• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
• economics and business 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.

Prediction of bond return is a classic problem in financial area, providing an important basis for portfolio construction and risk management. The sustainable investment attribute of green bonds has been favored by investors, so that green bonds have become an important component for major asset allocation. However, due to the specific investment focus of green bonds, investors’ return expectations are influenced not only by traditional corporate bond factors, but also by related factors such as climate change and energy transition. Against the backdrop of increasingly severe climate risks and the global energy crisis, this paper analyses the volatility characteristics of China’s green bonds at multiple time scales, and introduces exogenous variables such as returns of the alternative financial assets, climate risks and returns of energy markets for prediction. Based on the LSTM model, the volatility of green bond yield at different time scales is separately predicted using optimal exogenous variable before integration. It is found that the new integrated prediction model can significantly improve the forecasting performance compared to traditional single LSTM models and simple decomposition-integrated models. Further, both climate risks and energy markets variables have a significant improvement effect on predicting green bond in low-frequency item, while energy markets variables also have a better predictive effect on trend items. Building on the use of only LSTM model, it could be further enhanced by integrating more algorithms to select the best single model for each component, further improve the prediction accuracy and provide a more effective quantitative tool for investment decision-making and risk management in related fields.

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.

The role of leadership in an organization’s parameters has been enhanced, especially in an uncertain environment. New environmental and sustainability laws and social responsibilities are emerging. Corporates are making continuous efforts to be sustainable and excellent in their performance. The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of servant leadership on organizational behavior when work capacity mediates this relationship from a cross-cultural perspective. We created a three-variable survey containing 31 items to collect statistics on 329 employees in the Pakistan, China, and Saudi Arabian corporate sectors. It was a structured, quantitative study. Cross-section procedures have been implemented to gain experience. The conclusions of the study show that employee competence is an intermediary between servant leadership and organizational performance. Servant leaders make a positive difference in an organization’s excellence. This study suggests the practical importance of servant leadership and employee competency in the cross-cultural corporate sector. This study influenced the concept of servant leadership in corporate philosophy. Future studies may be directed to finding the relationship through more complex and rigorous research designs.

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.

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.

Introduction:This paper investigates the international relationship between digitalization, the gig economy, and low carbon development, providing valuable insights for governments and stakeholders seeking to advance sustainable development and a low-carbon society.Methods:A large dataset comprising countries with varying degrees of digitalization and gig economy prevalence was analyzed to assess the impact of digitalization on the gig economy and its subsequent effects on greenhouse gas emissions.Results:The study reveals that the impact of digitalization on the gig economy varies by income level, exhibiting a positive relationship in high-income countries and a negative relationship in low-income countries. Furthermore, the gig economy demonstrates a significant negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2 emissions, indicating that its growth may support emissions reduction and facilitate the transition to a low-carbon society. The gig economy also mediates the connection between digitalization and low-carbon development.Discussion:These findings carry substantial policy implications for governments and stakeholders working towards sustainable development and a low-carbon society. Moreover, the study highlights potential areas for future research, such as investigating the heterogeneous effects across income levels, exploring sectoral differences in the gig economy, and examining the dynamic nature of the gig economy and digitalization.