Transition to a sustainable environment through fintech investments and advanced resource endowment in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Purpose – Fintech investments and their benefits are yet to be quantified in resource-rich economies. Advanced resource endowment (ARE), along with fintech investments (FNT) and urbanization (U), are estimated to determine the level of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from 2010Q1 to 2024Q4. This paper aims to investigate the influence of Fintech investments, advanced resource endowment, and infrastructure on carbon emission. Design/methodology/approach – Robust econometric estimations, “unit root, cointegration, autoregressive distributed lag model and Granger causality” tests are used to predict the abovementioned linkages for the policy implications. Findings – According to reported findings, ARE and FNT negatively affect CO2, indicating a substantial positive role in controlling environmental degradation. However, increasing urbanization is deteriorating the environment by increasing CO2 emissions. Research limitations/implications – Given the multiple implications of this study, there are several limitations that require potential research attention to explore further research directions. First, the study focused on the KSA to investigate FNT, ARE, U, population (P) and GDP in explaining environmental degradation, with limited data from 2010 to 2024. Further research can extend the data and sample countries to provide new insights into the literature. Second, the indices used for ARE and FNT are based on data availability and theoretical support, and further research can explore other measures of FNT and ARE to unveil other aspects of FNT and ARE. Therefore, this study presents a new research horizon for relevant researchers. Practical implications – The findings indicate that FNT- and ARE-supportive investments are encouraged to achieve KSA's 2030 vision and 2060 net-zero target. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature with practical implications for policymakers and investors. Social implications – In practice, educational institutions can play a leading role in developing FNT products in the form of featured applications by providing a bridge between the university and industry. Originality/value – Conclusively, the study estimated the impacts of FNT, ARE and U by controlling for GDP and P with data from 2010Q1 to 2024Q4. Robust econometric estimations are used to empirically investigate the linkages. These findings indicate that FNT is an important investment for controlling carbon emissions in the KSA. Furthermore, ARE was also found to support the reduction of harmful carbon emissions during the studied period for the KSA. However, urbanization, population, and GDP clearly increased CO2 emissions in the kingdom.