The Quintuple Helix model of innovation calls for a new logic of production that relies on Public-Private-People Partnerships (PPPP), as exemplified by Living Labs, while considering planetary boundaries. Bioregionalism offers a relevant framework to address design and engineering through the lens of territorial limits, capacities, and natural resources. However, the literature does not provide a shared operational framework to guide designers, engineers, and project leaders who seek to apply bioregional principles in practice. Based on a careful review of the literature, this paper proposes a first set of operational criteria for bioregional design projects. These criteria were submitted to an expert focus group engaged in an eco-renovation case study, producing a revised version. The resulting framework offers a practical, non-normative tool to orient projects toward bioregional coherence. It contributes to open innovation, territorial co-design, and situated sustainable innovation models. It also opens perspectives for further expert panel validation and field application.

Municipalities are increasingly positioned as key actors in energy transitions, yet their engagement in decentralized renewable energy deployment remains uneven. This paper examines how competing municipal roles configure agency and generate governance tensions in solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment on public buildings. Drawing on agency, stakeholder, and role theory, the study analyzes qualitative interview data from Finnish municipalities through a comparative case approach.

The findings show that municipal agency is not primarily constrained by technological or economic factors, but by misalignment between institutional role expectations. Municipalities simultaneously operate as property owners, energy consumers, regulators, market actors, and, in some cases, utility owners, which creates structurally embedded tensions in decision-making. While the transition toward prosumer status expands opportunities for local energy action, it also introduces conflicts between financial objectives, regulatory neutrality, and climate ambitions.

Across cases, rooftop solar PV deployment remains limited despite technical feasibility, as large-scale energy projects align more closely with established organizational roles, centralized energy infrastructures, and prevailing business models. The analysis identifies distinct configurations of municipal agency, ranging from proactive initiators to neutral facilitators, depending on the compatibility of roles and local institutional conditions.

The paper develops a role-based explanation of municipal agency, demonstrating that the alignment of roles within local governance systems is a critical condition for decentralized energy deployment. By highlighting the mechanisms through which role conflicts constrain action, the study contributes to research on decentralized energy governance and advances understanding of municipalities as socially embedded actors in sustainability transitions.

The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), introduced under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), transform corporate sustainability disclosure into a structured, data intensive obligation that is particularly challenging for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). At the same time, AI enabled ESG software, Industry 4.0 energy management solutions and smart carbon platforms are rapidly maturing, offering opportunities to automate data collection, carbon accounting and reporting. This paper develops a conceptual architecture for hybrid AI carbon management systems that are explicitly mapped to ESRS, with a focus on implementation in wood and furniture SMEs. Building on a multi tier ESRS information architecture that treats ESRS datapoints as foundational elements linking regulation, information and systems design, the paper integrates: (i) AI enabled carbon accounting and ESG platforms (ii) Industry 4.0 and ERP based carbon footprint management in manufacturing (iii) sector specific rapid carbon footprint accounting for solid wood furniture and energy efficiency solutions in wood workshops and (iv) emerging frameworks for accounting for AI’s own carbon footprint within governance and risk management. The resulting architecture aims to operationalize ESRS aligned, “compliance by design” carbon management in resource constrained SMEs while supporting strategic low carbon innovation.

Global Business Services (GBS) have emerged as a critical "living laboratory" for the Twin Transition of Green and Digital Transformation, as multinational corporations (MNCs) face increasing pressure to harmonize digital efficiency with environmental stewardship. Aiming to derive a rigorous socio-technical framework for this transition, this paper synthesizes Technology Roadmapping (TRM) with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT-centric innovation ecosystem toolkit. A longitudinal bibliometric analysis of research clusters reveals an evolutionary shift from basic process automation toward "Sustainable Intelligence," identifying the GBS unit as a central "operational airlock" that mediates between landscape pressures—such as the EU’s dual mandate and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms—and niche innovations in AI-native workflows. The study further maps these clusters onto a stakeholder engagement canvas, highlighting how resilient "Middle Power" hubs in Poland, Portugal, and Malaysia are bypassing the middle-income trap to provide a "third way" for global value chains amidst a bifurcated geopolitical cloud. The results offer a data-driven design approach for leaders and entrepreneurial support networks to orchestrate talent and supply chain flows, thereby enriching the conceptual understanding of Industry 5.0 and the role of GBS as a primary mechanism for navigating a volatile, multipolar digital economy.