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In the digital era, digitalization brings great opportunities and challenges for cities' environmental governance and economic growth. However, it is worth noting that the impact of digitalization on cities' green transition has not been studied from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. This paper uses the principal component method and non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) to calculate the digital development level and the green economic performance of 269 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. (1) The empirical findings demonstrate that digitalization has become a strong driver for cities' green economic transformation. (2) Digitalization indirectly promotes green transition through industrial structure optimization and green technological innovation. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the positive effect of digitalization on green development is more obvious in eastern and economically developed cities. (4) Using the partially linear functional-coefficient model (PLFC), this paper studies the non-linear nexus between digitalization and green economic transition from the perspective of Metcalfe's Law. Thus, Metcalfe's law is confirmed in the green transition of Chinese cities. Some policy recommendations are offered for realizing the coordinated development of digitalization and greening of the urban economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite several decades of academic and practical debate on tourism sustainability, its application in practice remains difficult. The dominant tourism discourse on sustainability (theory, seen as a concept) and responsibility (practice, understood as appropriate action) calls for a solid understanding of the process of how a responsible destination actually implements a sustainability agenda, which this paper aims to provide. In this context, we explore theoretical perspectives from political economics and behavioural economics to offer a well-reasoned integrated sustainability–responsibility model comprising three stages: Awareness, Agenda and Action. This Triple-A Model complements the sustainability indicators debate and provides advice on how to continuously implement the sustainability concept and move from market-value-led and environmentally laissez-faire tourism towards more environmental- and social-value-driven responsible tourism. In addition, this paper discusses the existing sustainability and responsibility nomenclatures and their use and contributes relevant conclusions on the current understanding of sustainability and responsibility in European and UNWTO practices. The term responsustable tourism is suggested to join two existing terms and demonstrate that the current understanding of responsible tourism behaviour is based on the concept of sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper outlines a simple, aggregate, descriptive model of what is here termed a “whole economy”, covering all human involvement in the economy, from ultimate means or ecological sacrifices, to the ultimate ends of human satisfaction. The model embraces not only the formal “professional economy” driven by money, but also the parallel non-paid, voluntary economy, here termed “amateur economy”, driven by peoples’ affective motivations. The input of work to the economy plays an essential role in the paper’s analysis of options for reducing ecological sacrifices. Hence, part of the paper is devoted to a brief historical overview of the role of work, including turning points in the 1930s in the United States, when work sharing was displaced by work creation through consumerism, and, in the post-war economy when GDP became the dominant economic indicator. The paper proposes the aim of a happy and sustainable degrowth for affluent countries, implying the transfer of some activities from the professional economy to the less ‘labor’ productive amateur economy. This will tend to reduce overall labor productivity and hence resource throughput, but increase satisfaction and happiness. A key element in the analysis is combining a reduction in consumption with a reduction in production, which is obtainable through lowering either working time or work productivity and turning some of the leisure time into voluntary activities. Economic growth is not a law of nature but the consequence of explicit political decisions taken. Hence growth is also open to new political decisions in recognition of physical limits to growth and the human quest for replacing economic growth with life satisfaction, including increased free time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that China’s economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of its natural capital and environment. In order to deal with this problem, the circular economy (CE) has been chosen as a national policy for sustainable development. National laws and regulations have been enacted to facilitate the implementation of CE and national CE demonstration projects have been initiated such that national benchmarking activities could be completed. China is the first country to release nationally focused CE indicators so that objective and credible information on the status of CE implementation can be recognized. These CE indicators are valuable metrics for policy and decision-makers and can help achieve CE goals and outcomes. This unique indicator system has not been communicated to international communities. This paper aims to more broadly introduce this unique national CE indicator system. China’s CE efforts are first detailed with various provisions of the national indicator system. A critical analysis of such an indicator system is presented. We show that certain benefits can be gained, but substantive revision is also needed due to the lack of a comprehensive set of sustainability indicators which should include social, business indicators, urban/industrial symbiosis, absolute material/energy reduction, and prevention-oriented indicators. Concerns related to barriers on implementation are also presented in this paper. The knowledge gained from Chinese efforts on CE indicators are valuable to both developed and developing nations seeking to implement sustainable development measures within their regulatory policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The city is an important component in the construction of circular economy (CE), and after years of development, assessment of urban CE and calculation of an urban circular development index (UCDI) is an important task that the Chinese government has faced. However, existing research into the indicator system and evaluation methods is not enough to support calculation and subsequent publishing of UCDI. Building off current research into CE, its index systems and its evaluation, this paper puts forward an evaluation index system for urban CE development (UCDI) that uses an improved entropy methodology combining expert and entropy weightings. The index was calculated for 40 cities that were part of China's pilot CE cities program for alternating years in the five year period between 2012 and 2016 (that is, the index was calculated for 2012, 2014 and 2016). The study found that the level of urban CE increased significantly over the five year period, with that in the CE pilot cities growing at a faster rate than the national average. Results show that a certain relationship exists between UCDI, urban types and economic development, but has little relationship with industrial structure. Finally, recommendations for the promotion of urban CE are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]