ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Energy Policy
Sec. Policy and Environmental Impact
This article is part of the Research TopicESG as a Driver of Organizational and Social Development: Opportunities, Investments, Performance and ChallengesView all articles
Assessing environmental sustainability under risk and governance pressures: New insights from Canada
Provisionally accepted
Sami Ullah1
Boqiang Lin2*- 1Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, China
- 2Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Environmental sustainability is a central concern in environmental economics, yet the effects of institutional quality and macroeconomic risks on sustainability outcomes remain underexplored, particularly in developed economies. This study examines how economic policy uncertainty (EPU), political risk (PRI), and governance quality (GOV) influence environmental sustainability in Canada, using the load capacity factor as a proxy. Utilizing quarterly data from 1990 to 2022, we apply the quantile-on-quantile regression method to capture heterogeneous and nonlinear relationships across different levels of environmental performance. Robustness is ensured through wavelet coherence analysis. The results reveal that EPU positively affects sustainability at higher quantiles, possibly due to precautionary shifts in policy or investment behavior. PRI also contributes positively in high-risk settings, reflecting the role of political institutions in environmental governance. Strong governance exhibits a consistently favorable impact across quantiles. Moreover, environmental innovation strengthens the positive effects of all three variables. These findings underscore the importance of adaptive institutions, risk-aware policymaking, and innovation-driven strategies for advancing environmental sustainability.
Keywords: political risk, economic policy uncertainty, governance, Environmental sustainability, Quantile-on-quantile regression
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ullah and Lin. 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: Boqiang Lin, bqlin2004@vip.sina.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.