• Energy Research

Green innovation has become an important way for manufacturing enterprises to achieve sustainable development. Existing research on green innovation mostly focuses on conceptual content, and relevant empirical studies only involve individual indicators. Systematic measurement tools are still lacking. Therefore, drawing on the theoretical framework provided by the social-ecological system, a clear definition of the connotations of green innovation and an exploration of the dimensional structure and scale development of green innovation in enterprises are the core objectives of this study. Strictly adhering to the process of scale development, four core dimensions of green innovation in enterprises are identified, and a scale with 18 items was established. The results show the following: (1) The connotations of corporate green innovation should be expanded to include not only technology and product innovation but also internal institutional innovation and external environmental innovation. (2) Green innovation in enterprises should be measured in a rigorous manner, and such measurements should follow the logic from goals to behavior. (3) The scale of green innovation should be refined, and questions should be designed to characterize specific green innovation behavior indicators. In summary, this study lays a foundation for quantitative research on green innovation in enterprises and provides a useful reference for manufacturing enterprises to improve their level of green innovation.

The emergence of conflicts between environmental safety incidents and protection rights generates sizeable political costs, which endangers the legitimacy of the government as well as political security and stability. This article further examines the role of political costs in environmental issues. First, political costs in relation to environmental issues are defined. An equilibrium strategic analysis is then presented using an evolutionary game model in which the strategic behavioral choices of government, enterprises, and citizens are investigated by embedding political costs in the environmental governance system. Furthermore, the small‐signal model was innovatively applied to simulate and analyze the stability of political costs under different equilibrium strategies in the system. The results show the following. (1) Pubic behavior and government are the dominant factors that impact stability and instability, respectively. Public behavior is the core element that affects political cost consumption. (2) When political costs are extremely depleted, the public will neglect economic interests, turn toward environmental interests, and choose the negative participation strategy, which destabilizes the system. (3) The political cost signal at the optimal equilibrium point not only warns the government not to take the desperate action of concealing information asymmetry but also allows the government to let go of its hands to deal with the environmental issues. Corresponding policy recommendations are proposed.

Environmental efficiency evaluation is an effective way to assess the synergetic development degree between the economy and environment. In order to realize the mechanism of the effects of urban sprawl and industrial agglomeration on environmental efficiency by using the super efficiency Slacks-based Measure (SBM) model with undesirable outputs, this paper firstly calculates the environmental efficiency of the 13 cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration from 2006 to 2017. Then, based on the panel data of the 13 cities, we empirically examine the influence of urban sprawl and industrial agglomeration on environmental efficiency by adopting the panel Tobit regression model. The results show that large gaps exist in the degree of the cities’ environmental efficiency in the research period, and only Beijing’s environmental efficiency exhibits full efficiency in the 13 cities, with the overall environmental efficiency of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration presenting a decreasing trend. Additionally, the Tobit regression results indicate that urban sprawl has a significantly negative impact on environmental efficiency, but with the continual improvement of industrial agglomeration, the negative effects of urban sprawl will be partially offset. From the regression results of control variables, economic growth and urbanization developments have an inhibiting effect on the promotion of environmental efficiency. Furthermore, industrial structure optimization and technological innovation are helpful to improve environmental efficiency. The opening-up policy has had a significantly positive impact on environmental efficiency, and the “pollution paradise” hypothesis was untenable in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration.

Based on the carbon emission data in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration from 2007 to 2016, this paper used the method of social network analysis (SNA) to investigate the spatial correlation network structure of the carbon emission. Then, by constructing the synergetic abatement effect model, we calculated the synergetic abatement effect in the cities and we empirically examined the influence of the spatial network characteristics on the synergetic abatement effect. The results show that the network density first increased from 0.205 in 2007 to 0.263 in 2014 and then decreased to 0.205 in 2016; the network hierarchy fluctuated around 0.710, and the minimum value of the network efficiency was 0.561, which indicates that the network hierarchy structure is stern and the network has good stability. Beijing and Tianjin are in the center of the carbon emission spatial network and play important “intermediary” and “bridge” roles that can have better control over other carbon emission spatial spillover relations between the cities, thus the spatial network of carbon emissions presents a typical “center–periphery” structure. The synergetic abatement effect increased from −2.449 in 2007 to 0.800 in 2011 and then decreased to −1.653 in 2016; the average synergetic effect was −0.550. This means that the overall synergetic level has a lot of room to grow. The carbon emission spatial network has a significant influence on the synergetic abatement effect, while increasing the network density and the network hierarchy. Decreasing the network efficiency will significantly enhance the synergetic abatement effect.

Concerns about the environment and renewable energy are growing. Improving the perception of renewable energy in urban and rural households is required to promote green development and to learn about consumer preferences for renewable energy based on the gradual reduction in financial subsidies for photovoltaic (PV) power generation. This paper aims to estimate the willingness of consumers to pay for a Household PV system and explores the factors that affect consumers’ product selection, which is conducive to optimizing Household PV products and policies and is important for achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Using a discrete choice model, this paper surveyed 765 urban and rural residents without installing Household PV systems in Tianjin, China. Subsequently, the respondents’ attribute preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for a Household PV system were analyzed using a logit regression analysis model. The influence of respondents’ socio-economic characteristics on WTP was analyzed. The empirical results showed that (1) price significantly impacts consumers’ PV adoption behaviors and consumers tend to choose cheaper PV products; (2) consumers are more willing to pay for the after-sales service (3959 USD/level) and traceable information (2176 USD/level), indicating their preference for these two attributes when considering options; (3) socio-economic variables, including gender and the number of minor children (i.e., children under the age of 18) at home, significantly impact consumers’ PV adoption behaviors. Males and consumers without minor children at home will pay more attention when selecting the products. Our research findings will provide valuable insights into policy making and the wide-ranging use of Household PV systems.

Developing a low-carbon economy is the only way for countries to achieve sustainable development. Carbon emission reduction policies and low-carbon technology (LCT) innovation play key roles in developing low-carbon economy. Under government reward and punishment regulations, based on the bilateral matching and evolutionary theories, this paper constructs an evolution model consisting of a manufacturer investing LCT and a supplier offering LCT to analyze multi-phase LCT investment strategies. Firstly, the profit optimization model of a green supply chain is constructed from the perspectives of centralized-matching (CM), decentralized-matching (DM), and mismatching (MM), and the spatial information internal evolution law of multi-phase LCT investment is described by the Markov chain. Then, a bilateral matching algorithm is proposed to solve the equilibrium solutions, and the evolution process of the three modes is analyzed by numerical simulation. Finally, based on the product green degree, we analyze the impact of subsidies and taxes on investment-production decisions. Analytical results show that the matching mechanism proposed in this paper can help supply chain firms to obtain stable matching and has a significant effect on the realization of "triple wins" of society, economy, and environment. The investment utility of CM is higher than that of DM and MM. Manufacturers are inclined to adopt LCT, and the investment level tends to be stable over time. Government reward and punishment regulations are helpful to motivate supply chain firms to invest in LCT, and the synergistic effect of subsidies and taxes is better than that of a single policy.