Green Economy and Sustainable Development of Regions: Economics, Energy, and Politics—the Essence of Interdependence

Dear Colleagues,

It is our great pleasure to invite you to submit your latest research for this Special Issue.

Sustainable development is a concept that has a deep theoretical justification, built on the cause-and-effect analysis of the integration of the economy, society, and the environment. Moreover, it is taken into account in the development of strategies and sectoral policies of states. In turn, the green economy is a practical embodiment of sustainable development. This is mainly due to the implemented measures aimed at introducing structural changes to the economy so that they have a positive impact on the sustainability of society and the environment. Economic development and environmental protection are not contradictory.  

The popularization of the concept of the green economy is largely related to numerous crises that have arisen in recent years—be they climate, ecological, food, financial, or economic crises. The development of a green economy means solving environmental problems while ensuring economic security, social stabilization, and creating additional conditions for sustainable economic growth. The transition to a green economy is an inevitable direction of development that requires increased efforts to improve the development of the green economy in all countries around the world. The national interests and capacities of individual economies should be taken into account.  

The concept of adaptability, sensitive to the specific, historically conditioned context of regional development, has provided exciting information on the wealth and poverty of regions for several decades. Therefore, it is important that research increasingly serves as a channel for solutions to overcome the negative effects of the COVID 19 pandemic and similar crises in the future. The progress of the green economy includes topics such as indicators and measures to characterize environmental sustainability, methodological issues to identify and present spatial–temporal patterns of resource and energy use and related pollution, a computational framework for comparing environmental management between economies/economic sectors/socioeconomic systems. The results will be discussed to support policies of sustainable development.

Research articles should cover multi-faceted topics related to sustainable development, innovation and performance management, ecological safety, regional competitiveness (attractiveness), the green economy, reduction of gas emissions and pollutants, increasing the efficiency of energy and raw material use, environmental protection, and actions taken in this area simultaneously by states, enterprises, and society, which will contribute to increases in income and employment. Moreover, it should be emphasized that the crisis, contrary to its negative connotations and unfavorable effects on economic practices, may be an opportunity for positive change.

We hope that demonstrating the active role of different places and spaces in the transition to sustainable development will pave the way for significant scientific and practical results. The main topics of this Special Issue are:

• The quality of economic development under environmental constraints;
• Environmental regulations and green innovations;
• Peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality;
• Air pollution and tourism development;
• Environmental policy assessment;
• Economic resilience;
• Ecological footprint;
• Coordinated development of the economy and the environment;
• Models and patterns of development in the field of green energy transformation of the countries of the world, mitigating the effects of the crisis and creating new directions of development;
• Proposals for defining and measuring the relationship between the green transition and sustainable energy financing;
• Green economy and sustainable energy financing—how do they work together?;
• Green economy, transformation of green energy, and financing sustainable energy—opportunities and challenges;
• Methods and measurements for green economy, green energy transformation, and sustainable energy financing;
• Theoretical research at the interface of regional adaptability and sustainable transformation;
• Regional compromise between adaptation and adaptation in the context of sustainable transformation;
• Paths for the development of sustainable socio-technical regimes;
• Organizations and industries in the transformation of sustainable development;
• Practices of adaptation to sustainable development;
• Places and spaces of sustainable transformation;
• Participatory processes for sustainable transformation;
• Balanced place-based policies;
• Contemporary challenges of agriculture and rural areas in the context of sustainable development and energy supply (security, demand, market, and consumption).

Therefore, we invite you to submit papers in various fields that will contribute to the creation of this special edition. We are looking for both scientific articles and comprehensive reviews related to the green economy and sustainable energy financing. Empirical, conceptual, and research articles that use quantitative and qualitative methodology are welcome. Articles selected for this Special Issue will be subject to a rigorous peer-review process in order to disseminate research, development, and application results quickly and widely.

Dr. Paweł Dziekański
Dr. Piotr Prus
Prof. Dr. Mansoor Maitah
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.