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The purpose of this paper is to address the specific challenges with which resource‐based cities are faced when they begin along the path of industrial transformation and to employ empirical studies to determine whether relevant reforms in resource‐based cities (taking Pingxiang, one of the first round of resource‐exhausted cities acting as pilot cities in the national sustainable development transformation program, as an example), promoted by local government in recent years, have brought significant changes to their development modes and facilitated the real transition.

The paper carried out some empirical studies from different angles: employing the “vertical table graph” method, to turn Pingxiang's statistical data (1997‐2010) into a graph that visually shows Pingxiang's economic and social development; comparing several major economic and social development indicators (especially the energy consumption per unit of GDP) of 11 cities within Jiangxi Province in order to learn Pingxiang's relative positions; based on time series data from 1997 to 2009, calculating the change rates, the variation coefficients and the shift‐share indexes of industrial structure so as to measure the quality of Pingxiang's structural transformation; comparing the above results with the cities of Jiaozuo, Benxi and Dalian; and comparing economic and social development state of 16 resource‐based cities (which are all among the list of 44 national resource‐exhausted cities) from the perspective of “green GDP”.

Although Pingxiang has gained great progress in economic development, its industrial structure is not rational enough, and shows great dependence on mining industry with a too high share of the secondary industry and a too small proportion of the tertiary industry. Its heavy dependence on resources and investment does not suggest a fundamental change in development modes. Accordingly, the city's development idea should be switched from GDP‐orientation to sustainable development. It should proceed with the optimization of the industrial structure adjustment, increase manpower capital investment and develop new green substitutable industries, so as to catalyze the success of transition.

This integration of empirical analysis methods from three angles in multivariate statistical analysis, environmental economics, and industrial economics is novel in the field of research on resource‐city and industry change. It not only could be of some help in decision making for Pingxiang municipal government, but also could provide reference for other cities dependent on resource exploitation.

This study aims to examine the relationship between green finance, economic growth, renewable energy consumption (energy efficiency), energy import and CO₂ emission in Vietnam using multivariate time series analysis.

The data were collected from 1986 to 2018 since Vietnam initiated the economic reforms, namely “Doi Moi” in 1986. The concept and methods of cointegration, Granger causality and error correction model (ECM) were employed to establish the relationship between the variables of interest.

Our results confirmed the existence of cointegration among the variables. The Granger causality test revealed unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to CO₂ emission and green investment to CO₂ emission.

This study results confirm the existence of cointegration among the variables. The results of the study imply that policies on economic development impose a significant impact on pollution in Vietnam. This study has described Vietnam, its economic development, green manufacturing practices, its environmental health and level of carbon dioxide emission which was enhanced due to COVID-19.

China is a significant energy consumer with increasingly severe resource constraints and environmental problems, requiring low-carbon energy transformation and encouraging high-quality energy development (HED). Green finance significantly affects the effect on HED as a cutting-edge financial strategy to support environmental improvement and encourage green development.

Using panel data from 30 provinces from 2007 to 2019 and the system-generalized method of moments method, this paper investigates the impact of green finance on HED, and further explores their threshold effect, heterogeneous and asymmetry analysis.

The main results indicate that: (1) green finance positively affects HED in China; in other words, a 1% increase in the green finance index will boost HED by an average of 0.767%; (2) as the economy improves, the positive impact of green finance on HED will be even more significant and (3) the contribution of green finance to HED is more significant in the northern provinces and areas with lower HED levels.

This paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions to further improve the construction of the green financial system.

This paper aims to investigate the situation and evolution of sustainability performance in China.

This paper adopts the global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) productivity index based on data envelopment analysis and Tobit regression for analysis.

The results indicate the following: China’s sustainability performance has been improving since 2005 and is closely related to the national development strategy and supportive policy; regional gaps in sustainability are a prominent problem represented by the fact that South Central China is becoming a sustainability collapse zone; interprovincial heterogeneity is evident with the varying development speed and conditions; and the level of sustainability performance has a significantly positive correlation with the urbanization rate, investment completed in the treatment of industrial pollution, government appropriation for education and per capita area of paved roads, but it has a negative correlation with the possession of private vehicles.

As an application, this study assessing the GML productivity index of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2015 and analyse the sustainability performance on three regional levels (i.e. country level, regional level and provincial level). Tobit regression is also applied to recognize the factors related to the GML index with the results taken as references for policy suggestions. The results have implications for a comprehensive understanding of China's sustainability performance and policymaking in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution against a background of big data using a differences-in-differences model.

This study constructs a differences-in-differences model to evaluate the policy effects of off-office audit based on panel data from 11 cities in Anhui Province, China, from 2011 to 2017, and analyzes the dynamic effect of the audit and intermediary effect of industrial structure.

The implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution. Dynamic effect analysis showed that the audit policy can not only improve the quality of water resources but can also have a cumulative effect over time. That is, the prevention and control effect on water pollution is getting stronger and stronger. The results of the robustness test verified the effectiveness of water pollution prevention and control. However, the results of the influence mechanism analysis showed that the mediating effect of the industrial structure was not obvious in the short term.

These findings shed light on the effect of the off-office audit of natural resource assets on the prevention and control of water pollution, and provide a theoretical basis for the formulation of relevant environmental policies. Furthermore, these findings show that the implementation of the audit system can effectively reduce water pollution, which has practical significance for the sustainable development of China's economy against the background of big data.

This study quantitatively analyzes the policy effect of off-office auditing from the perspective of water resources based on a big data background, which differs from the existing research that mainly focuses on basic theoretical analysis.

Basing himself on the premise that present economic progress cannot follow the ‘Business as usual paradigm’ and hope for continued and unlimited progress, the author holds that we need to look into the larger dimensions of growth and development, which include social, environmental and other complex factors. So in this chapter, the author makes some pertinent suggestions for a sustainable growth model inspired by green growth and degrowth.

The first section evaluates the salient features of green growth and its drawbacks. It is followed by a discussion on the notion of degrowth, with its challenge to change the direction of growth (economic, ecological, social and cultural), without which human civilisation, as we know it today, may not survive. Finally, in the concluding chapter, based on these two notions of green growth and degrowth, an all-inclusive and sustainable regrowth model is propounded.

By creating an awareness of the need to shift development goals and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the author argues that we could use economic regrowth strategically and responsibly to make the world more sustainable and viable. Responsible corporates will make their contribution to such an organic, resilient and sustainable regrowth and their CSR activities could be the starting point for this change, without which humanity's future is seriously threatened.

Finally, the author acknowledges that humanity has profited from the tremendous technological and economic progress we have made in the last four centuries, learnt from its mistakes and are ready to reorient ourselves individually and collectively towards a sustainable economic regrowth.

Nowadays, growth is the common target of all societies. But rather than growth, it is more important to ensure the sustainability of growth. Worldwide climate changes, damages to natural capital and financial crises necessitate the transition to green growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of socio-economic context to green growth, which represents the sum of environmental and resource productivity, natural asset base, the environmental dimension of quality of life and technology.

The paper uses grey relational analysis together with the entropy method to examine the weight of 22 green growth indicators. The green growth indicators based on the compilation of the data from 36 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries in 2015.

The results point out carbon dioxide emissions and environment-related technology are the most essential indicators in achieving green growth across the world.

It provides an objective evaluation of the green growth indicators that creates awareness-raising in green growth, enables the measurement of global developments and the determines opportunities and risks.

This study aims to examine the relationship between financial development (FD), financial risk, green finance and innovation related to carbon emissions in the G7 economies.

This quantitative study examines the roles that financial development [FD: Domestic credit to private sector by banks as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)], economic growth (GDP: Constant US$ 2015), financial risk index (FRI), green finance (GFIN: Renewable energy public research development and demonstration (RD&D) budget as percentage of total RD&D budget), development of environment-related technologies (DERTI: percentage of all technologies) and human capital (HCI: index) have on the environmental quality of developed economies. Based on panel data, the study uses a novel approach method of moments quantile regression as a main method to tackle the issue of cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity and nonnormality of the data.

The study confirms that increasing economic development increases emissions and negatively impacts the environment. However, efficient resource allocation, improved financial systems, and green innovation are likely to contribute to emission mitigation and the overall development of a sustainable viable economy. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of risk management in financial systems for future emissions prevention.

The study uses a reliable estimation procedure, which extends the discussion on climate policy from a COP-27 perspective and offers practical implications for policymakers in developing more effective emission mitigation strategies.

The study offers policy suggestions for a sustainable economy, focusing on both COP-27 and the G7 countries. Recommendations include implementing carbon pricing, developing carbon capture and storage technologies, investing in renewables and energy efficiency and introducing financial instruments for emission mitigation. From a COP-27 standpoint, the G7 should prioritize transitioning to low-carbon economies and supporting developing nations in their sustainability efforts to address the pressing challenges of climate change and global warming.

In comparison to the literature, this study examines the importance of financial risk for G7 economies in promoting a sustainable environment. More specifically, in the context of FD and national income with carbon emissions, previous researchers have disregarded the importance of green innovation and human capital, so the current study fills the gap in the literature related to G7 economies by exploring the link between the identified variables related to carbon emissions.