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This paper used a dynamic spatial panel model to empirically analyze the effects of environmental regulation, market demand, and the associated spatial spillovers on regional green innovation in China, from which the following was found. (1) The environmental regulations had a positive "U-shaped" effect on local green innovation and a positive neighborhood spillover effect, and market demand had a significant positive effect on local green innovation and a "ripple effect." (2) The mechanism analysis found that the environmental regulations tended to inhibit regional green innovation input through a "cost compliance" effect, and market demand had a stronger incentive effect on innovation input than the environmental regulations, thus promoting the improvement of green innovation level. (3) The environmental regulation and market demand effects on green innovation had obvious spatial and temporal heterogeneity. The results of this study could help to promote regional green innovation by formulating reasonable environmental policies and stimulating the vitality of green technology market., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Public policies often fail to address the unintended behavior of regulated firms and are therefore inconsistent in their implementation, resulting in ineffectiveness. In the process of environmental policy, policy implementation inconsistencies also exist, which is known as emission leakage. Existing studies on the topic focus more on spatial dimension and less attention to time dimension. The reasons for emission leakage over time are two: regulatory laxness and inefficiencies. In this study, we examine whether emission leakage occurs during enterprises' end-of-life cycles. Based on unique high-frequency facility-level monitoring data, we construct a difference-in-differences (DID) model to investigate differences in environmental performance between hazardous chemical production firms in the process of closing and those in the same industry within 20 kilometers. This study finds no emission leakage problem in the processes of relocation and closure, and the concentration of chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharged declines by 28.53 percent. This result is mainly due to top-down regulatory requirements. Nevertheless, policymakers should remain aware of emission leakage when formulating environmental policies and create more substantial supervision to prevent potential leakage., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

An enterprise's green value chain comprises a multitude of factors and links for a successful green transformation, and relevant environmental policies are multi-dimensional and multi-sectional. Environmental policies can affect the enterprise's green development through stimulating the supply of green services or by increasing the demand for green products. Based on 346 policy statements issued by various government departments from 2000 to 2020, this paper matches the "type" of environmental policy with the "dimension" of value chain of manufacturing companies, establishing a coordination model and a co-existing network to measure how both elements interact. The results indicate a notable phenomenon with the Chinese government's enterprise environmental policies, which can be described as "heavy supply-driven, light demand-pull." A strong emphasis is put on the supply side of policies, in particular for the technology innovation sector, but the demand end of policies is comparatively minimal. The synergy between the policies and the links in the green value chain is divergent, which replicates the "heavy end-treatment, light front-prevention" seen with existing policies. Policy synergy at the end of the value chain such as the green production process is more mature and well-integrated, while the synergy for green product development lacks policies on both ends. The mismatch and imbalance of policies limits the overall level of green transformation for manufacturing enterprises., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In this study, we analyze the time-varying causality linkages between energy consumption, economic growth, and environmental degradation in 33 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, spanning the period 2000 to 2013. The curve causality approach provides evidence of a significant environmental Kuznets curve in 25 countries in the case of the ecological footprint and in 23 countries in the case of the Environmental Performance Index. However, out of them, only Italy, Slovakia, and South Korea have traditional environmental Kuznets curve, in the form of an inverted U-shaped curve. For the remaining countries, different forms of curves are valid. In particular, an N-shaped curve appears to be valid between income and environmental degradation for nearly half of the sample, i.e., for Austria, Belgium, Chile, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, Turkey, and the USA. Additionally, bidirectional causality relationships are confirmed among all covariates in most countries. In view of the results, some crucial policy implications would be suggested, such as sustainable development that aims to make a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

Environmental regulations affect employment through productivity output and factor substitution. This paper employs a difference-in-differences (DID) method to investigate the effect of China's Two Control Zones (TCZ) policy on the urban employment in 287 cities from 1994 to 2009. We apply the DID method to two time points: 1998 for policy issuance and 2000 for the policy implementation. From the results of analyses on full-sample cities, the TCZ policy did not contribute to increasing total urban employment. Moreover, a negative impact on employment resulted from sulfur dioxide and acid rain controls in secondary and tertiary industries, respectively. In the acid rain control zone, the TCZ policy increased the average wage of urban workers. Negative effects on employment were observed in larger cities. The policy triggered labor migration from larger to smaller cities, resulting in significant increases in primary and tertiary industry employment in smaller cities, although the effects on mid-size cities were insignificant. This study provides important empirical evidence and insight into the impact of the TCZ policy on urban employment.

Much of the existing research analyses on emissions and climate policy are dominantly based on emissions data provided by production-based accounting (PBA) system. However, PBA provides an incomplete picture of driving forces behind these emission changes and impact of global trade on emissions, simply by neglecting the environmental impacts of consumption. To remedy this problem, several studies propose to consider national emissions calculated by consumption-based accounting (CBA) systems in greenhouse gas (GHG) assessments for progress and comparisons among the countries. In this article, we question the relevance of PBA's dominance. To this end, we, firstly, try to assess and compare PBA with CBA adopted in greenhouse gas emissions accounting systems in climate change debates on several issues and to discuss the policy implications of the choice of approach. Secondly, we investigate the convergence patterns in production-based and consumption-based emissions in 35 Annex B countries for the period between 1990 and 2015. This study, for the first time, puts all these arguments together and discusses possible outcomes of convergence analysis by employing both the production- and consumption-based CO 2 per capita emissions data. The empirical results found some important conclusions which challenge most of the existing CO 2 convergence studies.

This study evaluates the impact of pollution performance by pulp and paper firms on their economic and market performance. Pollution performance measurement is based on a pollution index developed from pollution emission reports filed with the regional offices of the Environmental Protection Agency by pulp and paper firms for their individual plants. Economic performance is measured by Net Income, ROE, ROA, Cashflow/Equity and Cashflow/Assets; market performance is measured by the PE ratio and systematic risk. The association between the pollution index and economic and market performance variables is tested by the Pearson Correlation coefficients. The results of this study indicate that, in the short run, pollution performance is negatively associated with economic performance and that the markets do not reward good pollution performance. Strict pollution standards may be desirable for forcing management to undertake pollution abatement activities to achieve a cleaner environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the importance of research and development (R&D) collaboration for environmental adaptation in the Swedish pulp and paper industry. It reviews the collaborative efforts initiated during the first half of the twentieth century, and investigates in particular how these efforts were influenced by the advent of modern environmental legislation in the late 1960s. We find that during the early period the underlying motives for environmental R&D collaboration were related to the presence of local resistance to pollution, over time turning into increased requirements from tightening environmental regulation. When the Swedish Environmental Protection Act was implemented in 1969, the long-lasting tradition of collaborative R&D activities facilitated the development and the adaptation of cleaner technologies in the sector. The article concludes that in the case of the Swedish pulp and paper industry, the significant environmental improvements witnessed during the 1960s and onwards can only be fully comprehended by acknowledging the role of the industry-wide collaborative activities in R&D. The positive outcomes of this collaboration were in turn reinforced by an environmental regulation system, which facilitated long-term investments in environmental R&D and, in contrast to their Finnish and American counterparts, encouraged internal process changes in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On the basis of the "Pilot System of the Ecological Damage Compensation" launched in 2015 and a research sample of listed companies in China's heavy pollution industry from 2014 to 2017, this paper uses a difference-in-differences model to empirically evaluate the impact of the damage compensation system on corporate environmental investment, as well as the moderating effect of market degree and firm ownership. The result shows that the implementation of the damage compensation system significantly promotes corporate environmental investment and that the market degree exerts a moderating effect. The effect of supervision remains the same because of firm ownership. This research uses a pilot policy to form a natural experimental group to accurately identify the impact of environmental supervision on corporate environmental investment. The aforementioned conclusions recognize the need for the construction of the ecological damage compensation system, provide a reference for the national government to formulate specific effective environmental policies, stimulate the environmental governance motivation of regional governments, and encourage enterprises to assume environmental responsibilities and thereby achieve green sustainable development., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Recent theories of firms' environmental behavior propose that numerous factors influence a firm's environmental decisionmaking process. Economic considerations play a central role, but interactions between the economic climate, regulatory structure, and social culture in which a firm operates are more important than economic considerations alone. This article investigates the conditions surrounding eight existing pulp and paper mills in Maine that influence the level of compliance. Factors unique to Maine's economy, history, and relationship between people and their environment come together to influence firms' environmental performance and attitude. Such "place-based characteristics" are crucial in designing policies to promote economic development and protect environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production of sludge as waste in pulp and paper plants can be considered as one of the serious environmental problems that have to be solved. While landfilling is not a suitable solution from the environmental point of view, thermal treatment proved to be the most appropriate one.This paper describes an efficient way of processing sludge including waste-to-energy aspects. A thermal treatment unit with a capacity of more than 100 tons of wet sludge per day had been built in a large pulp and paper plant some years ago. This pulp and paper plant is located in a mining area. When built, this unit was quite modern. However, because of more and more sweeping environmental laws affecting the process industry, the unit needed a complete retrofit. The retrofit has been realised in three stages.A brief description of the unit for the thermal treatment of sludge is as follows: the waste sludge (after transport from a sludge storage system) is burnt in a multiple hearth incinerator with a fluidised-bed chamber. Then, the flue gas enters a secondary combustion chamber (afterburner chamber). During the first stage of retrofit, only a part of heat from flue gas was utilised for heat recovery (pre-heating air for combustion and fluidisation) and a contact cooler was involved in the unit. The second stage of retrofit can be characterised as a “waste-to-energy” one. The contact cooler was replaced by a system for preheating water for steam generation. Off-gas cleaning system consists of a filter for particulate removal and a three-stage scrubber system. (Several alternatives of retrofit were considered and simulated and the most promising one was selected.) [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Most of the existing studies on the pollution haven hypothesis focus on the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, ignoring the divestment of FDI and the role of competition. Based on Chinese firm-level data, we investigate the relationship between environmental regulation (ER) and the exit of foreign firms from China. The results indicate that ER does not cause foreign firms to leave China, but rather reduces the probability of foreign firms exiting China. This effect is present in eastern China and the medium-polluting industries. We innovatively explore the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of firm competition and market competition environment. Firm competition mechanism finds that ER promotes foreign firms' business performance (market share, profits, and productivity) but undermines the domestic firms' business performance, thus reducing the probability of foreign firms leaving. Furthermore, the market competition environment plays a positive moderating effect. ER has a greater role in reducing the probability of foreign firms' exit when regions have higher market competition. Our findings offer a basis for the Chinese government to formulate environmental protection policies and provide experience for other developing countries., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper examines the impact of shadow economy and environmental policy stringency on energy consumption and economic growth in the case of China for the period 1993 to 2019. Asymmetric ARDL empirical findings show that positive shocks in shadow economy and environmental policy stringency have a significant and positive impact on energy consumption and economic growth in the long run. However, the negative shocks in shadow economy exert positive and significant impacts on energy consumption and economic growth in the long run, but magnitudes are small compared to positive shocks. The long-run findings report no significant effect of negative shock in environmental policy stringency on energy consumption and economic growth. China should use environmental policy stringency as economic tools to maintain green economic growth and clean energy demand for sustained economic expansion. Policymakers should focus on the inclusion of environmental policy stringency in any future environment strategy., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The complex interconnections between climate change policies and health equity are well established, and policy research to understand the health impacts of climate change in multiple domains is growing. Policy analysis theories/frameworks are an important aspect of policy analysis. Many frameworks exist to understand the health equity considerations in policies across various disciplines and the health impacts of climate change-related policies in the health and climate change sectors. However, a closer examination is required to understand whether there is explicit attention to health equity issues in relation to climate change policies in an integrated way. This systematic review attempted to identify existing health equity-focused policy analysis frameworks for understanding health equity considerations in climate change and public health policies. Eight papers were identified through five database searches. Policy analysis frameworks exploring the integration of health equity and climate change are fragmented, and frameworks encompassing several aspects of the policy-making process could not be found. Problem framing and policy-focused solutions were common approaches to understanding health equity in climate change policies. Concepts of social determinants of health and social justice were central to the intersection of climate change and health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the latent relation between technology innovation and eco-environmental systems and promote their coordinated development, we integrated the coupling coordination model and panel vector autoregressive model to examine the evidence from China. The research reveals that the technology innovation benefit and eco-environmental governance and endowment are the prominent factors for optimizing the two systems. Moreover, the findings show that the coupling coordination degree of eco-environment and technology innovation in China presents an upward trend. In terms of the dynamic interaction between technology innovation and eco-environment, the influence of the former on the latter is timely while that of the latter on the former is lagging (except for the central region). The weak coupling coordination degree implies that the mutual promotion of technology innovation and eco-environmental systems has not yet formed. The policy implications are proposed accordingly to promote coordinated development of eco-environment and technology innovation in China., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Information about the two conferences on economic policy in Estonia in 2009-2010 is presented. The 25th anniversary of the organization of the first scientific conference held in Tartu discussed topics about environmental and social policies, corporate strategies and sectoral economic policy. Moreover, the 15th anniversary of the first international scientific conference organized by German research publishers would discuss business administration, corporate finance and accounting management.

This study shows how a large school can help with the adoption of a policy of recycling its main material consumption, the paper. It presented a simple model for calculating through a case study. The results can serve as a model for students and teachers from other institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of urbanization has brought new challenges to the ecological environment, and the promotion of green technology innovation and development is widely recognized as an essential method to achieve cities' economic benefits and environmental protection. This paper examines whether the new urbanization pilot policies (NUP) increase green technology innovation (GTI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This paper examines the impact of new urbanization on GTI by analyzing data from 285 cities in China between 2010 and 2021, using the multi-period DID model with the implementation of NUP as an exogenous policy shock. The study results indicate that NUP significantly affects GTI, and the conclusion still holds after the parallel trend test, placebo test, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the NUP significantly enhances GTI in low environmental pollution, non-resource-based, Medium-sized, and Central Region cities. The test of moderating effect shows that NUP has a "linkage effect" with the government's environmental attention, financial investment in innovation, and regional talent pooling. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for promoting NUP and sustainable development of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The in-depth promotion of environmental pollution prevention and control is a must for China to move towards green development, and the effectiveness of urban environmental pollution control largely depends on the selection of these environmental policies and the synergistic application of these policies. This paper empirically tests three environmental policies' mixed and synergistic effects using Chinese urban data from 2000 to 2017. This study found that (1) the three environmental policies significantly curb urban environmental pollution and show synergistic effects. (2) The three types of environmental policies can have a superimposing effect by strengthening financial inputs and increasing environmental concern, as well as a complementary effect by improving the efficiency of environmental protection enforcement and the institutional environment. The synergy between the central environmental protection inspection policy and the environmental information disclosure policy is more of a superposition effect than a complementary effect due to the similarity of the policy objectives. (3) The synergistic effect of environmental policies is affected by factors such as the age of the principal officials and financial pressure. The younger the age of the principal officials and the cities with less financial pressure are more capable of utilizing the synergistic effect of environmental policies to form a situation where the market, the government, the public, and the enterprises work together to govern the city. This paper provides new ideas for exploring the synergies and mechanisms of environmental policies and theoretical references for the design, implementation, and effects of environmental policy portfolios in the 14th Five-Year Plan period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Research Topic on "Enabling Technologies and Business Models for Energy Communities" presents a comprehensive exploration of critical facets in the realm of sustainable energy transitions. The Research Topic encompasses diverse topics, ranging from smart energy frameworks for urban communities and off-grid renewable energy deployment in Mexico to the impact of institutional support on the coalbed methane industry. It further investigates complex grid investment decisions, solar-based irrigation adoption in water-scarce regions, and risk management in power supply projects. Additionally, the Research Topic delves into financial aspects, exploring the pricing of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project Asset-backed Securities (ABS) products, the impact of managerial competence on corporate carbon performance, and equity-based predictions for the energy industry. The influence of innovation on fossil fuel abandonment in low and middle-income countries and the significance of climate risk for green innovation in heavy-polluting industries are also examined. A regional perspective is provided on the technological convergence of hydrogen energy, and the interplay between renewable energy, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and CO2 emissions in highly-globalized countries is scrutinized. Lastly, the effects of green credit policy on the risk of stocks prices crash are investigated. Together, these contributions offer a holistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities in enabling technologies and business models for energy communities, contributing valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders striving for a sustainable energy future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at identifying the causal effect of reducing behavioral costs of participation in household waste recycling through curbside collection. Using propensity score matching and differences-in-differences estimation with individual-level panel data we estimate the effect of curbside collection, its variation between types of recyclables and sociodemographic background variables, and its elasticity with regard to the distance to collection containers in the bring scheme condition. We argue that in a quasi-experimental setting DD may be systematically upward biased due to the outcome variable being self-reported while DDD may be systematically downward biased in the presence of spillover effects. Accordingly, both estimators can be combined to derive upper and lower bounds of the true effect. We find that a curbside scheme has no effect on paper recycling but increases recycling participation by between 10 and 25% points for plastic and packaging. Moreover, we find systematic treatment effect heterogeneity with regard to pre-treatment distance to collection sites and individual environmental attitudes, but not by socio-demography. The results of our analysis therefore have important implications for effective and cost-efficient implementation of environmental protection policies in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]