Search Results (4,466)

This paper examines how artificial intelligence can support sustainability assessment in cultural industries, using national film industries as a test case. The Film Industry Sustainability Index (FISI) is introduced as a composite indicator covering cultural diversity, economic resilience, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment for 42 national economies from 2005 to 2023. Knowledge-Enhanced Mamba (KE-Mamba), a selective state-space forecasting model, is then proposed to combine annual panel indicators with country-level film-industry knowledge graph (KG) embeddings and large language model (LLM)-derived screenplay-oriented narrative proxies from film synopses. To reduce factual errors in title-level narrative scoring, the LLM is anchored to verified United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) records and the European Audiovisual Observatory’s LUMIERE film-admissions database using rank-one model editing (ROME). On the 2020–2023 held-out test period, KE-Mamba achieves a composite FISI mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.0389, a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 5.61%, and an $R^2$ of 0.934, outperforming autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), tree-based, long short-term memory (LSTM), and base Mamba baselines. Additional robustness checks using a pre-pandemic split, two-way fixed-effects panel regression, alternative FISI weighting schemes, KG embedding ablations, and human validation of LLM narrative scores support the reliability of the proposed framework. Policy simulations are interpreted as model-based projected associations rather than causal estimates. The results show that knowledge-enhanced sequence models can provide transparent forecasting support for sustainable cultural-industry policy. Full article

Over the last two decades, social enterprises in Romania have taken on an increasingly important role in the production and provision of social goods and services for vulnerable groups. Although forms of the social economy have long existed in Romanian society, sustainability remains a constant concern, particularly in the context of dependence on European Union structural funds. This study identifies the multidimensional factors influencing the sustainability of social enterprises in Romania, combining a quantitative analysis of 121 certified social enterprises from the National Register (2016–2022) with qualitative case studies of 15 selected organisations. Revenue diversification was significantly associated with financial sustainability (β = −0.28, p < 0.01), whilst high dependence on EU funding (>50% of revenue) was negatively associated with long-term viability (HR = 2.18, p = 0.002). Participation in networks was associated with markedly higher five-year survival rates (87.2% for network members versus 69.5% for non-members). Six key sustainability strategies were identified: hybrid revenue models, integration into the value chain, community inclusion, adaptive leadership, strategic partnerships, and effective communication of results and impact. Environmental sustainability is addressed with preliminary proxy evidence from the qualitative component; systematic measurement of this dimension represents a priority for future research. The findings confirm the absence of an integrated support framework for the sustainable activities of the social economy and, in some cases, the limited capacity of public institutions to support vulnerable groups. Policy recommendations include phased funding mechanisms, transitional support instruments and the systematic development of regional ecosystems. Full article

Europe’s solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity is expanding rapidly, raising a key question: how much PV can each national electricity system actually absorb? Most existing assessments rely on annual or seasonal averages, which overlook the hour-by-hour match between PV generation and demand that ultimately limits feasible deployment. This study quantifies the demand-constrained PV potential of 38 European countries and how it varies across regions. Hourly PV generation is simulated in PVsyst and matched against national hourly demand from ENTSO-E. Feasible capacity is defined as the largest installation whose output never exceeds demand in any hour of the year. This system-level, time-resolved method yields operationally constrained estimates rather than purely physical potential. The 38 countries could feasibly deploy about 614 GWp of PV, generating around 678 TWh per year without exceeding hourly demand. Regional differences are pronounced: southern Europe benefits from superior solar resources, while northern and eastern regions face seasonal and infrastructural challenges. These findings underline the importance of grid modernization, energy storage, and cross-border integration. The estimates form a conservative baseline; they exclude drivers such as electric-vehicle (EV) deployment, demand-side flexibility, battery energy storage, latent demand growth, power export, and building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), whose inclusion would expand the feasible potential. This study offers a transparent comparative framework to guide policy, investment, and system planning for Europe’s carbon-neutral energy transition. Full article

Green hydrogen is increasingly discussed as an energy carrier that can link electricity, gas, heat, and transport sectors. However, many existing reviews address this topic from separate viewpoints, such as hydrogen production technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, or system integration, with less attention to how policy and market conditions affect deployment. This review brings these related aspects together in one structured discussion. The paper first reviews the hydrogen supply chain, including production, storage, transport, and utilization. It then discusses an integrated multi-energy architecture in which hydrogen interacts with electricity, natural gas, heat, and cooling networks. Policy instruments in five major economies, including the European Union, the United States, China, Japan, and India, are compared. The review also summarizes the main barriers to large-scale deployment, including high production costs, limited infrastructure, technological challenges, regulatory uncertainty, and supply-chain constraints. In addition, the current market structure and selected large-scale hydrogen projects planned in the United States are reviewed. The paper also examines the role of artificial intelligence in green hydrogen systems. AI applications are grouped into four main stages of the hydrogen value chain: forecasting renewable energy generation, improving electrolyzer design and operation, optimizing storage and distribution, and supporting system-level techno-economic assessment. Recent Machine Learning (ML) studies are compared based on their methods and their contributions to operation and planning. Overall, this review highlights the role of AI in enabling green hydrogen integration within multi-energy systems. Full article

The global regulatory landscape is shifting from voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting to mandatory Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure, yet whether this transition drives substantive corporate environmental change or merely symbolic compliance remains empirically contested. This study investigates the causal impact of mandatory ESG disclosure on firm value and operational carbon intensity, drawing on an unbalanced panel of 9682 firm-year observations for 1626 listed firms from the European Union (EU-27) and Japan covering the period 2018 to 2024. The EU serves as the treatment group, where mandatory disclosure requirements escalated substantially from 2021 onward through the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive proposal. Japan serves as the control group, representing a developed economy with sophisticated capital markets and high ESG awareness that maintained a voluntary disclosure environment throughout the study period. A Difference-in-Differences framework with firm- and year-fixed effects is employed, and causal identification is validated through a dynamic event study analysis. Three principal findings emerge. First, mandatory ESG disclosure is not associated with a statistically significant improvement in firm value in the EU–Japan comparative context, a result that is interpreted as descriptive rather than causal given evidence of pre-existing valuation divergence between the two groups. Second, mandatory disclosure is associated with a significant and progressive reduction in Scope 1 and 2 carbon intensity, indicating substantive operational decarbonization rather than symbolic compliance. Third, this emissions-reducing effect is significantly amplified among firms with dedicated CSR sustainability committees, while the board independence policy indicator yields no significant moderating effect, a finding attributed to data limitations. These results carry direct implications for policymakers designing climate-related disclosure frameworks and for scholars examining the boundary conditions under which mandatory transparency translates into genuine environmental performance. Full article

This paper presents a comparative analysis of selected economic indicators within the Italian railway passenger transport sector during the 2010–2024 period. Characterized by high-speed rail (HSR) saturation and advanced market liberalization, the Italian railway system serves as a reference model for investigating structural shifts within mature transport networks. The study aims to quantify the dynamics of transport performance through a synthesis of multiple analytical dimensions: passenger volume, transport performance (passenger-kilometers), modal split, average transport distances, and indicators of general and dynamic population mobility. The methodological framework is based on the application of chain and base indices, enabling the precise identification of cyclical fluctuations, exogenous disruptions (primarily the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), and the subsequent degree of systemic resilience. The analysis suggests a significant shift in demand composition after 2014, characterized by an expansion of short- and medium-distance segments alongside a transformation in travel behavior. The research findings determine the correlation between infrastructure investment and the actual positioning of rail transport within a multimodal system. This work provides an analytical foundation for strategic planning in transport policy and sustainable mobility within the context of European transport integration. Moreover, these insights are practically applicable for transport operators and planners in forecasting demand, optimizing network capacity, and enhancing infrastructure resilience against future exogenous shocks. Full article

Although the European Union positions the bioeconomy at the core of its sustainability transition and the European Green Deal, the cross-country distribution of bioeconomy value-added associated with mission-oriented public R&D support remains highly uneven. This paper investigates how national researcher capacity (as a proxy of absorptive capacity) shapes the macroeconomic effectiveness of bioeconomy-oriented public R&D support, and how societal climate-oriented environmental concern acts as a direct structural driver of bioeconomy value-added. Using a panel dataset of 27 EU Member States from 2008 to 2020, the study constructs an original bioeconomy-specific measure of government budget appropriations for R&D (GBARD) and estimates two-way fixed-effects models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for cross-sectional dependence. The findings reveal a clear capacity-dependent conditional moderation effect: public R&D support is significantly associated with higher bioeconomy value-added only when a critical mass of researcher capacity is present. Sectoral disaggregation demonstrates that business enterprise researcher capacity acts as the primary transmission channel linking public funds to the market, whereas higher-education capacity shows no statistically significant short-to-medium-term moderating effect, consistent with the academic research commercialisation time lags documented in the literature. Additionally, societal climate-oriented environmental concern is positively associated with bioeconomy value-added in the baseline models, consistent with its role as a demand-side factor fostering receptive conditions for bio-based transitions. The study concludes that increasing mission-oriented R&D funding alone is likely insufficient; to successfully cross the “valley of death,” public R&D should be accompanied by complementary policies that build private-sector absorptive capacity and cultivate green market demand. Full article

This study examines when green innovation contributes to pollution abatement by analyzing how financial globalization and different forms of innovation jointly shape ecological pressure across European Union (EU) countries over the period 1992–2021. The findings show that financial globalization consistently increases ecological pressure, with stronger effects at upper quantiles (0.8–0.9). Technological innovation exhibits a nonlinear pattern: general RD increases ecological pressure at lower quantiles (0.1–0.4), but this effect becomes insignificant and then negative at higher quantiles (0.7–0.9). In contrast, environmental innovation (EI) reduces CO₂ emissions at middle and upper quantiles (0.5–0.8), suggesting a stronger environmental contribution under medium-to-high ecological pressure conditions. Overall, the results demonstrate that the environmental impact of innovation depends on both the type of innovation and the prevailing level of ecological pressure. Specifically, general R&D and environmental innovation exhibit different environmental effects across lower and upper quantiles, suggesting that environmentally oriented innovation policies may be more effective under higher ecological pressure conditions. Full article

The European Union (EU) and national governments have set clear targets to reduce agricultural emissions, including ammonia from manure spreading practice, with regulations such as the Ambient Air Quality (AQ) and Clean Air Directives, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the Green Deal, with implication for ecosystem services and landscape planning, reflecting broader environmental sustainability objectives including those addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Informative Inventory Reports (IIRs) are critical tools within the EMEP/EEA framework for monitoring long-range transboundary air pollution. They utilize three distinct methodological tiers (Tiers 1, 2, and 3) to estimate emission data across Europe. Despite the availability of Earth Observation (EO) data and products from the Copernicus Programme current estimation methods still rarely integrate EO information to produce spatially explicit estimates. This paper reviews current methodologies for estimating ammonia in IIRs and in scientific literature, including advanced methods not yet implemented in official inventories but potentially capable of supporting more spatially explicit and process-oriented estimation. A Medium Effort Methodology (MEM) is identified among those reviewed as a representative methodological pathway for integrating EO information with Tier 3 approaches. Building on this, the paper explores the association between specific EO data and Copernicus products, and input variables required by MEM, identifying opportunities and barriers for environmental monitoring with potential relevance to sustainable agriculture. Full article

Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, Europeans entered East Asia and introduced Catholicism as new maritime routes were opened and global interconnections deepened. Through practice, missionaries gradually developed a strategy of cultural accommodation, seeking converts by integrating into East Asian cultures. Although the cultural traditions of China, Japan, and Korea were broadly similar, there were differences among them, and the process of Catholic accommodation in each country reflected both shared commonalities and distinct particularities. The accommodation strategy initially led to considerable success; however, Catholic activities later posed a challenge to the traditional cultural and social orders of the three countries, and their rulers eventually adopted policies of religious prohibition to varying degrees. By the early nineteenth century, Catholicism had been banned across all three polities. Therefore, the cultural encounter between East and West on the eve of the modern era ended in intense conflict—yet Catholicism never disappeared from East Asia. Rather, it found a foothold in popular society by merging with the “little tradition.” In identifying this accommodation paradox, the article offers the wider study of religion a model of how a foreign faith interacts with an entrenched host tradition, demonstrating that the effectiveness of accommodation may itself generate the conditions of its subsequent prohibition. Full article

Monitoring biodiversity in coastal and marine ecosystems is essential for supporting conservation strategies, sustaining ecosystem services, and meeting policy commitments at multiple scales, including the European Union’s Habitats Directive, Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14, Life Below Water), and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). However, many benthic habitats remain insufficiently mapped or monitored due to the spatial, temporal, and logistical limitations of traditional field-based approaches. Optical Remote Sensing (ORS), based on the use of optical sensors to retrieve spectral information from shallow-water environments, has emerged as a powerful tool for mapping and monitoring these ecosystems. This study presents a systematic review aimed at providing a comprehensive synthesis of above-water ORS applications for benthic biodiversity and habitat monitoring over the period 2014–2023. A total of 179 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed to identify temporal trends, geographic patterns, target ecosystems, and methodological workflows. The review considered observation platforms including satellite, airborne, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and field spectrometry systems, together with key preprocessing procedures required for reliable benthic detection, such as atmospheric correction, water column correction, and sunglint removal, alongside validation using independent measurements. The analysis reveals a rapid expansion of ORS applications, with a strong geographic concentration in tropical and subtropical regions. Studies focusing on specific benthic groups predominantly target coral reefs and seagrass ecosystems, although many adopt integrative benthic habitat classifications that incorporate multiple benthic components at the habitat level. However, significant limitations persist, including inconsistent preprocessing workflows, limited reporting transparency, and the underrepresentation of several ecologically important taxa (e.g., annelids, mollusks, echinoderms). Despite these challenges, ORS has become a cornerstone of large-scale and repeatable coastal monitoring. By analyzing methodological practices, ecological targets, and geographic biases, this review provides a critical foundation for improving the robustness, scalability, and global applicability of ORS in benthic habitat mapping, biodiversity monitoring, and ecosystem-based management. Full article

This paper proposes a sociological reinterpretation of the concept of sustainability, understood as a cultural dispositive capable of shaping habitus, social representations, and models of action. From a culturalist perspective, sustainability is analysed as a process of social construction grounded in the internalisation of values, knowledge, and practices that contribute to the formation of responsible citizenship. Within this theoretical framework, the school assumes a strategic role in processes of sustainability education by fostering the ethical, collaborative, and inclusive competences required to address contemporary socio-environmental transformations. The paper presents the Edumat+ design protocol, developed within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme, aimed at experimenting with innovative methodologies for digital education in primary schools through the integration of STEAM approaches, with reference to coding, educational robotics, and information design. The protocol involved the development of infographic mats and digital learning activities focused on themes of environmental sustainability. The findings highlight how the integration of digital education, visual storytelling, and collaborative learning can contribute to the construction of inclusive and participatory educational environments capable of supporting processes of sustainable citizenship from primary education onwards. Although the activation of such pathways is consistent with recent European policies promoting the integration of digital technologies and STEAM approaches within schools, particularly through initiatives focused on teacher education and the acquisition of technologies and software, the widespread dissemination of the project still requires further governmental support, especially for the development and dissemination of the project outputs. Full article

The European 2035 decarbonisation framework rests on a conditional premise—that higher renewable-electricity penetration accelerates battery electric vehicle (BEV) adoption—yet it has not been tested at the panel level. The question is timely: the December 2025 Automotive Package would soften the 2035 target from 100 to 90 percent CO₂ reduction and permit continued production of plug-in hybrids beyond 2035, while the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) imposes binding charging-coverage targets from 2025 onwards. We assemble an annual panel of 31 European economies over 2015–2024 (310 country-year observations) and combine a two-way fixed-effects baseline on five disaggregated powertrain shares, an interaction model with public charging coverage as a moderator, and a Hansen-style threshold panel. The within-country BEV-share coefficient on renewable-electricity penetration is statistically null (β = +0.18, p = 0.247), rejecting the linear premise. The plug-in hybrid share, by contrast, responds positively and unconditionally (β = +0.36, p = 0.001)—a “PHEV paradox” of compositional response. The BEV channel, by contrast, is conditional on infrastructure: its marginal effect rises with public charging coverage and is positive only in the upper part of the charging distribution (interaction β₃ = +0.13, p = 0.027). A formal Hansen-style threshold test in the renewable share does not reject the linear specification (sup-F = 0.73, bootstrap p = 0.97), so the BEV conditionality is identified through the charging-coverage interaction. The findings characterise a two-speed European transition. The first channel reflects compliance-led PHEV hedging; the second reflects BEV charging network complementarity enabled by AFIR-mandated coverage. Subsidy rebalancing away from PHEV eligibility, strict AFIR enforcement, and PHEV utility-factor reform are necessary policy levers for the 2035 framework to deliver full electrification rather than the partial electrification that current incentives yield. Full article

Small rural businesses face significant challenges due to geographical constraints, transportation costs, small market size, and low population density. On top of that, the energy crisis that arose after the start of the 2022 Russia–Ukraine war and the sanctions imposed by the EU and the US have created a stifling energy environment. The latter has exposed the businesses to the risk of energy poverty. The current study examines energy poverty within three business sectors that are prominent in the Greek countryside. These are entities firstly involved in the processing, manufacturing, and standardization of agricultural products; secondly, involved in the trade of agricultural products; and lastly, certain businesses operating in the tourist area. More specifically, this research examines the energy needs and energy obligations of these businesses as well as the energy efficiency of their facilities by simultaneously exploring the impact of European and national energy policies on addressing energy poverty in rural micro-businesses. To detect the opinions, experiences, perceptions, estimations, and expectations of entrepreneurs who maintain these businesses in rural areas, a qualitative approach was adopted utilizing personal in-depth interviews. Overall, fifteen micro-entrepreneurs were interviewed. Findings revealed that energy costs for rural businesses are becoming a major issue for their survival. Moreover, they have a substantial effect on their operational costs, exceeding other expenses and leading to an increase in energy poverty. These findings have also been confirmed by statistical data. Energy costs for small businesses range from 15% to 35% depending on the business, and during peak periods or crises, they exceed 40%. In addition, fees and taxes account for over 40% of electricity bills. Full article

Evidence-informed leadership in higher education has gained increasing prominence across Europe, responding to growing demands for accountability, transparency, and innovation in policy and practice. This paper critically reviews the conceptual foundations, mechanisms, and implications of evidence use in higher education leadership, drawing on the European and international literature. It examines both the potential of evidence to enhance decision-making and the persistent challenges that limit its effective integration into leadership practices. Despite the expansion of data systems and the growing use of analytics, the translation of evidence into meaningful leadership action remains uneven. Key barriers include fragmented data infrastructures, limited data literacy among leaders, tensions between managerial metrics and academic values, and resistance to externally imposed performance frameworks. Emerging developments, particularly the rise in artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making, further complicate the landscape by raising concerns about transparency, bias, and ethical responsibility. The paper argues for a more reflexive and context-sensitive approach to evidence-informed leadership. It highlights the need to move beyond technocratic models towards practices that value professional judgment, stakeholder engagement, and diverse forms of knowledge. Such an approach is essential for fostering ethically grounded and sustainable leadership capable of supporting transformative change in European higher education. Full article