FOREWORD

Climate-change crunch time

In today’s rapidly evolving digital economy, the need for ethical transformative leadership and good governance has become paramount. This abstract explores the application of Jesus Christ’s servant leadership as a model for fostering ethical leadership and effective governance in the digital business environment. The digital economy has ushered in unprecedented opportunities and challenges in the Kenyan business environment. On one hand, technological advancements have led to increased connectivity and economic growth. On the other hand, issues related to data privacy, cyber security and ethical concerns have risen to the forefront. In this context, leadership and governance are instrumental in navigating the complexities of the digital age. Jesus Christ’s servant leadership provides a compelling framework for ethical transformative leadership. His teachings emphasized humility, empathy and a commitment to serving others. In the digital economy, leaders who embrace these principles can inspire trust and guide organizations towards ethical practices. By prioritizing the welfare of their teams and stakeholders, servant leaders create an environment conducive to ethical decision-making. Moreover, good governance is essential for ensuring transparency, accountability, and the protection of stakeholders’ interests in the digital economy. Jesus Christ’s governance model, characterized by fairness and a commitment to justice, can be applied to corporate governance. Effective governance structures such as boards of directors can draw inspiration from this model to make sound decisions that benefit both shareholders and society. This abstract also discusses the importance of ethical leadership and governance in addressing pressing digital economy issues. It highlights the significance of fostering a corporate culture that values integrity, inclusivity and sustainability. By following the servant leadership model, businesses can become ethical stewards of the digital realm, promoting responsible innovation and equitable growth. In conclusion, as the digital economy continues to shape our world, ethical transformative leadership and good governance are indispensable. Drawing inspiration from Jesus Christ’s servant leadership, organizations can develop leaders who prioritize the well-being of their teams and stakeholders. By implementing fair and just governance practices, they can ensure accountability and transparency. Ultimately, this approach contributes to a sustainable and ethical digital business environment.

Chapter 15 - Challenges in main streaming climate resilience in land-use planning: A case study in Malaysian local government

In this special issue we present four articles. Zhunissova et al. (2025) analyse environmentalism and the digital turn and, in so doing, they argue that climate change poses significant risks to the resilience of Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. Focusing on Kazakhstan, Central Asia where regions experience extreme and variable climates, they note that although IoT technologies are widely used across sectors, there is limited academic attention on how such devices perform under climate change. Drawing upon an online survey covering public and private sector organisations the authors reveal that sensors, SIM cards, and outdoor routers are the most operationally critical; in contrast, outdoor routers and actuators showed relatively higher resilience. Notably, over 50% of respondents reported moderate climate change risk to operations, but a substantial information gap remains, with many organisations lacking vendor-provided data for extreme conditions. This lack of transparency limits informed procurement, risk assessment, and resilience planning. The study presents one of the first regional assessments linking IoT operational risks to climate variability in Central Asia and provides recommendations for integrating resilience into procurement standards, and the development of sector-specific adaptation strategies. Han et al. (2024) analyse the digital divide and 'digital dividend' in China's digital economy. Using various statistical methods to measure the digital economy in China's regions, city clusters, and cities from 2011 to 2019, the findings indicate that the digital economy has continuously improved. Additionally, the spatial differences of the digital economy in the four regions and nine city clusters are decreasing, which indicates that the digital divide is narrowing and represents a significant digital dividend. The study analyses the spatial differences in the digital economy of cities in China and highlights the convergence at different spatial scales. The findings provide the foundation for the evolution of the digital economy in Chinese cities and offer policy implications for promoting a regionally coordinated digital economy. Wu et al. (2022) analyse the Chengdu Plain, in Sichuan, China, where the 'shocks and stresses' of 'rapid administrative-economic urbanisation' are testing the resilience of agrarian environments. They focus on information and communications technology (ICT) governance tools, such as grid management, and explain how they offer opportunities to sustain and scale data to validate and refine indicators of landscape resilience, and use them to regulate development, in accordance with UN SDG 11. Drawing upon their evidence, they argue that ICT-based governance -in combination with traditional placebased knowledge -can play an important role in ensuring landscape resilience. One key finding is that ICT-enabled governance needs to incorporate greater transparency and more local feedback loops and enable greater participation from older farmers and women, to inform household and community-level land-use choices and initiatives.Mualam (2024) addresses the debates on how major digital shifts and the increased use of ICT have significantly impacted planning processes. Noting the increased use of digitalisation of planning committees, meetings etc. during the COVID pandemic, the author notes that while digital technologies are to be welcomed, it is also important to pay attention to the 'regressive impacts', in particular, the 'severely affected' social inclusion in planning processes. Focusing on the Israeli planning system post-COVID, which continues to embrace videoconferencing as a tool in planning, the findings show that the ongoing 'vulnerability of certain groups'. The author notes that despite planners being aware of these outcomes and the adaptations made to existing means of eparticipation, it is clear that online planning meetings are 'not geared towards' using tools and platforms to improve practice; instead, the reality is that remote participation remains largely a 'pro-developers' process that can marginalise other participants.

In the digital economy, firms are increasingly adopting cloud-native systems—architectures designed for cloud environments, which leverage microservices, containers, orchestrators, and elastic infrastructure—to gain agility, scalability, and innovation capacity. This research investigates how cloud-native systems function as a driver of competitive advantage in contemporary digital business contexts. Drawing on resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities theory, the study develops a theoretical framework linking cloud-native adoption to sustained firm performance via flexibility, speed to market, resilience and ecosystem integration. A qualitative multiple case‐study approach is applied (semi‐structured interviews with senior IT/architecture executives from five digitally-mature firms). Findings reveal three primary mechanisms by which cloud-native systems facilitate a competitive advantage: enabling the rapid reconfiguration of digital services, promoting modular innovation and ecosystem participation, and enhancing operational resilience and cost-effectiveness. The study contributes to the literature by deepening the understanding of technical systems as strategic assets and offers practical insights for managers orchestrating digital transformation. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. Keywords: cloud-native, competitive advantage, digital economy, dynamic capabilities, resource-based view, microservices, digital transformation.

As climate change urgency intensifies, understanding its impact on destinations and the development of adaptation strategies becomes critical for sustainable tourism. This article, through a meta-analysis of 290 climate change elasticity estimates in tourism from 34 studies, examines the influence of climate factors and tourists’ adaptive behaviours on tourism demand. It also projects the situations countries will face by 2050 under ongoing climate change scenarios. Findings suggest that low- and middle-income economies and Small Island Developing States, despite their minimal carbon contributions, will face significant tourism losses. In contrast, high-income countries might see increased travel demand and lead to more emissions. This will aggravate climatic conditions and inflict greater losses on less-developed communities. This finding exemplifies a vicious cycle of climate injustice, highlighting the disparities in climate-related social costs globally.

Counting carbon costs

The digital economy drives China's high-quality economic growth and reduces carbon emissions.Urban carbon emissions reduction is crucial to China's "dual carbon" development goal and climate change adaptation.Spatial econometric modeling, standard deviation ellipse analysis, kernel density estimation, the Moran index, and Moran's index are used to study the effects of the digital economy on provincial carbon emissions in 30 Chinese provinces from 2012 to 2021.The study found that:(1) The digital economy has shown a rising trend over time, with the spatial distribution of "eastcenter-west" decreasing in space.Carbon emissions, on the other hand, show a decreasing trend, with a spatial distribution characterized by a high north and a low south.(2) As measured by the standard deviation ellipse model, the digital economy and carbon emissions have decreasing ellipse areas, with the former's centers of gravity moving northward and the latter's southward, indicating that their spatial agglomeration characteristics are growing.(3) The spatial Durbin model examined how the digital economy affects carbon emissions.The digital economy is reducing carbon emissions in China significantly.A national spatial spillover effect was also detected, with surrounding provinces' carbon emissions being negatively affected.

Climate change has intensified environmental challenges globally, with greenhouse gas emissions rising more rapidly in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries than the global average. Over half of the OIC member states face high climate vulnerability due to limited institutional and technological capacity for mitigation and adaptation. This study makes a novel contribution by analyzing the drivers of environmental quality in 36 OIC countries from 1996 to 2020 using the load capacity factor (LCF), a holistic indicator that balances ecological demand and biocapacity supply. Unlike prior studies that focus narrowly on CO₂ emissions, LCF provides a broader measure of sustainability. The analysis is stratified by income levels (high, upper-middle, and lower-middle income) to uncover income-specific dynamics. The CS-ARDL approach was employed to estimate both short- and long-run relationships. The findings reveal that economic expansion improves environmental quality in high-income but degrades it in upper- and lower-middle-income groups. Renewable energy consumption consistently enhances environmental sustainability across all income groups, while natural resource dependence undermines it. Economic globalization improves environmental quality in high-income but has adverse effects in middle-income economies. Notably, the rule of law emerges as a strong and consistent driver of environmental improvement across all groups. These findings underscore the need for income-specific strategies that prioritize renewable energy investment, promote sustainable natural resource management, strengthen institutional quality, and integrate environmental objectives into globalization and trade policies.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-16872-y.

The digital economy, as an emerging productive force, has become a critical catalyst for economic sustainable progress. This study examines the regional disparities and origins of the digital economy, as well as its spatial and temporal growth patterns, which are essential for bridging the financial gap among regions and promoting synchronized economic progress. We developed a multidimensional index system to evaluate the level of digital economic development across 30 Chinese provinces, encompassing aspects such as the Internet’s evolution, digital infrastructure, capacity for digital innovation, and the application of digital technologies. The regional imbalances and origins of the digital economy were scrutinized using Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition. Furthermore, the study investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of digital economy progression in China, employing methods like kernel density estimation, migration models of the gravity center, and an analysis via the standard deviation ellipse. The results reveal the following: (1) Digital economic development is more advanced in Eastern China compared to the western regions, with variations primarily driven by inter-regional differences. (2) The absolute gap in national digital economic development levels is widening, and relative disparities within the eastern region are increasing. Significant polarization is observed in the development of the digital economy across the central and western regions, while disparities in the northeastern region are comparatively minimal. (3) The center of gravity for China’s digital economy has overall shifted southward; the standard deviation ellipse has extended both northward and southward and become more oblate; and the dispersion within China’s digital economy has intensified.

The release of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth and his subsequent training of thousands of Climate Presenters marks a critical transition point in communication around climate change. This paper will show that key elements of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and the advice and training he gives to Climate Presenters are based on the results of research into marketing approaches to creating behavioural change. This paper will then consider the ultimate effectiveness of this approach to Climate change communication in the light of the critique of such marketing approaches to communicating on environmental issues in the 2008 WWF report, 'Weathercocks & signposts'.

The issue of environmental problems is particularly important today. The relevance is determined by the fact that global challenges arise every day, and global warming causes serious climate change and threatens the disappearance of the ecosystem. The purpose of the article is to analyze current trends and consequences of global and regional climate change. Methodology. A set of general scientific methods (analytical and synthetic hermeneutic, pragmatic, and generalization techniques) was employed to achieve the research goal and ensure the scientific reliability of the results. Scientific novelty. The study reveals the main problems of nature management and changes in nature caused by anthropogenic activities. The importance of the population's counteraction to negative impacts on the planet’s ecosystem is emphasized. The study examines the main causes of climate change and substantiates the global risks associated with this phenomenon. The impact of climate change on the economic sector is analyzed. Special attention is paid to the terms “climate crisis” and “global climate change”. It is found that modern environmental problems include an increase in the number of wars, ocean pollution, global warming, resource shortages, and others. Each of these problems poses a serious threat to the development of any state. It is proved that in the context of political instability, Ukraine does not have the full potential to implement scientifically based balanced measures. The absence of an effective state policy on sustainable environmental management poses a threat to the economy and environment of Ukraine. It is necessary to find ways to solve the identified problems and consider promising areas for improving the factors that affect the environment and the environmental situation in general. Improving the environmental situation will allow Ukraine to rise to a new level in the global ranking. The conclusions state that climate change threatens not only the economic and environmental security of the state, but also national security in general.

The information age is also an era of escalating social problems. The digital transformation of society and the economy is already underway in all countries, although the progress in this transformation can vary widely. There are more social innovation projects addressing global and local social problems in some countries than in others. This suggests that different levels of digital transformation might influence the social innovation potential. Using the International Digital Economy and Society Index and the Social Innovation Index, this study investigates how digital transformation of the economy and society affects the capacity for social innovation. A dataset of 29 countries was analysed using both simple and multiple linear regressions and Pearsons correlation. Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that the digital transformation of the economy and society has a significant positive impact on the capacity for social innovation. It was also found that the integration of digital technology plays a critical role in digital transformation. Therefore, the progress in digital transformation is beneficial to social innovation capacity. In line with the research findings, this study outlines the implications and possible directions for policy.

Studying the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions in the distribution industry is of great significance for realizing sustainable development goals and coping with climate change. This study finds that increasing the level of digital economy development can reduce the carbon emission intensity of the circulation industry through fixed-effects modeling. Moreover, the effect is different in different geographic regions, and the improvement of the digital economy development level in the east and central regions can significantly reduce the carbon emission intensity of the distribution industry. The digital economy can simultaneously reduce the carbon emission intensity of the circulation industry by reducing the degree of labor factor mismatch in the circulation industry and improving the regional green innovation capacity. Therefore, in order to promote the green development of the distribution industry, it is also necessary to make efforts to improve the construction of network infrastructure, accelerate the process of research and development and cultivation of green technology, and break down the barriers of cross-regional mobility of talents.

Driving mechanism of digital economy based on regulation algorithm for development of low-carbon industries