Why do formally similar multi-level governance arrangements produce different governance outcomes in urban climate and transport policy? This article examines variation in governance performance across three metropolitan regions in Norway operating under the national Urban Growth Agreement (UGA) framework and pursuing the shared objective of zero growth in private car traffic. Drawing on participatory observation of steering group meetings, three rounds of elite interviews, and document analysis, the study analyzes how polycentric governance operates in practice. Building on the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and Carlisle and Gruby's concept of enabling conditions, it argues that variation in governance performance is explained less by whether enabling conditions are present than by how they are configured across decision arenas. The findings identify three governance configurations: one characterized by structured bargaining and distributive tensions, one by stable coordination supported by technical expertise and consensus-oriented procedures, and one by consensus-constrained adaptation shaped by territorial balancing. The findings show that institutional configurations of enabling conditions shape adaptive capacity, institutional fit, and redundancy in polycentric urban climate governance systems.

Judges seek to maximize their own utility, like everyone else. Their goals include job security and promotion. Federal judges lack the electoral incentives that often drive state judges, but they could audition for promotion. I test whether they audition for promotion in their criminal sentencing. Using criminal sentences imposed in the federal courts from 2006 to 2023, I find that federal judges who are eventually nominated to a higher court hand down longer sentences than their other “contender” peers, though this effect is moderated by the judicial district. This effect is a mixture of judicial behavior and a selection effect—judges are promoted for a variety of other reasons, many of which may be correlated with criminal sentencing. While there is no across-the-board evidence of judicial auditioning during vacancies, there is evidence of judicial auditioning for some judges under some presidents. This behavior, though, ends at nomination: an event-study design finds that the announcement of a nomination has no substantive effect on the nominee's sentencing. These results show that, despite the different structure of the federal judiciary from state courts, strategic rationality on the part of judges may also shape federal criminal sentencing.

As carbon neutrality has become a central goal of global climate governance, how firms achieve low-carbon transformation has emerged as a critical research issue. However, prior studies have primarily focused on macro- or industry-level analyses, offering limited and fragmented insights into how digital technologies—particularly AI—affect firm-level carbon-neutrality performance and the underlying process-based mechanisms. To address this gap, this study adopts Resource Orchestration Theory (ROT) as the core analytical framework to examine how AI application is translated into firms' carbon-neutrality performance and integrates Dynamic Capability Theory (DCT) and Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) as complementary perspectives—used to explain internal capability reconfiguration and the role of the external resource environment, respectively—thereby constructing a comprehensive analytical framework. Using panel data of Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2018 to 2023, this study conducts empirical analysis based on a two-way fixed effects model. The results indicate that AI application significantly enhances firms' carbon-neutrality performance, and this finding remains robust after a series of robustness checks and controls for potential endogeneity. Further analyses reveal that AI exerts its effects primarily through alleviating financing constraints, enhancing R&D vitality, and increasing green patent outputs. Moreover, green technological efficiency, which reflects firms' internal capabilities, and the level of green finance development, which captures the external resource environment, both exhibit significant positive moderating effects on the focal relationship. From the perspective of ROT, this study reexamines the environmental value of AI, demonstrating that such value does not stem solely from the technology itself but is shaped through managerial resource orchestration processes and the interaction between internal capabilities and external resource environments. By moving beyond the conventional view that attributes AI's environmental effects to mere technological inputs, this study extends the literature through a process-based perspective. In the context of concurrent digital and green transformations, this research provides important theoretical insights and empirical evidence for understanding low-carbon development among firms in emerging economies.

Amidst burgeoning interest in sustainability and corporate value, this study addresses an empirical gap in the ASEAN-6 markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) by investigating the interplay between green innovation capability (GIC), environmental, social, and governance ratings (ESGR), energy transition (ETR), and firm value (FV). It further explores how ESGR and ETR moderate the GIC–FV relationship. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) regression, we analyzed panel data from Refinitiv Eikon for 2806 companies across the region from 2020 to 2024 (14,030 firm-year observations). Findings reveal novel insights specific to ASEAN-6; GIC and ESGR significantly enhance FV, confirming their strategic importance. However, the pathway to increased FV through sustainability is neither straightforward nor uniform but a multidimensional phenomenon. The findings reveal that while GIC and ESGR significantly enhance FV, confirming their strategic importance, the pathway to value creation is neither straightforward nor uniform. Instead, the impact of these sustainability factors is profoundly shaped by country-specific characteristics and intricate interactions among variables. Practically, this study underscores the necessity for managers to formulate sustainability strategies that leverage GIC and ESGR. Furthermore, it offers guidance for policymakers to design tailored, context-specific frameworks within each ASEAN-6 nation. By illuminating the context-dependent nature of these relationships, this research fills a critical empirical void in understanding how sustainability dimensions influence FV in key emerging economies.

This paper examines how healthcare fragmentation produces institutional displacement for Singapore's aging population, a phenomenon we conceptualise as ‘aging out of place’. It examines how older adults become systematically disconnected from care coordination while remaining physically in place. Analysis of Singapore's healthcare system reveals that institutional displacement operates through three reinforcing mechanisms: structural fragmentation across independent providers; financing arrangements in which insurance covers less than a quarter of long-term care costs, and administrative complexity that systematically excludes those with limited literacy, digital skills or family support. Current reforms like Healthier SG are constrained by voluntary participation and parallel financing mechanisms which limit their potential to address systemic fragmentation. The study recommends three parallel changes: unified governance cutting across ministry boundaries, a shift from fee-for-service to population-based payment, and operational infrastructure built around interoperable records and simplified administrative processes. Theoretically, the analysis extends aging-in-place concepts to encompass institutional dimensions of displacement. Practically, it shows that coordination must be built into system architecture for the aged. The study's findings have implications for aging societies worldwide confronting similar fragmentation challenges.

Effective management of organic wastes continues to pose a major challenge in areas of high urbanization growth, especially in developing countries such as India, where the population and rate of consumption of resources are putting pressure on the existing waste management systems. Of the various alternatives available, composting has been identified as a promising and cost-effective method of transforming organic wastes into useful products. In this regard, rotary drum composting, which is an in-vessel composting method, has shown promising results, as it can hasten the degradation of wastes through aeration and mixing. In this review, a critical evaluation of the operational aspects of rotary drum composting systems is presented, especially regarding various physicochemical and biological factors. The importance of operational variables like moisture content, C/N ratio, aeration rate, and turning frequency is discussed. Additionally, the effect of different bulking agents, such as agricultural residues and invasive weeds, is presented. Moreover, the suitability of rotary drum composting in decentralized waste management systems for both developed and developing countries is discussed. The discussion reveals that rotary drum composting can reduce composting time significantly while maintaining a uniform and stable quality of final products. However, there are still challenges to be addressed in terms of energy consumption and optimization. Additionally, research gaps in the area of long-term performance, emissions, and techno-economic aspects of the process are identified. It is revealed that rotary drum composting is a potential solution for sustainable waste management with proper addressing of operational and policy-related challenges.

Enhalus acoroides is a well-known ecosystem engineer in the Indo-Pacific region. In this context, it plays a significant role in the protection of the coastline from coastal erosion and the maintenance of environmental conditions. This study investigates the physical characteristics of Enhalus acoroides and emphasizes their roles in shoreline stabilization and seawater filtration. A field survey was conducted in Prawean Beach, Jepara, Indonesia, using a transect quadrant to estimate the seagrass cover, supported by spatial analysis and a literature review. The results show considerable variation in leaf length, ranging from 30 to 114 cm, while leaf width remains relatively stable, ranging from 1.5 to 2 cm. Seagrass density ranges from 0 to 168 ind/m2, exhibiting strong spatial heterogeneity. The physical characteristics of Enhalus acoroides could reduce the wave energy by approximately 30% compared to smaller seagrass species. Additionally, the meadows play an important role in regulating sediment transport and facilitating the deposition of heavy metal within the substrate. Overall, these findings confirm that Enhalus acoroides functions as an effective natural coastal protector. Its integration into hybrid engineering approaches offers promising potential for coastal nourishment and sustainable shoreline management. Therefore, conserving seagrass habitat represents a crucial nature-based solution for enhancing coastal resilience and mitigating pollution.

Shallow semi-enclosed tropical bays are highly vulnerable to seasonal hypoxia due to the combined influence of monsoon-driven circulation, freshwater input, and water-column stratification. In Jakarta Bay, understanding how physical processes regulate oxygen dynamics is essential for effective water–environment management in a densely populated coastal setting. This study integrates field observations and three-dimensional hydrodynamic modeling to assess seasonal variations in circulation, stratification strength (quantified using potential energy anomaly, PEA), water-mass transport, and bottom dissolved oxygen across the Southeast Monsoon, inter-monsoon, and Northwest Monsoon periods. The results show that hypoxia is most extensive during the Inter-monsoon (151 km²), when elevated stratification coincides with reduced circulation and limited ventilation. In contrast, hypoxia becomes minimal during the Northwest Monsoon, despite substantial freshwater input and pronounced stratification signals, owing to intensified wind-driven circulation and enhanced water exchange that promote bottom-water oxygen renewal. The Southeast Monsoon represents an intermediate condition characterized by moderate stratification and partial ventilation. Quantitative estimates of volume transport (VT) across the bay mouth demonstrate a strong coupling between monsoonal wind stress and circulation strength, highlighting physical exchange as a primary control on oxygen variability. By emphasizing physically observable indicators—wind stress, stratification metrics, and water-mass transport—this study provides a practical framework to support hypoxia monitoring, early warning systems (EWS), and adaptive water–environment management in Jakarta Bay and other monsoon-influenced tropical coastal systems.

4-nitrophenol is one of the most common aromatic organic compounds widely used across various industrial sectors. Due to its high chemical stability and significant toxicity, the presence of this compound in industrial wastewater poses a threat to both the environment and human health. Recently, the reduction of 4-nitrophenol to the less toxic and pharmaceutically valuable product, 4-aminophenol, has gained considerable attention. In this study, magnetic Cu(0)-loaded CoFe₂O₄ (CFO) nanoparticles were synthesized via a simple precipitation–reduction method and then applied as recoverable catalysts for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol. The impact of different Cu(0) contents on catalytic activity was also investigated. The results demonstrate that these composite materials exhibited significantly enhanced catalytic activity compared to the reaction without catalyst. Among them, the CFO/Cu-5 sample exhibited the best performance, achieving complete conversion of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol within just 1.5 min, with a pseudo-first-order rate constant of 2.527 min⁻¹. These materials also show ferromagnetic properties, which allow them to be easily recovered by an external magnet and reused for at least five cycles.

The Iran conflict and the civil war in Sudan have sparked fears that the EU could face a repeat of the 2015 ‘migration crisis’. This crisis led the EU to allocate more resources to secure its borders, adopt measures such as the pact on migration and asylum, and pursue agreements and arrangements with third countries to boost returns and prevent irregular migration. Several countries near Sudan and Iran are currently hosting more refugees than in 2015. By working together with third countries, the EU has achieved some success in reducing irregular migration, but the arrangements have been criticised for their lack of transparency and impact on human rights. At the same time, many EU countries struggle to process the volume of asylum applications and returning irregular migrants in large numbers. Against this backdrop, the EU is developing new legislation on migration. However, it may be challenging for EU countries to reach a consensus on granting temporary protection. Additionally, regularisation is not typically granted to new asylum applicants. The Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation will apply from 1 July 2026, establishing special rules for crisis situations.

Read the complete briefing on ‘How prepared is the EU for another migration crisis?‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Studies of class action settlements have been notoriously difficult because of the logistical burden of assembling datasets from district court orders. This is especially true for non-securities settlements. Moreover, even when they have been undertaken, they have been of unknown representativeness. Yet, since the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”), defendants have been required to send a notice to the United States Department of Justice every time they settled a class action, lest the settlement not be binding. These notices therefore have the potential to overcome many of the challenges and limitations of past catalogs of settlements. This paper is the first to assess the efficacy of the Department's CAFA notices to study class action settlements. Using Freedom of Information Act requests, I obtained a log the Department keeps of CAFA notices. Although the log contains thousands of entries and many more settlements per year than any prior dataset, I find that the log is unpredictably incomplete. This is especially apparent for securities class actions, but appears to be true of non-securities class actions as well. As such, the log will not improve the representativeness of class action settlement studies. But the log will mitigate the logistical burden of creating datasets and therefore should improve the frequency of settlement studies.

Corporate digital transformation influences not only internal business processes and strategic management models, but also the way the stakeholders engage in corporate sustainable development. We explore the impacts of corporate digital transformation on stakeholder green engagement at three levels of stakeholders, inner-layer, mid-layer, and outer-layer stakeholders, as well as the moderating effect of digitalization depth and breadth. Based on stakeholder theory and stakeholder stratification perspective, we find that corporate digital transformation significantly improves stakeholder green engagement in different ways: it improves green investment efficiency for inner-layer stakeholders, enhances green disclosure quality for mid-layer stakeholders, and strengthens responsiveness to green policies for outer-layer stakeholders. Besides, the impact of digitalization is asymmetric: depth enhances engagement through integration of capabilities, whereas breadth undermines engagement through the dispersion of resources and organizational complexity. The significance of these findings is that they combine the stakeholder stratification theory with the digitalization studies and contain the realistic advice that managers and policymakers can use when implementing digital technologies to organize diverse stakeholders in order to promote sustainable corporate performance.

Artificial intelligence (AI) reflects a paradox for corporate sustainability: it provides tools for genuine socio-economic improvement and enables greenwashing at scale. This study examines this duality in emerging Asian markets, where rapid AI adoption coincides with evolving regulatory regimes. Using a panel of 1260 firm-years across six economies, we construct a firm-level green washing index and estimate panel models with Mondale corrections. The results show that AI adoption is positively associated with green washing intensity. Crucially, this risk is disciplined by two forces: verified ESG performance and regulatory stringency. We demonstrate their complementarity; the disciplining effect of verification is substantially stronger where regulatory enforcement is credible. Furthermore, firm valuation rewards verified ESG performance, not AI adoption itself. These findings reframe verification and regulation as synergistic rather than independent safeguards, advancing theory on disclosure credibility. They also provide actionable insights for policymakers designing governance regimes and for investors seeking to distinguish substantive sustainability from AI-enabled impression management.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study examines how green intellectual capital (GIC) enhances organizational resilience (OR) among hospitality SMEs in Egypt. It analyzes the roles of green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO), green dynamic capability (GDC), green absorptive capacity (GAC), and green competitive advantage (GCA) in converting green intangible resources into resilience outcomes. Data from 239 SME hotel managers were analyzed using PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 4 to test direct, mediating, sequential, and moderating effects. Results indicate that GIC positively influences GEO, GDC, and GCA. GEO and GDC mediate the GIC–GCA relationship, while GCA significantly strengthens OR. A significant sequential mediation pathway links GIC to OR through GEO, GDC, and GCA. Moreover, GAC positively moderates the effects of GIC on GEO and GDC. The study extends RBV by integrating green capability configurations as boundary conditions and provides insights for enhancing resilience and competitiveness in hospitality SME markets.

In an era of growing stakeholder pressure and regulatory fragmentation across global jurisdictions, the quality of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting has become foundational to corporate valuation, investment screening and regulatory oversight. This study uses machine learning (ML) techniques to predict global reporting quality and examine how the determinants differ in disclosure quality in developed and emerging economies as well as civil and common law jurisdictions. Drawing on a cross-sectional sample of 5000 publicly listed companies across 50 countries for the fiscal year 2022, we develop and evaluate Random Forest and XGBoost models alongside a panel regression benchmark, using financial performance metrics, corporate governance indicators and institutional characteristics as predictors. The primary contribution of this study is methodological: The authors demonstrate that ML techniques deliver superior predictive power compared to traditional econometric approaches by capturing the non-linear, high-dimensional interactions that characterise ESG disclosure decisions globally—a capacity that conventional ordinary least squares and fixed-effects regressions structurally cannot replicate. The study integrates signalling theory, legitimacy theory and agency theory to explain corporate disclosure motivations across diverse institutional settings. The results show that agency theory, in particular, illuminates why board size and board independence consistently emerge as strong predictors, since independent monitoring reduces information asymmetry and incentivises management to commit to transparent sustainability disclosures. Results confirm the superiority of ML techniques, with XGBoost achieving a test R ² of 0.78 compared to 0.62 for panel regression. SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis identifies firm size, governance score and board independence as the most consequential predictors. Board independence exhibits a threshold effect: ESG quality gains plateau beyond approximately 65%–70% independent directors. The study offers actionable insights for investors and regulators seeking to identify firms at high risk of greenwashing through governance-marker profiling and sustainability officers benchmarking their organisations' reporting quality against global peers.

This paper examines the association between biodiversity disclosure, artificial intelligence (AI), and gender diversity of board and the cost of capital in Chinese A-listed companies. Global sustainability and long-term business resilience increasingly rely on biodiversity protection and technological adoption, yet the financial aspects of these issues are under-researched. Based on agency theory and stakeholder accountability models, we hypothesise that biodiversity disclosure and AI adoption will lead to lower financing costs through better governance, transparency and reduced risk. Moreover, we hypothesise that board gender diversity enhances these effects by enhancing monitoring, oversight and credibility of sustainability initiatives. Based on large-scale firm-level data (2010–2024) from CSMAR and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, our results indicate that biodiversity disclosure and AI integration have a significant positive effect on the weighted average cost of capital, cost of equity, and cost of debt for Chinese A-share-listed firms. In addition, gender diversity is a moderator that enhances the cost-reducing impacts of biodiversity disclosure and AI adoption. Artificial intelligence can be used to reduce a firm's financing costs by improving information processing, minimising uncertainty, and enhancing the credibility of its disclosures. AI technologies can analyse massive amounts of financial and operational data quickly and with high precision. This enables firms to provide more transparent and believable information to investors and lenders, thereby alleviating information asymmetry between firms and their capital providers. These results highlight the complementary role of governance, sustainability and technology in lowering financing costs. As the drivers align corporate finance with sustainable development objectives, policymakers and international regulators are urged to require biodiversity reporting, promote gender-diverse boards, and embrace AI-enabled transparency.

Integrating sustainability not only into corporate strategy and product design is essential to address pressing global challenges. This study proposes a framework that integrates social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) into time-driven activity-based costing (TD-ABC) to manage both social and economic issues by assessing social impacts across value chains. An illustrative case study in the packaging sector demonstrates the model's (TD-ABC-S-LCA) feasibility in calculating the direct and indirect upstream social impacts of a company. Significant social risks can be identified in non-recycled paper packaging due to the sourcing of resources from high-risk regions. Contribution and geographical variability analysis identify opportunities, such as strengthening supplier relationships and optimizing material sourcing. Despite limitations, including reliance on generic databases and a cradle-to-gate scope, this framework provides a practical method for companies to align economic goals with social responsibilities. It advances sustainability accounting practices, paving the way for further research and business applications.

Green bonds play a central role in sustainable finance, yet concerns about greenwashing raise questions about the credibility of issuers' sustainability disclosures. Using dictionary-based methods and domain-specific BERT transformer models, this paper proposes two greenwashing alert metrics and investigates their performance by analyzing sustainability reports of European corporate green bond issuers from 2019 to 2023. First, we develop the SDGs Omission Index (SDGOI), which measures the discrepancy between Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) declared ex-ante in green bond frameworks and those subsequently reported in sustainability disclosures. We show that the use of SDG-specific language is associated with broader SDG coverage, whereas generic environmental language is not. Second, we introduce the Environmental Sentiment Metric (ESM), capturing opportunity-oriented environmental sentiment. We find that a more opportunity-oriented tone is positively related to SDG omission, ESG controversies, and greenwashing accusations. Together, SDGOI and ESM provide interpretable, disclosure-based indicators that can support issuing greenwashing alerts in the European green bond market.

Responsible consumption and production, emphasized in Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12), require both company-level sustainability initiatives and an understanding of how consumers respond to corporate responsibility signals. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework has become a central mechanism through which companies communicate their commitment to sustainable development; however, the behavioral pathways that link ESG perceptions with consumer behavior remain under-researched. This study examines how consumers' perceptions of companies' ESG engagement shape sustainable consumption through the mechanisms proposed by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Using survey data from a nationwide sample of 1000 consumers across four generational cohorts, the model is tested with partial least squares structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results indicate that perceived ESG engagement acts as a structured antecedent that influences attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, which subsequently shape behavioral intention and actual sustainable consumption. Attitudes emerge as the dominant mechanism, indicating that ESG-aligned consumption is largely value-driven, while normative and control-related factors play complementary roles. Although behavioral intention significantly predicts actual behavior, an intention–behavior gap remains. Generational differences are limited and mainly concern the translation of intention into behavior. By integrating ESG into TPB, the study provides a behavioral micro-level explanation of how company-level ESG engagement supports the objectives of SDG 12.

CONTEXT

In the European Union (EU), trade in drug precursors – substances that may have legitimate commercial or industrial applications but are also used to produce illicit drugs – is governed by two regulations, addressing intra-EU and external trade respectively. These laws seek to prevent the diversion of precursors without hindering the commercial interests of lawful operators. However, the mechanism put in place, based on listing individual substances and imposing strict conditions on their trade, has encountered challenges, particularly as a result of developments in drug markets.

To address the concerns confronting the EU framework, several EU policy instruments have announced a revision of the legislation in force. In December 2025, the European Commission presented a proposal that would merge the two regulations. The initiative reflects the European Commission’s intention to reduce the administrative burden for operators and national authorities while setting a regulatory framework more adaptable to drug market developments.

Legislative proposal

2025/0384(COD) – Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on monitoring and controlling drug precursors and repealing Regulations (EC) No 273/2004 and (EC) No 111/2005 – (2025) 747 final, 3 December 2025.

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Read the complete briefing on ‘Proposed EU regulation on drug precursors‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

The circular economy (CE) is now a cornerstone of global environmental policy. However, current debates often frame CE as a future-oriented strategy to be adopted or scaled, implicitly assuming that emerging economies and the Global South are starting from strictly linear conditions. Drawing on practice-oriented and institutional perspectives, this paper reconceptualizes CE as a set of already-operating, economically rational practices—such as repair, reuse, and informal material circulation. We argue that the central governance challenge in these contexts is not the introduction of CE from scratch, but understanding how existing circularity is recognized, reorganized, or displaced during institutionalization. By synthesizing research across capability, governance, transition, and justice-oriented framings, we illustrate how dominant models neglect everyday circularity as “informal” rather than constitutive of the system. We develop a practice-based translation perspective to distinguish between practices of CE and CE in practice, elucidating how these processes shape value creation and power relations. Ultimately, this paper posits that emerging economies are not merely “catching up,” but are analytically informative settings for understanding circular governance under constraint. We conclude by outlining implications for transformative and mission-oriented innovation policy.