The Effect of Social Capital on Environmental Pollution in China-Suppression or Promotion?

Does ambient air quality standard contribute to green innovation of enterprises in China? Implications for environmental protection and public health

In the post-COVID-19 era, environmental pollution has been a serious threat to public health. Enterprises are in urgent need of enhancing green technology innovation as the main source of pollutant emissions, and it is necessary for governments to support green innovation of enterprises to reduce pollutant emissions and promote public health. In this context, this paper investigates whether the Ambient Air Quality Standard (AAQS) implemented in 2012 in China contributes to green innovation of enterprises, to provide implications for environmental protection and public health. By using panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, this study adopts the difference-in-difference model to analyze the policy impact of environmental regulation on green innovation of enterprises and its internal mechanism. The results show that AAQS has significantly improved the green innovation of enterprises. Furthermore, AAQS affects the green innovation of enterprises by virtue of two mechanism paths: compliance cost effect and innovation offset effect. On the one hand, AAQS leads to an increase in production costs of enterprises, thus inhibiting green innovation activities of enterprises. On the other hand, AAQS encourages enterprises to increase R&D investment in green technology, thus enhancing their green innovation. In addition, the impact of AAQS on firms' green innovation has heterogeneous characteristics. Our findings not only enrich the studies of environmental regulation and green innovation of enterprises but also provide policymakers in China and other developing countries with implications for environmental protection and public health improvement.

The Sharing of Costs and Benefits of Rural Environmental Pollution Governance in China: A Qualitative Analysis through Guanxi Networks Perspective

Concern has been expressed in many parts of the world that community relations in rural areas are breaking down, making issues such as rural environmental degradation harder to resolve without external regulation. Guanxi is a specific Chinese idiom for characterizing social networks, as a broad term to represent existing relations among people, which can be loosely translated as ''relationship''. Based on a case study of an underdeveloped mountainous area of Southern China, this paper examined the problem from the perspective of guanxi, and explored the impacts of internal group differentiation catalyzed by pig farming pollution and the subsequent influences on the distribution of costs and benefits of different shareholders. It was found that the guanxi in the village were changed from blood relationship centered to economic interest centered. This disparity exerts a significant influence on the distribution of costs and benefits of pollution control and exacerbates environmental inequalities. This means that pig farmers dominated the narrative of pig farming pollution, while the ordinary villagers chose to suffer without protesting, which hinders the advancement of pollution control, and pig farmers took the benefits of weak pollution control and managed to transfer the external cost to others, while others became direct victims. The paper concludes that the rich become richer and the poor become poorer in both economic and environmental perspectives. It is strongly suggested that guanxi should be integrated into the consideration and decision-making process of rural environmental governance in order to guarantee the efficiency and efficacy of its implementation.

The Impact of Ecological Civilization Construction on Environment and Public Health-Evidence from the Implementation of Ecological Civilization Demonstration Area in China

Faced with an increasingly tight resource supply, serious environmental pollution and degrading ecosystems, human beings are eager to reduce environmental pollution and promote public health. In this context, this paper takes the ecological civilization demonstration area (ECDA) established in China as a quasi-natural experiment to test whether ecological civilization construction (ECC) is an effective solution for the reduction of environmental pollution and improvement of public health. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2009 to 2020, the study analyzes the impact of ECC on environmental quality and public health by employing a difference-in-difference model. The results show that ECDA has restrained environmental pollution and reduced the morbidity and mortality, which indicates that ECC effectively promotes environmental quality and public health. The effect of ECC is more pronounced in economically developed regions. In addition, ECC improves environmental quality through scale effects, structural effects, technology effects, and ecological conservation effects, while the positive effects of ECC on public health are driven by scale effects and ecological conservation effects only. Therefore, policymakers should support low-carbon production, promote the upgrade of industrial structures, and encourage enterprises to develop green technologies. Ecological protection projects such as afforestation and greening are necessary. Governments should initiate ecological civilization construction in economically developed regions and then gradually promote the policies in relatively poor areas.

Determinants of household’s waste disposal practices and willingness to participate in reducing the flow of plastics into the ocean: Evidence from coastal city of Lagos Nigeria

Marine plastic pollution is a critical environmental challenge facing policymakers globally. To reduce marine plastic pollution by engaging the people, this study estimated the determinants of waste disposal approach by households, their willingness to participate in road gutters/drainage channels cleanup program and the number of man-days they are willing to contribute. The study used a total of 600 households drawn from 30 enumeration areas. A semi-structured questionnaire was employed in data collection. Means, percentages, multinomial logit model and Heckman selection model were employed in data analysis. The study found that most (67.42 percent) of the households in the coastal city of Lagos engage in illegal waste disposal. Some variables, household size, involvement in previous community cleanup activities, receipt of waste management information, payment of waste management fee, and having a dumpster in a locality, significantly reduce the likelihood of illegal waste disposal. The study also found that most (75.50 percent) of the households were willing to clean up road gutters/drainage channels; however, most (83.20 percent) were only willing to contribute one man-day (eight hours) in a week. Gender and previous participation in voluntary service significantly influenced both households’ willingness to participate and the number of the man-days they are willing to contribute. Women are more likely to participate and contribute man-days to the activity. Education, household size and amount paid as waste management fee significantly reduced the number of man-days households are willing to contribute. In contrast, the provision of information on waste management significantly increased the number of days they are likely to participate. The study recommended providing waste management information and dumpsters to reduce illegal waste disposal, mobilizing citizens, especially women, the less educated and low waste fee-paying households, through well-packaged information about plastic pollution.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Regional Ecological Civilization Policy: Evidence from Jiangsu Province, China

Evaluating the effectiveness of ecological civilization policies is the basis from which policymakers can optimize policies. From the perspective of the overall effectiveness of regional policies, and taking Jiangsu Province as an example, this study constructed a quantitative evaluation model of eco-civilization policy text and an eco-civilization evaluation index system. Using these tools, this paper evaluates the effectiveness of 53 ecological civilization policies issued by Jiangsu Province during 2004-2019 to promote the construction of ecological civilization in the four fields of resource utilization, environmental protection, economic development, and social life. There are three key findings. (1) During the period of 2004-2019, the effectiveness of the textual content of ecological civilization policies in Jiangsu Province generally showed a fluctuating upward trend. (2) The construction effectiveness indexes of the four fields of eco-civilization all showed a growth trend, but the construction effect varied greatly. The index of economic development had grown rapidly, while environmental protection had grown slowly. (3) Ecological civilization policies in Jiangsu Province were effective in promoting the construction of ecological civilization. However, the effects of different policy dimensions on ecological civilization development in the four fields were significantly different. Finally, based on these results, powerful recommendations are provided for the optimization of eco-civilization policies in Jiangsu Province. Moreover, Jiangsu is the first province in China to launch a provincial-level ecological civilization construction plan. Its policy optimization to promote ecological civilization construction can also provide an example and realistic basis for reference for the construction of eco-civilization in other provinces in China.