• Energy Research
• 12. Responsible consumption close
• CN close
• KR close
• COVID-19 close

In order to identify ecological relationships of participating countries in the transfer system of ecological capital embodied in global trade, this paper takes the international trade of China and its partners from 2002 to 2017 as a case, and uses the ecological footprint (EF) measured by the optimized product land-use matrix (PLUM) method to quantify ecological capital for the value of macro-ecological resources, then uses the ecological network analysis (ENA) method to construct a complete transfer network of trade-embodied ecological capital and uses a utility analysis to identify ecological relationships between trading countries. Our results show that: (1) Throughout the study period, competition relationships with 61% dominated in the network, and the countries that have a pair-wise competition relationship with China are mainly located in central and western Europe, northeastern Europe, North America, southern Asia and eastern Asia. (2) Indirect utility determines the dominant ecological relationship in system, and it mainly converts dominant ecological relationships from control to competition by transforming exploit into competition. (3) China is looking to creating a more mutually beneficial trading environment at the expense of its own interests. (4) A global crisis event is likely to result in the control of ecological capital in more countries, and in its aftermath, the world is likely to be in a highly competitive environment. Reducing ecological capital consumption by improving energy efficiency and optimizing the global trading environment into a trading system dominated by mutualism relationships can be effective ways for countries around the world to achieve sustainable development post-COVID-19 crisis.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has greatly hindered the development of the tourism industry. It is urgent for the city to improve the quality of public service in scenic spots, so as to attract more tourists and achieve sustainable development. With a literature review and reference to some guidance, the evaluation indicator system of public service satisfaction of scenic spots was constructed based on the analytic hierarchy process. Then, we distributed two questionnaires to complete the study. The first is the expert questionnaire for the evaluation indicator system. We used YAAHP software to process the questionnaire data and calculated the weight of each indicator, which provided a basis for the following analysis. The second is the questionnaire distributed to tourists of Xiamen. Then, we used the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to analyze the satisfaction of public services in scenic spots. The outcomes show that tourists are overall satisfied with the public services of scenic spots in Xiamen. However, there are still some problems, such as lagging information service, inadequate security, and supervision in the scenic spot. Therefore, the city and scenic spots should improve the level of smart tourism service, strengthen the construction of hardware and software facilities, and focus on the protection of tourists’ rights and interests.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) analyzed the culprits of global warming, it was found that in developed countries with relatively few high-polluting heavy industries, the medical sector is one of the sources of high-density carbon emissions. Therefore, the medical industry has a noticeable impact on the environment. Amid the current COVID-19 epidemic, this study adopts the theory of planned behavior (TPB), widely used in decision-making science. We selected a regional teaching hospital with 339 employees in Taiwan to obtain valid questionnaire data. We explore the comparative analysis of different intra-organizational stakeholders’ “attitudes,” “subjective norms,” and “perceived behavioral control” on the hospital’s behavioral intention to promote green healthcare. The results show that the TPB model has reliable explanatory power. All three factors have a positive and significant effect on promoting green hospital behavior. Among them, perceived behavioral control was the most notable. A comparative analysis of the differences among stakeholders in the research model shows that “medical administrators” and “nursing staff” have a higher proportion of significant influence effects in various hypotheses, highlighting the critical roles of these two groups in promoting green hospitals. This research policy suggests that the cross-departmental staff in the hospital put forward green innovation ideas, strengthen internal environmental education and management, establish a good incentive system for front-line nursing staff, and implement the sustainable development strategy of the hospital.

The COVID-19 pandemic affects all of society and hinders day-to-day activities from a straightforward perspective. The pandemic has an influential impact on almost everything and the characteristics of the pandemic remain unclear. This ultimately leads to ineffective strategic planning to manage the pandemic. This study aims to elucidate the typical pandemic characteristics in line with various temporal phases and its associated measures that proved effective in controlling the pandemic. Besides, an insight into diverse country's approaches towards pandemic and their consequences is provided in brief. Understanding the role of technologies in supporting humanity gives new perspectives to effectively manage the pandemic. Such role of technologies is expressed from the viewpoint of seamless connectivity, rapid communication, mobility, technological influence in healthcare, digitalization influence, surveillance and security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT). Furthermore, some insightful scenarios are framed where the full-fledged implementation of technologies is assumed, and the reflected pandemic impacts in such scenarios are analyzed. The framed scenarios revolve around the digitalized energy sector, an enhanced supply chain system with effective customer-retailer relationships to support the city during the pandemic scenario, and an advanced tracking system for containing virus spread. The study is further extended to frame revitalization strategies to highlight the expertise where significant attention needs to be provided in the post-pandemic period as well as to nurture sustainable development. Finally, the current pandemic scenario is analyzed in terms of occurred changes and is mapped into SWOT factors. Using Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, these SWOT factors are analyzed to determine where prioritized efforts are needed to focus so as to traverse towards sustainable cities. The results indicate that the enhanced crisis management ability and situational need to restructure the economic model emerges to be the most-significant SWOT factor that can ultimately support humanity for making the cities sustainable.

Electric vehicles are an important part of governments’ environmental policies, and therefore understanding the factors affecting their market share is very important. So, this research is designed to investigate the factors affecting electric vehicle adoption, considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and sustainable development level. Effective factors have been investigated in three categories. One is the characteristics of electric vehicles; the other is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on demand for these vehicles; and finally, the impact of the level of sustainable development of countries on adopting electric vehicles. Our analysis method is based on grey econometric and grey regression methods. The results show that vehicle dimensions, battery warranty conditions, battery life, and charging facilities are effective factors in the field of vehicle characteristics that can increase the adoption of electric vehicles. Also, the analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced the adoption of electric vehicles. Finally, we have shown that the market share of electric vehicles is higher in countries with a higher sustainable development level because of better economic, social, and cultural infrastructures.

The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a tough test on companies in the global food sector supply chain, exacerbating the realities and deficiencies it presents in developing economies. This situation has been reflected in the firm’s performance (F.P.) due to the lack of business conditions to respond to the current pandemic. However, in some companies, the adverse effects of COVID-19 have been counteracted due to endowment and technological capabilities. Thus, this study examined the role of technological innovation (T.I.) and business data analytics (B.D.A.) in the F.P. of foods in Ecuador during COVID-19. A questionnaire collected the information from the food firms. Then, Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling processed the collected information. We found that (B.D.A.) mechanisms and different levels of T.I. within the developing market significantly shape the F.P. The results showed that the B.D.A. enables circular economy (C.E.) practices and the improvement of product delivery services, which constitutes an improvement of the F.P. The COVID-19 outbreak did not significantly affect T.I., unlike what happened with B.D.A. This study concluded that firms with the most extraordinary technological production processes have been the least affected during COVID-19. This study suggested that policy measures should boost food firms’ technological endowment to improve their resilience in uncertainty and risk scenarios.

This empirical study was conducted to evaluate whether digital textbooks contribute to sustainable development in school education. Accordingly, 690 students participated in the three-year research, and the data on the relationship between students’ perceived usefulness/preference for digital textbooks and academic achievement were analyzed using latent growth curve model statistics. The results showed that the usefulness of and preference for digital textbooks had a significant effect on academic achievement, with the impact enhancing depending on the increase in their preference. To cope with new digitalized education settings, especially in the post-COVID-19 era, digital textbooks should be flexible, connected, instructional, and data driven so that schools can achieve sustainable development.

In recent years, due to the rise in energy prices and the impact of COVID-19, energy shortages have led to unsafe power supply environments. High emissions industries which account for more than 58% of the carbon emissions of Guangdong Province have played an important role in achieving the carbon peak goal, alleviating social energy shortage and promoting economic growth. Controlling high emissions industries will help to adjust the industrial structure and increase renewable energy investment. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate the policies of energy security and the investments of high emission industries. This paper builds the ICEEH-GD (comprehensive assessment model of climate, economy, environment and health of Guangdong Province) model, designs the Energy Security scenario (ES), the Restrict High Carbon Emission Sector scenario (RHS) and the Comprehensive Policy scenario (CP), and studies the impact of limiting high emissions industries and renewable energy policies on the transformation of investment structure, macro-economy and society. The results show that under the Energy Security scenario (ES), carbon emissions will peak in 2029, with a peak of 681 million tons. Under the condition of ensuring energy security, the installed capacity of coal-fired power generation will remain unchanged from 2025 to 2035. Under the Restrict High Carbon Emission Sector scenario (RHS), the GDP will increase by 8 billion yuan compared with the ES scenario by 2035. At the same time, it can promote the whole society to increase 10,500 employment opportunities, and more investment will flow to the low emissions industries. In the Comprehensive Policy scenario (CP), although the GDP loss will reach 33 billion yuan by 2035 compared with the Energy Security scenario (ES), the transportation and service industries will participate in carbon trading by optimizing the distribution of carbon restrictions in the whole society, which will reduce the carbon cost of the whole society by more than 48%, and promote the employment growth of 104,000 people through industrial structure optimization. Therefore, the power sector should increase investment in renewable energy to ensure energy security, limit the new production capacity of high emissions industries such as cement, steel and ceramics, and increase the green transition and efficiency improvement of existing high emissions industries.