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This chapter examines the potential of solar energy for the development of sustainable tourism in Croatia. Tourism is an important economic activity in the Croatian economy due to the mild climate and many sunny days. Solar energy photovoltaic and thermal systems can help to support sustainable tourism, as well as increase employment and cooperation between local and national governments. This study compares best practices in solar energy for the Mediterranean countries of Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Greece. The Mediterranean Basin is a strategic development area for the European Union, and solar energy will help to maintain its stability and high-quality standards of living.

Introduction: Entrepreneurship and frugal innovation have emerged as critical drivers for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a global context. The United Nations developed the SDGs to address social, economic, and environmental challenges, ranging from poverty and inequality to climate change and sustainable economic growth. Entrepreneurship and frugal innovation offer a unique approach to achieving these goals by promoting innovation, creativity, and sustainability in business practices.

Purpose: This chapter aims to examine the role of entrepreneurship and frugal innovation in achieving SDGs in a global context. This chapter seeks to identify how entrepreneurship and frugal innovation can contribute towards realising the SDGs and how these concepts can be leveraged to create sustainable and scalable businesses that promote sustainable development.

Methodology: In order to examine how entrepreneurship and frugal innovation contribute to the worldwide achievement of the SDGs, the chapter will use a qualitative research technique. The literature review will involve the qualitative analysis of both developed and developing countries on some specific sectors like transportation, education, health sector, and financial services.

Findings: Through analysing relevant literature, qualitative research, and related examples this chapter provides insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with promoting entrepreneurship and frugal innovation for achieving the SDGs in different contexts.

Practical Implications: The chapter aims to contribute towards a better understanding of the role of entrepreneurship and frugal innovation in achieving SDGs and to provide recommendations for policymakers, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders on supporting and promoting these concepts globally.

Energy use occupies an important place among the service activities offered to tourists that guide the tourism industry. The realization of basic needs such as heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and decontamination in these enterprises are among the important factors that directly affect energy use. In order to obtain the energy needed for the sustainability of services at a more affordable cost, renewable energy sources should be put into operation. In this direction, it makes it more advantageous for businesses in the tourism sector to invest by turning to renewable energy sources in order to maintain their activities more economically. In this context, the main purpose of the study carried out in this part of the book is to reveal the latest developments in the field of evaluation of renewable energy sources in tourism enterprises. Bibliometric analysis was carried out by using the Web of Science (WoS) database in the research and with the findings obtained, it was concluded that the field is new and up-to-date and needs to be studied more. When looking at the WoS categories of studies titled renewable energy in tourism enterprises; it was concluded that more energy fuel, green sustainable science technology, science themes were given weight. According to the network analysis, the most cited authors and countries' densities were determined and the intensive expressions in the network keywords in their studies titled renewable energy in tourism enterprises are renewable energy, renewable energy sources, sustainable tourism, sustainability, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, green marketing, blue economy, and energy efficiency.

The current study aims to analyze the role of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in sustainability issues and its impact on the attitude of practitioners (auditors) in industrial companies. The current study relies on the analytical method, one of the tools of the inductive approach, by examining the literature of researchers, international and local organizations, publications, series, alerts, and topics dealt with by the IFAC, as well as reviewing studies, theoretical and applied research, periodicals, books, and statistics. And specialized publications for this subject, which is related to other sciences – such as – environmental science, economic, and political sciences. The study reached many results, the most important of which are: (1) The first half of the current decade has seen high interest from the IFAC, has led to the issuance of International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) international standard on assurance engagements 3410, (GHG) Statements. (2) Sustainability has become important to a growing number of enterprises, and may have a significant influence, in certain cases, the financial statements, also became the sustainability of the topics under increasing attention from users of financial statements. Thus, the financial statements will need a practitioner to take into consideration sustainability issues and a private greenhouse gas when auditing the financial statements. This study is distinguished by analyzing the role of the IFAC and the IAASB for the period from 1998 to 2023 regarding sustainability issues.

Road transport is an important sector of the economy, however, its negative impacts on the environment, human health and sustainability of potential economic growth are significant. Transport externalities tend to be neglected within the market process. The damage generated through significant externalities of road transport in Czechia was identified, based on unique data processing, to reach almost 3.5 billion € annually. This chapter presents an overview of internalization taxes and fees, their current rates and generated receipts. If excise duty is disregarded as fundamentally unsuitable for the internalization of externalities, then the receipts from other applied taxes and fees, particularly the road tax, seem to be insufficient. Although economic growth is encouraged, its form is not sustainable in view of the rising phase of the Kuznets curve and the related irreversible environmental impacts.

Introduction: The effect of environmental regulations or green policies on the financial health of businesses is still up for debate. The Prime Minister of India presented a bold plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070 at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow (UK). Following this announcement, numerous Indian companies voluntarily committed to becoming carbon neutral to support the ambitious emission reduction targets. A growing body of research examines the link between environmental standards compliance and businesses’ sustainability measures, and how they affect their overall performance (profitability, stock returns, or output generation).

Purpose: The research assesses the effect of these voluntary announcements on the stock performance of Indian companies in the context of voluntary commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Methodology: Concentrating on the announcement impact of carbon neutrality commitments/carbon emissions reductions of 52 Indian companies, the study considers carbon neutrality pledges/carbon emissions reduction from 2018 to 2022. The sample companies list was taken from various indices on the National Stock Exchange. A standard event study methodology is applied to compute abnormal returns during the event window of (−10, 10).

Findings: The results show that companies announcing the carbon neutrality pledges/carbon emissions reduction received significantly negative abnormal returns of 0.49% on announcement day. The cumulative average abnormal returns for different windows are also negative. It signifies that investors don’t value the environmentally sustainable actions of firms. It may also be because of investors’ ignorance of carbon neutrality pledges and their importance, highlighting the need to educate investors about the significance of corporate sustainability initiatives.

Even though sustainability appears to be a relevant driver for the relocation of production, this has only to a limited extent been studied as an independent motive or a result of backshoring. This study explores the literature on backshoring and sustainability and discusses some empirical cases to shed light on the connection between sustainability and backshoring. This study argues that sustainability issues may require a broader perspective than the dominant economic logic framing previous studies on backshoring. Institutional theory is suggested as a theoretical framework for analyzing how sustainability can play a role in companies’ backshoring decisions.

The current chapter proposes a theoretical framework to assess the sustainability of economic growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. The authors integrate insights from endogenous growth models and consider the unique socioeconomic characteristics of the GCC region to provide a comprehensive and tailored approach to understanding the determinants of economic growth and formulating effective policy measures to foster sustainable development and growth. This chapter highlights the environmental challenges faced by GCC; based on this, the authors suggested indicators to construct a theoretical framework (Economic Growth, Climatic Indicators, Energy Indicators, Social Indicators, and Economic Resources Indicators). The authors propose that policymakers and researchers in GCC States should take these factors into account when devising policies or conducting research aimed at fostering sustainable economic growth. Overall, this chapter presents significant insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders involved in promoting the sustainable economic advancement of the GCC States.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the urban outcomes of smart city projects, focusing on their primary objectives. The first objective is to facilitate the management and flow of information, data, and resources to enhance resource efficiency, sustainability, and the quality of life for citizens and stakeholders. This chapter offers insights into the urban objectives of smart city projects within the local ecosystem, with a specific emphasis on digital and key urban outcomes. It provides an overview of the digital outcomes, including the advancement of digital systems for safety and urban monitoring, the provision of customized digital services, and the promotion of citizen engagement through digital platforms. This chapter also evaluates the environmental outcomes of smart city projects, such as improved quality of life, increased urban efficiency, and contributions to a sustainable environment. To provide a well-rounded understanding, interviews with policymakers and city managers, as well as case studies from cities like London, Medellin, Helsinki, Singapore, Girona, and San Diego, are incorporated. Furthermore, this chapter incorporates data and findings from top-tier international journals to provide a clear understanding of the impact of smart cities on the local ecosystem.