Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and other private governance instruments (e.g., Fair Trade, Forest Stewardship Council, Fair Wear Foundation, GLOBALGAP) are increasingly regulating global production processes and economic activities. VSS verify the compliance of products or production processes with sustainability standards. The importance of voluntary sustainability standards is now widely recognized. After being operational for more than two decades, they have established themselves as private governance instruments. This recognition is also exemplified by their integration in public regulatory approaches. Governments and international organizations are partnering with voluntary sustainability standards to pursue sustainable development policies. We witness the integration of VSS in the regulatory approaches of local and national governments in countries around the world, the integration of VSS in trade policies, the emergence of public–private initiatives to govern global supply chains, and the inclusion of private initiatives in experimentalist governance regimes. This Special Issue seeks to bring together research on the interface between private and public governance. We welcome contributions which analyze specific case studies on the emergence and development of these private–public interactions, the design of public–private governance, the effectiveness of these governance arrangements, and critical perspectives on the possibilities and limitations of such public–private forms of governance. We welcome multi-disciplinary perspectives including contributions from economics, political science, law, sociology, geography, and anthropology. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

This book is among the first to address the issue of assessing the efficiency of sustainable development financing from a theoretical and methodical point of view. The innovative nature of research is expressed through the study of new phenomena in finance including sustainable financial systems, sustainable finance, ESG risk and individual and institutional motivations of financial managers in the sustainability concept. The book aims to draw attention to the significant gap in the existing research.The concept of Sustainable Development, if placed in an economic category, requires a lot of attention, but seeing the cognitive category from the perspective of the discipline of finance, the latter is unsatisfactory, with questions remaining unanswered. At the same time, the rank problem, its strategic dimension and the amount of financial resources allocated and disbursed for the purposes of focusing around sustainable development, identification of financial phenomena accompanying this category is seen as a priority. Most measures financing Sustainable Development and measures of public spending efficiency are measures subject to rigor and rules due to their specificity, which means actions aimed at increasing efficiency are treated as a priority. This book will be of interest to leading representatives of academia, practitioners, executives, officials, and graduate students in economics, finance, management, statistics, law and political sciences.

The global development community has articulated many collective aspirations in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at transforming the world. Given the complicated issues that accompany globalization, State and non-State actors continue to explore the utility of public–private cooperation mechanisms. Public– private cooperation initiatives strive for global governance mechanisms involving oversight by all of the actors and operating frameworks that include multiple states, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, private sector companies and prominent individuals.

'The authors advance our understanding of the role of non-state actors in global governance. Not only do they empirically investigate the role of public–private – type 2 – partnerships systematically, they also critically consider their role in mitigating global governance deficits and their accountability in global governance.' – Peter M. Haas, University of Massachusetts Amherst, US The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is remembered mainly for the promotion of a novel form of global governance: the so-called 'partnerships for sustainable development'. This book provides a first authoritative assessment of partnerships for sustainable development, ten years after the Johannesburg Summit. The extensive research builds on a unique Global Sustainability Partnerships Database and a series of in-depth qualitative case studies. Key questions studied in this book include the overall effectiveness and influence of partnerships, their geographical, functional and organizational scope, and their legitimacy. This unique book systematically investigates the questions of emergence, influence and legitimacy, which will prove invaluable for scholars and students interested in global environmental governance and sustainability, public–private partnerships, sustainability at the UN level and environmental governance beyond international agreements and policies.

The global development community has articulated many collective aspirations in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at transforming the world. Given the complicated issues that accompany globalization, State and non-State actors continue to explore the utility of public-private cooperation mechanisms. Public- private cooperation initiatives strive for global governance mechanisms involving oversight by all of the actors and operating frameworks that include multiple states, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, private sector companies and prominent individuals. This book examines global public-private initiatives which attempt to form new institutions to achieve cooperation objectives in contrast to traditional PPP models which rely on contract arrangements between governments and service providers. Students of these initiatives from many interconnected disciplines, including law, finance, international relations and governance will find this introduction to this growing field of development cooperation timely and informative.

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) play an increasingly prominent role in addressing global development challenges. United Nations agencies and other organizations are relying on PPPs to improve global health, facilitate access to scientific information, and encourage the diffusion of climate change technologies. For this reason, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights their centrality in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the same time, the intellectual property dimensions and implications of these efforts remain under-examined. Through selective case studies, this illuminating work contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between PPPs and intellectual property considered within a global knowledge governance framework, that includes innovation, capacity-building, technological learning, and diffusion. Linking global governance of knowledge via intellectual property to the SDGs, this is the first book to chart the activities of PPPs at this important nexus.

By merging public and private tangible and intangible capitals, Public Private Partnerships contracts (PPP) are fundamental to generate public value and to support economic and social development; in the aftermath of Covid-19 pandemic, they prove critical to pave the way for the recovery. This book is intended to support the co-evolution of the main public and private players involved in PPP contracts for infrastructure and service delivery, by providing principles, based on the academic and professional experience of the authors, that can be applied across sectors and jurisdictions. Drawing on the framework of public-private collaborations at macro, meso and micro level, this book provides a practical perspective on the most relevant legal, financial and contractual issues of PPP contracts for infrastructure and service delivery.