The need for Romanian agriculture development by efficient usage of resources and a rural environment has led to the establishment of agricultural cooperatives. Romania needs strong cooperatives and, in order to achieve this, the involvement of not only the authorities and agricultural producers, but also of each inhabitant from the rural area, is required. In the context of food market saturation with import products, it is necessary to revive the Romanian market in order to supply natural and quality products. A total of 1425 agricultural cooperatives were registered in Romania at the end of 2018, out of which 57% did not submit the Balance Sheet. The research performed within the study proposes the usage of fsQCA analysis in order to assess some conditions considered by us essential for the sustainability of the agricultural cooperatives. These conditions are represented by the initial contribution of the members, by the existence of a central collection space, by the employment of a manager, by the knowledge of the members on the development possibilities, and by the involvement of the members within the cooperative’s activity. The study highlights the fact that the absence of the conditions presented leads to the absence of a sustainable cooperative. We consider the dissolution of the cooperatives pertinent, which has not developed an activity for more than three years from their establishment and the publication on the MADR website of the National Registry of Cooperatives, which will offer a true image on the prosperity and viability of these types of entities.

Purpose: Horses play an important role in the agricultural industry around the world. The equestrian sector offers new markets and sustainable business opportunities. This paper, based on a structural equation modelling approach, seeks to explore the interests of Romanian entrepreneurs in developing a sustainable business in the equestrian sector by investing in the use of horse manure. This manure is an important renewable resource in the circular economy, including in the production of bioenergy and bio-fertilizers. The present research investigates whether there is an interest in developing such a business in Romania, built around three pillars: the environment, society and the economy.Design/methodology/approach: PLS-SEM is an appropriate method for this research, where prediction of interest for sustainable entrepreneurship plays a central role. In total, 153 responses have been collected and validated based on a questionnaire and the invitations to complete were sent to people who are already entrepreneurs or have intention to become entrepreneurs in the near future.Findings: The structural model shows that society's interest has the strongest effect on developing a sustainable business model through horse manure. Surprisingly, the study does not reflect an expected correlation between the interest in the environment and the development of a sustainable business model through horse manure resulting in bioenergy.Originality/value: This study contributes to arousing the interest in research and even the development of a business by presenting the sustainability factors in the horse industry and adopting technological innovations, services, products and business models. The study was conducted in Romania, where, currently, the manure produced by horses is underexploited, and the equestrian sector requires new business models, innovations and sustainable development.

The EU energy sector became a very important one as a result of the war in Ukraine. On the other hand, the EU started in defining and implementing new strategies regarding green economy and sustainability. Even though these strategies cover short and medium periods, they have as a main goal the decrease in the EU’s dependence of energy imports. This research is focused on present challenges, risks, and uncertainties related to energy production and consumption in all EU member states. In order to achieve the research objectives, a huge statistical database, which covered 2012–2021, was used. The analysis is based on specific indicators regarding primary energy production; imports and exports; gross available energy; final energy consumption; non-energy consumption; energy dependency; and energy intensity. There are at least three research procedures used in this paper: a meta-analysis, a statistical analysis, and an econometric analysis, as well. Finally, the analysis points out the disparities between member states regarding energetic resources and energy dependency using a new model for quantifying risk factors in the European energy system. Moreover, new public policies are proposed by the authors under a cluster approach of the EU’s regions.

Renewable energy is produced from natural sources that can regenerate quickly, such as the sun, wind, water, biomass and the earth’s heat. This implies that the resources used do not have a significant negative impact on the environment, which aligns with current concerns for protecting the planet and ecosystems. This study aims to explore the behavior of entrepreneurs regarding the processing of resources that can be introduced in the circular economy and the development of the renewable energy portfolio by transforming horse manure into bioenergy. Employing Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and based on an extensive dataset comprising 104 responses from entrepreneurs engaged in or aspiring to participate in the renewable energy sector, this research reveals a noteworthy finding. Contrary to prevailing expectations, it demonstrates that the perceived interest in safeguarding future resources and the environment among these entrepreneurs is currently low. This study not only enriches the understanding of entrepreneurial behavior within the renewable energy domain but also extends the Theory of Planned Behavior. In doing so, it underscores the critical significance of sustainability factors as drivers of future business development and underscores the need for comprehensive policy initiatives that compel greater commitment to renewable energy and circular economy practices.

The fragmentation of the Agricultural Real Estate in Romania, which is due to the lack of vision regarding the retrocession of the land and to the ineffective measures for reparcelling farmland, manifests by the existence of a record number of about 3422 million farms in Romania, of which about 92% have a utilized agricultural area (UAA) below 5 ha. The Romanian agricultural sector possesses about 30% of the total European farms but contributes only 3% to the total EU agricultural production. The association of local agricultural producers may be an alternative to reparcelling farmland on a short-term basis in order to reduce the fragmentation degree and increase the competitiveness of the national agricultural sector. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 25 active groups of agricultural producers are registered in the South-East Region in 2018, where these associative entities have been recorded to have a low degree of viability. The paper proposes an analysis on the farmers’ motivation regarding the access to/exit from a form of agricultural association and the identification of some alternatives for increasing the viability of the associative forms in the agricultural sector in the South-East of Romania. In this respect, a study was carried out on a sample of 16 entities that gave up their status of producer groups in the analyzed region in 2011–2018. The Fuzzy Set Quantitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) Qualitative analysis method was applied, which identified the main influence factors that have led to the disappearance of this associative form. We consider this study relevant for drawing attention to the main obstacles that Romanian farmers face in joining an associative form. The study has shown that mainly the factors directly influenced by government policies have led to the withdrawal of a relatively large number of producers from producer groups in the studied region.