• Energy Research

Over the last two decades, the phenomenon of green growth has gained much attention from academics and policymakers striving to find a sustainable solution to environmental problems worldwide. Technological innovation serves as a tool to abate the acute environmental crisis and continuously promote sustainable development by converting traditional economies into green economies. Pakistan is among the developing countries relying on conventional technology and energy resources to meet population and economy demands, which has led to a surge in greenhouse gases and other hazardous air pollutants. The literature exploring green growth in the Pakistani context is scant; the present study will therefore fill this gap and explore the dynamic linkage between technological innovation and ISO 14001 with green growth in Pakistan in the presence of environmental challenges such as energy consumption and population growth. A novel grey relational analysis model approach is employed to examine the interrelationship between the study parameters. Results indicate that technological innovation is significantly correlated with green growth, and ISO 14001 also shows a substantial relationship with green growth. However, among the environmental challenges, energy consumption poses a barrier to green growth development as the country's energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels as compared to renewables. The research findings produce a much-needed policy suggestion to address the environmental challenges by promoting green growth development in Pakistan.

This study aims to develop a framework that enables green marketing practices to regulate the performance evaluation criteria (GFBPC) of consumers and green furniture brands in the Marketing 4.0 period and to prioritize green furniture brands. The first stage was the literature review and decision-making group; it included GFBPC and the selection of three green furniture brands with the highest market value in Turkey. We then applied AHP to determine and prioritize benchmark weights, and TOPSIS to rank the performances of selected brands by GFBPC. We performed SA to test the accuracy of the findings. The results revealed that the Co-creation of Value and Pricing criteria have the highest value, and “Brand Y” is the best. Among the evaluation contributions of the study are a new understanding of green furniture performance criteria, and an integrated framework for new application methods for green marketing. With the Marketing 4.0 period, it is among the first of its kind to offer sustainable solutions to evaluate green marketing practices and increase the performance of green furniture brands in this regard. The results can help furniture industry stakeholders understand ways to compete in the green market and sustainable development.

During the last decade, energy demand has increased manifold in India. To cope up with the rising energy demand, the Indian government has announced the National Solar Mission to generate 100 GW solar power by 2022. Large-scale solar power developers have been allotted around 60% of the National Solar Mission target. Therefore, it becomes pivotal to find the ground reality of solar power developers. To fulfill this objective, we selected the solar sources of the country and adopted a hybrid research methodology. The solar irradiation data were collected for one year in the four big cities of India, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore during 2019 to evaluate the efficiency of photovoltaics (PVs). MATLAB and RETScreen were employed for data analysis and evaluating the efficiency of photovoltaics. We take this a step further by performing the Life Cycle Assessment analysis to scrutinize the different features of solar energy, including fuel consumption, price, average lifetime, maintenance and operation expenses, land requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions. The results reveal that all these cities have an enormous solar power potential, as they are located in an area where solar irradiations are consistently available all over the year (except for monsoon season). Moreover, solar energy is more durable, cost-saving, and easy to maintain. Furthermore, we identified the significant barriers over the whole solar energy spectrum by conducting semi-structured interviews with industry experts. These barriers are broadly classified into technological, policy, regulatory, financial, transparency, accountability, infrastructural, and trade policy categories. Finally, essential policy recommendations have been suggested for all stakeholders in order to fulfill the country's energy demand on its way to a future of sustainable development.

Abstract This work analyzed the dynamic interactive causal links among urban agglomeration, economic performance, carbon emissions, and health expenditures across developmental disparities in China. To this end, this work developed a health expenditures-augmented growth model to introduce health expenditures and carbon emissions as a shift factor of total factor productivity. A block of simultaneous equations is developed based on the health expenditures-augmented growth modeling framework. The System-variant/Difference-variant Generalized Method of Moments is employed to estimate the block of simultaneous equations in order to deal with the potential endogeneity of the variables used. Based on empirical results, the core findings are as follows: first, a Pendroni cointegration-based long-run stable association is verified. Second, the urban agglomeration exhibited a bidirectional positive causal linkage with the gross domestic product (GDP) growth and health expenditures growth. Third, the health expenditures growth demonstrated a bidirectional positive causal linkage with carbon emissions growth and GDP growth. Fourth, a unidirectional mixed causal linkage—positive (negative) for linear form (squared form) of urban agglomeration—existed from urban agglomeration to carbon emissions growth. Fifth, there is a negative causal linkage operating from carbon emissions growth to GDP growth. However, there is mixed causal linkage—positive for a linear form of GDP growth, and negative for the squared form of GDP—operating from GDP growth to carbon emissions growth. These findings exhibited consistency in the type of causal linkages across the developmental disparities and hence showed robustness. Nevertheless, the findings showed disparities in the degree of impact across the developmental disparities. In this regard, the strength of causal linkage is the largest (moderate/lowest) for highly (moderately/least) developed regions of China. Based on empirical results, inferences are extracted and discussed.

Abstract Pakistan has an enormous amount of renewable and sustainable energy sources. However, it is unfortunate that the country remains unsuccessful in using these sources to deliver increasing electricity demand. Studies attribute various barriers to this failure. However, little is known about the degree to which these barriers impede renewable energy (RE) in Pakistan. Therefore, the current study presents a systematic framework to prioritize barriers according to their importance. The study is divided into three phases. Firstly, barriers were identified using literature survey. Secondly, the Modified Delphi method was used to finalize and categorize barriers in the Pakistani context. Twenty-one barriers were finalized, which were then categorized under five main barriers, including, political and regulatory, market competitiveness, institutional, technical, and social. Finally, Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP) was employed to calculate weights and rankings of barriers and sub-barriers. The results revealed that political and regulatory barrier category ranks highest among major categories, whereas, overall ranking of barriers showed that political instability sub-barrier is more important than the rest of twenty sub-barriers within different categories.

The adaptability of ISO 14001 is considered as one of the most useful tools for environmental sustainability and worldwide competitive advantage; however, the future of ISO 14001 certification faces some uncertainties because of its uneven acceptance in various countries. These uncertainties, if not properly managed, can hinder the implementation of business management systems in these countries. In order to guide policymakers in better management of ISO 14001 in future with certainty, this study aims to forecast the ISO 14001 certifications for 10 years for China, India, the USA, Italy, Japan, and Germany, the top six certified countries, through advanced mathematical modeling, namely grey models, even GM (1,1), discrete GM (1,1), and non-homogenous discrete grey model (NDGM). The benefits of mentioned models are ensured accuracy in assessment using small samples and poor information. Moreover, current research is a pioneer in the certifications growth analysis using the Synthetic Relative Growth Rate and Synthetic Doubling Time models. Finally, the empirical analysis indicated that China is constantly leading in terms of its ISO 14001 certifications till 2026 and the performance of developing countries was spectacular. Furthermore, the article has proposed some suggestions for the policymakers to make the environment more sustainable.

Sustainability’s growth, year after year, continues to be staggering, becoming a reference point for those working on these issues [...]

Green technologies play an essential role in designing and developing sustainable and environmental strategies at a country level. With a growing emphasis on green technology strategies in strategic decision making, there is an opportunity for developing and implementing strategies to accelerate green technologies in developing economies. Therefore, this study develops an integrated strategic framework based on Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) for effective green technology planning. The SWOT approach scans internal and external factors and sub-factors essential for green technology planning in Pakistan. Subsequently, the Grey Analytical Hierarchical Process (GAHP) method is employed to compute weights of twenty-one subfactors. Finally, Grey Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (GTOPSIS) is used to prioritize eighteen strategies developed for sustainable green technology planning. Results reveal that high productivity potential in the agriculture sector, less foreign investment due to terrorism and security issues, decreasing the cost of green technologies, and the opportunity to build a positive image are key sub-factors for strategic green technology planning. In contrast, improving the security situation in the country to attract foreign direct investment, fewer taxes and duties on import of green technology and lenient rules for local business in transition, and plans and programs to promote green technology in the agriculture sector are observed as optimal strategies. This study is the first to propose a systematic, integrated framework for sustainable green technology planning in Pakistan. Our study fills a gap in the strategic planning and implementation process and provides pathways for policymakers in addressing impediments when implementing green technology planning.

Corporate sustainability is considered a fundamental paradigm and solution in creating a prosperous future for organizations. However, social sustainability issues and pandemic problems from COVID-19 have affected corporations and interrupted plans for sustainable development. To date, corporate sustainability frameworks have taken a relatively narrow view of this paradigm. This study highlights serious challenges to corporate sustainability while providing a framework in an attempt to enable more sustainable business practices. To fill the gap in the literature, we have developed a framework to organize and prioritize important sustainability indicators. The first phase of the study involves the classification of 45 sub-criteria of corporate sustainability under nine main categories by using a literature review and novel Fuzzy Delphi method. The resulting categories are Corporate Governance, Product Responsibility, Transparency and Communication, Economic, Environmental, Social, Natural Environment and Climate Vulnerability, Energy Consumption along with Energy Saving, and includes Pandemic COVID-19 as a new aspect of social sustainability. Next, we applied the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process (FAHP) to help determine the weights and prioritizing the criteria and sub-criteria. The results revealed that the Pandemic, along with the Natural Environment and Climate Vulnerability, ranked higher among the main criteria category. Whereas, emergency response planning, social distances, modification of working hours, and just-in-time delivery are the most influencing sub-attributes among the 45 sub-barriers of different categories. Contributions of this study include new insights regarding corporate sustainability criteria and subcriteria, application of novel methods, and integrated framework for dimensions of corporate sustainability. This study is among the first of its kind to consider the COVID-19 pandemic as an essential category and social sustainability attribute of corporate sustainable business practices. Outcomes of this study can help assist scholars, corporations, and decision-makers in understanding sustainable development initiatives while simultaneously improving social sustainability practices.