This paper examines the current landscape of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing by focusing on environment. We analyze the discrepancies in ESG scoring methodologies among different rating agencies and demonstrate how these inconsistencies can lead to distorted investment...

Globally, 1.7 billion adults still lack access to formal financial services, with a large percentage living in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Current financial inclusion strategies provide these vulnerable populations with access to a wide array of financial services that aim to build more...

Marine litter seriously affects island-based or archipelagic economies. The Philippines is an example of a country at the center of this predicament due to its strategic geographic location as a regional trade route. Urbanization, rapid economic development, and the population increase are some...

The geographic and strategic location of Bangladesh besides the Bay of Bengal has opened up multidimensional opportunities for the development of coastal and maritime tourism (CMT). Though various legal documents and researchers have already detected opportunities for CMT from the perspective of...

Lack of cooling and cold-chain access is a critical development challenge that has significant implications for people's livelihoods, productivity, health, food, and nutritional security. While business-as-usual demand projections suggest 19 new cooling appliances will be sold every second by...

The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing economic and broader development challenges as never before. Policy lessons from Asia and the Pacific's past experience in dealing with shocks show that focusing on economic growth alone is not enough. Rising inequality and environmental challenges increased the...

Marine tourism can ensure social, environmental, and economic benefits through sustainable use of marine resources. The main challenges for marine tourism are preservation of the sea and marine resources through conserving the marine ecosystems and reducing marine pollution. This tourism segment...

Infrastructure construction is one of the basic driving forces of social and economic development. Since 1978, the construction of infrastructure in the People's Republic of China (PRC) has experienced rapid development, which has given a strong impetus to the PRC's modernization. But behind the...

The ocean is being jeopardized because of the adverse effects of climate change and human activities, such as marine plastic pollution, extreme weather events, sea level rises, and others. In addressing these ocean risks, ensuring sufficient finance to sustain the ocean economy is an...

The sustainable management of coastal zones requires appropriate tools within the framework of the Blue Economy. This paper adopts a supply/coastal zone perspective to investigate key issues and aspects related to the implementation of coastal tourism initiatives. The main research question is:...