Green City and Green Growth: Environment Governance as a Moderating Variable

Abstract

The issues surrounding energy governance, climate change and global sustainable development have become more and more important since the twentieth century. Over the decade, the concept of “green growth” has been applied to international environment policy, and “green economy” has also occupied a dominating position. This study used the data of major Asian cities investigated by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to empirically analyze the connection between Green City Indices and City Gross Domestic Product (City GDP). The first objective of this study is to investigate the correlation between individual Green City Indices and green growth in terms of City GDP. The second objective was to evaluate the moderating role of public governance in the relationship between Green City Indices and green GDP. The results show the significant association between seven of the Green City Indices and City GDP. Most of these indices are associated with local infrastructure construction. The findings also indicate that environment governance has a moderating effect on the relationship between Green City indices and City GDP. Public managers are encouraged to use the research results to foster economic growth and improve environment sustainability.