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The increasing depletion of natural resources, combined with a wider set of pressures on the environment, has, in recent years, highlighted the need for a more efficient use of energy and a development process that involves alternative energy sources. Energy efficiency has received much attention as a solution, implying both monetary and emissions savings. However, the latter may be partially offset by the income and demand effects of the former, both in more efficient sectors and in spreading to the wider economy. This is the problem of rebound effects. Taking Spain as a case study, and introducing an energy-related CGE model that develops the inclusion of renewables, this paper evaluates a combination of efficiency initiatives to deliver both reduced energy use by households and a more sustainable supply of energy. Our findings suggest that a package aimed at improving efficiency in household electricity and petroleum use, combined with a more competitive supply of energy from renewable sources, may be the only way to get reductions in all energy use, and thus benefit the economy. Specifically, we consider how this package may lead to positive economic impacts and associated rebound effects, where the latter are focused on a greener energy supply.

This research studied the impacts of the environmental Kuznets curve and the determinants of economic growth for Visegrad countries from 1990 to 2018. This paper reflects on the effects of renewable and non-renewable energy, urban population, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions. According to our results, the panel of unit root tests showed that the variables under study are integrated into the first differences. Considering the empirical results for the environmental Kuznets curve, we observe that economic growth is positively correlated with pollution emissions; nevertheless, the squared income per capita is negatively impacted by carbon dioxide emissions. Energy consumption increases carbon emissions, and foreign direct investment confirms the pollution halo hypothesis. Therefore, the econometric results showed that renewable energy consumption promotes regional growth. Consequently, urban population and foreign direct investment positively correlate with economic growth.

Abstract The main aim of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of sustainable energy systems improves corporate financial performance. To this end, we obtained data from a sample of 574 multinational companies from 36 countries in the 2008–2013 period. On this data we implement a dynamic system panel data method. Our findings show that the adoption of sustainable energy systems allows firms to improve their short-term corporate financial performance while not leading them to reduce their corporate financial performance in the long term. Specifically, our results indicate that an increase in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources do not significantly affect corporate financial performance. Neither does the integration of energy efficiency systems and renewable energy sources have any significant influence on corporate financial performance, while the level of implementation of sustainable energy management systems has a significant effect on short-term, but not long-term, corporate financial performance. Furthermore, other control variables, such as research and development expenditure and year, are also relevant in explaining firms’ financial performance. The adoption of sustainable energy systems helps to improve corporate financial performance in the short-term but has no affect in the long-term. This might be because the monitoring of energy efficiency using key performance indicators allows firms to detect and correct failures in the production process and hence improve short-term financial performance. However, this measure does not generate competitive advantages for firms and therefore has no effect on long-term corporate financial performance. From a scientific perspective of energy, this paper contributes to the literature by providing a detailed explanation of how the adoption of sustainable energy systems proposed by Peura (2013) influences corporate financial performance on the basis of new empirical evidence. These explanations provide a strong rationale for improving the efficient use of energy and harvesting low hanging fruits in the short term from a managerial perspective. Policymakers should encourage firms to align sustainable energy systems with their core business strategy by developing green technologies that allow them to acquire rare and valuable capabilities and abilities, which generate competitive advantage, and therefore allow firms to increase their long-term corporate financial performance.

SummaryInequality has recently become a major concern in economics. Leaving aside its social and economic effects is also possible to trace its environmental consequences, which this article attempts to assess. The indicator to be measured is the household's carbon footprint (CF) for different social groups. The deep economic crisis in the Spanish economy between 2008 and 2013 has increased consumption inequality and doubled the number of households below the poverty line. When focusing on domestic consumption, we found that the shopping basket of all income groups has very similar emissions intensities; therefore, the differences among the household CFs depend mainly on the scale effect (i.e., the size of consumption). However, when international trade is also considered, we found that the emission intensity of imports is bigger than the intensity of all the respective domestic goods. Therefore, the share of imported goods and services by social class will be an important determinant of the respective total CF. Before the crisis, households with higher incomes imported 30% of their total consumption items whereas households with lower income imported only 20% of their consumption. During the crisis, the imports of medium‐high‐income households fell to 20%, whereas low‐ and middle‐income families maintained the same import share, which contributed to the reduction of the total household CF.

[EN] Scientific literature highlights the need to engage social sustainability more effectively in the construction industry through public procurement. Previous contributions have been focused on establishing strategies and defining guides to encourage and facilitate the inclusion of social criteria in public procurement. However, to reach effective results, the characterization of the current scenario needs to be clarified. With this aim, this research analyzes 451 tendering documents from 10 countries in terms of social sustainability. Three research questions are stated to characterize what the current main social criteria are, how these are defined, and what the differences and similarities are with respect to the inclusion of social criteria in tendering procedures at the international level. To analyze tendering documents, a quantitative content analysis that combines inductive and deductive approaches is developed. Descriptive statistics and statistical analysis based on correspondence analysis and the chi-square contingency table analysis are performed. The results show a lack of metrics to assess social sustainability objectively, the predominance of health and safety as the main social criteria that are included in public procurement, and the importance of the contract size in the number of social categories considered in procurement procedures. However, the main result of this research is focused on showing the important role that the variable "country" plays when the behavior regarding the inclusion of social sustainability is compared at the international level since significant differences are found between Anglo-Saxon and Spanish-speaking countries. Policies should be implemented to promote the use of social criteria and metrics in the award of projects and in the evaluation and monitoring of social performance in the construction industry. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, along with FEDER funding (Project: BIA2017-85098-R).

The war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia, which is one of the largest exporters of gas and oil, are currently causing a serious energy crisis. The aim of our work is to analyze the effects that the rise in fossil fuel prices, due to the embargo on Russian gas and oil resulting from the war in Ukraine, is having on the productive sectors of European economies. We apply input-output methodology, which allows to determine and analyze the impacts experienced both in production and prices, when there is a change in an exogenous variable. The results show that not all countries and sector were affected in the same way. In fact, there are significant differences that should be considered. European countries should keep inflation under control, without social welfare losses.

Abstract Herein a novel path is analysed for its economic viability to synergize the production of biomethane and dimethyl ether from biogas. We conduct a profitability analysis based on the discounted cash flow method. The results revealed an unprofitable process with high cost/revenues ratios. Profitable scenarios would be reached by setting prohibitive DME prices (1983–5566 €/t) or very high feed-in tariffs subsidies (95.22 €/MWh in the best case scenario). From the cost reduction side, the analysis revealed the need of reducing investment costs. For this purpose, we propose a percentage of investment as incentive scheme. Although the size increase benefits cost/revenues ratio, only the 1000 m3/h biogas plant size will reach profitability if 90% of the investment is subsidized. A sensitivity analysis to check the influence of some important economical parameters is also included. Overall this study evidences the big challenge that our society faces in the way towards a circular economy.

After almost a decade of crisis, the housing market in Spain shows significant signs of recovery, with increases in both the average price and the number of sales transactions. Housing is the main asset for the majority of households, and it also has the most resources devoted to it, thus, when it comes to buying a residence, people do not only look at the asset’s intrinsic characteristics, but also consider other particularities such as the neighbourhood, accessibility to services, availability of public transport or adequate funding. The study aimed to analyse and quantify the relationship that exists between the asking price of second-hand housing on the market in Alicante and the attributes that characterise them. This was done using a multivariate analysis to estimate a hedonic pricing model by ordinary least squares and a quantile regression to analyse the impact of the characteristics in different price ranges. The results show the segmentation of the prices in the Alicante market, with higher prices in the northern coastal area over the southern and inland comarcas.