Search Results (1,270)

This study examines the agricultural energy transition in 25 European Union Member States over 2005–2024, focusing on energy intensity, fossil-fuel dependence, and carbon intensity. It integrates multi-regional Kaya–LMDI decomposition, Tapio decoupling analysis, and σ- and conditional β-convergence models to identify the components associated with changes in direct energy-related agricultural CO₂ emissions, assess their relationship with real agricultural gross value added, and determine whether national performance gaps are narrowing. The results show that declining energy intensity and fossil dependence were the main emissions-reducing components, while changes in country structure and carbon intensity partly offset these gains. Within the EU-25 analytical sample, the baseline comparison indicates a shift from recessive decoupling before 2020 to strong decoupling over 2020–2024. Sensitivity tests confirm the robustness of post-2020 strong decoupling, although the characterization of the pre-2020 period is sensitive to sample composition. Conditional β-convergence is observed for all three indicators, whereas σ-convergence is found only for energy intensity; fossil dependence and carbon intensity continue to exhibit substantial cross-country dispersion. Bias-corrected estimates preserve the direction of conditional catch-up but indicate slower adjustment, particularly for fossil dependence. The study’s novelty lies in jointly evaluating emissions decomposition, decoupling, and distributional change while distinguishing relative catch-up towards country-specific trajectories from convergence towards a common EU level. The findings identify energy efficiency, fossil-energy substitution, and differentiated national conditions as relevant areas for CAP-related monitoring and policy consideration. The conclusions concern specifically the energy-related component of agricultural decarbonization. Full article

The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) introduces significant implications for sustainable trade and industrial decarbonization for non-EU industrial exporters. As a major cement supplier to the EU, Turkey faces key economic and environmental transition risks under this framework. This study quantifies the compliance exposure of Turkey’s cement exports to the EU by 2030 within an industrial sustainability framework across multiple carbon pricing, domestic policy, and decarbonization scenarios. Incorporating time-series forecasting, benchmark emissions intensities, and the operational 2026 CBAM regulatory framework alongside Turkey’s Climate Law No. 7552, the study evaluates compliance costs relative to export revenues. Results indicate that under business-as-usual conditions, without decarbonization or domestic carbon pricing, CBAM surcharges would equal 154% of total export revenue by 2030. Accounting for the 2030 CBAM phase-in factor (48.5%), compliance costs remain substantial at 75% of revenue. Establishing a national Emissions Trading System (TR ETS) under Climate Law No. 7552, with a domestic carbon price of €20/tCO₂e, reduces residual CBAM border payments to 44% of revenue, while a €50/tCO₂e domestic price offsets border surcharges entirely, redirecting carbon revenues to an industrial green transition fund. Furthermore, achieving a 41% reduction in direct cement emissions intensity lowers total carbon compliance costs to 21–26% of revenue. These findings demonstrate that domestic carbon pricing paired with dedicated resource allocation for low-carbon technologies is essential to advance long-term industrial sustainability, preserve export competitiveness, and prevent pass-through risks to downstream construction sectors. Full article

As cities accelerate climate adaptation and decarbonisation, municipally owned companies (MOCs) play an important role in delivering sustainable urban infrastructure, accessing transition finance, and supporting Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). However, the expansion of sustainability reporting requirements under the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) raises questions about the preparedness of public infrastructure providers to meet evolving sustainability-information demands. This study examines ESG reporting readiness among Polish MOCs, focusing on current reporting activity, reporting intentions, regulatory awareness, indirect ESG information pressures, sustainable-finance and investment plans, and potential transition-risk exposure. The analysis is based on a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing survey of 226 municipal enterprises conducted in August 2025. The results indicate substantial reporting gaps. Only 8% of surveyed MOCs had already prepared or planned to prepare a non-financial report. When companies planning EU Taxonomy reporting only were also included, 14% of the sample had some form of current or planned reporting, while the remaining 86% had neither current nor planned non-financial or EU Taxonomy reporting. Reporting readiness was lower among smaller companies, while indirect ESG information pressures arising from business relationships, stakeholder requests, and financing plans were also evident across the surveyed sample. The findings suggest that limited reporting preparedness, when combined with external sustainability-information demands, may contribute to potential transition-risk exposure relevant to municipal investment and financing processes. More broadly, ESG reporting readiness represents an organisational capability relevant to sustainable finance, municipal climate investment, and the development of PEDs and smart cities. Full article

The European Union’s REPowerEU Plan (2022) targets 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen imports by 2030, catalyzing an unprecedented cascade of bilateral green hydrogen partnerships with countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite the strategic and developmental significance of these partnerships, the literature has treated hydrogen largely as a techno-economic or single-country problem, leaving the diplomatic architecture and equity dimensions of EU–MENA–SSA hydrogen diplomacy under-theorized and unmeasured. This study addresses these gaps by integrating energy-security realism, regime-complex theory, and critical political ecology into a synthetic framework, and by introducing two novel empirical instruments: a hand-coded dataset of 26 in-scope bilateral hydrogen agreements (2020–2024) and a fully specified protocol for a Green Hydrogen Diplomacy Equity Index (GHD-EI). A longitudinal dyad-year panel skeleton (27 EU importers × 36 MENA/SSA exporters, 2015–2026, 11,664 dyad-year cells) has been constructed to host a planned multi-method quantitative sequence, structural gravity PPML, staggered difference-in-differences, synthetic control, exponential random graph models, and causal forests whose execution against fully populated covariates is reserved for a subsequent paper. This paper is accordingly framed as a data descriptor and specified analytical protocol, reporting descriptive and structural findings from the 26 in-scope agreements: a 2022 inflection synchronized with REPowerEU and COP27; importer-side concentration on Germany (34.6% of agreements) and EU-level framework partnerships (34.6%)—two distinct actors jointly accounting for 69.2%—and a small, statistically non-significant difference in mean partnership depth between MENA (n = 18, M = 3.22) and SSA (n = 8, M = 3.25) exporters (Welch t = −0.08, p = 0.94; Cohen’s d = −0.04). The comparison is likely under-powered (power ≈ 0.20–0.44) given the small SSA cell and reported here as a tentative pattern. At this stage, the study contributes a cross-regional agreement dataset, a fully specified equity-indicator protocol, and a theoretical framework for subsequently evaluating whether the green hydrogen transition advances just internationalism or reproduces green-extractivist patterns. Full article

The introduction of Joint Clinical Assessments (JCAs) under the European Union Health Technology Assessment Regulation (EU HTAR) represents a major structural reform aimed at reducing fragmentation and duplication in clinical evidence assessment across Member States. While JCAs are intended to support national health technology assessment (HTA) processes through a common EU-level clinical evaluation, their integration into established national HTA and reimbursement systems remains untested at this early stage of implementation. This paper reports findings from two surveys conducted in 2025 among local affiliate representatives with expertise in relevant HTA and market access activities across 25 European countries (comprising 24 EU Member States and Norway), capturing early national perspectives on key aspects of JCA implementation. The surveys explored anticipated impact on national reimbursement timelines, current opportunities for early HTA advice and PICO input, approaches to handling post-JCA data availability, and nationally prioritised policy and implementation issues. Results indicate mixed expectations regarding the potential impact of JCA on reimbursement timelines, with perceived risks of delay largely viewed as possibly transitional and mitigable through national process adaptation. Respondents emphasised the importance of transparency in PICO consolidation and clarity on the use of JCA reports in national appraisals. Overall, the findings suggest that JCA may represent a reconfiguration rather than a centralisation of evidence assessment, with national influence exercised earlier in the assessment lifecycle. These insights provide policy-relevant input to inform ongoing EU HTA implementation and future refinement of the JCA framework. Full article

Industry 5.0 reframes industrial transformation as a human-centric, sustainable and resilient socio-technical transition. Yet comparable country-level evidence on the capabilities that enable this transition remains limited, particularly for late-digitalizing economies. This study benchmarks Türkiye against the 27 European Union member states using a systems-informed multi-criteria decision-making framework. Seven indicators represent three complementary capability domains: enterprise digitalization (artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data analytics and enterprise resource planning), human capability (basic or above-basic digital skills) and innovation capacity (R&D expenditure and high-technology exports). CRITIC–MARCOS is used as the primary model, while the full 2 × 2 combination of CRITIC and Entropy weighting with MARCOS and TOPSIS ranking, equal-domain weighting and indicator-exclusion tests assess sensitivity. Türkiye ranks 28th under CRITIC–MARCOS and remains between 26th and 28th across the principal specifications. Pairwise rank correlations range from 0.932 to 0.981, supporting the stability of Türkiye’s placement in the lower-readiness group despite variation in its exact rank across methods. Türkiye is below the unweighted EU-27 country mean for all indicators, with its largest relative shortfall in high-technology exports. The findings diagnose a structural gap in the digital, human-capability and innovation enablers of Industry 5.0; they do not measure the complete Industry 5.0 construct, particularly its direct human-centric, sustainability and resilience outcomes. Full article

Securing legal titles to land for transmission lines shapes the pace and cost of the energy transition and sharpens the conflict between security of supply and the protection of the landscape and of ownership rights. The article evaluates the legal and financial instruments compensating for the siting and operation of transmission facilities: whether the Polish framework is complete, how far impact zones enter the planning provisions of a large city, and where Poland stands among EU member states. Doctrinal analysis and a comparative review of twelve EU jurisdictions are combined with a case study of the 254 local plans in force in Kraków and with model calculations of electromagnetic fields. Power networks appear in 48% of Kraków’s plans, yet restricted-use zones in only 24%; EU models range from full compensation with a 25% statutory supplement (Sweden) to a gratuitous easement (Romania). The Polish model, based on a valuer’s appraisal, occupies an intermediate position and includes no component rewarding the compulsory character of the encumbrance; recommendations for future legislation aim to accelerate the acquisition of titles. Compensation design is therefore an institutional condition of the energy transition: it governs how fast corridors can be secured and how the costs of decarbonisation are distributed, and uncompensated losses mark where the social acceptance of grid expansion is most at risk. Full article

Coal phase-out regions concentrate the distributional risks of the energy transition, yet the tools used to identify energy-poor households in these territories still rely mainly on income and welfare criteria. This study asks whether such criteria can identify the households that suffer. Drawing on a survey of 706 households across six municipalities of Western Macedonia, Greece, the core territory of the national lignite phase-out, we validate a four-item Thermal Stress Index (polychoric ω = 0.885; loadings = 0.71–0.88; no differential item functioning by gender, income, or survey wave) and test nine hypotheses and one descriptive benchmark on prevalence, mechanisms, typologies, and targeting. Winter thermal inadequacy reaches 22.9%, which sits above the 19.0% national EU-SILC figure, reported as descriptive context. Dwelling energy features dominate all socioeconomic predictors of severe thermal stress (pseudo-R-squared 0.482 against 0.024), and no direct tenure association remains once envelope quality is included, while the protective association of income operates primarily through dwelling quality and is not observed across the range of inefficient dwellings. Latent class analysis identifies a hidden energy poverty class, 19.5% of households with severe experiential deprivation, above-average income, and no payment problems. A machine learning targeting audit shows that administrative criteria alone identify severely stressed households and show no discriminative capacity for identifying severely stressed households (AUC = 0.517), whereas adding dwelling and financial-strain information raises discrimination to an area under the curve of 0.938. Finally, in this sample, income-based screening is weakly associated with the households reporting severe thermal deprivation. Full article

The timing and nature of the tectonic transition from Neo-Tethyan subduction to India-Asia collision along the NW Himalaya remain debated, particularly regarding the relationship between continental arc and post-collisional magmatism in the Karakoram and Kohistan batholiths. We present zircon U-Pb ages, whole-rock geochemistry, and zircon trace-element data from three granitoid samples from the Attabad Lake area (Karakoram Batholith) and the Nomal area (Kohistan Batholith). Zircon U-Pb dating yields crystallization ages of 103.4 ± 1.7 Ma for the Karakoram diorite, and 46.10 ± 0.79 Ma and 43.59 ± 0.88 Ma for the Kohistan enclave and host quartz monzonite, respectively. The Karakoram diorite shows LREE enrichment [(La/Yb)_N = 5.93–78.52] and positive zircon Ce anomalies (Ce/Ce* = 9.00–18.70), features broadly consistent with crystallization from an oxidized, subduction-related magma. In contrast, the Kohistan quartz monzonite exhibits elevated SiO₂ (65.01–66.35 wt%), low Mg# (25.9–27.2), and a flat to slightly negative Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu* = 0.94), which may reflect crustal melting during post-collisional extension. The enclave displays mantle-like signatures with high Sr (1623 ppm) and a positive Eu anomaly (Eu/Eu* = 1.14), suggesting a mafic recharge event. Zircon Th/U ratios (>0.1) and magmatic REE patterns support a magmatic origin for the dated zircons. These results are compatible with, but do not independently establish, previously proposed regional models. They provide additional local constraints that point to spatially heterogeneous magmatic evolution along the NW Himalayan syntaxis, with continental arc magmatism in the Attabad Lake area during the mid-Cretaceous and a transition to post-collisional extension in the Nomal area during the Eocene. Full article

Small and medium-sized enterprises account for 99% of EU firms, making their engagement with circular economy (CE) practices indispensable to any economy-wide transition, yet the firm-level business case for voluntary adoption remains empirically contested, and existing evidence geographically narrow. This study examines, at the EU27 scale, the firm- and country-level determinants of CE adoption and whether adoption yields measurable economic returns. A two-level (firm and country), cross-sectional design combines micro-data from Flash Eurobarometer 549 (13,124 SMEs, June 2024) with Eurostat institutional indicators, applying hierarchical regression, K-Means clustering, and crosstabulation with post-stratification weights. Adoption is associated with resource-efficiency investment (β = 0.119), climate-strategy formalisation (β = 0.093), and national circular material use rate (β = 0.108, partially supported), while firm size shows no independent effect; the barrier index is the strongest predictor (β = 0.333), an unexpected positive association tentatively interpreted as a commitment effect whereby firms already active in CE better recognise obstacles. CE adoption shows no economically meaningful short-term association with performance (β = 0.025, negligible), with a small provisional exception in the industrial sector. Cluster analysis identifies three descriptive profiles: Efficiency Investors (13.7%), Strategic Green (32.0%), Passive (54.3%). CE adoption reflects strategic intent rather than firm size; economic benefits appear indirect and long-term, and more than half of European SMEs remain passive, requiring differentiated support at the national level. Full article

There is a rapidly rising demand for cosmeceutical solutions for skin lightening/brightening due to the growing need for dermatologic applications and consumers’ preference to enhance the brightness of skin. Traditionally, the main ingredients for developing dermatological products were the potentially harmful and controversial hydroquinone compounds; however, in recent years, the research field experienced a transition towards safer antioxidant-based agents. The present review analyzes the application and use of antioxidants in modern cosmetics as an innovative approach, and the chemical and biological mechanisms of their functions that could revolutionize the industrial applications. The most effective ones include competitive inhibition of tyrosinase enzyme, pheomelanin switch through the help of glutathione, protection from reactive oxygen species (ROS) in order to inhibit ultraviolet (UV)-stimulated production of melanin, as well as prevention of the migration of melanosomes using niacinamide. The review identifies and analyzes several components used as ingredients, such as vitamins C, Niacinamide, vitamin E, licorice root, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), or resveratrol, among many more. In spite of their high efficiency, there are numerous problems associated with the instability, dermal irritation, and absorption of pure antioxidants. Finally, the legal framework developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Union (EU), potential risks like pro-oxidation damage, and future perspectives such as personalized skincare via machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are discussed. Full article

This study examines the relationship between green financial development, green innovation, and resource productivity in 27 European Union member states over the period 2000–2020. To capture green financial development more comprehensively, the study develops a composite indicator combining financial development and environmental taxation. The empirical analysis employs two-way fixed-effects estimations, bootstrap mediation analysis, lagged fixed-effects models, decomposition robustness tests, and dynamic System GMM estimations to investigate both the direct and indirect channels linking green finance to circular economy performance. The results show that green financial development consistently promotes green innovation across the baseline and robustness specifications. However, the bootstrap mediation analysis does not provide statistically robust evidence that green innovation mediates the relationship between green financial development and resource productivity within the static framework. The dynamic System GMM estimations provide additional evidence by indicating a positive association between green innovation and resource productivity once persistence in the dependent variable is taken into account. These findings suggest that the relationship among green financial development, green innovation, and resource productivity is sensitive to the econometric framework employed and is better characterized as a dynamic adjustment process rather than an immediate contemporaneous transmission mechanism. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that these relationships are primarily evident among Western EU member states, whereas comparable associations are not statistically supported in the Eastern EU subsample, highlighting the importance of differentiated policy approaches across the European Union. This study contributes to the literature in four main ways. First, it proposes a composite Green Financial Development indicator. Second, it evaluates Resource Productivity as an indicator of circular economy performance. Third, it demonstrates that static and dynamic panel approaches provide complementary evidence on the green finance–innovation–productivity nexus. Fourth, it reveals substantial regional heterogeneity within the European Union by showing that the estimated relationships are statistically significant in the Western EU subsample but not in the Eastern EU subsample, underscoring the importance of differentiated regional policy approaches. The findings offer important implications for policymakers seeking to accelerate the transition toward a more resource-efficient and sustainable European economy. Full article

This study quantifies whether vehicle electrification reduces greenhouse gas emissions on one of the world’s most fossil-intensive electricity grids. A transparent, ISO 14040/14044-conformant cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment compares a mid-size battery electric vehicle (BEV, 60 kWh) with a comparable gasoline car over 225,000 km, using a fully source-traceable process-sum inventory and life cycle (well-to-wheel) emission factors for both energy carriers. On the 2024 Saudi grid (692 g CO₂e/kWh, 99.8% fossil) the BEV emits 37.8 t CO₂e (168 g CO₂e/km) against the gasoline car’s 50.6 t (225 g CO₂e/km)—a 25% reduction, with the BEV’s 1.9 times higher production emissions repaid at 76,000 km, approximately three years of typical Saudi driving. The advantage rises to 44% on the world-average grid, 53% under Saudi Arabia’s 50% renewable-electricity target for 2030, and 66–80% on the EU and French grids; grid parity would require 991 g CO₂e/kWh, above any national grid. The result is robust to hot climate energy consumption (+15%, advantage 25%), Gulf-sourced materials (break-even shortens to 68,000 km), battery capacity (40–80 kWh), and 10,000-run Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation (BEV superior in 99.6% of draws). Electrification is therefore a sound climate strategy even in fossil-grid economies, and its benefit roughly doubles with the announced power-sector transition. Full article

With Q-day approaching, the transition to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has begun, with governments across the US, UK and EU mandating migration to quantum-resistant standards. This paper benchmarks the three NIST-standardised PQC algorithms—FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA)—across key generation, signing and verification operations, measuring both computational performance and energy consumption on a range of constrained IoT-class devices, from the 32-bit Raspberry Pi 1 and Zero to the 64-bit Raspberry Pi 4, as well as commodity laptop hardware. Using the FNIRSI FNB58 USB power meter and OpenSSL 3.5, results show that ML-KEM and ML-DSA achieve energy and speed efficiency comparable to classical elliptic-curve cryptography across all tested architectures. However, SLH-DSA signing is inadvisable on constrained hardware: energy costs for SLH-DSA signing on 32-bit devices were up to 243% higher than on equivalent 64-bit hardware, making it impractical for resource-limited IoT deployments. These findings have direct implications for IoT security practitioners planning PQC migration. Full article

High-entropy oxide (HEO) nanoceramics based on (Y_0.2La_0.2Gd_0.2Eu_0.2Er_0.2)₂O₃ were synthesized at 600 °C for 10 min under pressures of 2, 4, 6, and 8 GPa using High-Pressure–Low-Temperature (HPLT) technology, and the resulting structural, phase, and optical changes were studied as a function of synthesis pressure. X-ray diffraction with Rietveld refinement showed that the initial single-phase cubic nanopowder decomposes under pressure into a mixture of cubic, monoclinic, and orthorhombic high-entropy phases: the cubic fraction falls from 67.3% at 2 GPa to 46.8% at 4 GPa, 42.9% at 6 GPa, and 31.1% at 8 GPa, while low-symmetry monoclinic and orthorhombic inclusions become correspondingly more abundant. Raman spectroscopy validated this evolution, with the 2 GPa sample showing a resolvable doublet near 364 and 353 cm⁻¹ attributable to two coexisting cubic phases, while samples synthesized at 4–8 GPa converge on a single narrow band at 353 cm⁻¹ that broadens with increasing pressure. Photoluminescence measurements revealed that the sample synthesized at 2 GPa exhibits the highest Eu³⁺ and Er³⁺ luminescence intensity, with emission and excitation intensities decreasing systematically as synthesis pressure increases. We attribute this decline to the growing fraction of low-symmetry monoclinic phase, whose C2h point-group sites impose parity-forbidden selection rules on the ⁵D₀ → ⁷F_J transitions of Eu³⁺, combined with an increased probability of nonradiative relaxation at structural defects introduced by pressure. These results establish synthesis pressure as a practical lever for tuning the phase composition and luminescent efficiency of multi-lanthanide HEO nanoceramics and indicate that low pressures (~2 GPa) are preferable for optical applications requiring high luminescence intensity. Full article