ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1604107
Technological Advances and Global Interdependence: Pathways to Sustainable Ecological Impact in BRICS-11 countries
Provisionally accepted
- Albany State University, Albany, United States
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This study investigates the impact of technological innovation (TEC), human capital (HC), renewable energy consumption (RE), and economic globalization (EG) on the ecological footprint (EF) of BRICS-11 countries an expanded economic bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethopia, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. These countries have experienced significant economic growth, yet continue to struggle with environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality. Using panel data from 1990 to 2020, the study applies the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to account for slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence across different levels of environmental pressure. The results reveal that RE consistently reduces EF across all quantiles, with the strongest effect observed at the 90th quantile (–0.177, p < 0.01). HC also shows a negative and statistically significant impact at higher quantiles, emphasizing its importance in reducing ecological degradation. Conversely, EG is positively associated with EF, indicating that globalization may exacerbate environmental harm. Notably, the interaction between HC and RE significantly enhances the reduction in EF, highlighting the synergistic effect of education and clean energy. Robustness checks using DOLS, FMOLS, and FE-OLS models confirm the validity of the results, moreover granger causality also employed to check the results. The findings underscore the need for integrated policies that invest in human capital and clean energy to achieve long-term ecological sustainability in BRICS-11 nations.
Keywords: Human Capital, Renewable Energy, Economic globalization, BRICS-11, Technological innovation
Received: 01 Apr 2025; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shakeel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Micahel Shakeel, Albany State University, Albany, United States
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