Green technologies and environmental policies for sustainable development: Testing direct and indirect impacts

Environmental policies are a significant driver of change towards the achievement of sustainability. Policies impact on the environment through direct and indirect effects. Indirect effects pertain to the effect of innovation and invention mechanisms. The paper analyses those direct and indirect effects by focusing on different measures of environmental productivity. Econometric analysis on a long macro-economic panel dataset is used to convey original insights, and as a platform for policy assessments. Results show that environmental policies adopted by countries may boost environmental productivity performances both directly and indirectly, through innovation, across various environmental dimensions. The increasing stringency of environmental policy, which has been observed over the last decades, is a crucial driver of change for climate actions, waste and resource efficiency, touching upon various SDGs related to responsible consumption and production, economic growth, industry and innovation in-frastructures and climate action. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

Environmental policies play a crucial role in driving sustainability, impacting environmental productivity both directly and indirectly through innovation. Studies show that policies adopted by countries can boost environmental performance directly and indirectly, across various environmental dimensions.