• Energy Research

This paper questions the current perception of business goals and argues that the business goal needs to be derived out of the human goal and human program. By evaluating developments in the field of sustainable investing, the paper explores the need to broaden the base of sustainable investing by covering individuals, families, society and nature. The paper lays future research agenda for identification of businesses generating holistic value in terms of physical facilities while also maintaining harmony in relations with humans and rest of the nature. Synchronisation of business goals with human goals shall lead to real value for society as also for individuals, families and the nature. By bringing together inter-disciplinary ideas about human goals, business goals and investments, the paper sets-up a concrete research agenda for future works in the area of sustainable investment.

Social entrepreneurship has been recognized as a tool to attain sustainable development. This paper highlights the role of social entrepreneurship in triggering social change and attaining sustainable development. The paper contributes significantly to the existing literature by conducting a systematic review of extant works. To this end, we analyzed and reviewed 173 research papers from the Web of Science database. The results are presented in the form of descriptive findings and thematic discussion. The paper concludes by setting up the agenda for future researchers in the field.

Abstract The literature on energy-growth nexus has consistently stated that economic development, which leads to environmental degradation in its early stages, is the only way to ensure environmental sustainability. The paper examines the interrelationships between the performance on sustainability indicators and economic growth in European Union. The data for sustainability indicators such as human development index, financial development index, urban population, renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, ecological footprints, carbon emissions, and economic growth indicator that is gross domestic product are analyzed for 27 EU countries. The study employs Arellano-Bond dynamic panel data estimation, system dynamic panel data estimation, and Augmented Mean Group model. The results show a two-way positive relationship between economic growth and non-renewable energy and a two-way negative relationship between economic growth and renewable energy. Besides, ecological footprint, non-renewable energy consumption, and carbon emissions are shown to positively impact economic growth. In contrast, renewable energy consumption is shown to negatively impact economic growth. The results reveal explain the reasoning for unimpressive performance of Europe on the front of climate action, and average performance on clean energy, notwithstanding reasonable economic growth. The novelty of the study lies in finding out that the shift towards renewable energy may not seem economically viable in the short-run, but after a point of time, renewable energy consumption is bound to positively impact the economic growth in line with the Environmental Kuznets Curve.

The adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015 shifted the attention towards sustainability-related concerns in both developing and developed counties. The aim of this paper is to examine how agricultural productivity – a key driver in achieving many of these SDGs – is affected by carbon emissions, deforestation, renewable energy consumption, natural resources, and regional integration for the ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Using the Mean Group (MG) class estimators, able to tackle the cross-sectional dependence in the data, empirical findings reveal that environmental degradation (in the form of CO2 emissions) reduces agricultural productivity in the region. Both the forest area and natural resource variables negatively affect the productivity of the agricultural sector, while the use of renewable energy sources positively contributes to the agricultural sector. However, despite being one of the highest integrated regions in the world, regional integration among the ASEAN members does not boost their agricultural productivity. The causality tests confirm the existence of bidirectional causality between agricultural productivity and renewable energy consumption, and unidirectional causality across a few other variables. Accordingly, the study provides policy recommendations for the governments of ASEAN economies on improving the environmental performance of agriculture and achieving the SDGs by 2030.

The e-commerce sector has experienced significant growth in the past two decades, outpacing other economic sectors and contributing to sustainable consumption, increased labour productivity, competitiveness, consumer incomes, and GDP growth. This trend is expected to continue, making e-commerce a key driver of sustainable economic growth in Europe. This study aims to explore the relationship between a nation’s innovation level and its population’s inclination towards online shopping in various EU member states. It hypothesizes that higher innovation levels within a country lead to a greater tendency for online purchases. This study conducts a thorough analysis of the interplay between European economies’ innovation levels and the e-commerce market’s evolution. A composite innovation index was created using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodology, and panel data models were utilized to examine the dependencies, with data from Eurostat and the Global Innovation Index. The focus is on the period from 2019 to 2021, which was marked by unique market dynamics and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings confirm the significant role of innovation in driving e-commerce expansion within the context of sustainable consumption, supporting the main hypothesis. This research also highlights the pandemic’s positive effect on the e-commerce sector. The pandemic-induced changes in consumer behaviour, particularly due to social isolation and crises in certain economic sectors, have emphasized the importance of online shopping. Notably, the most active online shoppers are identified in the 25 to 54 age group, revealing a key demographic trend.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and the consumption of non-renewable energy have been on the increase in the coastal Mediterranean countries (CMCs) over the last few decades. Both trigger growth, but the environmental impact could be far-reaching as environmental distortions are mainly human-induced. This study examines the environmental issues facing CMCs. Specifically, we investigate whether the pollution haven hypothesis holds for CMCs. We employ a quantile panel data analysis for CMCs to account for heterogeneity and distributional effects of socioeconomic factors. The result reveals that the influence of FDI on environmental degradation is a function of the indicators utilized and also depends on the initial levels of environmental degradation. The results suggest that the pollution haven hypothesis does not hold for CMCs. However, we also find that energy consumption significantly increases environmental degradation for all indicators and across the observed quantiles. The effects of economic growth and urbanization on the environment were mixed for the different indicators and across quantiles. We recommend that it is pertinent for CMCs to limit their "dirty" energy sources and substitute them with renewables to promote environmental sustainability.

This paper conducts a systematic review of the research work in the field of sustainable investment for identifying research gaps and laying down research agenda for the future. Articles on sustainable investment published in journals indexed at the Web of Science during 1989 and 2018 (so far) are reviewed for the purpose of this research. A total of 225 papers were found through the search criteria, out of which 213 papers were selected for review. The paper identifies gaps in the literature that can be considered as opportunities for future study. The analysis of these articles led us to note the need for an agenda that can present a holistic framework of sustainable investment with lesser variations and increased acceptability. The research agenda proposed by the paper may help researchers in framing their research problems around the gaps identified. Sustainable investment is a potential solution to social and ecological issues by transforming the financial markets to have more accountability for their impacts. Therefore, it is important to carry out extensive research in this field so as to develop it as an applied field of investment. There has so far been no attempt to perform a systematic review in the field of sustainable investment for a period of 20 years, as has been made in this paper.