Sustainable rural development (SRD) is an essential component of sustainable development on a global scale. Community Renewable Energy (CRE) has been advocated as a step forward in the progress towards SRD. While Northern European countries are experiencing a high development of CRE, Southern European countries lag behind. Considering entrepreneurship and renewable energy technologies (RET) as two fundamental components of CRE, through a systematic literature review this study identifies the antecedents or conditioning factors of entrepreneurship and RET exploitation in rural areas of developed countries, understanding that these same antecedents condition the development of CRE in these countries. The identified factors are organized around five capital spheres: economic, human, social, physical and natural. Given that these five spheres are not watertight compartments, but rather that their limits are diffuse and there are multiple interactions between them, we try to highlight their interrelationships through System Thinking based on the design of causal loop diagrams. The results can help policy makers and CRE projects’ promoters in the design of effective policies and strategies to foster the development of CRE in rural areas of developed countries.

Community renewable energy has been acknowledged as a necessary step in the transition toward a sustainable energy system. It can contribute to the achievement of energy autonomy by communities. In rural settings, it can be a driver of sustainable rural development. And it can be seen as a specific contribution to circular economy from the energy sector. The willingness to invest in community renewable energy has received some attention in previous research but needs further investigation at the local rural scale through quantitative approaches. Based on a survey in a small Galician village, this study contributes to the filling of this gap. The willingness to invest of its inhabitants is analyzed in relation to alternative financial, sociodemographic and sociopsychological features. Survey results show the heterogeneity of individual attitudes and concerns that condition the willingness to invest in rural community renewable energy and the different perceptions of risk and return related to these projects. Cluster analysis allows identifying four different investor profiles (skeptics, financial illiterate, enthusiasts, yield investors). These should be accounted for by project promoters and policymakers when designing incentives and strategies to foster community renewable energy in rural settings.

Las comunidades energéticas renovables (CER) se han postulado en la literatura académica como una potencial fuente de oportunidades para el desarrollo rural sostenible. Las nuevas líneas estratégicas del Gobierno de la nación apuntan a que podrían empezar a incentivarse de un modo más contundente, haciendo necesario el análisis de los condicionantes de la predisposición a participar y/o invertir en este tipo de iniciativas. Con base en la información recogida a través de una encuesta en un pequeño pueblo de Galicia, analizamos mediante técnicas cuantitativas (análisis de componentes principales y de regresión múltiple) las características sociodemográficas y sociopsicológicas que determinan la predisposición a participar y/o invertir en una CER rural. Los resultados revelan que el género, el nivel de renta y un factor de capital social relacionado con la confianza y la cooperación resultan significativos. Estos resultados nos permiten formular conclusiones y recomendaciones para investigadores, promotores y legisladores.

Objective: This study examines the role of social capital in mobilising investments for community renewable energy (CRE) initiatives in Spain. Combining sustainability transition theory, resource mobilisation theory and complexity theory, it investigates the involvement of individuals, SMEs and local public authorities in CRE projects and explores how these social capital factors, alongside project diversification and installed renewable energy (RE) capacity, influence investment mobilisation. Methodology: A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach is applied to analyse a sample of 68 CRE communities in Spain. The study assesses how different configurations of social capital factors and project characteristics contribute to achieving high or low levels of investment mobilisation. Results: Findings confirm equifinality, causal asymmetry and conjunctural causation in CRE investment mobilisation. High installed RE capacity consistently appears in paths leading to high investment. However, a high number of individuals or local public authorities does not always correlate with greater investment. The results highlight the complexity of interactions between social capital factors and project characteristics. Limitations: This study focuses on Spain, limiting the generalisability of findings to other geographical contexts. Additionally, the sample includes only CRE communities supported by public incentive programs, potentially overlooking other CRE models. Practical implications: Policy frameworks should prioritise increasing installed RE capacity and facilitating SME involvement in CRE initiatives. Local governments play a key role in building trust and driving investment, but their role must be strategically designed to maximise funding. The findings indicate that balancing social capital, project diversity and capacity is crucial for optimising CRE investment mobilisation.

This study develops a composite index to identify and prioritize the most suitable geographical locations for rural Community Renewable Energy (CRE) projects. CRE is central to the sustainable energy transition, but its strategic deployment in rural areas is challenging due to uneven development, the necessity of coordinating diverse resources, and the need for governments to guarantee the prudent use of scarce funds. Framed under the Resource Mobilization Theory, the proposed index helps mitigate these uncertainties by providing a structure for site evaluation. Although the empirical application is performed in a specific Portuguese region, the methodological approach is explicitly designed to be transferable to other national and regional contexts. The index provides significant practical implications for CRE promoters, investors, and spatial planners, offering a transparent, clear-cut tool to define targets and optimize resource allocation. Furthermore, this study contributes to rural development literature by merging entrepreneurship and renewable energy fields, demonstrating how local CRE can effectively leverage available resources to deliver both private and community benefits.

The tourism sector is widely recognized as a pivotal catalyst for global development and economic growth. However, it faces significant challenges, which have intensified the search for alternative and more sustainable tourism models. Digital technologies have become essential tools for transformation, with the metaverse emerging as a disruptive and promising innovation strategy for the tourism industry. Thus, this study aims to provide a comprehensive review of all previous scientific literature related to the adoption of the metaverse in the context of sustainable tourism, developing a bibliometric analysis (through techniques such as co-citation analysis of references and author keyword co-occurrence) of all articles indexed in Web of Science database from January 2021 to September 2025. Specifically, the references co-citation analysis has concluded three main thematic clusters related to conceptual foundations, technological advances, and metaverse adoption possibilities, respectively. The results obtained indicate that research on the metaverse in sustainable tourism is still at an early stage of development and is primarily conceptual in nature. This study contributes to the emerging research field of metaverse and sustainable tourism by offering a comprehensive review to establish its theoretical foundations and identify opportunities for future research.