Sustainability Research in the Mediterranean

Editorial

Ioannis Vardopoulos — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Sustainability in the Mediterranean is rarely held back by a shortage of stated ambition, and the region now possesses an abundance of strategies, targets, and declarations addressed to its overlapping environmental, economic, and social pressures. What it possesses in far smaller measure is the productive, institutional, and behavioral apparatus through which such ambition becomes ordinary practice, and it is precisely this distance between what is declared and what is structurally feasible that the contributions gathered in the present issue examine from several directions at once. The region continues to warm faster than the global mean and to absorb pressures from energy demand, demographic change, migratory flows, and a deep dependence on tourism, and these conditions interact in ways that resist sectoral treatment and reward integrated analysis (Salvati and Vardopoulos, 2024; Vardopoulos et al., 2024). Read together, the studies and the data paper assembled herewith suggest that the unfinished business of the regional transition lies less in the formulation of goals than in the slow reconfiguration of the structures, the systems of measurement, and the everyday choices on which any durable transformation depends.

Transforming the Mediterranean into an Industrial Region: A Key to the Sustainability of the European Economy

Konstantinos Theodorakopoulos — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This paper examines the structural macroeconomic challenges confronting the Mediterranean member states of the European Union, focusing on the persistent coexistence of high public debt and a weak industrial base. Using a comparative analysis of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, it highlights the central role of manufacturing capacity in shaping economic resilience, growth sustainability, and external balance within a monetary union. The analysis demonstrates that Greece represents an extreme case of deindustrialization combined with excessive reliance on tourism and services, resulting in heightened vulnerability to external shocks and chronic dependence on external financing. Italy, by contrast, illustrates how a strong and diversified industrial base can mitigate the destabilizing effects of high public debt, albeit without fully resolving long-term stagnation. Spain and Portugal occupy an intermediate position, combining moderate industrial capacity with rising dependence on tourism and services. This paper argues that the structural divergence between the industrial core of Northern Europe and the service-oriented economies of the South constitutes a fundamental threat to the cohesion and sustainability of the euro area. In the absence of exchange rate adjustment mechanisms, internal devaluation strategies have proven socially costly and economically insufficient to restore competitiveness. The findings underscore that a durable growth model for the Mediterranean cannot be built on services alone and that industrial capacity remains a key determinant of productivity growth, export performance, and technological upgrading. The study concludes that an industrial renaissance in the European South is not merely a regional development objective but a systemic necessity for the European Union. However, such a transformation cannot be achieved through financial instruments alone. It requires deep institutional reforms at the European level, including closer coordination of monetary and fiscal policy, the strengthening of collective economic sovereignty, and the explicit recognition of the structural North-South dependency embedded in the current architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union.

Job Polarization Revisited

Eleni Drakaki, Foteini Tatsi, Kostas Karamanis — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This paper examines the structural transformation of the Greek labor market over the period 2000–2025, situating occupational change within the broader framework of international and European political economy and sustainable development. Against the backdrop of prolonged economic crisis, fiscal adjustment, globalization, and accelerating technological change, the study investigates whether Greece exhibits employment restructuring patterns consistent with the job polarization hypothesis observed in other advanced industrial and developed economies. Drawing on the task-based approach, the analysis uses harmonized ILOSTAT data on employment by occupation (ISCO-08, one-digit level) and adopts a comparative perspective including the EU, the G7, and the G20. The study assesses long-term shifts in occupational composition and skill distribution before, during, and after the sovereign debt crisis, with particular attention to structural resilience and productive transformation. The findings indicate that the Greek labor market does not display a clear polarization trajectory. Although the share of professional occupations has increased, managerial and advanced technical roles remain structurally limited, while employment continues to concentrate in service and elementary activities. Rather than reflecting a transition toward a knowledge-intensive and innovation-driven growth model, occupational restructuring appears constrained by persistent production structures, weak technological upgrading, and institutional rigidities. The Greek case highlights a broader challenge of the Mediterranean countries and regions that are highly dependent on tourism: sustainable economic transformation requires not only macroeconomic stabilization but also productive and institutional reconfiguration for creating jobs in higher-value-added sectors and knowledge-intensive industries.

Environmental Impact Assessment in Coastal and Island Tourism as a Tool for Sustainable Development

Erasmia Angelaki, Stavros Garefalakis, Ioannis Samaras — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important tool for integrating environmental concerns into development planning, particularly in island and coastal regions where ecosystems are highly sensitive and tourism pressures are intense. This paper examines its role in promoting sustainable tourism development in such vulnerable areas. Drawing on a qualitative review of the relevant literature, the study explores the conceptual foundations of EIA, its application in tourism planning, and the factors that influence its effectiveness. The analysis indicates that, although the instrument has strong potential to support environmentally responsible decision making, its implementation is often constrained by weak institutional capacity, insufficient baseline data, limited stakeholder participation, and inadequate enforcement. In many cases, it functions more as a procedural requirement than as a strategic planning tool. The paper argues that, in island and coastal tourism contexts, EIA should move beyond compliance and contribute more directly to environmental protection, community inclusion, and long-term resilience within sustainable development planning.

A Qualitative Examination of ESG Institutionalization in Mediterranean Banking Operations

Georgios Papageorgiou, Odysseas Kopsidas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria have become central to how banks finance economic activity, manage risk and respond to intensifying regulatory and stakeholder expectations. Yet the way in which ESG becomes institutionalized inside individual banks, and particularly within the under-examined Greek banking sector, remains poorly understood. This study provides a qualitative examination of ESG institutionalization within a major Greek bank, Alpha Bank, addressing three questions: what drives ESG adoption, how ESG is embedded across banking operations, and how ESG practices are institutionalized in day-to-day activity. Adopting an interpretivist philosophy and a single-case design, the study draws on six semi-structured interviews with Alpha Bank executives spanning strategy, risk, controlling and compliance functions. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, which yielded three themes: ESG criteria adoption factors, the institutionalization of ESG in banking operations, and the institutionalization of ESG practices. The findings show that adoption is propelled by a confluence of regulatory pressure, investor expectations, an internalized sense of social responsibility and market competitiveness, while institutionalization proceeds through governance reform, the creation of dedicated ESG risk functions, transparent reporting, workforce engagement and strategic integration. Persistent obstacles such as data complexity, measurement difficulty, regulatory burden and cost coexist with clear opportunities in risk management, investor attraction, reputation and sustainable growth. The study contributes a granular, context-specific account of ESG institutionalization in Greek banking and offers practical recommendations for the bank, the sector and policymakers.

Survey Dataset from 549 Households across Greece on (Environmental) Awareness and Adoption Intentions of Residential Renewable Energy (Microgeneration) Technologies

Spyridon Karytsas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This article describes a household survey dataset documenting environmental awareness, environmentally responsible behavior, perceptions of renewable energy sources, and the current and intended adoption of residential microgeneration technologies among 549 households in Greece. The data were generated through a structured web-based questionnaire administered to adult residential decision makers in 2019 and provided the empirical foundation for a published study of the determinants of market acceptance of small-scale renewable energy technologies. The instrument combined 32 thematic questions with seven demographic questions and yielded 78 coded variables spanning residential characteristics, environmental awareness and behavior, renewable energy source perceptions, the installation and intended installation of six microgeneration technologies, the factors that shape installation decisions, and respondent demographics. Two composite indices summarizing environmental awareness and environmental behavior, three reverse-coded items, and two embedded attention-check questions were incorporated to support reliability assessment and secondary analysis. What distinguishes the dataset is its integration of attitudinal, behavioral, residential, spatial, and technology-specific information within a single coherent instrument, together with the parallel documentation of realized adoption and future adoption intention. A fully specified and reversible coding scheme accompanies the numerical records, rendering the data immediately usable in standard statistical environments. The resource lends itself to research on renewable energy adoption, environmental behavior, sustainability transitions, technology acceptance, behavioral segmentation, policy analysis, predictive modelling, and machine learning, and it offers a transferable template for future studies on household participation in decentralized energy systems.