The sustainability in energy industry is one of the most prominent issues in emerging economies because of needs for the long-term growth of production and managerial capacity. Accordingly, corporate governance could lead to develop the sustainable production of energy industry. The purpose of this study is to define a set of criteria and dimensions for analyzing the corporate governance-based strategic approach to sustainability in the energy industry of emerging economies. For this purpose, this study provides several novelties by extending a hybrid decision making model with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIF) and defining the related criteria and dimensions of corporate governance-based strategic approach with the supported literature. IVIF decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is constructed for measuring the relative importance of criteria and dimensions. IVIF VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) is applied for ranking the corporate governance-based performance of sustainable energy industries in emerging economies. Sensitivity analysis is also used for understanding the coherence of ranking results. Analysis results illustrate that the energy industry could provide more sustainable results than the conventional managerial policies by considering the social capital of board members. Additionally, mass-economies are closely related to the sustainable production capacities of energy industry and have the best performance results for the corporate governance-based sustainable energy production strategies. The results are discussed to provide the policy recommendations by comparing analysis results of emerging economies for further studies.

The significance of environmental protection activities is well known, but little literature has focused on the well-being effects of environmental protection behavior among farmer groups. This study provides new literature support for farmers and rural development issues. Using data from the 2013 China Integrated Social Survey, a systematic and robust examination of the happiness effects of environmental protection behavior among Chinese farmers and their transmission mechanisms was conducted with the help of multiple regression techniques and mediated impact analysis. The study found that Chinese farmers' environmental protection behavior can directly trigger the experience of well-being and also indirectly enhance subjective well-being by improving the quality of life in other areas, thanks to their characteristics in avoiding environmental risks and enhancing social interactions. Increased education may contribute to farmers being more motivated by benefits such as material rewards, experience, and skills, and thus experiencing less well-being from environmental protection behavior. The fact that farmers of all household incomes experience equal well-being from environmental protection behavior is consistent with the view of non-differential well-being experiences in the volunteering literature. The research in this paper adds new evidence to the existing literature and provides an essential reference for policymakers and participants in rural development in China. In addition, studying individual issues in environmental governance in rural China provides a Chinese case study and practical lessons for farmer development in other countries worldwide.

In global climate change, improving carbon productivity holds great importance for China’s sustainable growth. Based on panel data of 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 1997–2017, the drivers, spatial effects, and convergence characteristics of carbon productivity in China are explored by combining a factor decomposition framework and a spatial panel model. The findings show that (1) China’s carbon productivity shows continuous positive growth, and the substitution effect of capital for energy dominates this changing pattern; (2) There is a β-convergence trend and club convergence in China’s carbon productivity, and the spatial technology spillover accelerates the convergence rate; (3) With its accelerated industrial transformation and technological upgrading, China’s current carbon productivity converges faster than its earlier stage, and the role of physical capital investment has gradually shifted to suppression. In contrast, the positive push of human capital investment has been strengthened; (4) From the perspective of the realization mechanism, the convergence of carbon productivity in China mainly comes from the convergence of energy restructuring and capital-energy substitution. These findings can help China narrow the inter-provincial carbon productivity gap in terms of improving factor structure, upgrading technology, etc., and provide references for sustainable growth decision making in China and around the world.