Impact investing urges investors to weigh the social and environmental impacts of their investment decisions. However, in practice, it remains unclear whether investors in financial products are driven by ethical motivations, such as environmental considerations, and what factors influence their trust in the non-financial aspects (e.g., green attributes) of these investments. This study investigates the ethical motivations behind investors' decisions to invest in green bonds using a machine learning-assisted causal inference framework based on data collected on all green and conventional bonds issued worldwide from 2007 to 2022. It also explores the underlying factors contributing to investors' trust in green bonds by examining four perspectives: the issuer's environmental performance, the transparency and governance of environmental disclosure related to bonds, and the financing purpose of the bonds. The results indicate that (1) investors are willing to forgo financial gains for environmental causes, with this sacrifice quantified as an 18 basis points (bps) green premium, demonstrating a clear ethical motivation; (2) the credibility of bond information, financing purposes, and issuer's greenhouse gas emission intensity directly influence investors' trust in green bonds, while bond information disclosure and the issuer's environmental (E) scores have only indirect effects; and (3) companies with weaker environmental performance often adopt proactive disclosure or certification policies to bolster investors' green trust. This study is the first to explore the factors influencing investors' trust in green bonds and to analyze the overall causal transmission mechanism among these factors using a causal inference framework.

Solar energy has expanded rapidly in recent years, and China is the largest market in terms of installed capacity. With the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, solar power will play an increasingly important role in China. However, like many other countries, the low energy density of solar photovoltaics is one of the major drawbacks of its further development. The emergence of floating photovoltaic systems (FPV) can not only break this threshold but also generate a series of cobenefits from a brand-new energy-land-water nexus perspective. Using a GIS-MCDA model, an evaporation model, combined with a cost-benefit analysis, this paper estimates the development potential of FPV in China, and its energy-land-water cobenefits are further analyzed. Moreover, to reveal the current land constraint for developing solar photovoltaics in China, the potential of traditional terrestrial solar photovoltaics has also been evaluated. The results show that the potential installed capacity of FPV in China can reach 705.2 GW-862.6 GW with an annual 1164.9 TWh to 1423.8 TWh of potential power output, and most potential FPV stations can obtain positive financial returns. The annual water evaporation reduction is approximately 5.8 km3. In the meantime, around 7117.3 km2 of the land could be conserved, which would alleviate the land constraint for terrestrial solar photovoltaic systems, especially in the highly urbanized eastern and southern coastal areas in China.

Abstract The provision of universal, high-quality piped water and sanitation services on a financially sustainable basis continues to elude many urban areas globally. Water services suffer from political, technical, and financial “disequilibria,” in which governments are challenged to improve services, households are unwilling or unable to pay to cover the increased costs associated with those services, and both production and consumption efficiency remains low due to insufficient capital investment, low operating budgets, and poorly designed tariffs. Cities typically move along a water development path from low- to high-quality service provision, with movement between phases facilitated by shifts in these disequilibria. In the first phase, water supply coverage increases but quality of service and efficiency of consumption and production stagnates, trapped by insufficient government transfers and low tariffs. In the second phase, economic growth facilitates increased revenues, allowing for investments in service quality and increasing access to improved sanitation. Production efficiency improves, but consumption efficiency remains low due to weak price signals and poorly targeted subsidies, and environmental quality often degrades. In the third phase—which remains aspirational for many cities—governments and citizens demand improved environmental quality as well as improved service quality. Investments are made to improve the resilience of supply, and subsidies are more carefully targeted toward the poor. China demonstrates many of these patterns, with variation across cities reflecting different levels of development. There are, however, some differences that are a consequence of the country’s centrally planned economy prior to 1978. Reforms underway in China highlight the challenges of achieving this “third phase” urban water policy. These include revisions to the existing increasing block tariffs to improve financial sustainability, increased use of information provision to improve consumption efficiency, and asset management and investment planning that weighs the benefits and costs of new capital investments in the context of climate change.

Virtual water was introduced by John Anthony Allan in 1998 as a measure of the amount of water required for the production of goods and services. Following the initiation of the Sustainable Development Goals in recent years, an intensified focus on environmental sustainability, particularly regarding water sustainability, has emerged. In this context, virtual water, as a crucial tool for water resources management, garnering attention from the academic community. Existing studies on virtual water have made significant contributions on quantifying the virtual water content embedded in commodities, delineating cross-regional patterns of virtual water flows, unveiling the temporal evolution and spatial distribution patterns of virtual water trade, assessing the economic valuation of virtual water through shadow pricing techniques, and analyzing the drivers influencing virtual water flows. However, there are still research gaps in the current literature on virtual water trade forecasting, virtual water accounting in different sectors (such as services and light industry), grey water footprint estimation and water scarcity indices. Moreover, virtual water research involves hydrology, economics and ecology. Multidisciplinary crossover will be an important trend in virtual water research in the future. This article seeks to comprehensively review current dialogues and investigations regarding virtual water and virtual water trade, assessing their impacts on a range of natural, social, and economic dimensions, and help scientists advance the frontiers of the field, as well as help policymakers adapt regional trade patterns and manage water resources more efficiently.

Municipal wastewater treatment plays an indispensable role in enhancing water quality by eliminating contaminants. While the process is vital, its environmental footprint, especially in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, remains underexplored. Here we offer a comprehensive assessment of GHG emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) across China. Our analyses reveal an estimated 1.54 (0.92–2.65) × 104 Gg release of GHGs (CO2-eq) in 2020, with a dominant contribution from N2O emissions and electricity consumption. We can foresee a 60–65 % reduction potential in GHG emissions with promising advancements in wastewater treatment, such as cutting-edge biological techniques, intelligent wastewater strategies, and a shift towards renewable energy sources.

Food systems are among the leading causes for transgression of planetary boundaries globally, which define the safe operating space for humanity. We quantify unsustainable environmental impacts of food systems, indicated by the transgression of national-scale planetary boundaries (i.e., the safe operating space for food production in each country), from both production and consumption perspectives of 189 countries/regions around the world. A multi-regional input-output model is used to map the global transfers of the national-scale transgression of planetary boundaries, including freshwater use, land change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus). Our results show that China is a major global unsustainable water and nitrogen exporter and an unstable land and phosphorus importer. This means that water and nitrogen uses in China are used to support food demands in other countries, and food consumption in China requires unsustainable land and phosphorus uses elsewhere. In contrast, the US is a major exporter of unsustainable water, land, and nitrogen uses but only an importer of unsustainable phosphorus for food consumption. Globally, compared to a counterfactual scenario where there is no food trade among any countries, food trade saves massive transgressions of planetary boundaries (270 km(3) of water, 18 million tons of nitrogen, 7 million tons of phosphorus, and 5,431 million km(2) of land). Alleviation of national-scale planetary boundary transgression has been achieved primarily in the US, China, Saudi Arabia, etc., while aggravation was incurred in Pakistan, Australia, Argentina, and so forth.

EDITORIAL article Front. Sustain. Food Syst., 24 July 2023Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets Volume 7 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1238029

Eutrophication is a global challenge, which is exemplified by the tremendous efforts but little results in restoring the sixth largest and also one of the most eutrophic freshwater lakes in China, Lake Dianchi. Considering large parametric uncertainties in water quality modeling, the traditionally used deterministic water quality model is expanded to a probabilistic model to explore the Lake Dianchi's potential responses to different levels of pollutant load reductions. The results show that, given the long pollution history and severe pollution state in Lake Dianchi, a minimum pollution load reduction by half (base year 2003) is required to maintain the water quality state as it is now in 40 years. At least a 60% nutrient load reduction is required to generate any likelihood of water quality improvement, however, the system stabilizes quickly after about 10 years, which may explain why tremendous investments have generated little results. 80% of nutrient load reduction for 40 years has 95% probability of meeting the TN target but only a below 50% (45%) probability in meeting the TP target, and even less to meet water quality target for Chla. The feasibility of ever reaching the Chinese drinking water standards for total phosphorous and total nitrogen is questionable.

Fast capacity estimation for retired batteries is necessary when batteries are recycled for echelon utilization. Here, a fast capacity estimation method is proposed for retired LiFePO4 battery. First, a full survey of battery pack and cells degradation after a long period of service is studied. Then the filtered ICA is used to study degradation variation phenomenon of retired batteries, the relationship between IC curve feature and remaining capacity was studied. Finally, a fast capacity estimation using incremental capacity and Gaussian process regression is proposed. Our results show high efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.

Plastic is one commonly used polymer material to support our daily lives. However, once the plastic waste enters the environment, it slowly degrades, which causes long-term and deep ecological environmental problems. As the world's largest plastic producer and consumer, China generated around 26.74 million tons of plastic waste in 2019, and has made ambitious policies to cope with the plastic waste issues. This study predicts the generation trends and management costs of plastic waste in China from 2020 to 2035 under three different scenarios (Business as usual-BAU, Current policy scenario -CPS, and Target policy scenario-TPS), in which China is divided into three regions for specific policy implications. In addition, the scenario analysis and Monte Carlo simulations are used to obtain confidence interval of assessments. The results show that the plastic waste emission will be 34.82 million tons under BAU, 13.49 million tons under CPS and 2.63 million tons under TPS in 2035, respectively, and there will be significant changes in regional contributions in plastic waste emission (e.g., Eastern region: 45.7% to 9.7%; Central region:25.2% to 30.9%; Western region: 29.1% to 59.4% from 2019 to 2035 under TPS). In addition, the environmental and economic benefits increase with the rigor of plastic waste management policy as there will generate a net income of US$3.01 billion under TPS compared to the cost of US$ 2.61 billion under BAU and US$120 million under CPS. In view of this, it is vital that China develop appropriate plastic management policies based on the status of various regions, attempt to achieve economic development while reducing plastic waste emissions, and finally achieving a “win-win” situation of economy and environment.

This study selects the electro-optical equipment manufacturing industry as an example to explore whether participation in the global value chain increases or mitigates a country's carbon emissions and describes the impacting factors. Based on multi-regional input-output tables, a value-added decomposition model is used to decompose forward and backward value-added/final products of the world's electro-optical equipment manufacturing industries in 65 countries from 2005 to 2015. Impacts of several global value chain participation characteristics, including position, forward participation and production length, and backward participation and production length, on a country's carbon emissions, are examined. The results show that Asian countries have the highest participation rate in the global value chain, both forward and backward, of the electro-optical equipment sector with increasing proportions for forward participation, but lowest backward participation, in simple global value chains. An increase in forward global value chain participation contributes to the reducing carbon emission intensity of the electro-optical equipment manufacturing industry, particularly in terms of simple global value chain participation. On the other hand, the production length of the backward simple global value chain is positively correlated with the total imported carbon emission intensity, indicating that the longer the simple global value chain of foreign production is included in the industry's imported intermediate products and the lower the country's position in the global value chain is, the higher its imported carbon emission intensity is. Upgrade in the global value chain is able to reduce the embodied carbon emissions in the intermediate product exports and total imports.

Although hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (HFCEVs) are more environment-friendly compared to the conventional vehicles, their energy consumption, emissions, and the economic impacts involved remain unclear from a life cycle perspective.Therefore, these aspects of HFCEVs were investigated herein using the GREET model under operating conditions for China.The results showed that HFCEVs can reduce the life cycle cost by 13.2%, energy consumption by 9.7%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 13.1% in comparison with gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles (GICEVs).However, the life cycle results showed that HFCEVs can increase the acidification potential by 111.7%, aerosol pollution by 273.9%, and human toxicity potential by 87.7%.Therefore, compared with GICEVs, the impacts of energy consumption and environmental emissions of HFCEVs are transferred from the use phase to the production phase of the fuel, and the purchase cost of HFCEVs is shifted from end users to the government.

Electricity demand in megacities may exert substantial stress on water resources, which is often expressed through the water scarcity footprint for electricity consumption (WSFE). Conversely, water scarcity may constrain electricity production, leading to increased vulnerability for megacities electricity production. The WSFE and the water related vulnerability of electricity production reflect two aspects of water-electricity conflict. This varies over time by both the amount and location of electricity production. However, no studies have conducted time-series analysis to evaluate the trends of these two indicators, both in terms of severity and spatial characteristics. Our study focused on evaluating trends in water-electricity conflict both within and beyond megacity administrative boundaries. China's four provincial-level megacities, i.e. Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, were chosen as case studies. The results show that water related vulnerability of electricity production in Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing was diverse and can be classified as extreme, severe, moderate and minor, respectively. Between 2006 and 2016, the WSFE of Tianjin experienced an increasing trend, and its water related vulnerability of electricity production remained at the highest level. Beijing's WSFE has decreased, but its water related vulnerability of electricity production has increased. These differing trends highlight the need for joint reductions to both WSFE and water related vulnerability of electricity production in mitigating water-electricity conflict.

State of Health (SOH) is critical for lithium-ion batteries as it ensures the safety of batteries’ health condition and provides a basis for retirement of the batteries. In order to provide an accurate estimation of the SOH, a novel hybrid estimation method based on the partial incremental capacity and Support vector regression (SVR) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the Savitzky-Golay method is applied to smooth the initial incremental capacity curves under the period of constant current charge. Then the key health features are extracted from the partial incremental curve theoretically and selected through correlation analysis methods. Finally, an SVR model is constructed to estimate the SOH. Several battery datasets under different cycling test conditions are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The result shows that the proposed method can provide a reliable and accurate estimation for SOH.

No AccessOther Environmental Study12 Sep 2021The Restless RiverYarlung Tsangpo-Siang-Brahmaputra-JamunaAuthors/Editors: Ganesh Pangare, Bushra Nishat, Xiawei Liao, Halla Maher QaddumiGanesh Pangare, Bushra Nishat, Xiawei Liao, Halla Maher Qaddumihttps://doi.org/10.1596/36258SectionsAboutView ChaptersPDF (18.6 MB) ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Abstract: This report on the Yarlung-Tsangpo-Siang-Brahmaputra-Jamuna River Basin, is a first attempt at documenting the Brahmaputra as a one river system and presenting a multi-layered, holistic perspective of the entire river basin from the perspectives of the four riparian countries. The genesis of the report is the stakeholders from the riparian countries themselves, who highlighted the need for one comprehensive, fact-based document that provides information on the various aspects of the entire river basin and that comprehensively captures the viewpoints of those from all riparian countries. It was felt that a document of this type would be important for supporting the dialogue process and policy discussions on cooperative river basin management. It is natural to expect that such a document should be co-written by various stakeholders across the basin, along with other international experts. The authors are pleased that the report includes contributions from over ninety authors, which is a powerful expression of cooperation in and of itself. The report consolidates the existing wealth of knowledge and information on the river system. At its heart, however, are the riparian's perspectives and insights that reflect how the river is deeply embedded in the cultures and the lives of the people living within it. The report portrays the inextricable interlinkages between those living in the countries that share the river system: even though they are divided by international borders, they are tightly connected through the basin's water resources. Previous bookNext book FiguresreferencesRecommendeddetails View Published: September 2021 Copyright & Permissions Related TopicsEnvironmentWater Resources KeywordsVOICE PDF DownloadLoading ...

With the proliferation of electric vehicles (EV), large amounts of retired batteries need to be disposed, which poses emerging waste management challenges. Remanufacturing LIBs with materials recycled from used batteries is gaining increasing appreciation. Its environmental and economic benefits are still controversial and merit further examinations. This paper employs a life-cycle model and a process-based cost model to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, and the related costs of remanufacturing LIBs within the context of China, which is the biggest EV producer. Four types of LIBs, i.e. NCM111, NCM622, NCM811 and NCA, and three different recycling methods, i.e. Pyrometallurgical Recycling (PR), Hydrometallurgical Recycling (HR), and Direct Physical Recycling (DPR) are analyzed. The environmental impacts of remanufacturing LIBs are assessed at both national and provincial levels. Results show that compared with manufacturing LIBs with virgin materials, remanufacturing LIBs can significantly reduce GHG emissions, water consumption, and production costs. Among the three recycling methods, DPR has the biggest potentials for reducing GHG emissions, water consumption, and manufacturing costs with 29.27%-38.15%, 30.07%-41.19%, and 25.61%-36.63% reduction, depending on the different types of LIBs. Regarding battery technologies, remanufacturing NCM111 cell with DPR induces the least negative environmental impacts. Sensitivity analyses show that there are still large profit margins for remanufacturing LIBs with DPR process to bear the used LIB purchase price increase. Potential water-carbon conflicts are demonstrated for developing LIB remanufacturing industry due to different provincial electric power portfolios, which should be considered in future industry planning.

The development of metropolitan cities inevitably relies on natural resources beyond their boundary through trade of materials and products, particularly within the same urban agglomeration. Meanwhile trade facilitates the optimization of resource allocations under scarcity, among cities and sectors, and therefore generates economic gains. This study constructs an economic evaluation model combining a Multi-Regional Input-Output model and a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to quantify the economic impacts of virtual water trades among the 13 cities in the JingJinJi region (China national capital area), one of the most water-scarce regions in China. We found that the total virtual water trade among the 13 cities amounted to 927 million m3 in 2012, among which agricultural sectors contributed 90% while the industrial sector and service sector together made up the remaining 10%. While Beijing and Tianjin are the main virtual water importers, importing respectively 300.48 and 226.92 million m3 in 2012, Shijiazhuang was the largest virtual water exporter, exporting 173.29 million m3 virtual water in the same year. Due to their more advanced economic conditions, Beijing and Tianjin also have the highest shadow prices of water, at respectively 912.21 and 831.86 CNY per m3, compared to a range of 79.31 to 263.03 CNY per m3 in cities in Hebei. Virtual water flows from cities in Hebei to Beijing and Tianjin thus generate economic gains. It is estimated that virtual water trades in the JingJinJi region have generated a net economic gain of 403.62 billion CNY in 2012, particularly owing to trades of agricultural products from Shijiazhuang to Beijing and Tianjin.