Search results

Climate risk greatly increases the risk exposure of global investments. Both the climate risks of home countries and host countries may affect international investment behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of climate risk and climate risk distance on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and outflows. Targeted proposals are provided to promote international economic and trade cooperation and the authors provide suggestions for the FDI strategies of multinational enterprises.

The authors define “climate risk distance” as the difference in climate risks between two countries. This paper uses both a theoretical model and a generalized least squares test to investigate the impact of climate risk distance on FDI from the perspectives of FDI inflows and outflows. In addition, the authors subdivide the samples according to the sign of climate risk distance and rank the FDI share from home country to host country into four groups according to the host country’s climate risk index. Finally, the authors undertake empirical tests with outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) data to support the empirical results.

Investors from countries with low climate risks have the upper hand due to their competitive advantages, like their skills, trademarks and patent rights, which they can transfer abroad to offset the disadvantage of being non-native. This is generally defined as ownership advantage. The impact of climate risk distance on FDI depends on the sign of climate risk distance. Specifically, host countries with higher climate risks compared with the climate risk levels of home countries may experience insignificant reductions in FDI inflows. For investors from home countries with higher climate risks, they are less likely to invest in host countries with lower climate risks. The results for samples from emerging market economies are shown to be more significant.

This study advances the O (ownership advantage) part of the ownership, location and internationalization (OLI) paradigm by incorporating the climate risk distance between the home country and the host country into the influencing factors of FDI. Both the O part and the L (location advantage, the advantage that host countries offers to make internationalization worthwhile to undertake FDI) part of the OLI paradigm concerning climate risks are validated with FDI and OFDI data.

The purpose of this study is to review and summarise the existing available literature on lightweight cladding systems to provide detailed information on fire behaviour (ignitibility, heat release rate and smoke toxicity) and various test method protocols. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges and provides updated knowledge and recommendation on selective-fire mechanisms such as rapid-fire spread, air cavity and fire re-entry behaviours due to dripping and melting of lightweight composite claddings.

A comprehensive literature review on fire behaviour, fire hazard and testing methods of lightweight composite claddings has been conducted in this research. In summarising all possible fire hazards, particular attention is given to the potential impact of toxicity of lightweight cladding fires. In addition, various criteria for fire performance evaluation of lightweight composite claddings are also highlighted. These evaluations are generally categorised as small-, intermediate- and large-scale test methods.

The major challenges of lightweight claddings are rapid fire spread, smoke production and toxicity and inconsistency in fire testing.

The review highlights the current challenges in cladding fire, smoke toxicity, testing system and regulation to provide some research recommendations to address the identified challenges.