This concluding chapter provides an overview of the key themes explored in the handbook. After summarizing the most important insights and illustrating their complex interconnections, the chapter identifies five critical areas for future research: ambitious environmental research, intensified...

This chapter critically examines the role of emerging technologies, particularly drones, in shaping sustainable agricultural practices among coffee suppliers in the Global South (in this study, in Uganda). Using ethnographic intervention-based research, the study co-creates drone-based...

Abstract: This chapter represents a critical inquiry into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the intention to challenge their revered status and the position they hold in the contemporary policy regime. While the SDGs tend to be acknowledged as something always already positive, they...

This chapter explores connections between global recycling networks and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By comparing and contrasting the theoretical approaches of global value chain analysis, global production networks, and global destruction networks, the chapter develops a new...

As stated in the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 objectives for the Millennium Development Goals, the SDGs aim to alleviate poverty, safeguard the environment, and improve global peace. These goals stress economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability that can...

Worldwide climate change, pollution, and resource inefficiency are global challenges, and most Asian logistics and transportation service firms share the ‘load’ in meeting them. Operational waste within those firms leads to both environmental degradation and avoidable business costs. Hence,...

Abstract: This chapter explores how clusters adapt to the complex interplay of internationalization, digital technologies, and sustainability, which increasingly reshape global production systems. Drawing from the literature on global production networks (GPNs) and sustainability transitions,...

A significant difficulty in fostering sustainability policies stems from a fundamental tension between the aspirations for economic growth and environmental protection requirements. This tension, seen everywhere, is even more marked in underdevelopment. This chapter advances four ways to reduce...

This chapter focuses on the role of systems of innovation, circular economy, and green economy in developing a new paradigm in economics towards sustainable development. It starts by describing each of these approaches and explaining the need for the learning economy to consider the ecosystem...

Abstract: The realization that a non-trivial number of advanced technologies involved in Industry 4.0 advent rely on inputs of critical raw materials (CRMs) – including the so-called ‘conflict minerals’ – has led to a growing interest in the impact of technologically induced CRM demand...