RETRACTED: Socio‐Cultural Drivers of Environmental Sustainability in the Nordic Countries: Integrating Humanities, Trust, and Awareness Into the Sustainability Transition

This study delves into the various factors that influence environmental sustainability in the Nordic nations of Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark from 2002 to 2023. Economic growth, urbanization, investment in the humanities, social trust, and environmental awareness potential are included as explanatory variables in the research, which uses biocapacity per capita as a proxy for sustainability. The results show that investing in the humanities continuously improves sustainability, demonstrating the importance of cultural capital in ingraining ecological ideals. This was determined using feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and method of moments quantile regression (MMQR). While economic growth can have a positive impact, especially in more sustainable areas, urbanization is progressively destroying natural harmony in developed regions. Civic cohesiveness may not necessarily result in environmental benefits due to the long‐lasting and multifaceted detrimental impact of social trust. There is a nonlinear U‐shaped link between environmental awareness and sustainability; at first, it reduces sustainability, but after a crucial threshold, it becomes a positive driver. This highlights the gap between cognitive readiness and ecological results. This research expands sustainability analysis beyond traditional economic and technology factors by methodically incorporating educational and socio‐cultural aspects into econometric modeling. Policymakers can use the data to inform their decisions, and SDGs 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, and 13 must be synchronized with cultural funding, education, and urban governance. Findings suggest that high‐governance settings necessitate socially integrated processes for sustainability transitions, with economic and environmental policies necessitating concerted investments in culture, trust, and awareness.