Search Results (36)

Indonesia’s post-mining landscapes require an integrated governance approach to achieve equitable and sustainable reclamation. This study developed and evaluated the TILANG Framework (Triple-Bottom-Line Integrated Land Governance) as a multidimensional model that aligns ecological restoration, community empowerment, and institutional accountability. Based on a meta-synthesis of 773 academic and institutional remarks coded using NVivo 12, the study identified sustainable cacao agriculture as a viable compensation mechanism that supports livelihood recovery while restoring degraded land. The framework draws on six foundational theoretical components—Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Stakeholder Theory, Legitimacy Theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Triple Bottom Line, and multi-level governance—and is operationalized through six implementation principles: Trust, Inclusivity, Legitimacy, Alignment, Norms, and Governance. The findings support performance-based land reclamation by embedding behavioral readiness and institutional co-financing into sustainability strategies. This model is particularly relevant to Indonesia’s ongoing land-use transformation, where post-extractive zones are shifting toward agroecological and community-centered recovery. The study found that (1) reframing land compensation as a restorative, performance-based mechanism enables more legitimate and inclusive post-mining governance; (2) sustainable cacao agriculture represents a viable and socially accepted strategy for ecological recovery and rural livelihood revitalization; and (3) the TILANG Framework advances land-use transformation by integrating corporate responsibility, behavioral readiness, and multi-level governance into a cohesive performance model. Full article

From reviewing the literature, there was still a scarcity of research about direct and indirect relationships between fintech adoption (FA) and banks’ environmental performance (BEP), particularly in developing countries. Therefore, this is a pioneering study that empirically explored the impacts of FA on BEP in the Middle East (ME) region, considering the mediating role of green accounting practices (GAPs)—such as green banking practices (GBPs), green finance (GF), and circular economy practices (CEPs)—based on legitimacy and ecological modernization (EM) theories to address these research gaps. Based on a structured survey and convenience sampling technique, the primary data were obtained from a sample of 500 members of staff from banks in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, Iraq, and Jordan. The structural equation model (SEM) was utilized to investigate the relationships among this study’s variables. The findings indicated that FA positively and significantly impacts GBPs, GF, CEPs, and BEP, which answered the first research question. Furthermore, the linkage between FA and BEP is positively and significantly mediated by GBPs, GF, and CEPs; thus, the second research question was answered. The findings provide bank executives and policy makers with valuable understanding and suggestions to deploy more investments in eco-friendly practices to enhance the environmental performance (EP), societal legitimacy, and achieve competitive advantage. Additionally, collaboration among the banking institutions, governments, and international firms is essential to promote FA and GAPs and enhance the EP. Full article

To achieve the transition to sustainable energy and mobility systems, we are relying heavily on critical metals. The sustainable extraction, use, and circulation of these materials is not straightforward as contestation over the social and ecological sustainability of these metals is characterised by so-called hype cycles of increased and decreased legitimacy. This impedes the energy and mobility transition. We propose and apply a novel approach using event graphs to assess critical metal systems as evolving socio-material systems, comparing three longitudinal cases (lithium, cobalt, tantalum). Our analysis leads to an ideal type hype cycle for critical metal systems. Our findings evidence the necessity for policymakers and industry practitioners to use approaches such as responsible innovation to ensure that the extraction, use, and circulation of critical metals does not undermine the transition to sustainable mobility and energy systems. Full article

Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) are systems with close linkage between nature and societies. Coastal lagoons are SESs crucial for the ecosystem services (ESs) provided, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, facing threats from anthropogenic activities and climate change. Management strategies focusing solely on ecological elements’ improvement have not yielded the desired outcomes, as they often neglect the needs and perspectives of stakeholders. Participatory approaches promote engagement and awareness to develop sustainable and effective management strategies. Aiming to contribute to the preservation and sustainable management of the Nestos Delta coastal lagoons, a Natura 2000 site in Greece, this study explores the application of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFS) to capture the inherent uncertainty in stakeholder opinions against complex environmental challenges. Through this participatory approach, stakeholder perspectives were assessed and quantified to rank management alternatives. Ecological health and economic values were prioritized, endorsing the adoption of natural and soft interventions; conflicts and a knowledge gap regarding non-provisioning ESs were revealed, highlighting the necessity of inclusive consultation processes. This approach offers the potential to facilitate consensus-building and enhance the legitimacy of coastal lagoon management decisions. Full article

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, non-core firms face increasing pressure to innovate while adhering to sustainable practices. Non-core firms are organizations that operate in peripheral or less central positions within an ecosystem, having limited access to critical resources but playing essential supportive roles in innovation processes. Innovation eco-embeddedness, which integrates ecological considerations into innovation processes, is becoming a critical factor for enhancing innovation performance. However, the dynamics between eco-embeddedness, breakthrough innovation, and innovation performance, especially under varying levels of ecological legitimacy and technology turbulence, remain under examination. This study aims to investigate the relationships between innovation eco-embeddedness, breakthrough innovation, and innovation performance in non-core firms. Additionally, it examines the moderating effects of ecological legitimacy and technology turbulence on these relationships. This study developed and tested seven hypotheses using a conceptual framework based on innovation ecosystem theory, breakthrough innovation theory, and institutional theory. We collected data from a diverse sample of non-core firms and used structural equation modeling to analyze the direct, mediating, and moderating effects. The findings reveal a positive relationship between innovation eco-embeddedness and both breakthrough innovation and innovation performance. Breakthrough innovation also directly enhances innovation performance and mediates the relationship between eco-embeddedness and performance. Ecological legitimacy significantly moderates the impact of eco-embeddedness on breakthrough innovation, while technology turbulence intensifies the mediated relationship between eco-embeddedness and innovation performance when both moderating factors are high. This study provides valuable perceptions for managers and policymakers in non-core firms, highlighting the importance of embedding ecological considerations in innovation processes. Full article

The concept of policy entrepreneurs has gained increasing attention in studies of policy change, including climate policy and governance. It foregrounds the role of agency in understanding policy change. However, agency of policy entrepreneurs in the policy process is political and conceals the power that shapes how public problems and policies are framed and defined. Thus, policy entrepreneurs should be confronted with the challenge of generating legitimacy, accountability, and justice in their actions and the implementation of their targeted policy change. Drawing on political–philosophical theories of liberal and deliberative democracy as well as environmental and ecological democracy this paper outlines a conceptual framework for critical analytical as well as normative research on strategies and impacts of policy entrepreneurs on democratic governance, primarily in climate policy but also more generally. Empirical research on the strategies and impacts of policy entrepreneurs in recent policymaking on climate change mitigation in the EU and Sweden identifies several deficits related to the democratic principles of legitimacy, accountability, and justice. It is found that policy entrepreneurs from different social spheres use cultural–institutional entrepreneurship to influence beliefs and perceptions on problems and policies. In addition, it is found that public sector policy entrepreneurs use structural entrepreneurship on ideological grounds to change existing power relations in climate governance. In all, the paper brings ideology and politics into research on policy entrepreneurs. It is suggested that not only the strategies used, but also the ideologies of the actors that use them, are decisive for the impacts of policy entrepreneurs, and thus, whether their advocacy will adhere to democratic norms and facilitate or hamper a just transition to climate neutrality and sustainability. The paper ends with proposals on how policy entrepreneurs can act more democratically, how to deal with populist policy entrepreneurs wanting to erode democracy, and conditions for climate justice movements to take responsibility and act in a more entrepreneurial way. Full article

Recent research on attitudes to Australian English (AusE) shows that there is a general increase in its acceptance, legitimacy, and endonormativity. However, a certain “cultural cringe” exists, particularly when “broad” AusE is seen as representative of the variety. A significant gap in the literature is how the perceptions and usage of AusE may change as the population becomes more diverse. This paper presents findings of an online survey of language attitudes towards AusE with 661 respondents across Australia, over a third of whom were born overseas. Overall, there is minimal evidence of a standard language ideology, with 80% of respondents reporting having an accent to some degree. Almost half of respondents report occasionally or frequently changing their accents due to context, interlocutor, or making themselves understood. When asked to rate AusE along six traits on a seven-point scale, the traits of educatedness, professionalism, and attractiveness were consistently centered on neutral. For friendliness and likeability, the majority skewed towards neutral and positive. For the trait of clarity, there was a greater range of responses, but overall, 50% of respondents found AusE to be somewhat, moderately, or really clear. These findings further our understanding of attitudes and ideologies in Australia’s increasingly diverse language ecology. Full article

This study proposes a research framework for media attention towards green innovation of manufacturing enterprises based on the theory of stakeholders and legitimacy. We examine the potential effect of media attention on the manufacturing industry and make a multidimensional heterogeneity analysis with a sample of Chinese manufacturing enterprises during 2011–2019. Our results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between various attentions of media and green innovation. We find that the early attention of the media can expand the green innovation ability of manufacturing enterprises. However, the excessive attention of the media later may decrease the green behavior of enterprises. The legitimacy pressure of media attention on enterprises helps enterprises carry out green innovation and reduce false green innovation activities. In addition, the sustainable construction, environmental regulations, and sustainable social atmosphere focused on by the media will have a positive effect on the green innovation of enterprises. We suggest that recognizing the importance and potential power of sustainable media, environmental regulations, and sustainable atmosphere in green technology is a key component of the ecological inclusive path to promote the achievement of sustainable development goals. Full article

Peatlands are a vast global carbon store. Both climate change and management have shaped peatlands over millennia, sometimes negatively, sometimes positively. Across the globe, prescribed fire is an important and well-recognised vegetation management tool used to promote biodiversity, increase habitat heterogeneity and mitigate uncontrolled wildfires. However, in the UK, there is an ongoing debate about the efficacy and legitimacy of using prescribed fire as a vegetation management tool. The debate centres around the extent to which prescribed burning is associated with a decline in habitat status and ecological function, especially in relation to carbon storage within heather-dominated blanket bog peatlands. Robust reviews of the evidence base are thus required to disentangle this debate and inform land management policies that ensure the protection and enhancement of blanket bog ecological functioning. Here, we critically review “Carbon storage and sequestration by habitat: a review of the evidence (second edition)” by Gregg et al., 2021. We see the value in synthesising the evidence on this topic but question the methodological approach used by Gregg et al. Another concern is their misrepresentation of evidence relating to prescribed burning impacts on blanket bog ecosystems and carbon budgets. We highlight these issues by focusing on the relevant peatland sections within the review by Gregg et al. and conclude by making a series of recommendations to improve the review’s scientific robustness and, thereby, its value to academics, land managers and policymakers. Full article

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the impact of financial development, globalization, and pollution in six MENA countries from 1971 to 2015. Many prior studies empirically explored numerous factors determining environmental quality/pollution across the world. As far as the region of North Africa and the Middle East is concerned, the majority of previous studies ignored the combined role of globalization and financial development in predicting environmental quality using carbon emissions (CO₂). Furthermore, we aimed to assess the legitimacy of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory for MENA nations. For this purpose, a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimator was applied. It was found that the development of the financial sector and globalization significantly affected ecological quality. Regressors such as energy use and foreign direct investment (FDI) had an altogether positive effect on natural quality. These empirical discoveries also demonstrate the acceptability of the EKC hypothesis for MENA nations. This study shows that governments in the Middle East and East Africa need to develop and implement appropriate policies to promote renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biofuel, and heat production, which help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and promote sustainable economic development. Full article

This work investigates the impact that the ownership structure of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries exerts on the level of corporate carbon emissions, as well as the moderating effect of innovation on this relationship. Based on panel data from 32 OECD countries during 2015–2020, a pooled least-square panel model was developed for estimation. The results show that public, foreign, and institutional investors have a significant negative effect on carbon emissions. Conversely, strategic investors contribute to increasing carbon emissions. Moreover, findings provide evidence of mixed moderating effects of innovation on the relationship between types of owners and carbon emissions. Hence, strategic shareholders contribute to implementing environmental policies through innovation, while public and foreign investors incur Research and Development expenditures to boost firms’ economic activity, ignoring social and environmental commitments. Our results confirm the relationship between ownership structure and carbon emissions and the moderating effects of innovation on this association. Environmental innovation allows for improving worldwide firms’ competitiveness and long-term performance. Full article

Creative thinking is an inherent process in the creation of innovations. Imagination is employed to seek creative solutions. This article presents research results on the use of inventive methods to develop an eco-friendly product. A household appliance was selected as the object of research. The article deals with issues relating to eco-design, eco-innovation, and inventory. The process of selecting inventive methods was presented. Selected inventive methods used to develop the product concept were briefly characterized. Creativity sessions were conducted using the methods of brainstorming, stimulating, reverse brainstorming, word games, and superpositions. The effect of these activities is the concept for an eco-innovative product. A product design was developed that is highly recyclable and environmentally friendly. An ecological analysis of the designed product, including AI-based (artificial neural networks), was carried out, which showed the legitimacy of the actions taken to develop an environmentally friendly product. The novelty of the proposed approach consists of combining the use of research data, with new methods for their analysis using both traditional and artificial intelligent tools, to create a transparent and scalable product design. To date, this approach is unique and has no equivalent in the literature. Despite higher manufacturing costs, the more environmentally friendly refrigerator is cheaper in operation (consumes less energy) due to the ecological solutions incorporated into its design. Full article

Background: This research aims to identify how blockchain technology could support the ecological embeddedness of the coffee supply chain. Ecological embeddedness is a subset of the circular economy (CE) that demands legitimacy through design changes to product, production and/or packaging for benefits to economic actors and the environment. This is in contrast with legitimacy as a public relations exercise. Blockchain is a digital transformation technology that is not fully conceptualized with respect to supply chain implementation and the related strategy formulation, particularly in the context of sustainability. Furthermore, the integration of consumers into the CE remains not well understood or researched, with the main focus of CE being the cycling of resources. Methods: This research employs a qualitative case study methodology of the first coffee business in the USA to use blockchain technology as an exemplar. Gap analysis is then applied to identify how blockchain could be used to advance from the current state to a more sustainable one. Results: Findings indicate that the implementation of blockchain is not ecologically embedded in the example studied. Conclusions: The extension of blockchain technology to consider the by-products of production and valorizable waste throughout the supply chain as assets would support ecologically embedded CE for coffee. Full article

As humanity’s moral failure leads to wild aquatic resources decline, habitat destruction and community tension, an ethically sound path towards good governance is increasingly needed globally. To epitomize sustainable paradigm shifts of grassroots practicalities in the fish sector, an ethical governance framework is initially conceptualized with a meta-governance infrastructure and a value-based decision-making mechanism. The ethical approach is then contextualized by using fish-specific evidence and outlining evolution of participatory fisheries and aquaculture management in rural China as a case study. The empirical investigation of socio-ecological justice manifested in social empowerment, ethical conduct and ecological resilience reveals that in China: fisheries and aquaculture governance models have been transforming from hierarchical governance to integrated governance combining hierarchy, market and community; participatory ethics are embedded in civil organizations upgraded from fishery association, offices, leagues to societies and cooperatives, indicating a multi-stakeholder governance mechanism steered by the government as meta-governor; villagers’ committees play a critical intermediary role in extending township governance and promoting autonomy of fishermen (farmers); local knowledge and traditional code of conduct regulates fish activities of fishermen (farmers) ready for community cooperation and mutual assistance; fish communities adopt socio-ecological measures to ensure property rights to fish (farm) and conserve aquatic resources. The current study aims to provide value reference in leveraging justified policy tools while promoting legitimacy of fish grassroots governance, in hope of contributing to a greener future of fisheries and aquaculture worldwide. Full article

Here, we address the question of if/to what extent human–wildlife conflict (HWC) can be reduced or mitigated by supra-regional or even global approaches, or whether case- and region-specific strategies are necessary. First, we try to shift the perspective from humans towards wildlife and regard modern era (near) extinctions of selected wildlife species as an ultimate expression of HWC. We then reflect on the legitimacy of ecosystem comparisons beyond the borders of biogeographical regions—an important prerequisite for global approaches. In the following, we present two case scenarios that exemplarily illustrate the topic from different perspectives: carnivore–livestock conflicts (classical view, human perspective) and wind turbine-induced mortality of bats (wildlife perspective, rarely regarded as a form of HWC). On this basis, we try to develop a framework that enables a global approach, while adequately considering case- and region-specificity. We think that a globally valid and generally approachable dimension can be defined, as long as there is a natural link: in the present case the established monophyly of the orders Carnivora and Chiroptera, i.e., representatives descending from common ancestors, thus sharing common ecological features. This natural relationship among all representatives of a systematic group (specification of the “wildlife” concept) is key for the development of an overarching strategy that can be adjusted to a specific case. Full article