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The central environmental protection inspection is an institutional innovation in China that aims to supervise enterprises by monitoring government environmental enforcement. This paper examines the effectiveness of central environmental protection inspection in improving enterprise environmental performance by using a quasi-natural experiment of the first round of central environmental protection inspection. The study reveals that the central environmental protection inspection improves enterprise environmental performance by strengthening local government environmental enforcement and environmental attention. This is evidenced by the increase in enterprise environmental capital expenditure and the decrease in pollution discharge fees. The impact of central environmental protection inspection on enterprise environmental performance is strengthened by local governments' environmental regulation and environmental fiscal expenditure, as well as by public participation. Under the pressure of central environmental protection inspection, heavily polluting enterprises engage in production process improvement and R&D investment, which can improve their economic performance. This can ultimately lead to a competitive advantage for enterprises, promoting a win-win situation for both environmental and economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous advancement of the digital economy and green development strategies, exploring the impact of digital transformation on corporate green technology innovation becomes an importantly urgent issue. Based on the perspectives of asymmetric effects and structural breakpoints, this paper empirically analyses the effect of digital transformation on green technology innovation, as well as its heterogeneity and non-linear characteristics, using fixed effect models and panel threshold model with a sample of Chinese A-share-listed corporates from 2011 to 2021. The findings suggest that digital transformation of corporates can significantly promotes green technology innovation, which remains valid after a series of endogenous and robustness tests. Heterogeneous regression results shows that digital transformation exhibits an asymmetric impact on green technology innovation, with greater incentive effect for state-owned corporates, manufacturing corporates, and corporates located in areas with stricter environmental regulations. Additionally, threshold effect analyses prove that a positive non-linear relationship between digital transformation and green technology innovation, when corporate human capital, industry competition and regional institutional quality exceeded their respective structural breakpoints, the marginal contribution of digital transformation is further strengthened. This research provides clearer policy insights for corporates to promote cleaner production and low carbon development through digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to synthetize and critically analyze the linkage between leadership styles and sustainable performance (SP) through application of the rigor of systematic literature reviews. Bibliometric characterization of articles indexed in the Scopus database, network analysis and a manual in-depth review were carried out. The final sample consisted of 47 documents. The most discussed leadership styles were sustainable leadership and transformational leadership. The former was mostly linked with general SP, whereas the latter was linked with environmental performance. In 41 out of the 47 papers, the authors provided empirical research. Upper echelon theory and resource-based view theory have been used in most of previous papers. This study synthesizes how leadership influences SP (directly and indirectly) and reveals that the authors of the analyzed papers did not establish a consensus regarding their empirical evidence. The prospects for future research are shown in terms of research topics, methodology, and variables, as well as, i.a., terminological clarity and a holistic approach to SP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitiveness of a country depends on the innovation capacity of its industries while sustainability relies upon the adoption of cleaner production processes. Hence, to promote economic development without negative environmental impact, it is imperative to have appropriate development policies and also a sound instrument to monitor the effectiveness of the supporting ecosystem. India, one of the world's largest economies with a huge base of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), makes it a perfect sample for creating an Index to measure innovation for sustainability and adds to the empirical literature. The study identifies the determinants of innovation and the key drivers using multivariate tools on the empirical data collected from the MSMEs in 4 key sectors that have Social, Economic, and Environmental relevance. The findings suggest that "Market sources" is the most influential determinant of innovation, followed by "Institutional sources", "Market sophistication" and "Business Membership Organisations". Further, findings of the Principal Component Analysis revealed that "Productivity and Profitability" consideration is the most important driver for adoption of innovation for sustainability by MSME units. The other drivers are "Regulatory and Occupational Health and Safety Needs"; "Immediate Survival Needs"; "Raw Material and other Cost Issues"; "Developmental Support", and "Competition from Similar Units". Based on the relative importance of these factors, an index is created to measure the effectiveness of the innovation ecosystem. The paper also suggests the use of this index to assess the strength of the ecosystem at the national, sectoral, regional or state, and district or cluster level. This study offers promising avenues for future research ideas for evidence-based policy formulation. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary corporate environmental disclosure has increased significantly in the last decade. However, the increase in environmental disclosure has also been accompanied by the social questioning of its veracity. Previous studies have mainly focused on the determinant factors behind corporate decisions to disclose environmental data, with only limited consideration of both carbon performance and the veracity of the information disclosed. Based on an international sample of firms from 12 countries, this paper analyzes the impact of regulative pressures related to climate change on the likelihood of companies engaging in greenwashing. The results show that the number of regulations related to climate change negatively influences the propensity of firms to engage in greenwashing. Furthermore, firms in countries with stringent climate-related regulations are less likely to participate in greenwashing practices. This paper adds to the existing literature concerning greenwashing by demonstrating that institutional theory can deliver further insights into the explanation of corporate greenwashing behavior. This is the first study to incorporate international climate-related regulations into the analysis of corporate greenwashing. It also provides a new method for identifying greenwashing firms, based on their carbon performance and disclosure. • Countries' climate-related laws negatively influence corporate greenwashing. • Stricter climate-related regulations reduce greenwashing practices of firms. • The study provides a new method for the identification of greenwashing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the influencing factors of ecological footprint is a hot issue. However, the impacts of energy consumption and globalization on ecological footprint are inconclusive due to the complex and nonlinear relationships among variables. The objective of this paper is to explore the nonlinear effects of energy consumption and globalization on ecological footprint in BIRCS countries. The quantile-on-quantile approach is employed, and the results display that in China and India, energy consumption has a positive impact on ecological footprint at most quantiles, while in South Africa, the negative impact appears at most quantiles. Furthermore, a positive effect of globalization on the ecological footprint is found at the most quantiles of the ecological footprint in China, South Africa. For Brazil, India, and Russia, the negative impact occurs at most quantiles of the ecological footprint. Finally, some policy recommendations are presented for the BRICS to achieve long-term sustainability. [Display omitted] • A quantile-on-quantile method is used to explore the effects of energy consumption and globalization on ecological footprint. • The impact of energy consumption and globalization on ecological footprint is heterogeneous among different quantiles. • We provide some policy recommendations for the BRICS to achieve long-term sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability research has witnessed significant growth over the past three decades, owing to the multiplicity of concerns and innovations to address them. Fake news, on the other hand, is a growing challenge to this dynamic narrative about sustainability and associated innovations. Notwithstanding few attempts to glean insights from literature at the nexus of sustainability, concomitant innovations, and fake news, the current study undertakes an integrative literature review with the objective of comprehending the repertoire of interactions between fake news, concomitant acts of deception, and sustainability-focused innovations. The review yielded 81 research articles published between 1992 and 2022. This collection represents a highly heterogeneous body of work encompassing these dimensions wherein comprehensive frameworks are rare and empirical works have focused on a limited range of innovations and fake news. The paper organizes the extant literature across four key themes and identifies five crucial gaps that have remained underexplored to date. Based on gaps in the literature, a research agenda with a set of thematic pathways and a holistic conceptual framework is presented to serve as a foundation for advancing research in the domain. This study is one of the first attempts to shed light on the menace of fake news in the context of sustainability-focused innovations and provides the necessary impetus for researchers to investigate empirical relationships and causal mechanisms surrounding the triadic nature of interlinkages between sustainability concerns, associated innovations, and fake news. The insights from this study aid practitioners in evaluating innovations from a novel vantage point and devising strategies to navigate potential pitfalls, while also serving as crucial evidence for policymakers to leverage an optimal mix of policy levers to circumvent sustainability concerns and foster innovations amidst the looming crisis of fake news. • The threat of fake news in the context of sustainability and related innovations is a growing concern. • The phenomenon has evoked scholarly interest but is progressing without a strong theoretical foundation. • An integrative review of literature is conducted to holistically map its current intellectual boundaries. • Four thematic focal points and five crucial gaps in the literature are discussed. • A conceptual framework is proposed with set of themes to guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world second largest economy, China aims at achieving high-quality and innovation-driven development. This paper investigates the effects of different technological innovations on green productivity in 261 Chinese cities from 2004 to 2017. We employ the super-efficiency Epsilon-based measure (EBM) model with undesirable outputs under meta frontier and a global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index. We decompose the GML index into efficiency change (GEC) index and technology change (GTC) index to measure the dynamic changes of China's urban green development. Results showed that the average GML index is 0.924 thereby, indicating China's urban green development is at a decreasing trend. The eastern region had the highest GML index among three regions followed by the western region. Moreover, we explored the determinants of urban green productivity through panel quantile regression and found the heterogeneous impacts of different technological innovations on green productivity. Invention patents and design patents positively affected the urban green productivity while utility patents exerted a significantly negative influence. Invention patents promoted the GTC and GEC index while utility patents impeded at some quantiles. FDI yielded both "Pollution Halo Hypothesis" and "Pollution Heaven Hypothesis" effects. Invention, utility and design patents all have threshold effects on China's green productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability transitions of food systems are at the core of several of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In many regions, grassroots initiatives (i.e., community-led bottom-up initiatives) have emerged to experiment with alternative food networks and change the dominant food regimes. While grassroots initiatives can play a crucial role in sustainability transitions, it is known that actors usually face challenges related to (1) building and maintaining an initiative, and (2) diffusing it to the mainstream. However, the systemic mechanisms underlying these two types of challenges in food systems are still underspecified. Building on previous empirical research, the paper uses systems thinking (qualitative causal loop diagrams) to detail (1) the systemic mechanisms underlying the emergence and maintenance of an alternative food network; and (2) the feedback loops related to organizational and logistics issues that pose limits to scaling. It explains the paradox of diffusion in alternative food networks and concludes that diffusion of alternative food networks to mainstream may be achieved through replication and translation strategies, rather than scaling-up. • The article studies the maintenance and diffusion of alternative food networks. • Systems thinking is employed to identify key dynamics and challenges. • Causal loop diagrams are used to visualize systemic relationships amongst variables. • Results suggest the existence of an 'optimal size' for food cooperatives. • Diffusion to mainstream may be realised by replication, rather than by scaling-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]