Green Development Research Articles (Page 1)

ABSTRACT Investigating the effects of crop protection drones on agricultural carbon emissions intensity is crucial for devising more efficient emissions-reduction strategies in the context of smart agriculture. Utilizing continuous panel data from 324 cities in China spanning from 2006 to 2021, this paper examines the impact of the crop protection UAVs subsidy policy (UAVs) and addresses how agricultural mechanization influences green and low-carbon development against the backdrop of rapid smart agricultural machinery development. The findings indicate that: (1) UAVs can significantly reduce agricultural carbon emissions intensity. Specifically, this conclusion holds true even after undergoing various robustness tests. (2) UAVs can achieve agricultural decarbonization goals through horizontal specialization and efficient operations, with labour transfer playing a moderating role in the policy’s carbon reduction effects. (3) The carbon reduction effects of UAVs vary across different resource endowment levels, agricultural functional zones, and levels of agricultural carbon emissions in cities. This paper provides empirical evidence for exploring the mechanisms and optimization paths through which smart agricultural machinery can drive agricultural carbon reduction.

ABSTRACT The UK’s industrial strategy must address four interconnected challenges: transitioning to net-zero, accelerating growth, creating good jobs, and enhancing national security. We argue there are no ‘Swiss Army Knives’ in green industrial strategy that will solve all of these problems at once: each challenge requires its own approach. Drawing on case studies from the UK’s wind and Germany’s solar industries we highlight missed economic opportunities from green technology development without careful and adaptive policymaking. Looking forward, we focus on retrofitting homes and green steel in the UK to explore the trade-offs between decarbonisation, job creation, and economic growth. We chart different pathways the UK could pursue that balance speed of deployment against capturing economic gains domestically. We propose a new decision-making framework to help policymakers navigate these trade-offs. We argue industrial strategy best practice involves adaptive policymaking, conditional public incentives, and collaboration with businesses and communities.

In the alteration of China's industrial structure, it is crucial to promote the green upgrading of traditional industries and the cultivation of new green industries. Therefore, on the basis of panel data from 244 prefecture-level cities in China from 2016 to 2023, The effect of green finance development on industrial structure upgrading is empirically analyzed in this paper using a two-way fixed effects model (TFE). The results indicates that green financial development significantly promotes industrial structure upgrading. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the promoting effect is more pronounced in underdeveloped regions and eastern regions. The innovative points of this paper lie in breaking through the traditional perspective of financial development, focusing on the impact of green finance development instead of finance development on industrial structure upgrading, and creatively employing prefecture-level city data for research. This study provides important references for formulating green financial development plans scientifically, clarifying its development direction, and boosting the systematic upgrading of the industrial structure in an orderly manner.

Against the dual backdrop of the digital economy and green development, digital transformation has emerged as a crucial pathway for enterprises to enhance their environmental performance. Based on the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2021, the research empirically analyzes the effect of digital transformation on the environmental performance of enterprises and its industry differences. The research findings are as follows:(1) Digital transformation has a significantly positive impact on the environmental performance of enterprises, and this effect is achieved by promoting green technological innovation and optimizing the quality of internal control;(2)The heterogeneity analysis indicates digital transformation has a more remarkable effect on improving the environmental performance of low-pollution industries, non-high-tech enterprises, as well as non-manufacturing industries. However, due to the relatively high governance costs, the effects are relatively limited in high-pollution industries and the manufacturing industry. This research provides an important basis for the government to formulate targeted digital environmental protection policies and for enterprises to implement differentiated transformation strategies. It also has certain practical enlightenment significance for promoting the integration of digital economy as well as green development.

Carbon emission efficiency plays a vital role in the realization of the “dual carbon” goals. Taking land resource allocation as the entry point, this paper explores how land resource misallocation (LRM) affects carbon emission efficiency (CEE) to support the enhancement of CEE and the optimal allocation of land resources. Using 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2003 to 2021 as an example, this paper constructs a panel smooth transition model (PSTR), with industrial structure as the transition variable, to examine the nonlinear impact effects of LRM on CEF and its regional heterogeneity. The research results show that the LRM index as a whole presents a fluctuating downward trend, while CEF shows a fluctuating but slow upward trend, and the regional differences in both LRM and CEF continue to expand. There exists a significant nonlinear relationship between LRM and CEF. When the advancement of industrial structure index shifts from the low regime to the high regime, the impact of LRM on CEF presents an inverted “U”-shaped curve characteristic. The nonlinear impact of LRM on CEF exhibits regional heterogeneity, and the threshold effect of industrial structure is the main reason for the regional differences in the nonlinear impact. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the market-oriented reform of land factor allocation, and to formulate phased and differentiated land resource allocation policies adapted to the stages of industrial structure development, so as to effectively serve the goals of green, low-carbon, and high-quality development.

Construction buildings have a significant and continuously increasing impact on the global environment as they consume a lot of resources, energy and contribute a large share of carbon emissions. Green buildings have become a key approach to improve building performance while minimising environmental issues. There are various available green certification schemes, for example LEED, BREEAM, CASBEE, TREES, and Green Mark. However, the cost of green building varies mainly depending on building location. TREES (Thailand Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability) is a national green building certification that provides a framework for assessing building performance and built environment sustainability. Despite its advantages, various studies show that green buildings can cost up to 2-4 times more than conventional building constructions. This cost barrier can cause investors and developers to hesitate when considering green construction initiatives. Therefore, green building selection requires a careful trade-off between sustainability and cost. This research uses a mixed-methods approach, integrating the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with a stochastic cost assessment model to enhance decision-making in TREES-certified building projects. Different levels of TREES-certified buildings are compared, where AHP ranks alternatives based on sustainability criteria, and Monte Carlo simulations assess lifecycle cost variations. The finding indicated that highly sustainable buildings rate higher in AHP but also show larger cost variation due to the use of advanced green technologies, such as photovoltaic, smart metre etc. In contrast, buildings with moderate sustainability ratings and more stable costs may offer a better balance between investment and environmental benefits. This study provides a quantitative decision-making framework aims to help green building developers, investors, and policymakers that minimise financial risks while optimising sustainability.

In the context of the new energy vehicle industry's rapid growth, the large-scale abandoned of used power batteries has become a pressing issue that requires immediate attention. This paper developed a four-level used power battery reverse logistics network optimization model using bibliometric analysis, mixed research methods and system dynamics simulation. It focuses total cost minimization by integrating mixed-integer linear programming and variable neighborhood-genetic algorithm (VNS-GA). Taking the Northeast region of China as a case, this paper explores the spatiotemporal distribution feature of retired batteries and verifies its model effectiveness in cost control, transport optimization and resource recovery efficiency enhancement. The findings of the research shown that the model could effectively reduce total operation cost, improve capacity layer filling and regeneration processing efficiency, optimize operating routes and node distribution, reduce environmental risk in practice. This paper offered a theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the scientific planning and construction of regional used power battery recycling systems, as well as decision support for promoting the green and sustainable development of new energy vehicle industry in order to achieve national dual carbon strategic goals.

The many challenges of our time call for changes in regional economies, increasingly motivating scholars to dive deep into the mechanisms and possibilities for delivering such change. However, the link between regional change and people’s well-being has often been neglected, assuming that new job opportunities, green industrial path development, or higher-value economic activities are inherently good. Rather than assuming such a relationship, this article proposes to combine change agency with the capability approach, thereby introducing a normative and evaluative perspective to explicitly capture individual outcomes. We empirically illustrate the proposed theory of change agency for people’s well-being by studying extreme cases of regional development on the edge. On the edge refers to regions where it is difficult to provide for people’s well-being, due to peripherality, shocks, or a combination of both. We trace the development of two peripheral municipalities in Northern Ukraine, which were temporarily occupied by Russian forces. We demonstrate the potential impact of bottom-up initiatives, which may unfold if local actors are sufficiently empowered. In this context, a decentralization reform, municipal amalgamation, and a mind-set change toward European integration played a key role in enabling change agency. A push for transparent and accountable governance processes led to reduced corruption and increased opportunities for civic engagement. Building trust with businesses enhanced entrepreneurial activities, local and foreign investments, and the inflow of development aid. Capacity-building resulted in multiple projects impacting people’s well-being. In the two cases, good governance was a successful development strategy and enhanced resilience during war.

Urban stormwater management is crucial for mitigating the hydrological risks of cities during intense rainfall events, especially as urban drainage systems are increasingly exposed to climate change, urban sprawl and aging infrastructure. The paper evaluates the potential of green infrastructure and other runoff reduction strategies in a case study of a city in eastern Slovakia – the Trebišov city. The study focuses on combined sewer systems and employs hydraulic modeling using the MIKE+ software to simulate runoff from short-term rainfall events of varying intensity. This study focused mainly on the application of green roofs, permeable surfaces and disconnection of roofs from the stormwater network. Key indicators of the effectiveness of green infrastructure are the volume of surface exceeding water, the volume discharged through combined sewer overflows; or the volume delivered to the wastewater treatment plant. Based on the simulation results, green infrastructure development scenarios were assessed and ranked both according to hydrological performance and cost-effectiveness. The results of the study confirm that green infrastructure has the potential to reduce the runoff volume, especially during rainfall events with low to moderate intensity. At the same time, it was shown that the effectiveness of green infrastructure decreases with increasing rainfall intensity. The identified relationships are not linear, which underlines the need for further research. The findings support the importance of integrating multiple green infrastructure measures depending on site-specific conditions. In terms of cost-effectiveness, roof disconnection was found to be the most advantageous, achieving good results with the cheapest implementation. Permeable surfaces ranked as the second position and combined solutions as the third one. The study also highlighted the ability of green infrastructure to reduce the volume of water discharged from the combined sewer overflows, which represents a significant contribution to the protection of receiving water bodies and the overall sustainability of urban water management.

Advances in the preparation of inorganic ceramic membranes and their utilizations within green chemistry

As global efforts towards green development intensify, eco-friendly materials have become pivotal to achieving sustainability. Wood, a natural, renewable, and environmentally benign biomass, holds great promise for green material applications due to its abundance and ecological benefits. Recent advances in functional modification techniques—such as oxidation, grafting, and nanoparticle incorporation—have significantly enhanced wood’s physical and chemical properties while introducing new environmental functions. These developments have expanded its applications in pollution control, resource recovery, and environmental restoration. In particular, modified wood exhibits outstanding adsorption capacity for heavy metal ions (Pb2+, Cd2+, Cu2+), offering an efficient and sustainable approach to water pollution remediation. This paper reviews the fundamental structure and properties of wood, summarizes recent progress in the development of functionalized wood for heavy metal ion adsorption, and analyzes the influence of various modification methods on adsorption performance. Finally, it outlines future directions for optimizing wood functionalization technologies, providing theoretical foundations and practical guidance for advancing their applications in wastewater treatment and heavy metal pollution control.

Against the backdrop of global green development transformation and China's advancement of the dual-carbon goals, green finance has become crucial support for sustainable economic development. The guiding role of policy on ESG investment is becoming increasingly evident. However, further research on how policy leverages ESG investment to promote green finance development is needed. This paper employs literature research to review relevant theories and the current research status, uses case analysis to examine typical cases, focuses on the policy-led perspective to analyze driving paths, and combines typical cases with empirical analysis for multidimensional verification. It systematically identifies paths through which policy drives green finance development by guiding the dissemination of ESG investment concepts, promoting the development of the ESG investment market, and improving support mechanisms, supported by multidimensional case evidence. The study revealed that policy plays a key role in the ability of ESG investment to drive green finance development. The identified driving paths have practical guiding significance and can provide references for optimizing policies and market entity behaviors.

The rapid development of new-generation information technologies, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain, is profoundly reshaping production and lifestyles, with regional development patterns. This study employs text analysis to extract the policy adoption timeline of cloud computing from official documents and constructs a quasi-natural experiment framework. First, spatial autocorrelation and hotspot analysis reveal significant spatial dependence in the urban green total factor productivity (GTFP). Accordingly, using panel data of 284 Chinese cities from 2000 to 2023, we apply a spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to empirically examine the impact of cloud computing on the urban GTFP. The results show that, first, the adoption of cloud computing significantly enhances the local GTFP, but simultaneously suppresses neighboring cities’ GTFP through the siphon effect, thereby generating negative spatial spillover effects. These findings remain robust across parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and multiple robustness tests. Second, mechanism analysis indicates that improved resource allocation efficiency and strengthened green innovation are the two core channels through which cloud computing promotes GTFP. Third, heterogeneity analysis reveals that cloud computing exhibits stronger siphon effects in smaller cities, generates significant positive spatial spillover effects in coastal regions, and effectively fosters GTFP growth within urban agglomerations, while exerting limited influence on non-agglomerated areas. Moreover, industrial agglomeration further amplifies the positive impact of cloud computing on GTFP. Additionally, from the perspective of regional policies, this study finds that promoting the integrated development of urban agglomerations, reducing administrative monopoly, facilitating free factor mobility, and advancing urban international economic activities are effective pathways to mitigate the siphon effect of cloud computing on the urban GTFP. Based on these findings, this study offers targeted policy recommendations to leverage cloud computing for advancing green and high-quality urban development.

Exploring the spatial impact of public environmental appeals on green development welfare in China

Transportation constitutes a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. As a low-carbon fuel alternative, the design efficiency and performance of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage tanks for vehicles are critically important. However, traditional design methods have a low degree of automation and lack standardized assessment, which can easily lead to repetitive design modifications, causing resource waste and restricting the process of green development. Based on the Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) algorithm and three-dimensional modeling technology, this study proposes an intelligent design and automated modeling method for vehicle LNG storage tanks oriented towards sustainable design. The results demonstrate that this method completes both tank parameter design and model generation within 30 min. Compared to traditional designs, the proposed method achieves an 8.992% reduction in heat dissipation, a 26.015% reduction in inner vessel compressive deformation, with a trade-off of a 14.452% increase in total weight. This design approach significantly enhances material utilization efficiency and environmental benefits by optimizing resource allocation and performance balance, providing effective technical support for strengthening the sustainability of LNG storage tank design.

ABSTRACT Technology and finance serve as important foundations for China’s innovation-driven development strategy and high-quality economic development. This research adopts a difference-in-differences (DID) model to evaluate whether the pilot policy of Promoting the Integration of Technology and Finance (PITF) has positive effects on both urban pollution reduction and energy efficiency enhancement. The key findings are summarized below. The PITF significantly facilitates pollution reduction and enhances energy efficiency. This conclusion remains statistically significant after a series of robustness tests. Specifically, the PITF primarily fosters synergistic improvements in both urban pollution reduction and energy efficiency via green technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading, financial allocation optimization, and technological talent agglomeration. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that, the PITF has a significant impact on curbing pollution emissions and enhancing energy efficiency in non-resource-based cities, southern cities and urban agglomerations. Through the exploration of multidimensional paths for the pilot policy, this research offers valuable academic and practical insights for the green and low-carbon socio-economic development.

ABSTRACT Growing concerns regarding soil acidification, excessive NPK use in agriculture, low calcium fertilizer input, and easy leaching have resulted in ubiquitous calcium deficiency, challenging crop productivity, and nutrient use efficiency. Here, two-year and two-stage pot experiments were designed to grow lettuce under simulated rainfall conditions, comparing polyhalite with conventional Ca fertilizers (calcium chloride and gypsum) at five levels (0, 20, 40, 80, and 160 kg·ha−1). In the two growing seasons, lettuce yield and biomass both significantly increased by 5–25% and 2–60%, respectively, across all fertilizer types and levels. Calcium nutrient uptake by lettuce and soil was promoted with the application of Ca fertilizers in acidic soils, which also increased Ca leaching in the soil-crop systems. Polyhalite showed better agronomic effects due to its slow release, promoting lettuce growth and productivity, and reducing Ca leaching by 3–26%. This study confirms the indispensability of Ca fertilizer application in improving crop production and nutrient uptake in acidic soils under intense leaching conditions, such as heavy rainfall or flood irrigation. Steady Ca supply, such as polyhalite, helps meet crop Ca requirements while decreasing leaching, thus achieving green and sustainable development goals by increasing crop yield and nutrient use efficiency in soil-crop systems.

This study attempts to find out the efficacy of Green IT training programs offered in a developing economy, taking the IT capital city of ‎Bangalore, India, considered as the global IT hub, as an illustrative case. Green IT training programs are thus becoming more crucial as the ‎IT sector faces increasing environmental challenges driven by rapid technological progress and huge resource consumption. Nonetheless, ‎there is little exploration on the role that these programs play in influencing IT professionals toward sustainable practices. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study integrates quantitative data — collected from 384 information technology (IT) professionals across companies ‎with different employee sizes — with qualitative information obtained through structured interviews and focus groups. Chi-square tests, ‎correlation, and regression were used to analyze the relationship between the number of hours of training, training delivery methods, ‎organizational support, and the perceived effectiveness of training programs. As such, the findings show there are important differences in ‎rates of effectiveness that are due to company size, training methodology — with an emphasis on sites where employees are trained together ‎‎— as well as a greater organizational emphasis placed on training. The study emphasizes the importance of training approaches that are ‎aligned with both corporate environmental aspirations and employee engagement. These findings are essential to IT companies seeking to ‎improve their sustainability efforts, as well as policymakers working to support environmentally responsible policies in the tech sector‎

Under the “dual carbon” goals, offshore oil and gas development requires efficient CO2 reduction solutions. This study investigates a membrane–cryogenic distillation-coupled process for treating high-CO2-associated gas (40%–70% CO2). The experimental results demonstrate that the membrane unit enriches CO2 to over 80% under optimized pressure and temperature conditions. Subsequent cryogenic distillation further purifies CO2 to ≥95% with a recovery rate of 80%. The integrated system improves the overall recovery to 80%, reduces energy consumption, and decreases the equipment footprint by approximately 30% compared to conventional methods. This process demonstrates technical feasibility, along with economic and environmental benefits, for decarbonizing offshore gas production, supporting green development in the energy sector.

ABSTRACT This review offers a novel and integrated synthesis of the role played by Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in advancing green skills development, focusing on emerging economies. This domain remains insufficiently explored in the current literature. Drawing on bibliometric, qualitative, and engagement‐based methodologies, the study investigates the evolving landscape of DFI‐supported workforce initiatives aimed at fostering climate‐responsive industrial transformation. The review is grounded in a systematic analysis of literature retrieved from ScienceDirect and Scopus (2014–2024) databases. It employs tools such as VOSviewer, MAXQDA, and Python to map citation networks, keyword trends, and public engagement patterns. Key findings reveal fragmented scholarly engagement, emerging thematic concentrations such as climate finance and the circular economy, and persistent sectoral gaps in green skills training. The analysis underscores the collaborative potential of DFIs, the private sector, and educational institutions in aligning workforce development with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 13 (Climate Action). As global sustainability priorities intensify, the urgency of equipping the workforce with relevant green competencies has become increasingly apparent. DFIs offer both financial and strategic support for capacity‐building programmes that promote renewable energy expertise, green technology innovation, and resilience in climate‐vulnerable sectors. However, challenges persist, including constrained financing, limited programme continuity, and the absence of standardised curricula. It concludes by advocating for enhanced cross‐sectoral collaboration and real‐time feedback mechanisms between DFIs, training institutions, and industries. Future research should prioritise the long‐term evaluation of DFI‐backed green skills initiatives, particularly their impact on labour market transformation and sustainable economic development.