The energy trilemma is a significant challenge of our time, driven by advancing climate change, social and political changes, and the impact of the war in Ukraine. This has led to the traditional business models of the energy industry and utilities being challenged. Against the backdrop of environmental sustainability, energy security, and affordability, this paper examines whether German utilities can achieve greater sustainability while creating shareholder value by divesting their carbon-intensive businesses. The analysis of the spin-off of E.ON-Uniper and the carve-out of RWE-Innogy reveals positive impacts on shareholder value, corporate performance, and a higher share price of all four companies after the splits. One conclusion that can be drawn is that divesting carbon-intensive businesses might create value for the company and its shareholders. However, it is important to note that the analysis did not demonstrate any benefits in terms of improved ESG ratings due to divestment.

(1) Purpose: Within the significance of eradicating poverty in the long term, the purpose of this paper is to assess the implications of the dimensions of sustainable development, across all European Union Member States, on poverty, through the lens of dimensions focused on economic and social factors, both directly and globally, in their mutual interconnectedness. (2) Methodology: The research methodology consists of applying two econometric models, namely, panel models (with fixed effects) and Gaussian graphical models, to assess the mutual, global interconnectedness of the main sustainable development benchmarks. Data used in the analysis was collected for the period 2009 and 2019. (3) Results: There are direct and overall implications of the dimensions of sustainable development (including economic and social factors), across all European Union Member States, on poverty. (4) Conclusions: All the European Union Member States are affected by poverty, but to varying degrees, which is why governments are urged to further develop actions to combat the harmful effects of poverty. (5) Implications: In the context of the current financial and geopolitical crisis driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, increasing the focus of all stakeholders on poverty and sustainable development is essential, especially by expanding sustainable development goals that address multi-dimensional poverty.

The purpose of this study is to find out whether micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) can boost economic growth and achieve their sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing financial technology innovations and the Resource Base Strategy (SRB) through crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending (P2P lending). This study used a mixed approach, namely a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The population in this study were SMEs who used crowdfunding and P2P lending services, totaling 380 SMEs. Through calculation by the Slovin’s Formula, 192 SMEs were sampled. The results of this study are as follows: (1) the performance of MSMEs will be improved if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations using crowdfunding as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (2) the economic growth will be supported if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations using crowdfunding as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (3) the performance of MSMEs will be improved if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of SRB using P2P lending as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (4) the economic growth will be supported if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of SRB using P2P lending as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (4) the economic growth will be supported if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of SRB using P2P lending as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (5) the performance of MSMEs will be improved if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations and SRB using crowdfunding as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (6) the economic growth will be supported if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations and SRB strategies using P2P lending as an alternative to meet capital requirements; (7) the performance of MSMEs will be improved if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations and SRB using crowdfunding and P2P lending as alternatives to meet capital requirements; (8) the economic growth will be supported if MSMEs carry out internal improvements in the form of financial technology innovations and SRB strategies using crowdfunding and P2P lending as alternatives to meet capital requirements; and (9) the improved performance and growth of MSMEs justifies the paradigm shift from the resource driven economic growth to the innovation driven one. This study helps MSMEs obtain the maximum investment so that they can create a great number of jobs to boost economic growth. The conclusions can be used by MSMEs in their business models to deal with the impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda designed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted in 2015 with the primary aim of achieving sustainable development by 2030. One of these goals is SDG 4, which aims to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. Implementing SDG 4 calls for initiatives that instill knowledge, attitudes and skills as clearly indicated in Target 4.7. This requires a change in mindset, where transformative ideologies fused in both sustainability governance and education are required to encourage behavioural change. This research presents a case study regarding an exhibition, which toured Maltese schools and the community, in the form of a large Rubik’s cube possessing 17 cubicles in which an artifact about each SDG is presented. This case study aims to examine how this exhibition contributes to SDG 4, specifically Target 4.7. It also seeks to explore whether the case study contributes towards transformative approaches in tandem with education and governance for sustainable development. The methodological framework presents two innovative approaches – a visual qualitative analysis of each artifact and a matrix that attributes scores reflecting the effectiveness of each exhibit vis-à-vis the main components of Target 4.7. Qualitative and quantitative findings, supported by reflexivity, are garnered to examine the implications of this case study, which acts as a good springboard to emanate the SDGs within the community by creating a link between formal and non-formal learning spaces. Drawing upon such insights, a Transformative Education-Governance model is proposed where a number of action points are delineated. This provides a fertile terrain in reconceptualising education and governance, useful for researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainability and education.

Micro units are a significant economic segment of our society and are a major source of employment after the agriculture sector. The purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of the government's scheme after five years (2015-20) in order to determine whether the MSME sector has grown and developed over that period. Micro units engaged in manufacturing, processing, trading, and service activities are included in this category. It is responsible for providing employment to approximately 10 million individuals. There are a lot of proprietary/single-ownership/own-account businesses in the non-corporate small business sector. In view of India's large population, it is difficult for them to access mainstream commercial banks. India sometimes introduces objective-oriented schemes to help the underprivileged start up, expand, and change their small businesses. Through an empirical investigation, this paper will evaluate the needs and performance of this program after five years (2015-20). The Mudra Banking Scheme is also an objective-oriented model for the financial inclusion of the poor who do not have mortgages to cover their financial needs. Honorable Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi commenced this banking scheme in August 2015.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda places universities as a hub of idea generators, which impulse and improve sustainable development. In the agenda, universities are considered vital to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), because they are where experienced actor and young actor converge. These actors are good at developing actions of change, breeding innovation and creating a vision to the future. South Korea is one of the countries that took hold of the 2030 Agenda, providing an example of good international cooperation. The country is also known for its adaptable educational programs, which suits the complex and fast-changing demands of the world. South Korea has been working about its capacity to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into the body of university students and academic research from the base generations. In the MERCOSUR, the Sustainable Development Goals advance in the university’s agenda have been pragmatic and differs from country to country. This paper treats a South Korean university, Yonsei University, as a role model of a research hub for the Sustainable Development Goals, and demonstrates that the model has been evoked for students and to stimulate its replicability in the MERCOSUR. This action would be highly benefited because of the Free Trade Agreement between MERCOSUR and South Korea.

Green energy, a hot topic of recent energy studies, is any type of energy created using renewable resources, such as sunlight, wind, or water. Despite several variations between it and renewable energy, green energy typically comes from renewable energy sources. The use of these energy sources should not damage the environment by means like emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Producing power with minimal carbon footprint is a huge step toward a future that is more environmentally friendly. The global energy system has been moving away from fossil fuels towards carbon-free energy sources. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that energy efficiency and renewable energy policies have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 90 percent. Our research focuses on the usage of renewable energy, and assesses how it affects carbon emissions in Germany and Finland. The recent panel causality test of Yilanci and Kilci was performed to examine the causality relationships between variables in 1990-2020. This study offers important insights into how using renewable energy affects carbon emissions for the two countries.

China faces the key issue of improving the efficiency of carbon emissions, in its endeavor of building a low-carbon economy and reducing carbon emissions. This paper adopts the super-slack-based measure (SBM) model with a bad output to measure the carbon emission efficiency of each Chinese province from 2000 to 2019, and further uses the Tobit model to analyze the impact of environmental regulation, technological progress, and the interaction between the two on carbon emission efficiency. The results show that: China's carbon emission efficiency presents a large inter-provincial difference. Only a few provinces like Shanghai and Beijing reached the efficient frontier, while all the other provinces failed to do so. Overall, most Chinese provinces have a huge potential for improving carbon emission efficiency. By dividing China into three regions, it could be seen that the eastern region had the highest carbon emission efficiency, followed in turn by the central region and the western region. According to the spatiotemporal variation of carbon emission efficiency, most provinces with a high carbon emission efficiency belong to the economically developed eastern region, while most central and western provinces did not realize satisfactory carbon emission efficiency. With the elapse of time, the carbon emission efficiency in most provinces declined to varied degrees, while that of a few provinces was on the rise. The results of the Tobit model show that both environmental regulation and technological progress both significantly promoted carbon emission efficiency, but their cross term clearly suppressed carbon emission efficiency. When it comes to the control variables, carbon emission efficiency has a significantly positive relationship with opening-up, and a significantly negative relationship with industrial structure, financial development, energy structure, and urbanization level.

The current challenges of globalization provide business entities of various economic systems with multifaceted opportunities, while creating new threats to economic security. These and other challenges require enterprises to pay attention to innovation, and improve their economic security. The study substantiates the importance of innovative development as a determinant of corporate economic security. The main purpose is to assess the innovative development state of enterprises, and evaluate its impact on economic security based on the available information and analytical support. To achieve the set goal, the authors proposed an assessment approach for corporate economic security based on the innovative component, and developed a monitoring algorithm for the factors affecting corporate development. The systemic approach was employed to consider the innovative component as a subsystem of corporate economic security, and to measure its impact on corporate development. In this way, the innovative component of corporate economic security could be calculated comprehensively. The methodology takes account of the systemic approach, as well as methodical support for the analysis of components, which is based on rating evaluations, systematic expert evaluations, and ranking scales. Industrial enterprises that pay special attention to innovative development were selected to test the proposed methodical support. In addition, the Harrington scale was adapted to establish the level of corporate economic security. Based on the calculations, it was determined that the studied enterprises have an average and below average level of economic security due to component innovation. Overall, this research presents a suitable algorithm for assessing the level of corporate economic security.

Southeast Nigeria witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing public health crises. The crises manifest as the conflicts between citizens, policy-makers and leaders over public health policies, creating the circumstance for innovative research. This study examines the public response to the public health and social measures (PHSMs) implemented by the federal government of Nigeria in curtailing the spread of COVID-19, during the height of the pandemic. The focus is to unravel the underlying factors of the public response to the PHSMs, as well as their implications to the overall public health policies and institutions in the region. Guided by the ethnomethodology model, the authors applied qualitative methodology to the research. In-depth interview (IDI) and focused group discussion (FGD) were adopted to gather data from leaders of religious institutions, public and private health institutions, local market institutions, and state security institutions in the 5 states of Southeast Nigeria. The collected data were parsed through thematic analysis and interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). The results reveal a range of problems, such as shallow knowledge and misinformation at the local level, gap in public health knowledge and policy, crises of mistrust and misinterpretation of public health objective, citizens-policy-leadership crises, as well as the abuse of PHSMs. These problems were put in perspectives to portray the lessons and the public health policy implications of citizens-policy-leadership crises.

This study aims to analyse how contemporary stakeholder-engagement methods can enhance and acknowledge stakeholders' voices in the CSS and ensure better outcomes. Hence, this paper aims to narrow this gap by developing specific aspect profiles for sustainability strategies. The method of the current study relied on both primary data and secondary data. Hence, a questionnaire survey was developed to collect the required data. While, secondary data sources are obtained through the website sustainabilityexcellence.com. The data processing techniques were carried out using Stata 16 software and using the Multiple Linear Regression method. The sample of the study consisted of 422 people from different Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) i.e. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. The results revealed a high degree of stakeholders' perception of corporate sustainability strategies in the GCC. Also, people are aware and ready to afford the cost and efforts to generate more reliable and advanced strategies that promote corporate sustainability. The study also underscores three suggested recommendations that are based on a novel model (Reachable, Meaningful, and Fun “RMF”), as each element of this model is a recommendation that It believed to be highly-impactful actions that supports corporate leaders/teams to engage more fruitfully with stakeholder (more specifically customers and communities) and enrich the CSS. Lastly, this research effort is concluded with implications on the suggested recommendation (RMF), followed by some of the most critical takeaways for our corporate practices. The paper helps companies that already commit to sustainability to verify whether they are consistent in the implementation of a distinct sustainability strategy.