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Points out that sustainability as such does not provide a clearcut guide to policy. First one has to decide what is to be sustained. If this is agreed, it must be in an operational from. However, difficulties may still emerge since opinions may differ about how to achieve. This is illustrated by differences in the views of economists about how sustainable development is to be achieved. Orthodox economists stress the importance of the accumulation of man-made capital to achieve this end whereas neo-Malthusians stress the importance of conserving natural resource and environmental capital. Both take an anthropocentric point of view. For political reasons the neo-Malthusian has had little support but it may eventually turn out to be correct. Economics is concerned with reducing economic scarcity and economists have traditionally suggested four main ways of doing this of which economic growth is one. However, neo-Malthusian economists believe that this may not be a sustainable strategy – it may result in future poverty. It should be noted that economic systems are embedded in social and natural systems and depend on these. Economic sustainability depends on the sustainability of these other systems. So from this point of view, it is just one of several bottom lines. Values must be considered in relation to sustainability. Economics is completely anthropocentric in its approach. Therefore, economic approaches to conservation and sustainability can be at odds with the values of deep ecologists or those willing to accord rights to other sentient beings or ecosystems independent of human wishes, or those who want to make use of value judgments other than those based on the measuring rod of money. Consequently economics evaluation is sometimes ineffective in resolving social conflict, including conflict about what should be sustained. As a rule economics alone should not be the final arbiter of social decisions. It is a part (often an important part) of the social evaluation process but not the bottom line, or just one of many lines.

In recent years, sustainability concerns have gained increasing attention among countries and stakeholders worldwide. Towards the transition to sustainable rural development, the rural web framework (RWF) has become a consistent tool. Indicators from the RWF have been used to explore sustainable rural development for decision-making tasks, which improves the social, economic, and environmental performance of rural regions. However, the application of the RWF in studies is on the decline. Furthermore, there is a lack of literature reviews on the importance of the RWF and its relationship with different facets of sustainable development. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) (a) to explore how studies have used the RWF in the context of sustainable development and (b) to identify areas for further research. This study found that the RWF has mostly been used in developed countries, with fewer applications in developing countries. We suggest that there should be increased application of the RWF, particularly in developing countries, to broaden the rural web–sustainable development discourse and its relevance. This paper presents several areas where the indicators of the RWF can be applied to illustrate their relevance for policy decisions towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Abstract This paper contributes to the existing literature as well as policy debates by examining energy intensity and its determinants in China's regional economies. The analysis is based on a comprehensive database of China's regional energy balance constructed for this project. Through its focus on regional China, this study extends the existing literature, which mainly covers nationwide studies. It is found in this paper that energy intensity declined substantially in China. The main contributing factor is the improvement in energy efficiency. Changes in the economic structure have so far affected energy intensity modestly. Thus there is considerable scope to reduce energy intensity through the structural transformation of the Chinese economy in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all sectors of the tourism industry, particularly air transportation. However, air transport remains an important contributor to economic growth globally. Thus, this study examines whether air transport (a proxy for tourism) stimulates economic growth to validate the air-transportation-led growth hypothesis (ALGH) in the Australian context. To conduct the study, we analyse the asymmetric long-run and short-run impacts of the air passengers carried (a proxy for tourism) on the gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia. We use the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) modelling approach on data for Australia from 1971 to 2019. We also examined the effects of selected control variables (i.e., energy consumption, financial development, socialisation, and urbanisation) on economic growth. In both the short and long run, we observed statistically significant asymmetric impacts of air transport on economic growth. The positive shocks in air transport propel the long-term growth of Australia’s economy. Additionally, according to the findings, negative shocks of air transport have a stronger detrimental impact on economic development than positive shocks.

Sustainably feeding the world’s growing population represents one of our most significant challenges. Aquaculture is well positioned to make contributions towards this challenge. Yet, the translation of aquaculture production innovations into benefits for rural communities is constrained by a limited understanding of the social dynamics that influence the adoption of new agricultural practices. In this paper, we investigate the factors that shape the spread of small-scale tilapia aquaculture through rural Solomon Islands. Based on diffusion of innovation theory, we focus on three potentially influential factors: (i) socio-economic characteristics of adopters; (ii) the role of opinion leaders; and (iii) characteristics of the innovation. We find that farmers who were wealthier, older, and had more diverse livelihoods were most likely to be adopters. Opinion leaders facilitated the adoption of tilapia aquaculture, but lacked the capacity to provide fundamental knowledge necessary to realize its potential benefits to food security. The paper argues for more explicit attention to the poorest households and makes the case for a deeper engagement with the broader social and institutional contexts that shape the adoption process. Aquaculture interventions that account for these social dynamics are critical for translating production innovations into sustainable benefits to rural communities.

The integration of sustainable practices into infrastructure projects under the auspices of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is vital in the attainment of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since the inception of the SDGs in 2015, the attention of world has been shifting towards more sustainable practices and it is essential that the conventional performance measurement models on PPP projects also adapt to the trend of sustainable practices. Therefore, This study aims at reviewing and operationalising sustainable performance measures for the PPP infrastructure projects. A systematic literature review (SLR) methodology was utilised in this study. The research process began with the search, retrieval and selection of thirty-three (33) journal articles. Thoroughly, the selected articles were contently analysed to form key themes that form the basis of this research’s findings. The outcomes of this review demonstrate twenty-seven (27) most critical sustainable performance criteria of PPP projects such as the lowest project costs, green index, disability-friendly inclusion rate and carbon emission per project among others. Although, the study is limited to few journal articles, it provides theoretical and practical understanding of integration of sustainability in PPPs. Further, it gives a list of relevant research gaps for further studies. This study contributes to the benchmarking and management of sustainable performance assessment of PPP projects.

Abstract The earth’s climate is changing, with global warming attributable to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driven by economic and population growth. Human systems and ecosystems vary in their exposure, mitigation and adaptive capacity, and vulnerability to various forms of climate change. Once mitigation and adaptation efforts have been exhausted, vulnerability remains. Data compiled by the University of Notre Dame covering over 100 nations in 2016 were used to construct a new composite climate change vulnerability index that features endogenously generated weights to aggregate vulnerability indices across six vulnerable sectors. These weights have the potential to inform policy aimed at allocating resources to reduce the cost of limiting vulnerability. The new composite vulnerability index, whose weights differ across sectors and across nations, is compared with the Notre Dame vulnerability index, which uses weights equal across sectors and constant across nations. Although the two indices agree on the identity of the most vulnerable nations, there is a statistically significant difference between the two indices. In addition, a nonparametric statistical test failed to reject the null hypothesis that one sectoral index could be deleted from the composite index without significant loss of information. This also has potentially important policy implications.

Abstract Using country level panel data from East Asia over the period 1998–2011, this paper examines the implications of international production fragmentation-induced intermediate goods trade on the link between energy consumption and carbon pollution. The paper focuses on the interaction effect between energy consumption and trade in intermediate goods on carbon emission. The empirical results presented suggest that international trade in intermediate goods decreases the positive impact on carbon emission of energy consumption. When compared with the trade in final goods, intermediate goods trade contributes to a greater decrease in carbon pollution resulting from energy consumption. These results confirm that the link between energy consumption and carbon pollution in East Asia is significantly affected by international production fragmentation-induced trade in intermediate goods. The results presented in this paper have some important policy implications.