Environmental Protection Responsibility Research Articles

Can environmental protection interview policy reduce air pollution? -A spatial difference-in-differences approach

ABSTRACT The low efficiency of environmental policy implementation is an important issue in China’s environmental governance. The Environmental Protection Interview (EPI) policy is an administrative means for the central environmental protection department to urge local governments to earnestly fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities. This paper takes China’s EPI policy as a quasi-natural experiment. We use panel data of 261 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2018 as research sample and use spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the effect and mechanism of EPI policy on air pollution. The results show that EPI policy can effectively improve air quality, EPI policy has obvious spatial spillover effects. Namely, the EPI policy can not only reduce the local air pollution, but also reduce the air pollution in neighbouring cities. The EPI policy reduces the air pollution in the neighbouring cities within a spatial attenuation boundary of 400 km.The results of mechanism test show that the EPI policy can improve air quality by promoting industrial structure upgrading and technical advancement. Moreover, the pollution reduction effect of EPI is more significant in resource-based cities. The research results of this paper provide important reference for China and other developing countries to improve air quality.

The Improvement of Enterprises’ Environmental Responsibility Based on A Comparison Between Chinese and Japanese Legislation

As a country whose environmental protection legislation develops relatively late, environmental problems have occurred frequently in recent years, especially those related to enterprises’ environmental protection responsibilities. Through the comparison of environmental legislation and the legislative differences on corporate environmental responsibility between China and Japan, this paper aims at figuring out what deficiencies exist in Chinese environmental legislation. Some suggestions on China’s future environmental protection legislation concerning the advantages of Japanese environmental legislation will be given.

Research on the interactive response relationship between thermal power carbon emission and industrial structure in Western China.

The thermal power industry takes the important social responsibility of energy conservation and environmental protection. The carbon emissions made by the thermal power industry are affected by the industrial structure. In this paper, the carbon emission of thermal power generation is divided into three links: energy combustion, desulfurization process, and power transportation. The total carbon emission of thermal power in 11 provinces in western China from 2000 to 2017 is calculated. Combined with industrial reform, this paper constructs a panel data fixed effect model to systematically analyze the interactive response relationship between thermal power carbon emission and industrial structure in the western region. The research shows that due to the continuous expansion of hydropower, wind power, and other new energy power generation scale and the improvement of energy efficiency in the western region, the growth trend of thermal power carbon emission has slowed down since 2010. The industrial development pattern is the main driving force of regional economic development, and the secondary industry in the western region is the main driving factor of thermal power carbon emission. High quality economic development in the western region can be promoted through technological upgrading, new energy development, and industrial multi-mode operation.

Corporate Responsibility For Environmental Protection And Management In Ex-Mining Land

Exploiting natural resources must be based on an environmental approach. This is reasonable because environmental problems are closely related to the process of population growth, which is the high demand for natural resources. One of the most widely used natural resources by humans for various purposes is coal. The negative impact of coal mining is that it triggers deforestation (deforestation) and exacerbates climate change. Therefore, in the exploration and exploitation management process, every mining material, especially coal, requires various AMDAL mechanisms as part of environmentally sound development management. Provisions regarding mineral and coal mining activities oblige mining companies to carry out reclamation and post-mining activities over the mining areas they manage. The scope of the implementation of reclamation activities starts from exploration, land clearing, excavation of topsoil and over burden, coal excavation, land management, revegetation including preparation of nurseries, and maintenance and evaluation of activity results. The implementation of reclamation is carried out no later than one month after there are no more mining business activities on disturbed land. Reclamation and post-mining activities are one of the obligations of mining business activities that should be taken into account.

Green mergers and acquisitions and green innovation: an empirical study on heavily polluting enterprises.

The concept of green development has gradually penetrated into the enterprise. Green mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have gradually become a means for heavily polluting enterprises to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction and embark on the path of green transformation. Heavily polluting enterprises have acquired clean technology and resources through green M&A, and whether they will promote their green innovations after green M&A has not yet been explored. Based on the data of M&As of China's heavy polluting enterprises from 2010 to 2018, this study empirically tests whether the M&As of heavy polluting enterprises can promote green innovation. The results show that M&As by heavily polluting enterprises can promote green innovation, and this impact is promoted with the support of government subsidies. In addition, older or higher paid CEOs negatively moderate this effect. Therefore, our study believes that most of the M&As of heavy polluting enterprises are taking the initiative to take environmental protection responsibilities and embarking on the path of green transformation. The government can issue relevant policies to encourage heavily polluting enterprises to conduct green M&A in order to achieve their goal of green transformation. Our study has enriched the relevant literature on green investment and green innovation, and can be used as a reference for the government to introduce policies for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises.

Supplier selection in sustainable supply chains: Using the integrated BWM, fuzzy Shannon entropy, and fuzzy MULTIMOORA methods

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection and social responsibility, sustainable supplier selection (SSS) has been receiving more and more attention. However, traditional methods for selecting sustainable suppliers suffer from three main drawbacks: (i) Few existing studies have considered criteria weightings that have been determined both subjectively and objectively, reasonably and simultaneously. Moreover, among these limited studies, existing methods for combining weightings that have been calculated both subjectively and objectively provide only a poor degree of differentiation. (ii) Although MULTIMOORA method has high potential to solve the complex SSS problem, few researchers have given it much attention. (iii) The current Reference Point Approach within MULTIMOORA is not comprehensive as it only considers the distance between the alternative and the positive ideal point. Together, these drawbacks result in both inefficiency and ineffectiveness in SSS. This paper proposes a novel fuzzy MULTIMOORA-based method for SSS. The proposed method, firstly, obtains weights by both group Best Worst Method (subjective method) and fuzzy Shannon Entropy Method (objective method), respectively. Then the two types of weights are combined by Deviation Maximization method, reasonably and effectively. Finally, the paper introduces an improved fuzzy MULTIMOORA method to rank alternative suppliers, which considers both the minimum distance from the positive ideal point and the maximum distance from the negative ideal point. The practicability and effectiveness of the proposed method is verified in an illustrative application in Company L, a well-known international forklift truck manufacturer in China.

Restart economy in a resilient way: The value of corporate social responsibility to firms in COVID-19

This paper investigates the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to firms in COVID-19. Using data from listed companies in China, we find that a high-level of CSR is conducive to improving stock returns. Importantly, the mechanism analysis shows that corporate social responsibility can bring social trust capital to enterprises, and it can improve the corporate performance during the epidemic. Additional tests show that the impacts of employee protection and environmental protection responsibilities on stock returns are even more significant. Our findings reveal the importance of the socially responsible investing and have important policy implications.

Does air pollution prompt corporations to implement green management? Evidence from China.

As the Environmental Protection Law was revised and media public opinion supervise them, enterprises need to not only undertake more environmental protection responsibilities but also alleviate the contradiction between development and environment. By applying a multiple regression model, this paper studies the impact of air pollution on the management behavior of enterprises using the panel data of China’s A-share polluting enterprises listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets between 2014 and 2019. The results of this study are as follows: First, air pollution produces a positive impact on the behavior of corporate green management. Second, media reports have brought more attention to corporate pollution and increased the positive impact of air pollution on corporate green management efforts. By further considering the internal and external heterogeneity of enterprises, the impact of air pollution on corporate green management varies when the degree of enterprise pollution and the degree of local governance differ. Moreover, this paper highlights the fact that air pollution can play a significant role in corporate green management, while media attention, as a third party, plays a regulating role in environmental supervision. This provides suggestions for strengthening green management behavior of enterprises and building comprehensive environmental supervision system.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-021-16272-5.

System Balance Index as an Indicator of the Russian Gas Industry’s Sustainable Growth

The paper examines an approach to developing a strategy for the Russian gas industry’s sustainable growth based on the system economic theory’s methodology. The aim of the study is to evaluate the current state of the industry by calculating sustainable growth indices. Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) reveals a deep relationship between sustainable growth indices and Return on equity ( ROE ), Lambert Energy Index ( LEI ), Return on environmental investments (ROEenv ), and Return on social investments (ROEsr ). The system balance index ( SBI ) is calculated, which expresses the intensity of links between the financial, energy, environmental and social subsystems of the gas industry. The results show that the Russian gas industry companies are characterized by a low level of ROEenv or ROEsr , negatively affecting the SBI value. The authors conclude the importance of environmental protection and social responsibility for achieving sustainable industry growth should not be underestimated. This circumstance should be taken into account when setting strategic goals for companies in the gas industry. According to the authors, applying system economic theory to achieve sustainable growth goals has huge potential to overcome economic phenomena and improve company management practices.

Environmental Regulation, Promotion Pressure of Officials, and Enterprise Environmental Protection Investment.

This study expands on the impact of local government environmental regulation on enterprise environmental protection investment. Furthermore, it analyzes the influence promotion pressure of officials has on the scale of enterprise environmental investment. The results show that the environmental protection investment of companies in China is generally insufficient. The attitude of companies toward environmental protection is passive under the policy regulation. The environmental supervision of the government is also still at a low level. Both of these observations are far from the intentions of the government. There is a U-shaped relationship between the pressure of official promotion and the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. Only when the pressure of official promotion exceeds a certain limit can it positively stimulate enterprises to invest in environmental protection. Environmental regulation also exerts a threshold effect on the environmental protection investment by enterprises. This research provides a new way to understand the decision-making behavior of local officials and the environmental protection responsibility of enterprises. This study provides recommendations for improving the environment appraisal and government supervision system in China.

Quantifying the dynamics between environmental information disclosure and firms’ financial performance using functional data analysis

Environmental information disclosure (EID) is an important way for firms to communicate to the government and the public to fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities. Essentially, the dynamic impacts of firms’ activities on the ecological environment are evolving continuously. We aim to introduce functional data analysis (FDA) for exploring the dynamics in the relationship between environmental information disclosure (EID) and firms’ financial performance. Based on continuous curves smoothed from 75 Chinese listed firms of pollution-intensive industries, this study examined the dynamic effect and its structural break of EID on firms' financial performance. Furthermore, moderating effects of public attention, government subsidy and ratio of profits to total cost were tested within a functional framework. The results revealed that the positive effect of EID on firms' financial performance is constantly significant, whereas there existed a structural break in 2015 due to the implementation of new Environmental Protection Law. Moreover, the positive moderating effect of the ratio of profits to total cost is significant only before 2015, while both the main effect and moderating effect of government subsidy are not significant. Surprisingly, although the main effects of public attention are not significant, its positive moderating effect is statistically significant. We contributed in introducing FDA as a useful toolkit for quantifying the time-dynamics in ecological economics, and our findings could offer guidance for stakeholders seeking to improve EID.

The influence of the development of new energy vehicles on the environment from the game perspective

In order to alleviate environmental problems such as air pollution, this paper starts from the new energy automobile industry and analyzes the behavior strategies between the government and consumers, two stakeholders of new energy automobiles, through the dynamic game model. The following conclusions can be drawn from the utility function. First, theoretically, the government will not provide any financial subsidies for new-energy vehicles. Second, consumers’ behavioral strategies are influenced by financial subsidies, vehicle purchase taxes, and the utility and cost of purchasing new energy vehicles or traditional vehicles. Therefore, the government should pay attention to the social level in order to achieve the maximum of social utility. On the one hand, the government should enhance the continuity of subsidy policies for consumers who buy new energy vehicles and strengthen the supervision of the implementation of subsidy policies. On the other hand, the government should play a positive role of its own credibility to the public and improve the awareness of environmental protection among car buyers. And consumers should constantly improve the sense of responsibility for environmental protection, so that the two can cooperate with each other and make contributions to environmental protection.

Environmental Regulations and Corporate Green Investment: Evidence From Heavy Polluting Companies in China

With the rapid development of the global economy, environmental pollution has become one of the main problems facing. As the main carriers of social production, companies create value for the whole society and also occupy the main resources. Heavy polluting companies have serious pollution discharge. They should bear more environmental protection responsibilities. Green investment of heavy polluting companies is the focus of social concern. Therefore, this paper selects 243 listed companies in China’s heavy polluting industry as samples to explore the impact of environmental regulations on corporate green investment. This study calculates the green investment amount of companies through the “content analysis method”, and divides the environmental regulation into formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation. A fixed panel model is constructed for research. The empirical results show that market-incentive environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation have a significantly positive impact on corporate green investment. There is no significant relationship between command-andcontrol environmental regulation and corporate green investment. According to this conclusion, this paper proposes some suggestions about green finance.

Connotation Analysis on Sustainable Development Strategy of Garment Enterprises — Case Study on the Famous Brand JNBY

Domestic original designer brand JYBY adheres to environmental protection and social responsibility actions, and integrates sustainable development into its strategic planning. This paper mainly USES case analysis method to analyse the composition and implementation measures of JNBY’s sustainable development strategy, so as to provide experience for other garment enterprises in China to formulate sustainable development strategies.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ СОЦИАЛЬНО-ЭКОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ ПАТТЕРНОВ ПОВЕДЕНИЯ БУДУЩИХ ТЕХНИЧЕСКИХ СПЕЦИАЛИСТОВ

The subject of the article is the formation of socio-ecological patterns of behavior among future technical specialists in the implementation of professional tasks of labor activity. The object of the article: environmental performance management system aimed at environmental safety, environmental protection, social and environmental responsibility. The purpose of the work is to substantiate the immanence of socio-ecological patterns of behavior of future technical specialists, their significance in the experience of formation in the educational process. Methodology of the work: search for a set of theoretical and methodological approaches, on the basis of which the principles of continuity and ways of forming behavioral patterns in the "man-nature-technology" system are determined through the prism of social, environmental and professional values in order to master socio-environmental competencies by future specialists of technical training areas. The results of the work indicate an increase in the level of development of ecological consciousness among future technical specialists of the experimental group: a conscious understanding of the importance of environmental problems, norms and rules of behavior in relation to nature conservation, responsibility for the consequences of their professional actions. The field of application of the results is practical pedagogical activity that forms socio-ecological patterns of behavior. It is advisable to introduce an environmental component into the disciplines of the curriculum in technical areas of training. An important aspect of the ecologization of disciplines is the principle of interdisciplinarity and continuity. Conclusion: The formation of socio-ecological patterns of behavior of future technical specialists contributes to the generation of educational results in the process of training highly qualified engineers.

Environmental Responsibility in Rural Areas (Case Study: Rural Areas of Mazandaran Province)

Purpose- Social responsibility for environmental protection at all levels and strata of society is an issue that is explicitly emphasized in paragraph 14 of the General Environmental Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the villagers as the main users of environmental resources are expected to take environmental responsibility without exception. The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify level of responsibility of environmental behaviors of villagers and determine social factors affecting it. Design/methodology/approach- In this research, the framework of social psychology was used and the research method was survey and cross-sectional. The unit of analysis is the rural individuals. The statistical population of the study is all residents of rural areas of Mazandaran province in 1398/2019. The sampling method of multi-stage cluster sampling was used. The number of study villages surveyed was 30 villages and the sample size was 536 people. The data required for the research were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire. Finding- The results showed that the level of responsible environmental behavior of villagers is at a moderate level. In addition, the results of multivariate analyzes indicate that there is a significant relationship between social psychological factors (religious beliefs, environmental values and environmental knowledge) and responsible behaviors towards the environment. In the final evaluation, it can be said that the modified model of social psychological factors seems a suitable model for studying factors affecting environmental behaviors in rural communities and can be useful as a model for conducting similar research in other rural areas of the country.

Research on energy-saving strategies of college stadiums and sports venues under the concept of low carbon development

More than half of the stadiums and sports venues in China are concentrated in the education system, and a large proportion of them are distributed in various colleges and universities across the country. Therefore, the planning, design, construction, operation and management of stadiums and sports venues of college and university are also getting more and more attention from the society and the educators. The author believes that under the concept of low carbon development, colleges and universities should focus on introducing ideas of energy conservation and put the concepts of low carbon economy development throughout the whole process and all aspects of operational management of stadiums and sports venues, so as to achieve the effects of sustainable development while fulfilling social responsibility of environmental protection, promoting green lifestyle among the students and contributing to green development model.

Corporate Environmental Performance in China: The Moderating Effects of the Media versus the Approach of Local Governments.

This article selects the listed companies in China’s A-share heavy pollution industry from 2014 to 2018 as samples, uses a random effect model to empirically test the relationship between media attention and corporate environmental performance and examines the impacts of local government environmental protection and property nature on that relationship. Results are as follow: (1) Media attention can significantly affect a company’s environmental performance. The higher the media attention, the greater the company’s supervision and the better its environmental performance. (2) In areas where the government pays less attention to environmental protection, the impact of media on corporate environmental performance is more obvious, but in other areas, the impact of media on environmental performance cannot be reflected; (3) The media attention is very significant for the environmental performance improvement of state-owned enterprises, and it is not obvious in non-state-owned enterprises. (4) A further breakdown of the study found that the role of media attention in corporate environmental performance is only significant in the sample of local governments that have low environmental protection and are state-owned enterprises. This research incorporates the local government’s emphasis on environmental protection into the research field of vision, expands the research scope of media and corporate environmental performance, and also provides new clues and evidence for promoting the active fulfillment of environmental protection responsibilities by companies and local governments.

From sustainable development to degrowth: philosophical and educational strategies for sustainability

The article is dedicated to analyzing the philosophical and educational grounds for the sustainable development of humankind. The growth of human civilization is already recognized to have its strict natural limits, and that has resulted in the formulation of the concept of sustainable development as a strategy for the future of humankind. However, there is some discrepancy noted in the concept of sustainable development – in particular, it is the lack of fundamental consistency between its ‘economic’ and ‘ecological’ components. It is insufficient to consider the nature being valuable only as a base of resources, as means for social and economic development. As sustainability could only be based on some minimal conditions for living within the regenerative capacity of the planet’s ecosystems, it is evident that the current crisis is a crisis of senses, values and lifestyle no less than it is the crisis of industry and social demography. Sustainability is argued to require a new kind of society that would be able to decrease its growth and its excessive consumption habits. The article analyzes the concept of degrowth as a kind of more radical and practical supplement to the rather abstract idea of sustainable development: degrowth is defined as an ecologically sound development. That concept is also shown to present new challenges for higher education as a social institution tasked with constituting a human personality capable of living in a environmentally sound future. Thus, higher education is faced today with the challenge of shaping out not only knowledge and skills, but values and behavior patterns as well, by giving more attention to general culture, critical thinking and creativity and by increasing social responsibility for environmental protection and adopting lifestyle practices of degrowth and reduced consumption.

ПРОБЛЕМИ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ ВПРОВАДЖЕННЯ ЕКОЛОГІЧНИХ ІННОВАЦІЙ НА ПІДПРИЄМСТВАХ

Дослідження зумовлене необхідністю забезпечення сталого розвитку підприємств та присвячене аналізу наявного стану, проблем та перспектив упровадження екологічних інновацій на підприємствах. На основі використання монографічного методу, абстрактно-логічного, логічних узагальнень, формалізації та конкретизації розкрито проблемність, тенденції та особливості впровадження екологічних інновацій на вітчизняних промислових підприємствах. Розглянуто сутність екоінновацій та об’єкти, які їм належать. Обґрунтовано поділ екоінновацій промислового підприємства на інновації у виробничій діяльності, у зміні складу продуктів; в управлінській сфері. Проаналізовано тенденції впровадження на підприємствах маловідходних, ресурсозберігаючих, технологічних процесів. Досліджено обсяги капітальних інвестицій в екологізацію за видами економічної діяльності підприємств України. З метою розвитку процесів екологізації запропоновано забезпечити низку економічних умов: розвиток страхового ринку; субсидіювання використання нетрадиційних джерел енергії; створення кластерів екологічно орієнтованого виробництва; підвищення інвестиційної привабливості еколозації виробництв; створення фондів спеціального призначення; формування програми розвитку екоінновацій у промисловості.