The role of technologies, finance, and green energies in transforming Middle East and North African environmental sustainability

• We examine the impact of ICT, REI, and FDI in improving environmental quality. • The STIRPAT framework is extended to include ICT, REI, and FDI. • ICT reduces CO 2 emissions while its impact on ecological footprint is proxy dependent. • Renewable energy intensity improves environmental quality after two periods. • Pollution haven hypothesis holds for MENA region. This paper contributes to the empirical literature on environmentally sustainable policies. To this end, the study explores the crucial role of information and communication technologies ( I C T ), foreign direct investment ( F D I ), and renewable energy intensity ( R E I ) in enhancing environmental quality in the Middle East and North African ( M E N A ) region. This paper extends the S T I R P A T model by incorporating three variables of interest namely I C T , F D I , and R E I . The proposed framework is empirically tested using a panel V A R model for a sample of 13 selected M E N A countries from 1995 to 2018. The empirical findings indicate that I C T reduces the level of C O 2 emissions, while its effects on the ecological footprint provide mixed results. Moreover, the outcomes further confirm that F D I degrades the environmental quality of the region. However, relatively a more pronounced impact was found for oil-exporting economies compared to oil-importing economies. On the other hand, the impact of R E I on environmental degradation is found mixed. The analysis, based on impulse response functions, variance decomposition, and causality analysis, provides strong evidence for the importance of these factors in explaining environmental degradation. Several tailored policies have been proposed and discussed for transforming environmental sustainability in the M E N A region.