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Open access Jul 2026

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Drivers of Sustainability Transitions in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Why One Size Does Not Fit All

Despite growing emphasis on sustainability transitions in developing economies, evidence remains limited on how environmental, social and governance (ESG) conditions shape sustainability outcomes in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA). This study examines the environmental, social and governance drivers of sustainability transition performance across 39 SSA countries over the period 2000–2023. A composite sustainability transition performance index (STPI), constructed from renewable energy consumption and reverse‐coded energy intensity indicators, is used to capture transition performance. A multi‐method panel framework is employed to examine direct, conditional, nonlinear and dynamic relationships. The findings show that environmental pressures, particularly carbon intensity and energy use, consistently weaken sustainability transition performance, whereas labour‐market conditions, particularly female employment and female wage employment, improve sustainability outcomes. Governance conditions operate primarily through regulatory quality, which significantly conditions the relationship between environmental pressures and sustainability transition performance. In addition, GDP per capita shapes the sustainability effects of environmental and labour‐market drivers across countries. Nonlinear estimates reveal an inverted U‐shaped relationship between energy use and sustainability transition performance, while dynamic estimates indicate strong persistence over time. The findings reveal substantial heterogeneity in sustainability pathways, suggesting that one‐size‐fits‐all sustainability policies may be less effective in SSA and underscoring the importance of context‐specific ESG strategies. The study contributes to sustainability‐transition research by demonstrating how interacting ESG drivers shape heterogeneous sustainability transitions in SSA.

E. K. Manu, Bismark Asante, Gabriel Eweje · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Towards sustainable transition in OECD economies: the role of green innovation, energy system, governance, and digital consumption in shaping ecological footprint

The purpose of this study is to investigate how green innovation, energy system transformation, governance quality, sustainable consumption and digital consumption jointly shape ecological footprints in OECD economies. By using a dynamic panel framework, the study aims to capture the persistence of environmental pressure while disentangling the technological, institutional, behavioral and digital drivers of sustainability transition. The research seeks to provide integrated empirical evidence to inform policy on how advanced economies can effectively reduce ecological footprints while managing the environmental externalities associated with rapid digitalization. This study adopts a quantitative, longitudinal research design using a balanced panel data set of 25 OECD countries covering the period 2012–2023. A dynamic empirical framework is used, with ecological footprint as the dependent variable. To address endogeneity, unobserved country-specific effects, autocorrelation and dynamic persistence, a two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator is applied. Environmental technology patents, smart energy transition, eco-governance performance, sustainable consumption dynamics and digital consumption expansion are incorporated as key explanatory variables, with appropriate diagnostic and robustness tests conducted to ensure model validity. The findings reveal strong persistence in ecological footprints across OECD economies, indicating deep-rooted structural environmental pressures. Green innovation, smart energy transition, eco-governance performance and sustainable consumption dynamics significantly reduce ecological footprints, confirming the effectiveness of technological progress, energy system optimization, institutional quality and demand-side behavioral change in mitigating environmental degradation. Conversely, digital consumption expansion exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on ecological footprints, suggesting that the environmental costs of expanding digital services and e-commerce currently outweigh efficiency gains. Overall, the results highlight the need for integrated sustainability strategies that address both supply- and demand-side dynamics. This study offers original value by integrating green innovation, energy transition, governance quality, sustainable consumption and digital consumption within a unified dynamic framework to explain ecological footprints in OECD economies. Unlike prior studies that examine these drivers in isolation, it captures their joint and persistent effects using a two-step system GMM approach. The analysis provides novel empirical evidence on the environmental rebound effects of digital consumption in advanced economies, enriching the sustainability transition literature. The findings deliver policy-relevant insights by highlighting the necessity of coupling technological and energy transitions with governance reforms and regulatory oversight of digital expansion.

Muhammad Rizwan Ullah, Muhammad Nasrullah, Rachel Bayisenge · 0 citations
Jul 2026

The Role of Economic, Social, and Governance Readiness for Climate Change Adaptation in Improving Agricultural Productivity: Evidence From Sub‐Saharan Africa

Climate change poses a critical threat to agricultural systems in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), a region characterized by high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, despite its minimal contribution to global emissions. This study investigates the long‐term impact of climate change adaptation readiness, comprising economic, governance, and social dimensions, on agricultural productivity in SSA. Using panel data from 29 countries (1995–2023) and using total factor productivity (TFP), cereal yield, and agricultural value added as productivity proxies, the analysis employs Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) to address cross‐sectional dependency and heteroskedasticity, and Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to assess heterogeneous effects across the conditional productivity distribution. The results reveal that the influence of adaptation readiness is multidimensional and contingent on both the productivity measure and its distributional quantile. For TFP, economic and social readiness show significant positive average effects. Yet, quantile analysis indicates economic readiness is vital for low‐productivity systems, whereas governance readiness gains significance only among high‐productivity systems. For cereal yield, all three readiness dimensions exhibit positive average effects, with social readiness demonstrating the strongest consistent impact. Conversely, only economic readiness consistently enhances agricultural value added. Furthermore, the analysis uncovers notable regional heterogeneity in these relationships across SSA sub‐regions. Policymakers suggest moving beyond uniform interventions and designing context‐specific readiness investments that address distinct productivity constraints and the varied needs of agricultural systems across the productivity spectrum. Furthermore, the study findings strongly support achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially for SDGs 2, 13, and 8 in SSA countries.

Gezahegne Seyoum, Wei Chen, Gemedo Furo et al. · 0 citations
Aug 2026

Circular Economy and Sustainable Development: Evidence From Green Innovation, Energy Transition, and Green Investment on Ecological Footprint in G7 Countries

Achieving sustainable development in advanced economies requires accelerating the transition toward a circular economy while mitigating escalating ecological pressures. Despite growing policy attention, evidence remains limited on the joint effects of green finance, green innovation, municipal waste recycling, energy transition, economic growth, and population on the ecological footprint in the G7 countries during 1995–2023. Using a multivariate quantile‐on‐quantile regression framework, this study captures distributional heterogeneity in the relationships between these determinants and the ecological footprint. The results show that green finance consistently reduces the ecological footprint, with stronger mitigation effects beyond the middle quantiles. In contrast, green innovation and municipal waste recycling show positive effects across most quantiles, while the effect of energy transition is heterogeneous, remaining positive at lower and middle quantiles before becoming slightly negative at the highest quantiles. Economic growth and population also increase the ecological footprint, with the impact of economic growth becoming substantially stronger at higher quantiles. To address potential endogeneity, instrumental variable quantile regression with lagged instruments is employed, and the results remain robust. For managers, the results highlight the importance of directing green finance toward projects with demonstrable environmental benefits while systematically evaluating the environmental performance of innovation, recycling, and energy transition initiatives to ensure that circular economy investments translate into lower ecological pressure. By revealing how the effects of circular economy drivers vary across ecological footprint regimes, this study provides targeted guidance for policymakers and business leaders seeking to strengthen long‐term ecological sustainability and advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

Sohidul Islam, R. Bhowmik, H. G. Sulimany et al. · 0 citations
Open access Jul 2026

BioTrade , Frontier Technology Readiness, and the Load Capacity Curve: Sustainable Development Dynamics in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This study investigates the nonlinear dynamics among income, ecological sustainability, and sustainable development in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) within the Load Capacity Curve (LCC) framework, incorporating BioTrade and frontier technology readiness as novel structural determinants. The analysis employs the load capacity factor (LCF) as a biocapacity‐adjusted measure of ecological balance and the Sustainable Development Index (SDI) as a multidimensional proxy for progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Using annual data for 18 SSA countries from 2010 to 2022, the study applies second‐generation panel econometric techniques, Half‐Panel Jackknife (HPJ) causality approach, and the Bias‐Corrected Method of Moments (BCMM) estimator. The BCMM results provide evidence supporting the validity of the LCC hypothesis, revealing a U‐shaped relationship between income and both LCF and SDI. Economic growth initially weakens ecological balance, but beyond a critical turning point, composition and technique effects outweigh scale effects, leading to sustainability improvements. Frontier technology readiness has a positive impact on both ecological sustainability and SDI, highlighting the importance of innovation capacity and R&D preparedness in facilitating green structural transformation. BioTrade also contributes positively, providing the evidence that biodiversity‐based trade aligned with sustainability standards enhances ecological balance while supporting broader development objectives. In contrast, urbanization negatively affects both LCF and SDI. The HPJ causality results further confirm the robustness of these findings. Overall, the findings suggest that SSA policymakers should design an integrated sustainability strategy grounded in the LCC framework by simultaneously scaling frontier technology readiness through R&D‐oriented innovation systems and expanding BioTrade under strict ecological standards.

Uğur Korkut Pata, Selin Karlilar Pata, Qiang Wang et al. · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Globalization, Renewable Energy, and Ecological Footprint in a Resource-Dependent Economy: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates

Understanding how globalization, energy transition, and resource dependence shape environmental pressure remains critical for resource-rich economies seeking sustainable development. This study investigates the determinants of ecological footprint per capita in the United Arab Emirates from 1992Q1 to 2020Q4 by extending the STIRPAT framework to incorporate scale effects, structural composition, technological mitigation, and a globalization–renewable energy interaction channel. The empirical strategy combines ARDL cointegration modeling, Ridge regression and annual frequency estimations for robustness assessment, wavelet coherence analysis, and ARDL-ECM Granger causality tests. The results show that economic growth increases ecological footprint in the short run, reflecting persistent affluence-related scale effects. In the long run, economic globalization and natural resource rents significantly increase ecological footprint, suggesting that trade- and hydrocarbon-driven composition effects outweigh potential efficiency gains during the study period. Renewable energy consumption exerts a negative long-run elasticity, indicating its technological mitigation role. However, the positive globalization–renewable energy interaction indicates that expanding economic integration partially offsets the environmental benefits associated with renewable energy deployment. Wavelet coherence analysis reveals that these relationships vary across time and frequency horizons, with globalization exhibiting leading associations with ecological pressure at medium-term frequencies, while Granger causality identifies significant predictive pathways toward ecological footprint dynamics. The findings remain consistent across robustness assessments and suggest that renewable energy contributes to reducing ecological pressure, but achieving substantial ecological decoupling requires both fossil fuel substitution and structural transformation in globalization and resource-dependent development pathways. This study provides evidence-based insights for supporting sustainability transitions in resource-dependent economies and advancing progress toward the SDGs.

Shahrzad Safaeimanesh · 0 citations