In order to maximize benefits while reducing environmental costs, societies will have to cope with crucial transformations based on eco-innovative approaches. Environmental sustainability requires innovative methods to promote industrial upgrading, clean energy, green financing, and social responsibility toward the environment (Madaleno, Dogan and Taskin, 2022). Many of these transformations will be technologically driven, but must still incorporate multiple dimensions. Fukasaku (2020) refers to the key role of innovation policies, whereas Wiedmann et al. (2020) refer to lifestyle changes complementing technological shifts. Along this direction, we are observing how the most advanced countries are recently moving from linear economies to circular ones (Almeida and Cardoso, 2022;Nygaard, 2022) in order to shift away from the infinite-growth paradigm to alternative economic models that are compatible with ecological integrity. In China, Gao et al. evaluated the impact of science and technology finance policy on urban green development at the city level. They found that this impact varies by region and depends on the level of urban innovation, being more evident in the highly innovative cities located in the Midwestern region. Yin et al. analyzed how the innovation environment affected the transformation of resource-based cities in the Gansu Province during the last decade. Sun estimated the impact of environmental regulations on innovation and productivity related to green agricultural technology across 30 provinces and cities. Results showed that as the level of regional economic development gradually increases, environmental regulation can have a significant impact on both innovation and productivity.In Africa, Andriamahery, Harris Danarson and Qamruzzaman analyzed the relationship between trade and environmental quality in Sub-Saharan Africa. They estimated a set of trade variables such as income per capita growth, energy intensity, foreign direct investment, human capital, and CO2 emissions. The results showed that trading has a consistently negative impact on the environment by increasing N2O, ACH4, and CO2 emissions across the whole region, but also across the different income groups. Chukwudi Udeagha and Ngepah analyzed the asymmetric impact of technological innovation on CO2 emissions in South Africa for the last six decades. They found that technological innovation helps reduce CO2 emissions, whereas trade openness is environmentally harmful over the long term, despite the fact that it can be beneficial in the short term. The articles published on this Research Topic contribute to a better understanding of the nexus between innovation and environmental sustainability. Now that this collection is completed, we will endeavor in next special issues to open new approaches by facilitating trans-disciplinary discussion on this and/or closely related topics aimed to improve human welfare by respecting ecological integrity for future generations.
Editorial11 April 2023
Editorial: The nexus between innovation and environmental sustainability
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
23 November 2022
Maxwell Chukwudi Udeaghaand Nicholas Ngepah
2 Authors
- MC
Maxwell Chukwudi Udeagha
School of Economics, South Africa
- NN
Nicholas Ngepah
School of Economics, South Africa
The asymmetric impact of technological innovation on CO2 emissions in South Africa from 1960 to 2020 is evaluated in this study. We apply the newly established quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) methodology to deal with distributional asymmetry based on the location of CO2 emissions within its own distribution. This distinguishes our analysis from earlier works in the following ways. This research, in contrast to other studies, uses the QARDL technique to assess the long-term stability across the quantiles, resulting in a more adaptable econometric analysis than the traditional frameworks. In order to capture the trade share in South Africa's GDP as well as the quantity of trade compared to world trade, we employ a novel measure of trade openness. We find that (i) technological innovation helps to reduce CO2 emissions both in the short term and over the long term; (ii) scale effect worsens CO2 emissions while technique effect enhances it, supporting the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis; (iii) energy consumption, foreign direct investment, and industrial value-added degrade environmental quality; and (iv) increasing trade openness is glaringly harmful to the environment over the long term, despite being beneficial in the short term; (v) There are long-term, asymmetric linkages between CO2 emissions, scale effect, technique effect, technological innovation, energy use, foreign direct investment, and trade openness; (vi) industrial value-added, scale effect, technique effect, technical innovation, energy usage, foreign direct investment, and trade openness Granger-cause CO2 emissions over the medium, long, and short terms indicates the significance of these variables in determining CO2 emissions. Based on our empirical findings, this study makes the case that South Africa's government and policymakers should take into account the importance of innovative technologies as a sustainable source of advancements in attaining energy security and promoting ecological integrity in the nation.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
18 October 2022
Yongchun Sun
In order to promote the green transformation of agricultural development, we used a partial linear function coefficient panel model to measure the impact of environmental regulations in 30 provinces and cities in China on agricultural green technology innovation and agricultural green total factor productivity. The advantage of this model is that it can take into account the heterogeneity of regional economic development levels, that is, by introducing variables that are functions of regional economic development levels as coefficients of environmental regulation. The research results show that: when the level of regional economic development is low, environmental regulation has a limited impact on agricultural green technology innovation and agricultural green total factor productivity, but as the level of regional economic development gradually increases, environmental regulation has a more significant impact on the two. And environmental regulation has a greater impact on agricultural green total factor productivity than on agricultural green technology innovation. Based on the research results, policy recommendations are suggested.