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Plastic waste management is needed to prevent environmental damage. Recycling plastic waste is encouraged to continue using plastics while reducing environmental impact. These include the vast volume of plastic waste (p-waste) generated and discarded, the non-biodegradability of most plastic waste, the persistence of plastic waste in health, and the environmental risks of micro- and nano-plastics. Therefore, this study extended the valence theory (VT) model with openness to change, environmental concerns, and the convenience of accessible recycling infrastructure to examine residents' p-waste recycling intentions and behavior in Ghana. The main aim of this research is to assess the moderating role of age, gender, and education level in detecting Ghanaians' p-waste recycling intention-behaviors. Based on 390 survey responses, hypothetical claims were examined utilizing partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings are: (1) Perceived benefit, openness to change, environmental concerns, and convenience positively influence residents' p-waste recycling behavior through recycling intention in Ghana. (2) The study found that gender moderates the link between openness to change (OTC) and plastic waste recycling intention, while educational level moderates the link between OTC and recycling behavior. (3) Perceived benefit, openness to change, environmental concerns, perceived risk, and convenience positively affect residents' p-waste recycling intention. (4) Openness to change and convenience of accessible recycling infrastructure positively influence residents' p-waste recycling behavior. To reduce p-waste recycling complexity and maintain consistent practices, identical recycling systems and facilities must be installed in all waste generation scenarios. Waste planners and policymakers could use the results of this research to develop effective waste management structures that are helpful to circular economy projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to examine the effect of information and communication technology, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and financial development on carbon dioxide emissions in selected ASEAN countries. The PMG (Pooled Mean Group) estimator is used to panel data from 1991 to 2020 to examine both the short-run and long-run impacts. The findings indicate that ICT and financial development contribute to environmental deterioration, in the long run, their influence on CO2 emissions in the short run is insignificant. On the other hand, the use of renewable energy has a long- and short-term favorable impact on environmental quality. Furthermore, it is discovered that economic growth increases CO2 emissions, but squared economic growth reduces CO2 emissions, confirming the inverted U-shaped EKC theory. The Granger causality test indicates that renewable energy and CO2 emissions are bidirectionally causal, but information and communication technology and financial development are unidirectionally causal to CO2 emissions. According to the findings, the governments of these nations must reduce carbon emissions from internet usage and invest in renewable energy sources to control environmental deterioration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy projects are at the crux of all Chinese-funded investment in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for some 56% of all Chinese-led investments globally. However, the prevailing problem is that about 568 million people were still without electricity access in 2019 across urban and rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa, which does not commensurate with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG7) of ensuring affordable and clean energy for all. Previous studies have assessed and improved the efficiency of integrated power generation systems often combined on three levels, power plant, solar panel, and fuel cells, and integrated into national grids or off-grid systems for a sustainable supply of power. This study has included a lithium-ion storage system as a key component in a hybridized renewable energy generation system for the first time that has proven to be efficient and investment worthy. The study also examines the operational parameters of Chinese-funded power plant projects in sub-Saharan Africa and their effectiveness in achieving SDG-7. The novelty of this study is evident in the proposed integrated multi-level hybrid technology model of solid oxide fuel cells, temperature point sensors, and lithium batteries powered by a solar system and embedded in thermal power plants as an alternative electrical energy system for domestic and industrial use in sub-Saharan Africa. Performance analysis of the proposed power generation model indicates its complementary capacity of generating additional energy output with thermodynamics energy and exergy efficiencies of 88.2% and 67.0% respectively. The outcome of this study draws the attention of Chinese investors, governments in sub-Saharan African countries, and top industry players to the following: to consider refocusing their energy sector policy initiatives and strategies towards exploring the lithium resource base in Africa, optimizing energy generation cost, recouping optimal profit from their renewable energy technology investments, and making electricity supply clean, sustainable, and affordable for use in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the resource-based view theory, this paper explores the association between green human resource management and green supply chain management. Moreover, the collective impact of green human resource management and green supply chain management on the triple bottom lines (social, environmental, and economic performance) was tested. The current study employed a random sampling technique in evaluating data from 212 firms from the chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive, textile, and food industries. Our main findings include the following. First, green human resource management positively influenced the triple bottom lines. Second, green supply chain management mediates green human resource management and triple bottom lines. Specifically, internal green supply chain management mediates green human resource management practices and sustainable performance. In contrast, external green supply chain management practices only mediate the relationship between green human resource management practices and the environmental and social perspective of sustainable performance. The study provides managerial implications and future recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovations have a great potential to develop the transportation system as more efficient, intelligent, connected, and sustainable. Therefore, transport energy consumption fundamentally transmutes how goods and people are moved with significant effects on transport demand with related energy consumption on a sustainable environment. To this end, our research aimed at investigating the environmental performance (carbon dioxide and ecological footprint) by stochastic impact by regression through a population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model, and econometric approach for estimation of transport energy consumption from 1975 to 2018 for Pakistan. Moreover, our study supports the literature by exploring the association of technological innovations, financial development, carbon damage costs, and economic growth with the environment. The linear relationships of the variables are governed by the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model that interestingly explored that economic growth and energy consumption, and financial development degrade the environment and resource depletion; however, technological innovations are inclined towards cleaner technologies. For asymmetric findings, we employ the non-linear autoregressive distributive lag technique recently introduced by Shin et al. (2014). The findings validate the existence of an asymmetric relationship between transport energy consumption and environmental indicators. The policymakers' prerequisites the alternative energies apart from conventional energies in the transport sector with technological innovations in transport sector energy consumption like the electronic and hybrid vehicles for a cleaner environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deterioration of environmental quality spurred on by rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is the main threat to reducing carbon footprint. Africa has recently been identified as having experienced excessive temperatures above pre-industrial standards. Despite its lower GHG emissions, Africa continues to be among the most impacted areas of the world by global warming. However, this research scrutinizes the effect of human capital and trade openness on the ecological footprint (ECF) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions using data from West Africa from 1995 to 2016. The research used dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares, and paired Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality tests for its assessment. The study's findings are as follows: (1) The study found that human capital and trade openness decrease the ecological footprint in West Africa; (2) globalization reduces CO2 emissions while also increasing the ecological footprint; (3) the analysis reveals that natural resources and the population improve environmental quality in West Africa, while biocapacity reduces the ecological footprint and improves CO2 emissions in the region; and (4) the study revealed the bidirectional causality between biocapacity, the population, and ECF. The study also revealed the bidirectional causality between biocapacity, population, human capital, natural resources, and CO2 emissions, while ecological footprint is unidirectionally causally related to globalization, human capital, and trade capital. Unidirectional causality runs from the ecological footprint, globalization, and trade openness to CO2 emissions. To ensure their countries have a long-term future, policymakers in West Africa should take action to limit overexploitation of natural resources and encourage people to live more sustainably. The study suggested that West African countries adopt "green growth" policies and improve technology to help their economies and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a comparative approach for comparing the nexus of economic growth, renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, urbanization, trade, and CO2 emissions for South and East Asian countries from 2000 to 2018. The short- and long-run connections between the variables are explored using the dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE) CS-ARDL approach, and the causal linkages are assessed using the Dumitrescu-Hurlin (DH) panel causality test. The data show that the factors have long-term relationships. The findings show that nonrenewable energy consumption and economic growth increase long-term CO2 emissions in South Asia, but trade and use of renewable energy consumption reduce CO2 emissions in the short term. Long-term causal relationships between CO2 emissions, renewable energy use, economic growth, and trade are also revealed by the South Asian causality test. In East Asia, economic growth, NREC, trade, and urbanization increased CO2 emissions in the short and long run, while REC appears to reduce CO2 emissions. According to the causality analysis, long-run bidirectional causation exists between CO2 emissions, renewable energy use, economic growth, and trade. Furthermore, policy suggestions may be made, such as using renewable energy sources to lessen CO2 emissions and improving education and corruption to forecast economic growth in the examined areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's GDP grew 9% annually during the end of the twentieth century. This economic growth degrades China's ecology, making it the world's greatest polluter. This position forced China to invest in developing nations and to take advantage of low-cost labor and increased pollution quotas from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to meet sustainable development objectives without environmental harm. The significance of this study is, first, this study examines the influence of Chinese outward foreign direct investment, gross domestic product, trade openness, technological innovation, and energy consumption on carbon emissions in Asian countries (Turkey, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, India, Indonesia, and Cambodia). Secondly, the panel autoregressive distributed lag cointegration (ARDL) technique was used on data from 2000 to 2020 to investigate the pollution halo/haven hypothesis and environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for south Asian nations. This analysis demonstrated that Chinese outbound foreign direct investment increases carbon emissions and confirms the pollution halo concept. Except for India and Pakistan, these nations show a U-shaped link between Chinese foreign direct investment and carbon emissions. So, policy implications recommended by the results of this study are foreign direct investment inflows with modern and ecofriendly technological transfer and enhancement in labor, and conservational management practices will benefit emerging countries to attain their sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization refers to the general process of progress within human societies. As a result of carbon dioxide emissions, global warming poses a significant threat to human sustainability. Therefore, the scientific community must thoroughly research the impact of modernization on CO2 emissions. Surprisingly, just a few pieces of research have previously examined this subject. Asian economies are regarded as laggards in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with environmental degradation being one of the key issues confronting these countries. This study used panel data regression to investigate the association between sectoral modernization and CO2 emissions in South Asia. None of the existing studies has observed the sectoral modernization and CO2 emission nexus in the region of South Asia. Therefore, this study bridges the research gap in the current literature. This study found that social sector transformation, energy sector, and services sector modernization have negative associations with CO2 emissions in South Asia. However, both the agricultural sector and industrial sector modernization are positively associated with CO2 emissions in South Asia. The empirical results from several models suggest that sectorial modernization has a significant and strong association with environmental sustainability. Access to a green and eco-friendly economy can increase modernization among different sectors of the economy to produce pro-environment products and society. Also, we found that FDI and trade policies influence the economies to follow environment-friendly economic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a long-lasting change in the weather arrays across tropics to polls. It is a global threat that has embarked on to put stress on various sectors. This study is aimed to conceptually engineer how climate variability is deteriorating the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the agricultural sector's vulnerability is a globally concerning scenario, as sufficient production and food supplies are threatened due to irreversible weather fluctuations. In turn, it is challenging the global feeding patterns, particularly in countries with agriculture as an integral part of their economy and total productivity. Climate change has also put the integrity and survival of many species at stake due to shifts in optimum temperature ranges, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss by progressively changing the ecosystem structures. Climate variations increase the likelihood of particular food and waterborne and vector-borne diseases, and a recent example is a coronavirus pandemic. Climate change also accelerates the enigma of antimicrobial resistance, another threat to human health due to the increasing incidence of resistant pathogenic infections. Besides, the global tourism industry is devastated as climate change impacts unfavorable tourism spots. The methodology investigates hypothetical scenarios of climate variability and attempts to describe the quality of evidence to facilitate readers' careful, critical engagement. Secondary data is used to identify sustainability issues such as environmental, social, and economic viability. To better understand the problem, gathered the information in this report from various media outlets, research agencies, policy papers, newspapers, and other sources. This review is a sectorial assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches worldwide in the aforementioned sectors and the associated economic costs. According to the findings, government involvement is necessary for the country's long-term development through strict accountability of resources and regulations implemented in the past to generate cutting-edge climate policy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change must be of the utmost importance, and hence, this global threat requires global commitment to address its dreadful implications to ensure global sustenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tremendous increase of greenhouse gases puts adverse effects on environmental degradation, unemployment, and economic growth. Against this backdrop, and implementing the more recent estimation approach, the present study investigates the validity of the novel environmental Phillips curve (i.e., inverse relationship between unemployment and environmental degradation) carried by Kashem and Rahman (2020). The unique contribution of this research is to examine the three environmental indicators (CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint) as a dependent variable with the same independent variables, i.e., unemployment rate, energy consumption, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and globalization, from 1975 to 2014 in Pakistan. The results validate a negative relationship of unemployment rate with CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint in the long run that proves the existence of environment Philips curve for Pakistan. However, a positive association is observed for energy consumption and CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint. The positive connection of energy consumption and environmental indicators determined that not only CO2 emissions rather CH4 and ecological footprint play an equal role in environmental degradation. Furthermore, in the long run foreign direct investment improves environmental sustainability for CO2, and ecological footprint thus proved the pollution halo hypothesis for Pakistan. Probing the effects of globalization that badly pollutes environmental sustainability. Therefore, the policymakers should focus on innovations and technological improvements to contemplate both environmental degradation and unemployment. There is a need for sudden actions for energy consumption plans in Pakistan for the nation's health, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the impact of fiscal policy on environmental pollution, employing the vector autoregressive (VAR) model on annual data from 1976 to 2018 in Pakistan. We estimate the effect of total expenditure, total revenue, education expenditures, health expenditures, and other dynamic determinants such as gross domestic product (GDP), private investment, market rate, and crude oil price on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in particular. Further, this study creates impulse response functions to check the fiscal shocks, coordinating with five scenarios of public expenditures, segregated into government revenue, and education and health expenditures. The outcomes indicate that government spending in the public sectors (education and health) had a diminishing effect on CO2 emissions, whereas government revenue that was collected from taxes improved economic growth but at a cost of environmental pollution. In Pakistan, a fiscal policy scenario has been implemented that increases government expenditures to alleviate the effects of CO2 emissions. Therefore, policymakers should provide the right direction for the feasible distribution of resources in every public sector through a powerful structure, which will ultimately reduce the overall level of environmental deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global health, as well as worldwide development regimes, was seriously threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and Delta variant outbreaks. In addition to pledging to adapt to and mitigate climate change, experts, economists, and policymakers expressed their determination to do so. Green growth and sustainable development have become the focus of policymakers and governments. The progress toward green economic efficiency (GEE), which will benefit the economy, society, and environment, continues. In terms of green growth and development, implementing environmental regulations and policies has been one of the most challenging aspects of the process. China, the world's second-largest economy, has begun its journey to GEE. Nonetheless, the green economy faces many challenges. The objective of the study is to use AHP analysis to analyze environmental regulation and GEE in China. Accordingly, the study identified three alternative approaches to achieve GEE by analyzing four criteria and ten sub-criteria in the context of environmental regulations in China. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) has been used to rank criteria, sub-criteria, and alternative approaches. According to the model, China's best path to GEE is through resource efficiency and green purchasing strategies. This article offers an insightful assessment of sustainable development in the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the dynamic linkages of financial inclusion, modernization, and environmental sustainability in South Asia during the period 1998–2019. Two distinct composite indexes for financial inclusion and modernization are developed by using principal component analysis (PCA) based on normalized indicators. To examine the dynamic linkages, we adopted panel regression models that are not only robust but also heteroskedasticity consistent. We find that financial inclusion, modernization, per capita GDP, and FDI appear to lead to higher CO2 emissions in the South Asian region. Meanwhile, increased economic integration and trade openness appear to have negative dynamics for carbon emissions. These empirical findings are unbiased and robust to different reasonable modifications to panel data model specifications. This study comes up with the conclusion that presently there is no policy coherence and coordination between growing financial inclusion, modernization, and carbon mitigation strategies in South Asia. Thus, the prospect of financial inclusion and modernization should be cohesive into comprehensive climate change mitigation strategies at regional, national, and global levels, specifically to mitigate the adverse dynamics of higher carbon emissions associated with modern development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To tackle the issue of climate change and environmental degradation debates regarding carbon neutrality is on the rise. Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (RCEP), the leading trading union, covers nearly third of global economy, world population, is responsible for thirty percent of global trade and global gross domestic product. The existent study tests the impact of financial, economic, political, and composite risk on consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions (CCO2) in selected RCEP economies during the period of 1990 to 2020. The empirical analysis consists of cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, cross-sectional augmented panel unit root test, Westerlund cointegration, second-generation cross-section augmented autoregressive distributed lags model (CS-ARDL), and panel causality test. Further, we explore the role of imports, renewable energy supply, exports, and gross domestic product per-capita on CCO2. The empirical results suggest that the less political risk help to mitigate while the lower financial, economic, and composite risk increase CCO2 emissions in selected RCEP economies. Moreover, exports and renewable energy supply show mitigating effect, whereas imports show upsurge in CCO2. Additionally, a bidirectional causality exists between exports and CCO2, imports and CCO2, GDP per-capita and CCO2, political risk and CCO2, and renewable energy and CCO2 emissions, while a one-way causality from financial risk, composite risk, and economic risk to CCO2. Renewable energy supplies along with the improvement in sub-components of political risk, for instance, corruption, government stability, would help to effectively tackle the issue of CCO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing sector is the backbone for the development of an economy. Numerous studies investigated the impact of aggregative energy consumption on environmental degradation by using typical econometric techniques. To correct this gap, our study uses energy consumption and environmental degradation only in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan for the period 1985 to 2018. Our study also demonstrates the symmetric and asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption with carbon emissions by using a recently developed methodology by Shin et al. (2014). The findings of linear autoregressive distributive lag model shows that energy consumption and financial development intensify environmental degradation, while foreign direct investment and globalization mitigate environmental degradation that leads to validate pollution halo hypotheses in Pakistan. However, non-linear autoregressive distributive lag results confirm the asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption with co2 emission. This study recommends the policies for policymakers in Pakistan to consider asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption as well as the installation of renewable energy sources and technological improvements in the industrial sector needed to enhance environmental sustainability. Further, there is a need to enhance globalization and foreign direct investment for Pakistan to achieve its environmental targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taguchi method (TM) and TM-combined methods [e.g., TM fuzzy method (TM-Fuzzy), TM data envelopment analysis (TM-DEA), TM coupled with grey relational analysis (TM-GRA), etc.] have been proven to be effective to achieve robust design performance. However, the efficient strategy to identify the significant design parameters, and the link between different quality characteristics and design parameters have not been fully studied. To fill the gaps, a combined method, i.e., TM–response surface methodology (RSM)–desirability function (DF), (TM–RSM–DF), was proposed. The significance of the TM–RSM–DF method is able to address the relationship between design parameters and quality characteristics, which facilitated to sort out the most significant design parameters precisely; besides, it also provided a robust strategy to optimize the multiple quality characteristics of the precision product. A design process of a precision amplification (PA) was taken as an example to prove the effectiveness of the TM–RSM–DF. The results showed that the TM–RSM–DF method improved the estimation performance of displacement amplification ratio (DAR) and natural frequency (NF) by 6.148% and 0.537% compared with the initial desired design. Besides, compared with others, the TM–RSM–DF method reduced the stress amount about 16% and had the lowest DAR and NF errors of 2.882% and 1.305%, respectively. Overall, the proposed TM–RSM–DF method outperformed the TM-DEA, TM-GRA, and TM-Fuzzy in the robustness of the PA design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]