Search Results (12,802)

Global angel investment and venture capital are key financial drivers supporting the long-term growth of technology companies, and they play a vital role in improving the global science and technology innovation financial system and advancing green and sustainable transformation. This paper uses data on technology-sector companies listed on the A-share market from 2017 to 2025 to construct a multi-period DID model. It empirically examines the impact of angel investment and venture capital on the sustainable development of technology companies and investigates the moderating effect of ESG performance. The study finds that angel investment can significantly enhance the level of sustainable development in technology firms. Mechanism tests indicate that angel investment indirectly empowers sustainable development by attracting and introducing venture capital. The moderating effect shows that strong ESG performance positively reinforces the promotional role of angel investment and venture capital in the sustainable development of technology firms. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these enhancement and moderating effects are more pronounced in high-tech industries, private enterprises, and asset-light technology firms. These findings provide empirical evidence and policy guidance for governments worldwide to direct venture capital toward supporting science and technology enterprises, help technology firms improve their ESG governance systems, and achieve long-term sustainable operations. Full article

This technical study presents calendering as an innovative and continuous industrial solution for the reuse of uncured carbon fiber prepreg scraps, which are typically discarded in large quantities in the aerospace sector. By applying heat and pressure through rollers, the authors successfully transform residual fragments into functional sheets, promoting a circular economy that reduces environmental impact and raw material costs. Although the process induces a slight fiber misalignment, which decreases longitudinal strength, the results reveal significant improvements in transverse properties and increased material isotropy. Finally, the research validates the feasibility of this technique by fabricating a curved structural demonstrator, proving that these recycled composites maintain high stiffness and suitable thermal stability for secondary aeronautical applications. Full article

Decarbonizing the energy sector is central to limiting global average temperature to below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris Agreement. Hydropower plays a key role in renewable energy generation, yet environmental impacts vary depending on systems and site conditions. Small hydropower (<10 MW installed capacity) is often assumed to have lower environmental impacts, but evidence remains limited, especially in cold-climate regions. This study assesses the cradle-to-gate life cycle environmental impacts of a 9.9 MW run-of-river hydropower plant in Iceland, using life cycle assessment based on the CML-IA method. The study uses primary design and operator data and provides direct comparison with published Icelandic large hydropower life cycle assessments. The functional unit is 1 kWh of electricity generated over a 60-year lifetime. Results indicate a global warming potential of 4 g CO₂ equivalent per kWh, decreasing to 3 g CO₂ under a 100-year lifetime. Hot spot analysis shows that construction materials, particularly glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP), concrete, and steel, dominate environmental impacts. Sensitivity analysis shows the influence of lifetime, capacity factor, and dam material. Indicative reservoir emission estimates highlight additional potential impacts even for small intake reservoirs. Overall, the studied system shows higher life cycle impacts per kWh compared to Icelandic large hydropower plants, highlighting the importance of site-specific assessment and careful interpretation of small hydropower (SHP) environmental performance. Full article

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) composites represent a promising sustainable solution to address the environmental challenges posed by conventional polymers across multiple sectors. This comprehensive review synthesizes current knowledge on PHB-based composites, examining their development, performance, and biodegradation characteristics in diverse applications such as packaging, biomedical devices, agriculture, aerospace, and environmental remediation. Various composite fabrication methods, including melt blending, solution casting, electrospinning, and in situ polymerization, are evaluated for their impact on functional properties. Natural fiber- and nanomaterial-reinforced PHB composites are critically analyzed for their mechanical integrity, thermal stability, surface chemistry, biodegradability, and environmental compatibility. Practical challenges, including manufacturing scalability, cost-effectiveness, and long-term stability in complex environments, are discussed within circular economy and regulatory frameworks to situate PHB composites for realistic industrial and environmental deployment. This review provides timely insights for researchers and practitioners aiming to develop environmentally compatible, scalable biopolymer-based solutions across multiple domains. Full article

This study employs the sustainable livelihoods framework to examine the achievements and challenges of the community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) program, with an emphasis on wildlife-based tourism development in Botswana. The article analyses whether the CBNRM program in its 30-year history has achieved its main goal of improving rural livelihoods and promoting conservation in Botswana. The article used secondary data, supplemented by primary data collected through personal observations and interactions with key people in the tourism and conservation sectors. The paper argues that the proper implementation of CBNRM can enhance rural livelihoods and contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. In Botswana, wildlife-based tourism generates economic benefits, including employment opportunities and income, which in turn fosters positive attitudes among residents towards conservation and tourism. CBNRM also faces difficulties; reviews show that wildlife-based tourism employment provides low wages, and after reaching a certain age, residents become impoverished because they cannot participate in the formal labor force and have no alternative means of support because of their locations, where other livelihood options, such as agriculture, which is a legacy in most of Botswana, are illegal or unfavorable. Benefits from wildlife-based tourism are inequitably distributed among age groups. Employment monopolizes benefits. This situation occurs because most community-based organizations (CBOs) fail to allocate benefits from CBNRM ventures directly to households, where the costs of coexisting with wildlife are incurred; instead, benefits are disbursed to villages. The results also indicate that in Botswana, most of the successful and sustainable CBNRM CBOs benefiting from wildlife-based tourism through joint ventures were initially established during the introduction of CBNRM in the 1990s. CBOs that registered later are struggling to venture into wildlife-based tourism because of insufficient managerial and entrepreneurial competencies within the tourism industry, insufficient training and capacity development in CBNRM, and other factors limiting communities from benefiting from wildlife-based tourism. These village community members continue to regard wildlife as state property because they lack projects that give them a sense of ownership over wildlife species, raising questions about whether CBNRM is meeting its aim of improving livelihoods and conservation. This evidence reveals that Botswana has not utilized most of its wildlife-based tourism potential. Full article

Microencapsulation has become an indispensable technique across various industries that require the controlled release and stability of bioactive agents. In this study, the encapsulation of cinnamon essential oil (CEO), known for its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, was study to enable controlled release when applied to textile substrates. This procedure involves defining and examining several steps to establish a stable, scalable complex coacervation methodology. To form a stable microcapsule matrix, CEO was emulsified using a combination of surfactants (Span 80, Tween 20, and Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate). After forming micelles containing CEO, two biopolymers (chitosan and gum Arabic) were used at various proportions to form a microcapsule shell via a layer-by-layer approach. Advanced characterization techniques, such as spectrophotometry and laser scattering, were used to evaluate microcapsule stability, size, and release kinetics, as well as to assess potential antibacterial activity. The presence of oil-containing microcapsules was confirmed using fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results demonstrate that Span 80 concentrations of 0.4 and 0.7 g/L provided the most stable encapsulation environment and enabled a controlled CEO release profile after being applied to cotton substrates. In addition, the influence of the fabric’s chemical characteristics was clearly illustrated in the drug delivery experiments. However, antibacterial efficacy was limited due to the low CEO concentration within the microcapsules, indicating the need for further optimization. These findings provide valuable insights into the broader application of essential oil encapsulation, particularly within the pharmaceutical, textile, and cosmetic sectors. Full article

Nearshoring is accelerating industrial expansion across Mexico, reshaping electricity demand profiles and placing increasing stress on a power system already challenged by reliability, affordability, and decarbonization pressures. This paper analyzes the impact of nearshoring on Mexico’s economy, with a particular focus on the electricity sector, examining challenges across generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure. A critical dimension of this analysis is Mexico’s structural dependence on natural gas for electricity generation, which introduces systemic vulnerability to global supply disruptions and price volatility, particularly under geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Using a systematic literature review, this study synthesizes current evidence on how nearshoring-driven demand growth affects Mexico’s electricity distribution system and evaluates solution pathways to meet rising energy needs while maintaining system reliability and equity. Special emphasis is placed on solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment as a grid-supporting resource rather than solely as generation capacity, highlighting its role in enhancing resilience against external fuel shocks. A PRISMA-based methodology was applied using Web of Science, complemented by official Mexican sources such as SENER, CENACE, CRE, and CFE to contextualize technical findings within national policy and operational frameworks. The paper concludes with a research agenda addressing key gaps, including corridor-level load evolution, empirical validation of PV-plus-flexibility solutions for distribution reliability, and strategies to incorporate energy justice into infrastructure planning. Its main contribution lies in Integrating previously separate evidence streams on nearshoring-driven industrial load growth, natural-gas dependence, and distribution-level constraints into a Mexico-specific synthesis of resilient industrial electrification pathways. Providing a distribution-centered perspective on nearshoring, integrating the role of natural gas dependency under global uncertainty, and proposing an actionable roadmap for resilient and sustainable industrial electrification in Mexico. Full article

This study employs a qualitative narrative inquiry to explore how support systems and industry engagement influence youth employability and entrepreneurial aspirations within South Africa’s TVET sector. The central research question examines how young people’s personal stories reveal the impact of systemic barriers and support mechanisms on their identity construction, resilience, and agency. Using in-depth interviews and focus groups with 24 purposively sampled youth across Gauteng’s TVET colleges, the analysis combines thematic and narrative approaches to uncover recurring patterns and narrative structures. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 30, with a balanced gender distribution, representing various socio-economic backgrounds and career interests, selected through purposive sampling to ensure data richness and saturation. The analysis integrated thematic and narrative approaches, with a detailed coding process, theme development, and measures to mitigate bias through member checking and peer debriefing. Findings indicate that experiential learning, mentorship, family encouragement, and industry connections serve as critical support mechanisms that shape youth perceptions of opportunity and self-efficacy. Conversely, systemic barriers such as resource limitations and skills mismatches are frequently narrated as obstacles constraining pathways to employment and entrepreneurship. The study concludes that integrating youth narratives into policy development can foster more inclusive and effective strategies for youth empowerment. These insights contribute to the literature on youth employment by highlighting the active role of storytelling in identity negotiation and social critique within socio-economic contexts. Full article

Maintenance management of stationary combustion engines in the agricultural sector remains largely manual, increasing the risk of unplanned downtime. This study developed a machine learning-based predictive model to anticipate failures within a 60-day horizon, enabling the transition from reactive to proactive maintenance. Following the CRISP-DM (Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining) framework, a sliding-window feature engineering pipeline was built from 2250 historical records spanning 59 engines. Four ensemble learners (Random Forest, LightGBM, XGBoost, and CatBoost) were then compared under two complementary protocols: a strict 60/40 chronological split simulating deployment, and a stratified leave-engine-group-out cross-validation withholding entire engines from training. Nonparametric testing (DeLong test and engine-level cluster bootstrap) showed that the four learners are statistically equivalent, whereas the feature engineering layer contributes a large, significant discrimination gain (ΔAUC $\approx +0.06$, $p\approx {10}^{-27}$) on engines unseen during training. Random Forest, selected as the final model, achieved an AUC of 0.90 with 84.2% recall under the deployment protocol and 0.96 with 90.7% recall under engine-grouped validation. Temporal extrapolation, rather than cross-engine generalization, appeared to be the primary challenge, indicating that rigorously engineered degradation features, more than the choice of ensemble algorithm, drive predictive performance in agricultural maintenance planning. Full article

Tea is a high-value agricultural sector whose sustainable development is closely tied to the livelihoods of numerous smallholders. Persistent rural labor outmigration has made it increasingly difficult for smallholder-dominated tea production to sustain a balance between quantity expansion and quality improvement. While experimental studies show that digital–intelligent technologies can improve tea yield and quality, whether their real-world diffusion contributes to a sustainable quantity–quality balance remains underexplored. This study proposes the quantity–quality equilibrium level of tea production (QQEL_TP) to measure this balance and constructs a regional digital–intelligent transformation (RDIT) index to capture the penetration of digital–intelligent technologies into local industries. Using panel data from China’s major tea-producing provinces from 2012 to 2023, this study applies a two-way fixed-effects model to examine the RDIT–QQEL_TP relationship. Results show that RDIT significantly improves QQEL_TP. Further analysis suggests that e-commerce development is a potential channel, while heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect is more likely to materialize in provinces with a stronger digital–intelligent foundation, an existing Taobao village foundation, and a smaller tea industry scale. This study provides industry-level evidence on the role of digital–intelligent transformation in promoting agricultural sustainability, and offers policy implications for addressing production-side quantity–quality imbalances in other smallholder-dominated industries. Full article

Energy scarcity and subsequent global fuel market shocks have become a significant concern for the United States. Process heating in industry accounts for over half of all industrial energy usage and is almost entirely (>95%) supplied by natural gas, coal, and byproduct fuels. Many existing alternatives, technologies, and strategies can reduce dependency on this fossil fuel usage to promote energy security and competitiveness. It is expected that adoption of alternatives is limited by capital investment. A working group exploratory exercise was performed to evaluate the current barriers to alternative process heat technology adoption for the manufacturing sector. Although the working group’s findings emphasize electro-technologies due to their emergence as the central topic of discussion, we have contextualized these results by providing a fair and consistent comparison against several alternative thermal technology options. The most reported issue was the lack of financial incentives, with the second key issue for engineers and manufacturing sector decision-makers being the lack of awareness or understanding of available alternatives. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the levelized cost of heating for a variety of alternatives as part of addressing concerns from the emergent patterns reported in the exploratory exercise, as well as provide guidance on barriers to further adoption. Levelized cost of heating analysis considered the capital investment, operations and maintenance, lifespan, and fuel stream costs of various systems delivering heat to the product or process as a generalized cost per megawatt-hour delivered. The analysis indicates that biomass burners, industrial open-loop heat pumps, and central-receiver heliostat fields are at cost parity under average 2024 United States natural gas and electricity prices against well-optimized natural gas burners, though further cost reductions are necessary for consistent adoption. Full article

As an important policy tool for promoting green development, environmental regulation (ER) has exerted a profound impact on the employment sector. Using panel data from 106 prefecture-level and above cities in China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2011 to 2022, we examine the impact and mechanisms of ER on employment scale and structure. Empirical results reveal that the strengthening of ER has a significant inhibitory effect on employment growth, but a positive impact on the optimization of the employment structure. As regulatory intensity increases, the suppressive effect on employment scale diminishes, while structural optimization strengthens. Moreover, the effects vary across regions. The scale-inhibiting effect is more pronounced in the Upper-Middle Yangtze regions, in areas with initially low regulation intensity, and in large cities. Structural optimization is most significant in the Lower Yangtze regions and in small/medium-sized cities. We also find that ER indirectly changes employment through three channels: industrial structure upgrading (ISU), green innovation (GV), and foreign direct investment (FDI). Our findings underscore the necessity of balancing environmental stringency with social sustainability, and the conclusions of our study are applicable to policymakers in China and other economies. Full article

This study investigates how community engagement and outreach programs can serve as a vehicle for knowledge co-production between higher educational institutions (HEIs) and industry in developing economies. Despite growing calls for collaboration between HEIs and industry, the existing literature remains policy-driven and largely instrumental, offering a limited understanding of how engagement practices are socially constructed, negotiated, and experienced by diverse stakeholders. There is limited qualitative research on how community voices are integrated into co-creation processes and how these interactions shape sustainable development in emerging economies. The research methodology for the study was developed using the research onion, and an interpretivist research philosophy was adopted. The study employed an inductive research approach to explore actors’ lived experiences and the meanings attached to engagement practices and collected data through in-depth interviews. Participants in the study included representatives from HEIs, industry, and community stakeholders across selected sectors of the economy, and the data were analysed thematically to capture patterns of interactions, power relations, and knowledge and exchange processes underpinning co-production. The study revealed that effective community engagement goes beyond formal partnerships to encompass building lasting relationships which are characterised by trust, mutual learning, and context adaptation. Further, the study also showed that power asymmetries, institutional pressures, and resource constraints have restricted real co-production, resulting in symbolic rather than real engagement. Nevertheless, the use of inclusive and reflective approaches has been shown to foster locally acceptable and essential innovative interventions that can improve sustainable development. The study therefore recommends embedding participatory frameworks within HEIs and industry collaborations to strengthen institutional support for inclusive engagement and to reorient policies towards community-centred knowledge systems. This study, therefore, contributes to the body of knowledge by enhancing theoretical and practical understanding of sustainable higher education–industry collaboration in developing economies by promoting an understanding of engagement as a co-production process. Full article

The construction sector is under enormous pressure to reduce the overall environmental impact of its activities, which, for cement production alone, cause over 2 Gt/yr of CO₂ emissions (2022). Given the massive scale of concrete production, even minor components such as plasticizers, typically required in quantities of only a few percent of the dry cement mass, correspond to production volumes of many tens of Mt/yr, making their sustainability highly relevant. Lignin is the second most abundant renewable biopolymer on Earth and is currently used in concrete formulations mainly as a low-performance cement plasticizer. Despite this limited application, lignin represents an underexploited but highly attractive raw material for the development of environment-friendly concrete additives, owing to its abundance and availability from industrial biomass residues. The purpose of this review is to provide a specific and up-to-date overview of the various approaches for developing sustainable, high-performance concrete plasticizers based on lignins derived from industrial waste streams. The state of the art in the field is put into perspective by considering the various industrial sources of original technical lignins, the processes that led to their formation, and potential strategies for improving their characteristics. A quick overview of the patent history of the field complements the analysis of the scientific literature. An integral part of this work is a concise introduction to the fundamentals of cement chemistry and rheology, which are essential for understanding the technological requirements for effective concrete admixtures and for enabling cross-disciplinary research between the lignin and cement communities. Full article