• Energy Research
• social sciences close
• 11. Sustainability close
• 7. Clean energy close
• Frontiers in Environmental Science close

This study aims to find the nexuses among energy efficiency, renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investment, logistics industry, manufacturing industry and global trade during the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on global supply chains in exporting nations of the world. The data for this study has been extracted from the World Development Indicators and Statista 2021 for 13 years ranging from 2007-to 2020 for nine top exporting countries. The fixed effect panel estimation technique was implied to examine and analyze the data. The results of our study revealed that highly risky diseases significantly impact supply chain operations globally. Global supply chains, logistics and manufacturing industries significantly influence global trade operations. Our results implicate that the overall international trade and logistics can be enhanced by improving the manufacturing and logistics industries by coping with the risk of pandemic diseases. Moreover, by utilizing cost-effective, renewable and efficient energy resources companies address sustainability issues of global trade and operations. By exerting further attention to the proficiency of the levies approval process, competence and quality of logistics services, and ease of assembling competitively priced shipments, the governments can significantly enhance the export from the logistics industry. Also, increasing manufacturing and agricultural value-added healthier consequences might be acquired in global supply chain operations from the manufacturing industry.

To empirically investigate as to whether and how public infrastructure influences the global greenhouse effect, this study utilizes a panel dataset of 35 countries over the period 2003–2019 for regression estimation. Furthermore, regional heterogeneous and mediation effects between infrastructure and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are explored. The primary findings insist that: 1) at the global level, public infrastructure is positive associated with CO2 emissions. In other words, strengthening infrastructure at this stage is not conducive to mitigating the greenhouse effect; 2) public infrastructure construction development in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries has a greater positive impact on CO2 emissions than in non-BRI countries; and 3) the mediation roles of industrial upgrading and trade openness are established; specifically, trade openness and industrial upgrading are valid transmission routes through which public infrastructure affects CO2 emissions. Based on the above three findings, a number of policy implications related to accelerate low-carbon construction of infrastructure and promote industrial upgrading are proposed.

One major change in the modern construction industry worldwide in recent years is moving toward prefabricated buildings (offsite construction) to achieve sustainable development. Despite an increase in attention to ESG due to global stock markets’ requirements and prefabricated buildings aid industries in achieving the ESG goal, few or even no research investigated the ESG attributes of the prefabricated buildings. Additionally, ESG subitems in different industries receive varying attention. Developed countries are primarily subject to ESG rules, but ESG laws in developing countries are at their infant stages. No study examined the effects of economic progress on prefabricated buildings’ ESG attributes. The research gaps are filled by visualising and clustering the WoS and Scopus articles’ keywords, themes, and authors’ locations. This article also studied the evolution of this field. Based on the science map modularity cluster analysis, cost control is the most concerned issue in developed and developing countries. There are far more articles related to sustainability and environmental aspects of prefabricated buildings. Although the governance aspects of prefabricated buildings have not been thoroughly studied, inadequate governance increases bond yields. Therefore, future research on prefabricated buildings may expand to governance aspect to benefit industry and academia.

Sustainable supply chain management techniques have been developed over the last several decades to reduce accidental environmental damage during production and buying. Certifying a practical connection between ecosystems and economic development, circular economies push the limits of environmental sustainability. There are two types of rebound effects in the studied business. The impacts of circular business models and strategies are examined and put in a broader framework to get a better understanding of their role in the transition. In order to put transitory changes in a system perspective, this work approach to the problem in new way. Rebound effects and designing an eco-effective transition are discussed as theory-building elements. We conclude by suggesting several future research directions.

The use of renewable energies has been rapidly expanding worldwide; however, in numerous countries this has resulted in public controversy. Building upon Entman's framing concept, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine the media's framing of renewable energies in 11 countries between 2010 and 2012. To explain the observed differences in media coverage, we considered national structural conditions. Furthermore, we investigated whether media framing changed after an external shock, the Fukushima accident. The findings show that renewable energies were covered through three different frames, (1) the first highlighting economic and technological problems, (2) the second focusing on environmental and social problems and (3) the third considering positive aspects of the technologies. To some extent, the occurrence of these frames is influenced by the national structural conditions. The study revealed that the Fukushima accident did not cause the expected changes in framing.

Despite the fact that Pakistan’s contribution to GHG emissions is low (0.8%) when compared to other countries but it is one of the hardest hit by climate change. The present study is an attempt to identify the impact of climate change on economic growth. The non-linear autoregressive distributional lag (NARDL) technique is used to estimate the asymmetric effect of climate change on the economic growth of Pakistan. Annual data covering the years 1980–2021 are used for empirical analysis. It is noteworthy to reiterate that CO2 emissions and mean temperature pose asymmetrical results concerning economic growth, both in the long-run and short-run. CO2_POS and CO2_NEG have a negative impact on economic growth, whereas MEANT_POS has a positive impact on economic growth and MEANT_NEG has a negative impact. Precipitation has a positive and significant long-term influence on economic growth. Research findings indicate that comprehensive mitigation policies at the nationwide and worldwide levels are required to limit human-caused climate change in Pakistan. At national level, tree planting projects and safeguard greenery at all costs while at international level, policies needed for adoption of mitigation strategies to control climate change.

Arguably the greatest threat facing society is that posed by irreversible climate change. In tandem with mitigating the effects of climate change, we must now make decisions about issues such as renewable energy, sustainable and safe water supplies, management of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, and management of natural disasters. The current school-age generation will see the worst effects of climate change, including greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events; shortages of water and other necessary resources; and dangers due to pollution and toxicity in human environments and the human food chain. The next generation is coming of age as difficult socio-political choices are being made at local and national levels to manage resources and mitigate environmental damage. It is therefore important to center the voices of children and young people in research aiming to address the social, political, and educational dimensions of geoscience topics, including climate change and related topics. This paper proposes the use of Children’s Research Advisory Groups (CRAGs) to meaningfully include children and young people as co-researchers in geoscience-related research.