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The connection between digital manufacturing technologies (Industry 4.0) and the environment has sparked discussions on firms' disclosure of negative information on pollutant emissions and the pursuit of positive environmental outcomes. However, very few studies explore how it relates to a firm's robot usage and its mechanism. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of robot penetration on firms' environmental governance in China.

The ordered probit model (and probit model) are employed and empirically tested with a sample of 1,579 Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019.

The study reveals a negative relationship between robot usage and the disclosure of negative indicators and a U-shaped relationship between robot usage and positive environmental outcomes. Among the sample, nonstate-owned enterprises (SOEs) display unsatisfactory performance, while heavily polluting industries disclose more information on pollutant emissions. The robot–environmental governance nexus is conditional on firm size, capital intensity and local economic development.

The study proposes a fresh view of corporate environmental governance to assess the environmental implications of robot adoption. It also contributes to identifying the curvilinear, moderating and heterogenous effects in the robot–environment nexus. The results provide rich policy implications for the development of industrial intelligence and corporate environmental governance in the circular economy (CE) context.

This chapter provides a legal and theoretical overview of environmental PPMs articulated in private standards. It seeks to expand the debate about environmental PPMs, elucidating important dimensions to the issue from the perspective of global governance and international trade law. One of the arguments advanced in this chapter is that a comprehensive analysis of environmental PPMs should consider not only their role in what is regarded as trade barriers (governmental and market driven) but also their significance in global objectives such as the transition towards a green economy and sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

This chapter is based on an extensive literature review and doctrinal legal research.

This research shows that environmental PPMs represent a key issue in the context of the trade and environment relationship. For decades such measures have been thought of as being trade distortive and thus incompatible with WTO law. Although it seems clear now that they are not unlawful per se, their legal status remains unsettled. PPMs can be regarded as regulatory choices associated with a wide range of environmental concerns. However, in trade disputes, challenged measures involving policy objectives addressing production issues in the conservation of natural resources tend to focus on fishing/harvesting techniques. On the other hand, an important goal of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) is to incentivise sustainable consumption and production in order to achieve the transition to a green economy. In this sense, it can be argued that what are generally denominated as ‘PPMs’ in the WTO terminology can alternatively be regarded ‘SCPs’ in the language of environmental governance. Environmental PPMs are not only limited to state-based measures, such as import bans, tariff preferences, and governmental labelling schemes. Environmental PPMs may also amount to good corporate practices towards environmental protection and provide the rationale for numerous private environmental standards.

Most academic attention afforded to environmental-PPMs has focused on their impacts on trade or their legality under WTO law. Although legal scholars have already referred to the significance of such measures in the context of environmental governance, this issue has remained almost entirely unexplored. This chapter seeks to fill the gap in the literature in this regard. In particular, it addresses the relevance of environmental PPMs in the context of decentralised governance initiatives such as the UN Global Compact and private environmental standards.

Overall, this chapter assists in the understanding of the significance of environmental PPMs in the context of private environmental standards and other governance initiatives involving goals related to sustainable consumption and production. This chapter adds to the existing body of literature on the subject of PPMs in international trade and environmental governance.

The purpose of this paper is to get hold of the main influence factors of the investment efficiency of environmental governance and control them to improve its efficiency sensitively and employ full use of the investment of environmental governance.

The assessment index system of the investment efficiency of environmental governance is built. Its investment efficiency is assessed based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The influence degree on the efficiency between each assessment index is calculated by the grey incidence degree analysis method to find the key influence factors. The efficiency of the investment in the environmental governance can be improved by managing and controlling the key factors.

The results prove that it is available by the data of 14 cities in Shandong Province in 2008. The key influence factors of the investment efficiency of the environmental governance are: total investment in the treatment of environmental pollution (F₁); industrial soot removal (F₃); industrial wastewater meeting discharge standards (F₂); and the volume of garbage disposal (F₉).

The method exposed in the paper can be used to solve investment efficiency problem of the environmental governance of the other provinces, or other years and even other countries.

The paper succeeds in solving investment efficiency problem of the environmental governance by DEA and grey incidence degree analysis method.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the problem of deforestation in Amazonia and the role of the Brazilian government with regard to the capitalist demands and development needs for the region. It offers a brief historical review of public policies and programs for Amazonia, and critically analyzes their conflicting aspects. Local environmental governance (LEG) is proposed as a conceptual framework and a participatory forest management strategy for dealing with the forest destruction.

The paper is a qualitative‐based study which provides a systemic analysis of the process of occupation and the key public policies for Amazonia from over the last decades, particularly during the coup d'état regime. Based on a literature review and official documents, descriptive data are produced which helped in understanding the political phases of the Brazilian government administrations.

The study identified some participatory‐based, decentralized models of forest management and existing forest regulatory frameworks which can serve as an illustrative sketchy arrangement on how local environmental governance can become operative and serviceable for a sustainable balance between the use of natural resources, conservation and regional planning. These findings can help future investigations on governance models. The research also shows how the Brazilian government has perceived Amazonia throughout the decades and how this perception influenced the implementation of development and settlement policies for the region.

The main focus of this article is the debate on the concept of local environmental governance (LEG) as a tool for empowering the local communities through the decentralization of decision making as well as the attempt to find implemented normative and institutional structures within the Amazonian context which can translate aspects of LEG.

Climate change is one of our time’s most pressing global environmental challenges, and environmental innovation is critical to addressing it. This study aims to investigate the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry in Europe while also examining the moderating role of environmental governance.

Data for this study were collected from publicly listed healthcare companies in ten European countries spanning the years 2012–2021. The selected countries encompassed Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The research encompassed all healthcare companies for which data were accessible, resulting in a comprehensive dataset comprising 1,210 companies. The authors collected data from multiple sources, including annual reports, the World Bank and Eikon databases, to ensure a robust and extensive dataset.

The results of this study indicate that environmental governance plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission within the healthcare sector in Europe, but when combined with high levels of environmental innovation, strong environmental governance leads to enhanced efforts to reduce carbon emissions. This combination also contributes to meeting the expectations of a broader range of stakeholders and maintaining legitimacy.

The study’s findings have practical implications for healthcare regulators, policymakers and various stakeholders. It underscores the importance of integrating solid environmental governance and innovation to address climate change challenges in the healthcare sector effectively. This integrated approach not only helps reduce carbon emissions but also contributes to achieving sustainable outcomes while satisfying a wider range of stakeholders.

This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting the significant role of environmental governance as a moderator in the relationship between environmental innovation and carbon emission in the healthcare industry. The research findings provide valuable insights for academics, practitioners and decision-makers, emphasizing the need to combine governance and innovation for sustainable outcomes in healthcare sectors.

This study aims to examine the impact of migration growth on environmental outcomes and local governance and assess how well the existing local municipal governance has responded to the environmental impact of increased migration influx in Ontario, Canada using the annual data during 2012–2021.

This study used the grey relational analysis (GRA) to examine the correlation degree between migrant growth, environmental outcomes and local governance, used coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to access to what extent the existing local governance systems have responded to the environmental impact of immigrant growth.

Results show that higher immigrant populations are associated with worse environmental outcomes and the need for more municipal environmental investment and service. The present local municipal environmental service in Ontario lags behind in response to the environmental impacts of increased migration. Good local governance practices and environmental services are required to improve the environmental adaptation capacity of host countries to migrant influx.

Climate change has been regarded as an important driver of internal and international human migration. The mass influxes of migrants will threaten cities’ environmental quality and put considerable pressure on municipal services. This study provides empirical evidence for Ontario’s municipal environmental governance and relevant authorities on how to deal with the environmental impact of increased migration and contributes to call the attention of other countries to the urban environmental pressure caused by migration influx due to the changing climate world wide.

This article studies the role played by sustainability operations management (OM) practices in the relationship between governance and environmental and social performance adopting the lenses of the upper echelons theory and the resource-based view. In particular, the authors study three main relationships: (1) the impact of governance on the implementation of sustainability OM practices, (2) the impact of sustainability OM practices on sustainability performance and (3) the mediating role of sustainability OM practices in the relationship between governance and sustainability performance.

To test this study’s research model, the authors retrieved secondary data of 430 firms from the United Stated (US) and Europe and analyzed it using partial least squares (PLS)-based structural equation modeling (SEM).

This study’s results suggest that sustainability OM practices are needed to achieve higher social and environmental performance outcomes from governance, highlighting the key role of the OM department in the achievement of a sustainability strategy.

This paper adopts the environmental, social, governance (ESG) neglected focus and aims to provide a better understanding of and reveal the interrelationship between governance and sustainability OM practices (i.e. environmental and social).

We are in an information age, and the relationship between government governance and market efficiency has become closer. When examining the behavior of governance, the study of government transparency is very important. This paper examines the environmental governance performance of Guangdong province, the most developed coastal region in China.

DEA method is adopted to calculate the environmental governance efficiency by considering the expected output and the nonexpected output. Then Tobit regression was used to analyze the relationship between fiscal transparency and environmental governance efficiency.

Through a quantitative study of empirical data of Guangdong province from 2001 to 2017, it is found that fiscal transparency does have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of local environmental governance. Therefore, it is suggested that all regions in Guangdong should be more transparent in administration, intensify industrial transformation and upgrading, and better govern the regional ecological environment.

This paper examines the environmental governance performance of Guangdong province, the most developed coastal region in China. Guangdong has developed economy and people’s living standards are high, so the market and residents are particularly concerned about the government performance in environmental governance. Therefore, it is an important issue to explore the relationship between environmental governance and government transparency in Guangdong.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ideal meaning of good governance for cities sustainability, basing itself on the international consensus of governance as the most important issue when facing urban environmental problems.

Focusing on urban environmental problems and based on discussions about environmental governance and sustainability carried out throughout the last decades, the paper recognizes that the discussions on environmental governance, although presenting converging ideas and some successful examples, are still to convey a definitive framework as a base to be followed and consolidated. For this reason, it aims to offer a theoretical framework for handling urban environmental governance, as well as an approach that allows one to recognize ways for an appropriate assessment of cities sustainability.

The results of the analysis suggest that, while the notion of governance offers a direction in researches addressing the study of institutions and of the interaction between governmental and non‐governmental actors, there is still a lack of applicable and appropriate models to achieve good governance in a democratic way, especially in developing countries. Another important conclusion lies in the perception that, for knowledge construction purposes, as well as for structure policies and measurement of society's achievements towards a more sustainable development, urban environmental governance indicators are a helpful and thoroughly necessary tool.

Developing an urban environmental governance assessment model allows for comparisons in between analytical results of projects implemented or under implementation, creating a scientific basis for designing sustainable institutional arrangements in future projects.

Due to environmental externalities, micro-enterprises with profit-seeking features do not develop sufficient motivation for environmental governance. In a fiscally decentralized system, local environmental protection authorities perform environmental supervision, and the intensity of the regulations that they implement has an important influence on corporate environmental governance. Based on the promotion tournament framework, this paper aims to discuss the driving mechanism of corporate environmental governance using turnover of environmental protection department directors (EPDDs) as an indicator.

Using samples of A-share companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges from 2007 to 2014, this paper examines the impact of EPDD turnover on corporate environmental governance and its underlying mechanism.

The results show that corporate environmental governance exhibits a political periodicity that changes with the turnover of the EPDD, and the periodicity remains after controlling for the influence of changes in provincial party secretary and governor. Internal mechanisms analysis indicates that, without financial independence, local environmental protection departments rely on increasing sewage charges, not environmental protection subsidies, to promote corporate environmental governance. Further, considering heterogeneity among officials, it finds that the younger a new EPDD is, the more pronounced the periodicity of corporate environmental governance. However, there is no significant difference between in-system and out-system turnover.

In general, this paper describes the mechanisms of corporate environmental governance from the perspective of political economics, and the results have implications for the potential improvement of the government’s environmental supervision functions and the development of ecological civilization in China.