Energy efficiency, carbon neutrality and technological innovation: a strategic move towards green economy

Through a production process based on low carbon emissions, achieving sustainable development is the desired goal of the various social and political actors around the world. However, achieving this requires energy policies focused on the factors that determine green economic growth (GEG). Consequently, the current study investigates the long-run nexus between GEG and some factors that determine its behaviour using annual data from 1990 to 2020 for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The empirical evidence relies on second-generation estimators comprising cross-sectional dependence tests, Westerlund tests, and method of moment quantile regression. Feedbacks from the empirical analyses uncover the pertinence of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and technology as positive predictors of GEG. Complementarily, the findings reveal that the Integrity of the Government plays an essential role in implementing more efficient and environmentally friendly production processes. From the results found, several policy suggestions are derived from being considered to develop an energy policy aimed at mitigating environmental degradation.