对新疆地区低碳经济发展的思考

文章简要介绍了国内外的低碳经济发展形势,着重阐述了新疆在发展低碳经济面临的困难以及策略。     

The role of environmental innovation through the technological proximity in the implementation of the sustainable development

This paper explores the relationship between a firm's knowledge sourcing strategy and green innovation. The data are taken from Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development REGPAT database, February 2016, relative to the European Patent Office firms' patent applications published up to December 2015. The study contributes to the literature by focusing on the moderating role of integration between different activities related to environmental performance on the relationship between knowledge sources and green innovations. The results from 240 firms indicate a shift in the focus from internal knowledge to external knowledge when developing environmental innovations. Government policies promoting more knowledge complementarity and coordination between environmental fields will help to promote more knowledge transfer, allowing more sustainable development.     

Impact of investor sentiment on mutual fund risk taking and performance: evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This study provides empirical rationale and guidance for incorporating investor sentiment into mutual fund enterprise information systems. It investigates the effect of fund-specific investor sentiment on fund risk taking and performance. Working on a sample of equity funds in China, our panel regressions reveal that fund risk-taking is negatively related to lagged fund-specific investor sentiment. Investor sentiment is negatively linked to subsequent fund performance, which conforms with the dumb money effect. Encouragingly, there is evidence that mutual fund managers in China possess investing expertise. Fund-specific investor sentiment shows asymmetric impacts. The dumb money effect is primarily driven by positive sentiment.     

The role of mutual funds in the sustainable energy sector

The integration of renewable energy criteria in mutual fund investment decisions could channel private resources into the funding of environmentally related projects implemented by firms contributing to sustainable development. This paper examines the performance of European renewable energy funds that invest globally by comparing their risk‐adjusted returns with those achieved by black energy and conventional mutual funds. It uses Carhart's model on a sample of 81 renewable energy funds, 125 black energy funds, and 4,337 conventional mutual funds. The results indicate that 32.1% of renewable mutual funds—most of which adopt energy producers, renewable energy technology, and energy efficiency‐focused criteria—perform significantly better than the S&P Clean Energy market benchmark, this percentage being affected by the different states of the economy. However, none of them are able to beat the fossil fuel energy (S&P Global 1200 Energy Index) or conventional market benchmarks (S&P Global 1200 Index). Furthermore, 37.04% of renewable energy funds significantly underperform the S&P Global 1200 benchmark. Therefore, the investment in renewable energy funds has a financial cost for investors in relation to conventional fund investors.     

The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business and climate performance of start-ups

Sustainable start-ups introduce new sustainable technologies and business models that facilitate the transition to a carbon neutral economy. To understand how to create viable sustainable start-ups, we study what factors predict their business performance and climate performance (i.e., the ability of the start-up to reduce CO₂ equivalent [CO₂e] emissions) and if these contradict. A critical factor we consider is technology, which is commonly at the root of climate performance, and important for business performance because it influences a start-up's competitive advantage. Using a sample of 197 sustainable start-ups, we find a paradox between business and potential climate performance. Start-ups that exploit hardware technologies have a lower business performance but a higher potential climate performance. Through the use of mediating effects, we show that the sustainable start-up paradox is context specific. Start-ups can partly escape this paradox by focusing on novel and hardware technologies. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Leveraging STARA competencies and green creativity to boost green organisational innovative evidence: A praxis for sustainable development

Radical technological advancements and the relentless progression of climate change compel organisations to ensure their workforce consistently exercise their creativity toward innovative green initiatives. These endeavours are essential to achieve the United Nations' (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs). To do so, organisations require competencies fundamental to smart technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA). STARA competencies are relevant for leaders to bolster green organisational innovative evidence (GOIE). GOIE can help to attract potential investors keen on advancing the UN's SDG agenda on environmental sustainability. However, eclipsed by a volatile environment, and despite the green innovation potential of several manufacturing organisations, investors are reluctant to invest and commit funds without evidence of green innovation. We therefore, investigate how leader STARA competence (LSC), green creativity components (task motivation, creativity skills and expertise) and environmental dynamism can aid organisations to boost their GOIE. Our key findings are as follows: (a) though green task motivation shows a stronger association with green creativity skills, LSC has a large influence on green creativity skills; (b) green creativity skills exert a strong influence on GOIE while also playing a competitive and complimentary mediating role in our model and (c) environmental dynamism is negatively associated with green creativity skills and GOIE. Furthermore, to validate indirect (v) effects size in mediation analysis, we propose a new and more approachable benchmark for v effect size estimations. Organisational and environmental policy implications are discussed.     

Sustainable development and intangibles: building sustainable intellectual capital

Sustainable intellectual capital is a promising starting‐point for the incorporation of environmental aspects into the general management system of a firm. This paper examines how sustainable intellectual capital helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental management systems. It does this by extending the concept of sustainability from relational capital to the three pillars of intellectual capital: human, structural and relational intellectual capital. A multiple case study was carried out with Spanish firms characterized by their high level of environmental leadership. The findings indicated that sustainable human intellectual capital, environmental training, information and awareness sessions help in the accumulation and utilization of knowledge. As for sustainable structural intellectual capital, the environmental technology portfolio is improved and new environmental departments are created. Regarding sustainable relational intellectual capital, the firm–environment link is very important. In the primary and secondary sectors suppliers become involved to a greater extent in the environmental management process, whereas in the service sector it is the customer who becomes more involved. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Sustainabilty integration in product portfolio for sustainable development: Findings from the industry

Many companies decide which services, products, and technologies to include in their product portfolio using evaluation criteria, which often consider cost, quality, risk, revenue, time, and market position. Incorporating sustainability in the portfolio evaluation criteria could ensure the development of sustainable solutions from the early stages of the product development process, where there is more room for innovation. The aim of this paper is to understand how sustainability can be integrated in the company portfolio development. Semi-structured interviews were performed with experts in the field and representatives from multinational manufacturing companies with operations in Sweden. Main findings from this study include a proposed definition of a sustainability product portfolio concept and suggested portfolio evaluation criteria from an industry perspective. Future research will develop a method to guide manufacturing companies in sustainability integration and implementation in product portfolios.     

The management of sustainable development: A longitudinal analysis of the effects of environmental performance on economic performance

The literature on sustainable development has largely focused on investigating the relationship between companies' environmental and economic performance. However, many aspects remain unexplored, and empirical studies are far from reaching a consensus due to the heterogeneity of the environmental and economic measures and methodologies used. This study contributes to the literature on sustainable development by considering a panel of 998 US companies observed over the period 2003–2017 using both traditional panel data methods and an unconditional quantile regression technique. The empirical evidence confirms that environmental performance, measured in terms of environmental orientation and environmental innovation, positively affects returns on assets and equity. It also demonstrates that these returns change across quantiles and depend on the capacity of green companies to generate the same streams of income as nongreen companies but with less capital. In other words, green firms tend to be more efficient in generating future wealth.     

Corporate sustainability and institutional shareholders: The pressure of social responsible pension funds on environmental firm practices

This paper analyses the role of social responsible (SR) pension funds as influential institutional shareholders in the corporate sustainability of investee firms. We study the influence of 197 UK SR pension funds on 1,253 firms with 31 environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators from 2002 to 2018. According to the indicator nature, we perform logit and ordinary least square (OLS) estimations with panel error correction models to control causality. Our results show that SR pension funds significantly impact on 41.93% of the ESG indicators studied. We find that larger pension‐fund shareholding positively influences on ESG firm performance and encourages proactive behaviour towards environmental practices. Firms with larger pension‐fund shareholding are more likely to use renewable energies and disclose environmental information, increasing the firm transparency towards stakeholders. This study contributes to understand that, besides stakeholders, institutional shareholders (SR pension funds) demand sustainable development and are able to transfer important values for the society and the environment to corporate governance.     

Green human resource management and the enablers of green organisational culture: Enhancing a firm's environmental performance for sustainable development

Scholars have shown that green human resource management (GHRM) practices enhance a firm's environmental performance. However, existing studies fail to explain how GHRM initiatives can enable a green organisational culture or how such a culture affects the environmental performance and sustainable development of the firm. This paper examines the relationship between GHRM practices, the enablers of green organisational culture, and a firm's environmental performance. We conduct a large‐scale survey of 204 employees at Chinese manufacturing firms. Our findings suggest that proenvironmental HRM practices including hiring, training, appraisal, and incentivisation support the development of the enablers of green organisational culture. We suggest the key enablers of green organisational culture include leadership emphasis, message credibility, peer involvement, and employee empowerment. Our paper contributes to HRM theory in terms of originality and utility of research by explaining that the enablers of green organisational culture positively mediate the relationship between GHRM practices and environmental performance. Managers are provided with a detailed understanding of the GHRM practices needed to enable an organisational culture of environmentally aware employees. Finally, we address potential implications of this work for teaching green organisational culture to future generations of responsible managers.     

Disentangling economic crisis effects from environmental regulation effects: Implications for sustainable development

With climate change becoming more severe, policy makers must impose environmental regulations that will lead firms to adopt sustainable corporate models. According to the Porter hypothesis, environmental regulation can favour the implementation of business strategies that improve economic and environmental performances. In this study, we examine how one such form of regulation, the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), impacts firm performance, and we subsequently widen the examination beyond the regulation to evaluate an economic crisis which could potentially confound regulation effects. We estimate a panel model with time- and firm-fixed effects for different subsamples that disentangle the effect of the EU ETS policy from the 2008 economic crisis. The results indicate that the EU ETS policy in its third phase can activate the Porter hypothesis and is effective in fuelling the implementation of sustainable corporate models by firms. However, we also find that the economic crisis neutralises the effects of the regulation on firm performance, precluding the triggering of the Porter hypothesis in severely affected firms.     

Unleashing proactive low-carbon strategies through behavioral factors in biodiversity-intensive sustainable supply chains: Mixed methodology

The aim of this research is to understand the complex and relatively understudied relationship between human and behavioral factors and low-carbon management practices from the perspective of the resource-based view (RBV). Research application is in the “biodiversity sector” and consists of a survey and multiple-case study in Brazil, the richest country globally in terms of biodiversity but a country that also faces challenges in protecting biodiversity. The research problem considers the relationship between human critical success factors and the adoption of low-carbon management practices. Quantitative analysis through structural equation modeling shows the three branches of hypothesis to be accepted—the first with a higher coefficient than the second and the second with a higher coefficient than the third. It was observed that human factors influence low-carbon product management practices the most, followed by process practices and finally logistics practices. Qualitative multiple-case study research shows that companies are at different stages of maturity in relation to low-carbon management organizational practices, ranging from the highest stage to the lowest. It was found that the intensity of the presence of human critical success factors was higher where organizations had greater adoption of low-carbon management practices.     

A systematic literature review of socially responsible investment and environmental social governance metrics

Socially responsible investment (SRI) encompasses both ethical and financial paradigms. This systematic literature review explores three key research themes within the SRI literature, identifying a significant disconnect between themes and a fixation on the financial (as opposed to ethical) paradigm. One of the foundations of SRI is environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. This review confirms the importance of ESG metrics in the SRI field, as they play two crucial roles, namely, as a proxy for sustainability performance and an enabler of the SRI market. However, there are two main issues related to ESG metrics that undermine their reliability: a lack of transparency and a lack of convergence.     

Toward sustainable development: Board characteristics,country governance quality,and environmental performance

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of board characteristics and country governance quality on both individual aspects and the overall level of environmental performance through the lens of agency, resource dependency, and institutional theories. The study is based on a sample of 3023 firm-year observations from European companies operating in 22 countries between 2009 and 2016. Data on the resources, emissions, and innovation dimensions of environmental performance and board governance data were collected from the Refinitiv database, whereas financial data were extracted from the Worldscope database. The study employs a multilevel modeling analysis and the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyze the data. The findings suggest that board gender diversity and the presence of a corporate social responsibility and sustainability committee have a positive impact on environmental performance. The results also show that country governance quality is positively related to environmental performance. The findings have important implications for practitioners, regulators, and policymakers with respect to the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms and country governance systems in determining corporate environmental practices.     

Firm resources and the development of environmental sustainability among small and medium‐sized enterprises: Evidence from the Australian wine industry

Scholars and industry professionals want clarification of the specific firm resources that influence the adoption and development of environmentally sustainable strategies. This paper, set in the context of the Australian wine industry, explores different firm resources that are beneficial for environmentally sustainable development and examines the role of management attitudes and norms in moderating this relationship. It establishes which resources small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) should invest in to be more successful in following environmental principles. The findings of a survey of the owner‐managers of Australian wine‐producing SMEs are reported, and partial least squares structural equation modelling is utilized to analyze the data. Results clearly indicate that successful firms that manage their resources more effectively influence the application of environmental behaviour, with one distinct resource significantly influencing the disclosure of such behaviour. A moderating effect is established which supports the notion that pro‐environmental decision‐making in SMEs is heavily influenced by the attitudes and norms held by management.     

Can sustainable investments outperform traditional benchmarks? Evidence from global stock markets

To contribute to overcoming global sustainability challenges, investors have been increasingly interested in making sustainable investments and incorporating environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their portfolio selection decisions and managerial activities. However, these investors and other agents interested in sustainable investment need updated and robust information to support their decision making. We analyzed the performance of several Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSIs) and compared them with their respective market benchmarks from 2013 to 2018. The indices comprise the following regions and countries: the world, the Asia‐Pacific, Europe, emerging markets and the US. The analysis was conducted based on both classic and modern portfolio metrics. The results suggest that sustainable investment performance is still heterogeneous worldwide, but there is a promising opportunity for investors to obtain superior risk‐adjusted returns in certain regions while incorporating sustainable investment practices. The findings are of utmost importance to financial market practitioners, business managers, academics and other stakeholders interested in promoting investments, corporate practices and scientific knowledge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).     

Improving companies' impacts on sustainable development: A nexus approach to the SDGS

Companies play a decisive role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, most of the world's sustainable development challenges are interconnected and systemic in their nature. How can companies ensure that their strategies effectively contribute to sustainable development? This interdisciplinary paper draws from the social-ecological systems, corporate sustainability, and sustainability sciences literatures, in order to introduce a nexus approach to corporate sustainability. A nexus approach induces companies to assess and manage their positive and negative interactions with the SDGs—which may arise directly and indirectly—in an integrated manner. Instead of treating SDGs as isolated silos, a nexus approach aims to advance multiple SDGs simultaneously (creating “co-benefits”) while reducing the risk that contributions to one SDG undermine progress on another (avoiding “trade-offs”). Through managing the interactions between the SDGs, a nexus approach to corporate sustainability enables companies to improve their societal and environmental impacts. This nexus approach is a step towards developing a theory of sustainability management that helps companies improve their impacts on sustainable development. Such systemic corporate sustainability strategies are sorely needed to drive progress towards achieving the SDGs and to safeguard companies from “SDG-washing.”     

Industry 4.0, innovation,and sustainable development: A systematic review and a roadmap to sustainable innovation

Despite the recent interest in the Industry 4.0 applications for sustainability, little is known on the processes through which digital transformation and Industry 4.0 technologies enable sustainable innovation in manufacturing. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by developing a strategic roadmap that explains how businesses can leverage Industry 4.0 technologies to introduce sustainability into innovative practices. For this purpose, the study conducts a systematic review of extant literature to identify Industry 4.0 functions for sustainable innovation and applies interpretive structural modeling to devise the promised roadmap. The results offer interesting insights into Industry 4.0 applications for sustainable innovation. The strategic roadmap developed reveals that Industry 4.0 enables sustainable innovation through 11 functions. Industry 4.0 and the underlying digital technologies and principles allow businesses to improve interfunctional collaboration and better integrate with internal and external stakeholders. Industry 4.0 further improves the knowledge base and advanced manufacturing competency and promotes organizational capabilities valuable to sustainable innovation such as green absorptive capacity, sustainable partnership, and sustainable innovation orientation. Through these functions, Industry 4.0 subsequently enhances green process innovation capacity and the ability to develop or reintroduce eco-friendly products economically and competitively. Overall, the roadmap explains the complex precedence relationships among the 11 sustainable innovation functions of Industry 4.0, offering important implications for businesses that seek to leverage Industry 4.0 sustainability implications and manage sustainable development.