Many have seen a remarkable increase in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices in the context of natural resource management. ESG is practically known to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with more responsible management of natural resources. Yet, limited economic literature exists to illuminate how natural resource management can affect the quality of economic development. This paper attempts to develop and test a theoretical model to understand the interlinkage between natural resource rent, ESG performance, and the quality of economic development at the country level. This study employs a data set of OECD countries during the period of 2000-2017. The path analysis model is used to define the relationship between the measured variables. Our empirical study shows a negative association between ESG performance and natural resource rent; in other words, better human development inhibits corruption and promotes improved ESG performance. This study observes the presence of bidirectional Granger causality between natural resource rent and ESG performance. It is suggested that ESG performance is more likely to be affected by the quality of institutions, rather than by the economy size. Good institutions enable the economy to reach optimum resource allocation.

Deposition of SiOx layers by low‐pressure microwave plasmas is an excellent means to add missing barrier functionalities to cheap and material‐saving homo‐polymeric materials that will increasingly replace expensive multi‐layer polymer food packaging. SiOx coatings were deposited in an ECR plasma process on polyethyleneterephthalate (PET) foils using two different precursors, HMDSO and HMDSN. O2 transition rates of less than 1 cm3 (m−2·24 h−1·bar−1) were obtained for the best performing SiOx coatings deposited from O2/HMDSN gas mixtures. First ECR plasma deposition tests on polypropylene (PP) trays show the high barrier potential of SiOx coatings even on three‐dimensional polymer food packaging.

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Economic disparity is still a major problem threatening Indonesia’s future prosperity. Spatial inequality between rural and urban areas remain to exist and is driven by unequal access to and unaffordable cost of the traditional electricity infrastructures. The national electrification ratio reached 91.16 % in 2016. This paper evaluates the feasibility of reforming existing regulations for Indonesia's electricity sector in its light to reduce economic disparities between-regions and intra- regions in Indonesia. A systematic review of the literature on the publications and research reports is used to provide inputs for revising the regulations of the electricity sector to address more focused mission-oriented objectives. Empirical models are discussed and established to predict the cost-saving from the reduction of CO2 emission by applying the technological solutions for renewable energy and energy efficiency. This study finds a cost-saving of Rp. 135 trillion per 40.000 hours-use for the whole electricity consumers in Indonesia that can be converted into financial instruments to support the development of electricity infrastructure in the disadvantaged regions. In the end, the study concludes that there is a clear financial benefit, in the form of opportunity cost, for reforming narration of the electricity policy and further transforming the institutional arrangement.

The aim to achieve the target of a 23% share of sustainable energies in the total Indonesia’s primary energy supply requires enormous amounts of works. Indonesia’s scientific knowledge production can support a successful transition to renewables. However, policy makers struggle to determine how the transition benefits from the scientific production on renewable. A bibliometric study using scientific publication data from the Web of Science (WoS) is used to probe how Indonesian scientific knowledge production can support the policy design for transition to sustainable energy. The seven focused disciplines are geothermal, solar, wind, hydro, bio, hybrid, and energy policy and economics. Based on the data from the above-listed disciplines, a deeper analysis is conducted, and implications to the policy design are constructed. The study reveals that bio energy is the focus of the research topics produced in Indonesia, followed by solar and hydro energy. Most RE research is related to the applied sciences. The innovation capability in the form of technology modifiers and technology adapters supports the transition to sustainable energy in Indonesia. The research on bio energy, however, is characterized by higher basic knowledge than research on solar and hydro energy. This suggests low barriers to the access to the resources and to the completion of bio research in Indonesia. Designing Indonesian energy policy by comprising discriminatively specific sustainable energy sources in the main policy instruments can therefore accelerate the sustainable transition and development.