In 1989, Perce et al. (1989) first introduced the term "green economy" to refer to the need to couple economic growth to available natural resources. Recently, the most relevant world organizations are making important efforts to highlight the need to move towards more environmentally friendly economic models, to preserve nature and curb the rise in temperatures caused by climate change. This momentum is resulting in the adoption of concrete commitments by most of the world's countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of achieving climate neutrality. Therefore, government departments, enterprises, and scholars have been interested in understanding how to simultaneously promote the economic growth and the environmental protection (Lee et al. 2022). To achieve these commitments and decarbonize the economy, changing the energy mix and adopting energy measures is particularly important, as energy production and consumption are responsible for most of the harmful emissions. Promoting the use of renewable energies, moving towards more electric economic systems and seeking alternatives that allow the generation of heat and non-polluting fuels are among the measures recently implemented to achieve the proposed objectives.

The objective of this Special Issue is to assess the progress that is being made in the field of energy in order to achieve sustainable economic growth at the global, regional or national level, and the difficulties that arise in this process. The analysis of how the processes of promoting renewable energies, electrification and the use of alternative fuels, at a global or sectoral level, are enabling a more sustainable economic growth are especially welcome. But also, analyses that focus on providing the difficulties of certain sectors/economic activities to undertake or continue on the path towards the zero emissions target are also interesting, in order to better understand the relationship between energy consumption needed to generate production and carbon neutral economic growth.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

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