The paradigms of technological innovation and renewables as a panacea for sustainable development: A pathway of going green

Environmental sustainability and economic growth are the two ends of a stream whereby when an economy excels towards growth and stability it causes harm to the environment whereas whenever there is less generation of domestic product there is less harm to the environment. Therefore, the present study intends to explore the role of green innovation and renewable energy in carbon emissions and economic growth by employing the unique methodology of Bootstrap ARDL proposed by McNown, Sam, and Goh (2018) on the theoretical guidelines of the neo-classical and STIRPAT model, in the context of Malaysia. The data have been collected from World Bank and OECD database from 1971 to 2017 (47 observations). The result reported that green innovation has a positive and negative relationship with growth and CO2 emissions respectively in both the short and long run. On the other hand, the result reported interesting findings in the relationship of renewable energy with economic growth in the short-run which was found negative however it becomes positive in the longer period, whereas the relationship of renewable energy with CO2 emission remains negative for both short and long run. Lastly, the present study recommended to the regulators that they should formulate the effective policies related to the innovation that enhance the sustainable development. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd