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The study examines the presence of the pollution haven or pollution halo hypothesis in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and Next-11 economies. Hence, it empirically tests the direct impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the ecological footprint. Further, it explores the moderating role of green innovation on the nexus between FDI and ecological footprint.

The study uses the Driscoll–Kraay (DK) standard error panel regression technique to examine the long-run elasticities amongst the variables for the group of emerging countries, BRICS and Next-11, during the period of 1992 to 2018. Further, statistical robustness is demonstrated using the fully modified ordinary least squares technique.

The empirical finding shows that FDI degrades environmental quality by raising the ecological footprint. Thus, it proves that FDI is a source of pollution haven in BRICS and Next-11 countries. However, green innovation negatively moderates the relationship between FDI and ecological footprint. That means the joint impact of green innovation, and FDI proves the presence of the pollution halo hypothesis. Further, renewable energy consumption is reducing the ecological footprint, but economic growth and industrialisation are worsening the environmental quality.

This study offers policy implications for governments and policymakers to promote environmental sustainability by improving green innovation and allowing FDI that encourages clean and advanced technology.

No prior studies examine the moderating role of green innovation on the relationship between FDI and ecological footprint in the context of emerging countries.

This study aims to examine the effects of energy transition on pollution emissions in Africa. In addition, it explores the indirect channels through which energy consumption impacts environmental quality.

The study uses system Generalised Method of Moments approach for a panel of 51 developing African countries over the 1996–2020 period.

The results show that fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption increase pollution emissions. The environment-degrading effect of renewable energy in Africa is however counter-intuitive, though the results are robust across regional economic blocks and income groups except for upper-middle-income countries where energy consumption is environment enhancing. Moreover, the results show that the environmental impacts of non-renewable energy consumption are modulated through financial development and information and communication technology (ICT) adoption, leading to respective positive net effects of 0.04460796 and 0.07682873. This is up to respective policy thresholds of 203.265 and 137.105 of financial development and ICT adoption, respectively, when the positive net effects are nullified.

Contingent on the results, the study suggests the need for African countries to develop sound financial systems and encourage the use of green technologies, to ensure that energy transition effectively contributes to emissions reduction. Policymakers in Africa should also be aware of the critical levels of financial development and ICT, beyond which complementary policies are required for non-renewable energy consumption to maintain a negative impact on environmental degradation.

Firstly, extant studies on the nexus between energy transition and environmental degradation in Africa are very sparse. Therefore, this study fills the existing research gap by comprehensively examining the effects of energy transition on pollution emissions across 51 African economies. Additionally, besides accounting for the direct environmental effects of energy transition, the current study accounts for the indirect channels through which the environmental impacts of energy transition are modulated. Hence, this study provides critical thresholds for the policy modulating variables, which enlighten policymakers on the necessity of designing complementary policies once the modulating variables attain the established thresholds.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of the industrial sector, renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption in Indonesia on the ecological footprint from 1990 to 2020 in the short and long term.

This paper uses vector error correction model (VECM) analysis to examine the relationship in the short and long term. In addition, the impulse response function is used to enable future forecasts up to 2060 of the ecological footprint as a measure of environmental degradation caused by changes or shocks in industrial value-added, renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption. Furthermore, forecast error decomposition of variance (FEVD) analysis is carried out to predict the percentage contribution of each variable’s variance to changes in a specific variable. Granger causality testing is used to enhance the analysis outcomes within the framework of VECM.

Using VECM analysis, the speed of adjustment for environmental damage is quite high in the short term, at 246%. This finding suggests that when there is a short-term imbalance in industrial value-added, renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption, the ecological footprint experiences a very rapid adjustment, at 246%, to move towards long-term balance. Then, in the long term, the ecological footprint in Indonesia is most influenced by nonrenewable energy consumption. This is also confirmed by the Granger causality test and the results of FEVD, which show that the contribution of nonrenewable energy consumption will be 10.207% in 2060 and will be the main contributor to the ecological footprint in the coming years to achieve net-zero emissions in 2060. In the long run, renewable energy consumption has a negative effect on the ecological footprint, whereas industrial value-added and nonrenewable energy consumption have a positive effect.

For the first time, value added from the industrial sector is being used alongside renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption to measure Indonesia’s ecological footprint. The primary cause of Indonesia’s alarming environmental degradation is the industrial sector, which acts as the driving force behind this issue. Consequently, this contribution is expected to inform the policy implications required to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2060, aligned with the G20 countries’ Bali agreement of 2022.

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx's critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx's critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx's critical theory for understanding the political-economic, social, and ideational dimensions of planetary degradation. In contrast to ToP theory, which critically examines the production of wealth by counterposing finitude and limits against the expansionary tendencies of economic growth, the critical theory approach advanced in this chapter conceptualizes the acceleration of environmental degradation following World War II in terms of a ToP of value, whereby the necessity of the value form is continuously established in the present. The chapter discusses how Marxian critical theory facilitates a critical examination of the widespread growth of environmentalism as concomitant with the spread of neoliberal capitalism.

Considering the evolving importance of green finance, this study uses climate-related development mitigation finance as a proxy of green finance and investigates the impact of green finance on ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental quality along with the influence of economic growth, renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization across 47 developing countries over the period 2000–2018.

After finding the presence of cross-sectional dependency among variables, the second-generation panel unit root test was employed to detect the order of integration among the variables. Since all the variables were found to be stationary, Westerlund cointegration technique was employed to detect the long-run relationship among the variables. Then, the long-run elasticity among the dependent and independent variables was tested using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and pooled mean group–autoregressive distributed lag (PMG–ARDL) approaches.

The empirical findings suggest the presence of long-run relationship among all the variables, namely, ecological footprint, green finance, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization for the selected developing countries in the sample. Furthermore, economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions, trade openness and urbanization, all have a positive and significant impact on the ecological footprint, whereas renewable energy consumption and green finance have a significant and negative impact on the ecological footprint, which supports the view that environmental quality is improved with the greater use of renewable energy technologies and allocation of greater amounts of more green finance.

The empirical results of this study offer policymakers and regulators some implications for environmental policy for protecting the countries from ecological issues.

The paper assesses the moderating function of institutions in the financial development and environmental nexus covering India for the time period 1980–2019.

Deviating from extant literature which has mostly used emissions of major greenhouse gasses as a measure of environmental quality, the present study uses a broad measure of environmental quality called ecological footprint (EFP). Financial development is measured using a robust proxy recently introduced by International Monetary Fund (IMF). This index is multifaceted and covers three broad dimensions of financial sector in terms of depth, efficiency and access of both financial institutions and markets, thus outperforming the exclusively bank-based measures used in the past literature. Further institutional quality index is generated using the data from international country risk guide. Finally, autoregressive distributed lag model is used for the empirical estimation of short-run and long-run results.

The empirical estimates reveal that financial development and institutional quality are good for long-run environmental sustainability of India, whereas economic growth degrades the environment in the long- run. The results also attest to the existence of pollution heaven hypothesis in India for long run. Furthermore, regarding the moderating role of institutions, the study reveals that institutional quality complements financial development in affecting environment in the short run. While as, in the long run, they play a substitutive role whereby sound institutions cover-up the inefficiencies in financial system.

First, the paper uses the index of financial development developed by the IMF in order to quantify the level of financial development in India overtime. The index is based on three key dimensions of financial development such as the depth, efficiency and access of both financial institutions and markets. However, the index completely neglects the role of financial stability in determining financial development. Thus, future studies that are based on this IMF introduced index of financial development should incorporate the stability dimension to it. Second, this empirical study focused exclusively on India and employed aggregate EFP to measure environmental quality. Further studies can complement the content of this research by conducting similar studies to capture country-specific characteristics of other emerging economies and also scrutinize the impact on the six sub-indices of EFP.

The results of the study reveal that the effect of financial development, and institutions on ecological footprint is sensitive to time dynamics. Moreover, the findings offer important policy implications to government and policy makers in India on how to curb the menace of environmental degradation.

The paper addresses the gap in the literature by examining the moderating role of institutional quality in the financial development and ecological footprint nexus in India. Furthermore, the authors employ a robust proxy for both financial development and environmental quality unlike extant studies on India.

The political factors of a country have a high influence over the economic development process. Economic development came at a high cost to the environment, from climate change to biodiversity loss when the government’s development policies disdain environmental aspects. People of lower socio-economic countries are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards related to irresponsible economic development which is sometimes disregarded by the political leaders. These politics-induced economic development causes the degradation of environmental quality and damages the ecological structures and processes upon which it depends, which have ultimately raised the question of environmental sustainability of the future generation. With the name of increasing living standards through frenetic economic activity, the world community has been destroying the natural resources and global ecosystems without conserving for the next generations’ well-being. However, using a qualitative approach, the chapter reflects the correlations among the political determinants and the economic development, and examines the issues that impede environmental sustainability. It explores how politics and economic development have driven environmental degradation and accelerated climate change. The chapter minimises the knowledge gaps in politics, development, and environment nexus by providing a comprehensive account of the dynamic interplay between different variables.

Environment and disasters have a close relationship. Environmental change causes disasters or enhances the frequency or intensity of disasters. Climate change is often regarded as an environmental phenomenon; however, when we see changes in the typhoon path, or repeated occurrences of heavy rainfall or strong typhoons, it is often attributed to climatic changes. In that case, environmental change (climate change) is the cause and disaster (typhoon or flood) is considered as the impact. On the other hand, when a disaster like typhoon, earthquake, or tsunami occurs, it produces a huge amount of debris. Disaster debris or disaster waste becomes an environmental problem. In many cases, the disaster also causes significant impacts on the ecology. Therefore, disaster becomes a cause, and environmental degradation becomes the impact.

The discourse on the governance and environment nexus has been an important research agenda. However, the debate on the role of institutional quality (IQ) in environmental degradation is continuous. Unlike others, this study aims to examine the asymmetric effect of IQ on the ecological footprint (EF) from 1984 to 2019 in Pakistan.

The nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag model is used to empirically investigate the linkage of IQ and EF.

Reported results revealed that positive shocks are negatively affecting EF and negative shocks are positively affecting EF. Findings suggest that a better IQ is substantially reducing EF, whereas energy consumption and economic growth are increasing EF.

This study is original and provided important information about the performance of institutions regarding the environmental concerns in Pakistan. Moreover, this study has robust policy implications.

Several studies have examined the effect of formal economy (usually proxy by economic growth) on environmental quality; however, the symmetric and asymmetric impact of the informal economy on environmental quality has not been examined in Nigeria. Therefore, this study aims to explore the short- and long-run (a)symmetric effect of formal and informal economies and financial development on Nigeria’s environmental quality between 1984 and 2017.

The study uses ecological footprint to measure environmental quality. An increase in ecological footprint suggests a fall in environmental quality. Informal economy is calculated as a percentage of GDP using the currency demand approach. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), nonlinear ARDL cointegration framework and vector error correction granger causality are used as estimation techniques.

The study’s outcomes establish the existence of asymmetric structure in the link between economic activities and the environment both in the short and long run. The asymmetric results reveal that positive and negative changes in the formal economy increase the ecological footprint in both periods. Hence, activities in the formal economy reduce environmental quality. On the other hand, positive and negative changes in the informal economy only positively influence the ecological footprint in the long run. In contrast, it negatively impacts the ecological footprint in the short run. This suggests that activities in the informal economy worsen the long-run environmental quality. Financial development has a positive influence on the ecological footprint, thus degrading the environmental quality. Furthermore, in the short run, a unidirectional relationship from the formal economy to the ecological footprint, while a bidirectional causality exists between informal and formal economies. Meanwhile, a unidirectional causality from the (in)formal economies and financial development to the ecological footprint was found in the long run.

The outcome of this study shows that both informal and formal economies contribute to ecological footprint; therefore, mainstreaming the informal economy into the formal economy will further increase the problem of environmental degradation and worsen environmental quality.

The study investigates the symmetric and asymmetric effect of formal and informal economies on environmental quality in Nigeria, which is largely missing in the empirical literature.