Life cycle assessment shows that retrofitting coal-fired power plants with fuel cells will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Addressing emissions released from coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) is vital to mitigate climate change. China aims to replace 240 TWh CFPPs with fuel cell (FC) technologies by 2050 to achieve carbon-neutrality goals. However, FCs are not emission-free throughout their technology life cycle, and FC effectiveness will vary depending on the CFPP configuration. Despite these uncertainties, a comprehensive evaluation of on-site CFPP-to-FC mitigation potential throughout the entire life cycle remains underexplored. Here, we use a prospective life cycle assessment to evaluate the inclusive mitigation potential of retrofitting 240 TWh CFPPs via four FCs that use wind power/natural gas as feedstocks. We find CO2, PM2.5, and SO2 emissions decrease by 72.0%–97.0%, 55.5%–92.6%, and 23.1%–86.1%, respectively, by 2050. Wind-electrolysis hydrogen FCs enable the largest life cycle CO2 reduction, but mining metals for wind turbines reduces PM2.5 and SO2 savings. Prioritizing FC deployment in northern China could double the mitigation potential. Our study provides insights for designing carbon-neutrality CFPP-to-FC roadmaps in China

Sustainable Governance in Northeast Asia: Challenges for the Sustainable Frontier

This Special Issue consists of selected papers from the 2016 annual international Sustainable Asia Conference (SAC), held on Jeju Island, South Korea, from 28 June to 2 July 2016. SAC 2016 is one of the leading international conferences for presenting novel and fundamental advances in sustainable development issues for Asia. In this special issue, most of the papers emphasize the importance of sustainable governance in harmonizing economic development with a healthier life, while enhancing the quality of all economic activities. The majority of papers in this special issue also deal with problems of urbanization, because the Northeast Asian countries are experiencing the transformation of their economic structure from quantitatively oriented development to the qualitative, highlighting socioeconomic performance. There has been a vast amount of discussion and many ideas put forward on sustainable development, but as the Marrakech Proclamation of COP 22 concluded in November 2016, it is now time to meet the practical challenges of sustainable development. This special edition will shed light on the action plan against global warming and environmental degradation

Are Emissions Trading Policies Sustainable? A Study of the Petrochemical Industry in Korea

In 2015, Korea inaugurated an emissions trading scheme (ETS). In this regard, many studies have considered the sustainable performance and efficiency of industries that emit carbon; however, few have examined ETS at company level. This paper focuses on companies’ data related to Korean ETS in the petrochemical industry. Based on the non-radial, nonparametric directional distance function (DDF), the paper evaluates the governance factors related to ETS policies and sustainable performance in terms of carbon technical efficiency (CTE), the shadow price of carbon emissions, and Morishima elasticity between the input and undesirable output of carbon emissions. Using a dual model, the paper shows that Korean ETS has huge potential for participating companies to improve CTE. If all companies consider the production possibility frontier, they could potentially improve efficiency by 52.8%. Further, Morishima elasticity shows strong substitutability between capital and energy, implying that green technology investment should bring a higher degree of energy-saving performance. Unfortunately, however, the market price of carbon emissions is far too low compared with its shadow price, suggesting that the Korean government’s price-oriented market intervention has resulted in the ETS producing poor sustainable performance. As the title suggests, ETS of Korea is not sustainable at the current stage, but with more efforts on the transition period, all the developing countries should support the governance factors of the ETS in terms of the more effective green investment with easier access to the green technology

Reuse Intention of Third-Party Online Payments: A Focus on the Sustainable Factors of Alipay

An anonymous transaction environment and the advantage of virtual property have resulted in trust playing an important role in the rapid growth of online shopping in China. To satisfy this trust issue, Alibaba (China) Co., Ltd. (Hangzhou, China) invented Alipay, the largest third-party online payment service. Using a structural equation model (SEM), this paper attempts to determine whether Alipay’s service quality factors are truly sustainable. The results indicate that only two of five factors—convenience and security—are significantly mediated by the sustainable performance of customer satisfaction as a mediator. The other three factors—usefulness, responsiveness and economy—were rejected for the role of customer satisfaction, even if they are accepted regarding the direct effect on reuse intention. This result implies that Chinese web companies need to make greater efforts not to ensure initial success, but instead to ensure sustainable performance

Regional Cooperation for the Sustainable Development and Management in Northeast Asia

The Northeast Asian countries are the most pro-active regions in the world to take on the challenges of sustainable development. With this background, there has been an annual series of Sustainable Asia Conferences (SAC) which date back to the first inaugural meeting in 2009. This special issue consists of selected papers from the SAC 2017, held in Nanjing, China, from 23–25 June. With ten years of accumulated experience, SAC became one of the leading international conferences for presenting innovative or fundamental advances in sustainable development issues for Asia. Over time, SAC introduced more performance-oriented approaches to handle the feasibility of the sustainable development solutions. In this special issue, most of the papers focused on the precise and accurate sustainable governance mechanism in harmonizing economic development with a healthier life, while enhancing the quality of all standards of living. The majority of papers in this special issue also deal with two important pillars of the sustainable development: regional cooperation and regulatory effectiveness. This special edition will propose unique implications and feasible or workable suggestions against global warming and environmental degradation

The Economic Efficiency of Urban Land Use with a Sequential Slack-Based Model in Korea

Since the inauguration of the government-led five year economic plans in the 1960s, Korea has achieved remarkable economic development. Korea’s economic strategy, known as ‘The Miracle on the Han River’, focused on heavy and chemical industries such as ship building and petrochemicals and was based on resource intensive urbanization. This rapid urban development caused a series of problems, such as over-development in urban areas, bottlenecks in utilities, and environmental degradation. Nevertheless, the Korean government has recently moved toward deregulation of the greenbelts of major city areas. Since very few studies have analyzed the urban land use economic efficiency (ULUEE) in Korea, this paper assesses the feasibility of recent deregulation policy concerning the greenbelts utilizing the sequential slack-based measure (SSBM) model under environmental constraints across 16 South Korean cities from 2006 to 2013. Our research makes three significant contributions to urbanization research. First, this paper uses an SSBM model to analyze the dynamic changes of urban land use economic efficiency in Korea at the regional level; Second, this paper analyzes factors influencing ULUEE in Korea, and the feasibility of the deregulation policies on the greenbelts; Third, this paper suggests more performance-oriented policy alternatives to improve the ULUEE and implement sustainable greenbelt management

Are Global Companies Better in Environmental Efficiency in India? Based on Metafrontier Malmquist CO2 Performance

There is a rapid increase in inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries such as India. Some researchers argue that FDI has a positive impact on sustainable development in terms of environmental efficiency and brings innovative green technology to the host country. In contrast, others claim that FDI brings considerable pollution to the host country, and their motive is only to yield profit. To address this issue, this paper analyzes environmental efficiency between FDI and domestic firms in India for seven years between 2012 and 2018. The research aims to evaluate the performance of FDI firms in terms of environmental efficiency in India after implementing certain policy regulations, nationally and globally. In this analysis, we use the non-radial metafrontier Malmquist CO2 performance index (NMMCPI) with three decomposition indices: efficiency change index, best practice gap index, and technological gap change index. Our empirical results indicate that domestic firms have performed well in terms of better catch-up and innovation performance. On the other hand, FDI firms only demonstrated higher technology leadership performance, indicating weaker catch-up performance and weaker innovation performance. From the results, we proposed that policymakers should harmonize between the FDI promotion and regulation in its sustainable performance because global companies are not sensitive to the local regulations, and not very proactive in implementing the global standard of eco-friendliness

Intermediary Propositions for Green Growth with Sustainable Governance

This article gives an overview of the conceptual characteristics of sustainable development by searching the governance-oriented intermediaries. It shows how the new paradigm of green growth evolved through international consensus and how this paradigm of the public-private partnership (PPP) could work with the new propositions of intermediation. The historical context in the latter half of the 20th century is outlined, in which a paradigm shift toward PPP was caused by green growth policies. It emphasizes the governance, resulting in the propositions of the intermediary role of PPP by the SWOT matrix: facilitator, collaborator, network manager and service provider