Determinants of ecological footprint and PM2.5: Role of urbanization, natural resources and technological innovation

•The paper examines the determinants of ecological footprint and PM2.5 in Bangladesh.•Economic growth and urbanization are reducing ecological footprint and PM2.5.•Technological innovation and natural resources are improving environmental quality.•The results of both the models validate the existence of EKC hypothesis. Due to rapid economic growth and development, human demand for natural resources is growing in Bangladesh, which causes climate change, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and environmental hazard. Few studies have been conducted to investigate the determinants of ecological footprint and air quality (PM2.5) in Bangladesh between 1990 and 2016. This paper also investigates the existence EKC hypothesis in both ecological footprint and PM2.5 case. Single structural break analysis has employed to know the break point while estimating integration of each variable. After estimating the integration, we have employed ARDL bound testing approach to co-integration to show the long run relationship among the urbanization, natural resources, population density, economic growth, ecological footprint and PM2.5. For the robustness about the long run relationship among the variables, we also employ Bayer and Hanck joint co-integration. The results from both models demonstrate that urbanization, population density and energy consumption are major determinants of ecological footprint and PM2.5. However, technological innovation and natural resources are reducing the ecological footprint and PM2.5. The both the models provide evidence of existence of EKC hypothesis in case of Bangladesh. This study also has suggested some important policy implications regarding the environmental sustainability.