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Beyond the anticipated experience associated with tourism destinations, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has further tasked (especially the destination countries) on the importance of tourism to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). From this dimension, this study employed the ecological footprint of the 10 most visited countries (France, Spain, United States, China, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, and Thailand) over the period 1995-2016. Specifically, the study employed an econometric approach and found that increase in tourism arrivals and globalization is detrimental to the attainment of sustainable environmental quality in a long term. Precisely, a 1% increase in international arrivals and globalization is responsible for a 0.18 and 0.89% increase in ecological footprint in the long-run. These impacts of tourism activities and globalization are detrimental to the environmental quality of the destination countries. Meanwhile, the real income per capita and biocapacity in the destination countries improve the environmental quality of the panel of destination countries in the long-run. In addition, the study found significant evidence of Granger causality from tourism and real income to ecological footprint without feedback, the globalization-ecological footprint Granger causality nexus is with feedback. Moreover, potentially effective policies for government and other stakeholders especially toward attaining Global goals were proffered in the study.

SummaryEnvironmentally extended multiregional input‐output (EE MRIO) tables have emerged as a key framework to provide a comprehensive description of the global economy and analyze its effects on the environment. Of the available EE MRIO databases, EXIOBASE stands out as a database compatible with the System of Environmental‐Economic Accounting (SEEA) with a high sectorial detail matched with multiple social and environmental satellite accounts. In this paper, we present the latest developments realized with EXIOBASE 3—a time series of EE MRIO tables ranging from 1995 to 2011 for 44 countries (28 EU member plus 16 major economies) and five rest of the world regions. EXIOBASE 3 builds upon the previous versions of EXIOBASE by using rectangular supply‐use tables (SUTs) in a 163 industry by 200 products classification as the main building blocks. In order to capture structural changes, economic developments, as reported by national statistical agencies, were imposed on the available, disaggregated SUTs from EXIOBASE 2. These initial estimates were further refined by incorporating detailed data on energy, agricultural production, resource extraction, and bilateral trade. EXIOBASE 3 inherits the high level of environmental stressor detail from its precursor, with further improvement in the level of detail for resource extraction. To account for the expansion of the European Union (EU), EXIOBASE 3 was developed with the full EU28 country set (including the new member state Croatia). EXIOBASE 3 provides a unique tool for analyzing the dynamics of environmental pressures of economic activities over time.

Abstract In contrast to energy and precious metals commodities, relatively little is known about the volatility dynamics of base (or industrial) metals commodities. To address this deficiency, this paper employs a multivariate heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model to consider the volatility spillovers between the five of the most liquid and important non-ferrous metals contracts (aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc) traded on the London Metal Exchange using intraday data over the period June 2006–December 2012. This period encompasses both the surge in commodities prices associated with the burgeoning industrial demand of many emerging economies, especially China, resulting in market peaks in May 2007 and April 2008 and the subsequent negative reaction of base metals markets to the collapse of stock markets during the recent global financial crisis. The results show that the volatility series of other industrial metals appear to contain useful incremental information for future price volatility. However, the own dynamics are often sufficient for describing most future daily and weekly volatility, with the most pronounced volatility spillovers identified in the longer term. Combined together, the results in this study provide useful findings for exporter and importer countries dealing with the continuing volatility in these industrially important commodity markets.

Abstract So far, organizations had no authoritative guidance on circular economy (CE) principles, strategies, implementation, and monitoring. Consequentially, the British Standards Institution recently launched a new standard “BS 8001:2017 – Framework for implementing the principles of the circular economy in organizations”. BS 8001:2017 tries to reconcile the far-reaching ambitions of the CE with established business routines. The standard contains a comprehensive list of CE terms and definitions, a set of general CE principles, a flexible management framework for implementing CE strategies in organizations, and a detailed description of economic, environmental, design, marketing, and legal issues related to the CE. The guidance on monitoring CE strategy implementation, however, remains vague. The standard stipulates that organizations are solely responsible for choosing appropriate CE indicators. Its authors do not elaborate on the links between CE strategy monitoring and the relevant and already standardized quantitative tools life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow cost accounting (MFCA). Here a general system definition for deriving CE indicators is proposed. Based on the system definition and the indicator literature a dashboard of new and established quantitative indicators for CE strategy assessment in organizations is then compiled. The dashboard indicators are mostly based on material flow analysis (MFA), MFCA, and LCA. Steel cycle data are used to illustrate potential core CE indicators, notably, the residence time of a material in the techno-sphere (currently 250–300 years for steel). Moreover, organizations need to monitor their contribution to in-use-stock growth, a central driver of resource depletion and hindrance to closing material cycles.

This study examines the dynamics of return and volatility connectedness between the rare earth stock index and the indexes of clean energy, consumer electronics, telecommunications, healthcare equi...

The article analyzes the current state of energy markets. The basic fundamental factor of the demand for energy resources – the world economy growth – is rather low. At the same time, the USA and China demonstrate steady economic growth, thus rising demand for hydrocarbons. But recent decline of prices for oil and other commodities like metals or grain shows that among various factors, both fundamental and speculative, financial markets are also speeding up the volatility on the markets, thus deepening the gap between “paper” and “fair” oil price. Also, it is necessary to analyze the impact on the situation on the global oil market of such multidirectional factors as influence of “shale revolution” in the USA or Saudi Arabia refusal to reduce oil production. Shale oil helped USA to overcome oil import dependency and to become an exporter in the future. However, production costs in the country are rather high. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia has low production costs and is now trying to keep the international prices at a level that makes the US shale projects infeasible. The Saudi budget 2015 assumed a price of $90/barrel and it can endure $50 as well. However, other oil exporting countries face huge losses. Nevertheless, in the future oil prices will rise and evidently the level of fair price can be determined at $60-70/barrel. The author examines also the break-even prices for oil production and levels of oil prices necessary for formation of budgets of oil exporting countries. The changes on oil and gas markets lead to formation of more complicated global energy space and to shifts in the concept of energy security from ensuring the stability of energy supplies to energy self-sufficiency. The transformation of energy markets and geopolitical risks cause the changes in the transportation logistics and enhance risks of implementation of new trans-border pipelines. Prospects of sustainable and multidirectional development of global and regional energy markets are also considered.

The automated toolkit for assessing environmental and investment attractiveness of a mining region and the results of its application are discussed in the article. This toolkit includes the optimization mathematical model, the algorithms for the interaction between a regional control center and a producer within the territory, as well as the automated software package for their analysis. The use of the optimization mathematical model makes it possible to take into account the maximum economic potential of a producer, which determines, respectively, a mining region’s environment pollution potential. Accounting for environmental risks will allow the control center or other decision makers to identify not only the optimal pattern of eco-economic interaction in the region, but also reflect changes in the environmental and investment climate as a combination of economic potential and involved risks. The model and the algorithms of interaction between a regional control center and a producer, as well as the results of their numerical analysis given in this paper, allow considering this toolkit as an effective decision support tool aimed at improving environmental and investment attractiveness of a mining region by encouraging a producer to use the best available technologies and conserve the natural environment.