Tariq Elrazaz, Ahmed Shaker Samaan, Moataz Elmassri
{"title":"Sustainable development goals: Sustainability reporting challenges in the United Arab Emirates context","authors":"Tariq Elrazaz, Ahmed Shaker Samaan, Moataz Elmassri","doi":"10.1002/sd.2832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2832","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study examines the extent of corporate engagement with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) through assessing the corporate disclosure quality of SDG‐related information in a mandated setting environment, focusing on the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Based on corporate sustainability reports for 132 UAE publicly listed companies in years 2020 and 20,221, we use a scoring methodology incorporating the GRI standards related to the economic, environmental and social impacts of corporate operations. Results of the study reveal that UAE companies use mandatory sustainability reports as a legitimacy tool through a symbolic action superficially integrating SDGs targets into their corporate operations and activities. However, in year 2021 the results show that some companies act substantively by adopting substantive organizational structural changes to integrate SDGs in their business operations and reporting behavior. Unlike previous studies, the paper contributes to the literature and practice by examining the corporate disclosure quality of SDGs in a mandated setting environment. This mandatory context offers an opportunity for a comprehensive analysis of company endeavors regarding their symbolic execution aimed at projecting a surface display of commitment to SDGs, versus their substantive implementation, which leads to significant enhancements in corporate sustainability reports. The findings of this study offer valuable practical implications for regulators and policymakers regarding the implementation of mandatory sustainability reporting. While such reporting may not necessarily result in significant changes in terms of integrating SDGs targets into business strategies and operations, it could potentially lead to the adoption of “SDG‐washing” practices by companies.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"128 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139243826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate sustainable development strategies: Under the collaborative governance of government and the public","authors":"Lei Du, Xingxing Liu, Helin Sun","doi":"10.1002/sd.2827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2827","url":null,"abstract":"As a problem of multiple failures, effective solutions to environmental problems require overcoming the limitations of single environmental policies and using collaborative governance with multiple regulatory instruments. Based on this, this study examines how collaborative governance between government‐led environmental regulation and public‐participatory environmental regulation can more effectively promote sustainable development strategies for firms. Using data from Chinese listed firms in heavy pollution industries from 2006 to 2019, we constructed a collaborative governance model, and found that (1) government‐led environmental regulation has a significant impact on end‐treatment but no impact on the source treatment of firms; (2) collaborative governance between government‐led and public‐participatory environmental regulation has a significant impact on source treatment but no impact on end‐treatment; (3) mechanism analysis shows that improving long‐term orientation and increasing corporate sustained investments are potential channels of the collaborative governance effect. These findings not only advance our understanding of the policy mix effects of different environmental regulation tools, but also have important policy implications for deepening collaborative governance practices in promoting sustainable development.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"199 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139254881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The extrication of complex dynamics and the impact of government policies on tourism supply chain behavior for sustainable tourism in Zimbabwe","authors":"Option Takunda Chiwaridzo","doi":"10.1002/sd.2822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2822","url":null,"abstract":"In the global pursuit of balancing economic growth with environmental and social sustainability within the tourism sector, sustainable tourism has garnered paramount attention. This research delves into the complex interplay among government policies, tourism supply chain behavior, and sustainability dimensions within the context of Zimbabwean tourism. A quantitative approach was employed, collecting data from 721 Zimbabwean tourism supply chain representatives using stratified random sampling and the Krejcie and Morgan table a method of determining the sample size. Questionnaires were distributed via Google Forms, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized for data analysis. The results provide strong empirical evidence that government policies have a significant positive effect on sustainability dimensions related to the tourism industry. The data indicates robust positive relationships between government policies and economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Furthermore, tourism supply chain behavior is shown to be a meaningful mediator between government policies and multiple sustainability outcomes. This emphasizes the significance of collaborative efforts, responsible practices, and harmonized actions within the tourism supply chain in achieving sustainable tourism. The study illuminates avenues for improving tourism sustainability, enhances policy makers and readers understanding on how policy‐driven efforts and tourism supply chain dynamics jointly impact tourism sustainability, there by emphasizing the need for coordinated actions.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"49 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139255632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the knowledge structure and potential research areas of sustainable tourism in sustainable development: Based on text mining and semantic network analysis","authors":"Ruohan Tang, Joonho Moon, Gyeong Ryun Heo, W. Lee","doi":"10.1002/sd.2823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2823","url":null,"abstract":"The concept of sustainable tourism development is derived from sustainable development. Building tourism with the framework of sustainable development has become a necessary effective way. This study examined the abstracts and titles of 1783 sustainable development and 692 sustainable tourism development related papers from 2012 to 2021 as textual data sources through the Web of Science core database. Using text mining and semantic network as analysis methods, this paper summarizes eight main clusters of sustainable development and sustainable tourism development in the past 10 years. Based on this, this paper compares the differences between the two researches and explores four potential research areas in sustainable tourism development: (1) threats to sustainability; (2) ecology and health; (3) stakeholder cooperation and roles; and (4) tourism development planning. In addition, the visual network knowledge structure intuitively captures the relationship between the different keywords in the clustering, which provides an important reference value for broadening the future research direction of sustainable tourism development.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139259131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environmental Health Check: How third‐party environmental evaluation project affects corporate environmental responsibility","authors":"Wenbing Jiang, Xuejun Wang, Lei Du","doi":"10.1002/sd.2834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2834","url":null,"abstract":"Third‐party environmental evaluation by environmental organizations can provide an independent professional evaluation of firms' environmental behaviors. Because environmental organizations aim to improve environmental welfare, which reflects value rationality than instrumental rationality. We argue that third‐party environmental evaluation can reduce information asymmetries between central and local governments, and induce local governments to strengthen environmental enforcement, which in turn increases the pressure on polluters. At the same time, third‐party evaluation improves transparency and exposes firms' environmental opportunistic behavior, which increases the pressure on firms to take more responsibility for environmental protection. In an analysis of a large sample of Chinese listed firms over the period 2009–2018, we find that third‐party evaluation from environmental organizations has a positive impact on firms' environmental responsibility. This positive effect is stronger for firms located in regions with weak local protectionism and weaker for firms with less external shareholder monitoring.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139256626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Muhammad Anas, Wei Zhang, Satar Bakhsh, Liaqat Ali, Cem Işık, Jie Han, Xuemeng Liu, H. U. Rehman, Amjad Ali, Min Huang
{"title":"Moving towards sustainable environment development in emerging economies: The role of green finance, green tech‐innovation, natural resource depletion, and forested area in assessing the load capacity factor","authors":"Muhammad Anas, Wei Zhang, Satar Bakhsh, Liaqat Ali, Cem Işık, Jie Han, Xuemeng Liu, H. U. Rehman, Amjad Ali, Min Huang","doi":"10.1002/sd.2833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2833","url":null,"abstract":"Environmental sustainability is increasingly being prioritized by governments around the world, particularly in emerging economies. This study examined the role of green finance and green technological innovation in environmental sustainability using the “load capacity factor”, also takes into account natural resource depletion and forest cover. This study used annual data from 2000 to 2018 for emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico. Methods of analysis included the cross‐section augmented autoregressive distributed lags (CS‐ARDL) model, along with validation by the common correlated mean group (CCEMG) and augmented mean group (AMG). The results show that green finance, green technological innovation and forested areas consistently have a positive impact on environmental sustainability, while resource depletion has a negative impact. The findings of CS‐ARDL are consistent with those of CCEMG and AMG. The study also makes recommendations that emerging economies need to prioritize REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiatives and implement resource decoupling policies, in addition to green finance and green technology policies, to achieve environmental sustainability.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"63 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139266964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impacts and Pathways of the Belt and Road Initiative on Sustainable Development Goals of the Involved Countries","authors":"Chenggang Li, Yikang Wan, Zhenci Xu, Xiangbo Fan, Chen Shuai, Xuemei Yu, Yuanyuan Tan","doi":"10.1002/sd.2819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2819","url":null,"abstract":"The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tremendously impacts the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the countries involved. However, the BRI's impacts and impact pathways on the synergies and trade‐offs in these countries' SDGs remain unclear. Using global data from 2005 to 2021, we find that the BRI has dramatically promoted low‐income countries' SDGs and the synergies between high‐income countries' SDGs. Continuing to prioritize economic growth as the main focus of the BRI may not be the optimal path for achieving mutual development that benefits all of humanity. Although there is environmental pressure involved with the BRI, this factor does not force involved countries to make trade‐offs between improving SDGs and environmental resources. Furthermore, the BRI affects involved countries' SDGs through two key channels: fostering industries, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9) by enhancing people's well‐being (SDG 3) and promoting zero hunger (SDG 2) through sustainable cities (SDG 11).","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"37 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139267994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jiaxing Gu, Shouzhen Zeng, Wendi Chen, T. Baležentis, Vaida Sapolaite
{"title":"Tracking sustainable development from the dual perspective of environmental and economic performance: A dynamic framework and coupling coordination degree","authors":"Jiaxing Gu, Shouzhen Zeng, Wendi Chen, T. Baležentis, Vaida Sapolaite","doi":"10.1002/sd.2816","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2816","url":null,"abstract":"Evaluation of green development is crucial for policy analysis and decision‐making. To address the research gap on green development assessment systems, this study first presents the Super‐efficiency Bounded Adjusted Measure model to gage the green growth index and economic growth index. This analysis involves evaluation of the coupling coordination degree. Through the analysis of the coordination between green growth and economic growth leads to recommendations for each region under consideration in regards to promotion of the components of the sustainable growth. This study presents the model that melds the objectives of the green and economic growth and uses the results for constructing the sustainable development Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient for the analysis of the differences in the sustainable development levels across the regions. The empirical case is presented to show the possibilities for application of the proposed approach.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"53 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139269591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yufei Wang, Xiufang Zhang, Yan Wang, Xueli Chen, Malin Song
{"title":"The road to sustainable development: Results of the differentiated choice of corporate environmental strategy","authors":"Yufei Wang, Xiufang Zhang, Yan Wang, Xueli Chen, Malin Song","doi":"10.1002/sd.2828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2828","url":null,"abstract":"Finding a reasonable and efficient sustainable development path is more important for enterprises than emphasizing environmental protection. Corporate environmental strategy, green innovation and corporate sustainability are selected as representative variables to explore the possibility of Chinese heavily polluting enterprises to achieve sustainable development. Through questionnaires and regression analysis, our study shows that the different effects of corporate environmental strategies on corporate sustainability are only reflected in economic dimension, and that the mediating role of green process innovation between reactive environmental strategy and environmental sustainability is more significant than that of green product innovation. This study has made contributions to research in the field of sustainable development, discussing the role of corporate environmental strategies and green innovation in environmental protection, and exploring effective paths to achieve sustainable development. In addition, the combination of environmental strategies and green innovation among different types can also enable managers to plan sustainable development paths more reasonably.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"10055 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139269354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nanyu Jiang, Chonghui Zhang, Weihua Su, Huanhuan Jin, T. Baležentis
{"title":"Towards carbon‐neutral society: Reconciling peak carbon strategy and thermal power generation via regional eco‐efficiency analysis","authors":"Nanyu Jiang, Chonghui Zhang, Weihua Su, Huanhuan Jin, T. Baležentis","doi":"10.1002/sd.2815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2815","url":null,"abstract":"Transition towards low‐carbon and carbon‐neutral society requires multiple technological solutions. Thermal power generation is the main source of power generation in China and contributes to a large portion of carbon emission. Under the goal of “carbon peak”, thermal power generation efficiency will become an important factor affecting industrial development. Based on the directional distance function, this article assumes energy used as inputs and power generation as an output. Then, energy‐oriented and energy‐generation oriented power generation efficiency analysis models are proposed. The carbon emission is treated as an undesirable output to analyze the regional power generation efficiency with and without industrial transfer. The application focuses on panel data of three regions in China over the period 2013–2017, accounting for three energy inputs: solid, oil and gaseous fuel. The results show that in regard to the factors improving power generation efficiency, pure efficiency and scale efficiency change is positive for the eastern and central regions, while pure technical efficiency change is positive for the western region. By further analyzing the power generation potential, the results also show that the eastern region exhibits potential savings in gaseous fuel, the central region has potential in three fuels, but all not prominent, and the western region has potential in solid and oil fuels. Accordingly, the article puts forward policy recommendations from the perspective of technological innovation, differentiated development, and collaborative communication.","PeriodicalId":48174,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Development","volume":"36 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.5,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139277226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}