From Economic Growth to Socio–ecological Transformation:

Based on the practice of a circular economy, China officially put forward the goal of building a “Zero Waste City” in 2018 and has formulated a series of measures to promote energy savings and emissions reduction in various sectors among which industry has received key attention due to its long-term high energy consumption and high pollution. The growth of an urban economy cannot be supported by industry, but the high energy consumption and high pollution of industry have become the keys to urban environmental management, and the need for ecological transformation of industry is very urgent. Based on the construction background of zero waste cities in China, this study analyzes the transformation factors of industrial producers’ willingness to make ecological transformation. The factors that influence industrial producers to make ecological transformation are perception of participation, perception of cost, perception of identity, and perception of government intervention. These factors have a positive moderating effect on the adoption of transformation strategies by industrial producers among which the perception of government involvement also plays a mediating role and has an important influence on the promotion of active ecological transformation by industrial producers.

By reviewing the history of “ecological transformation” theory for world economy growth, this research analyzes a relationship between oil price and food price in US dollar value in the context of green economy transition with a big question mark on globalization or anti-globalization. The time series analysis results show their relationship becomes more uncertain when the manners of green economy transition by world main economies are not consensus in complementary cooperation during 1980 to 2019. The oil price in a weaker US dollar value decreases world food price but depending upon an increase of the real exchange rates of US_EU and US_China as a base condition. That leads the world food price and China’s producer price take more uncertain fluctuation in world economy growth. In which, a stronger green economy transformability and a higher cost of China lower the uncertainty of world green economy transition from agricultural to advanced industrial regime. Both stronger Euro and Chinese Yuan are better for lowering food price when oil price change has a higher uncertainty in a weaker US dollar value. A deeper green economic transition for saving oil consumption in US is highly expected to enhance a stronger transformability of world green economy transition for economy growth in the post COVID-19 pandemic for deeper cooperation in globalization.

The article is devoted to problems of stating the complex index of anthropogenic impact (IAI) formation estimating the ecological stress level in regions of Kazakhstan. A system of indicators of anthropogenic stress for ecological monitoring is justified as different methods of normalization and aggregation of indices. Results of various estimations are provided. Factors of transformation of territorial structure of pollution are revealed. IAI shows that in the post-Soviet period, inherited ecological problems and new sources of impact determined the anthropogenic impact spatial shift at the regional level from the North and East to the South and West. Industry is losing its status as the main source of anthropogenic impact (AI), so densely populated areas and the increase in associated impact indicators have caught up with industry. The population outflow in Northern Kazakhstan has a positive effect on the AI level and increases AI in Southern Kazakhstan. The entire variety of scenarios for the dynamics of the impact of material production on the environment can be reduced to four types: ecological degradation, when an economic downturn is accompanied by increased environmental pollution; depressive development, when an economic downturn is accompanied by decreased pollution; extensive ecological development, where economic growth is accompanied by increased pollution; balanced development, when economic growth is accompanied by decreased pollution. During crisis years, there was a decrease in industrial pollution, the volume of atmospheric emissions and polluted wastewater, and, to a lesser extent, water consumption; conversely, vehicle emissions, the volume of toxic waste, the area of disturbed lands, and forest fires do not depend on the change in GRP. Despite the fact that for the country as a whole, the dependence of the level of pollution on the level and dynamics of economic development is weakening, with each new crisis, there is an increasing number of regions where the environmental state continues to deteriorate despite the economic downturn.

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between green finance and sustainable development in Morocco, focusing on its dual impact on economic growth and environmental preservation during the 2016–2022 perio[1]d. Theoretical Framework: The research is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of green growth and sustainable development, emphasizing the synergies between economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. The concepts of renewable energy consumption and green finance as catalysts for economic and ecological balance are central to the study. Method: A quantitative approach was adopted, employing a correlation matrix and the Granger causality test to analyze the interplay between green finance, GDP growth, and CO2 emissions. Data from 2016 to 2022 were used, capturing Morocco’s progress in renewable energy adoption and green finance initiatives. Results and Discussion: The findings highlight a significant positive correlation between renewable energy consumption, green finance, and economic growth, alongsFDI a reduction in CO2 emissions. The results underscore the strategic importance of green finance in fostering sustainable growth while mitigating environmental impacts. The discussion contextualizes these findings within Morocco’s sustainability agenda, emphasizing the potential for green finance to drive ecological and economic transformation in other emerging economies. Research Implications: This study provFDIs practical insights for policymakers and stakeholders, advocating for expanded green finance frameworks and renewable energy integration to support sustainable development. Originality/Value: By addressing the empirical gap in linking green finance with economic and environmental outcomes, this research contributes tothe literature and offers a roadmap for leveraging financial systems to achieve green growth.

An inquiry into misgovernance in globalization vs. anti-globalization aims to understand why the ‘world factory’ has a relative lower world pricing impact and animates in the history of ‘ecological transformation’ theory for world economy growth in green economy transitions from old-industrial to advanced-industrial regime during 1980–2019. This analysis reveals that oil price in a weaker US dollar value unexpectedly decreases world food prices but in the manner of depending upon an increase in real exchange rates on the US dollar values relative to the Euro and RMB as the base terms of trade, so that further forces the China producer price to undertake a higher production cost and lets EU members undertake a higher inflation rate. A critique on that is to clearly understand that the counter-acting effects of external uncertainty in world growth are against each initial domestic plan for green transformability and forces all world trade partners to cooperate against the expected loss of the weakened US dollar values. These necessary but reluctantly complementary cooperations are highly likely to make each sovereign money value towards a similar misgovernance equifinality undertake the cost burden of contractionary depreciation in the US dollar values. Hence a possible solution is to cooperate to lower the costs of world growth, particularly to assist the world factory to work against a further world loss caused by the weaker US dollar values in order to strengthen globalization in next period.

China’s economic growth over the past 40 years has been characterized by government-led policies, unprecedented scale and rapid urbanization. These features not only have promoted rapid economic growth but also have caused many urban problems such as the dispersive growth of mega-cities. The synergy of rail transport and city spatial structure plays a pivotal role in solving city population problems, resources and realizing the sustainable development of the city. Given the high-paced competition between different cities at both regional and global levels, the transformation of urban spatial ecology based on rail transit in mega-cities has become a significant preoccupation. First, this thesis reveals the relationship of rail transit and city development through the comparison of the development background and process of Japanese and American TOD concept. Not only does it summarize the fundamental value of the TOD concept in controlling urban spreading, releasing traffic congestion and urban sustainable development, but it also analyzes the deep impact of rail transit on urban spatial structure. In particular it shows how the integrated station-city development of Tokyo plays a decisive role in the evolution and transition of urban spatial structure. Second, in comparison with the three world cities, New York, London and Tokyo, Tokyo’s integrated station-city development and dynamic mechanism of synergy between rail transit and city development are summarized. The thesis then explores the theoretic framework of station-city integration and the holistic planning methods. Finally, its synchronization is proposed to promote ecological transformation of urban space structure in China in the future.

Inclusive Green Growth (IGG) has important reference value for China's ecological civilization construction and transformation of economic development. Therefore, this study assesses China's IGG level from the perspective of relative efficiency. The IGG efficiency (IGGE) was measured at the provincial level in China from 2000 to 2020 by using Super-Epsilon-Based Measure (EBM) model that considers undesirable outputs. The spatiotemporal pattern of IGGE was analyzed by kernel density estimation and spatial autocorrelation. The results indicate a fluctuating trend from 2000 to 2020 for the IGGE of China, and significant differences between regional and interprovincial IGGE were observed. On average, the eastern region presented the highest efficiency, while the level in the central regions was lowest. There is a positive spatial autocorrelation in the IGGE distribution, and the agglomeration of spatial distribution fluctuated during the study period. The IGGE has spatial spillover effects at the provincial level according to the spatial Durbin model. Among the influencing factors, the spatial spillover effects of industrial structure, government administrative capability, and industrialization level are significant. The regression results also confirm the Environmental Kuznets Curve effect between IGG and economic growth in China. Finally, some implicit policies can be established based on the empirical analysis.

The Ebinur Lake Basin (ELB), which is a typical watershed in an arid region, has an extremely delicate natural ecosystem. Rapid urbanisation and economic growth have triggered substantial ecological and environmental transformations in this key economic hub of Xinjiang. However, a comprehensive and systematic knowledge of the evolving ecological conditions in the ELB remains limited. Therefore, this study modelled the landscape ecological risk index (LERI) using land use/land cover (LULC) data from 1985 to 2022 and assessed the drivers of landscape ecological risk (LER) using a geographical detector model (GDM). The findings revealed that (1) from 1985 to 2022, the construction land, cropland, and forestland areas in the ELB increased, whereas those of water bodies, grasslands, and barren land decreased. (2) Between 1985 and 2022, LER in the ELB showed a downward trend. Spatially, LER was predominantly characterised by lower and lowest risk levels. The higher and highest risk status has been around Ebinur lake and has continued to improve each year. (3) Climatic factors, particularly temperature and precipitation, were identified as the most significant drivers of the LER change from 1985 to 2022. The findings provide crucial scientific knowledge for advancing sustainable development and maintaining ecological security in the ELB.

Based on an analysis of sustainable water resource utilization cases in water-rich regions worldwide, this study systematically examines water resource development models in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, and other provinces in China, alongside the practical experiences of ecological value transformation in Japan, Hungary, New Zealand, France, and other countries. By comparing and analyzing the pathways for converting water resource ecological value into economic value domestically and internationally, the study distills key lessons and insights from global sustainable water ecological economy practices. The findings indicate that the transformation of water resources' ecological value in China exhibits three notable characteristics: ( 1) the coordinated development of industrial diversification and the ecological economy; (2) the pivotal role of policy guidance and institutional innovation; and (3) the synergistic relationship between ecological restoration and sustainable development. However, the study also reveals that significant challenges remain in China’s property rights framework, industrial structures, and governance efficiency concerning the sustainable utilization of water resources. Drawing on international best practices, the study proposes several recommendations for advancing the sustainable development of China’s water ecological economy: (1) refining the water resource property rights system to enhance market-based allocation efficiency; (2) fostering innovative models of industrial integration to promote high-value-added industries; (3) strengthening collaborative governance mechanisms to improve policy coordination and enforcement; and (4) establishing a resilient and sustainable investment and financing system to support long-term development. These measures aim to facilitate the efficient transformation of water resources' ecological value into economic benefits through institutional innovation and market optimization, thereby promoting the sustainable growth of the water ecological economy.

Since the creation of a common term to indicate a set of incremental and disruptive digital technologies, Industry 4.0 has challenged European manufacturers to find a way to concretely exploit these innovations in their own business strategy. During this journey, Industry 4.0 has recently highlighted some evidence about its efficacy in enabling strategic goals on the three dimensions (economical, environmental, social) of sustainable development, which is a key element for the European Union’s goal to make manufacturers become carbon neutral until 2030. Industry 4.0 and sustainability are together affecting manufacturers’ business models, forcing managers to take chances and face challenges within their organization and in their supply-chain. As an energy-intensive sector, steel industries will be intensively affected by sustainability paradigms. With 19 qualitative interviews in the organization and supply chain of an internationalized steel producer, Feralpi Group, we provide evidence that, beyond the use of main strategic technologies (Internet of Things and Big Data analysis), the implementation of a sustainability strategy is also possible through the creation of new partnerships beyond the own supply chain. The combination of Industry 4.0 technologies and sustainability strategies, especially concerning the environment through Circular Economy practices, pushes steel industries to revise their business models, paving the way for unexpected collaborations, where suppliers, customers, and even more diverse stakeholders such as competitors could bring benefits to the company sustainable economic growth and durability.

Contemporary industrial businesses operate in dynamic and complex environments, often constrained by the limitations of the existing tools and methodologies. This highlights the necessity for innovative approaches that promote economic growth and innovation, tailored to the unique characteristics of industrial enterprises and their operational contexts. This article explores the application of the ecosystem approach and the concept of industrial ecosystems to outline essential strategies for industry participation in regional innovation ecosystems. The primary objective of this study is to establish a typology of the core strategies for industry involvement in regional innovation ecosystems. Following a comprehensive review and categorization of literature in this field, the authors propose a typology comprising eight distinct strategies: “Orchestration”, “Affiliation”, “Innovative transformation”, “Digital transformation”, “Ecological transformation”, “HR-transformation”, “Ecosystem as a tool of state policy”, “Ecosystem as a tool of competition for industrial enterprise”. These strategies are organized based on three key criteria: the scale of the industrial enterprise; its objectives in the context of Industry 4.0 transformation; and the entity responsible for initiating the creation of the regional innovation ecosystem. This research offers valuable insights for scholars engaged in the study of ecosystems, the development of industrial enterprises, and regional growth. Additionally, these findings provide industrial enterprises with a guiding framework for strategic decision-making. Furthermore, this study contributes to the development of evidence-based approaches for state policies aimed at fostering regional development.

Development Models of Resource-dependent Cities’ Transformations and Its Experience and Lessons-Take Baishan City's Development of Transformations as an Example

The Mission Santa Clara de Asís leveraged California Indigenous labor as a means to boost economic growth, displacing Native communities in the process. We analyzed demographic and economic data spanning from 1778-1832. The data centered around the correlational relationship between the demographic collapse and the growth of the mission’s agricultural production. We used multiple methods of analysis and charts that took into account a variety of variables, including birthrate, deathrate, and cattle exports. These conclusions illustrate the extent to which the Mission Santa Clara de Asís exploited the Indigenous communities as a means of economic expansion.

This article revisits Louis Althusser’s structuralist critique of capitalism in light of contemporary debates on degrowth — a political and economic movement that challenges the imperative of perpetual economic expansion. Drawing on Althusser’s key concepts such as the epistemological break, symptomatic reading, ideological state apparatuses (ISAs), and overdetermination, the article explores how capitalist ideology is reproduced through institutions and subjectivities. It argues that degrowth represents not merely an economic alternative, but a form of structural and ideological resistance that disrupts the reproduction of capitalist relations. However, the limited traction of the degrowth movement reveals the depth and resilience of ideological barriers that sustain capitalist reproduction. These barriers are embedded in educational systems, media, and cultural norms — all functioning as ISAs that interpellate individuals into accepting growth as natural and necessary. Althusser’s framework offers critical tools for diagnosing these mechanisms and for rethinking the conditions of political and ecological transformation. Through the application of a structuralist framework, this article elucidates the inherent contradictions embedded within capitalist ideology, emphasizing how degrowth may function as a locus of class antagonism and ideological disruption. It ultimately advocates for a critical reassessment of the ideological premises underpinning economic growth and calls for a renewed conceptualization of political agency in the context of escalating ecological crises.

In the late 1980s, the sustainable development paradigm emerged to provide a framework through which economic growth, social welfare and environmental protection could be harmonized. However, more than 30 years later, we can assert that such harmonization has proved elusive. Steffen et al. (2015) have shown that four out of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed: climate change, impacts in biosphere integrity, land-system change and altered biochemical flows are a manifestation that human activities are driving the Earth into a new state of imbalance. Meanwhile, wealth concentration and inequality have increased, particularly during the last 50 years (Piketty 2014). In 2008, the collapse of large financial institutions was prevented by the public bailout of private banks and, nowadays, low growth rates are likely to become the norm in the economic development of mature economies (Summers 2013; IMF 2015; Teulings and Baldwin 2015). The three pillars of sustainability (environment, society and economy) are thus simultaneously threatened by an intertwined crisis. In an attempt to problematize the sustainable development paradigm, and its recent reincarnation in the concept of a ‘‘green economy’’, degrowth emerged as a paradigm that emphasizes that there is a contradiction between sustainability and economic growth (Kothari et al. 2015; Dale et al. 2015). It argues that the pathway towards a sustainable future is to be found in a democratic and redistributive downscaling of the biophysical size of the global economy (Schneider et al. 2010; D’Alisa et al. 2014). In the context of this desired transformation, it becomes imperative to explore ways in which sustainability science can explicitly and effectively address one of the root causes of social and environmental degradation worldwide, namely, the ideology and practice of economic growth. This special feature aims to do so by stressing the deeply contested and political nature of the debates around the prospects, pathways and challenges of a global transformation towards sustainability. The ‘growth’ paradigm (Dale 2012; Purdey 2010) is indeed largely accepted in advanced and developing countries alike as an unquestioned imperative and naturalized need. It escapes ‘the political’, i.e. the contested public terrain where different imaginaries of possible socio-ecological orders compete over the symbolic and material institutionalization of these visions. In this sense, the contemporary context of neoliberal capitalism appears as a post-political space, i.e. a political formation that forecloses the political, the legitimacy of dissenting voices and positions (Swyngedouw 2007). As Swyngedouw (2014:91) argues: ‘‘the public management of things and people is hegemonically articulated around a naturalization of the need of economic growth and capitalism as the only reasonable and possible form of organization of socionatural metabolism. This foreclosure of the political in terms of at least recognizing the legitimacy of dissenting & Viviana Asara viviana.asara@gmail.com