Evaluating the effects of ECON-ESG on load capacity factor in G7 countries.

For the first time, this study introduces the ECON-ESG quadruple, developed by Isik et al. (2024a), by adding the economy (ECON) dimension to the classical ESG (environment, social, governance) triad. Based on this new concept, it explores the impact of ECON-ESG factors on the Load Capacity Factor (LCF) in G7. The impact of ECON-ESG factors on LCF is vital because sustainability through these factors plays a critical role in a sustainable environment with LCF. CS-ARDL model finds that while governance factors (GOVNF) positively affect LCF, economic factors (ECONF) have negative effects. Environmental factors (ENVF) and social factors (SOCF) do not affect LCF. These findings can be interpreted as follows: (i) Negative effects of ECONF on LCF can be interpreted as high productivity levels in G7 leading to high resource consumption, exceeding biocapacity. (ii) In G7 with high-income levels, increased consumption may lead to overconsumption of natural resources and exceeding biocapacity. (iii) High technological progress in G7 can sometimes paradoxically lead to greater resource consumption rather than encouraging more efficient resource use, increasing an ecological footprint. The positive effects of GOVNF on LCF can be interpreted as follows: (iv) High and quality governance practices and policies in G7 can increase biocapacity. (vi) Under good governance, governments and environmental organizations can positively impact LCF by raising public awareness of environmental issues and enabling society to use natural resources more sustainably. Therefore, policymakers should harmonize economic policies through ECONF and governance policies through social factors (GOVNF), which contradict each other in LCF. Additionally, the effect of the single composite form ECON-ESG introduced and proposed in this study on LCF is found to be negative. This requires policymakers and firms to re-evaluate their sustainability one more time from a holistic perspective, including economic factors, as done in this study.

In-situ transesterification of single-cell oil for biodiesel production: a review.

In recent years, biodiesel synthesis and production demands have increased because of its high degradability, cleaner emissions, non-toxicity, and an alternative to petroleum diesel. In this context, Single Cell Oil (SCO) has been identified as an alternative feedstock, having the advantage of accumulating high intracellular lipid. SCO/microbial lipids are potential alternatives for sustainable biodiesel production. The traditional technique for biodiesel production from the oils obtained from microbes generally requires two steps: lipid extraction and transesterification. In-situ transesterification is an innovative and renewable process for biodiesel production. It rules out the need to isolate and refine the feedstock lipid, as it directly uses biomass in a single step, i.e., the pretreated biomass will be subjected to in-situ transesterification in the presence of catalysts. Hence, the production cost can be reduced by eliminating the lipid extraction procedure. The current review focuses on the basic features and advantages of in-situ transesterification of SCO for biodiesel production with the aid of short-chain alcohols along with different acid, base, and enzyme catalysts. In addition, a comparative study was carried out to highlight the merits of in-situ transesterification over conventional transesterification.