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This paper aims to investigate the impact of environmental risk on corporate governance through market reaction to bank loan announcements.

Using the establishment of environment court in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper adopt the difference-in-differences approach based on listed firms during 2003–2013 to explore the impact of environment court on corporate governance.

This paper find that the environment court would weaken the cumulative abnormal return of loan announcements. Then, this paper confirm that the potential reason is that environment court worsens the interest conflict between majority and minority shareholders. Further, cross-sectional analysis suggests that bank’s supervision, market competition and analyst coverage can alleviate the impact of environment court on corporate governance.

Environment courts intensify firms’ internal interest disputes, thus causing the decrease of corporate governance, which can be observed through the effect of bank loan announcements.

This paper provide reference for environmental policy formulation and implementation, firms’ decision-makings and improving the banking regulatory system.

This paper makes a contribution to the studies about the impact of environment court on firms’ decision-making and investors’ reaction, the impact of external factors on corporate governance and bank loan announcements effect.

In the context of macroeconomic fluctuations and uncertainty in policy changes, it is essential to understand how companies adapt their environmental strategies and marketing tactics to ensure survival and growth. This study, therefore, examines the impact of perceived economic policy uncertainty on corporate greenwashing.

Based on panel data from listed companies on the Chinese A-share market between 2013 and 2022, this paper employs a high-dimensional fixed effects model to explore the impact of perceived economic policy uncertainty (PEPU) on corporate greenwashing behavior.

The results show that higher PEPU increases greenwashing, with agency costs and investor sentiment mediating the relationship. Corporate credit availability and managerial short-sightedness positively moderate this effect. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that non-state-owned enterprises in central and western regions, particularly those with weak environmental regulation and high pollution, are most impacted by PEPU.

This paper provides practical guidance for how to avoid the phenomenon of green reshuffle in economic and environmental policies and encourages enterprises to take more real and effective environmental protection measures.

These findings highlight the importance of considering corporate responses to policy uncertainty when formulating economic and environmental policies. They provide valuable insights for emerging economies in fostering genuine corporate environmental behavior and promoting sustainable development.

This paper aims to focus on the selection of an appropriate nature-inspired texture pattern for cutting tool tribological surface. The selection process uses the recognized skin textures of different snakes scrolling on highly rough and projected surface conditions to analyze suitability of texture based on the texture geometry and machining conditions. The work also aims to propose a texture pattern selection process to incorporate on cutting tool tribological surface.

The selection of alternative nature-inspired texture patterns based on the texture pattern geometry and machining properties leads to a multi-criteria decision-making problem. Thirteen criteria are considered for selecting an appropriate texture pattern among 14 alternatives, i.e. nature-inspired texture patterns. In the present work, an integrated analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-TOPSIS, AHP-multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) and AHP-Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) approaches have been proposed for the selection of an appropriate nature-inspired texture pattern. AHP is used for the formulation of decision-making matrix and criteria weight calculations and ranking of alternatives is done by three methods. Spearman’s correlation compared and found positive relations between rank assigned by methods. Experimental validation is done in Lathe for selected texture effects.

The texture parameters C-1 (Width of texture) and C-2 (Depth of texture) are found significant, while T-2 (Blended Krait) and T-6 (Banded Racer-1) texture is found optimal to generate on cutting tool surface.

Only some nature-inspired texture patterns have been recognized before the selection; an infinite number of textures are available in nature. The size of the texture pattern is difficult to identify by the selection process because each texture pattern may have different effects on tribological surfaces.

The proposed selection methodology of nature-inspired texture patterns will help identify optimal texture geometry for specific tribological applications. The nature-inspired texture patterned tool has a significant impact on the cutting force and temperature due to its tribological effect on the cutting tool surface; it decreases the power required for machining. The machining characteristics like roughness are found to decrease by using nature-inspired texture patterned tools.

Various nature-inspire texture studies to generate specific effects on the tribological surfaces may be started study for the surface of aircraft, ships, bearings, etc. Small and big fabrication industries may benefit by decreasing the cost of machining using nature-inspired texture-patterned tools. Research society will pay attention to nature’s inspiration.

Novel snake-skin-inspired texture patterns are recognized and hybrid MCDM methods are proposed to select optimal texture pattern. Proposed method used single time normalization to effectively rank the alternatives. The insights gained from this research can be extrapolated to address similar challenges in selecting nature-inspired textures for various applications.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0163/

This paper aims to focus on the relationship between female leadership and the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of firms. Specifically, the study examines if firms with women as chief executive officers (CEOs) and/or board chairpersons have higher environmental and social scores.

The study uses data on publicly listed Nordic firms in a panel regression approach to establish the relationship between female leadership and the environmental and social performance of firms.

The result of this study shows that women have a leadership characteristic that increases the weighted average of environmental (E) and social (S) performance of a firm. In particular, pillar score results indicate a positive relationship between female CEOs and the social scores of a firm but no relationship between a female board chairperson and the environmental or social scores of a firm. This implies that gender-based differences affect the CEO’s success, especially in a firm’s social performance. Further analyses show a more significant impact on the E and S performance when a woman replaces a man as CEO of a firm.

While prior research has explored various aspects of gender diversity in corporate leadership and its potential impact, the focus on the Nordic context in this study provides a unique perspective, given the region’s distinct business environment and societal factors. In addition, by examining the collective influence of female leaders and both female CEOs and board chairpersons separately, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how different leadership roles may impact a firm’s ESG performance.

Nanotechnology (NT) advancements in personal protective textiles (PPT) or personal protective equipment (PPE) have alleviated spread and transmission of this highly contagious viral disease, and enabled enhancement of PPE, thereby fortifying antiviral behavior.

Review of a series of state of the art research papers on the subject matter.

This paper expounds on novel nanotechnological advancements in polymeric textile composites, emerging applications and fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

As a panacea to “public droplet prevention,” textiles have proven to be potentially effective as environmental droplet barriers (EDBs).

PPT in form of healthcare materials including surgical face masks (SFMs), gloves, goggles, respirators, gowns, uniforms, scrub-suits and other apparels play critical role in hindering the spreading of COVID-19 and other “oral-respiratory droplet contamination” both within and outside hospitals.

When used as double-layers, textiles display effectiveness as SFMs or surgical-fabrics, which reduces droplet transmission to <10 cm, within circumference of ∼0.3%.

NT advancements in textiles through nanoparticles, and sensor integration within textile materials have enhanced versatile sensory capabilities, robotics, flame retardancy, self-cleaning, electrical conductivity, flexibility and comfort, thereby availing it for health, medical, sporting, advanced engineering, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, military, automobile, food and agricultural applications, and more. Therefore, this paper expounds on recently emerging trends in nanotechnological influence in textiles for engineering and fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

This study investigates the impact and role of digital twin technology in building automation (DTBA) from a sustainability viewpoint. It aims to enhance the understanding of how DTBA can boost efficiency, optimize quality and support sustainable practices in contemporary construction. By exploring the integration of DTBA with sustainable practices, the study seeks to demonstrate how DT can revolutionize building management and operations, leading to significant improvements in resource efficiency, environmental impact and overall operational excellence.

This research employs a bibliographic analysis and systematic review of 176 publications from the past five years (January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023), focusing on the application and development of DTBA. The study methodically analyzes current trends, identifies research gaps and suggests future directions by synthesizing data from various studies, offering a comprehensive overview of the current state of DTBA research. The approach combines quantitative and qualitative analyses to provide robust insights into the advancements and challenges in the field.

The review identifies key development areas in DTBA, such as energy and environmental management, resource utilization within a circular economy and technology integration and interoperability. It highlights the necessity for further research to maximize DTBA’s potential in sustainable building automation. The findings suggest that while significant progress has been made, there is a critical need for innovations in data interoperability, predictive analytics and the integration of renewable energy sources to fully realize the benefits of DTBA in enhancing building sustainability.

This paper provides a thorough review of DTBA from a sustainability perspective, offering valuable insights into its current applications and future development potential. It serves as a crucial resource for researchers and practitioners looking to advance sustainable practices in the construction sector using DT technology. By bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical applications, the paper underscores the transformative potential of DTBA in driving sustainable development and provides a roadmap for future research and innovation in the field.

The term “Insider CEO” refers to actor in the top management at corporate level who has the advantage of having better information regarding a company’s resources to make investment decisions. This study aims to examine the relationship between insider chief executive officers (CEOs) and investment efficiency in emerging economies.

The authors comprises sample of nonfinancial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of 2011–2021, using an archival approach through regression analysis.

This study demonstrates a significant negative relationship between insider CEOs and investment efficiency. In addition, audit quality as the firm audited by BIG4 accounting firm changes the direction of previously negative findings, turning them into significant positive relationships, and audit quality acts as a moderating factor on the insider CEOs and investment efficiency nexus. Furthermore, the authors conducted a series of endogeneity and robustness tests to strengthen the results of this study.

This study offers new ideas in the investment literature and its practice in companies, where it highlights the role of the existence of an insider CEO in practice on investment efficiency. The authors provide recommendations to companies, potential investors and policymakers regarding the potential for insider CEOs to influence investment returns that tend to be less efficient. Therefore, this study proves that the presence of an insider CEO has a higher risk-taking preference, which has the potential to influence less efficient investment practices.

Several previous studies have focused more on the role of CEOs who come from outside the company and their impact on investment practices. However, it is not clear whether insider CEOs will influence the company’s investment efficiency practices driven by the perspective of “risk preferences and investment returns”. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to substantiate the role of CEOs based on their origin and their impact on less efficient investment practices.

The traditional information phase of value engineering (VE) workshops often involves face-to-face meetings and physical site visits, which can be time-consuming, costly and impractical due to various constraints. This paper introduces a web-based platform integrating BIM and GIS to streamline this phase by systematically gathering, processing and visualizing multi-format information in a virtual environment.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to analyze the potential of BIM and GIS integration in the VE context. A three-step information structure generation method was employed to outline the information gathering needs during the VE workshops, incorporating a review of multi-source references. A framework including information gathering, processing and visualization was proposed to streamline the information phase with BIM and GIS integration as the core. Subsequently, a web-based prototype platform was developed utilizing the three-layer architecture, with the case study to demonstrate its application. A comprehensive evaluation involving black box testing, user interface testing and focus group discussion was conducted to validate the functionality, usability, potential and limitations.

The platform can support the systematic collection, processing, organization and visualization of multi-format information during the information phase, enable virtual meetings and virtual site visits and facilitate VE participants’ review, understanding and analysis of such information and the documentation of their comments and suggestions. The black box testing validated its functionality, with necessity, effectiveness and convenience confirmed by VE practitioners. Its potential was approved due to clear information structure, web-based virtual review and logical multi-format information organization.

The generalized four-category information structure and proposed three-layer framework streamline the information phase of VE practices. The developed platform allows the VE team to review multi-format information virtually, simultaneously, freely and as many times as necessary.

This paper aims to unveil the greenwashing intention of green bonds issuing in Chinese enterprises through the lens of stock pricing efficiency.

Drawing on data of Chinese listed companies during 2012–2021, this study uses a difference-in-differences method to study how and through what mechanisms issuing green bonds impacts stock pricing efficiency.

Issuing green bonds lowers stock pricing efficiency, verifying the greenwashing intention of green bonds in China. Potential mechanisms underlie the increased investor attention and sentiment resulting from the information disclosures about corporate green and low-carbon development. This greenwashing issue is more pronounced in firms facing lower financing constraints, having stronger relations with the government, and located in highly marketized regions. In the context of uncertainty surrounding economic policies, especially trade policies, issuing green bonds can signal a weakening of the greenwashing effect.

The quality of information disclosure should be emphasized to ensure a substantive commitment to environmental responsibility signaled by green bond issuance, thereby mitigating greenwashing concerns.

Regulators and standard-setters should improve the issuance system for green bonds and promote the sustainable development of the green bond market through formulating unified certification criteria for green bonds and implementing a stringently periodic reporting system.

First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study to draw on the quality of information disclosure and the perspective of stock pricing efficiency to identify whether firms issuing green bonds engage in greenwashing. Second, the study uncovers the black-box underlying this greenwashing issue through investor attention and sentiment and examines further the moderating role of economic policy uncertainties.

Additive manufacturing offers the ability to produce complex, flexible structures from materials like thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) for energy-absorption applications. However, selecting optimal structural parameters to achieve desired mechanical responses remains a challenge. This study aims to investigate the influence of key structural characteristics on the energy absorption and dissipation behavior and the deformation process of 3D-printed flexible TPU line-oriented structures.

Samples with varying line orientations and infill densities were fabricated using material extrusion and subjected to quasi-static compression tests. The design of experiments methodology explored the significance of design variables and their interaction effects on energy absorption and dissipation.

The results revealed a statistically significant interaction between infill density and orientation, highlighting their combined influence; however, the effect was less pronounced compared to infill density alone. For low-density structures, changing the orientation from 0°/90° to 45°/−45° and increasing infill density enhanced energy absorption and dissipation, while high-density structures exhibited unique energy absorption behavior influenced by deformation patterns and heterogeneity levels. This study facilitates the prediction of mechanical responses and selection of suitable TPU line-oriented printed parts for energy absorbing applications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present work have investigated for the first time the energy-related responses of flexible line-oriented TPU structures highlighting the distinction between the low and high density structures.