Sustainability In Malaysia Research Articles

Unveiling the nexus: unravelling the dynamics of financial inclusion, FinTech adoption and societal sustainability in Malaysia

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of perceived benefits-risk dynamics on financial inclusion, the factor driving fintech adoption, the mediating effects of financial inclusion on perceived benefit-risk dynamics and fintech adoption, and the societal sustainability effects of fintech adoption. Design/methodology/approach This study used a quantitative study with 258 respondents in Sarawak, Malaysia. PLS-SEM was used to investigate the associations. Findings This study suggests that only non-monetary benefits and regulatory risks significantly influence financial inclusion. In addition, financial inclusion acts as an intermediary for non-monetary benefits and regulatory risks. Besides, a direct relationship exists between financial inclusion and fintech adoption, as well as between fintech adoption and societal sustainability. Research limitations/implications This model explores a few benefits and risks. Also, technological and legislative changes may alter research outcomes. Besides, this study only samples Sarawak, Malaysia. Therefore, country-specific factors, including technology infrastructure, financial services accessibility and cultural variations, may affect participant responses. This study offers a novel perspective on fintech by including Valence, Public Good and Sustainable Information Society theories. Practical implications Financial inclusion’s non-monetary benefits must be emphasised to remove barriers and meet user requirements. Fintech firms should also work with authorities to comply with regulations and help marginalised populations by prioritising sustainability. Social implications Fintech growth requires innovation, consumer protection and fair competition. Fintech firms can enhance financial inclusion to address inequalities (SDG10). Governments and fintech solutions should incorporate financial and digital literacy into education (SGG4). Originality/value Financial inclusion, fintech adoption and societal sustainability are examined using emotional, sociological and societal sustainability aspects.

Application of Geographical Information Systems in Sustainability in the Malaysian Context: A Review

The depletion of natural resources to meet growing demands for food, fuel, and fibre due to population growth and urbanisation has led to significant environmental damage in Malaysia. Hence, greenhouse gases have increased atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) levels, contributing to global warming and climate change. From developing software to analysing data, GIS is influenced by political, economic, and social factors throughout its production process. This paper introduces a structured framework aimed at conducting an extensive literature review study on the application of the Geographic Information System (GIS) to sustainability in Malaysia. The framework delineates essential steps and factors for identifying pertinent literature, assessing prior research, amalgamating outcomes, and pinpointing research voids. Adhering to this framework enables researchers to methodically scrutinise and appraise existing literature, furnishing a thorough depiction of the present state of knowledge within the application of GIS to sustainability in Malaysia. This literature review highlights GIS as a critical tool for promoting sustainable management across various domains, including flood hazard management, urban planning, agriculture, forest monitoring, transportation, air quality management, and water resource management, by providing access to data, models, and mapping.

Analysis of consumer preferences and attitudes towards sustainable consumption of plastic beverage packaging in Malaysia

One of the challenges towards promoting plastic packaging sustainability in Malaysia is the lack of awareness on plastic consumption among consumers and the absence of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme. Consumers play a significant role in contributing towards better management of plastic packaging. Using plastic beverage packaging as an example, a survey was carried out on consumer willingness to participate in an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system and pay for a more sustainable packaging option. Some open-ended questions were also applied to implore on factors that would encourage consumer participation in sustainable plastic packaging management. A majority of the respondents gave positive responses towards their willingness to participate and willingness to pay for a more environmentally friendly plastic packaging options. The results also showed that the respondents will be more encouraged to participate if it is convenient for them to do so, but also raised the need for a better management system, infrastructure, mindset, awareness and education to be in place. The results provided valuable insights to both policy makers and the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector in determining the way forward for solid waste management in general and plastic packaging policy and management in particular.

The Necessity for Precise Estimation: Formulating a Malaysian Labour and Plant Constant for Construction Productivity

The Malaysian construction industry plays a vital role in driving economic growth and infrastructure development. However, the sector faces significant challenges in achieving accurate productivity measurement and cost estimation due to its reliance on foreign-based Labour and Plant Constants. These metrics, often misaligned with local conditions, lead to budget overruns, project delays, Extension of Time (EOT) claims, and Variation Orders (VOs). The lack of a standardized approach to determine the optimal combination of labour, plant, and machinery further complicates resource allocation and project planning, ultimately affecting the industry’s overall efficiency and competitiveness. This paper emphasizes the urgent need to develop a Malaysian Labour and Plant Constant that reflects the unique conditions of the local construction environment, including labour skills, environmental factors, and machinery capabilities. Such localized constants will enhance cost estimation accuracy, improve resource management, reduce project delays, and foster sustainability in Malaysia’s construction sector. Additionally, this initiative would align the industry with global best practices, boosting its competitiveness both locally and internationally. Establishing a robust resource optimization methodology will improve cost estimates, reduce project delays, and enhance overall efficiency. This paper emphasizes the necessity for a Malaysian-specific approach to productivity measurement and cost estimation to boost the accuracy and reliability of tender evaluations, ultimately strengthening the competitiveness and sustainability of the Malaysian construction industry.

Moderating Effect of WAQF for Tourism Sustainability in Malaysia: A Mixed-Method Approach

Due to its substantial contributions to the economy, society, environment, and other sectors, tourism is vital. To keep the tourism business sustainable, the government and other relevant stakeholders must allocate a sizable budget. Consequently, waqf is one way to lessen reliance on government funding. Waqf, in general, refers to assets that Muslims willingly donate and plan to use or grow for the good of the community. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the tourism industry and the economic, social-cultural, environmental, and transversal pillars are significantly correlated. It also looks at how waqf moderates the relationship between the tourism sector's sustainability and the economic pillar. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this methodology. Quantitative data were obtained from 150 respondents, and qualitative data were collected through interviews to verify the quantitative findings. The results show significant positive relationships between economic, social-cultural, environmental, and transversal pillars with tourism industry sustainability. The result also demonstrates that waqf moderates the relationship between the economic pillar and tourism industry sustainability. The implications of waqf would contribute to essential services to the community. This had many significant impacts on the economy as a whole and the sustainability of the tourism industry itself. Waqf can reduce the budget deficit, decrease the need for government borrowing, and decrease the interest rate, thereby removing a significant impediment to private and investment growth.

The influence of tourism on the road to achieving carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability in Malaysia: The role of renewable energy

As the effects of climate change on the environment become more apparent, numerous initiatives have been launched to achieve carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability. Travelers may be adding to global warming by engaging in climate–altering practices like flying or staying in hotels. Thus, this study examined the connection between tourism and carbon emissions, considering a few additional unique aspects. The long–run and short–run coefficients were calculated by applying the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method using data spanning 1990–2019. According to projections, tourism in Malaysia makes it more difficult to reach carbon neutrality. Traveler numbers along with fossil fuel energy use, economic growth, financial development, gross fixed capital formation, and population have a positive association with long–term carbon emissions. However, the findings revealed a negative link between renewable energy consumption and carbon emissions. Several methods, including Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR), Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), were used to independently verify the results. The results of this research have important policy implications for achieving carbon neutrality and promoting sustainable tourism development in Malaysia by boosting renewable energy use.

EXPLORING THE GREEN BUILDING PROSPECTS IN MALAYSIA

Green building refers to any development project or building that, in its design, construction, and building operation is environmentally responsible, resource-efficient, and eliminates or reduces the negative effects on the environment. Although green buildings provide enormous benefits to the environment, economy, and society, the public is still unaware of these benefits. The public’s lack of knowledge, experience, and awareness of green buildings led to market barriers becoming one of the primary reasons for the poor implementation of green buildings in Malaysia. Thus, the objective of this study is to explore the benefits and the contributing factors of green building towards sustainability in Malaysia. Most of the green building developments are in the Klang Valley. This study focused on the public within the Klang Valley area. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed via online platforms. A total of 80 respondents were received for the survey. The data were analysed by using SPSS software. Descriptive analysis is used to analyse the data to obtain a mean value, and the score is ranked accordingly. The results summarised that the top three benefits of green building include reduced waste and pollution, improved environmental quality, and enhanced indoor environmental quality. Energy efficiency, improved occupant health and comfort, and greater building value are major factors that contribute to the sustainability of green buildings.

Racing towards environmental sustainability: a synergy between economic complexity, political stability, and energy transition: policy insight from a bootstrap time varying causality approach

ABSTRACT Malaysia’s commitment to ecological quality is evident in its agendas for achieving a sustainable environment by 2030. However, hindrances like challenges towards energy transition efforts, stable political institutions, unclean economic globalization practices, and transiting to a complex economy could potentially delay the nation’s attainment of its environmental goals. Against this backdrop, the current study focuses on examining the roles of political risk, economic globalization, energy transition, and economic complexity on ecological sustainability in Malaysia. In contrast to previous studies, this study innovatively incorporates a dummy variable to account for potential structural breaks that may occur during the study period. Furthermore, this study used an innovative environmental proxy which incorporates both the demand and supply aspect of the environment during computation. Using the time series data from 1984 to 2018 and employed the ARDL estimator method, the empirical results indicate that economic globalization is associated with ecological deterioration in Malaysia in the long run. On the other hand, economic complexity, political stability, and energy transition are shown to promote ecological sustainability in Malaysia in the long run. Moreover, the bootstrap time varying causality method demonstrates that each of the regressors has the capacity to predict the load capacity factor during distinct sub-periods.

COFFEE PRODUCTION AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA

Coffee planters face competition with other cash crops and higher production costs. Besides that, the biggest issue in this sector is the labour required to select ripe coffee beans since not all beans in a single stalk of coffee mature simultaneously. Nonetheless, this well-known beverage is facing a sustainability dilemma. This paper uses previous studies on coffee production and sustainability in Malaysia. A continuous drop in global coffee prices has squeezed coffee growers and pushed many of them below the worldwide severe poverty level. This document discusses research on sustainability in the coffee industry, including past study findings, and makes various recommendations. These obstacles must be solved to achieve sustainable coffee production. All types of literature (including grey literature) were searched exploratively by including those published in the past ten years from 2011 to January 2022 and in the English language. The adoption of sustainable production practices is vital for ecosystem and biodiversity protection, as well as assuring long-term supply availability of coffee production in Malaysia. Implementing sustainability in the coffee certificate in Malaysia's coffee production system appears to be the most appropriate approach to addressing these challenges because it can synergise increasing productivity and farmers' income, implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation, and increasing farmer capability and credit access. The originality of this study is its reviews of how to sustain the coffee production in the Malaysian agriculture sector.

Greening Spirulina Value Chain Towards Environmental Sustainability in Malaysia

Greener methods should be implemented to encourage a transition towards more sustainable food production. The emphasis was on increasing the production of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis). This study aims to outline a holistic approach for thoroughly analysing the Spirulina production chain to create a customised development plan for sustainability. A total of eighteen respondents from six sectors (Spirulina Producers, Research and Development Institutions, Suppliers of Inputs, Processing and Packaging Companies, Distributors and wholesalers, and Retailers) that are involve with the Spirulina chain have participated in this study. The SWOT analysis was used to determine the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to the production chain of Spirulina intended for human consumption to conduct a structured strategic planning targeting process optimisation and environmental sustainability. The findings show greening the Spirulina value chain requires commitment and collaboration among related stakeholders. The weakness of standardised production practices, limited research and development, inadequate infrastructure and technology, and limited market access and distribution channels must be addressed through stakeholder collaborative efforts. Taking advantage of the opportunities of greening the Spirulina value chain will be an excellent place to start for the business to develop sustainably and increase its competitiveness. Greening Spirulina value chains offer significant potential for environmental sustainability in Malaysia.

Balancing the scales: Achieving food security and environmental sustainability in Malaysia through integrated approaches and collaborative governance

Food security and environmental sustainability are significant challenges in Malaysia. Malaysia intends to improve food security by expanding domestic food production and increasing access to nutritious food. However, the country also acknowledges the importance of environmental sustainability in protecting its various ecosystems and natural resources. The imbalance between food security and environmental sustainability faced environmental deterioration, water scarcity and pollution, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, land use disputes, and food waste. This study explores the issues and challenges of balancing the need for food security and environmental sustainability. An in-depth interview was conducted with saturated data collection, compromising insights from five (5) respondents who are government officers related to food security and environmental sustainability. This study found that Malaysia has implemented several policies, integrated techniques, and collaborative solutions to promote sustainable agricultural systems and environmental preservation. These findings are crucial to balance the scales between food security and environmental sustainability.

Energy subsidy reform and energy sustainability in Malaysia

The 12th Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlighted the importance of ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. Researchers have found that energy subsidies may encourage overconsumption, misuse, and moral hazard problems. Hence, there is a need to rationalize inefficient energy subsidies. Consequently, the Malaysian government has been implementing a subsidy reformation program to improve energy efficiency and reduce fiscal burdens. This study aims to identify and compare the impacts of energy subsidies and oil prices on energy consumption across the agricultural, industrial and service sectors in Malaysia. It is critical for policymakers to better understand the role of energy subsidies in influencing energy consumption, especially the magnitude to which energy subsidies influence energy consumption, in order to structure a subsidy reform strategy which effectively addresses the energy overconsumption issue.In this study, a time series dataset covering the years of 1978 through 2018 is analyzed. The ARDL approach and Granger causality test were employed to determine meaningful statistical evidence and revealed four important findings. Firstly, energy subsidies have a positive relationship with energy consumption. Secondly, oil prices have a negative relationship with energy consumption and energy subsidies significantly interact with oil prices to affect energy consumption. This significant positive moderating effect suggests that energy subsidies may counteract the negative impact of oil prices on energy consumption. Thirdly, output has the greatest (positive) impact on energy consumption. And finally, energy subsidies drive higher outputs in the agricultural sector.

Managing Harvesting for Forest Sustainability in Malaysia: An SFL Perspective

Forest management practices have been addressed widely in the forestry discipline but are rarely considered from a linguistic perspective. Linguistic exploration of the construction of meaning in forest discourses helps provide greater detail on how forest resources are governed through the forest management practices carried out by forestry professionals. This study adopted the approach from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar to examine how lexicogrammatical resources are used by forestry professionals to institutionalise their narrative on sustainable forest management practices. Six field inspection reports issued by the Forestry Department of Peninsular Malaysia were selected as data for analysis. The reports were examined as a genre to ascertain their generic structure and the elements they contained. The findings show that the reports provide essential information concerning various aspects of forest management best practices, including technical information of the forest areas, their geographical and topographical conditions within and around the areas, the distribution of tree stands and other equally important aspects including their environmental, socio-economic and economic values. This paper suggests that a linguistic orientation employed in uncovering forestry matters such as the field inspection report allows concrete evidence of how forest management practices are communicated, especially in written reports and whether these practices are aptly represented through their language use.

The predilection for Green Marketing Practices in Preserving Socio-Cultural Sustainability

Recently, environmental preservation has been highlighted in many life perspectives, including preserving socio-cultural sustainability. The environmental concerns lead to the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda worldwide and are always related to green practices. In order to preserve socio-cultural sustainability, many organisations are introducing green marketing in their business practices by transforming products into environmental friendly and incorporating features that cause less impact on the environmental issues. Green marketing practices are also indispensable in increasing impulse of customers in buying products or services. However, there is a lack of prior research studying the predilection of green marketing practices in preserving socio-cultural sustainability in the Malaysian context. This study anticipates to examine the impact of predilection for green marketing practices on consumer perspectives regarding their environmental advertisements, environmental knowledge and environmental concerns in preserving socio-cultural sustainability. The data of 385 Malaysian respondents were gathered using a convenience sampling technique. The data was firstly analysed through descriptive, reliability, validity, and normality analysis via IBM SPSS Statistics software. All formulated hypotheses were analysed via the multiple linear regression analysis, which confirmed that green marketing approaches in terms of environmental advertisements, environmental knowledge, and environmental concerns directly influenced consumer purchase decisions in preserving socio-cultural sustainability in Malaysia. These findings display that the consumers incline to be influenced by green marketing practices and motivated when they were alert of environmental matters. This research area was pivotal to the government and policymakers in developing green marketing strategies for preserving socio-cultural sustainability and supporting the SDGs agenda.

Suitability of rooftop solar photovoltaic at educational building towards energy sustainability in Malaysia

To maintain the sustainability of the country's energy resources and less carbon, the Malaysian Government has set several strategies for achieving this target. One of them is using renewable energy (RE) sources. Solar energy is one of the most prospective sources because it is abundant and easy to implement. With increased interest and existing limitations, the application of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems is experiencing a significant increase as an alternative energy provider in Malaysia. However, further investigation is necessary to explore the suitability of rooftop solar PV based on its potential. The present work studies the potential of installing solar PV on the rooftop of educational buildings with various roof tilted angles. To this end, results show that the potential PV generation is significantly high even for small rooftop areas at certain education buildings and can accommodate the institute's energy load demand. Positive high savings for energy and electricity bills also show that installing rooftop solar PV benefits education institutes. Emission savings could reach approximately 26,260 tCO2 or 21,358 tCO2 annually for c-Si and mc-Si, respectively. These results show that rooftop solar PV can be suitable for an educational building. This study also could be used as support information by the decision maker and education institution administration in implementing solar PV to achieve national aspiration toward energy sustainability and, simultaneously, decarbonise the energy supply.

The Financial Sustainability of State-Owned Enterprises in an Emerging Economy

When the government creates state-owned enterprises (SOEs), one of the primary purposes is to reduce its financial burden in the long run, also called financial sustainability. Nonetheless, previous research has pointed out that SOEs struggle to achieve financial sustainability due to government intervention. In this study, we examine the relationship between the financial sustainability of SOEs and government intervention in Malaysia. We take a novel approach, using share ownership to measure government intervention. Our results show that the threshold effect of government ownership on financial sustainability in Malaysia is around 27%. The findings prove that the SOEs of an emerging country could reach financial sustainability only if the government ownership is below the threshold. Finally, this study discusses the policy implications of our findings for SOEs. The government of Malaysia should propose a road map to gradually reduce its ownership of SOEs below the threshold.

The Influence of Microtakaful Products on Halal Small Business Sustainability

This study intends to investigate the influence of microtakaful products on halal small business sustainability in Malaysia. Due to their sizes, halal small businesses are normally faced with the catastrophe in their operations with not enough protection and knowledge of risk management. As a risk management tool, although microtakaful has opened a new paradigm of micro protection for halal small businesses, the extent as to which microtakaful products have contributed to the sustainability of halal small business is yet to be explored. Hence, this study explores a range of microtakaful products that can contribute to the sustainability of halal small businesses. The researchers have adopted quantitative research design and developed a survey questionnaire following an extensive review of literature. The designed questionnaire was used to collect data from 238 halal small business owners and workers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Using multiple regression, the results show a positive and significant influence of disability microtakaful product on halal small business sustainability, as well as a positive and significant influence of family microtakaful product on halal small business sustainability. Whereas property microtakaful and health microtakaful products were found to be positively but insignificantly related to the sustainability of halal small businesses. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that disability microtakaful and family microtakaful products are the basic forms of risk management tools that are crucial for the sustainability/continuity of halal small businesses in Malaysia.

Toward a sustainable environment: Nexus between economic growth, renewable energy use, forested area, and carbon emissions in Malaysia

Global climate change caused by greenhouse gasses (GHGs), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, poses incomparable threats to the environment, development, and sustainability. This research investigates the potential of economic growth, renewable energy use, and forested area toward achieving environmental sustainability in Malaysia by reducing CO2 emissions. Time series data from 1990 to 2019 were utilized by applying the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method. The empirical findings show that the coefficient of economic growth is positive and significant, indicating a 1% increase in economic growth is related to a 0.78% rise in CO2 emissions. In addition, the coefficient of renewable energy use is negative but not significant, suggesting that increasing renewable energy use by 1% is associated with CO2 emissions reduction by 0.10%. Finally, the coefficient of forested area is negative and significant, implying that increasing forested area by 1% is linked with a 3.86% reduction in CO2 emissions. The estimated results are robust to alternative estimators such as fully modified least squares (FMOLS) and canonical cointegrating regression (CCR). In addition, the pairwise Granger causality test was utilized to capture the causal relationship between the variables. The empirical outcomes reveal that economic growth deteriorates the environmental quality in Malaysia while enhanced renewable energy use and forested area can reduce Malaysia's carbon emissions. This study put forward policy recommendations for a low-carbon economy, promoting renewable energy, and sustainable forest management which could help to achieve environmental sustainability through emission reduction in Malaysia.

Individual Energy Consumption Behavior Leads to Energy Sustainability in Malaysia

Malaysia ranks third in the world in terms of carbon emissions, with an average annual rate of 4.7 percent. There is a strong need to understand the challenges and motivations for energy consumption change at the individual level. This study aims to investigate the relevant factors affecting Malaysian individual energy consumption behavior towards energy sustainability using the multi-criteria decision-making methodology of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The data were collected from 121 experts using a purposive sampling technique. A framework is developed by assigning weight to the selected factors and sub-factors based on their relative importance in pairwise comparison matrices. The results showed that there were five main factors influencing individual energy consumption behavior in Malaysia, where education was ranked as the top priority, followed by institutions, social values and norms, social structure, and lastly, lifestyle. There were also 16 relevant sub-factors ranked from top priority to least priority (environmental concern, ecology knowledge, energy policy, environmental consciousness, energy tariff, energy efficient technology, morals, social class, location, culture, ethics, choice of lifestyle, personal materialism, gender, ethnicity, and spirituality). Policymakers will be in a better position to design intervention strategies for energy sustainability through energy policy if they understand individual consumption behavior.

Critical Materials Determination as a Complement to the Product Recycling Desirability Model for Sustainability in Malaysia

End-of-life waste disposal is a major issue in Malaysia, where the country’s economy has suffered due to waste recovery issues. Many countries have successfully identified critical materials and products for increasing recycling rates, but not in Malaysia. Thus, the Malaysian government and businesses have had difficulty prioritising products for recycling. The absence of critical materials data has meant that a recovery strategy could not be planned wisely. In addition, the Product Recycling Desirability Model that was utilised by many countries to improve their recycling strategy could not be applied to Malaysia, as it requires critical materials data as input. To start with, Malaysia’s important materials have been identified. Next, two risk dimensions are defined: supply risk and material risk. The indicators are then weighted according to Malaysia’s scenarios. The scores are analyzed and applied to the Product Desirability Model to find desirable products for recycling. As a result, 89 materials were classified as critical to Malaysia’s economy, with palladium, rhodium, gold, platinum, and tellurium ranking first through to fifth. Critical materials scoring was used for the first time in Malaysia to comprehend the Product Recycling Desirability Model, a tool for prioritizing products for recycling. Additional analysis reveals that car batteries, tyres, PET bottles, mobile phones, and DVD-R are the top five most important recyclable products in Malaysia. With the material security database readily available and the novel evaluation system being employed to prioritize critical material supply, using risk supply and material security for Malaysia, the government, or private sector, can strategically start to implement recycling policies and initiatives to strengthen recycling efforts, which help to increase recycling rates.