A Holistic approach to sustainability: Exploring the main and mediating role of circular economy in net zero emissions

Since the last few decades, there have been several challenges at the forefront of the globe, and to attain "Net Zero missions" is one of these. The Paris Climate Agreement was designed to keep global warming below 2 °C. World leaders have tried their best to follow the agreement content and obligated their environmentalists to reduce greenhouse gases by the 21st century. For instance, policymakers must ensure zero net emissions from anthropogenic activities. Under this path, nations try to introduce several targets and perform well to reach the desired level. However, there have been flaws because nations have priorities other than combat emissions. Most nations offer attractive strategies to compensate for such environmental harms. This study proposes to overcome ecological issues via some fascinating inclusion of a zero-emissions theme. The circular economy has recently become attractive in dealing with different aspects, particularly environmental sustainability. This empirical study focuses on the economic complexity index (ECI), urbanization, digital transformation, energy transition, foreign direct investment, and circular economy as environmental determinants. Also, an advanced series of estimators is being used to examine the study objectives to obtain the most reliable outcomes for 22 waste-recycled economies from 2005 to 2022. The investigated outcomes describe the positive role of ECI and urbanization in rising emissions, whereas the digital transformation and energy transition significantly reduce environmental stress. The circular economy contributes to Zero-emissions by 0.018 %, 0.154 %, and 0.509 %, respectively, under the robust estimators. The mediating role of the circular economy on energy transition and urbanization shows a supportive role in zero emissions. Its mediating role in FDI is described as positive but insignificant in the long run. This study also validates "the pollution haven hypothesis" for particular economies. On behalf of all of these outcomes, this study proposes interesting implications for attaining zero emissions by 2050.