GREEN INNOVATION, ENERGY TRANSITION, AND NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE: PATHWAYS TO ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

The reckless extraction of natural resources is wrecking biodiversity, increasing earth temperature and posing environmental pressure to curtail sustainability.​ Therefore, developed and emerging economies are posing stress on green innovation, energy transition and accessible natural resources to acquire sustainable footprint. In this perspective, a panel dataset of Paris Club economies for green innovation, energy transition and natural resource abundance coupled with sustainable footprints are employed for the period 1990-2025 which is sourced from World development indicator (WDI) and global footprint network (GFN). For this objective Cross-sectionally augmented ARDL model (CS-ARDL) coupled with Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (DCCEMG) is employed as a robustness. The findings revealed that green innovation, energy transition substantially alleviate pressure on sustainable footprint by 0.072%, and 0.104% respectively. In contrast, natural resource abundance increases the sustainability footprint (0.143), consistent with resource-curse mechanisms associated with intensive extraction and resource-dependent production. However, DCCEMG validates the findings of CS-ARDL that common shock and heterogeneous slopes are stable. The results suggest that the energy transition to renewables and the promotion of green innovation can help alleviate resource-related pressures, and that resource-rent management continues to play a key role for policy makers.