Sustainable Green Growth Research Articles

The Nexus Between Green Finance and Sustainable Green Economic Growth

Sustainable green growth requires green finance to improve the financial sector, better the environmental and enhance economic development. This study examines how green spending affects the nation’s economy in the long term. Green finance is a market-based investment that considers environmental impact when assessing risk. Hence, the study explores green financing as a means to reduce environmental risks in developing economies. The study aims to boost the value of the environment and its natural capital to improve the well-being of humans.

Do Green Patent and Renewable Energy Consumption Matter for Sustainable Green Growth in the African Region?

The central idea behind the attainment of green growth is to attain sustained long‐run economic growth without producing any harm to the environment. Green patents and renewable energy consumption are crucial to attaining green growth. As a result, this paper investigates the role of green patents and renewable energy consumption in promoting green growth in forty African countries. Keeping the cross‐sectional dependence and heteroscedasticity among the panel in mind, the study employs the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) model to examine its empirical exercise. The results based on the PCSE model find that both variables positively affect green growth in Africa. Consequently, our findings emphasise the significance of promoting green patents and renewable energy consumption as key policy measures to drive sustainable, long‐term growth and elevate green growth within the African region.

Road map from dirty growth to sustainable green growth in Turkiye: Management of trade and financial processes?

This study examines how business, financial, monetary, and trade freedom influence Turkiye's green growth from 1995 to 2022, utilizing the ARDL approach to cointegration. Our results confirm the long-term cointegration among the variables. Robustness tests, such as Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), consistently show that business and trade freedom hinder Turkiye's green growth. Financial freedom and monetary freedom consistently foster it. Business freedom and heightened trade freedom lead to increased fossil fuel consumption, whereas monetary freedom stabilizes Turkiye's currency, and financial freedom promotes entrepreneurship. Enhancing eco-friendly energy sources and investing in green technologies are crucial for promoting sustainable growth, reducing production costs, fostering entrepreneurship, and encouraging competition. The fact that the impact of these variables on green growth in Turkiye has not been studied before makes the study's findings novel.

Ukraine’s Green Economy Growth in the Context of Industry 4.0: Challenges and Solutions

The research highlights the importance of prioritizing new sources of economic growth for the world, with a specific focus on Ukraine. The information base of the study included data from the statistical and managerial reporting of enterprises, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, and information-analytical materials from international organizations. The authors analyze scientific works associated with the European Green Deal (EGD) to identify historic periods of green economy growth and establish growth trends. The authors argue that favorable conditions are necessary to achieve sustainable green growth within the framework of the EGD. The study aims to introduce an improved economic definition, namely the efficiency of green (natural) capital, aligned with the provisions of the EGD in the context of Industry 4.0. The analysis demonstrated that the coefficient of green (natural) capital (GNC) efficiency is crucial in decision-making processes by enterprises, taking into account ecological and green (natural and resource) factors. The analysis also includes a flowchart of Ukraine‘s green economy growth in the environment of Industry 4.0 as of 2022. The research results have led to the improvement of scientific and methodological approaches to assessing the eco-economic efficiency of advanced green technologies. The introduced green (natural) capital indicator allowed to display of the theory of achieving more products and services with fewer resources, including natural and ecological ones.

A mechanism for upgrading the global value chain of China's wood industries based on sustainable green growth

With climate change and increasingly fierce international trade competition, upgrading the global value chains (GVCs) under the sustainable development mode is becoming a key transformation for China's wood industry. This study applies system dynamics theory to build a model of upgrading and evolution of the GVC of the wood industry based on sustainable green growth and uses Vensim PLE software for system simulation. The results demonstrate that (1) under the framework of sustainable green growth, the optimization of industry structure and security of resource supply play an important role in promoting the position of the GVC. (2) improving technological innovation capacity, plantation forest stock, carbon emission reduction intensity, and wage growth is essential to upgrade the wood industry's position in the GVC. (3) different policy implementations have different impacts on the coupled and coordinated development of the system, and implementing innovation-driven policies is the optimal realization path to promote the synergistic upgrading of the GVC. The findings enrich the holistic and systematic study of the evolution of GVC upgrading in traditional manufacturing industries and provide a fresh perspective for assisting the wood industry in realizing GVC upgrading under a sustainable green growth model.

Green growth path dependence momentum under the prism of COP26: the role of financial deepening, ICT development, and export diversification.

Financial deepening is important in resource allocation for more productive enterprises, leading to sustainable green growth. Moreover, rapid development in the digital economy and export diversification significantly affect green growth. From this perspective, our study explores the impact of financial deepening, ICT development, and export diversification on green growth in China's economies from 1996 to 2021. The study explores the linkage between financial deepening, ICT development, export diversification, and green growth by employing the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach. The results obtained in the long run are as follows: positive shock in financial deepening brings positive change in green growth, whereas negative shock in financial deepening reduces green growth. In the long run, positive shock in ICT enhances green growth, but negative shock in ICT does not impact green growth. Moreover, positive shock in export diversification brings positive change in green growth, whereas negative shock in export diversification reports an insignificant impact on green growth. Based on findings, it is suggested that financial deepening, ICT development, and export diversification are conducive to sustainable green growth.

Repercussions of environmental policy stringency on carbon, energy and non-energy productivity in highly emerging economies: perspective of green growth.

Emerging economies have prioritized the enhancement of carbon and energy productivity to uphold environmental integrity. Consequently, the policymakers introduced the environmental policy stringency measure to control emission activities. Accordingly, this study explores the environmental stringency policy's impact on carbon, energy, and non-energy productivity over the period of 1995-2020. This study addresses the impact of environmental policy stringency on quality of life (exposure to environmental risk). Regardless of variation, growing economies have higher carbon productivity. It is worth noting that energy productivity compared to carbon is higher. Based on the findings derived from the CS-ARDL model, it can be concluded that environmental stringency policies significantly positively impact carbon productivity in emerging countries. Economies that implement stringent environmental rules have the potential to enhance both energy and non-energy productivity to a greater extent. Meanwhile, the environmental policy effectively reduces environmental risk exposure and increases the quality of life. Environmental technology is inefficient in promoting emerging economies' environmental productivity. Similarly, trade promotes carbon activities and may involve comparative advantage race, pollution heaven hypothesis possible to exist. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the notion that investing in human capital is crucial in enhancing productivity. The findings suggest a more comprehensive and integrated approach to environmental policy in rising economies. This all-encompassing strategy is considered crucial for making significant gains in carbon productivity and simultaneously promoting sustainable green growth.

Asymmetrical impact of natural resources and the digital economy on green growth in the top five Asian knowledge-based economies

This study examines the asymmetrical and non-linear effects of the natural resources and digital economy on green growth in the five leading Asian knowledge-based economies. The study's outcomes suggest that positive shocks to the digital economy and natural resources contribute to a rise in green growth. In contrast, negative shocks to these factors lead to decreased green growth. Moreover, the study's findings demonstrate that the augmentation of the labour force, the increase in gross fixed capital formation, and the implementation of expansionary exports and import policy are conducive to advancing green growth. Conversely, contractionary export policy, contractionary import policy, and the continued reliance on fossil fuel consumption impede green growth. Policymakers should emphasize labour force and gross fixed capital formation, enact proactive import and export policies, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels and contractionary strategies to promote sustainable green growth in the Asian top 5 knowledge-based Asian economies.

Chinese Agriculture for “Green and Grain” Productivity Growth: Evidence from Jiangsu Province

China is striving to leverage the power of science and technology to green its agriculture and simultaneously enhance grain productivity. To assess the performance dynamics of the dual agricultural mission, this study presents the green growth rate of agriculture using the DEA-based Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) indicator, together with the growth rate of grain yields, and applies it to the case of Jiangsu, a major grain-producing province with a well-developed economy. It is found that Jiangsu’s agriculture has generally performed well during the implementation of the two major national strategies addressing green development and grain security, especially in northern Jiangsu, which is a major grain-producing area. In contrast, the phased fluctuations in green growth in agriculture in southern Jiangsu are more pronounced, with negative green growth even occurring during the green agriculture movement. Much of the volatility in agricultural green growth at the provincial, subregional and municipal levels is generated by the effects of the movement of the green technology frontier, which is led by the best practitioners. Accordingly, the possibility of improving the weak state of the catch-up effect on green growth is explored from the perspective of the Chinese government-led agricultural science and innovation system; it also traces the green agricultural initiatives in the main grain-marketing areas that have failed to deliver the expected green growth, and recommends a review of such policies and a refinement of the GTFP Index tool for assessing sustainable green growth.

How do mineral resources trade and financial development affect green entrepreneurship in resource-rich economies?

Green entrepreneurship achieves a win-win situation of economic well-being and environmental protection. The role of trade in natural resources and the growth of the financial sector in influencing green entrepreneurship has come under growing attention as the worldwide quest for sustainable development becomes more intense. This study explores the complex interactions between the trade in natural resources and financial development and how these factors affect the development and emergence of green entrepreneurship in resource-rich economies. To that end, we have applied the novel GMM panel VAR technique. The main findings of the GMM panel VAR revealed that financial development and mineral trade positively influence green entrepreneurship. The results also suggest that any change in financial development and mineral causes a change in green entrepreneurship. Understanding the positive influence of financial development and mineral resources trade on green entrepreneurship can guide policymakers in designing effective strategies that promote sustainable green growth.

Disentangling the asymmetric effect of financialization on the green output gap

Insufficient green output can lead to environmental degradation while overinvestment may result in economic imbalances, social inequalities, and opportunity costs. Thus, sustaining an optimal level of green growth could restrict both green neglect and green grabbing. A higher level of financialization is believed to be an efficient allocation mechanism for green development. This research provides empirical insights into how financialization helps narrow the green growth gap. Using various estimation techniques such as the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter, Hamilton's filter, and the super-efficiency slack-based model, we examine the heterogeneous effects of financialization on the green growth gap by utilizing unbalanced panel data from 124 countries spanning the period 1980–2020. The results, obtained through bootstrapped quantile regression, indicate that financial access, depth, and efficiency contribute to improving insufficient green growth levels and curbing excessive investment in green initiatives. However, we find little or no evidence that financial stability or liberalization restricts overinvestment in low-carbon economic development or improves environmental stewardship when green neglect is observed. Additional analysis suggests that business cycle fluctuations, especially during recessionary periods, adversely affect the ability of financialization to optimally allocate green resources, but this effect is mitigated if financial development is countercyclical. Policymakers should prioritize promoting financial depth and efficiency, as well as provide access to finance, in order to support sustainable green growth and to avoid overinvestment in low-carbon economic development.

Toward green growth in China: The role of green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy consumption.

In recent times, the concept of green growth has emerged, which has a critical part to play in controlling the environmental impact of economic activities. In this analysis, we have explored three determinants of green growth: green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy. Moreover, this study focuses on the asymmetric impact of green finance investment, technological progress, and renewable energy on green growth in China during the period spanning from 1996 to 2020. To get the asymmetric short and long-run estimates across various quantiles, we have employed the nonlinear QARDL. The long-run estimates attached to a positive shock in green finance investment, renewable energy demand, and technological capital are positively significant at most quantiles. While, the long-run estimates attached to a negative shock in green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy demand are insignificant at most quantiles. In general, the findings suggest that the rise in green financial investment, technological capital, and renewable energy demand positively impacts green growth in the long run. The study offers a range of significant policy recommendations that can contribute to the advancement of sustainable green growth in China.

Integrated studies for land suitability analysis towards sustainable agricultural development in semi-arid regions of AP, India

• Application of Geospatial and Multi Criterion Decision Making approaches. • Ten thematic layers assigned weights to generate LSA map. • LSA map validated through users’ accuracy and producer's view. • Integrated approaches are simpler and more accurate. • Results are useful for decision and planning for sustainable green growth. Land suitability analysis (LSA) is the progression of influence if a certain piece of land is suitable for a specific use. Land suitability study for crops is an essential contemporary step in identifying appropriate and sustainable land use strategies to enhance the land's potential. LSA for agriculture is one of the most capable models for exposing the apprehension for arable land and forecasting the allocation for long-term growth in semi-arid regions. As a result, the goal of this research is to provide a conceptual process for LSA that will aid in increasing green cover to address environmental challenges that prevent groundwater recharge. Several thematic layers like soils, geology, slope, geomorphology, Drainage Density (DD), Landuse landcover (LULC), Soil pH, soil nitrogen, soil phosphorous, and soil potassium are derived by using collateral data, and satellite images involved in LSA analysis. The Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM), with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based pairwise comparison matrix, was applied to estimate LSA for agriculture. The outcomes revealed, around 80.53 sq.km (26.55%) is highly suitable, 87.38 sq.km (28.81%) is moderately suitable, 82.34 sq.km (27.15%) is marginally suitable, and 53.07 sq.km (17.50%) is not suitable for agriculture in the study region. The decision-making AHP tool combined with GIS presents a unique technique, and the findings from this work might be valuable in identifying viable agricultural lands in diverse regions of the world.

Using Satellite Nighttime Light to Measure Socio-Economic Activity in Africa Before and After COVID

Using satellite nighttime light (NTL) data as a proxy to measure socio-economic activity in normal times has been well-established in the remote sensing literature. In the recent years, the NTL composites produced by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) revealed a dimming of light in major cities during the COVID pandemic in large countries like China, India, and U.S. To test whether NTL remained a valid proxy of economic and human activity during upheaval times at the country level, this paper examined the association between NTL and GDP, CO2 emissions, and electricity consumption in all countries in Africa in the period of 2014-2021. The results indicated that NTL is associated with these three socio-economic indicators in a significant manner before and after the COVID pandemic. The model demonstrated high performance of NTL as a proxy for GDP and CO2 emissions in both periods while less so for electricity consumption (with R2=0.53, 0.48, 0.36, respectively, during pre-COVID period of 2014-19; and with R2=0.49, 0.45, 0.26, respectively, for 2014-2021 with COVID dummies). As NTL data are free and available at granular spatial and temporal levels for most areas on Earth with just a short time lag, the methodology offered an alternative to consistently measure economic and human activities and impact on the environment during normal times and after external shocks. This has the potential to fill data gaps, including for countries with weak capacity, and aid policy making to support sustainable green growth and provide information swiftly for post-disaster recovery.

Diverging or converging to a green world? Impact of green growth measures on countries' economic performance.

Green growth has emerged in recent years to respond to environmental problems caused by climate change and the scarcity of resources. However, today's green growth involves environmental, social and financial dimensions. In this context, many countries are currently seeking green growth for their economic development through the efficient use of their resources. This study aims to assess the impact of green growth performance on the economic development of countries. A quantitative approach was applied to a sample of 172 countries worldwide, and the formulated hypotheses were tested through multiple linear regressions estimated by the ordinary least squares method. The economic development of countries was measured by the Human Development Index (HDI) and measures the sustainability performance of countries by the Green Growth Index (GGI). The results of this study demonstrate that (i) the measures of green growth performance have a positive impact on the economic development of high-income, upper-middle-income, and lower-middle-income economies, (ii) in poorer economies, less is the contribution of green growth to economic development, mainly because they neglecting the social dimension despite the numerous existing projects in these economies for greater inclusion and (iii) green economic opportunities (green investment, green trade, green employment and green innovation) do not influence green economic development in all analysed economies. Consequently, suggestions were made for policymakers from different groups of countries to increase and accelerate their sustainable green growth. Literature on economic development and green growth is still scarce, especially at the empirical level, and few studies use the 2020 GGI data. In addition, this study also uses recent rankings of world economies to categorize the economic development of countries.

Financial deepening, financial innovation, and education as new determinants of green growth in China.

To address the issue of global warming, the agreed solution is to reduce GHG emissions. The plausible solution to reduce GHG emissions is to follow a green growth strategy that refers to the complete decoupling of economic growth from its environmental impact through the sustainable utilization of natural resources. Consistent with this view, this study investigates the impact of financial deepening, financial innovation, and education on green growth in China from 1996 to 2020. The empirical analysis of the model is conducted through quantile ARDL. The long-run estimated coefficients of financial institution deepening are positively significant across most quantiles, whereas the estimated coefficients of financial market deepening are positively significant in almost half quantiles. These results imply that the financial deepening of both financial markets and institutions can positively contribute to green growth. However, the estimates of financial innovations are significant and positive in higher quantiles, implying that financial innovation only contributes to the green when the rate of financial innovation is too high. The estimates of education are positively significant at higher quantiles. Our study highlights various policy suggestions that are aimed at instigating sustainable green growth in China.

Low-cost adaptation options to support green growth in agriculture, water resources, and coastal zones

The regional climate as it is now and in the future will put pressure on investments in sub-Saharan Africa in water resource management, fisheries, and other crop and livestock production systems. Changes in oceanic characteristics across the Atlantic Ocean will result in remarkable vulnerability of coastal ecology, littorals, and mangroves in the middle of the twenty-first century and beyond. In line with the countries' objectives of creating a green economy that allows reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved resource efficiency, and prevention of biodiversity loss, we identify the most pressing needs for adaptation and the best adaptation choices that are also clean and affordable. According to empirical data from the field and customized model simulation designs, the cost of these adaptation measures will likely decrease and benefit sustainable green growth in agriculture, water resource management, and coastal ecosystems, as hydroclimatic hazards such as pluviometric and thermal extremes become more common in West Africa. Most of these adaptation options are local and need to be scaled up and operationalized for sustainable development. Governmental sovereign wealth funds, investments from the private sector, and funding from global climate funds can be used to operationalize these adaptation measures. Effective legislation, knowledge transfer, and pertinent collaborations are necessary for their success.

Dynamic Influence of Urbanization on Inclusive Green Growth in Belt and Road Countries: The Moderating Role of Governance

The strategic objective of this study was to determine the influence of urbanization on inclusive green growth (IGG) with the moderating impact of governance while considering household consumption, exchange rate, per capita income, and the unemployment rate as control variables. The data set consisted of the years 2004–2019 for 64 countries along the Belt and Road (BRI) region. The outcomes of the two-step system of generalized method of moments (GMM) robust with D-K regression methodology confirmed the significantly positive dynamic nature of inclusive green growth. Urbanization showed a significant but negative influence on inclusive green growth, indicating environmental degradation due to unplanned urban growth. The moderating role of governance also depicted a significant negative impact, emphasizing the need for a transparent governance framework for BRI countries to utilize resources effectively. Moreover, the interaction term of urbanization and governance showed a significantly positive improvement toward inclusive green growth. Besides this, per capita income played a significantly positive role, while unemployment and household consumption had a negative but significant influence on inclusive green growth. Further, the exchange rate impacted insignificantly on inclusive green growth. Hence, it is evident that urbanization, good governance, and employment opportunities are required to promote sustainable green growth in BRI countries. The research identifies the factors that are required for sustainability/IGG.

Understanding public procurement within the health sector: a priority in a post-COVID-19 world.

Every year, over 250,000 public authorities in the European Union (EU) spend about 14% of GDP on the purchase of services, works and supplies. Many are in the health sector, a sector in which public authorities are the main buyers in many countries. When these purchases exceed threshold values, EU public procurement rules apply. Public procurement is increasingly being promoted as a tool for improving efficiency and contributing to better health outcomes, and as a policy lever for achieving other government goals, such as innovation, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, sustainable green growth and social objectives like public health and greater inclusiveness. In this paper, we describe the challenges that arise within health care systems with public procurement and identify potential solutions to them. We examined the tendering of pharmaceuticals, health technology, and e-health. In each case we identify a series of challenges relating to the complexity of the procurement process, imbalances in power on either side of transactions and the role of procurement in promoting broader public policy objectives. Finally, we recommend several actions that could stimulate better procurement, and suggest a few areas where further EU cooperation can be pursued.

Effect of Digital Financial Inclusion on Dredging the Path of Green Growth—New Evidence From Front-End and Back-End Perspectives

To dredge China’s green growth path, this paper analyzes the front-end and back-end factors affecting green growth and also investigates the mediation role of digital financial inclusion from different dimensions. This study employs China’s provincial panel data in 2011–2018 and uses the dynamic threshold model to study the threshold effect of technological progress (TP) on green growth (GG) and the threshold effect of green growth (GG) on floating population (FP). The empirical results show that: first, with the digital financial inclusion as the threshold variable, there is a nonlinear relationship between technological progress (TP) and green growth (GG); second, with digital financial inclusion as the threshold variable, there is a nonlinear relationship between green growth (GG) and floating population (FP); third, output biased technological progress needs more support from digital financial inclusion than input biased technological progress than can significantly promote green growth. From the dimension of “digitization+financial scale+inclusion” digital financial inclusion not only improves the positive effect of technological progress on green growth but also alleviates the negative effect of green growth on the floating population. This study makes up for the research gap in the back-end impact of green growth based on new ideas of digital financial inclusion and floating population and has important theoretical reference significance for removing the obstacles in the green development path and realizing sustainable green growth.