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The article is devoted to the study of theoretical principles and practical aspects of managing relationships with stakeholders of municipal heating companies. The subject of the study is a set of theoretical, methodological and practical aspects for ensuring balanced management of relations with the stakeholders of municipal heating companies. The purpose of the article is to develop theoretical and methodological provisions and substantiate practical recommendations for ensuring a balanced management of these relationships. Tasks of work: to research and systematize the conceptual apparatus of ensuring the management of relations with the stakeholders of municipal heat companies; to justify the organizational principles of managing these relationships; to offer analytical and applied support for managing them on a balanced scorecard. During the research were used methods: abstract-logical analysis, theoretical generalization, systemic and statistical analysis, systemic and statistical analysis, economic-mathematical methods, graphical method. The paper generalizes the economic characteristics of the activity of district heating utilities and develops the directions of development of relations with stakeholders in the process of reforming the housing and municipal services of Ukraine on the basis of the analysis of the efficiency of the municipal heating companies in developed countries of Europe. Strategic directions for the development of district heating utilities by providing balanced stakeholder relationship management are substantiated. Conclusions. It is proposed to use a balanced scorecard, which allows, based on the evaluation of financial and non-financial indicators of enterprise performance, to identify trends of change of each of four key areas of activity to achieve the goal of MHC in meeting the public needs of consumers, profit for the development of the enterprise, ensure the interests of its employees and their satisfaction economic and social needs based on stakeholder reconciliation.

A circular economy emerged as an alternative transition model, which is considered to be a solution to massive environmental degradation. The transition from a linear economy to a circular economy requires companies to be actively involved in more sustainable practices. For such a transition, companies must rethink, innovate on business models, and encourage sustainability-oriented innovation to deliver customer value, while simultaneously considering environmental and social aspects. On the other hand, the role of the circular economy in energy conservation and infrastructure has not been mapped out in the current literature. This systematic literature review seeks to map out the main interrelated topics of the circular economy and sustainability-oriented innovation, describing internal and external factors that need to be considered in the transition to a clean energy future. Key lines of research are identified, and suggestions for future research and for how to facilitate the movement towards a circular economy are provided. This study contributes to an enhancement of the literature by identifying priority areas regarding the circular economy and sustainability-oriented innovation to encourage future research that contributes to sustainability and environmental preservation.

Organizations in general, and higher education institutions in particular, had to face many challenges during the pandemic in order to carry out their usual activities. Since communications and interactions between universities and students were required to take place online, the messages sent by universities on their social media platforms held greater importance. In this regard, the purpose of the paper was to identify the promotion strategies used by European universities on Facebook and Instagram in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we were interested in identifying differences and similarities in the types of messages European universities sent on the two social networks, regarding the way they communicated about sustainability. The method used in order to conduct the research was content analysis, while having as an instrument a content analysis grid. We analyzed the activity of 20 European universities included in the World University Rankings 2021. The results of the research revealed that universities communicated more on Facebook than on Instagram, that the most frequent messages regarding sustainability were the ones about the actions carried out by universities in order to protect the environment, and that they registered a higher engagement rate on Instagram than on Facebook.

The purpose of the study was to assess the efficiency and accessibility of microcredits for small Ukrainian enterprises and to justify the feasibility of strengthening government contributions in lending to ensure the sustainable development of small businesses. Indicators for evaluating the efficiency and accessibility of microcredits are systematized. Methodological approaches to assessing the efficiency of lending for the creation and development of microenterprises have been improved. A model for evaluating the efficiency of microcredits aimed at the survival of microenterprises in a deteriorating environment was developed. It has been revealed that the level of efficiency of microcredit creation for firms in some time intervals depends quadratically on the share of microcredits in the total amount of funds directed to the creation of firms. A linear relationship between the relative amount of credit received and the growth rate of firms’ assets has also been established. However, there is no significant impact of the microcredit’s amount on labor productivity. A method has been developed for evaluating the budgetary efficiency of microcredits when such a lending is carried out using funds from state or local budgets. It was found that improving these lending conditions through budget financing can significantly increase its attractiveness for microenterprises without significantly reducing the budgetary efficiency of microcredits. This article substantiates the need to strengthen state support for microcrediting of small Ukrainian enterprises in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article examines the problem of increasing air pollution from moving vehicles in Ukraine relying on the European experience of dealing with the problem. The System Dynamic method is used to build a feebate model to decrease the air pollution in Ukraine on the basis of P’HAPI framework. To lessen CO2 emissions, the authors introduce a feebate program that is the alternative to environmental taxes and fiscal ways to stimulate purchases of electric cars in Ukraine. The model suggests that fees for diesel, gasoline, or hybrid car are paid annually, whereas the rebate is paid once at the purchase time of a new pure electric vehicle. The feebate fund uses initial investment from government to launch its work; fees and interest earned are used to pay the rebates. The conducted analysis and the realization of System Dynamics model allowed to develop an effective programme that lasts 6 years from 2018 till 2024, increases the market share of electric cars, reduces the share of diesel and gasoline cars and results in significant decrease of the level of CO2 emissions and air pollution. Several important obstacles on the way to implement the policy are mentioned in the article, namely legislative, administrative, social, informational, and infrastructural. The results of this research can be used when making management decisions by state regulators. The feebate policy turned out to be promising as it offers an alternative to taxation and a perspective way to promote better environmental regulation in transportation.

Environmental tax in general is one of the state's instruments in environmental protection and financing of the environmental protection measures. The purpose of the tax is to encourage business entities to reduce emissions / discharges of pollutants into the air / water bodies, to establish direct dependence of the amount of tax deductions on the degree of negative impact on the environment, mobilization of funds to budgets of different levels in order to finance the costs of protection and rational use of natural resources. This article examines and compares with Ukraine and EU countries the experience, rates and background policies of the carbon taxation. The carbon tax as an environmental tax with a significant effect on economic and legal incentives for business entities and state authorities to fulfill the policy of energy efficiency, energy saving and energy transition to renewable energy sources what is coincided with the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and achievement of National Determined Contributions according to the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol. The main issue is that rate of carbon tax, used nowadays in Ukraine is not being sufficient to provide the energy transition of country economy to the less consuming model according the examples from Germany, Netherlands, Finland and other countries of Europe. Interconnected linkage between carbon tax, energy and climate policy is proven in the article along with mechanisms of economic, political and environmental peculiarities and benefits of the carbon taxation regulation improvement in national legislation

Knowledge about a wide variety of aspects is fundamental for the safe management and disposal of radioactive waste. This importance of Knowledge Management (KM) is also recognised by EURAD, the European Joint Programme on Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), which brings together over 100 organisations from different countries and backgrounds (Waste Management Organisations, Technical Support Organisations, and Research Entities). This vast resource of expertise and experience feeds into several dedicated EURAD KM programme activities. One of these activities, led by Work Package 11 State-of-Knowledge (WP11 SoK), is capturing experts’ views on the current State-of-Knowledge on topics relevant to RWM and making this knowledge accessible through dedicated documents. For this, EURAD has developed the “Goals Breakdown Structure” (GBS), which provides a framework in which topics are structured thematically, as well as a hierarchy of documents that allows accessing knowledge on different levels of detail (seeEURAD Roadmap). To make this knowledge available, EURAD is currently developing a Wiki (i.e., a web-based resource that allows access to knowledge and collaborative interactions) and is drafting a sustainable Knowledge Management System and other supportive KM-IT tools while already feeding the tools with content. This article gives an insight into the general EURAD KM concept, the approaches used, and the results obtained until EURAD’s mid-term, after 2.5 years.

Innovation is the engine and accelerator that drives high-quality economic and enterprise development. In recent years, the output of scientific and technological innovation in China has been high, but the phenomenon of low efficiency and low quality of innovation occurs frequently. In this study, first, technological innovation efficiency (TIE) was measured. Then, a dynamic evaluation and analysis of spatial-temporal characteristics of efficiency were performed. Lastly, the driving factors of innovation efficiency were explored. TIE was calculated dynamically in 30 provinces of China from 2011 to 2019 based on the improved super-efficiency SBM-DEA model. Then, the kernel density estimation method was adopted to analyse the spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics and dynamic evolution process of provincial efficiency. The findings confirm that from 2011 to 2019, the top five provinces for TIE in China were Beijing (1.0), Shanghai (0.96), Hainan (0.96), Jilin (0.94) and Tianjin (0.91). The provinces with lowest average efficiency were Qinghai (0.77), Ningxia (0.73) and Inner Mongolia (0.73). The significant differences in the level of technological innovation in different regions were caused by the long-term and in-depth implementation of the government’s strategy of revitalising science and driving innovation in parts of areas. The findings of kernel function confirm that the TIE in most parts of China was gradually polarised. Furthermore, the results show that for every 1 unit of government R&D funding support, the average marginal utility of the expected TIE will reach 0.192, which is more significant in the central and western regions. On this basis, combined with environmental factors of innovation market, infrastructure, financing and enterprise innovation potential, the article also extracts the driving factors that affect the differences in provincial efficiency. The findings provide a reference for guiding provinces to carry out innovation activities independently and improve innovation quality and efficiency.