Resource-Driven industrialization and economic growth in BRICS+: A pathway to sustainability or environmental tension?

This study investigates the long-run determinants of ecological footprint in BRICS+ countries over the period 1991–2022, focusing on the roles of natural resource exploitation, industrialization, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and information and communication technology (ICT). Using advanced panel cointegration techniques—Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), and Canonical Cointegrating Regression (CCR)—the analysis provides robust empirical evidence on how these structural factors influence environmental sustainability across a diverse and geopolitically evolving set of emerging economies. The results indicate that natural resource exploitation, industrialization, and economic growth exert significant positive pressures on ecological footprints, reinforcing concerns about extractive-led development and carbon-intensive industrial expansion, mainly in the context of recent BRICS+ enlargement and global energy insecurity. Conversely, renewable energy consumption and ICT development are shown to significantly reduce ecological impacts, offering promising pathways for decoupling economic activity from environmental degradation. These results underscore the need for differentiated, data-driven environmental policy frameworks across BRICS+ countries, aligned with their respective development stages, institutional capacities, and sustainability goals. The research contributes to the ecological economics literature by offering actionable intuitions for green transition strategies in emerging economies and aligns with key targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goals 7, 9, 12, and 13.