Search Results (52)

Effective implementation of the new Greek governance system for Natura 2000 site protection and conservation relies on adopting innovative local participation methods. The remote and transboundary nature of Prespa Lakes presents unique challenges to environmental protection and efficient management of this protected area. Within the framework of the Horizon 2020 ARSINOE project, NECCA supervised three national workshops in the Greek part of the Prespa Lakes watershed, bringing together stakeholders from all relevant sectors that were selected based on their interest in and influence on the challenge of water management. These stakeholders mapped the complex interconnections between climate change; water management; and local issues like vegetation changes, population decline, and economic activities, revealing synergies as well as conflicts, eventually identifying innovation pathways for future climate resilience in Prespa and highlighting the importance of participatory governance for freshwater ecosystems. This paper explores the application of the System Innovation Approach and Living Labs methodology that produced mental maps, future visions, and identified innovations, thus fostering a comprehensive, multistakeholder approach to climate adaptation in water resources management. The future goal is to examine the transferability of experience and insights gained in Prespa to other Greek Protected Areas with similar ecosystem characteristics and challenges. Full article

Amid China’s rural–urban integration and rural revitalization, the Centralized Residence of Farmers Policy (CRFP) emerges as a pivotal tool to optimize rural spatial structure and land-use efficiency, yet its implementation risks—particularly risk coupling effects—remain underexplored. This study addresses this gap by constructing a holistic risk assessment framework and empirically examining CRFP in L Town, Shanghai; it employs a multi-method approach, integrating the Delphi method, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Cumulative Impact Model (CIM) to develop and validate a comprehensive risk assessment framework. This framework evaluates five key dimensions: policy content, implementation subjects, resource guarantees, target groups, and environmental adaptation. Empirical analysis of relocated farming households in L town reveals that the overall risk level of CRFP implementation falls within the moderate-risk range. Key identified risk factors identified include public opinion control, clarity of implementation standards, communication feedback accessibility, reliability of information resources, and effectiveness of implementation strategies. Based on these findings, the study proposes several risk mitigation strategies: aligning policies with local realities to promote high-quality social development, fostering collaborative digital governance through multi-stakeholder engagement, ensuring law-based policy formulation with transparent and supervised processes, enhancing public input through effective interest communication mechanisms, improving information dissemination with inclusive public participation, and adopting flexible implementation strategies. This research addresses fragmentation issues in the existing literature with a unified indicator system and provides actionable solutions that offer significant theoretical and practical value for advancing rural revitalization in the context of urban–rural integration. Full article

This study examines the impact of public data openness on environmental welfare performance using a quasi-natural experimental approach based on the establishment of prefecture-level city public data openness platforms. Our findings reveal that public data openness significantly improves urban environmental welfare performance. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis highlights that public data openness can play a more positive role in cities in eastern China, cities with greater fiscal autonomy, and cities where local governments place greater emphasis on environmental protection. Mechanism analysis demonstrates that public data openness enhances environmental welfare performance through stricter environmental regulatory constraints, industrial structure upgrading, increased public participation and supervision, and advancements in innovation and entrepreneurship. Extensive analysis shows that public data openness within a spatial framework can significantly enhance environmental welfare performance in the region. However, this process will generate a triple “siphon effect” that inhibits improvements in urban environmental welfare performance in surrounding areas. Additionally, this effect exhibits a certain degree of geographical attenuation influenced by economic interdependence, with an attenuation boundary of 1000 km. This study injects internet and big data thinking into ecological civilization construction, endowing it with new models, new scenarios, and new momentum, and providing a brand-new approach to sustainable development practices. Full article

Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) is a major step in China’s environmental vertical supervision reform. With the multi-period Difference-in-Differences method, we assess the impact of CEPI on enterprise green transformation. In addition, we further explore the impact of enterprise environmental self-discipline. The results show that CEPI significantly promotes enterprise green transformation, and this effect on governance is further strengthened by environmental self-discipline. The synergistic governance effect of compound environmental regulation is pronounced, particularly in enterprises lacking government–enterprise relationships and in areas covered by CEPI “look back” initiatives and where local governments rigorously enforce environmental laws. The mechanism analysis reveals that CEPI mainly promotes enterprise green transformation by improving executive green cognition, boosting investment in environmental protection, and enhancing green innovation efficiency. This study provides a fresh perspective on analyzing the governance impact of CEPI and provides valuable insights for improving multi-collaborative environmental governance systems. Full article

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) play a vital role in controlling wastewater discharge and promoting recycling. Accurate WWTP identification and spatial analysis are crucial for environmental protection, urban planning, and sustainable development. However, the diverse shapes and scales of WWTPs and their key facilities pose challenges for traditional detection methods. This study employs a Multi-Attention Network (MANet) for WWTP extraction, integrating channel and spatial feature attention. Additionally, a Global-Local Feature Modeling Network (GLFMN) is introduced to segment key facilities, specifically sedimentation and secondary sedimentation tanks. The approach is applied to Beijing, utilizing geographic data such as WWTP locations, treatment capacities, and surrounding residential and water distributions. Results indicate that MANet achieves 80.1% accuracy with a 90.4% recall rate, while GLFMN significantly improves the extraction of key facilities compared to traditional methods. The spatial analysis reveals WWTP distribution characteristics, offering insights into treatment capacity and geographic influences. These findings contribute to emission regulation, water quality supervision, and enterprise management of WWTPs in Beijing. This research provides a valuable reference for optimizing wastewater treatment infrastructure and supports decision-making in environmental governance and sustainable urban development. Full article

Amidst climate change and the energy crisis worldwide, the synergy between smart city and environmental policies has become a key path to improving the green resilience of cities. This study examines the spatial effects of carbon emission trading (CET) policy on urban energy performance under the context of artificial intelligence (AI)-empowered smart cities. Using the spatial Durbin model (SDM) and analyzing data from 262 Chinese cities covering the period 2013–2021, the results reveal that: (1) smart cities significantly benefit from the institutional support of the local CET policy, resulting in an 8.55% reduction in energy consumption in the pilot city; (2) AI advancement contributes directly to reducing energy consumption in surrounding areas by 21.84% through spatial effects, and compensates for the imbalance of regional renewable energy caused by the “siphon effect” of CET policy. This study provides empirical evidence for developing countries to build green and resilient cities. This paper proposes the need to build a national CET market, strengthen government supervision, and make reasonable use of AI technology, transforming the green and resilient model of smart cities from Chinese experience to global practice. Full article

Effective municipal solid waste (MSW) management is crucial for urban sustainability, especially in fast-growing cities, like Hangzhou, China. This study examines residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the following five key MSW measures: differentiated waste charging, smart recycling points, on-site organic waste recovery, volunteer-based waste sorting supervision, and a community self-governance fund. Based on a survey of 521 residents across 13 districts, we use logistic and interval regression models to identify factors influencing WTP and payment amounts. Key findings include the following: Higher-income and more educated residents prefer cost-efficient, technology-driven solutions, like smart recycling and differentiated charging. Newcomers (≤5 years of residence) show higher WTP and greater sensitivity to environmental information, highlighting the need for targeted outreach. Providing explicit environmental benefits (e.g., waste reduction, increased recycling) significantly boosts WTP rates and payment levels. Community characteristics matter—residents in high-density areas favor waste charging, while those in older neighborhoods support volunteer programs and self-governance funds. Policy implications center on targeted outreach, transparent fee structures, and incentive programs to foster public trust and enhance participation. Although MSW management in Hangzhou remains predominantly government-led, select collaboration with private enterprises (e.g., in specialized recycling services) may offer additional efficiency gains. By aligning these measures with localized preferences and demographic patterns, Hangzhou—and other quickly urbanizing regions—can develop robust and inclusive MSW systems that contribute to broader sustainable development objectives. Full article

Work safety governance is a critical component of corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance, particularly in high-risk industries. Effective safety supervision systems not only protect workers’ wellbeing, a key social metric in ESG frameworks, but also enhance corporate governance through improved risk management and regulatory compliance. The supervisory system represents a major institutional innovation in China’s approach to addressing increasingly complex work safety governance challenges. This study constructs an evolutionary game model involving the central government, local government, and high-risk enterprises to analyze the evolutionary characteristics of stakeholder behaviors. Through system simulation, we examine how key parameter changes affect the stability of system equilibrium points. Our findings reveal that (1) the current supervisory system effectively incentivizes both local governments to conduct safety supervision and high-risk enterprises to comply with safety investment requirements. (2) While government penalty levels do not affect strategy combinations, both insufficient and excessive penalties slow the system’s evolution toward optimal states. (3) Local governments tend to choose non-regulatory strategies when transfer payments and enterprise subsidies are inadequate. (4) Insufficient supervision intensity from the central government leads to local government non-regulation, and although this can be addressed by increasing supervision intensity, excessive supervision reduces the system’s evolution speed toward ideal states. Based on these findings, we propose policy recommendations for rational supervision intensity control, scientific reward–punishment mechanisms, and enhanced safety information transparency. This framework provides insights into the relationship between governance mechanisms and corporate long-term sustainability, which has been shown to improve ESG standards. Full article

Government environmental information disclosure (GEID) plays an important role in promoting the digital transformation of environmental governance, leading the concept of sustainable development, enhancing public oversight capacity, and promoting democratic decision-making governance. Using provincial panel data from China spanning from 2009 to 2021, we conducted spatial data exploratory analysis and used the dynamic spatial panel model to investigate the spatial–temporal development trends and influencing factors of GEID. The results show that (1) GEID in China exhibits significant spatial agglomeration characteristics, with an “H-H” (High-High aggregation type) agglomeration characteristic observed in three national strategic development regions: Yangtze River Delta, southeast coastal areas, and Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. (2) The spillover effect from the southeast coastal provinces gradually radiates to the northwest, resulting in an overall westward movement of GEID. (3) GEID exhibits a significant path-dependency feature in the temporal dimension and a “peer effect” in the spatial dimension. (4) Population size has the greatest impact on GEID. Population size, public participation, and the industrial and transportation sectors positively influence GEID improvement at the local level. However, they generate negative spillover effects to neighbouring provinces. Environmental status and the size of the Real Estate sector have no significant effect. Therefore, China should strengthen regional cooperation, narrow regional disparities, cultivate new quality productive forces, establish a government-led proactive disclosure mechanism under public supervision, and improve the level of GEID at the national level. Full article

To protect the safety of food bought from the online catering sector, the former State Food and Drug Administration of China issued two separate regulations in 2016 and 2017. Independently, the Shanghai government formulated local regulations, including the Shanghai Online Catering Service Supervision and Management Measures, to strengthen food safety supervision in this megacity with the largest catering sector in China. This study explored factors that influence consumer perceptions of the performance of online catering food safety regulations using survey data from 1050 respondents collected in 2019. The results indicate that consumers believe that Shanghai’s online catering industry has improved by varying degrees in terms of food freshness, ingredient traceability, foreign matter control, food temperature control, internal packaging hygiene and environmental protection, and satisfaction with food safety. The factors that influenced the listed features include the number and effectiveness of government-issued regulations regarding the online catering sector, effectiveness of ordering platform food safety regulations, employee training frequency, employee food safety awareness, delivery box cleanliness and courier personal hygiene, consumer trust in ordering platform services, and consumer confidence in government supervision. These factors significantly and positively affected the consumers’ perceptions of the performance of food safety regulations in the online catering sector. Full article

Food safety in developing countries has always been a concern, and deciding to purchase foods with a healthy label can be challenging. The goal of this study was to investigate the behavior of consumers for healthy foods by evaluating the factors influencing the prevalence of purchasing them despite having to pay a premium. Required data were collected in 2022 from 359 households in Mashhad, Iran, through an online questionnaire. A Generalized Poisson model was employed for analysis and the results indicate that the consumer’s field of study, the importance of food shape and size, the importance of food healthiness, the level of government supervision, practicing the 5Rs, awareness of the harmful effects of fast food on health (1% level) and variables of trust in a brand of healthy food, and the level of knowledge about the harmful effects of chemical fertilizers and toxins on human health (10% level) have a direct and significant relationship with consumers’ willingness to purchase more healthy foods for which they are willing to pay a premium. On the other hand, the relationship of some other factors, such as the importance of food price (1% level) and household size, household expenses, presence of individuals over 60 years old in the household, and the importance of food taste and flavor (5% level) became negative and significant. Therefore, to promote the consumption of foods with a healthy label for the purpose of reducing environmental issues and human health problems, it is recommended to produce and offer various healthy foods, create local markets, provide discounts and economic incentives to the public, and use attractive packaging with accurate and readable labels. Full article

Green finance policy has emerged as a powerful driver for sustainable development worldwide, which has arisen at the top of the political agenda. Drawing on resource allocation theory, this study empirically investigates whether and how green finance policy affects corporate environmental responsibility in achieving sustainable development goals on a micro level. Taking China’s green finance reform and innovation (GFRI) pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper employs the difference-in-differences model to investigate the impact of green finance policy on corporate environmental responsibility. The evidence shows that the GFRI policy significantly promotes corporate environmental responsibility. The results hold robust after a series of checks such as parallel trend examination, placebo test, exclusion of other policies, and alternative variable measurement. Moreover, this study explores the potential mechanism channels from the perspective of resource allocation theory. Specifically, green finance policy ultimately accelerates corporate environmental responsibility through financing capacity and environmental protection supervision. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive impact of the GFRI policy on corporate environmental responsibility is more pronounced for companies in areas with superior green development, strong law enforcement, and higher levels of pollution. The above findings indicate that the formal institution of government-led green financial policy can positively affect corporate environmental responsibility, with regional green development and law enforcement factors enhancing the effectiveness of these policies. Furthermore, the level of local pollution further intensifies the corporate sensibility to such policy effects. Overall, our study sheds light on the significant role of green financial policy in fostering a sustainable economy, helping reconcile the mixed evidence on the financial function of green finance policy on the firm level. Full article

Imported air pollution has a significant impact on urban air quality. Relevant studies have shown that many urban air pollution events are not resourced by local emissions but are imported by air pollution from surrounding areas transported across regions. The prevention and control of air pollution is very necessary. However, the existing supervision of urban air quality mostly relies on ground monitoring stations, which are extremely limited in time and space, and cannot satisfy continuous time-space air pollution research. Therefore, aiming at the problem of urban air pollution control, this paper used MERRA-2 reanalysis data and ground monitoring data to establish a “Time-Longitude-Latitude” three-dimensional pollution curve, and then a genetic algorithm was used to optimize its fitting. This study finally reconstructed the imported air pollution transmission route. This paper takes an air pollution event that occurred in Xuzhou City, China, on 12 January 2020, as an example. Through the analysis of aerosol optical depth (AOD), particulate matter (PM), wind speed, and other factors, we found the source, transmission route, and impact time of this pollution. We have verified the correctness and accuracy of the reconstructed contamination transport paths. It is proved that the method is universal and it can quickly and accurately restore the air pollution transmission route and identify the urban imported air pollution transmission entrance. This method will also provide strong data support for the division of responsibilities of environmental protection departments in various regions for severe air pollution transmission events and provide effective governance ideas for the prevention and control of imported air pollution in recipient cities. Full article

The global total amount of generated solid waste is currently on a rapid growth trend. China, as the largest developing country, promulgated its Pilot Work Plan for the Construction of Zero-Waste Cities led by the new development concept in 2018 after recognizing the inadequacy and urgency of solid waste management, and the lack of valuable experience and benchmark cities for the construction of zero-waste cities. This study uses the undesirable super-efficiency model and kernel density estimation method to measure the efficiency of zero-waste city construction in 16 prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province and analyze their spatial and temporal differences. Three major problems were found, namely, low regional coordination, the rigid policies of some local governments, and the unbalanced development of scale efficiency and pure technical efficiency. Results show that the zero-waste city construction efficiency as a whole shows a declining and then fluctuating growth trend, and that low-scale efficiency is the main reason behind the decrease in construction efficiency. Suggestions are then provided considering three aspects: improving regional synergy; improving government quality and capacity, and strengthening government supervision and revitalizing the market; and introducing social capital for environmental pollution treatment. These suggestions ultimately help improve the level of zero-waste city construction. Full article

The Bohai Sea is the only inland sea in China and serves as an important carrier for the Bohai Sea Economic Zone. However, it is also one of the areas with serious marine environmental pollution. This paper selects the policy text concerning Marine environmental pollution control issued by the central and local governments from 1996 to 2022 as the research object. Based on the three policy instruments of government environmental regulation, market incentive mechanisms and public participation, and using a content analysis method to encode and quantify the text content, it was found that the Bohai Sea marine environmental governance suffers from issues such as a singular concept of the use of policy instruments, imbalance in the proportion of their use, and insufficient supervision in the event of their use. Consequently, it is recommended to adopt diversified policy concepts, optimize the structure of policy instruments, and strengthen in-process supervision in the governance of the Bohai Sea marine environment. Full article