Under China’s dual-carbon agenda and the accelerating green and digital transformation of the energy industry, higher education institutions face increasing pressure to prepare engineers for sustainable development. This article reports a longitudinal institutional case study of three energy-related undergraduate programs at Central South University, China. The core implementation period was 2018–2024; 2012 progression data were used as a descriptive pre-reform reference, and 2025 destination data provided a follow-up endpoint. The study reconstructs the author-developed model from curriculum documents, project and award records, graduate-destination statistics, employer-feedback summaries, textbook-adoption records, and dissemination records. It uses descriptive comparison and documentary triangulation; no control group or statistical significance tests were used. The Sustainability-Oriented Training Model for Energy Majors coordinates values and responsibility formation, science-education empowerment, and green and digitally enabled innovation through a task-driven full-cycle tutor system and four supporting mechanisms: value anchoring, knowledge iteration, a practice closed loop, and dynamic assessment. During the implementation period, the institutional records show higher postgraduate progression at the reported endpoints and favorable employment, employer-feedback, student-innovation, curriculum-renewal, and dissemination indicators. These outcomes are associated with the implementation period but do not establish causal effects or directly measure sustainability competencies. The case offers a context-dependent framework for sustainability-oriented reform in engineering education.
Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) play an important role in promoting sustainability-related knowledge, attitudes, and educational practices. This study examined whether secondary school teachers reporting previous participation in EE/ESD-related professional training differed from those without such training across five dimensions of teachers’ perceptions. A quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted using questionnaire data from 500 secondary school teachers in Greece, of whom 297 reported previous relevant training and 203 did not. Group differences were examined using the Mann–Whitney U test, with Bonferroni adjustment for five comparisons (α = 0.01). Statistically significant differences were observed for the perceived value and impact of EE/ESD (p < 0.001, r = 0.183), its contribution to students’ social and personal development (p < 0.001, r = 0.202), and pedagogical design and evaluation (p = 0.007, r = 0.121). No statistically significant differences were found for institutional and structural obstacles (p = 0.880) or practical implementation challenges (p = 0.789). The significant differences were associated with small effect sizes. These findings indicate that reported participation in professional training is associated with modest differences in selected dimensions of teachers’ EE/ESD perceptions, without establishing a causal relationship. The results highlight the importance of considering professional development alongside institutional and practical conditions affecting EE/ESD implementation.
The aim of this mini-review is to provide a short and concise overview on the topic of stagnation of wheat grain yield, with a focus on the European countries France and Germany. These countries are important producers and exporters of bread wheat for human consumption. Thus, both countries are contributing to global food security among other major wheat-exporting nations. Unfortunately, the grain yield of winter wheat has been stagnant for about 30 years in many northwestern European countries under high-input, rainfed farming conditions, including France and Germany. Many different reasons may have contributed to the overall observed yield stagnation at the national level. Potential reasons include, for example, (1) recently changed climatic conditions, (2) altered soil and crop management methods of farmers, (3) economic factors, and (4) agricultural policies, which support environmentally friendly low-input systems which usually have lower yields, such as organic wheat production. Consequently, the reviewed evidence of this mini-review suggests that wheat grain yield stagnation is a multi-factorial phenomenon. There is enough evidence in the literature to say that extreme climatic events such as prolonged heat and drought episodes during wheat growth, and altered management effects of farmers such as the reduced cultivation of legumes in conventional farming systems, are particularly important drivers of the observed wheat grain yield stagnation, but an exact quantification of their magnitude has not been performed yet. Economic and agricultural policy effects are confirmed by a smaller body of evidence and cannot be generalized, for example, due to regional and local differences of wheat production systems. However, it can be said that organic winter wheat production with its usually lower grain yields, is only a minor contributor to the stagnation of average national wheat grain yields in France and Germany, respectively, because the share of organic in the total wheat production area is relatively small (less than 5% of total wheat production area). Because wheat grain yield stagnation is a multi-factorial phenomenon, the abovementioned four categories of important drivers of wheat yield patterns should be considered in order to cope with the wheat grain yield stagnation processes in Europe and elsewhere, because national, regional and local socioeconomic differences in wheat production systems are likely to be considered to maintain sufficiently high wheat grain yields. However, a ceiling of winter wheat grain yield is likely present in many high-yielding wheat production locations in France and Germany, respectively, where it is very difficult to increase wheat grain yield on the existent production area, especially due to increasingly occurring extreme weather events such as heat and drought, which generally counteract yield-improving technologies. Considering the evidence found in the literature, it is quite possible that the stagnation of average national winter wheat grain yields in France and Germany will continue rather than end. Therefore, in France and Germany and possibly elsewhere, enhancing the stability of winter wheat grain yield and quality across years and locations will be increasingly important in the future, presumably, much more important than further increasing the maximum potential yield of winter wheat cultivars. The future overall goal should be to maintain wheat grain yields at least at their current levels. This will be likely possible by implementing various adaptation measures at different scales in future winter wheat production systems. A considerable surplus of wheat grain should also be realized, which can be exported to other countries, in order to be able to continue to contribute to global food security in the future, which will be extremely critical for wheat grain-importing countries with population growth such as Egypt.
This study contextualizes the role of institutional frameworks in global economic transformations by evaluating how access to justice (ATJ)—as a key dimension of the broader rule-of-law environment—and judicial infrastructure shape macro- and microeconomic development, in line with UN SDG 16. The purpose is to bridge the gap between institutional theory and empirical modeling regarding ATJ. Employing a comprehensive thematic and methodological literature review of leading global studies, the paper develops a comparative assessment matrix of major international justice indicators—integrating, for the first time, the World Bank’s new Business Ready (B-READY) framework alongside WJP, WGI, V-Dem, and CEPEJ. It critically analyzes econometric strategies used to address endogeneity, spanning cross-country 2SLS (IV) models, dynamic panel data (Difference GMM), and micro-level quasi-experimental designs. The review systematizes core transmission channels (property rights, contract enforcement, transaction costs, and TFP gains) and suggests the non-linear returns to judicial investments. It highlights that while insufficient access constrains economic activity, unrestricted or un-screened accessibility may induce court congestion and opportunistic litigation. Methodologically, the reviewed evidence indicates that spatial RDD and DDD designs provide superior internal validity for causal identification. In conclusion, the findings offer critical policy insights for institutional design, court digitalization (e-justice), and the integration of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in developing nations and states undergoing post-war economic reconstruction.
The onshore power supply (OPS) eliminates ship emissions at berth, yet feasibility is site-specific, and most evidence concerns large Northern European and Asian ports. This multiple-case study assesses OPS readiness at six ports of the Adriatic–Ionian macro-region (Ancona, Ploče, Durrës, Volos, the river port of Belgrade, and the lake port of Ohrid) covering ferry, cruise, cargo, and tourism in the European Union (EU) and non-EU jurisdictions. A common protocol and rule-based SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) coding within and across cases yield a regional factor set traceable to supporting ports, a thematic classification, an exploratory readiness typology with decision rules, and the factor pairings behind tier-specific strategic options. The binding constraints are grid capacity, capital cost and its allocation, and, outside the EU, a missing mandate; electricity price relative to fuel governs utilisation, and the climate benefit depends on grid carbon intensity, quantified by port. The 2030 EU obligations cover only container and passenger ships above 5000 gross tonnage at ports above the call thresholds; bulk, tanker, inland, lake, and small-ferry traffic is excluded. The case evidence identifies OPS readiness as a marine spatial planning and governance task and yields a priority option per tier and four propositions for similar ports.
