How renewable energy matter for environmental sustainability: Evidence from top-10 wind energy consumer countries of European Union

Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly popular since they are less expensive and more effective than conventional energy sources. New green energy technologies, such as wind energy, are mostly used in emerging regions to provide a sustainable and clean environment. This study investigates the effect of wind-based renewable energy consumption for environmental sustainability in top-10 wind energy consumer countries of European Union for the years 1991 to 2018. Ecological footprint is utilized as a proxy for the environmental sustainability. Most past studies have relied on panel data methods to produce common outcomes on the wind energy-clean environment nexus by overlooking the individual country-based evidences. On the other hand, this study adopts a unique method known as “Quantile-on-Quantile (QQ)”, which can assess the time-series dependency in each country separately in order to provide global yet country-specific proof for the relationship between the variables. The empirical findings show that wind-based renewable energy consumption is a main cause of reducing ecological footprint at different quantiles of the data distribution in 8 out of 10 selected countries. The degree of the asymmetric relation, however, differs by country, needing specific awareness and attention on the part of the authorities when formulating the policies relating to wind energy and environmental sustainability. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd