The Comprehensive Impact of Economic Growth on Environmental Quality: Insight Established on Material, Carbon, and Ecological Footprint

Economic growth plays a pivotal role in setting up environmental degradation functions, as the overconsumption of energy and excessive use of natural resources generally accompany it. However, the variety of environmental degradation indicators and the presence of other variables, along with economic growth in the environmental degradation function, have become a matter of dispute among policymakers. To fill the vein, this study establishes a novel perspective by analyzing higher-order polynomials while uncovering the economic environmental quality nexus under the umbrella of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) phenomenon. Hence, the present study opts for multiple proxies of environmental degradation, such as material (MF), carbon (CF), and ecological footprint (EF), to quantify the environmental quality. In this pursuit, the study draws on the panel data of the world’s top ten MF, CF, and EF countries to explore the underlying relationships between 1990 and 2017. The outcomes have broader implications since the consequences show an N-shaped EKC for material and carbon footprints. In contrast, an inverted N-shaped EKC has been established for ecological footprints. Similarly, the study observed the significant roles of population density, urbanization, trade openness, human capital, globalization, FDI, and energy consumption in the respective models, inhibiting contradictory findings. Our findings demonstrate that the underlying countries should implement clean production technologies and green energy to mitigate pollutants and waste. The realization of the Sustainable Development Goals stipulates the improvements in human capital that will aid in environmental excellence by bolstering environmental awareness.