Environmental sustainability is a major challenge for the governments of various countries. The industrial sector and the growth of startups have created a challenge for sustainable development, with little concept of innovativeness for environment sustainability. The current research aims to foster environmental sustainability by adopting sustainability innovation and environmental opinion leadership in the hospital industry. The adoption of sustainability innovation along with environmental opinion leadership in the hospital industry is rarely studied in the literature. Particularly, this concept is completely ignored in the context of Pakistan. Quantitative research approach is employed in this study. A survey instrument in form of a questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. Respondents of the study were the employees working in public hospitals of Pakistan. Simple random sampling was employed for data collection. The data analysis was carried out by using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings of this study concluded that the role of trialability, innovativeness, compatibility, simplicity, and relative advantage must be considered when adopting sustainable innovation in hospitals. The practical and theoretical implications of this study are significant for the improvement of environmental sustainability in Pakistan.

Water is vital and an essential entity directly and indirectly for all living creatures from their birth, whereas electrical energy has a dominant role in the growth of society in general and for human beings in particular. Optimal use of water and production of electrical energy at minimum cost are potential research challenges. Hydraulic energy is one of the cheapest and the most exploited renewable energy resource for power generation worldwide, and is in line with the seventh United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 7). The Indus basin is a trans-boundary basin, and its modeling has been a source of interest for scientists and policymakers. Indus Basin Model Revised (IBMR) has many variants, all focusing on optimal use of water for irrigation purposes. In this paper, the modified IBMR model is proposed addressing both agriculture and power generation aspects simultaneously. This model optimizes the Consumer Producer Surplus (CPS) by considering different water inflow probabilities. A parameter has been introduced in the modified objective function to manipulate the supply of water to agriculture and hydropower generation. The proposed model has been implemented in Generic Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) and case studies have been investigated in presence and absence of power generation. The results obtained show that, with incorporation of hydropower, basin wide income is increased up to 11.83% using 50% exceedance probability, and results are in agreement with reference power generation estimated by National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC). The SDG 7 targets ensure the reasonable, dependable, sustainable and contemporary energy access to all. The current research is focusing on how Pakistan would achieve the SDG 7 targets. By 2040, it is anticipated that Pakistan’s energy mix will have around 40% of hydropower and 16% of renewable energy.

Globalization today is quite effectively governed by patterns defined by China’s dominance in global trade and commerce. China has started to correspond with numerous countries in order to build economic corridors. Historically, China has a keen interest in African countries where cheap workers and plentiful resources are available. This opportunity has been favourably received by the African countries. However, it has been observed from various sources that Chinese investment in Africa has been intended for exploiting the resources and the countries in Africa. This study aims to investigate the potential impact of unprecedented Chinese FDI on infrastructure development in selected African countries. The empirical analysis is conducted by using a panel data approach for 28 African countries spanning from 2003-15. These empirical estimations have been carried out through fixed effects technique. The findings of the study reveal that Chinese investment has a positive impact on infrastructure development in the sample countries. Based on study findings, it is safely concluded that Chinese investment and infrastructure development move parallel in the sample countries.

Structuring Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an insightful initiative for a fast-track industrial development and to bolster the stagnated economy of Pakistan. Implementing effective SEZs is possible by an approach of replicating the success stories and learning lessons from the failure causes of SEZs around the globe. This paper focuses on a conscientious political economy framework in terms of policy making, planning and strategy, regulatory scheme, administrative and management structure which is prerequisite for a successful functioning of SEZs in Pakistan. The literature reveals that transparency in the components of political institutions and consistency of good governance is obligatory to move ahead on the avenue of success whereas flaws in governance structure can provide grounds to obstruct SEZs development and prevent replication of best practices, as example of African SEZs is evident in this case. To analyze and attain appropriate findings a recent technique, Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) has been employed which captures the long-run and short-run relationships between the variable of interests. Figuring out the prior and prevailing performance of political institutions in Pakistan and answering the question ‘what Pakistan can grasp from the root causes behind the failure of African SEZs’ is crucial so that appropriate policies can be designed to overcome the challenges in flourishing the SEZs under CPEC.