ABSTRACT This paper systematically reviews the use of climate change risk management in agricultural SMEs, tracing the concept's evolution and synthesizing determinants of acceptance, implementation strategies, and barriers. Using PRISMA, literature from the past 15 years yields 176 empirical and 24 review studies in agricultural economics. Findings indicate that acceptance is shaped by socio‐demographic, farm, and natural factors; beliefs, perceived impact, perceived control, and financial conditions. Implementation strategies cluster into tiered levels: comprehensive risk management, agricultural system, environment, collaboration, crop and technology choices, water–soil management, and risk finance. Actual adaptation is frequently constrained by internal/external, psychological, cultural, and managerial barriers. Across studies, protection motivation theory and the theory of planned behavior dominate the theoretical base. The review culminates in an integrated, actionable framework for researchers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs and outlines priority avenues for further research.
ABSTRACT The transition toward Sustainable Development increasingly depends on the ability of circular economy systems to prolong product lifecycles and reduce premature waste generation. However, the success of such systems relies not only on whether consumers adopt circular products, but also on whether they become willing to publicly endorse them after use. Despite satisfactory functional performance, many circular products fail to generate positive advocacy, thereby constraining their broader societal acceptance and limiting the scalability of circular consumption systems. Addressing this issue, the present study examines how circular consumption experience (CCX) influences positive word‐of‐mouth (WOM) through post‐purchase dissonance (PPD) and how this process is conditioned by prior ownership of a brand‐new smartphone. Drawing on the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) framework and cognitive dissonance theory, the study conceptualizes CCX as a post‐adoption stimulus, PPD as an internal evaluative mechanism, and positive WOM as a post‐consumption advocacy response. A three‐wave time‐lagged survey was conducted with 304 refurbished smartphone users in Pakistan, capturing circular consumption as a discretionary rather than necessity‐driven behavior. The findings reveal that favorable CCX significantly reduces PPD, which subsequently increases positive WOM. However, prior ownership weakens the reassuring effect of favorable use and intensifies the constraining role of residual doubt on advocacy. By shifting attention from pre‐purchase motives toward post‐adoption interpretation, the study advances circular consumption research by identifying PPD as a key psychological mechanism shaping public advocacy for circular products and their broader societal legitimacy within sustainability transitions.
ABSTRACT The integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria into sustainable development exposes critical limitations in traditional cost modelling for Asset Lifecycle Management. Through a systematic review of 64 studies (2016–2025), this research identifies gaps including the compartmentalisation of ESG factors, methodological fragmentation, and validation asymmetries. To bridge these gaps, we develop a novel conceptual framework integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) across descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive tiers. This framework employs Natural Language Processing to structure unstructured ESG data and Explainable AI (XAI) to monetise dynamic risks. Grounded in the Resource‐Based View, the model embeds Human‐AI Synergy and Institutional Governance Mechanisms, offering a structured basis for transparent and adaptive ESG‐cost integration, advancing the practice of cost engineering and sustainable project delivery.
ABSTRACT Climate change is a global risk reshaping tourism through destination attractiveness, service continuity, and travel risk perception. Yet tourism research has largely focused on traditional determinants such as income, price competition, and global integration, while multidimensional evidence on climate impacts remains limited. This study examines the link between climate change and tourism inbound expenditure in 12 leading tourism economies over 2004–2019. Climate change is measured using a PCA‐based index combining per capita CO 2 emissions with temperature and precipitation volatility. This approach captures both average climate conditions and fluctuations in the climate regime. MMQR is employed to account for heterogeneous effects, with economic size, exchange rate, and globalization included as controls. Results show that increases in the climate change index significantly reduce tourism inbound expenditure. Robustness is confirmed by PCSE and FGLS estimators, while causal linkages are assessed using the HPJ test. By showing that multidimensional climate pressure constrains the expenditure performance of major tourism economies, the study extends the application of destination resilience theory to a macroeconomic setting. It also highlights the need to integrate climate adaptation, resilient infrastructure, and ecosystem protection into sustainable tourism planning.
ABSTRACT Community resilience research remains fragmented across disciplines, with limited integration of empirical evidence and conceptual scholarship. This study addresses this gap through a directed content analysis of 48 empirical case studies and 39 conceptual and review publications from diverse geographical and hazard contexts. A total of 126 resilience determinants were identified and synthesized into 65 second‐level and 25 third‐level determinants organized across family, community, and institutional scales. The findings show that although resilience is highly context‐dependent, many determinants recur consistently across different settings, supporting the concept of general resilience. Social capital emerged as the most consistently reported determinant across both research traditions. The analysis also revealed systematic differences between conceptual and empirical literature, with conceptual studies emphasizing governance, planning, and institutional capacities, whereas empirical studies more frequently documented resilience emerging through locally embedded social relationships and community capacities. The study provides a comprehensive synthesis of community resilience determinants and highlights priorities for future resilience research.
ABSTRACT Innovation is widely recognized as a critical mechanism for achieving sustainable and inclusive development, yet evidence on how national innovation systems contribute to development outcomes across countries at different income levels remains fragmented. This study examines how institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, business sophistication, and market sophistication jointly shape national innovation outcomes that underpin sustainable development, and whether these relationships vary by income level. Drawing from the national innovation system theory and using data from 132 economies based on the Global Innovation Index 2022, the study combines regression‐based moderation analysis with fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The results indicate that all five dimensions positively influence innovation outcomes when examined independently; however, the direct effect of institutions weakens once other structural and business‐related factors are considered jointly. Income level significantly moderates the effects of institutions and infrastructure, with stronger development‐oriented innovation returns in high‐income countries, while human capital and research, business sophistication, and market sophistication exhibit robust effects across income groups. The fsQCA findings reveal pronounced causal asymmetries: although no single factor is necessary for achieving high innovation outcomes, the absence of infrastructure constitutes a necessary condition for weak innovation performance in non‐high‐income countries. All in all, the study highlights the importance of coordinated, business‐embedded innovation systems as a foundation for sustainable and inclusive development, offering policy‐relevant insights aligned with sustainable development objectives.
ABSTRACT This study re‐examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR), environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators, and short‐run financial performance under heterogeneous institutional and uncertainty conditions. The analysis uses a balanced country–sector–year panel covering six countries and six sectors over 2015–2024 (360 observations), with 2025 retained as an extension. The empirical strategy distinguishes pooled CSR–ESG alignment from within‐panel co‐movement using fixed‐effects models, first‐difference models, observed‐only tests, and structural‐break analyses. CSR and ESG are positively associated in pooled comparisons, and this relationship becomes small and statistically insignificant once persistent country–sector heterogeneity and common year shocks are controlled. CSR, ESG, and their interaction do not exhibit a robust average association with return on equity (ROE) under the preferred specification. Regulatory Quality is positively associated with ROE, although neither institutional quality nor economic uncertainty significantly moderates the alignment–ROE association. The post‐2020 analysis reveals concentration in the ESG–ROE relationship, whereas no comparable shift is observed for CSR or the CSR–ESG interaction. The findings therefore support cross‐sectional alignment rather than stable within‐panel co‐movement or long‐run equilibrium and show that alignment does not automatically generate an immediate financial premium. Its value may instead arise through resilience, risk governance, stakeholder trust, and longer‐term organizational capacity that annual ROE does not fully capture. The study offers a practical diagnostic framework: policymakers and regulators can identify sector‐specific gaps in disclosure, verification, and implementation; firms can prioritize operational or measurement improvements; and investors, lenders, rating agencies, and data providers can strengthen due diligence and comparability.
ABSTRACT To attain SDGs 6, 13 and 15, there is a need for green financing and efficient financial infrastructure. While the use of green bonds has grown significantly across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), environmental problems, such as CO 2 emissions, water stress and deforestation, have remained constant. The statistical evidence is based on: (i) a panel of 23 OECD economies and (ii) both System‐Generalised Method of Moments (System‐GMM) and Instrumental Variable Quantile regressions (IVQR). The findings indicate that green bond financing does not lead to environmental improvements in OECD countries. In some specifications, green bonds are associated with higher environmental pressures, particularly when market and project‐screening mechanisms are weak. However, the System‐GMM interaction results suggest that greater market sophistication can improve the environmental effectiveness of green bonds in relation to CO 2 emissions and deforestation. The IVQR results reveal more uneven distributional patterns: green bonds increase water stress at intermediate quantiles, market sophistication independently reduces water stress at moderate levels of environmental pressure and the interaction between green bonds and market sophistication is generally insignificant across the conditional distributions. This research contributes to the sustainable development literature by linking green finance to SDGs 6, 13 and 15 through an assessment of CO 2 emissions, water stress and deforestation, while showing that the environmental consequences of green finance depend on market conditions and the type of environmental pressure considered.
ABSTRACT China's low‐carbon transition depends not only on policy adoption, but also on how distinct instruments govern industrial behavior. Using panel data for 30 provinces from 2004 to 2023, this study examines whether the formal provincial adoption of circular economy, energy conservation, and comprehensive resource utilization policies is associated with lower CO 2 emissions. The analysis combines two‐way fixed effects with FMOLS, DOLS, and KRLS robustness checks. It also distinguishes the policy logics embedded in the Circular Economy Promotion Law, the Energy Conservation Law, and resource‐utilization regulations. Results show that formal adoption of all three policy domains is associated with lower emissions, with circular economy policy showing the strongest association. Its broader impact stems from material‐flow restructuring, industrial symbiosis, and waste reduction. The policy indicators capture institutional entry rather than implementation intensity. Energy conservation works mainly through standards and compliance pressure, while resource utilization operates through recovery incentives and input substitution. The findings show that SDG 7, SDG 12, and SDG 13 require coordinated and region‐sensitive policy design.
ABSTRACT Assessing changes in the environmental and economic performance of the municipal solid waste (MSW) sector is essential toward sustainable waste management. This study analyzed four key performance indexes within the MSW sector: efficiency, eco‐efficiency, productivity change and eco‐productivity change, using the semi non‐parametric envelopment of data (StoNED) method. This approach overcomes the limitations of both parametric and non‐parametric techniques. The analysis, covering 98 Chilean municipalities from 2015 to 2019, revealed that eco‐efficiency scores were consistently lower than efficiency scores, a pattern consistent with municipalities achieving greater relative performance in cost containment than in recycling outcomes. The efficiency scores surpassed eco‐efficiency scores across all municipalities, with average values of 0.616 and 0.508, respectively. The dynamic assessment confirms this finding, showing an average productivity change of 0.92%, indicating an improvement in the economic performance of municipalities in managing MSW. By contrast, the average eco‐productivity change was −1.40%, involving a decline in the combined economic and environmental performance over years. The decomposition of both productivity and eco‐productivity indices into their drivers illustrates that the positive productivity trend was driven by efficiency gains, while the negative eco‐productivity trend was due to a slowdown in technical change.
ABSTRACT Drawing on the sustainable livelihoods framework, our study investigates the influence of agri‐fintech adoption, geo‐environmental conditions, governance/value chain mechanisms, and emotional intelligence on sustainable crop productivity among 650 rural Indian farmers. Results indicate that agri‐fintech adoption is the strongest predictor of perceived crop productivity outcomes, followed by geo‐environmental conditions, governance and value chain mechanisms, and emotional intelligence, each significantly. Agri‐fintech positively moderates the governance‐crop productivity link. The model accounts for 49.6% of the variance, highlighting fintech's pivotal role in rural empowerment amid climate vulnerabilities. Theoretically, it extends TAM and vulnerability theory by uncovering interdependencies and potential trade‐offs in digital agriculture. In practice, the findings advocate for integrated policies that combine fintech with institutional support and adaptive training to enhance sustainability, food security, and alignment with the SDGs in emerging economies.
ABSTRACT The idea of “decarbonized oil” has become increasingly visible in climate, energy, and corporate transition debates as oil and gas actors seek to reconcile continued fossil fuel production with net‐zero commitments. This article offers a critical narrative review of the concept, asking what political work the idea of decarbonized oil performs in the climate crisis. Drawing on 52 sources selected from an initial screening of 2518 papers and documents, the review examines climate‐limit literature, oil and gas emissions‐reduction pathways, corporate and institutional transition materials, and critical social science scholarship. It argues that while technologies such as methane abatement, flaring reduction, electrification, refinery efficiency, carbon capture and storage, blue hydrogen, and offsets may reduce selected operational emissions, they do not decarbonize oil across its full lifecycle. The review shows that low‐carbon oil claims often shift attention from end‐use combustion, absolute emissions, and fossil fuel phase‐down toward emissions intensity, technological fixes, and corporate legitimacy. The article concludes that decarbonized oil is better understood as a contested political narrative than a settled climate solution.
ABSTRACT Achieving sustainable development in structurally constrained economies remains a major challenge in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), where energy insecurity, limited digital infrastructure, and weak institutional capacity intersect. This study examines how energy access, digital transformation, and institutional quality jointly influence the core dimensions of sustainable development using a systems perspective that emphasizes their interdependent and conditional relationships. Drawing on panel data for LLDCs from 2000 to 2023, the analysis employs the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (DCCE‐MG) estimator to address cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity. The findings reveal a sustainability trade‐off in the baseline model: energy access, digital transformation, and institutional quality are each positively associated with economic growth and social well‐being but are associated with higher carbon emissions. However, incorporating interaction terms is associated with a substantial reduction in this trade‐off. Digital transformation is associated with stronger economic outcomes when supported by reliable energy infrastructure. Likewise, the positive association between energy access and development outcomes is stronger under higher institutional quality, while institutional quality is similarly associated with stronger relationships between energy and digital systems and the core dimensions of sustainable development. These findings suggest that sustainable development in LLDCs is conditional on the alignment of key structural components, with stronger outcomes being associated with complementarities among energy access, digital transformation, and institutional quality. The study advances a systems‐based framework and provides policy insights emphasizing coordinated investments across energy, digital, and institutional domains for balanced development.
ABSTRACT In today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) business environment, organizations face mounting pressure to develop agile and resilient supply chains capable of withstanding increasingly frequent disruptions. At the same time, sustainability has evolved into a strategic necessity, requiring firms to balance competitiveness with economic, social, and environmental responsibility. Against this backdrop, Generative‐Artificial Intelligence (GAI) has emerged as a transformative digital capability with the potential to drive innovation, strengthen integration, enhance resilience, and support sustainable value creation. Despite growing interest, empirical evidence examining the multi‐dimensional effects of GAI within emerging economy supply chains remains limited. Responding to this gap, this study investigates how GAI‐enabled digital innovation shapes supply chain integration and resilience in Malaysian manufacturing firms. The analysis is grounded in the resource‐based view, positioning GAI as a valuable, rare, and hard‐to‐imitate resource that facilitates the development of integrated digital capabilities. Complementing this, dynamic capabilities theory frames GAI as an enabler that allows firms to sense, seize, and reconfigure operational processes in response to disruptions, thereby enhancing resilience and long‐term sustainability. Data was collected through structured surveys and analyzed using Partial‐Least Squares Structural‐Equation‐Modeling (PLS‐SEM). The findings reveal both direct and mediated pathways through which GAI contributes to sustainable business value. Specifically, GAI advances digital innovation, which subsequently strengthens integration and resilience capabilities centrally to navigating disruptions and achieving sustainable outcomes. This study offers one of the earliest empirical examinations integrating GAI, digital innovation, supply chain integration, resilience, and sustainability, providing actionable insights for practitioners, policymakers, and technology providers operating within resource‐constrained contexts.
ABSTRACT As green finance reforms accelerate globally, a critical question remains: do state‐led financial incentives drive genuine sustainability transitions, or do they inadvertently encourage symbolic compliance? Using China's Green Finance Reform and Innovation (GFRI) pilot zones as a quasi‐natural experiment, this paper investigates the “policy‐induced decoupling” effect, defined as the gap between compliance with policy mandates and actual environmental performance. Employing a difference‐in‐differences approach on Chinese listed enterprises from 2009 to 2021, we find that while the GFRI policy significantly improves ESG ratings, it simultaneously intensifies corporate greenwashing. Mechanism analysis reveals a distinct duality: the policy enhances ESG performance by alleviating financing constraints but also creates incentives for greenwashing, which are mitigated by informal regulation through media scrutiny and substantive R&D investment. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that non‐state‐owned and high‐tech enterprises are more prone to decoupling behavior due to survival pressures. This study contributes to environmental planning literature by demonstrating that without robust verification infrastructure, aggressive green finance policies can create a signaling paradox.
ABSTRACT This study examines the socioeconomic, institutional, technological, and behavioral determinants of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions across the G7 countries over the period 2011–2024. Specifically, it investigates how self‐reported life satisfaction (SRLS), human development (HDI), total factor productivity (TFP), environmental policy stringency (EPS), government effectiveness (GE), and real expenditure per capita (REPC) are associated with CO 2 emissions while accounting for the nonlinear effect of HDI and the moderating role of household expenditure. Following diagnostic tests for slope heterogeneity, cross‐sectional dependence, stationarity, cointegration, multicollinearity, and model specification, the study employs the FE‐DKSE as the primary estimation technique, with PCSE and FGLS estimations used to assess robustness. The findings reveal that HDI is consistently associated with lower CO 2 emissions, while its significant quadratic term indicates a nonlinear relationship that does not support the conventional EKC hypothesis. EKC exhibits a positive association with CO 2 emissions, whereas environmental policy stringency contributes to emission reductions. Moreover, the SRLS × REPC interaction is positive and significant, suggesting that the association between life satisfaction and CO 2 becomes stronger as household expenditure increases. The robustness analyses confirm the stability of these relationships across alternative estimators. By integrating nonlinear human development effects and the behavioral interaction between subjective well‐being and household expenditure within a unified empirical framework, this study delivers updated and robust indications on the complex drivers of carbon emissions in advanced economies and contributes to a more inclusive understanding of the development–environment nexus in the G7 countries.
ABSTRACT Effective resource management remains a major challenge for organizations seeking to balance economic efficiency with environmental and social responsibility. In this context, production planning becomes a strategic mechanism for integrating sustainability into industrial operations. This research addresses the important existing gap on production planning where the dimensions of sustainability are not yet being fully considered. Its objective is to identify the interrelation of sustainability with production planning, proposing mechanisms to incorporate it efficiently. Based on a systematic literature review, the research examines: (i) the dimensions and specific factors of sustainability that most influence the formulation of production plans; (ii) the types of planning at the tactical level that work properly considering sustainable principles; and (iii) the models and solution methods adopted to support planning decisions. The results show a growing tendency to incorporate sustainability into production planning, with research that addresses the economic and environmental dimensions together predominating, while the social dimension remains insufficiently addressed. Aggregate production planning (APP) is the planning approach that most effectively incorporates sustainability dimensions by optimizing the use of organizational resources. Multi‐objective models are the most studied, promoting balanced solutions to contradictory criteria. Regarding solution methods, metaheuristics predominate due to their flexibility and ability to address complex problems. Furthermore, the limited integration among production planning models, solution methods, and sustainability dimensions remains a significant gap in the literature. This study represents a valuable tool for organizations to incorporate knowledge about economic, environmental, and social practices into their planning processes, so that sustainability is enhanced.
