Many local governments wanting to finance construction of water pollution control facilities through the sale of municipal bonds are required to obtain authorization from the electorate in the form of a bond referendum. Since defeat of such a bond issue can result in significant delay in implementation of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, it is important that EPA understand the factors which affect the outcome of these elections. The study contains conclusions and recommendations about the process by which the project is planned, the role of the bond market, and the referendum as an approval mechanism for public expenditures.

Green innovation is essential for improving the environment and realizing sustainable economic development. In this research, we use a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2018 to examine whether and how digital finance affects corporate green innovation. The proof we provided shows that digital finance has a positive effect on green innovation. The result is consistent with a series of robustness tests. Further analyses show that digital finance promotes green innovation by alleviating financial constraints and increasing R&D investment. And the effect is more pronounced in economically backward regions and high-polluting industries. This research provides practical guidance for promoting finance development and improving the ecological environment.

Digital finance as a new technology-driven business model shortens the distance between borrowers and lenders. Economic research finds that digital finance promotes economic efficiency by reducing transaction costs, information asymmetry, and inequality. Digital finance is an energy-intensive industry; therefore, increased efficiency in the industry should yield environmental benefits. We examine the externality of digital finance on air pollution. By analyzing data on digital financial inclusion and fine particulate matter concentration in China, we demonstrate using a dynamic panel data model that the development of digital finance damages the environment. However, after incorporating a threshold effect into a kink model, we determine that digital finance reduces pollution when its development exceeds a certain level. The results suggest that a high level of digital finance development not only increases economic growth but also improves air quality; this result provides novel insight into the relationship between economic growth and the environment.

A major issue for governments in the past few decades has been environmental deterioration caused by economic activity. Researchers are increasingly interested in the factors that contribute to environmental deterioration. This research fills the empirical gaps by looking at the influence of carbon footprints of growth and R&D investment on green finance development of renewable energy. Ordinary least square (OLS) is used in this work to assess the long-term connection between chosen variables in South Asia from 1995 to 2018. The importance of green finance, clean energy, and green financial instability have been identified as major variables. According to the study’s overall findings, clean energy, green finance, and sustainable economic growth are all important and positive indicators of a composite assessment of sustainable practices. Green bonds, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and green economic development all play an important part in green finance development and renewable energy production. The research also found that R&D expenditures had a positive and substantial influence on green finance development in South Asia, with a 1% increase in R&D expenditures lowering the sustainability of the environment by 0.070% and 0.080%. Other practical consequences for South Asia include a more suitable path toward a greener economy, as suggested by the projected findings.

Environmental sustainability has become one of the most common phrases in discussions about climate change. This study examines the impact of clean energy investment and financial development on environmental sustainability and China’s economic growth, using manufacturing value-added and urbanization as moderator variables from 1970 to 2016. We used advanced econometric methodologies for empirical estimations, used structural break unit root tests, fully modified least square, dynamic least square, and robust least square multiple regressions for long-run estimates. Overall, the results determine that clean energy investment is negatively associated with CO₂ emissions and ecological footprint while positively associated with China’s economic growth. Financial development, manufacturing value-added, and urbanization are positively associated with CO₂ emissions, ecological footprint, and China’s economic growth. Moreover, clean energy investment improves environmental sustainability at the expense of economic growth. Financial development, manufacturing value-added, and urbanization encourage economic growth at the expense of environmental sustainability. We argued that the local governments play a critical role in lifting the outstanding barriers to cleaner energy investment, addressing disincentives, including pricing carbon dioxide emissions, reforming inefficient nonrenewable fossil fuel subsidies, and addressing regulatory and market rigidities that can undesirably affect the attractiveness of clean energy investment. Policymakers are suggested to encourage green finance strategy for the financial sector to broader sustainable development objectives. At the heart of green manufacturing, industrialization policies are needed to integrate diverse intentions, like inclusive growth, environmental protection, and productivity through a wider range of economic, social, and environmental policy frameworks suitable for decoupling growth from social and environmental unsustainability.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a new agricultural development pattern to address future food crises. Since CSA was proposed in 2010, it has attracted the attention of scholars from all over the world. It is of great significance to scientifically summarize the overview and emerging trends of CSA research, providing ideas for scholars concerned about CSA to engage in research in this field. Based on bibliometrics and CSA-related literature data in the WOS database, this paper used CiteSpace software to draw knowledge maps to scientifically analyze publications in the field of CSA. Our study found that (1) CSA research is showing a rapid upward trend, focusing on the environmental sciences and agricultural economic management; (2) international organizations such as the FAO, World Bank, and the international agricultural research institute have made significant contributions to CSA research; (3) among the nine clusters in the CSA literature, CSA practice, conservation agriculture, smallholder farmers, and sub-Saharan Africa have been consistently given high attention; (4) CSA research can be divided into three phases, and the research hotspots have transferred from essential elements of CSA to household and carbon emissions. We believe that in future research, more attention should be paid to the trade-off and synergy of the three pillars of CSA, as well as the investment, finance, and evaluation criteria of CSA. Such strengthening is of great significance to the sustainable promotion of CSA.

Green finance is a priority for alleviating environmental degradation pressures. Based on panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2017, this study utilizes the spatial Durbin model (SDM) and the threshold model to examine the effect of green finance on environmental quality. The empirical results are as follows: (1) Green finance and environmental quality have significant positive spatial autocorrelation; the development of green finance in China is still in the lower-level range, while high-high and low-low are the dominant spatial clustering types. (2) Green finance has a significant positive effect on local environmental quality but has negative effects on that of its neighbors during the research period; however, the spatial spillover effect of green finance is heterogeneous in the three subsamples. (3) There are double threshold effects of green finance on environmental quality, and the effect decreases with the promotion of green finance. These empirical insights provide spatial references for policymakers to formulate strategies for the target of coordinated and integrated regional development.

Green technology innovation is the basic driving force of green economic development. The compatibility of the composite system composed of green technology innovation, green finance, and environmental regulation is the decisive factor of whether regional economy can achieve sustainable development. Based on the data of regional green technology innovation in China from 2012 to 2020, this paper discusses the coupling coordination mechanism and coupling coordination level among green technology innovation, green finance, and environmental regulation based on entropy method. It is found that the coupling and coordinated development of regional green technology innovation-green finance-environmental regulation system in China is above medium level. However, there is a big gap in the coupling coordination level among different regions. The coupling coordination level in eastern China is relatively high, and the coupling coordination level in other regions is deviated. Most regions of China have a great potential for improvement. On this basis, this paper puts forward policy suggestions for improving the overall coupling and coordination level of the system to promote national green development.

Today, as a result of the developments and widespread use of information and communication technologies, the weight of online shopping in the economy has increased. The environmental impacts of this new order, which is an important part of electronic finance, are discussed. In this study, the effect of electronic finance, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and urbanization on emissions in EU member countries is examined using the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) approach for the period from 2005 to 2018. The main results suggest that e-finance has a positive and statistically significant effect on CO₂ emissions. However, the renewable energy consumption-increasing effect of e-finance is greater than its emission-reducing effect. Moreover, renewable energy consumption has a statistically insignificant effect on emissions. Therefore, the contribution of e-finance on environmental quality weakens. The requirement for EU member countries to prioritize the use of environmentally friendly energy to benefit from the environmental contribution of e-finance in the most optimal way is stated as the main policy implication of this study.

Green finance is the main way to solve financing problems and support green technology innovation. The development of higher education is the source of innovative human capital and a key factor in promoting green economic growth. Studying the relationship between the three is an important realistic meaning for achieving green economic growth. Based on the idea of system coupling, this paper adopts the analysis method of the three-system coupling coordination model. This paper constructs a three-system coupling model, which incorporates green finance, higher education, and green economic growth into a unified framework, and based on a comprehensive review of the interaction and mechanism, the degree of system coupling is analyzed from the regional and provincial levels. Conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) the composite indexes of green finance, higher education, and green economic growth are all on the rise. The highest increase has been found in the index of higher education. In addition, the green finance index has also shown an accelerated upward trend in recent years, and green economic growth index has also shown a steady rise in recent years. (2) The upward trend of the coupling degree is relatively observable, but the overall coupling degree is still at low level. The coupling state has jumped from the low-degree coupling stage to the primary coupling stage, and the coupling degrees of the three major regions all show a fluctuating rising trends, but there are apparent regional differences. The degree of coupling between the eastern region and the other two regions is quite different. (3) During the sample period, the degree of coordination between green finance, higher education, and green economic growth in each province has increased to varying degrees. The degree of coordination in the eastern region is the best, the western region is the worst, and the central region is somewhere in between. The study concludes with implications for the protection of the environment. Finally, based on the empirical analysis results, this paper puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions from the perspectives of improving the ability of green technology innovation, promoting the development of green finance and the high-quality development of higher education, and hoping to provide theoretical reference for the coordinated development of China’s regional economy.