The Presentation

High-income countries often outsource material demands to poorer countries along with the associated environmental damage. This phenomenon can also occur within (large) countries, such as China, which was responsible for 24 to 30% of the global material footprint (MF) between 2007 and 2010. Understanding the distribution and development of China’s MF is hence critical for resource efficiency and circular economy ambitions globally. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of China’s MF at the provincial and sectoral levels. We combine provincial-level input–output data with sector- and province-specific trade data, detailed material extraction data, and the global input–output database EXIOBASE. We find that some provinces have MFs equivalent to medium-sized, high-income countries and limited evidence of material decoupling.

Lower-income regions with high levels of material extraction can have an MF per capita as large as developed provinces due to much higher material intensities. The higher-income south-coastal provinces have lower MF per capita than equally developed provinces.

This finding relates partly to differences in economic structure but indicates the potential for improvement across provinces. Investment via capital formation is up to 4 times more resource-intensive than consumption and drives 49 to 86% of provincial-level MFs (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average is 37%). Resource-efficient production, efficient use of capital goods/infrastructure, and circular design are essential for reductions in China’s MF. Policy efforts to shift to a high-quality development model may reduce material intensities, preferably while avoiding the further outsourcing of high-intensity activities to other provinces or lower-income countries.

The COVID 19 pandemic-related recovery packages are financed by national debt, hence they are loans from future generations. This points to a moral responsibility to “Build forward Better”. The good news is that we also have a strong economic case for “Building forward Better”. Recent simulations of the effect of green recovery plans worldwide confirm that a green economic stimulus is more growth-enhancing than a ‘return-to-normal’ stimulus that would merely boost current, unsustainable consumption and production patterns. Beyond fiscal stimulus that is expected to boost aggregate demand, this crisis calls for transformative public investments that will shape a sustainable and fair, green and digital transition, and leverage private sector investment. Our long-term vision should be the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 2015 Paris Agreement, while the European Green Deal provides the right level of ambition and direction.

Water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector requires a huge investment commonly contributed from the household spending. Microfinance provides alternative financing to support the financial gap in reaching universal access to WSS in order to improve the public health and wellbeing. Using the Propensity Score Matching to Water.org’s household survey data combined with the Village Potential’s village statistics, this study aims to evaluate the impact of microcredit devoted to the improvements of water and sanitation facilities towards household welfare measured by WSS improvement, income, and the share of health expenditure. The research findings demonstrate that borrowers’ participation in WSS microcredit results in a significantly higher proportion of households improving WSS facilities by 44.8 percentage points, significantly higher monthly income by IDR 233,179, and significantly lower proportion of the health expenditure by 28 percentage points. Thus, the role of WSS microcredit may be considered as an income-generating loan product, rather than purely consumptive.

The problem of air pollution from PM2.5 dust has huge health implications. People need to protect themselves by wearing masks to avoid PM2.5 dust, using air purifiers, or spending more time at home. The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate air quality perception (AQP) and the averting costs, (2) examine factors affecting the averting costs and (3) compare the effect of the perceived air quality (AQP) and PM2.5 exposure on averting costs. The method for estimating averting costs is based on the actual cost of purchasing protective equipment from smog problems. For the assessment of perceived air quality (AQP), a series of questionnaires and assessment methods are used based on the study by Deguen et al. (2012), which collected data from a survey of 600 people living in Chiang Mai.

The results showed that the sample group had a low perception of air quality during the haze problem (January - April 2021). The mean and median values of perceived quality were 0.399 and 0.387, respectively, but the variable of perceived air quality had the greatest influence on avoidance behavior. In assessing the averting cost, it was found that the samples that used PM2.5 dust masks had an average cost of 322.89 baht/person/year, the average cost of using an air purifier was 526.50 baht/person/year, and the averting cost of spending more time at home was 597.94 baht/person/year on average. Based on the population of Chiang Mai aged 25-50, it was found that the total averting cost in 2021 was 230 million baht/year.

Individual factors that positively affected the averting cost were a bachelor's degree or higher, income, and knowledge of smog problems. The two PM2.5 exposure variables, average residential PM2.5 particulate matter and number of days PM2.5 particulate matter exceeds the standard, were found to have no effect on averting costs, while perceived air quality (AQP) had a significant effect on costs.

The previous environmental literature has emphasized the adverse effects of fine particulate matter diameter < 2.5 (PM2.5) on human health. The majority of agricultural land in Thailand is rice paddy fields, where the crop residue burning is a significant emission source after the harvesting season. In this study, the economic value of health impacts attributable to PM2.5 to support sustainable agriculture. The rice straw burning scenarios is perceived through the land-use transformation from conventional to organic rice. The conventional rice practice does not restrict burning after harvesting in contrast to the organic practice. Then, the area of conventional rice is assumed as one of the emission sources of air pollution. As an organic rice area increases, the concentration of PM2.5 declines over time. The concentration of PM2.5 retrieve from the satellite data and integrated with the changes in the rice cultivation area. The human health risk associated with PM2.5 concentrations is measured in an exposure-respond function in which the health endpoint is classified in mortality rate per 10 per 10µg/m3. The health impacts were estimated in pre-mortality caused by respiratory system disease. The value of economic cost is determined through the amended human capital approach across scenarios. The results reveal that the health impacts decline with the controlling of PM2.5 pollution through the area of conventional rice cultivation. The economic loss reduced substantially as the organic rice cultivation campaign proceeded.

The purpose of this study is to examine dynamic impacts of renewable energy consumption incoporating financial development on CO2 emissions in Vietnam by using a dataset of time-series in a 24-year period from 1992 to 2015. The method of Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag and Bounds (the ARDL) test is employed to examine the long run and short run relationships among the variables. Findings of the research show that higher levels of renewable energy consumption and financial development might lead to a lower-level of CO2 emissions in Vietnam both in the long term and in the short term.

The article explores the causal relationship between economic growth, employment, capital, and CO2 emissions in Vietnam between 1991 and 2020 using the VECM. In the short run, it has been empirically found that GDP and labor force have positive relationships with CO2 emissions in Vietnam. Capital contributes to economic growth, and labor force positively affects capital in this country. In the long run, we found that economic growth has a negative influence on CO2 emissions, while the growth of labor force and capital leads to an increase of CO2 emissions. Results of the Johansen co-integration test show that there is a long run relationship between CO2 emissions, economic growth, labour force, and capital. Policies are recommended to enhance economic growth and achieve the target in environmental protection for Vietnam. First, economic growth should be considered by the government along with the target in environmental protection since economic growth is a driver leading to the increase of CO2 emissions. Second, capital and labor should be facilitated because these resources contribute to the growth of GDP and capital. Lastly, it is necessary for Vietnam to adjust the economic growth model from the traditional model to the environmental-friendly model such as either green economy or circular economy to achieve sustainable development in the long term. The growth model of Vietnam should be adjusted through accelerating the knowledge factor as well as improving labor productivity rather than relying on the capital stock.

The islands in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia are well-known for the rich coral reef ecosystems. The fisheries and other reef based marine resources have been under severe stress due to increasing tourism and fishing activities. The government of Malaysia has established several Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to enable overexploited marine resources to recover and to conserve coral reef ecosystems. This paper investigates the governance arrangements that effect better management of two MPAs in Perhentian and Kapas islands in Terengganu State of Peninsular Malaysia. This study elicits the perception of local fishers and other stakeholders on the important governance factors that may influence the management effectiveness of the MPAs. The data for this study was obtained from face-to-face interviews with local people from two islands using a structured questionnaire. The results of the analysis show that the main factors contribute to the governance are: fishers’ participation in management, conflict management, and management capacity. The regression results show that fishers’ participation, monitoring and enforcement, and management capacity contributed significantly to the governance factors, indicating that these factors play very important roles in improving MPA governance and management of coral reefs and fisheries resources. There is a need to give priority to encourage local fishers’ participation in decision making process of MPAs management. Fishers’ active involvement in MPA management could improve management that enhance coral health and abundance of fisheries resources in the MPAs in Malaysia.

Oceans are impacted by increasing levels of marine litter. We investigate preferences of fishers in Vietnam for interventions to curb marine litter, using a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) approach. BWS is a stated preference method allowing the elicitation of relative importance weights that respondents place on different interventions. Moreover, we examine types and sources of marine litter as well as fisher perceptions towards its economic and environmental impacts. The results show that marine litter comes from many places, among which land-based solid waste is the main source. Fishery is the main sea-based source of marine litter, but itself also subject to its economic costs. The need to repair or replace fishing equipment that is damaged or lost due to encounters with marine litter, accounts for nearly 2% of annual catch revenue. The most abundant type of marine litter is plastic, with other materials being wood, metal, rubber, paper, or glass. Fishers are highly aware of the environmental impacts of marine litter, implying a good premise for their support of measures to reduce and mitigate marine litter in Vietnam. BWS results show that the perceived effectiveness of proposed measures to address marine litter varies among fishers and between fisheries, implying a “one size fits all” approach would not work in this context. Despite such heterogeneous preferences for the interventions there are areas of agreement. While fishers believe that ‘awareness raising’, ‘onshore collection’, and ‘on-board technology’ are most effective interventions, others such as ‘biodegradable gear’ and ‘gear-lost report’ are considered least effective in combating with marine litter. Our results emphasize the importance of developing actions to raise awareness and stimulate behavior change of fishers to curb marine litter pollution, and to improve the availability of waste facilities on ports, small islands, and coastal areas.

The objective of this study is to construct Thailand’s Ocean Satellite Account for the year 2018 by employing the Leontief Model. The study then proposes strategic guidelines for ocean economy development. The ocean account contains 12 sectors related to ocean based economic activities covering 23 coastal provinces in Thailand. It has been found that in 2018 Thailand’s ocean economy represents 27 percent of the country’s GDP. The numbers will be higher if Thailand can utilize more of its coastal resources. Presently, only four major sectors are fully developed which accounts for 75 percent of the ocean economy. These sectors are marine and coastal tourism, offshore oil and gas, marine R&D education, and marine manufacturing and construction. The ocean economic multiplier of 2.6 indicates that if final demand spending on a particular ocean economic sector increases by 1 million baht, then the GDP will be increased by 2.6 million baht. The study shows that Thailand’s ocean economy can generate different magnitudes of income from final demand spending across 12 sectors because each sector has a different economic multiplier. To make Thailand’s ocean economy another growth engine, the government should focus more studies on Blue Economy and address the issue as one of the national agenda in the 20-year national development plan. The Blue Economy should also be included in the 13^th five-year plan for economic and social development plan.

Energy label allows saving on consumers’ electricity bill reduces environmental impact and helps consumers make better-informed purchasing decision. This paper employed a hypothetical choice experiment (CE) in Terengganu, Malaysia to investigate whether the energy efficiency (EE) label influences consumer preference on refrigerator. Based on the CE, consumers’ awareness and attitude regarding refrigerator were measured. A Multinomial Logit (MNL) and Mixed Logit (ML) better was specified to measure the attributes that consumers search for when choosing refrigerators. This study focused on non-monetary attributes, namely energy star, energy consumption, energy saving and price of refrigerator and monetary attribute. Results revealed about 88.11% of respondents are willing to pay to get better quality appliances that promote safe environment and 11.89% are not willing to pay. The consumers prefer to pay more for refrigerator with high energy saving, as they believe maintaining energy saving every month will reduce the cost of electricity bill. Hence, maintaining an energy-efficient at home can significantly save household income and promote the environment by conserving natural resources.

This study aimed to value ecosystem service of mangrove blue carbon at the national and provincial level in Thailand using benefit transfer with a meta-analysis. The data was collected from two sources: the TEEB database compiled by Van der Ploeg and Groot (2010), and additional review of past research papers. The results revealed that socio-economic factors (e.g., per capita income and population density per area) were related in line with service values of ecosystem. We also found that types of ecosystems and their corresponding services influence the value of ecosystem services as well. Here we found that the values of mangrove ecosystem services are valued at (2020 PPP) 2,425 USD/hectare/year as a source of raw materials; 4,425 USD/hectare/year as a source of food; 5,143 USD/hectare/year for the recreational services; 3,382 USD/hectare/year for service of carbon sequestration; 9,167 USD/hectare/year for protecting extreme events; 8,420 USD/hectare/year for other services. When classified ecosystem service values of mangrove ​​according to levels of its fertility, it was found that low, moderate and high fertility mangrove ecosystem services were equal to 897 USD/hectare/year, 3,382 USD/hectare/year and 1,011 USD/hectare/year, respectively. When considering the value of ecosystem services for mangrove at the provincial level, it was found that, overall, mangrove forests in 25 provinces have the value of ecosystem services from carbon sequestration up to 3,541,753,705 USD/year divided into the value of mangrove ecosystem services with low, medium and high fertility levels equal to 247,797,584 USD/year, 2,884,030,684 USD/year and 409,925,438 USD/year, respectively. The mangrove in Satun Province had the highest value of ecosystem services from carbon sequestration, followed by Trang, Phang Nga, Ranong and Krabi, respectively. Several recommendations are proposed to promote mangrove blue carbon in Thailand.

Marine litter is recognized as a significant concern in Vietnam. Recently, the government has developed a national action plan to address marine litter with the emphasis on the collection of abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear. This paper aimed to investigate environmental responsible engagement of fishers and to examine whether the fishers behave pro-environmentally and support policy for curbing marine litter. Data from 369 Vietnamese fishers are analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that the combination of values, beliefs, and personal norms can explain 25.5 percent of the variance of the fishers' behaviors toward marine litter and 31.4 percent of their support for marine litter policy. Our findings highlight both pro-environmental behavior and policy support as important strategies for dealing with marine litter in fisheries, and if implemented concurrently, they hold the promise of addressing the effects of marine litter in Vietnam.

The Langat catchment area offers a complete ecosystem service that benefits its locale ecological beings, including catchment area protection, biodiversity management cycle, picturesque scenery, and carbon confiscation filters. Acceptance of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) in Malaysia is rather low, with the system being operated at its infancy stage. The PES has gained global attention as it provides a market-based approach to compensate and encourage the ecosystem service provider by enhancing its sustainable land management activities. Despite this awareness, the present environmental services implemented in Malaysia are antagonised with threats from land development greed activities. This study focussed on the Langat River water quality due to the recent pollution that has led the river to be classified as partially contaminated. Households sampled within the Langat River Basin vicinity were randomly selected for a personal interview to evaluate their willingness to pay (WTP) for catchment area conservancy benefits. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was implemented to measure the WTP factor among the selected households. The mean WTP value of the households was RM33.07, which reflects a high awareness regarding catchment area protection services. The study outcomes serve as a benchmark for decision makers to enhance management and maintenance of the Langat forested catchment area.

Bukit Larut, formerly famous as “Maxwell Hill”, is designated as Forest Recreation Area under the National Forestry Act as part of green infrastructure that flatters people's quality of life and promotes green tourism. Green tourism boosts visitors to appreciate the ecological landscapes and learn about environmental challenges that emphasise nature conservation. However, due to the unavailability of a market, the economic value of green tourism is difficult to quantify in financial terms for these resources. Therefore, this study aims to determine the willingness to pay for the green tourism conservation at the Forest Recreation Area of Bukit Larut, Perak, using the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). A total of 250 respondents were collected through a questionnaire survey which was distributed randomly during this study. Five different bid prices were allocated in this study, including MYR5, MYR10, MYR15, MYR20, and MYR25 using the Logit Model to estimate the visitor's WTP for green tourism conservation. This study showed that most visitors are willing to pay a certain amount for green tourism conservation, influenced by race, religion, age, marital status, education level, and income. Regression analysis revealed that the estimated mean visitor’s willingness to pay is MYR4.69, while the median WTP is MYR3.68. Thus, it was concluded that Bukit Larut’s conservation initiatives were feasible for green tourism in the future. The financial resources obtained from the WTP would support the Bukit Larut management to distribute funds for conservation and maintenance purposes.

The purpose of this study is to estimate whether the WTP for fish conservation zones in terms of fish species protection. The authors used cross-sectional data that was collected from 369 households in 3 villages in Khong district of Champasak province Laos in 2021 and used WTP and maximum likelihood regression for analysis. The estimate of the empirical model that is used for econometric analysis is based on the model constructed by (Dwivedi et al., 2018). This study finds that the average WTP of households in target villages for fish conservation zones is 12.12 US $/household/year. The bid price, the recognition of the necessity of the fish conservation zones' knowledge, and average monthly income all have a positive impact on WTP for fish conservation zones with a statistically significant impact. The authors conclude that the fish conservation zones might increase more fish species in the study area. This valuation can be calculated as the cost to improve the quality of establishing fish conservation zones by multiplying the number of people in three villages of 768 people, which is the value expectation of the economy at 9,310 US $/year. However, improving public goods conservation now is the duty of everybody, so if we would like to improve fish conservation zones more efficiently than ever, we may find alternatives that are more suitable and sustainable.

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