drivetrain, autonomy, trolley assist, and energy recovery systems. Depending on the site-specific differences and technology adoptions, decision-makers have three Battery Trolley system configurations to choose from: dynamic charging, stationary charging, and dual trolley Battery Trolley systems, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. One of the challenges of using Battery Trolley systems is their capacity and productivity. This study uses open-accessible project parameters and databases, with engineering assumptions, to create a mining scenario for both the dynamic charging and stationary charging perspectives. The study provides an equation to evaluate the Battery Trolley system's mining productivity. Results show an incremental analysis of the Battery Trolley productivity as the trolley power increases from 8 MW to 32 MW in various Battery Trolley configurations. The study compares the Battery Trolley productivity for several open-pit mining applications, including copper, iron, and overburden waste. The results indicate that: (i) trolley power limitations significantly affect the capacity of Battery Trolley systems; (ii) a stationary charging option can achieve higher capacity and productivity than dynamic charging; (iii) Battery Trolley productivity varies in different applications under the given simulation assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial development (FD) is pioneered to solve the problem of vital capital supporting for carbon neutrality. Detecting the effect of FD on carbon emissions (CE) plays an important role in accurately planning FD, and guiding carbon neutrality in China. To clarify the influence of FD on CE and the underlying pathways concerning scale effect, structural effect, and technological effect, this paper use China’s 285 city-level data spanning 2003–2016 and fixed effect (FE) models and instrumental variable (IV) methods to test the effect of FD on carbon neutrality in China. The findings show that (1) the development of financial deepening, financial interrelation ratio, and financial intermediary all prompt carbon emissions at the national level. (2) Regional heterogeneity indicates that FD benefits carbon neutrality in mid-Western cities but fails in eastern cities. (3) FD increases carbon emissions by boosting electricity consumption but decreases carbon emissions by promoting structural optimization and technological progress. (4) Environmental regulations partially curb the carbon emissions effect of FD. This paper proposes some suggestions to reduce CE and gain carbon neutrality in China by greening FD, optimizing industrial structure, promoting technologi)cal innovation and strengthening environmental regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cement production is energy-intensive resulting in the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is responsible for global warming. Rapid surge in the global energy demands needs to pave way for the need for a viable and sustainable alternative to concrete, which not only reduces our dependence on natural resources but also can be a possible alternative to the concrete industry and geopolymer technology can be one such material. Geopolymer technology can use secondary raw materials from the agricultural and industrial waste with alumina-silicate phase in presence of alkali activator for the production of geopolymer concrete. This paper comprehensively summarizes the previous research; along with analysis is carried out to propose descriptive equations to establish the correlation between the mechanical strengths (Compressive strength with Split tensile strength, Flexural strength and Modulus of Elasticity) of geopolymer. Current findings suggest substantial practicality and a possible alternative to cement in the construction industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By decomposing the changes of carbon emissions into effects of economic growth, industrial structural change, technological change and energy structure change, the paper firstly discusses the contribution of each effect to China's carbon emission changes between 2020 and 2030, and forecasts China's total carbon emissions in 2030. In particular, the paper strengthens that a decrease in population and a significant slowdown in urbanization will significantly reduce the construction demand, the main driver for high growth of carbon emissions in China, and provide a relatively favorable economic environment for China to achieve carbon peaking by 2030. The paper then discusses on how to achieve the "dual carbon" goals with the lowest possible economic cost by relying on market and price mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the carbon emission policy and low-carbon capacity sharing, this paper studies the optimal product pricing and capacity matching strategies of competition and cooperation between two companies in a duopoly market. And the optimal strategies with or without capacity sharing are discussed. In addition, a differential game model based on carbon emission constraints, low-carbon capacity sharing, and delayed decision-making is established. We also study the evolution of duopoly enterprises from the initial state to the equilibrium state. Besides, the influence of delayed decision variables, price adjustment speed and decision weights on the stability of the game system is analyzed. The results show that the government can effectively intervene and guide the enterprises' low-carbon production strategy through carbon emission restriction policy. Low-carbon capacity sharing is beneficial to both enterprises, and the demand side benefits more than the supply side. We discuss the impact of stable and unstable systems on enterprises' decisions. When the system is stable, enterprises can converge from different initial game states to equilibrium states. The adoption of a delay strategy will not affect the tendency of convergence to the equilibrium. Furthermore, the system using the variable feedback control method is of higher stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the carbon trading mechanism, carbon asset has become an important resource and new production factor for enterprises, and are one of the key factors for production operations. As an emerging mortgage-loan model, carbon asset pledge financing (CAPF) can not only revitalize the carbon assets, but also address insufficient capital for enterprises. For carbon emission-dependent engineering machinery enterprises, this paper examines the impacts of CAPF on the performances of an emission-dependent and capital-constrained remanufacturer. Based on the benchmark without financing, the pure carbon asset pledge financing (PCAPF) strategy and the hybrid carbon asset pledge financing (HCAPF) strategy, are explored. The results show that: (i) Whether the remanufacturer chooses CAPF depends on initial capital, only when its initial capital is below a threshold, it can benefit from the CAPF loan. (ii) The choice of PCAPF and HCAPF for a remanufacturer depends on the quantity of carbon assets, compared with no capital constraint, the PCAPF and HCAPF are all conducive to increasing the quantity of remanufactured products and reducing carbon emissions. (iii) The HCAPF always has a higher contribution rate to the remanufactured quantity and consumer surplus than PCAPF, while the former strategy contributes less than the latter in terms of reducing carbon emission and gaining profit. (iv) Due to the relatively high interest, the HCAPF strategy can realize higher environmental performances and consumer welfare than the strategy of PCAPF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments all over the world adopted different forms of progressive carbon taxation strategies (for example concave, convex and linear for respectively Swedish, French, and Canadian government). These progressive strategies provide companies with different degrees of flexibility to adapt their decisions to the new environmental regulations and reduce their carbon emissions without compromising their profit. However, no existing work has compared the impact of each progressive legislation on the optimal decisions of the supply chain, its profit, and its environmental performances. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by developing four multi-period technology selection models under different forms of progressive carbon taxes. We analytically determine the optimal strategic investment timing decision under each taxation strategy. We then develop a carbon tax assessment method using multi-criteria analysis techniques to compare the efficiency of each carbon taxation form in reducing carbon emission and maximising the Supply Chain (SC) profit. We prove that the earliest green investment decision and the decision of not investing in green depend on the target carbon tax rather than the taxation form. We show that government decision about the suitable taxation form should be based on the performance of the available green technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering carbon emissions when making supply chain decisions has been an essential contributor for keeping this world more sustainable. This paper presents a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model to optimize production and transportation decision where the transportation activities involve a multimodal combination. The proposed mathematical model was aimed at mini- mizing the total costs incurred from supply chain activities as well as the emissions generated. Carbon cap is used to ensure that the emissions produced in the whole activities do not exceed the allowable limit. In this research, we address a multi- product, multi-plant, multi-departure, and arrival stations where multiple customers are to be served for multiple periods. The numerical tests show that the demand, carbon tax, and distance significantly affected the total emissions and the total costs. Interestingly, we observed that the decisions are much more affected by the logistical costs rather than the emission costs. The model presented in this paper can assist the decision makers to make production, delivery, and inventory decisions when multi-modal transportation is involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated an unwillingness among travelers to reduce their holiday flying. Recently, however, a movement with people avoiding and problematizing flying has emerged in Sweden and spread internationally. This paper explores how the rising problematization of flying changes the meanings of holiday air travel in a carbon-constrained world. Using travel magazines and digital media sources, we trace changing discourses (overarching ideas and traditions shaping social practices) of holiday air travel in Sweden from 1950–2019. The paper identifies the emergence of a new discourse (Staying on the ground) and shows how it works through moralization (flying is ethically wrong) and persuasion (emphasizing alternatives) to challenge dominant meanings of holiday air travel as desirable and necessary. While Staying on the ground is far from a dominant discourse, there are signs that it has begun to destabilize contemporary cultures of aeromobility. The Staying on the ground discourse exemplifies how meanings attached to ingrained high-carbon practices, and the policies that sustain them, are currently being contested and rearticulated. Acknowledging that low-carbon transformations are fundamentally forms of social and cultural change, the paper illustrates why practices of carbon lock-in are so entrenched, but also how they might be resisted and open up for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an economic production quantity (EPQ) model for a single-manufacturer multi-retailer (SMMR) production and reworking system with green and environmental sensitive customer demand. The minimum cost of the manufacturer has obtained under carbon emissions (CE) policies and discrete ordering cost reduction. The model is used to optimize the total number of shipments, greening investment level, environmental measure, and lot size for productions and rework. This research work determines that the manufacturer's and retailer's profits will be increased after considering the environmental and green dependent demand of customers. Further, the development of green and environmental demand is proposed to minimize the CE and maximize the demand for the customers. In the existing literature, no discrete investment is developed for reducing the cost of ordering for the retailer/buyer. However, in this paper, we have introduced it. We provide numerical examples to explain the models and determine the significance of model parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The operation of the national carbon emission trading market has brought new pressure to coal power plants in China. How to control the carbon emissions of the plants and ensure their power generation has become an important issue. This paper proposed a new production profit model based on risk constraint to explore a decision-making method for the plant's carbon emission and production. A branch-and-cut algorithm is applied in the optimization solver to achieve a large-scale constraint linear programming, where the conditional value-at-risk is evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation. Results from the numerical analyses of the coal plant of 4520 MW capacity show that, the carbon emission according to our method is reduced by 3.94%, while the annual profit is increased by 1.25% and the overall cost is decreased by 1.06%. The proposed approach is helpful for the coal plants to manage their carbon emissions and optimize their power production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the low-carbon preference of consumers, this paper establishes a dynamic decision-making model to study the dynamic pricing decisions and carbon emission reduction decisions of dual channel supply chain members, and discusses the impact of carbon emission reduction on prices and profits. It is found that the distributor's and the producer's carbon mitigation can have a positive or negative impact on the distribution price, the direct sales price and the wholesale price. When the competition between the distributor and the producer is not fierce, these three prices will increase with the increase of their carbon mitigation. When the producer's carbon mitigation effort has a positive impact on the distribution channel demand, the distributor's profit will increase with the increase of the producer's carbon mitigation effort. On the other hand, when the producer's carbon mitigation effort has a negative effect on the distribution channel demand, the distributor's profit will decrease with the increase of the producer's carbon mitigation effort. In addition, the distributor's profit is more sensitive to the producer's carbon emissions. When the producer and the distributor jointly reduce emissions, appropriate coordination strategies are needed to coordinate the supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sharp increasing number of online shopping parcels and scattered customers lead each express company to invest a lot logistics resources, but its utilization rate is low. Each express company faces the challenge of improving customer satisfaction and market competitiveness while ensuring the total costs are under control. This paper develops a novel joint delivery (JD) model to reduce operation costs and carbon emission via strengthening horizontal cooperation and resource sharing among express companies. Furthermore, it designs a multi-depot two-echelon joint delivery location routing problem (MD-2E-JDLRP) mathematic model for JD considering multi-objectives and proposes a hybrid heuristic algorithm to solve the MD-2E-JDLRP. The performance of this algorithm was tested by benchmarks and a case study. Finally, a case study is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the MD-2E-JDLRP model. The obtained results show the JD model can effectively reduce costs and carbon emissions while ensuring higher customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]