Documents Doran, Justin 2 results

"Governments at the EU and the member state level are placing increased emphasis on public research and development (R&D) for energy and the environment to advance a circular economy (CE). To achieve CE goals, it is critical to engage SMEs as they represent the vast majority of enterprises in the EU. To date, there is a lack of evidence regarding the impact of these public R&D investments on SMEs' CE activities. We address this gap by analysing the impact of public environmental and energy R&D on CE implementation and investment by SMEs. The study draws from a multi-level database of 10,618 SMEs across 28 EU member states for the period 2013–2015 from the Flash Eurobarometer 441 survey and country-level data from other EU sources. Employing a mixed-level probit regression, we find that the knowledge generated by public environmental and energy R&D, defined as country-level investments in this activity from 2004 to 2015, positively affects SMEs' implementation of CE activities. Additionally, the study finds that public environmental and energy R&D affects the level of SMEs' investment in CE activities negatively, suggesting that more public R&D can substitute for the financial efforts that SMEs have to take when implementing CE activities."

"Since late 2019, COVID-19 has devastated the global economy, with indirect implications for the environment. As governments' prioritized health and implemented measures such as the closure of non-essential businesses and social distancing, many workers have lost their jobs, been furloughed, or started working from home. Consequently, the world of work has drastically transformed and this period is likely to have major implications for mobility, transportation and the environment. This paper estimates the potential for people to engage in remote work and social distancing using O*NET data and Irish Census data and calculates the potential emission savings, by commuter type from a switch to remote working and occupational social distancing. The results show that while those who commute by car have a relatively high potential for remote work, they are less likely to be able to engage in social distancing in their workplace. While this may be negative for employment prospects in the short run, our analysis indicates that this pattern has the potential for positive environmental implications in the short and long run."