With serious environmental problems increasing, waste separation has drawn much attention. Message framing is an important way to popularize separation knowledge and increase people’s separation willingness. Message framing was classified into positive and negative frames in this study, and then based on moral identity theory from the social cognitive perspective, two dimensions of moral identity were introduced as mediating variables to construct a mechanism model of the influence of message framing on waste separation willingness. After a comparative study of three groups of subjects (N = 604), the following conclusions were drawn: (1) message framing positively influenced moral identity and waste separation willingness; (2) both positive and negative message framing positively influenced waste separation willingness through the partial mediating role of moral identity symbolization and internalization; and (3) the mediating role of symbolization was stronger in the effect of positive message framing on waste separation willingness, while the mediating role of internalization was stronger in the effect of negative message framing on waste separation willingness. The findings provide significant information for organizations to effectively carry out message strategies.

Air pollution, particularly SO₂ emission, has become a global problem, seriously threatening the sustainable development and health of mankind. Based on the panel data of 248 prefecture-level cities in China during 2003–2018, this study used the Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Difference (PSM-DID) method within the counterfactual framework to evaluate the treatment effect of the policy made by the National Resource-Based Economic Transformation Comprehensive Supporting Reform Pilot Zone (CRZ) on sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions. The results show the following. (1) The benchmark regression results demonstrate that the CRZ policy has significantly decreased per capita SO₂ emissions (PCSO₂) and SO₂ emissions per unit of GDP (PGSO₂) in the pilot zone, and the placebo test indicates that the evaluation of the policy effect is robust. (2) The dynamic effect test indicates that there is a lag in the effect of the CRZ policy on reducing SO₂ emissions. The policy effect of the CRZ policy on PCSO₂ and PGSO₂ was not obvious in the first stage (2011–2015), the CRZ policy significantly reduced the PCSO₂ and PGSO₂ in the second stage of policy implementation (2016 and beyond), and the reduction effect of CRZ policy on SO₂ emissions is increasing over time. (3) The mechanism analysis shows that optimizing industrial structure, increasing human capital, strengthening technological innovation, and expanding opening to the outside world are the main ways for the CRZ policy to reduce SO₂ emissions. The study will help promote SO₂ emissions reduction in Shanxi Province, providing a reference for the transformation and development of other resource-based cities in China and the world and contributing to accelerating the achievement of regional emission reduction targets and sustainable development.

Amidst the vigorous pursuit of sustainable development, the significance of community management has become increasingly evident. This study, anchored in goal orientation theory, delineated a conceptual model that elucidated the influence of community goal orientation on residents’ waste separation recycling behaviors. Utilizing a longitudinal study design combined with self-report methods, data comprising 871 paired observations from 166 residents were collected and analyzed via multilevel structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings corroborated that the community approach goal orientation not only had a direct positive impact on the residents’ waste separation and recycling behaviors but could also induce the residents’ environmental passion and subsequently influence their waste separation and recycling behaviors. Conversely, community avoidance goal orientation exhibited no significant effect on either the environmental passion or waste separation recycling behaviors. Furthermore, the community trust was found to positively moderate the effect of community approach goal orientation on the environmental passion. Meanwhile, the community trust moderated the mediating role of environmental passion. However, the community trust did not moderate the effect of the community avoidance goal orientation on environmental passion.

Prior research on tour guides’ influence on tourists’ pro-environmental behavior has largely emphasized informational content (e.g., interpretation) and communication tactics (e.g., humor), while leaving the social-influence role of guides’ emotional displays underexamined, especially with respect to simultaneous affective and cognitive mechanisms. Drawing on Emotions-as-Social-Information (EASI) theory, we develop a dual-path model in which tour guides’ environmental passion affects tourists’ pro-environmental behavior via an affective-reaction pathway (positive emotions) and an inferential pathway (self-protection motivation), with tourists’ self-construal moderating the first-stage effects. Using a seven-day experience sampling (intensive longitudinal) survey (873 day-level observations nested within 159 tourists) and estimating a 1-1-1 multilevel structural equation model with Monte Carlo confidence intervals, we find that guides’ environmental passion predicts tourists’ pro-environmental behavior both directly and indirectly through the two mediators, and these indirect effects are stronger among tourists with a more interdependent self-construal. The study extends EASI theory to guide–tourist interactions and advances tourism sustainability research by clarifying how emotional displays operate as social information in shaping tourists’ daily pro-environmental responses.