Fostering sustainable futures through global peace and eco-innovation: A cross-country evidence

Amidst escalating climate urgency and evolving environmental challenges, green innovation emerges as a critical pathway toward sustainability. However, geopolitical tensions and conflicts present significant barriers to the advancement of eco-friendly technologies, creating a complex relationship between security conditions and environmental innovation that remains underexplored in existing literature. This study provides the first comprehensive examination of how security burden affects green innovation by developing a multidimensional security burden index that simultaneously captures armed conflicts, terrorism, and military spending—reflecting structural, tactical, and resource allocation disruptions, respectively. Unlike previous studies that examine these security dimensions in isolation, our research offers a holistic framework for understanding their combined impact on eco-innovation across diverse economic and institutional contexts. We employ a multi-method approach analyzing panel data from 64 countries over 2000–2021. Our empirical strategy employs regression analysis with fixed effects, instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS), and method of moments quantile regression (MMQREG) to address endogeneity and capture asymmetric effects. Our findings reveal that overall security burden and its individual components—excluding military spending—significantly impede green innovation, with human capital flight serving as a key mediating mechanism. Notably, countries with mature innovation capabilities demonstrate resilience against security disruption shocks and can potentially leverage military expenditures to drive green innovation through dual-use technologies. The negative effects are particularly pronounced for countries characterized by low-income levels, high climate vulnerability, substantial urbanization, and abundant natural resources. Policy implications suggest establishing innovation resilience funds and talent retention mechanisms to protect green R&D during security crises.