A new look at environmental sustainability from the lens of green policies, eco-digitalization, affluence, and urbanization: Empirical insights from BRICS economies

The unwavering adverse effects of global warming continue to threaten the sustainability of the ecosystem and peaceful human coexistence. Efforts to resolve this ecological matter promulgate the interest in green policies, which the extant studies are yet to explore fully. Consequently, this study provides the first empirical evidence on the roles of green policies vectoring, green energy, green finance, and green innovation amidst eco-digitalization and urbanization on environmental sustainability captured by CO2 emissions, ecological footprint, and PM2.5 air pollutions in BRICS countries from 1995 to 2019. The study relies on the STIRPAT framework alongside second-generation estimators in providing the empirical evidence. Findings indicate that green energy, green finance, green innovation, and eco-digitalization promote environmental sustainability by reducing CO2 emissions, ecological footprint, and PM2.5 air pollutions. Conversely, urbanization and affluence deter environmental sustainability due to their inducing effects the highlighted pollutants. The distributional analysis based on quantile regression and country-level estimation based on fully modified ordinary least squares technique accentuates the empirical regularity of the main findings. Besides, the Granger causality reveals the presence of bidirectional and unidirectional causality relationships in the estimated model. Based on the findings, feasible policies that enhance sustainability of the BRICS environment are formulated.