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Acquiring Green Growth and Environmental Sustainability through Green Energy Production & Consumption, Eco-Innovation, and Sustainable Natural Resource Extraction & Consumption

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2023) | Viewed by 1592

Special Issue Editors

Department of Accounting and Finance, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Cyprus International University, Mersin 10, Haspolat 99040, Turkey
Interests: sustainable development; environmental economics; energy economics; natural resources
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Business School, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255000, China
Interests: financial development; sustainable development; resources economics; environmental economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Business, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Interests: energy economics; environmental economics; financial development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Statistics, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey
Interests: sustainable development policy; energy economics; environmental economics; foreign direct investment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Today, the global economy is working tirelessly to preserve the ecosystem's sustainability in the face of numerous pollutants that pose a great hazard to human health and the environment. Evidence abounds that global warming is among the most critical challenges of the current era, which has sparked many extreme weather conditions and health issues. This situation has prompted the concept of global environmental governance leading to various conferences and events organized by environmental institutions and global leadership to combat climate change. Among the most recent events, the United States Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021 emphasized the goal to keep global warming below 2 °C. However, the goal to reduce global warming and achieve environmental sustainability is unlikely to be realized without boosting eco-innovation, shifting to green energy, and ensuring sustainable natural resource extraction and consumption.

Natural resources, such as oil, coal, and gas, were increasingly used to generate income, which accelerated technological innovation and economic prosperity across the globe (Veisi, 2017). However, soil and water pollution linked with natural resources’ extraction adversely impacts human health and the environment. In addition, the consumption of natural resources, such as gas, coal, and oil, generates emissions that increase global warming and environmental unsustainability. Increasing urbanization trends in developing countries along with rising construction, transportation, and industrial activities have sparked the demand for natural resources leading to an enormous expansion in the extraction and consumption of natural resources (Ahmed et al., 2020). This situation stimulates environmental degradation since natural resource extraction practices are mostly unsustainable; also in addition, the consumption of natural resources brings adverse ecological impacts. Thus, achieving the sustainable extraction and consumption of natural resources is critical in lowering the environmental costs of development (Hassan et al., 2019). In this regard, it has become necessary to stimulate green energy production to enhance the supply of alternative energy sources. Alternative energy sources can be used to replace fossil fuels in order to reduce environmental deterioration and achieve green growth. However, producing such sources of energy entails increasing the eco-innovation capacity of nations since green energy technologies are not sufficiently produced in economies, particularly in developing nations. Additionally, innovation is also needed to curb the consumption of resources by enhancing resource efficiency.

However, limiting the unsustainability of natural resources, stimulating innovation, and shifting to alternative energy are major challenges that require an understanding of the linkage between these variables to develop comprehensive economic, technological, and environmental strategies. Against this backdrop, this Special Issue seeks contributions that could guide practitioners and policymakers to attain environmental sustainability targets by addressing diverse issues associated with green energy consumption and production, eco-innovation, and natural resource extraction and consumption. We invite contributions from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives on, but not limited to, the following topics:

  • Natural resources and green growth for ecological sustainability;
  • Green energy consumption and green growth;
  • Green energy consumption and production, and ecological sustainability;
  • Natural resources, green finance, and energy transition in resource-rich and resource-poor countries;
  • Environmental innovation, green energy, and sustainability;
  • Extraction of natural resources and environmental sustainability in the context of COP-26 targets;
  • Financial investments, green energy transition, and sustainable growth;
  • Green energy and carbon neutrality;
  • Assessing the environmental impacts of mining activities;
  • Natural resources and eco-efficiency;
  • Roles of innovation and alternative energy in ecological sustainability;
  • Carbon taxes and restrictions on the extraction and utilization of natural resources;
  • Green technological innovation and the efficiency of natural resources utilization;
  • CO2 emissions, fossil fuel use, and environmentally friendly technology;
  • Energy transition, natural resources extraction, natural resources use, and sustainability;
  • Green energy policy, conflicts, and environmental sustainability; 
  • Natural resources, geopolitical risk, and economic policy uncertainty;
  • Sustainable mining in developed and developing nations;
  • Innovation and sustainable growth;
  • Sustainable development, financial investments, and green energy consumption.

References

    Ahmed, Z., Asghar, M. M., Malik, M. N., & Nawaz, K. (2020). Moving towards a sustainable environment: the dynamic linkage between natural resources, human capital, urbanization, economic growth, and ecological footprint in China. Resources Policy67, 101677.

    Hassan, S. T., Xia, E., Khan, N. H., & Shah, S. M. A. (2019). Economic growth, natural resources, and ecological footprints: evidence from Pakistan. Environmental Science and Pollution Research26(3), 2929-2938.

   Veisi, M. (2017). Essays on the links between natural resources, corruption, taxation and economic growth. The University of Manchester (United Kingdom).

Dr. Zahoor Ahmed
Dr. Mahmood Ahmad
Dr. Syed Tauseef Hassan
Dr. Abdullah Emre Caglar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • natural resources and green growth
  • green energy consumption
  • green energy consumption and production
  • natural resources
  • green finance
  • extraction of natural resources
  • green energy transition
  • green energy and carbon neutrality
  • environmental impacts of mining activities
  • carbon taxes
  • CO2 emissions
  • fossil fuel use
  • environmentally friendly technology
  • energy transition

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 634 KiB  
Article
The Six Critical Determinants That May Act as Human Sustainability Boundaries on Climate Change Action
by Filipe Duarte Santos, Tim O’Riordan, Miguel Rocha de Sousa and Jiesper Strandsbjerg Tristan Pedersen
Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 331; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010331 - 29 Dec 2023
Viewed by 778
Abstract
Significant advances have been achieved in multilateral negotiations regarding human development and environmental safeguarding since the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference. There is much greater global awareness and action towards sustainability. However, sustainability has persistently been sidelined, leading to the identification and definition of [...] Read more.
Significant advances have been achieved in multilateral negotiations regarding human development and environmental safeguarding since the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference. There is much greater global awareness and action towards sustainability. However, sustainability has persistently been sidelined, leading to the identification and definition of a transgressed “safe and just space for humanity”. Here we develop a new evolutionary approach and methodology to explain the reasons why sustainability continues to be a difficult challenge for contemporary societies to adopt. We argue that these originate in six major biological, social, psychological, political, and cultural critical determinants that resulted from human biologic and cultural evolution. Although they are essential for human prosperity and wellbeing, these characteristics may also act as human sustainability boundaries. It is possible to reduce the inhibiting power of each critical determinant in the pathways to sustainability, a vital process that we term softening. Identifying, knowing, and softening these impediments is a necessary first step to achieving sustainability through greater self-knowledge and transformational processes. The application of the present methodology is restricted here to the climate change challenge. We examine the ways in which each human sustainability boundary is capable of obstructing climate action and offer possible ways to soften its hardness. Full article
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