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This study examines how stock market returns in emerging BRICS economies respond to growing physical and transition climate risks. To capture the physical climate risk, we use the frequency of natural disasters, the number of people affected by natural disasters, temperature anomaly, and precipitation anomaly. For transition risk, we included two climate-policy uncertainty measures. First, we conduct a panel-level analysis using a cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag model. Second, for country-level analysis, we applied the augmented autoregressive distributed lag model to the monthly dataset from January-2000 to March-2023. The empirical results show that an increase in transition climate risk causes a significant and negative shock to stock returns, both in the short- and long-term in the panel and across each BRICS country. Second, we find that physical climate risk indicators have a significant and negative impact on stock returns in China, India, and South Africa, but not in Brazil or Russia. We conclude that the impact of physical climate risk on stock returns is country-specific, and that the impact of transition climate risk is widespread. These findings provide important insights for investors, regulators, hedgers, portfolio managers, and policymakers regarding policy formulation and future investment strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This article investigates the influence of financing sources and financial constraints on green investment, based on a study conducted with a sample of Eastern European SMEs from 2018 to 2020. We constructed a green investment proxy using principal component analysis, revealing two principal pillars: pure green investment and mixed green investment. Employing two-stage least squares regression analysis (2SLS) and instrumental probit (IV Probit), our results demonstrate that internal finance positively impacts green investment. Conversely, we find that leverage and financial constraints negatively correlate with green investment and environmental performance. The findings of this study provide compelling evidence that SMEs operating in the Eastern European region face significant financial constraints, impeding their ability to adopt responsible investments aimed at reducing their considerable environmental footprints. These results hold valuable implications for both managers and policymakers, emphasizing the importance of facilitating increased access to debt and devising green financial incentives to promote environmentally responsible investments among Eastern European SMEs, particularly during periods of conflicts., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper investigates whether geopolitical conflicts play a critical role in stimulating countries to shift toward clean energy solutions. We use the panel regime-switching models, which allow us to capture the nonlinear dynamics of the energy transition. Our results for a panel of developed and emerging countries reveal that the geopolitical context does not impact the renewable-income nexus; however, we find that adverse geopolitical events would impact the diffusion of alternative energy sources depending on the level of economic development. Rising geopolitical conflicts would encourage high-income nations to switch toward low-carbon energy sources. Considering the increasing number of regional conflicts, less developed countries must urgently develop their economies away from traditional energy sources and enhance the contribution of the renewable sector., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Identifying key drivers of manufacturing CO 2 emissions is critical to carbon reduction practices. For manufacturing, CO 2 emissions are mainly determined by production capacity and production scale. However, traditional production-theoretical decomposition analysis (PDA) fails to consider production-scale-related drivers. To better support policy development and implementation, this paper improves PDA based on industrial linkage theory. The improved model can identify seven production-capacity-related drivers and five production-scale-related drivers, allowing a comprehensive understanding of CO 2 emission drivers. Then this model is implemented to investigate CO 2 emission changes in 18 manufacturing sectors in Hubei Province, China, from 2012 to 2017. Results show that manufacturing CO 2 reduction efforts in Hubei Province have yielded some achievements, with reduced potential energy intensity and improved CO 2 emission technical efficiency in most sectors. Changes in external market demand and final demand structure have contributed to CO 2 reduction in most sectors. Results also reveal some problems in manufacturing in Hubei Province, such as the inability to improve CO 2 emission technical efficiency and CO 2 emission technology strength, the slow improvement of energy utilization technical efficiency and energy utilization technology strength, and the reduction of value-added rate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Since last decade, firms are facing the challenge of strict compliance in response to the stakeholders' awareness about climate change and environmental degradation. Considering these trends, we examine the effect of environmental innovation such as product innovation and process innovation on firm value and the moderating effect of organizational capital on environmental innovation-firm value nexus. Using the data of U.S. listed firms from 2002 to 2019, we find a significantly positive impact of environmental innovation on firm value. Our findings also reveal that organizational capital strengthens the positive association between environmental innovation and firm value, suggesting that firms with higher organizational capital are more likely to consider the demands of stakeholders to be environment friendly which in turn enhances their market value. These findings are aligned with the resource-based view (RBV) and highlight that organizational capital can play a significant role to increase the firm value through environmental innovation. Our results remain robust to subsample analyses, alternative proxies of main variables and are not subject to potential endogeneity concerns. Our study provides new insights into the environmental innovation-firm value nexus and presents important policy implications., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Driven by the current surge in environmental and climate issues and the pressure of the government and regulatory bodies on corporations to diminish their carbon trails, this study uniquely examines the impact of distinct corporate governance mechanisms on the level of waste produced on a global sample of firms during 2002-2019. Our findings show that corporate governance mechanisms are important predictors of the level of waste produced by firms worldwide. In particular, the board size, board independence, and sustainability committees are linked to a higher level of waste produced. Conversely, the board gender diversity reduces the waste produced, and CEO duality is not associated with the level of waste produced. Our results are robust to alternate proxies of main variables, potential endogeneity concerns (using propensity score matching, two-stage least squares, and generalized system method of moments technique), and additional analyses. Further analysis shows that larger and gender-diverse boards improve the firm's waste recycling behavior, whereas board independence and the presence of a sustainability committee are negatively related to waste recycling. The study has vital insinuations in developing efficient, ethical regulations and guidelines for corporate boards specifically from the perspective of waste management, environmental protection, and restoration., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The current global economy demands synergies between ecological responsiveness and business models. To analyse this dynamic, this study investigates the relationship between green innovation and corporate financial performance for German HDAX companies from 2008 to 2019 by constructing an green innovation measure. A two-step GMM system and penalised-spline estimation are used to test the linear relationship between green innovation and financial proxies (return on assets, return on invested capital, and the market-to-book ratio). The results indicate a linear positive effect of green innovation on different financial performance measures. This suggests that green innovation drives resource efficiency and enhances corporate reputation, which, in turn, boosts financial performance., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)