India’s Ethanol Blended Petrol Program (EBPP) is the largest and one of the most successful biofuel blending programs undertaken by an emerging economy. Since its inception in 2003 and subsequent restructuring through each of the National Policies on Biofuels, the program has evolved into a significant initiative for reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation fuels. This paper analyzes the program’s development from relatively low levels of blending to achieve 20 percent blended petrol across all oil marketing companies’ outlets by end of December 2025. It uses a four dimensional framework to assess the program’s impact; namely: Energy Security, Environmental Performance, Economic Outcomes and Equity. The results demonstrate the program has generated significant foreign exchange savings of approximately Rs. 1910 billion (USD 23 Billion), crude oil substitution of approximately 310 million Metric Tons, and a cumulative reduction of CO2 emissions of approximately 931 million MT since FY14-15 through to May 2026. In addition, farmers and ethanol suppliers have been paid a total of approximately Rs. 162 billion since FY14-15, demonstrating a tangible rural income transfer mechanism. Additionally, this paper analyzes the recent policy direction announced by the central government on June 2026, where the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution announced that the Government will extend the Excise Duty Waiver for 100 Octane Petrol to be applicable to all formulations up to E30. The paper is a novel attempt to highlight a major sustainable social development policy initiative of the Indian government.

The introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) initially raised concerns among the public, but they have since gained widespread acceptance. Over the past decade, the EV market has grown significantly, making EVs one of the most promising solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. To meet the increasing energy demand driven by this growth, photovoltaic-powered charging stations (PVCS) could provide a sustainable solution by supplying charging terminals with clean energy. As this technology is still relatively new, both technical assessments and studies of the social acceptability of PVCS should be conducted simultaneously to evaluate their feasibility and improve public awareness. Therefore, this study aims to assess the social acceptability of PVCS and identify their perceived limitations from the public’s perspective. The proposed system mainly consists of photovoltaic (PV) panels, stationary energy storage, and a connection to the public grid as a backup power source. Nearly 900 participants from diverse backgrounds took part in the study. The results show that most respondents are willing to charge their EVs using solar energy. However, this acceptance depends on future user needs and expectations. The findings also confirm concerns regarding the use of PV energy for EV charging, particularly with respect to system efficiency, recycling, and lifespan.

This study empirically examined how supervisors’ leadership styles influence employee entrepreneurial behavior and analyzed the role of job satisfaction in this relationship. An anonymous online survey was conducted with ordinary employees in South Korea, and 170 valid responses were used for the analysis. Exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, multiple regression analysis, and an additional Sobel test were performed. The results show that transformational leadership positively affects task, reward, and relationship satisfaction, while transactional leadership significantly affects only reward satisfaction. Servant leadership has a significant positive effect on all four dimensions of job satisfaction. In addition, transformational and transactional leadership positively influence innovative risk-taking and proactiveness, whereas servant leadership shows no significant direct effect. Among the job satisfaction dimensions, task satisfaction positively affects both dimensions of employee entrepreneurial behavior, promotion satisfaction shows a negative effect, and relationship satisfaction positively affects innovative risk-taking. These findings provide practical implications for leadership development and organizational strategies to foster entrepreneurship. This study contributes to the literature by extending leadership and entrepreneurship research to ordinary employees in the South Korean organizational context. It also advances prior research by integrating transformational, transactional, and servant leadership with multidimensional job satisfaction and by examining how these factors are differently associated with innovative risk-taking and proactiveness.

This paper analyzes the economic growth and health financing in Morocco in connection with the importance of health investment to sustainable economic growth. The available literature indicates that the enhancement of population health is one of the factors that help an economy to improve, especially when governments decide to allocate more funds to the health sector and also enhancing access to health care services. A healthier population is also likely to be more productive which will improve labor efficiency, decrease absenteeism and boost the economy eventually. To investigate these relationships, this study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach, which is particularly suitable for small-sample time-series data with variables integrated of mixed orders I (0) and I (1). The econometric framework combines unit root testing, cointegration analysis, long-run estimation, and error correction modelling to examine both the short-run and long-run effects of public health financing on economic growth and maternal health outcomes in Morocco over the period 1980–2015. The empirical findings reveal that increased public health financing significantly promotes economic growth while reducing maternal mortality. Furthermore, the results indicate that public health expenditure mitigates the adverse effects of income inequality on health outcomes, highlighting the importance of sustained public investment in healthcare for achieving inclusive and sustainable development. There are multiple indicators that are associated with economic performance, income distribution, and health outcomes which are taken into account to reflect the multidimensional character of the relationship between economic growth and health investment. The empirical evidence indicates that greater public health financing is related with improvements in health outcomes especially with decreases in the maternal and infant demise rates. Besides, the results indicate that inequality in the distribution of income and the policies on health investment is positively related to economic development and social well-being in Morocco.

Vocational training bases connect classroom learning with industry practice, but provincial quality reports rarely distinguish the system conditions, resources, implementation processes, and outcomes that shape their contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). This study used a descriptive evaluative case-study design, combining documentary analysis with secondary analysis of the 2023 Guangdong Provincial Higher Vocational Education Quality Report. The unit of analysis was Guangdong’s provincial higher-vocational education system; training-base performance was examined through indicators directly related to practical capacity, financing, staffing, industry participation, curriculum delivery, certification, graduate transitions, and stakeholder outcomes. Of 123 appendix indicators, 121 contained values, and 40 met prespecified relevance, traceability, non-duplication, and interpretability criteria. Absolute, relative, and direction-adjusted changes were calculated for comparable 2022–023 indicators, while conflicting source values were retained rather than averaged. The 2023 profile documented 450 virtual-simulation bases, 216 enterprise co-built practice centers 853 teaching-resource repositories, 19,359 industry mentors, and 109,182 vocational-skill certificate recipients. In the primary trend set, Process indicators had the largest median direction-adjusted change (18.48 %), followed by Input (10.07 %) and Product (1.52 %). The graduate destination rate fell from 98.62 % to 92.16 %, and fiscal appropriation per student declined by 13.23 %. These descriptive results are consistent with a possible mismatch between faster growth in selected capacity and process indicators and slower movement in several outcomes; they do not establish causation. The study provides an auditable CIPP-SDG 4 reporting procedure and identifies the need for utilization, equity, and longitudinal outcome data.

This study examines the extent and implications of premature deindustrialization in Malaysia by analyzing long-term trends in value-added, employment, and industry-specific competitiveness. Malaysia’s manufacturing share began to decline in the early 2000s, when income levels were significantly lower than in developed countries, exhibiting a typical pattern of premature deindustrialization. With China emerging as a global manufacturing hub and Malaysia still relying on low-value-added segments of global value chains, competitiveness is declining in several key industries. As a result, employment is shifting to traditionally less productive service sectors, raising concerns about slower long-term productivity growth, wage stagnation, and widening social inequality, particularly among low-skilled and vulnerable groups. However, the rapid advancement of digitalization and the expansion of modern service industries such as ICT software, finance, and logistics are simultaneously reinterpreting the very concept of deindustrialization. As production processes become service-intensive and digitally integrated, a decline in the manufacturing share does not necessarily mean a weakening of the overall economy. The results of this study indicate that inclusive digital transformation is essential for Malaysia’s transition to a service and knowledge economy, requiring equitable access to digital skills, infrastructure, and economic opportunities for all regional and social groups. A balanced strategy that simultaneously strengthens manufacturing capabilities and promotes inclusive and sustainable digital development is a prerequisite for achieving long-term social progress without creating new inequalities during a period of structural transformation.

Biodiversity loss is one of the main environmental challenges that requires an integrated approach involving environmental monitoring, communication, behavior change and adaptive governance. However, despite recent growth in research in the area, there is a still a lack of comprehensive knowledge about how environmental information is translated into collective action and impacts on policy decisions. This study seeks to create an integrated environmental communication transformation framework to understand the dynamic processes that connect the transformation of environmental data to strategic communication, behavioral processes and adaptive biodiversity governance. This study employed qualitative descriptive design, performing systematic content analysis of academic journal articles, international reports, and policy documents. The findings indicate that biodiversity conservation is governed by a multi-level dynamic system including four interrelated key components: the production of environmental knowledge; strategic communication; the behavioral processes of changing behaviors; and adaptive environmental governance systems. Results reveal that a critical factor in the effectiveness of environmental transformation is the cyclical feedback mechanisms among the flow of data, message Framing, behavior, and policy.  It is noted that media and internet based digital systems are sources of data as well as communication amplifiers of messages that lead to increased awareness and participation as well as influenced behavior. Based on findings, this study argues that the use of integrative multi-level communication strategies with an aim to strengthen the information generation, communication and behavioral processes along with adaptation of policy mechanisms, may contribute to improved biodiversity conservation outcomes and sustainability.

Enhancing student experience and increasing student satisfaction with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) services is a critical factor in achieving a competitive advantage for HEIs. This study explores the concepts of affective digital twin and emotional marketing as innovative strategies to enhance student engagement, improve student satisfaction, and enhance their attachment to HEIs. This study aims to clarify the implications of integrating affective digital twin with emotional marketing to foster sustainable relationships between students and HEIs while enhancing the competitive advantage of HEIs. A qualitative descriptive research approach, including a review of previous literature, was used to analyze the impact of these strategies on student experience and satisfactions. The results indicate that affective digital twin contributes to personalized learning experiences by tracking and analyzing student emotions and providing dynamic responses, while emotional marketing enhances student loyalty through effective communication strategies rooted in personal values and experiences. The integration of both strategies improves student satisfaction, increases enrollment and retention rates, and enhances the competitive position of institutions. The study recommends that HEIs adopt an integrated approach combining affective digital twin and emotional marketing to ensure an interactive, student-centred learning experience, leading to a sustainable competitive advantage. 

This study examines whether strategic management helps explain the association between employee well-being proxies and an observable performance indicator in Oman’s private higher education sector, with attention to sustainable higher education development. Using an archival quantitative secondary-data design, the study draws on official higher education databases, national policy documents, institutional performance records and publicly available reports. Employee well-being is assessed through observable indicators of staff stability, workload-related conditions, professional-development visibility and institutional support mechanisms. Strategic management is represented through planning visibility, quality assurance, governance documentation and performance-monitoring systems. Because comparable institution-level staff data are not publicly available, the study uses a sector-year archival dataset and interprets the results cautiously. Descriptive statistics, correlations, exploratory regression estimates and robustness checks are reported. The empirical dependent variable is annual total-enrolment growth, which is treated as a narrow observable indicator of organisational performance rather than a complete measure of institutional performance. The single-predictor lagged models do not support a direct independent association between employee well-being proxies and total-enrolment growth (β = 2.453, p = 0.682) or between strategic-management capacity and total-enrolment growth (β = -8.824, p = 0.189). The combined model improves explanatory fit, while the interaction model is retained only as an illustrative pattern because the usable sector-year sample is very small. The findings should therefore be read as preliminary sector-level archival evidence, not as institution-level causal proof. The study contributes to sustainable higher education governance by showing that staff-related conditions, planning systems, quality assurance and data visibility should be considered together when assessing institutional resilience and development-oriented reform in Oman.

Contemporary academic curricula for physical education teacher education (PETE) increasingly recognize the importance of social responsibility in higher education and its contribution to sustainable social development. In this context, service-learning (SL) is an approach that connects academic learning with community needs, fosters social inclusion, and supports the development of more inclusive and sustainable social environments. The objectives of this study were: (1) to examine whether SL activities help improve the perception of social inclusion among international PETE students, and (2) to determine whether their prior motor experience influences their participation in and experience of SL activities. The quasi-experiment pilot study with self‑selected groups analysed the differences between the control group (N = 25) and the experimental group (N = 19), which actively participated in SL activities. The PRISMA model was used in a systematic literature review to identify current research trends related to social inclusion in the academic environment. A questionnaire with ten categories defining social inclusion and semi-structured interviews was used to determine students’ previous dominant motor skills. According to the independent t-test, students with SL experience showed a statistically significant difference from those who did not participate in SL in the subscales of accommodation quality (Cohen’s d = 0.854) and facilities (Cohen’s d = 0.819) of the Social Inclusion Scale, while the other scales did not show statistical significance. In addition, the difference between students with competitive or recreational sport as their previous dominant motor skills was only statistically significant in the subscale of accessibility. It can be concluded that SL, as an academic educational tool and curricular activity, is associated with social inclusion of international PETE students, specifically contributing to their perception of student facilities and accommodation. International PETE students with previous competitive sports experience appear to have higher accessibility values, particularly in terms of mobility and resourcefulness on campus. The results indicate that SL, in addition to its educational function, is a potential tool for developing sustainable social inclusion of international students and strengthening the connection between higher education and the community.

Rural economic development in many developing countries remains constrained by fragmented institutions, weak inter-organizational coordination, and persistent top-down approaches. In Indonesia, Village Law No. 6/2014 has expanded village autonomy and fiscal capacity, positioning village-owned enterprises (BUMDes) and cooperatives as strategic actors in strengthening local economies. Yet collaborative arrangements at the village level remain underdeveloped, particularly in transmigration areas marked by socio-economic diversity and institutional complexity. This study examines the Palolo transmigration area in Sigi Regency, Central Sulawesi, and proposes the Integrated Institutional Economic Development Model (IIEDM), which combines New Institutional Economics, Social Capital, Endogenous Regional Development, and Local Economic Development within a co-creation governance approach. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, it pairs institutional assessments across the four IIEDM dimensions with perception surveys of village heads, BUMDes managers, and cooperative leaders, complemented by in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The findings show that the principal constraints derive from structural weaknesses in the LED and ERD dimensions rather than from a lack of institutional or social potential. Although social capital remains relatively strong, it has not been mobilized to sustain inter-organizational collaboration, and existing arrangements insufficiently reduce coordination frictions among local actors. The study argues that co-creation processes; joint problem identification, shared institutional design, and sustained multi-actor engagement are essential for transforming fragmented economies into integrated systems, offering policy-relevant insights for transmigration and developing-country contexts.

Digital media technologies have become central to higher-education delivery, raising important questions about how online learning environments can support inclusion, equity, and sustainability under Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). This study examines associations between recorded digital engagement and academic outcomes using the Open University Learning Analytics Dataset, which contains 32,593 enrolments from 28,785 learners across 22 course-presentations and 10,655,280 timestamped learner–VLE records. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multivariable logistic regression were used to examine engagement–outcome associations and demographic inequities. Total VLE interactions were aggregated by learner-enrolment, transformed as log (x + 1), and standardised before modelling. Median interactions increased from 89 among withdrawn learners to 1896 among distinction learners, and log-engagement was positively correlated with success (r = 0.477). In the complete-case model (n = 31,482), a one-standard-deviation increase in log-engagement was associated with higher odds of success (OR = 27.074, 95 % CI [24.918, 29.415], p < 0.001) after adjustment for socioeconomic deprivation, gender, disability, age, prior education, previous attempts, and studied credits. Model discrimination was high (ROC-AUC = 0.891; accuracy = 81.0 %), although a sensitivity analysis excluding withdrawn enrolments produced a smaller association (OR = 7.036), indicating that withdrawal-related truncation explains part of the estimate. Success rates also varied from 35.2 % in the most deprived group to 57.5 % in the least deprived group and from 38.1 % among disabled learners to 48.2 % among non-disabled learners. Because the data are observational, institution-specific, and from 2013–2014, the results should be interpreted as historical associations rather than causal or universally contemporary effects. The findings support further prospective evaluation of learning-analytics systems, accessible course design, and equity-focused student support.

Climate change mitigation increasingly hinges on decarbonising the built environment, yet renewable energy integration in building construction remains underexplored in many emerging economies in Africa, including Ghana. This study examined the enhanced deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) in real estate projects as a contribution to climate change mitigation using the IDT approach. Using quantitative design methodologies, data was collected from 400 professionals working in the real estate industry, receiving a response rate of 94 %. Descriptive statistics, relative Importance Index (RII) and Multiple Linear Regression analysis were the tools deployed in the analysis. The results of the multiple regression analysis show that the most statistically significant determinants for the deployment of RES in developing projects are efficiency in solar energy technologies (β = 0.471, p = 0.000) and smart energy management systems (β = 0.247, p = 0.000). Additionally, the major factors triggering the adoption include reduction of long-term operational costs (mean = 4.65), reduction of carbon emissions (mean = 4.59), and improvement of energy independence (mean = 4.54). On the other hand, the main barrier for integration is the inefficient governmental support and lack of RES equipment in Ghana and high initial investments. Framed through the Diffusion of Innovation Theory, adoption is still concentrated among early adopters and innovators; the early and late majority have not yet been brought along, largely because the institutional signals (policy certainty, financial incentives, technical capacity and codified standards) that typically accelerate that movement are still underdeveloped locally. The study recommends that government and industry stakeholders prioritise binding regulatory support, targeted financial incentives, and solar-led implementation strategies, sequenced ahead of demonstration and certification efforts, to move renewable energy adoption from isolated examples toward standard construction practice.