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The reduction of the “metabolism” of the human economy has become one of the central themes of recent environmental and economic research and policy focused upon paths for achieving global sustainable development. Since the late 1980s, there has emerged a diverse array of “physical economy” approaches that utilise some form of material flow analysis (MFA) to quantify the pattern of flows of material and energy into, within, and out of the economic system. In principle, the reduction of the human socioeconomic metabolism, and appropriate changes in technology and consumption, are highly consistent with Buddhist economics. Indeed, MFA may be one of the most valuable devices for encouraging and implementing a global “green” technoeconomic paradigm that helps realize the type of benefits proffered under the vision of Buddhist economics. This paper describes the links between methodology or potential application of MFA and the central themes of the Buddhist economic path to the long‐term, harmonious co‐existence of humans within the natural environment.

The paper's purpose is to highlight conflicting interests between combating climate change and the technique of carbon capture and storage (CCS) within the Norwegian petroleum industry.

This paper is written in a conceptual form. The theoretical starting point is that strong sustainable development is necessary to combat climate change. The practical example is state‐of‐the‐art of CCS, and whether this contributes to combat climate change or not.

This paper finds using circulation economics adds essential environmental preconditions to the technique of CCS. First, the global environmental gain must not be outnumbered through an increase in production volume. Second, if the technique does not contribute to strong sustainable development then the producers must instead limit the extraction of petroleum.

The figures in this paper build upon the current knowledge within this research area. Extensive research is taking place, and may change the figures. The findings and conclusions of this paper will not be affected though by changes in figures.

The findings of this paper show that it is necessary to use a holistic and global theoretical approach in choosing tools to combat climate change.

The paper uses a relatively new economic theoretical approach to highlight environmental aspects regarding a technique of capturing carbon, which is currently being developed to combat climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of natural resources accounting in sustainable development. Natural resource accounting is important because the welfare of a nation measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) has several weaknesses.

This paper achieves this objective by identifying the present status, the constraints and the challenges for the economics and accounting professions.

The main weakness of GDP as a measure of development is that it does not take into account damages to environmental resources. However, the improvement of the concept to include environmental resource use is made difficult because of the difficulties of measuring environmental damage. The challenge to the economics and accounting profession is to ensure interdisciplinary collaboration, development of a framework to explicitly include the environment, development of credible valuation procedures for the environment, and inclusion of the various ethical positions advanced by various groups on the value of the environment.

Some headway has been made on these issues during the last decade but a major challenge still lies ahead in further improving these approaches so that sustainable development becomes an achievable goal.

This paper brings together diverse views and fusing them together providing a future path for research in environmental accounting to achieve sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship among environmental degradation, energy use and economic growth, thus lending a voice to testing the relevance, or otherwise, of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in Nigeria.

The authors rely on the secondary data obtained from World Bank’s World Development Indicators for Nigeria, between 1981 and 2014. The non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique is used after examining the unit root properties – using the augmented Dickey–Fuller and Phillips–Perron methods – and the long-run relationship – using the ARDL bounds approach to estimate the asymmetries in the effects of economic growth on the environment.

The findings of this study uphold the relevance of the EKC hypothesis in Nigeria, as the growth of GDP first reduces the environmental quality but raises it over time. Furthermore, the use of energy is found to deteriorate environmental quality, given that CO2 rises by 0.002% for a unit increase in the consumption of energy in Nigeria.

A limitation to this research is the data coverage, which is just between 1981 and 2014, based on availability. One other limitation is the use of electric power consumption as a proxy for energy use (because of the difficulty in obtaining accurate data on energy consumption in Nigeria). Future research should, therefore, test different other proxies, to either agree with the findings or justify any deviation therefrom. Also, the use of up-to-date data is recommended as an improvement to this study, while a non-linear technique should be used on studies involving the panel of countries.

Many studies have examined this relationship by simply taking the square of GDP as a measure of its non-linear effect on the environment. The authors are one of the first who consider the asymmetric effect of economic growth on the environment through the non-linear ARDL technique. With this, the partial sums of positive and negative changes in economic growth on the environment are easily established.

This paper has two objectives. First, it investigates some conceptual linkages between the sub‐disciplines of development economics and environmental economics. We find common methodological orientations, and shared interests in growth processes, resources and sustainability, international trade, market mechanisms and market failure, institutions, and co‐operative international behaviour. Second, it introduces the other papers that appear in this special issue, and sets them within the context of the common orientations and themes that have been identified here. Finally, we offer some recommendations for the design of syllabuses in the field of development and environmental economics.

Clem Tisdell is one of Australia’s pre‐eminent economists who has made decisive contributions in several areas of economics, perhaps most notably development economics, environmental economics and natural resource economics. Tisdell is presently Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and is also a long‐standing member of the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Social Economics. This interview, which falls in the tradition of Klamer, was recorded in his Brisbane home in November 1995 and seeks to explore Tisdell’s extraordinary career, the development of his thinking about economics in general and his prodigious research output in particular. Tisdell answered the questions in his customary quietly‐spoken and good‐humoured manner.

This research paper aims to handle the effects of economic growth, corruption, energy consumption as well as trade openness on CO2 emissions for a sample of West African countries during the period 1980 and 2018.

The current work uses the pooled mean group (PMG)-autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) panel model to estimate the dynamics among the different variables used in the short and long terms.

The findings demonstrate that all variables have long-term effects. These results suggest that gross domestic product (GDP) per capita exhibits a positive and prominent effect on CO2 emissions. Corruption displays a negative and outstanding effect on long-term CO2 emissions. In contrast, energy consumption in West African countries and trade openness create environmental degradation. Contrarily to long-term results, short-term results demonstrate that economic growth, corruption and trade openness do not influence the environmental quality.

Empirical findings provide useful information to explore deeper and better the link between the used variables. They stand for a theoretical basis as well as an enlightening guideline for policymakers to set strategies founded on the analyzed links.

During the very short period of cultural evolution of mankind, the world has changed dramatically. Modern humans have modified the environment not only to satisfy their needs, but also to please their greed. The forces that are united to destroy the last wildlands for short‐term economic benefits seem to be overwhelming. However, at least in some developed countries, values, preferences and political majorities have been changing over the last two decades in favour of alternative approaches. A new multiplicity of goals has sprung up, and it will not be an easy task to reconcile the diverging interests. What makes it even more difficult is that the means, by which the different goals are to be achieved, are barely known. The scientists, whose task might be to provide tools of measurement to enable political decision‐makers to set priorities, are facing serious methodological problems. Economists have not yet found practical and acceptable ways of valuing all commodities, biologists have not yet come up with proven environmental safety standards and sociologists and philosophers are far from providing a satisfactory method of integrating environmental values into the ‘social contract’.

In order to achieve sustainable development objectives, safeguard the ecosystem, combat global warming and preserve biodiversity for a more sustainable and secure future, the ecological footprint (EF) must be reduced. Therefore, embracing holistic methods, emphasizing renewable energy (RN) and environmental taxes (ET) is crucial. Therefore, the present study aims to capture the effect of ET and RN on EF in Germany.

To achieve this aim, the novel Fourier-based Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ADL) cointegration and the time and frequency-based connections among the variables are investigated in this work throughout the 1994–2021 time span using the wavelet analytic methods, including wavelet power spectrum (WPS) and wavelet coherence (WC) methods, respectively.

The study’s results express that (1) RN, ET and EF are cointegrated in the long run; (2) EF and RN have volatility; (3) RN use in Germany prevents environmental deterioration and (4) ET decreases EF.

The research findings imply that Germany needs rigorous environmental restrictions and enforcement of alternate energy sources for energy use plans and sustainable production objectives.

To the best of our knowledge, the effect of RN and ET on EF in Germany has not been comprehensively explored by using newly developed econometrics techniques and a single dataset. Therefore, the study provides important policy implementations for the German government and is also likely to open debate on the concept.

This study aims to analyze the wine industry’s response to changing societal attitudes towards the environment. Environmental considerations are now an increasingly important factor in both production and purchasing behavior. While many eco-certifications exist, there is still consumer confusion between the multitude of eco wine certifications, lack of clarity about what consumers think about the wines, and not enough data about their willingness to pay (WTP) for these environmental characteristics.

This study clarifies what the various wine eco certifications are, quantifies consumer knowledge and ascertains their WTP for five environmental or sustainable wine certifications, namely, biodynamic, fair trade, organic, natural and sustainable. The authors surveyed 456 wine drinkers in the USA.

The authors found that millennials, women, unmarried individuals, those purchasing eco-certified foods, low-income individuals and those looking to celebrate a special occasion have a higher WTP for eco-certified wines compared to respondents who are older, male, married, do not buy eco-certified goods, have higher incomes and are purchasing the wine for a regular occasion. They recommend marketing and targeting those in the former group for environmental or sustainable wines.

The study is the only research project, of this kind, to evaluate five types of eco-certifications for wine in a single WTP analysis.