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Environmental Economics and Sustainability
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Environmental Economics and Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 4816

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chien-Ming Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of International Business, Ming Chuan University, Taipei City 111, Taiwan
Interests: environment economics; energy; sustainable development; economic analysis; tourism econimics
Dr. Cheng-Feng Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University, New Taipei City 237303, Taiwan
Interests: operations and supply chain management; applied econometric time series analysis; data mining; patient safety culture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental economics has emerged as a critical interdisciplinary field, addressing the complex interactions between economic systems and environmental resources. As global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion intensify, understanding the economic dimensions of environmental problems is becoming increasingly vital. This field examines how market mechanisms, policy instruments, and economic incentives can be leveraged to achieve environmental objectives while maintaining economic efficiency and social welfare. The relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability presents both theoretical and practical challenges that require rigorous analytical frameworks. Traditional economic models often treat environmental resources as externalities, leading to market failures and suboptimal outcomes. Contemporary research focuses on internalizing environmental costs, developing green technologies, and creating sustainable business models that reconcile economic prosperity with ecological integrity.

This Special Issue, Environmental Economics and Sustainability, aims to advance scholarly understanding of how economic principles can guide environmental policy and sustainable development strategies. We seek contributions that explore innovative approaches to valuing ecosystem services, analyzing the effectiveness of environmental regulations, examining green finance mechanisms, and evaluating the economic impacts of sustainability transitions across various sectors. The scope encompasses theoretical developments, empirical analyses, and policy-oriented research that contributes to evidence-based decision-making for environmental challenges.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Chien-Ming Wang
Dr. Cheng-Feng Wu
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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.

Keywords

  • environment economics
  • sustainable development
  • economic analysis

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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23 pages, 5168 KB  
Article
The Economic and Environmental Impacts of Floating Offshore Wind Power Generation in a Leading Emerging Market: The Case of Taiwan
by Yun-Hsun Huang and Yi-Shan Chan
Sustainability 2026, 18(2), 804; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18020804 - 13 Jan 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 877
Abstract
Taiwan has set an ambitious target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, relying heavily on offshore wind capacity of 13.1 GW by 2030 and 40–55 GW by 2050. Floating offshore wind (FOW) is expected to play a central role in meeting these targets, [...] Read more.
Taiwan has set an ambitious target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, relying heavily on offshore wind capacity of 13.1 GW by 2030 and 40–55 GW by 2050. Floating offshore wind (FOW) is expected to play a central role in meeting these targets, particularly in deep-water areas where fixed-bottom technology is technically constrained. This study combined S-curve modeling for capacity projections, learning curves for cost estimation, and input–output analysis to quantify economic and environmental impacts under three deployment scenarios. Our findings indicate that FOW development provides substantial economic benefits, particularly under the high-growth scenario. During the construction phase through 2040, total output is projected to exceed NTD 1.97 trillion, generating more than NTD 1 trillion in gross value added (GVA) and over 470,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs. By 2050, operations and maintenance (O&M) output is expected to reach approximately NTD 50 billion, supporting roughly 14,200 jobs and about NTD 13.8 billion in income. Annual CO2 reduction could reach up to 10.4 Mt by 2050 under the high-growth scenario, or about 6.86 Mt under the low-growth case, demonstrating the potential of FOW to drive industrial development while advancing national decarbonization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Economics and Sustainability)
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26 pages, 4173 KB  
Article
Non-Linear Dynamics: ESG Investment and Financial Performance Heterogeneity in the Tourism Industry
by Chien-Ming Wang and Tsung-Pao Wu
Sustainability 2025, 17(24), 11010; https://doi.org/10.3390/su172411010 - 9 Dec 2025
Viewed by 902
Abstract
Prior ESG-tourism research predominantly documents performance effects through stakeholder theory, yet relies on aggregated samples and mean-based regression methods that may obscure sectoral variation and non-linear dynamics. This study examines how Environmental, Social, and Governance practices affect firm financial performance across three distinct [...] Read more.
Prior ESG-tourism research predominantly documents performance effects through stakeholder theory, yet relies on aggregated samples and mean-based regression methods that may obscure sectoral variation and non-linear dynamics. This study examines how Environmental, Social, and Governance practices affect firm financial performance across three distinct tourism subsectors in Taiwan, including food service, hotel service, and general tourism service, addressing these methodological and contextual gaps. Employing Quantile-on-Quantile regression on data from Taiwan’s tourism corporation from 2015 to 2023, we capture asymmetric effects across both ESG and performance distributions, integrating Stakeholder theory, reputational benefits, and cost-of-capital theoretical perspectives. Food service firms experience predominantly negative ESG-performance relationships (coefficients −0.40 to −0.10 at lower quantiles), where compliance costs exceed stakeholder benefits, given thin profit margins and transactional customer relationships. Hotels demonstrate positive correlations at performance extremes (quantiles 0.05–0.25 and 0.70–0.95) through operational efficiency gains and brand differentiation. The service sector exhibits volatile mixed patterns reflecting operational diversity. Findings demonstrate that ESG’s contribution to sustainable tourism development depends critically on sectoral operational characteristics and resource capabilities, suggesting that differentiated regulatory frameworks would better facilitate sustainability transitions than uniform ESG mandates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Economics and Sustainability)
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23 pages, 864 KB  
Article
Green Value from Technology Finance Policies Towards Sustainability: Evidence of a Quasi-Natural Experiment on Urban Carbon Reduction in China
by Jiaji An, Hongyuan Bi, He Di, Jingze Lin and Xinran Zhao
Sustainability 2025, 17(18), 8437; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17188437 - 19 Sep 2025
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1238
Abstract
Innovation can balance environmental objectives while enhancing economic efficiency. However, its policy dimension has largely been overlooked. Leveraging financial instruments to promote technological innovation has become a primary policy tool. This study treats China’s pilot policies on technology finance integration as a quasi-natural [...] Read more.
Innovation can balance environmental objectives while enhancing economic efficiency. However, its policy dimension has largely been overlooked. Leveraging financial instruments to promote technological innovation has become a primary policy tool. This study treats China’s pilot policies on technology finance integration as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model with 5434 panel datapoints from 286 cities between 2005 and 2023. Within the environmental Kuznets curve theoretical framework, we examine the impact of technology finance policies on urban carbon emissions. The findings reveal that these policies significantly curb urban carbon emissions. Heterogeneity analysis shows stronger effects in large, non-resource-dependent eastern cities than in others. Mechanism tests indicate that these policies primarily generate green value through technological innovation and industrial structure upgrading, with the latter demonstrating a significantly stronger effect than the former. Our findings regarding the outstanding role of industrial structure upgrading may challenge and reorient the literature’s general focus on green technologies. This study employs economic principles to offer new insights into innovation’s effective balancing of economic growth and sustainability, broadening discussions about the green value of financial policy tools. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Economics and Sustainability)
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Review

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18 pages, 570 KB  
Review
Why Are Economists So Keen to Put a Price on Carbon? An Accessible Introduction to Economic Reasoning on Climate Policy
by Jean-Marie Grether and Marion Monney
Sustainability 2026, 18(1), 482; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18010482 - 3 Jan 2026
Viewed by 991
Abstract
The true contribution of economics to climate policy is marred by many misconceptions. This paper aims to help non-experts better understand economic insights by progressively introducing key concepts. We start with perfectly functioning markets, where prices act as powerful guides to channel scarce [...] Read more.
The true contribution of economics to climate policy is marred by many misconceptions. This paper aims to help non-experts better understand economic insights by progressively introducing key concepts. We start with perfectly functioning markets, where prices act as powerful guides to channel scarce resources toward their best use from a social point of view. We then recognize that, in many real cases, markets fail to deliver their promise because prices are either absent or do not reflect social values. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions constitute a particularly acute type of market failure affecting both the whole world and future generations. The fundamental source of this failure is the absence of a price on emissions, and economic research has followed two major routes. On the one hand, economists run complex simulation models to estimate the missing price, which can be used as a social yardstick to guide policy choices. On the other hand, they evaluate policy instruments able to reorient market forces toward more climate protection. Two instruments with a strong potential to influence behavior deserve particular attention: the carbon tax and cap-and-trade (or emissions trading) systems. Despite practical complications and the lack of international coordination, both policies have recently made encouraging progress. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Economics and Sustainability)
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