Environment-related Technologies Research Articles

Examining the (non)symmetric environmental quality effect of material productivity and environmental-related technologies in Iceland

This study considers the carbon neutrality 2040 ambition of Iceland to examine the role of raw material productivity, environmental-related technologies, and export intensity (components of the 48 elements of the country’s Climate Action Plan (CAP)) in navigating the country's environmental sustainability pathway. By employing symmetric and asymmetric empirical approaches with dataset that span over 1990–2019, the result reveals that a positive shock to raw material productivity accounts for a decline in GHG emission in both short- and long-run, thus aiding the pathway toward green productivity in the country. While GHG emission is impacted negatively by a positive shock in environmental-related technologies, the finding reveals a surge in GHG emission arising from a negative shock in environmental-related technologies in all the examined models. However, it is revealed that a positive shock to GDP spurs GHG emissions especially in the long run while a negative change in GDP impact hinders the surge in GHG emissions. This evidence poses more question about the country’s pathway to sustainable growth. Interestingly, the result further posits that a positive shock to export intensity enhances environmental sustainability by promoting a decrease in GHG emissions. Meanwhile, a negative shock to export intensification shows a contrary effect. In a compelling manner, the results of the symmetric analysis corroborate the above-mentioned asymmetric evidence. Thus, the result from this investigation brings the Icelandic’s CAP performance under scrutiny alongside offering further recommendation to attaining improved performance.

The role of innovation in environmental-related technologies and institutional quality to drive environmental sustainability

In this study, we examine the long-run effect of environmental-related technological innovation, institutional quality, trade openness, energy consumption, and economic growth on CO2 emissions in APEC countries from 2004 to 2018. Firstly, panel unit root tests were used to explore the stationarity of each data series. The panel unit root test findings showed that all data series are stationary at the first difference. Second, the Westerlund panel cointegration test was used to deal with heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. Thirdly, the empirical findings from the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimators indicate that environmental-related technological innovation and institutional quality destructively affect CO2 emissions. In contrast, trade openness, energy consumption, and economic growth positively impact CO2 emissions. While causality analysis refers to the unidirectional causality runs from trade openness, energy consumption to CO2 emission and bidirectional causality relationships are between technological innovation, institutional quality, GDP, CO2 emission. Based on the findings, we proposed that APEC countries should raise investment in environmental-related technological innovation and improve the quality of the institutional environment to achieve sustainable development targets.

Examining the environmental aspect of economic complexity outlook and environmental-related technologies in the Nordic states

Understanding the outlook of countries' economic complexity is vital for assessing the future of industries' product characterization. It provides opportunity and insight on how to mitigate the negative externalities that arises from the increasing pressure on the ecosystem. Based on this account, the effect of economic complexity and the corresponding outlook on environmental degradation vis-a-vis greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions alongside other environmental indicators are examined for the panel of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden for the period 1995 to 2020. After employing Driscoll- Kraay's standard errors for random effect (RE) with individual effects for the examination, the results indicate that the region's level of economic complexity favors environmental sustainability. Contrarily, the economic complexity outlook spurs GHG emissions, thus suggesting that future performance of the region's economic complexity could be detrimental to its ecosystem. Another similar, and undesirable observation is that the increase in urban population hampers environmental quality as it causes a surge in GHG emissions. Meanwhile, the results then conclude that economic growth, economic complexity, and environmental-related technologies are found to be potent drivers of environmental sustainability as the indicators exert negative pressure on GHG emissions in the Nordic region. Important policies that potentially guide immediate, and future sector-wide activities toward enhancing the region's sustainable development programs are posited through the study outcome.

Role of environmental ownership and associated parameters to assess green patents in technologies with environmental scanning system as a controlling factor

There is a general conception that environmental firms are more adapted to green solutions, and environmental patents are just lagging. The existing literature has paid particular attention to identifying obstacles and situational factors associated with established firms going green and has concentrated on how and why established businesses are becoming more financially viable and ecologically sustainable. In changing environment, manufacturing companies are direct contributors to environmental impacts. Increased awareness of consumers about the environment puts a handful amount of pressure on manufacturing companies to care about the environment. It also asserts unseen pressure on the financial performance of the companies. Therefore, it is time to go for green patenting of such firms while satisfying the eco-innovation and environmental scanning process. Moreover, Environmental ownership and its associated parameters keenly monitor this aspect. This paper evaluates the performance of the support vector machine (SVM/SVR) approach for estimating patents in environment-related technologies (PERT) in China from 1995 to 2021. For this work, six independent variables related to environmental ownership and environment-related technologies were selected, which include medium and high-tech exports (MHTE), green patents applicants (GPA), listed domestic companies (LDC), human capital index (HCI), self-employment (SE), and manufacturing value added in GDP (MVA). Data for dependent and independent variables were gathered from the World Bank (WB) official data bank portal. To make an initial understanding of the data basic statistical summary was computed in R programming to see the mean, minimum and maximum values in the data set. A correlation matrix plot showed the association between dependent and independent variables. SVM/SVR with radial basis function (RBF) regression was applied to see the impact of contributing parameters that influence PERT. For PERT, the model generated 0.95 R2 (RMSE = 92.43). The results of the SVR showed that the association among environmental parameters is strong. With a value of 4.82, the strongest coefficient in the SVR model is PAR. This work is novel and will benefit the manufacturing sector, analysts, policymakers, environmentalists as how green patenting can boost the eco innovation and environmental ownership and scanning system with advance technologies and practices.

A time-varying approach to the nexus between environmental related technologies, renewable energy consumption and environmental sustainability in South Africa

Ecological degradation is a major challenge for all nations. The problem is particularly worrying for South Africa, which has recently suffered from various ecological catastrophes. Thus, the empirical study evaluates the nexus between CO2 emissions and financial development, renewable energy, economic growth and environmental-related technologies in South Africa utilizing data between 1980 and 2020. We employed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and time-varying causality to evaluate these connections. The results from the ARDL show that financial development and environmental-related technologies lessen CO2 emissions while economic progress intensifies CO2 emissions. Surprisingly, renewable energy does not mitigate CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the time-varying causality shows that all the independent variables can forecast CO2 emissions at different sub-periods. Finally, our results are resilient to various policy ramifications useful in reducing CO2 emissions and associated adverse ecological consequences.

Modeling the causal dynamics among energy consumption, economic growth, and oil import prices: A panel co-integration analysis for EU economies

The circular economy creates a robust system that can combat global concerns like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by decoupling economic activity from the use of natural resources. This study for the first time in European Union (EU) countries, examines the impact of economic growth, urbanization, investment in information technology and communication (IT&C), oil import prices, environmental technology and environmental tax on energy consumption. Additionally, it also examined the impact of oil import prices, urbanization, energy consumption, investment in information technology and communication, environmental technology and environmental tax on economic growth by using panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for the estimations over the period 1990–2020. According to the correlation matrix's estimations, findings suggest that the economic expansion of the EU member countries is positively influenced by oil import prices, urbanization, environmental technology and energy consumption, while negatively impacted by investment in IT&C and environmental taxes both in the short and long-run. On the other hand, energy consumption is found to be positively impacted by economic growth, urbanization and oil import prices while negatively influenced by investment in IT&C, environmental taxes and environmental related technologies. In addition, the results of the panel ARDL model indicate that oil import prices positively and significantly influence the economic growth of the EU members. However, results of urbanization reveal a negative influence on economic growth in the short-term, but in the long-run, it has a favorable and considerable influence on the economic growth of the European Union. Finally, the research has implications for policy makers and regulators in the EU.

Environmental innovations, geographically mediated knowledge spillovers, economic and environmental performance

This paper explores the connection between environmental innovations, geographically mediated knowledge spillovers (geographical spillovers), economic and environmental performance. Specifically, with data gathered from the OECD database for three economic areas (Europe, Japan and USA) over the period 2005–2017 the paper focuses on measuring the relationship between patents in environmental related technologies as well as geographical spillovers and economic performance in terms of GDP. The empirical analysis evidence that innovation processes related to environmental technologies and geographical spillovers have a positive relationship with GDP. The results also evidence a N-shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve, where the direction (negative or positive) of the relationship between environmental (CO2 emissions) and economic performance depends on the economic development level of a country. The results bring forth important lessons for ‘green growth’ policies.

An empirical approach to the nexus between natural resources and environmental pollution: Do economic policy and environmental-related technologies make any difference?

The outlooks for the interactions between natural resource rent, economic growth, and environmental pollution are widely debated in the literature but not well understood in the context of policy uncertainty and environmental technologies. Therefore, this study empirically explores nexus between natural resource rent, economic policy uncertainty, economic growth, globalization, environmental-related technologies, and CO2 emissions in the United States between 1985 and 2020. The study employed dynamic Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) simulation and Kernel-based Regularized Least Squares (KRLS) techniques. The long-run regression outputs validate that environmental-related technologies are helpful in pollution reduction and improve environmental quality significantly. However, the increase in globalization tends to lead to environmental degradation. Furthermore, results reveal that the rise of natural resource rent contributes to carbon emissions, suggesting that an excessive dependency on natural resource rent disturbs ecological sustainability in the United States. Results indicate that environmental-related technologies should be encouraged, and more stability in economic policies can be suitable choices in fighting against climate change. New policy insights are further discussed in the paper.

Does cyclical innovation in environmental-related technologies make knowledge-based economies carbon neutral?

The knowledge-based economies have reacted by enacting stringent legislation and encouraging innovation in environmental-related technologies (IERTs) across organizations, such as academic institutions. Although previous research continues to support green innovation as a pro-cyclical concept, the irregular effect of IERT dynamics on CO2e in knowledge-based economies has not yet been studied. The paper looks at the cyclical nexus between IERT and CO2e in 37 knowledge-based economies using panel data from 1990 to 2019. The augmented mean group supported that an adverse change in IERT contributes to CO2e during economic downturns. Second, the findings confirmed that positive dynamics in IERT reduces CO2e during economic expansions. Third, the findings signified that trade openness, expansionary commercial policy, gross domestic product per capita, and expansionary monetary policy all increase CO2e, while contractionary commercial policy and use of renewable energy all decrease CO2e. Overall, the results of this study showed that there is a counter-cyclical association between IERT and CO2e. It is suggested that to reduce CO2e in knowledge-based economies, the government should support IERT in both economic contraction and expansion periods.

Eco-Innovation and Its Influence on Renewable Energy Demand: The Role of Environmental Law.

There is a consensus among the empirics regarding the positive role of renewable energy in mitigating the effects of climate change. Hence, it is vital to search for the factors that can promote renewable energy demand. As a result, this analysis investigates the impact of educational attainment, environmental law, and innovation on renewable energy consumption (REC) in China. From empirical estimates, we confer that the long-run estimates attached to the environment-related taxes and environmental policy stringency are positive and significant, implying that both these factors increase the REC in China in the long run. Similarly, the estimated coefficients of environment-related technologies and patent applications are significantly positive, confirming that environmental and other technologies give rise to REC in the long run. Likewise, the long-run estimates of education are significantly positive in both models, which confer that REC increases along with an increase in average years of schooling. Lastly, the estimates of CO2 emissions are significantly positive in the long run. These results imply that policymakers should invest in research and development activities that are crucial for promoting eco-innovation and renewable energy demand. In addition, strict environmental laws should be introduced to induce firms and businesses to invest in clean energy.

Recent developments in green hydrogen–environmental sustainability nexus amidst energy efficiency, green finance, eco-innovation, and digitalization in top hydrogen-consuming economies

The present era is facing a dilemma relating to engaging the essentialities of energy resources to attain economic prosperity due to the ensuing environmental complications. Consequently, sectors such as transport, aviation, and refining industries are under the scrutiny of reducing their reliance on fossil fuels achievable with the promotion of hydrogen energy which is largely neglected in the environmental empirics. To this end, the environmental impacts of green hydrogen in the top seven hydrogen-consuming countries are assessed from 1995 to 2019. Moreover, the roles of green finance, environmental-related technologies, energy efficiency, and digitalization are considered in the model specified within the STIRPAT framework. Second generation estimators comprising cross-section autoregressive distributed lag, Common Correlated Effect Mean Group, Augmented Mean Group, and Method of Moment Quantile Regression are employed in evaluating the stated hypotheses. Feedbacks from the analysis uncovered that green hydrogen; green finance, environmental-related technologies, energy efficiencies, digitalization, and structural change promote environmental sustainability in the top seven hydrogen-consuming countries. Contrariwise, natural resource dependence and urbanization trigger CO2 emissions, thereby exacerbating environmental complications. Based on the findings, policy measures leading toward sustainable environment are suggested.

Material productivity and environmental degradation: Moderating role of environment-related technologies in achieving carbon neutrality

After the COP21 climate summit in Paris, the majority of emerging nations confront challenges in achieving their goals of a sustainable economy and carbon neutrality with the lowest possible CO2 emissions. In doing so, environment-related technologies are crucial components that can assist in achieving carbon neutrality objectives. Therefore, the present study examines the impact of material productivity on environmental degradation with the moderating role of environment-related technologies in 17 emerging nations using data from 1995 to 2019. For the empirical analysis, the Driscoll Kraay standard error and Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality methods are used, which are robust to cross-sectional dependence. The results reveal that economic growth, globalization, and financial development positively impact environmental degradation. However, material productivity and environment-related technologies decrease environmental degradation. Furthermore, environment-related technologies negatively moderate the relationship between material productivity and environmental degradation. This study helps policymakers in developing a comprehensive policy to improve environmental sustainability using environment-related technologies in emerging nations.

The potency of resource efficiency and environmental technologies in carbon neutrality target for Finland

Motivated by Finland's ambitious transition to circular economy through the reduction of consumable non-renewable resources and carbon neutral 2035, this study employs the Fourier approaches of stationarity, cointegration, causality alongside the long-run estimators of fully modified and dynamic least squares to examine the environmental aspects of resource productivity, environmental-related technologies, and export intensity over the period 1990–2020. Interestingly, given the two long-run estimators, the result established that a percent increase in raw material productivity yields a decline in greenhouse gas emission by a range of 61–70 percent. Additionally, there is a desirable and statistically significant impact of environmental-related technologies on greenhouse gas emission with an elasticity range of 0.16–0.18 in the long-run. While the intensity of export activities does not constitute a significant impact, economic growth as measured by Gross Domestic product (GDP) significantly hampers environmental sustainability in the long-run. Moreover, the causality approach including the Fourier Toda Yamamoto offers a strong inference along the insinuation of the long-run results for all the examined factors. Given this observation, relevant policy measures were highlighted to further guide decision makers in Finland on the pursuit of circular economy and carbon zero target.

Green innovation-green growth nexus in BRICS: Does financial globalization matter?

Green growth is a novel theme, gaining prominence in the current era. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of green innovation and financial globalisation on green growth in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economies. The study employs the CS-ARDL model for the analysis. The findings confirm that the long-run estimates of environmental innovations and patents are positively significant, ensuring that environment-related technologies are helpful in attaining green growth in the BRICS economies. Moreover, the estimates of financial globalisation are significantly positive, suggesting that a rise in financial globalisation leads to an increase in green growth in the BRICS economies. Our findings imply that, to promote green growth in the BRICS economies, policymakers should focus on R&D activities that can encourage the development of green innovations.

Revenue sources of natural resources rents and its impact on sustainable development: Evidence from global data

This study investigates the influence of natural resource rents on global sustainable development. Also, the impact of energy productivity and the development of environmental-related technological innovation is investigated from 1990 to 2020. This study uses various time-series approaches, where the variables are found to be cointegrated. Parametric approaches, such as the Fully-Modified Ordinary Least Square, Dynamic Ordinary Least Square, and Canonical Cointegration Regression, are used. The empirical findings asserted that natural resources asymmetrically influence sustainable development. Where mineral rents and natural gas rents positively and forest rents adversely affect sustainable development. Energy productivity is a significant factor in sustainable development, whereas the development of environmental-related technologies positively but insignificantly affects global sustainable development. The pairwise Granger causality test validates the two-way causal association between economic growth (sustainable development) and the variables, including forest rents, mineral rents, natural gas rents, energy productivity, and the development of environmental-related technologies. Following the empirical results, this study suggests policies regarding the sustainable use of natural resource rents, enhancement in energy productivity, and investment in environmental-related technological innovation.

Does eco-innovation and green investment limit the CO2 emissions in China?

The continuous upsurge in worldwide economic development and human activities has intensified CO2 emissions that highlighted the significant role of eco-innovation and green investment in curbing CO2 emissions. The study aims to explore the impact of eco-innovation and green investment on CO2 emissions by using the China dataset for time period 1990–2019. The study adopts the ARDL approach. The study used two proxies to determine the impact of eco-innovation, namely environment-related technologies and patents. The empirical estimates of the ARDL approach confirm the negative impact of eco-innovation and green investment on CO2 emissions confirming that these determinants result in limiting CO2 emissions in China. Based on these findings, the study suggests strengthening environmentally friendly policies and the advancement of green investment to mitigate CO2 emissions.

Assessment of the Impact of Scientific and Technical Activities on the Economic Growth of World Countries

At present, scientific and technical activities (STA) play a fundamental role in the creation of new knowledge necessary for the realisation of the goals of sustainable economic growth. The purpose of the research is to assess STA in countries of the world and Ukraine as well as to analyse the impact of STA on their sustainable economic growth. For the assessment of STA of world countries, we have developed a composite indicator (Index of STA–ISTA) based on two sub-indices (Potential of STA and Results of STA) and a set of partial indicators. The study is carried out using a theoretical and methodological approach that includes five research stages: calculating the ISTA of world countries with their subsequent ranking; assessing the impact of the ISTA on the economic growth of world countries; evaluating the correlations between the ISTA, the Global Innovation Index (GII), and the Human Development Index (HDI); breaking down world countries into groups with the help of cluster analysis, using data on the ISTA, GII, HDI; assessing and analysing the importance of environment-related technologies and innovations in ensuring the economic growth of countries of the world. According to the results of the study, the importance of STA in ensuring sustainable economic growth of countries of the world was confirmed. The use of cluster analysis to group countries of the world in terms of the level of STA made it possible to identify three clusters of countries: leaders, potential leaders, and catching-up countries. It has been proven that in order for a country to achieve leadership in terms of STA, it is important to harmoniously combine efforts to support and develop its scientific potential as well as to create principles for the implementation of scientific achievements in innovation activities to ensure its economic growth and improve the living standards of its population. Besides, the analysis allowed proving the existence of a moderately positive impact of the development of environment-related technologies and innovations on the acceleration of innovative development, improvement of the quality of life of the population, and the growth of GDP per capita.

An assessment of the effect of green innovation, income, and energy use on consumption-based CO2 emissions: Empirical evidence from emerging nations BRICS

Energy and green innovation are important to a country's economic progress, but the externalities of increased pollution as a result of a rise in energy used and economic growth must not be overlooked. Within the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework, this study aims to check empirically the effect of environment-related technologies (ERT), coal consumption (CC), economic growth (EG), and population density (PD) on the consumption-based CO 2 emissions (CCO 2e ) in the BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, & South Africa), as with fast economic progress BRICS is facing problems of CO 2 emission. The econometric techniques of the cross-sectional dependence test, slope heterogeneity test, and second-generation panel unit root test were used to check the nature of the data. The available balance data over the period 1985–2018 were analyzed via Driscoll and Kraay and a dynamic common correlated effect mean group (DCCEMG). Long-term empirical findings show that ERT has a negative impact on the CCO 2e , while per capita GDP and CC have a positive impact on CCO 2e . Empirical evidence recommends that ERT is important for BRICS countries' long-term sustainability . It is suggested that policymakers should encourage ERT that help in curbing their CO 2 emanations.

Do Innovation in Environmental-Related Technologies and Renewable Energies Mitigate the Transport-Based CO2 Emissions in Turkey?

Given the unprecedented level of air pollution in urban areas, green transport systems has been a subject to an important debate in academic and policymaking circles. Despite the considerable outputs of the attendant literature, most of empirical studies to date have relied on conventional econometric models in which structural shocks are not controlled. This study, therefore, aims to offer a new perceptive of the dynamic connection between renewable energy, environment-related technological innovation, and transport-based CO2 emissions in Turkey during 1990Q1 to 2014Q1 by applying the Structural Vector Autoregressive approach (SVAR). Furthermore, to explore the co-movements and the lead-lag interrelations among the study variables, the wavelet coherence technique was used. The wavelet coherence technique circumvents the other traditional causality approaches by detecting the causal interrelation between the underlying series at different frequencies. The findings disclose that environment-related technological innovation has no reliable power to explain the variation in CO2 emissions from the transport sector. Solar energy is found to impact the CO2 emissions positively in the long run, while biofuels hold the same effect in short run. Moreover, per capita GDP and urbanization significantly impact the carbon emissions from the transport system in the long run with a negative sign. The wavelet analysis reveals that renewables and environmental-related technological innovation lead the transport-based CO2 emissions. The fourth and 16th periods are the most dominant frequencies. Accordingly, the study suggests that innovation in environment-related technologies is not enough to mitigate the pollution that stemming from the transport system in Turkey, it should be accompanied by strong and effective environmental measures. These policies might include environmental taxations, carbon pricing and trading schemes, which aim not only to prevent the pollution and over-extraction of resources, but also to promote the public revenues from different activities that related to environmental purposes and other applications such as energy product and vehicle fuels. In addition, it is suggested to strengthening the transportation system through the deployment of renewables and high-tech eco-friendly modes of transportation.

RETRACTED: Energy Transition, Sustainable Development Opportunities, and Carbon Emissions Mitigation: Is the Developed World Converging Toward SDGs-2030?

The success of sustainable development heavily depends on successful energy transition toward renewable or carbon-free energy sources. This study attempted to analyze the impact of sustainable development and environmental initiatives on sustainable energy transition in selected OECD economies. For this purpose, the study generated the dataset of environment air and GHG emission, environmental-related technologies, development (gross domestic product, trade openness, and gross domestic spending on R&D) and sustainable environment (air and GHG emission and environmental-related technologies), and energy sources (renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, and sum of total energy consumption) of selected economies of OECD between 2000 and 2020. This study utilized dynamic panel GMM for regression analysis, and FMOLS and DOLS were applied as the robustness models. Empirical results indicated that sustainable development and a sustainable environment contribute positively to the energy transition process in OECD economies. However, these factors also negatively contribute to non-renewable energy consumption in OECD. Thus, the study’s outcomes confirmed the sustainable energy transition in OECD. Therefore, this study suggested that the success of Sustainable Development Goals depends on successful energy transition.