Moving towards sustainable environment development in emerging economies: The role of green finance, green tech-innovation, natural resource depletion, and forested area in assessing the load capacity factor

Environmental sustainability is increasingly being prioritized by governments around the world, particularly in emerging economies. This study examined the role of green finance and green technological innovation in environmental sustainability using the "load capacity factor", also takes into account natural resource depletion and forest cover. This study used annual data from 2000 to 2018 for emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico. Methods of analysis included the cross-section augmented autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) model, along with validation by the common correlated mean group (CCEMG) and augmented mean group (AMG). The results show that green finance, green technological innovation and forested areas consistently have a positive impact on environmental sustainability, while resource depletion has a negative impact. The findings of CS-ARDL are consistent with those of CCEMG and AMG. The study also makes recommendations that emerging economies need to prioritize REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiatives and implement resource decoupling policies, in addition to green finance and green technology policies, to achieve environmental sustainability.