Evaluating the social outcomes of COVID-19 pandemic: empirical evidence from Pakistan

Eco-consciousness to eco-consumption: unraveling the drivers of sustainable consumption behavior under the mediated-moderated Model

The impact of climate change has malformed the world's ecosystem, thus making humans call for environmental protection. Climate change, the biggest trauma of the twenty-first century, has made humans switch towards natural consumption. In this regard, the growing phenomenon of industrialization has spurred consumers to invest more in ecological products. Consuming eco-friendly products has several benefits; however, countries are still unable to satisfy the consumer's concern for the environment. The current study presents literature on environmental concerns, psychological well-being, willingness to pay for pro-environmental products, pro-environmental self-identity, and pro-environmental consumer behavior, which are required to ensure the consumer's organic behavior. The research used a questionnaire-driven methodology to gather data from 379 participants. Data analysis was conducted using statistical software packages, specifically SPSS (Version: 4.1.0.0). The suitability of the measurement model was evaluated through structural equation modeling (SEM), which was performed utilizing the SmartPLS. According to the research findings, there is a positive relationship between variables in the study, and individuals with greater levels of psychological well-being are more likely to engage in behaviors that promote sustainable consumption. In order to foster more sustainable consumption patterns in society, policymakers, marketers, and educators may find these findings to be valuable insights. As a result of its empirical exploration of these relationships, the study contributes to the growing body of literature on environmental psychology and sustainable marketing, emphasizing the important role psychological factors play in promoting a greener environment.

Navigating the path to dual carbon goals: Understanding the driving forces of energy transition welfare performance

China's double carbon target aims to improve human well-being and sustainable development. Energy transformation welfare performance (ETWP) is the efficiency of energy transition (ET) in enhancing human well-being. ETWP considers both human well-being and sustainable development. Research on its driving force is helpful in achieving the double carbon goal. Thus, this paper used Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index Model, Fixed Panel Regression Model and Grey Relational Analysis Model to analyze China's ETWP from 2006 to 2022 and predicted ETWP of 31 provinces from 2023 to 2030. The results showed that: (1) ETWP had two rising periods in 2006-2014 and 2015-2022. (2) The government's rationalization policy on energy and environment and technological innovation ability were fundamental driving forces for improving ETWP. (3) There were obvious spatial and temporal distinctions in ETWP, and it would bring out different degrees in most areas. Thus, ET should be promoted by improving the ecological environment and resource utilization efficiency; The importance of the role of scientific and technological innovation and policies should be focused on in promoting ETWP; ET policies based on local developments should be formulated and the energy structure should be changed.

Socioeconomic shocks, social protection and household food security amidst COVID-19 pandemic in Africa's largest economy

Africa has been known to experience series of problems among which are poverty, food insecurity, lack of access to energy, lack of infrastructure among others. These problems were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a severe impact on the socioeconomic status of households in Africa. This paper examines the relationship between socioeconomic shocks, social protection, and household food security during the pandemic in Nigeria, the Africa's largest economy. Using the World Bank's COVID-19 national longitudinal baseline phone survey (2020) for the analysis and applied the multinomial logit regression, the study finds that socioeconomic shocks resulting from the pandemic have led to an increased level of food insecurity. Social protection programmes have played a crucial role in mitigating the impact of these shocks on households. However, the study also highlights the need for more targeted and effective social protection policies to ensure that vulnerable households are adequately protected from the adverse effects of the pandemic. The findings of this study have important implications for policymakers and stakeholders in Africa's largest economy, as they seek to address the challenges posed by the pandemic and promote household food security for the actualisation the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of food and nutrition security (SDG2). The study, therefore, recommends that efforts be made to preserve food supply chains by mitigating the pandemic's effect on food systems, increasing food production, and looking forward beyond the pandemic by building resilient food systems with the use of social protection interventions.

Psychological dynamics of pandemic resilience: a tale of two cultures

The present work endeavours to explore the experiences of university-level students from Pakistan and Nepal after the COVID-19 outbreak. A comprehensive electronic survey was carried out utilising a meticulous cluster sampling technique encompassing two distinct populations, i.e. Pakistan and Nepal, during the period extending from September 2022 to January 2023. A total of 2496 participants completed the questionnaire (Pakistani population: 55.45% and Nepalese population: 44.55%). We utilised the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), feeling of loneliness (UCLA), interdependent happy scale (IHS), and fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S). Notably, a significant intercultural disparity was observed, particularly concerning the level of COVID-19 fear which was higher among the Nepalese population. However, this particular variable did not demonstrate any significant associations with other variables, except for the social dimension of MHC-SF. There was a negative correlation observed between this variable and IHS within the Pakistani population. Irrespective of the varying degrees of apprehension towards COVID-19 within the two distinct cultural contexts, there exists a significant positive correlation between the assessed psychological assets and individual well-being, as well as the resumption of regular activities after the outbreak.

Greening the workforce in higher educational institutions: The pursuance of environmental performance

The research aims to examine the role of green human resource management (GHRM) in the university's environmental performance. Furthermore, this research also focuses on the mediating effect of green commitment and pro-environmental behavior. It also aims to check how green self-efficacy moderates the relationship between green commitment and pro-environmental behavior. The paper opted for a quantitative design using the convenience sampling technique/approach by collecting the data through a structured questionnaire on 208 academic staff currently employed in the university. The data were collected from August until December 2021 on two campuses (Gujranwala, Jhelum) of the University of Punjab in Pakistan. The current study results give empirical insights that show how green human resource management practices lead to environmental performance at a greater level in a university setting. Study results proposed that change in behavior of employees through human resource management practices can ultimately affect the organization's environmental performance. Further results also demonstrate that green self-efficacy moderates the relationship between green commitment and pro-environmental behavior. This study highlights the role of the university staff's level of commitment and self-efficacy, which are beneficial for enhancing the university's environmental performance. The originality of this study fills the gap in how green commitment mediates the relationship of green human resource management and environmental performance further; it fulfills the gap of green self-efficacy that moderates the relationship of pro-environmental behavior and green commitment. The study sheds light on green human resource management practices in the higher education sector. It emphasizes the vital role of academic staff's environmentally conscious behavior in enhancing a university's environmental performance. The further study highlighted the increasing concept of green human resource management as a set of building the ability, enhancing motivation, and providing opportunities to influence workers' pro-environmental behaviors. The conclusion of the current research was capable of validating the positive concerns of green GHRM, behaviors, and commitments for environmental performance.

The impact of digital financial inclusion and urbanization on agricultural mechanization: Evidence from counties of China

This paper expounds the theoretical logic among digital inclusive finance, urbanization, and agricultural mechanization level, puts forward the research hypothesis, and then selects the county unbalanced panel data of 1309 counties in China from 2014 to 2020 based on the two-way fixed model with standard error clustering to county level and mediating effect model for empirical data regression analysis. Through baseline regression analysis, mediation effect analysis, and heterogeneity analysis, the findings of this paper are as follows. First, digital financial inclusion has a significant positive effect on the growth of agricultural mechanization. Second, digital inclusive finance at the county level can also indirectly affect the growth of agricultural mechanization through urbanization. That is, agricultural mechanization has an intermediary effect between the financial agglomeration at the county level and the growth of farmers' income. Third, the impact of county-level digital financial inclusion on the growth of agricultural mechanization level is significantly heterogeneous, and the promoting effect is significant in areas with balanced grain production, national-level poor county or contiguous areas of dire poverty, and areas with a good foundation for digital financial inclusion. By analyzing digital inclusive finance, urbanization, and agricultural mechanization, this paper proposes targeted policy recommendations. First, the government can promote agricultural mechanization by developing digital financial inclusion. Second, the government should guide and accelerate the process of digital financial inclusion, promoting urbanization thereby amplifying the positive impact of digital financial inclusion on agricultural mechanization. Third, given the heterogeneity of the impact of digital financial inclusion on agricultural mechanization, local development should focus on developing different dimensions of digital financial inclusion according to specific conditions.

Does environmental regulation caused by air pollution reduce shadow banking for non-financial companies? Based on the exit perspective of implicit government guarantee

As China's economy enters the stage of high-quality development, the sustainability of development becomes increasingly important. Therefore, this study takes air quality index as the explanatory variable, the level of shadow banking as the explained variable, and environmental regulation as the intermediary variable to empirically study whether environmental regulation caused by air pollution will affect the shadow banking of non-financial enterprises. The findings suggest that air pollution is likely to strengthen environmental regulation, thereby reducing the level of shadow banking, as air pollution strengthens environmental regulation, leading to the reduction of implicit government guarantees, while enterprises tend to abandon or minimize reliance on these guarantees and reduce leverage. The mechanism test shows that the ESG performance of non-financial firms weakens the process by which air pollution reduces the degree of shadow banking of non-financial firms, while the short-sightedness of management enhances this process. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this process is more significant under the effect of market-driven environmental regulation and in private enterprises and enterprises in regions with large industrial scale. Therefore, the policy implication is that government should continue to strengthen environmental law enforcement in future supervision, as this can not only reduce pollution levels but also reduce systemic financial risks. Enterprises should also increase their sense of social responsibility.

Spatial-temporal characteristics of geological disaster resilience in poverty and disaster-prone areas in China: a case study of Ganzi Prefecture

Under the tremendous challenges of frequent disasters, disaster resilience is imperative for risk reduction and sustainable management in poverty and disaster-prone areas. Ganzi Prefecture has a complicated topography and vulnerable ecosystems. Geological disasters have historically been the most serious risks in the region. To fully understand the potential risks and strengthen resilience, the study investigates the resilience level of 18 counties in Ganzi. Firstly, the paper develops a multidimensional index system based on the Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities (BRIC) framework. And the entropy weighting method is used to calculate Ganzi's disaster resilience level from the aspects of "society-economy-infrastructure-environment." Then, the study uses exploratory spatial data (ESDA) to analyze the spatial-temporal evolution of disaster resilience. Finally, Geodetector is used to investigate the main driving factors of disaster resilience and their interactions. The results indicated that Ganzi's disaster resilience had maintained an upward trend from 2011 to 2019, with significant spatial divergence, which shows high resilience in the southeast and low resilience in the northwest. The economic indicator is the driving factor in the spatial difference of disaster resilience, and the interaction factor has a significantly stronger explanatory power for resilience. Therefore, the government should strengthen ecotourism development to help alleviate poverty in special industries and promote synergistic regional development.

Assessment of sustainable green financial environment: the underlying structure of monetary seismic aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic

The study aims to assess a sustainable green financial environment by exploring the underlying structure of monetary seismic aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study is qualitative and uses a review of literature, primary data collection methods, and qualitative analysis techniques as the study's overall design. The data is collected by one-to-one interview using a matrix style questionnaire from a panel of experts based on the purposive sampling technique. Interpretive structural modeling (ISM) combined with Matrices' Impacts Cruise's Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (MICMAC) is used for assessment, modeling, and analysis of data. The monetary aftershocks, namely, "more cash in hand required," "decreased travel costs," "shift to more certain or fixed revenue streams," "lower rent costs," "more zealous monitoring of cash collection cycle," and "decreased entertainment costs," occupy level I (top of the model being least critical shocks), and "tedious regulations" occupy level VIII (bottom of the model being the most vital). Other aftershocks form the middle of the model being moderate critical. Analysis of MICMAC shows that monetary seismic aftershocks high fees for assistance regarding SOPs, tedious regulations, and more downtime due to pandemic alerts are independent. This study addresses the core issue from within the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides new important information regarding the structure of a sustainable green financial environment that is useful for economists, financial analysts, commercial and central bankers, accountants and finance managers from the organization's public/and private sectors, local and international community, and researchers of the domain. It provides an informative structural model and classification of critical aftershocks. There are specific data/methodological/resource-related limitations of the study. The study's data are collected from a focus group; the study's methodology is qualitative and indicates relations among variables that do not quantify the associations. The study is a typical initiative of academic researchers with limited financial/physical resources; therefore, the generalizability of the study results is accordingly limited. The study is based on original, essential data and innovatively and creatively approaches the problem. It provides a unique model of an unprecedented phenomenon for reverberating the sustainable green financial environment.

Analyzing the determinants of sustainability of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects: an interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach

China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a game changer initiative of South Asian Pacific Rim. It has great importance for almost all Asian countries. Its success is expected to dictate the economic development of the stakeholders. The aim of this study is to evaluate the essential determinants deriving the sustainability of CPEC projects. The design of the study comprises of the review of literature, data collection, and analysis. Population under study is the folk of stakeholders of CPEC. Sampling envisages on purposive sampling design, i.e., 14 experts from within the stakeholders. Primary data is collected in the field setting through a survey questionnaire appropriate for the study. ISM is used for modelling and MICMAC for analysis and classification using inductive approach. The findings of the literature survey show that there are 23 prime determinants of sustainability of CPEC projects. The results of ISM show that 13 determinants are at Level-I, nine at Level-II, and one determinant namely "economic globalization" is at Level-III being the most critical and driving determinant. The findings of MICMAC show that only one determinant is classified in independent quadrant, and all the remaining determinants are in linkage quadrant, whereas, no determinant is shown in autonomous and/or dependence quadrant. But most of the determinants have potential to be classified in dependent and independent quadrants. It is intimately evident that the results of MICMAC corroborate the results of ISM. It is useful for folk of the stakeholders by way of developing an understanding about the multitude of determinants, intra-determinant relations, prioritizing the determinants for policy decisions, and/or for building future studies. This study has some limitations, e.g., the study uses qualitative approach and answers what and how questions that do not quantify the relations or tell the cause of indicated relations.

Analyzing the pro-environmental behavior of pharmaceutical employees through Green HRM practices: the mediating role of green commitment

Since last few decades, preserving the natural environment has been considered an important issue. Almost every organization is paying attention to environmentalism worldwide. The successful green management in a firm depends on the employee's pro-environmental behavior. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of green human resource management practices on employee's pro-environmental behavior. While considering the mediating role of green commitment. Both Green Human Resource Management Practices and pro-environmental behavior have been considered by various studies but determining green behavior through Green Human Resource Management practices was neglected before. Therefore, this study adopts a quantitative approach to fill the gap. Data has been collected from 279 employees through convenience sampling from the pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the developed constructs. The findings show that there is a direct and indirect effect of Green Human Resource Management practices on employee's pro-environmental behavior through green commitment. The study is unique in its implications. It provides practical and theoretical implications. This study not only bridges the gap highlighted in the literature by introducing Green Human Resource practices as antecedents toward green behavior but also contributes to the literature of organizational behavior, environmental studies, and human resource management and strengthen the AMO framework by using it to explain employee's green behavior through Green Human Resource Management practices.

The impact of COVID-19 on the US renewable and non-renewable energy consumption: a sectoral analysis based on quantile on quantile regression approach

The repercussions of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic go well beyond health concerns, affecting virtually every aspect of our lives, including daily energy consumption. Therefore, this study explores the impact of COVID-19 on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in the USA, which has been severely affected by the recent pandemic. We conducted a detailed analysis of the energy consumption demands of various sectors in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Our in-depth analysis comprises two parts. Initially, we determine the monthly growth change by utilizing the month-on-month method. Subsequently, we used the quantile-on-quantile approach of Sim and Zhou (2015) on data spanning from December 2019 to August 2021 to explore the impact of COVID-19 on energy consumption across the whole distribution. The study's outcomes underscored that compared to renewable energy, non-renewable energy consumption was more affected by the COVID-19 lockdown, and the overall energy consumption (both renewable and non-renewable) remained low. These findings accentuate global strategic management tools to tackle COVID-19 cooperatively and restore the energy mix. Such measures are critical for energy access, security, and evenhandedness.

Does technology innovation matter for environmental pollution? Testing the pollution halo/haven hypothesis for Asian countries

China's GDP grew 9% annually during the end of the twentieth century. This economic growth degrades China's ecology, making it the world's greatest polluter. This position forced China to invest in developing nations and to take advantage of low-cost labor and increased pollution quotas from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to meet sustainable development objectives without environmental harm. The significance of this study is, first, this study examines the influence of Chinese outward foreign direct investment, gross domestic product, trade openness, technological innovation, and energy consumption on carbon emissions in Asian countries (Turkey, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, India, Indonesia, and Cambodia). Secondly, the panel autoregressive distributed lag cointegration (ARDL) technique was used on data from 2000 to 2020 to investigate the pollution halo/haven hypothesis and environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for south Asian nations. This analysis demonstrated that Chinese outbound foreign direct investment increases carbon emissions and confirms the pollution halo concept. Except for India and Pakistan, these nations show a U-shaped link between Chinese foreign direct investment and carbon emissions. So, policy implications recommended by the results of this study are foreign direct investment inflows with modern and ecofriendly technological transfer and enhancement in labor, and conservational management practices will benefit emerging countries to attain their sustainable development goals.

Exploring the mediating role of environmental strategy, green innovations, and transformational leadership: the impact of corporate social responsibility on environmental performance

This study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on environmental performance by utilizing data collected from ten big industrial organizations operating in Lahore, Pakistan. The research data was organized using the cross-sectional process. Of the 316 questionnaires completed by employees, 226 were considered valid, and these responses were used for further PLS analysis. The findings of the research indicate CSR has a moderate impact on environmental performance. Furthermore, the result revealed that green innovation, green capability, environmental strategy, and green transformational leadership are a better ecological performance example that could mediate CSR and environmental performance. This research study postulates the existing resource-based view (RBV) theory for overall directors of industrial organizations and representatives to achieve and manage CSR, green innovation, green capability, environmental strategy, and green transformational leadership to find optimal environmental performance. Thorough study will provide valuable inputs to the overall directors and managers of the enormous industrial sector to support their internal strategies such as CSR, green innovation, green capability, environmental strategy, and green transformational leadership to expand the environmental performance (to help directors, managers, policymakers, and executives to take appropriate/profitable decisions in the future).

Effects of the green supply chain management practices on firm performance and sustainable development

The idea of sustainable development and green supply chain management is considered at the underlying stage in the research and academic fields, particularly in the rising economies of Asia. This research investigates the persuasive force of the firm's green supply chain management practices with the mediating part of the competitiveness and investment recovery. Data was collected from the 12 ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 leather industries based in Pakistan. We distributed the 350 questionnaires at 12 leather industries, and the questionnaire was also transferred on Google Forms, and 50 questionnaire mail to different individuals who work in leather industries of other cities of Pakistan; out of 350 questionnaires, 183 were filled, and the remaining questionnaires were incomplete, and out of 50 emails, we get the response of 33 emails, and evaluated the model of this study by using the partial least square structural equation modeling PLS-SEM. We interact with the employees of leather industries and try to understand how they are following the green practices in their firms. This research uses resource dependence theory as the theoretical base. This study elaborates how the organization's behavior is affected by the external resources of the corporation. The actual outcomes uncover that green supply chain management activities positively impacting the firm's performance, where competitiveness and investment recovery play a mediating role among intra-organizational green practices.